Transcript of interview with Bob Arum by Barbara Tabach, October 20, 2016

An Interview with Bob Arum An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ©Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tab ach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans 11 The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first- person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas in Preface Bob Arum is the founder and CEO of Top Rank boxing promotions company in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bom in New York, Arum is a former attorney and a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He promoted his first fight for Muhammad Ali in 1966 and moved Top Rank’s headquarters to Las Vegas in 1986. He has produced countless fights in the city and helped to make it “The Fight Capital of the World.” In this interview, Arum talks about the path that led him to a career in boxing promotion, from childhood in Brooklyn, New York, to education at New York University and Harvard Law School, and finally meeting Muhammad Ali while working at New York law firm. He discusses his work with Ali, as well as other boxers, including Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Heams, Roberto Duran, George Foreman, and Oscar De La Hoya, and the growth and evolution of the sport over the past forty years. In addition, Arum talks about the role of Judaism in his life, his involvement with the local Jewish community, and the importance of the Chabad movement. IV Table of Contents Interview with Bob Arum On October 20, 2016 by Barbara Tabach in Las Vegas, Nevada Preface...................................................................................iv Talks about family background; growing up in orthodox home in Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York; attending New York University, then Harvard Law School. Reflects upon career in law, working for one of the first firms to hire Jewish lawyers; being recruited by Justice Department then returning to big law firm, through which met Muhammad Ali and became his lawyer and promoter. Shares about backlash against Ali when spoke against Vietnam War; growing into career as boxing promoter; the diversity of where great boxers emerge from..1-5 Mentions others he’s represented, including Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Roberto Duran, George Foreman, Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd May weather. Talks about Las Vegas becoming a center of boxing world in 1970s with Ali; construction of Caesars Palace’s pavilion; Las Vegas Hilton's getting into business. Discusses evolution of the purse amounts, tied to the emergence of satellite technology. Considers the history of Jewish boxers; popularity of sport amongst other ethnic groups.....................................................6-8 Talks about relocating to Las Vegas from New York City in 1986; becoming involved with Jewish community, and more so after marrying wife, Lovee; Chabad’s valuable contributions to community. Describes how culture impacts a fighter’s style. Mentions previous legal dispute with Donald Trump. Discusses being elected to Boxing Hall of Fame; promoting weekly show on ESPN; promoting great fights amongst Hagler, Leonard, Hearns and Duran................9-14 Discusses promoting George Foreman and arranging fight with Michael Moorer; developing Oscar De La Hoya’s career; Manny Pacquiao’s career. Mentions visiting the Philippines; a movie about the country’s role in sheltering Jews early during World War II. Reflects on experience with anti-Semitism. Talks about children’s careers; how came up with company name, Top Rank..................................................................15-20 Index...........................................................................21-22 v Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project UNLV University Libraries Use Agreement Name of Narrator: ~So~E> AiZU-Wl_____________________ Name of Interviewer: R~& Al2_/l We, the above named, give to the Oral History Research Center of UNLV, the recorded interview(s) initiated on )l) 'JlO '3,0) U along with typed transcripts as an unrestricted gift, to be used for such scholarly and educational purposes as shall be determined, and transfer to the University of Nevada Las Vegas, legal title and all literary property rights including copyright. This gift does not preclude the right of the interviewer, as a representative of UNLV, to use the recordings and related materials for scholarly pursuits. I understand that my interview will be made available to researchers and may be quoted from, published, distributed, placed on the Internet or broadcast in any medium that the Oral History Research Center and UNLV Libraries deem appropriate including future forms of electronic and digital media. Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Box 457010, Las Vegas, NV 89154-7010 702.895.2222 VI Today is October 20, 2016. I am sitting with Bob Arum in his office at Top Rank. Thanks for giving me time to contribute to this. I’d like to start with what you know about your family Jewish heritage. Where did your ancestors come from? My mother and father were bom in the United States. Their parents were born in Eastern Europe, places which sort of have unpronounceable names, many of which don't exist anymore and went from country to country, regular Eastern European people. My father and mother were raised orthodox and they kept a kosher home. And I was raised orthodox and I started attending Hebrew school when I was, I guess, seven years old. You were raised in New York City? I was raised in Brooklyn. What kind of work was your father doing when you were growing up? He was an accountant and my mother was a homemaker. You have siblings? Yes, I had two sisters, one of whom has passed away, younger sisters. One of them passed away a few years ago. My youngest sister, after she graduated from college, went to Israel and met a guy in Israel and has lived in Israel her whole life and has raised three young Israelis. So schooling in Brooklyn, what was school like? I went to public school, and twice a week and Sunday I went to Hebrew school, and every Saturday went to services. Was it a Jewish neighborhood that you lived in? Yes, it was all Jewish. There were very few non-Jewish, a couple of Italians, but it was mostly, mostly Jewish. In New York at the time, Jewish holidays, the schools weren't closed, as they are now. But in our schools, there was nobody in class, nobody. I remember two or three kids in the 1 whole school. Did you have a bar mitzvah? Yes, sure. I had a bar mitzvah in the local shul where I went to Hebrew school, which is now taken over by the Chabad and is a school. They have classes for kids there. You went to what university? I went to New York University. New York University at the time had two campuses, one on Washington Square and the other in the Bronx, which was a real campus where they had the Hall of Fame, University Heights, and I went to the one at University Heights. It was a very good school. It just had liberal arts and engineering. At the time I went there, it was all-male. Oh, really? Yes. What's it like to go to an all-male school? It was sort of normal. I don't know. My sister went to the same school, but by that time [she went] it was co-ed. Eventually you became an attorney. Well, I went from there to Harvard Law School and I graduated from Harvard Law School and became an attorney, yes. What was Harvard like at that time? Harvard was very good. It was terrific. They were beginning to get a lot of Jewish students, a lot of New York students then, more than they had before. It was a strange thing because there were the WASPy WASPs, and then there were the Jewish kids, and then there were the Southern kids who came from really good families in the South, prominent in the South, who only wanted to hang out with the Jewish kids because they felt that they would get a better education that way. So 2 it was very, very interesting. Obviously, because it was Harvard, they had a lot of very smart kids in the school. I have a daughter who works at Harvard now. It's a beautiful campus and there's that tradition. Yes. It was terrific. It was a great three years. I enjoyed it. And then how did you make your decision career-wise? Well, it was an accident. When I came out of law school and I decided to be in New York, the big law firms in New York didn't hire Jews. There were beginning to be some big Jewish law firms. But there was one firm that I got a job with, which was a mixed firm. It was one of the first mixed firms. It was a medium-sized firm. I practiced law there from 1956 until Kennedy was elected President. Then I was recruited to go into the Justice Department and I was head of the Tax Division in the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York. I handled a big case that involved boxing, the seizure of funds in the Patterson-Liston fight. When I left the office after President Kennedy's death in 1965,1 joined a big law firm in New York where the senior partner was Louis Nizer, who was a very prominent litigator. I was retained by a company that was doing television of boxing because I had the expertise, not of knowing anything about boxing, but knowing the business. So from that I met this great football player Jim Brown, who introduced me to Ali, and I became Ali's lawyer and promoter. So it sounds like just sort of an accidental twist and turn. Oh, it was as totally accidental. When I promoted his first fight, I had never seen a boxing match in person and I had really very little interest in boxing. I'm sure that changed quickly. 3 Well, no, it didn't change quickly. I mean, I got involved in this whole controversy where Ali said he had nothing against the Viet Cong, and it was more that I was tied to Ali and really believed that he was being mistreated than I had any love for boxing. But while this was all going on, I sort of got involved more and more in boxing. But that wasn't a choice; it was nothing to do with boxing, really. I mean, it had to do with boxing, but it was Ali. That's interesting. So for people who don't know that part of history, and what Ali was going through at that time, can you describe the situation that you were first faced with? It was back in 1965, end of'65, beginning of'66; we were involved in Vietnam. The public had been really convinced that whatever the United States did was right and nobody questioned our involvement in the Vietnam War. So when Ali made the statement that he did and I stood up for him and was on his side, I became a pariah and it affected my parents and everything. It wasn't a pleasant time. So he was a conscientious objector. You say there was a ripple effect to your parents. How were they affected? Well, people considered him a draft dodger and they really came down heavily on him. He really was very, very courageous because by failing to go into the service, he was convicted, given a prison term, took the case up on appeal, and really was deprived of his livelihood for three and a half years; couldn't fight, and it was a horrible time for him. But it ended up, it made him the great figure that he was because people saw what he was willing to sacrifice for his convictions. And if the Supreme Court hadn't had reversed that conviction, he would also had to go to jail for five years. HBO did a film that was very, very good. The justices originally didn't want to take the case and finally their law clerks convinced them and they finally reversed the conviction unanimously, but that was way later. So Ali was a very, very courageous guy, and that's one of my 4 accomplishments in life that I was at his side and on his side. Yes. I think he's an amazing story, for sure. So what does it mean to be a boxing promoter? What is that job all about? Well, it's evolved over time. You have great responsibility because you're handling careers of young men, and if they have the ability and you have the know-how, you can have them make great accomplishments in the sport and also lead to great riches for them. So for me it's been fascinating and it's been great because it's taken me all over the world and that's what I enjoy the most. Just today there was an announcement that we've completed a deal where it will take me to New Zealand to do a heavyweight championship fight in December. So that's great. I've never been to New Zealand. I promoted all over, a lot of fights in China and Hong Kong, in the Philippines and all over Asia, Europe, but I've never been to New Zealand. I've promoted in Australia, but never...So I'm looking forward to going to New Zealand. Not understanding the industry, what comes first; you find a fighter that you think deserves more promoting or what? It's all different. Sometimes you pick up a fighter, comes to you in mid-career. Sometime you sign a kid right out of the amateur ranks. There's no normal. Coming out of this Olympics, we signed a Gold Medal winner from Brazil, who is like a huge hero in Brazil; an Irish kid, who is beloved in Belfast, in Dublin, Mick Conlan, really interesting kid; a kid from a family who lives in Miami, but he's Honduran, and he'll be fighting his first professional fight here in Las Vegas on November 5th. So it's all different. In the last Olympiad, we got the leading fighter from the Ukraine, Vasyl Lomachenko, who is fighting here November 26th; he's won two World Championships in seven fights; he's incredible. A Japanese Gold Medalist, Middleweight Champion, Gold Medal. Fighters from all over the world. That's what I like the best is when you 5 get these kids right out of the Olympics and then you can build their careers. Who are some of the others that you represented at the same time after Ali? Oh, after Ali? Let's see. Marvelous Marvin Hagler, the Middleweight Champion. Did a lot of fights for Sugar Ray Leonard; Tommy Hearns; Roberto Duran; George Foreman in his second career; and then Oscar De La Hoya; Floyd Mayweather, I promoted him for over ten years; and Miguel Cotto, the Puerto Rican. So we've had a tremendous roster of talented fighters. Now, your job is different than...They have agents? They have managers. But we promote them; we put on the fights; we put up the money and we put on the show. The manager represents the fighter to make sure that the fighter is getting compensated well, compensated fairly. Did you ever manage anyone? No, I'm not allowed to. In most places in the United States you're not allowed to be a manager and a promoter of the same fighter. So we've steered clear of that. How did Vegas become such an important player in the boxing world? Well, in the seventies when Ali got his license back, I did a couple of Ali fights in the old convention center. That's where the Runniri Rebels played. Some of the hotels would chip in. Then in 1978, the president of CBS Sports, Barry Frank, took me up to the Waldorf Astoria towers in New York to meet Barron Hilton, and we convinced Barron Hilton to do a fight with Muhammad Ali, who was the champion, against Leon Spinks, who was an Olympian, in the Hilton Pavilion, which had about forty-two hundred slots; it was a convention space. That was the first fight ever to be held in a hotel/casino. The fight did incredibly well. It sold out, obviously. There was a big upset because Spinks beat Ali and that whetted the appetite of Caesars Palace and other properties to do these big fights. 6 So from that time...Caesars had a pavilion that seated forty-five hundred and from there they went to the outdoor stadium. It was really Caesars, and then later on also the Las Vegas Hilton, that started doing big fights and made Las Vegas the fight capital of the world. So it was sort of, again, like everything else in life, accidental. We convinced Barron Hilton to put up three hundred thousand to get an Ali fight, and he more than got it back and got some big players and made it into a business. But without that I don't think anything would have happened. What were the purses like? Well, the purses were nowhere near what they are now because a big fight either was done with money that the networks paid, which was limited because they had to make it back with commercials, or closed-circuit where people viewed it in theaters and arenas, the picture, and the equipment didn't really work that well, and even when it worked, you were limited by the telephone company. You had to distribute it with the telephone company, with their long-line divisions. So you were limited to the number of locations. It wasn't until we got satellite technology and we got to the era of Pay-Per-View, and that didn't happen until 1991, that people could pay a price and watch the event in their own home. That's when everything exploded and these fighters started making enormous amounts of money because the money was there. Before that the money wasn't there. An Ali fight, when he did a lot of his fights, he'd get paid two fifty, three hundred thousand dollars, which was a lot of money then, but still nothing great. It wasn't until the satellite era really came that they started making tens of millions of dollars. Are there very many Jewish boxers? No. The history of boxing was in the thirties and forties that there were a tremendous number of Jewish boxers, tremendous. There were probably more Jewish boxers than from any other ethnic 7 group. They considered it almost like a Jewish sport. Benny Leonard, Barney Ross, lots and lots of Jewish fighters. There were Irish fighters, Italian fighters and Jewish fighters. But recently there have been few and far between, but that's not because of—in the United States, as the country became more affluent, you got fewer and fewer white kids, whatever their religion, going into boxing because it's a dangerous sport. It's really people from the lower economic group that fight their way out by becoming fighters. So recently the only Jewish fighters that you had were kids that came to the United States from the old Soviet Union because they were poor kids; they fit that demographic group. A lot of them became crazy orthodox; they wouldn't fight on the Sabbath and so forth. But right now I don't think there are more than two or three Jewish fighters. But I don't think there are more than ten white fighters that mean anything, white American fighters. We're still getting great white fighters, but they come from Eastern Europe; they come from Kazakhstan; they come from the Ukraine; they come from places like that. How does the popularity of other sports affect fighting? In the heavyweight division, we used to have great heavyweights, which are primarily big black athletes, and the big black guys are going into football and basketball and not involved so much in boxing. That may change. But smaller guys, guys a hundred and sixty pounders and so forth, they can't play football or basketball; they're too small. So that's where our fighters come from and they're primarily either Eastern European, Hispanic, or African-American. But even the African-American fighters are reduced proportionately in numbers, not like it was, say, ten, fifteen years ago, because as the African-American community has become more affluent, the parents don't want their kids to get hit in the head and go into boxing. Yes. That makes sense. It’s interesting when I had the opportunity to visit Africa several years ago, it was like every little African kid knew boxing; they knew all the stars. 8 Well, they still do. They still do. The problem there is the lack of training and the lack of facilities and the fact that if you bring African kids over here to fight, they have no market because they don't speak the same English; they speak it with an accent. It's very tough. So when did you actually move to Las Vegas? Nineteen eighty-six. Because I had done a lot of big fights in the eighties with Hagler and Tommy Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard, Duran, and I really liked the people here and I was getting tired of life in New York. I had been in New York my whole life. The taxes, state and city taxes were really killing us, and the federal taxes were high then, too. So I said, "Why not try Las Vegas and live in Las Vegas?" So I moved to Vegas in '86 and I lived at the country club, Las Vegas Country Club, until this house that we bought, my first house in Spanish Trail was finished, and then moved there. So I've been here since '86, but I kept an office in New York for a few years after I had moved here. Did you plug into the Jewish community immediately? Yes. At that point in time my father had died, so I needed a place to say Kaddish, and I would always go to High Holidays and so forth. I belonged to a temple in New York. I think they had the only temple—well, no. I belonged to Temple Beth Sholom, which was on Oakey then. I think there was a reform temple that was starting, but I wasn't raised that way. I was raised orthodox. There was a period of time when my family belonged to the Brooklyn Jewish Center in Brooklyn, which was a huge conservative synagogue, so I was used to that. I preferred the conservative over the orthodox, but there were no orthodox here then; Chabad came later. Who were some of the people that you made friends with when you first moved here? When I first moved here, I wasn't married to my current wife. The people that I was friendly with were guys like Freddie Glusman and A1 Levy and that group because those were the people that 9 were my friends. Duane Ford and Dr. Hermansky; guys like that in boxing. But I wasn't that social. People knew me because I was involved in boxing. But then when I got divorced and married Lovee, she was very into the Jewish community. So then I met everybody in the Jewish community. Yes. When I went to Susan and Irwin Molasky's home, there were lots of photos of the four of you together. Yes, right. Did you participate in any of the men's groups or any of the other things at the temple? I don't belong to men's groups. I always belonged to the Federation, the ADL, and the temple, but I prefer not to devote particularly a lot of time to that, but I do support and contribute. I'm also one of the original supporters of, and I still to this day contribute money to, Chabad because I think they do a really terrific job. I hear that a lot in these interviews. Explain that to me from your point of view. What is the importance of Chabad? Well, I think they're really active in doing things like—they're not judgmental; and they, therefore, can take a person of Jewish heritage who knows really nothing about the heritage and gradually bring them into the fold, so to speak. Also, they do tremendous work with Jewish kids who are on drugs. They visit prisons all the time to interact with Jewish inmates. They do a lot of great, great things. [Pause in recording] Do you speak any other languages? When you speak foreign languages and you just know a little and you're really sort of proud that you can communicate a little bit, you sound dumb because you don't have the right accent and just 10 the way unfortunately when people hear immigrants try to talk to you in English and they really haven't mastered the language and so forth, they don't sound smart. So I make sure not to talk in a foreign language because I know how that would sound to them. That's a very good point. So do you take interpreters with you? Oh, I use translators all the time. Funny thing in China, Mandarin, everybody in the mainland speaks Mandarin, but in Macau and Hong Kong, they speak Cantonese. So it becomes very confusing. And culturally do fighters behave differently in different countries? Of course. Culturally, we're all different. We're all different and we're all the same. There's a thread that's the same. But, yes, a Chinese fighter will be different from a Japanese fighter. It's really interesting. You observe that whole , but that's the advantage of dealing with people from all over the world. But when they get in the ring, it's all the same, right? It's a sport and that's not all the same; they fight differently, also. Like a Japanese kid and a Mexican kid, you have to scrape them off the ground; they won't quit, but that means they take a lot of punishment. Other fighters, when they know they're beat, from different countries, their comer may stop it. It's a different mentality. Does it affect their popularity, the country that they come from? Do you need to have the country enthused about boxing? Yes, I think so. But I think, for example, in China where boxing was banned, they got this kid that won two Gold Medals in the Olympics, little guy, and he's become one of the big sports stars in China. So he's going to be fighting on this card, November five, which features Pacquiao against this local kid Vargas, and they estimate a hundred million people will be watching in China. 11 Wow. And how about...What's it called, MMA? Has that affected boxing? It's affected boxing to the extent that you look at MMA, which is a lot of wrestling, as well as— they're not very good boxers—but a lot of wrestling and the athletes are predominately white. So the young white males in the U.S. have drifted away from watching boxing and they favor MMA. But the Hispanics and the African-American kids are loyal to boxing. That's interesting. I read an article, which talked about—since you were at the debate last night, the third and final, finally, debate between Clinton and Mr. Trump. I came across an article that said something about you got into a lawsuit with him once. He swindled me out of—me and Dan Duva, who was Holyfield's promoter; I was George Foreman's promoter—he swindled us out of two and a half million dollars. If you read that story that's accurate. Yes. That's interesting. Not surprising. He's a real crook, a bad, bad guy. What did you think of the debate? Well, I thought she held her composure and he made a fool of himself. I mean, the idea that he wouldn't recognize the election, his defense of Putin...I mean, Jesus, everybody knows that the golf courses were all built with Russian oligarch money, which means that Putin's a partner. So if he, God forbid, ever got elected, Putin would turn us into like a puppet country. She was very good with that. She's very smart. I like Hillary. I know her pretty well. She's very nice. That's good. Very smart. I respect hearing that from you. Now, years ago you were elected to the Boxing Hall of Fame. 12 Yes. What leads up to that and how do you learn about that? Can you describe that? The Boxing Hall of Fame is in Canastota, New York, which is where Carmen Basilio comes from. They have a nice Hall of Fame and so forth. I had been a prominent promoter for many, many years, and so I was elected to that Hall of Fame and it was great. It's a great thing. You fly up to Syracuse and then you take a car to this little town with motels. Then they take you to a funeral chapel and then they have these cars that the people contribute the use of, convertibles and so forth, and they have a parade of the cars and the people getting inducted and with prominent visitors through this town of Canastota, and the kids sit on the lawns on the houses and they give you candy to throw to the kids, and they have bands from high schools. It's really fun. I've done it a number of times, not only when I was inducted, but when friends got inducted. I think it's cool. Like an old-fashion parade. Real old-fashion, yes. That's neat. You listed some proud moments in this article that I read. One was promoting weekly shows on ESPN for fifteen years without scandal or controversy. Yes. We did a contract with ESPN in 1980 to do a weekly show. The first year, well, they only had four million homes at that point, and their only income came from selling commercials. So they couldn't pay very much. But by the third year, they started paying more. And then finally, the great story about it, they were ready to go out of business, ESPN; this was our fifth or sixth year. The president of ESPN was driving with his family across the country and he saw on all— not all—but on a lot of the motels big signs, "We have Top Rank Boxing; we have ESPN Boxing," which was once a week. Suddenly the light bulb went off and he said, "You know, we're on these cable systems and they're not paying us any money and we can't make it on just the revenue from 13 selling commercials." That's when he came up with the idea of charging the cable system a fee for each subscriber. From that point on it built and it built and ESPN became the most valuable asset that ABC, and then later, Disney had. But without that...Because once they went to a hundred million homes, cable, and they were getting three or four dollars a month, now they were in business, plus the advertising. But that was because of the boxing. So we really built ESPN. Without us, ESPN, all they had in those days, the early days was old film of Australian Rules football and a lot of nonsense and we were the only real live programming that they had. That's amazing. They couldn't even afford, even giving them the rights for nothing, to cover a football game because with all the cameras that they'd have to use, it was prohibitive. That's amazing. The other thing you mentioned was making the great middleweight fights of the modern era with fighters such as Marvin Hagler— Right. —Sugar Ray and Thomas Hearns. Those were the four horsemen—Hearns, Hagler, Leonard and Duran. They fought in combination nine times and I did seven of those fights and those were the biggest things in the country. This was after Ali. People were tired of the heavyweights. They weren't that good anymore. Everybody concentrated on those four guys. So when they fought, this town went crazy, the business. And this was before the regulation that if somebody had more than ten thousand in cash, you had to report it. I remember when we did Hagler and Hearns, Henry Gluck told me they would come to the table, the pimps and the drug dealers, with suitcases filled with cash to bet. The weekend that we did those fights were the biggest weekends that not only Caesars had, but across the street at the Barbary Coast, bigger than New Year's Eve. I remember when we did 14 Hagler-Heams and the Barbary Coast was this joint across the street from Caesars, there was a big sign up the next morning, that Sunday morning, "Thank you, Caesars Palace." That's great. Then you said maneuvering George Foreman into position to knock out Michael Moorer for the Heavyweight Championship. Well, Foreman, when he came to us—I didn't have him his first time around. He was a pretty awful guy. Then he took ten years off and he became a preacher and everything. He called me up one day and he said, "Look, I want