The Point Radio: The Real MOST INTERESTING MAN

In the late 90’s, the music of ladies known as SWV was all over our radio and at the top of the charts. Then personal pressures drove them apart, but now it’s SWV REUNITED with new music and a hit reality show. We talk to Taj & LeLe about hitting the top twice. Plus forget about that guy in the beer ad, Johnny Pagozzi is the Most Interesting In The World, named so by a lot of folks including Sir Elton John. We’ll let him explain why he gets that title.

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Transcript

The Point Radio. Hey, it's Mike Raub. In the 90s, they were all over the music business and your radio too. The ladies known as SWV. Now back with more music and a new TV show.

Plus, forget about that bear ad. We've met the most interesting man in the world and you're going to meet him too. Coming up, let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio.

Get The Point Radio. Coco, Lele and Taj. We knew him as SWV. One of the biggest R&B acts of the 90s. They dominated the R&B music chart with multiple top 10 hits, Grammy nominations and so much

more. But eventually backstage dramas split the group up. Until now. SWV is reunited not only for a new recording career but also a new reality show on WE TV. I talked to the girls to ask them what it was like to rise to the top in the 90s.

And Lele said she remembered it pretty well. Man, it was a really, really incredible experience because everybody don't get those opportunities that we were so fortunate enough to get. When we were young and we were having a great time, we really didn't know what to expect or whether our album was going to go gold or plastic.

We were just having a good time and just thankful that somebody thought we could sing. You know, they believed in us enough to give us a record deal and the world got to know us and we were neat. Taj told me how she coped with all those years out of the spotlight. Initially, I felt like we were being punished because it was tough.

It was hard to go from everything to nothing. It's definitely an adjustment. But as the days went on and you learn to cope, you realize everything happens for a reason. Your trials and tribulations are there to teach you a lesson and show you a better way. And hopefully, if you're mature enough, you can see those lessons, learn from them and

do better. I think all three of us did that. We needed that time apart to grow and to know ourselves so we could be better for each other once we came back together. LeaVee explains the kind of challenges we're going to see on the show.

Oh, man, what are you not going to see? There's always some kind of conflict. I mean, you see Taj going through her health issues and, you know, we're debating on whether we're going to do a song or not. I mean, and then there's a situation that happened with me and my daughter.

You're going to see me be a mother. And that's the side that a lot of people haven't seen yet because I'm always laughing and joking and talking smack. But this is a lot of serious moments in this season. So doing reality shows means you have cameras in your face while almost 24-7.

I asked Taj what that was like. You know, for me, it was actually by the time we started doing our show, I become used to it because I married a baller and I've done Survivor. So I was pretty much used to it. Initially, when I first started doing reality, it was a little different because there are

things you want to do and say, but you know you really can't do on national television. Not that you can't keep it real, but everything can't be real on television. Even though it's been just a few short years, how's the music business change since the girls were on top? I talked to Lilly about that.

Oh, absolutely. The industry changed dramatically. We're living in a digital world right now where people are not really buying albums. They're buying singles, you know, which is pretty cool. I mean, and the budget's a lot different.

I mean, it's very different now. Exactly. We have to do a lot more legwork in the business now. New episodes of SWV reunited on WE tv every Thursday. And of course, see more right now at WE tv.com.

Here comes the latest in pop culture, fresh from her run on Red Sony and of course, Bad Girl in the Movement. Gail Simone is bringing a new Secret Six into DC's new 52 universe. This issue will be set in December. Ken Lisely will be doing the artwork.

Characters include Black Alice, Mockingbird and of course, Catman. And this is the third incarnation of the Secret Six so far in the DC universe. Pluto TV is a new channel dedicated to Beyonce. It kicks off this week in honor of the singer's 33rd birthday. It will feature 24-7 programming of her music videos, live performances, fashion moments,

and more. You can find out more at Pluto.tv. NBC has put into development a new situation comedy. It would air live and that even includes the commercials. It's called Hospitality and it comes from Sean Hayes' production group.

This would be something new for television. However, it does harken back to the very earliest days of the medium. No word yet on when NBC would put a pilot together for this. Juliette Blake, the producer of the acclaimed summertime movie The 100 Foot Journey, has now optioned the rights to Neil Gaiman's Hansel and Gretel.

Gaiman's take on Hansel and Gretel would be produced as a live-action movie. It's available now as an illustrated graphic novel which would be said to be in comic stores sometime in the end of October. Ra's al Ghul is coming to Arrow and it won't be Liam Neeson. Matt Noble, Australian actor from the film Riddick, has been cast as a recurring role

as Ra's al Ghul in the Arrow series. It will pick up somewhere around the show's 50th episode which should be about episode 5 or so. In the meantime, in other Warner TV news, there's Talk Now, there's a Supergirl series in development from Warner that will be pitched to network sometime over the next few weeks,

no details at all known on that. So let the speculations begin. In what's been called their most ambitious project to date, the sci-fi network has green lit a six-hour miniseries based on the 1950s science fiction novel Childhood End by Arthur Clark.

The production should begin shortly. Forget about that beer guy, Gene Pagosi just might be the world's most interesting man. In fact, he's been called that by a number of people including his good friend Elton John. He's the heir to a European auto fortune, a globe-torting photographer, a renowned art

collector, a tech investor, he created a high-end men's clothing line, and there's so much more. Gene says his friends call him Johnny and that's the name of his new show on the S-Square network where he sits down with celebs like Michael Douglas, Lorne Michaels, and Martha Stewart and asks some pretty bold and interesting questions. My first question for Johnny was what exactly makes him so unique?

Well, you know, I think it's a bit my background. I was born in Paris from Italian parents. I went to school in France. Then I went to Harvard and then I traveled a lot and I worked in the film industry and I've been a photographer and I have a fashion company and I have an ecological project in

Panama. I do a lot of very different things. So I think that, you know, if somebody has been doing a carpenter of their life, you know, they know everything about the world or something like that, but they don't do it or somebody has been an accountant or somebody has been a mortician, they know something

very well. I know a lot of things perhaps not so well, but I've done a lot of very different things in my life. So I think that helped me, you know, make me slightly different than many other people around.

Among everything he's done, what does he think is his most proudest accomplishment? Well, I think the photographs I took over the years are important because I think in perhaps 100 or 200 years, they would look at these pictures, they would really explain like a certain, you know, I didn't take any war pictures, I didn't take any pictures of, you know, people having, you know, suffering or whatever, but I took a picture of some

kind of a, let's say, middle class to upper class society and I think it would be very interesting to see these pictures. So that's an interesting thing that I have there. And the second thing that I think I'm very proud of, I started 25 years ago, I put together the largest collection of contemporary African art.

And in a bizarre way, a lot of people think that African art stopped in 1900. So if you think that the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan in New York, the Tate in London, none of them collected this African art. And now I have a huge collection, which has now been shown around the world. And it was completely ignored by every kind of museum, every kind of institution.

So I feel very proud that I spotted this thing and I spent a lot of time and let's say also a lot of money putting this incredible collection together, which now has been shown all around the world. So that's been an interesting accomplishment. I'm very proud of that.

Although he's not credited for it yet, Johnny appears to be the guy who invented the selfie and has been doing this. I mean, I don't know if I think I invented them, I don't know either. But I can retrace pictures that I took in the mid 70s of my face and somebody next to it.

And it's very simple. People, when you meet a celebrity, a lot of people ask for an autograph. So you meet Mick Jagger, you meet, I don't know, Candice Burgen, you meet whoever, Bruce Springsteen. So people ask for an autograph.

But the autograph, first of all, could be a fake. And number two, the artists, I don't think they like really simple. So if you take a picture, you can do it very, very quickly. And it really shows I met such and such a person on December 15, 2012. You have a picture, it really proves that you had a few seconds of contact.

It could be with the president, with the pope, with a famous sports guy, whatever. It's a new way of getting an autograph, but it's a much more fun way. And it's undeniable you met the person. So I think it was kind of an interesting idea of doing that. And now with the iPhone, it's become much, much easier.

I did it the hard way, the thing is I'm taught, so I have long arms and I could do it. But now with the modern digital cameras and then the iPhone, it's very, very easy to do. So I think that people started doing it. I wish I could collect five cents for every selfie in the world, I'd be Richard and Bill Gates.

So what's the show about? The show is more like a conversation between me and some people that I know well and some people that I met for the first time. We're going to meet a friend of mine called Brett Ratner, who's a great Hollywood director. Then we're going to meet Virgine and Capucine, who are these two French ladies who are going

to talk to us about the sex life of married women in France. So we meet from famous people to people who are less famous, but they're all interesting and they all get something interesting with their life and usually something different. And that's what I'm trying to seek, is to seek interesting people around the world who speak about their creativity and who speak to make them different and more creative than

the regular people you would meet on the subway, you'd meet in your job. That's what the show is about. It's about creativity and what gets people going out in the morning and doing their job. But usually their job is more interesting than driving the subway or driving a taxi. New episodes of My Friend Call Me Johnny every Wednesday on the Esquire Network.

And you can always see full episodes for free right now at tv.esquire.com. That does it for the podcast, though. As we told you a couple of days ago, big things on the horizon with the new television season just around the corner. We'll kick it off with our exclusive visits to the sets of Gotham and Flash coming up

in just a few days. You'll find out and more every couple of days on websites like ComicMix.com, michaeldavisworld.com and getthepointradio.com too, and on the iTunes podcast directly. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook under the Point Radio and we'll see you right back here in a couple of days.

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