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Buckle up, because we’re diving into the untold stories of the mobility world.
From monitoring the policies influencing how we move to tracking down stolen cars, we’re bringing you inside the busy, high-stakes world of transportation - including everything from autonomous vehicles and micro-mobility to public transportation and air travel.
Brought to you by the American Car Rental Association, each episode tackles the big issues driving the future of mobility: autonomous vehicles, data rights, new business models, and the laws that could flip the industry on its head.
With jaw-dropping stories, bold opinions, and no holds barred, we’re here to challenge the status quo and get you thinking about the future of how we move, whether by car, bike, plane, or train, and why it matters to everyone.
[00:00:00] Rudy Callegari: I don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat, or you love Trump, or you hate Trump, or you're a socialist, it doesn't make a difference.
[00:00:06] Rudy Callegari: If, if we can't help support small businesses, it's a real problem.
[00:00:24] Carlos Bazan: Hey, everybody. Welcome to The Mobility Group, our, our new podcast
[00:00:31] Don Levefe: there are a lot of trademarks we had to navigate,
[00:00:33] Carlos Bazan: there
[00:00:34] Don Levefe: it's not what it's named, it's the content that we provide,
[00:00:38] Don Levefe: Rudy Callegari, film producer extraordinaire, former drummer. so that's something Rudy and I have in common. founder of Edge Rent-a-Car, which is a, uh, Edge Truck and Van Rental? What, what is the title?
[00:00:57] Rudy Callegari: Edge Auto Rental, actually.
[00:00:58] Sharky Laguana: We don't even know
[00:01:00] Rudy Callegari: Um, I don't even know. We just call it Edge.
[00:01:07] Rudy Callegari: Edge was, uh, started by myself and my business partner, William Harris, in 2006. we created, uh, Edge, to specifically, um, target, uh, the entertainment industry, which, uh, has been growing for many years in the New York tri-state area. we came to it, or I came to it, I-- probably a little bit different than most people get into the car rental industry.
[00:01:35] Rudy Callegari: I was a film producer and, uh, a producer in the entertainment industry for many years doing television and, uh, movies and, many, many commercials and music videos. we saw a niche that, uh, New York was growing, uh, quite a bit, and there was a need for car and truck rentals. So, uh, that was the birth of, of our company, uh, kind of around a very specific market.
[00:02:03] Rudy Callegari: So, it's probably a little bit different from how other car rental companies start. They, they go into a, a neighborhood or an airport. Uh, but we went after an industry, that was the birth of our company, which, uh, we just celebrated our twentieth anniversary
[00:02:20] Carlos Bazan: Congratulations, 20 years. that's important for, uh, an important milestone for a car rental company, especially one that, that works on a niche
[00:02:28] Rudy Callegari: Yeah. Well, you know, quite a few things have happened. Um, one, our industry grew and we grew with it. and we were really kind of strategic about that. we supply vehicles for entertainment, so concerts, events, um, movies, TV shows, commercials, social media filming, which happens quite often now.
[00:02:52] Rudy Callegari: we really focused around that and, and, uh, we've been very lucky and we worked very hard at, keeping our clients in that, uh, in that world happy. things that are different, than a typical car rental company, uh, we're open twenty-four seven. We never close. we have people manning the phones, uh, twenty hours a day.
[00:03:14] Rudy Callegari: it's, uh, very geared towards, the B2B world
[00:03:19] Don Levefe: Back up for a sec. So how did you get into the production, movie and TV production?
[00:03:27] Rudy Callegari: I got into the film industry because, uh, I thought it would be an incredible lifestyle to make make-believe. And, uh, as a kid, going to the movies was probably the greatest thing I could do on the weekend, growing up in New York. that was in the '70s when, when it was the heyday of American cinema.
[00:03:50] Rudy Callegari: Some of the greatest films ever created, uh, in the world were happening in the 1970s in America. Uh, so I thought it was, what a fascinating place to be to make-believe. So I went to art school, film school, and, uh, started working. Uh, I was 19 when I f- started working in, uh, in the industry, and I did that for about 25 years until, I actually was continuing to produce and run Edge, collectively.
[00:04:24] Rudy Callegari: And it was, uh, an amazing run. I filmed in about 25 different countries and I think 40 states. So I was literally traveling around the world, uh, making what could've been a TV show or a movie or a commercial or a music video. And it was, uh, amazing working with some of the most talented creators in film and, and music.
[00:04:51] Rudy Callegari: So it was a wild ride
[00:04:54] Don Levefe: what does a
[00:04:55] Don Levefe: producer actually do?
[00:04:57] Rudy Callegari: what does a producer do? if you kind of, uh, look at it like the, uh, the building industry, um, an architect would be a director and the general contractor or the person paying for the building would be the producer. you could be either financing the project or you could be the one who's actually working with the architect to physically make it.
[00:05:23] Rudy Callegari: And that was the role that I, I enjoyed the most is working with, um, directors and, uh, studios or TV companies to, to physically come up with an idea and, bring it to the final, uh, point which, uh, we're turning on our TVs or going to the movies and watching it. So I would see the project from inception to the very end.
[00:05:51] Rudy Callegari: that you would just call that a, a regular producer. Then there's executive producers or co-producers. There's many different names which carry different hats. But, um, just the word producer is someone who's more or less seeing it from top to bottom
[00:06:07] Sharky Laguana: So you're in the fascinating and wild and fun filmmaking business, working with super talented people, and naturally you said, "Boy, I'd, I'd really prefer to be in car rental."
[00:06:20] Rudy Callegari: One day I woke up and said, "Life is too much fun." I've owned many businesses, I've started many companies, but I never, I never did any brick-and-mortar. And, creating, uh, Edge with my partner, who had been in the car rental business for many years, we saw a giant need, a giant niche, and we said, you know, "Let's, let's go after that."
[00:06:44] Rudy Callegari: So we were very kind of targeting to one industry, and we were creating, uh, a very specific brand for that industry. We happened to be renting cars. It could have been anything, right? We could have been, we could have been creating a, a different kind of industry vendor business for the entertainment business.
[00:07:08] Rudy Callegari: We just went after vehicles because we knew that there was a need. And again, my partner, uh, William Harris, he's been doing this since he was sixteen years old and extremely talented guy and, and, uh, together we just went after that. And that, quite frankly, was extremely creative. Uh, starting a business from scratch, we literally started with one vehicle and, have grown our fleet to almost a thousand vehicles now.
[00:07:35] Rudy Callegari: Uh, and that process of building a n- a business is, is extremely, uh, fulfilling and, and creative. Taking my skills as instead of creating a movie or a TV show or a commercial, I created a business. But it's kind of the same process along the way.
[00:07:54] Carlos Bazan: it kinda looks like, yes, you went into the brick and mortar world, uh, but also you, you moved from the world of scripted production to the world of unscripted production. 'Cause at the end of the day, I don't know if you feel that way, but, uh, every time I've operated a car rental company, I feel like I'm in a reality show, and it's just unscripted, and things just are amazing.
[00:08:15] Carlos Bazan: every day is, is different. I can just imagine what you've seen, in this industry being also connected with the entertainment world. what's like a highlight that you can tell us about, going from one world to the other one, and then making sure that both blend together in your business plan?
[00:08:33] Rudy Callegari: in the beginning it was very difficult. Uh, in the film industry we work twenty four seven until the project is done. when you own a company that there's never an end date, it was tough not to work 20 hours a day, uh, because the pro- the problems never end, right?
[00:08:50] Rudy Callegari: the customers keep coming in every day. There's no, uh, there's no end date. So that was a big learning curve for myself on, moving into a different kind of universe where people go home at five o'clock, uh, at night and turn off till the next day. Where in the entertainment industry, you turn off when it's done.
[00:09:14] Rudy Callegari: Um, so that was, uh, different. But, we started the, the business in 2006, and, um, 2008 we had a financial crisis. if we were lucky enough to get a loan, it was at 25%. but we knew that our industry was growing and we needed to grow, uh, so we were making very difficult decisions on building our fleet and growing when interest rates were, uh, insanely high.
[00:09:44] Rudy Callegari: and of course that kind of stabilized after a few years, but, that was a wild, uh, experience. I had never, I'd never gone to a bank to borrow literally tens of millions of dollars to buy depreciating assets. Um, and as we all know in our, in our industry, you buy a vehicle and you think you know where it's gonna be in two years, but you really don't know.
[00:10:08] Rudy Callegari: So that's-- it's a little scary. but, uh, taking risk was always part of what I had done in my previous world. So, it was difficult, but it was manageable. Um, and of course COVID came and the world got shaken up, uh, yet again and, uh very scary place. and then after COVID, um, the vehicle prices went skyrocketing and, uh, we knew that was a bubble.
[00:10:39] Rudy Callegari: And, there's been a lot of kind of crazy up, ups and downs through those twenty years that, kept us up at night. our industry is no different than many others who were in the same, position during those times, right? Trying to predict the future, which none of us could ever do, and, uh, we always get it wrong.
[00:11:01] Rudy Callegari: I love it when a bank asks for a three-year projection. I'm like, "If I could give you a thirteen-week, I'd be happy." and it's not trying to say that we don't know. It's, um, no one could tell us what's gonna happen in the future
[00:11:15] Sharky Laguana: when you started, what was your initial fleet size? What did you start with?
[00:11:19] Rudy Callegari: I'll tell you how it happened. my partner and I were, uh, talking about starting a car rental company, and we were going back and forth and, I was producing a, television commercial at the time.
[00:11:32] Rudy Callegari: William comes to my office and we're sitting there having lunch, and we, we're talking, and we've been talking about this, and we said, "All right, are we gonna do this?" And we both looked at each other and said, "Yes." So I turned around and looked at my, uh, production coordinator and I said, "What's the next vehicle we need to rent?"
[00:11:49] Rudy Callegari: She said, "Well, we need an SUV in, uh, two days from now." And William and I literally got up, walked over to the Chevy dealer. I threw down my, uh, I don't know, I think it was a Visa card, and we walked out of there with a, uh, some Chevy SUV, and that was it. Threw some plates on it, now we had a car rental company.
[00:12:12] Rudy Callegari: No name, no nothing. we got one and then two, and I think the first year, first year we went to the car rental show, I think we had about twenty vehicles. everybody looked at us like, you know, Why? You have twenty vehicles? That, that's nothing." and then we came back the next year, I think we had forty or fifty, and then the next year we had a hundred, and we were doubling in size and, uh, it was growing and, uh, and then little by little, we started getting financing and insurance was a big deal.
[00:12:46] Rudy Callegari: We were, we were sub-renting from other car rental companies. That, that was a, a way in which helped us grow in the beginning.
[00:12:53] Rudy Callegari: As long as you're willing to work nonstop and you've got a credit card, you're in business
[00:13:00] Rudy Callegari: and that's how we started. Uh, I think literally between the two of us, we put in maybe 50 or 100,000 bucks in the first year, which we thought was an enormous amount of money. But I mean, could you imagine starting a car rental company with 50 grand right now?
[00:13:15] Don Levefe: that might get you one vehicle these days
[00:13:18] Rudy Callegari: and I think a 15 pass van back then was about 20 grand, maybe it was 25 grand. now they're 60. the world has changed, but, uh, you just keep going
[00:13:30] Carlos Bazan: you're now on season 20 of your, of your business. Edge is on season 20
[00:13:35] Rudy Callegari: Mm-hmm
[00:13:36] Carlos Bazan: over or around 1,000 vehicles.
[00:13:39] Rudy Callegari: Yeah.
[00:13:40] Carlos Bazan: And all of these are for the entertainment industry, right?
[00:13:43] Rudy Callegari: no, that, that's our biggest client. our specialty is kind of morphed into B2B. So, florists will come to us for, uh, refrigerated vehicles. Uh, moving companies come to us for box trucks. I think we have about fifty vehicles on with, FIFA right now, vans for hotels and whatnot.
[00:14:04] Rudy Callegari: we do, uh, camps. We have some camps going this summer. a lot of retail. Retail companies use us a lot, um, sometimes moving their merchandise around, uh, or getting their executives around. we're the phone call if you need twenty of something. a lot of, uh, concerts that come through, New York, uh, the Philharmonic, uh, they do a summer series.
[00:14:29] Rudy Callegari: They're one of our, uh, clients. Uh, so, uh, big events, big music shows, that's our real specialty right now.
[00:14:39] Rudy Callegari: we can't compete with, uh, Budget and Avis and Hertz to rent a vehicle to the general public 'cause we just don't have that buying power. So where, where we come in is we could guarantee you if you need one black SUV or you need ten of them.
[00:14:59] Rudy Callegari: When the UN comes in in September, sometimes they need ten black SUVs to take around diplomats, and they all have to be equal. We could accommodate that, and we could guarantee you that vehicle, uh, which is quite different from the business model of, uh, one of the majors, or, you know, someone at the airport, which gives you a mid-sized car, and it could be one of many different ones.
[00:15:22] Rudy Callegari: A lot of our clients want very specific, uh, vehicles. So that's where we come in, and we're there twenty-four/seven to solve the problem.
[00:15:33] Don Levefe: So you're kind of highlighting, you know, what most people probably don't know about our industry, that, rental cars support, of course, you know, business travel, personal travel. But there's all other sorts of, uses for it. You know, obviously the production, movies, TV. talk to me a little bit about what's going on in that world right now.
[00:15:56] Don Levefe: isn't most of that getting outsourced to other countries?
[00:16:00] Rudy Callegari: Yeah, absolutely. The, the film industry is changing a lot. the industry as a whole has been outsourcing quite a bit to, around the world, um, mostly, due to the cost of, the rising prices in America. Labor, um, as we all know, uh, minimum wage has gone up significantly, in most states and, and they're looking to raise it even more.
[00:16:22] Rudy Callegari: So the cost of everything, right? Look at the cost of, uh, what you're paying at the grocery store in the last, few years, probably went up twenty, thirty percent or maybe more. Um, so manufacturing has offshored. we're working hard, uh, to bring that back. We've started a coalition called CAP, uh, Coalition for American Production, to help bring filmmaking back into America, to help car rental companies and, and other vendor companies that help support the industry.
[00:16:54] Rudy Callegari: what's interesting about the, the car rental industry is, you know, technology has changed, so many of our, uh, businesses all around. Uh, but we still have to get our product around, and that's, that's rolling on a rubber tire, right? So, although technology has changed quite a bit, and, uh, and that has changed the film industry, which has made it go offshore, uh, when we are here, uh, they still need our product.
[00:17:22] Rudy Callegari: So, we advocate quite a bit for bringing industries or keeping industries rather, in the U.S., and that kind of helps all of us. for us, obviously, it's car rental, but it could be anything.
[00:17:36] Sharky Laguana: What's next? Where do you think things are going?
[00:17:39] Rudy Callegari: well, like most car rental companies, uh, We're trying to get a handle on what, what the residual value of fleets are going to look like in the future and what's that engine, right? as much as, uh, many of us love, uh, electric vehicles or whether you like them or not, they've taken a, a huge, huge hit in the, in the resale market.
[00:18:05] Rudy Callegari: They've crashed. many companies have gotten hurt, buying vehicles of, electric engines. And, we'd love to be greener than we are, but, uh, we're very concerned about that, that and that market. that's something that keeps us up at night, right?
[00:18:22] Rudy Callegari: Where, where's the future of driving? driverless cars, Waymo's doing a phenomenal job, but I think we're still quite a while away from, for many of us using that technology to go more than, you know, around your local city. So there's gonna be a need for, for the industry for a while.
[00:18:44] Rudy Callegari: Obviously, gas prices affect, affect our industry. I, I could imagine in a few months when we get the reports for this summer, the numbers are gonna be down because gas is-- Queens today was six dollars a gallon. that's huge. that's not good for, for any industry, right?
[00:19:03] Rudy Callegari: any product that you've ever had in your hands. It's probably been on four or five trucks, maybe a ship or two, a plane, a train. Um, so when fuel goes up, that hurts us. so those are things that we think about. But, I think the car rental industry is a good, a good industry to be in, uh, providing that you're, uh, you're able to get in and out of your fleet in a timely manner where you don't get hurt.
[00:19:31] Rudy Callegari: And I think that's the, the magic ball we're all looking at. as far as the film industry, technology is changing it quite a bit. everyone's got a mobile, uh, television and, TV studio in their hands, uh, content will always be wanted that keeps the entertainment industry pretty solid.
[00:19:50] Rudy Callegari: would be great if more products were made in America. I think that, that helps our economy, that helps our country. I think maybe some of the biggest problems our country is going through is that we're, we're sending too many products to be made in other countries that, we would hope could be made back here.
[00:20:11] Carlos Bazan: you just touched on a, on a few very interesting topics, like for example, gas prices and exports, imports. what is Edge rooting for? What, what are you trying to fight for? What would you change as a company, both in the industry and outside?
[00:20:26] Rudy Callegari: I think the federal government needs to help small businesses at a better rate than they're doing right now. small business is the backbone of our country. most people work for a small business. Um, right now it's extremely difficult for a small business to get a loan. the price of insurance, the price of fuel, the price of rent has skyrocketed in the last, you know, five years.
[00:20:56] Rudy Callegari: that's a real issue. when I advocate in DC or locally in New York, and we talk about that quite a bit, we really need help. We need a lot of help. Um, health insurance is costing us an enormous amount of money, um, and it's disproportionate to a company of our size. And we offer health insurance and, many of my employees can't afford health insurance with a co-pay that we're paying the majority of it.
[00:21:27] Rudy Callegari: And it's, it's really difficult. So, in a perfect world, the federal government, um, does more to help small businesses, and, we'd be a much better country. I don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat, or you love Trump, or you hate Trump, or you're a socialist, it doesn't make a difference.
[00:21:45] Rudy Callegari: If, if we can't help support small businesses, it's a real problem
[00:21:50] Carlos Bazan: how many families depend on Edge?
[00:21:53] Rudy Callegari: we've got about 70, uh, employees right now. William and I have, uh, five, children that, uh, are biological and 70 that we go to work for every day. it's extremely important that, that we're able, uh, to be there for them
[00:22:08] Carlos Bazan: So you're, you're a small company, but still you have a big, uh, a big relevance in your local market. You have big relevance with many families, as you mentioned, many even children that are not yours, but depend on you and William and Edge for their daily, livelihood. So
[00:22:26] Carlos Bazan: that's a great growth, a great thing that you, you're doing as a company, as part of this industry.
[00:22:32] Rudy Callegari: Yeah, and I, I wish we could give our employees even more benefits than we do. we try to give them, a few weeks off, you know, vacation time, and we really encourage them to take time to be with their families and, uh, insurance and 401and, and, buying lunches and trying to do so much. And, and we really wish we could do more.
[00:22:54] Rudy Callegari: But it's, uh, it's extremely different, uh, difficult for, again, for small companies. We, we're, all are working on very, very small margins. And when interest rates go up, when gas prices go up, when rent goes up, it's not like the company is making less money, it's our employees bring less home, is what it comes out to be.
[00:23:15] Rudy Callegari: and that's something that, uh, I think if the federal government really took a better look at, you know, how do we help people? Spend less money on, uh, missiles and more on helping feed families.
[00:23:28] Don Levefe: I'm kind of pro-missile. I'll just be, put it out there.
[00:23:34] Sharky Laguana: Well, that is, that is your old benefactor
[00:23:36] Don Levefe: all right.
[00:23:37] Don Levefe: want to switch to a segment that we call the, the Holy Sh*t moment.
[00:23:41] Don Levefe: W- the WTF segment.
[00:23:44] Don Levefe: we talk to car rental operators, we hear stories. Everybody's got a few,what's the craziest thing that you've seen or have encountered In this business?
[00:23:56] Rudy Callegari: One of our clients who we assume was drunk, went off the road into a house and the car and house burned down. And luckily, luckily no one was hurt. that was a phone call. "Hey, uh, we're not returning the car." And then they sent us a picture a lot of our cars end up in Mexico, uh, and they weren't going there to get tacos.
[00:24:25] Rudy Callegari: they get stolen.
[00:24:26] Sharky Laguana: you know? How do you know they weren't going there to get tacos?
[00:24:29] Rudy Callegari: you know what? Because they, they, they probably bought the taco stand because their car never came back.
[00:24:36] Rudy Callegari: it's kind of, um, how brazen people are that think they could come in with a phony ID and a phony credit card and try to rent a vehicle. that always surprises me.
[00:24:47] Rudy Callegari: But, that happens. there was a shootout. Cop ran into our lot chasing a guy, pulled out his gun and just opened fire. thank God, no one got hurt. your vehicle to the body shop to take out bullet holes, I guess, you know, uh, that's an American, uh, car rental company story.
[00:25:08] Rudy Callegari: I bet you don't get that up in Canada, in, in the UK. we don't call those things crazy anymore. It's just like, okay, so what happened? Yeah, a cop came in and shot up the cars. How many cars we have to fix? You know, three. All right. New York City didn't pick up the tab on that, but that's okay.
[00:25:26] Rudy Callegari: Our boys in blue are-- keep us safe. That's probably it. Nothing too crazy.
[00:25:33] Carlos Bazan: Anything fun you've gotten back in your, in, in your vehicles after like, for example, a movie production, like a prop that you're like,
[00:25:39] Rudy Callegari: Oh, f-
[00:25:40] Rudy Callegari: there's always equipment and things, but nothing, nothing crazy. the film industry is, is, you know, we make things look exciting. To actually make a movie is-- it's a very long and, and almost boring process. I mean, it's exciting to, to make it, but, you know, a TV show, or a movie, right, a movie that's 90 minutes could take, uh, maybe 150 days of filming.
[00:26:09] Rudy Callegari: It's a very long time. if you finish with, uh, 30 seconds to one minute a day of final product, uh, it's a good day. So it, it takes quite a long time. So the excitement is what we, sell. But to create that is not, not necessarily exciting when, when you're there on the, the moment-to-moment aspect.
[00:26:34] Rudy Callegari: we've probably had about every, top movie star or, or recording artist, uh, sitting in our vehicles from one time to another, which was great. we bought a, an S-Class Mercedes for Marty, uh, Scorsese for a film that he was doing because he wanted one, and I couldn't wait for him to get out of it so I could drive it.
[00:26:54] Rudy Callegari: So that was a nice, uh, trade-off. He, he, he drove it for a year, and then I did for two. there's a lot of, uh, celebrity, uh, celebs in our vehicles, but it's kind of not really exciting
[00:27:09] Rudy Callegari: our logo has been seen on, uh, social media, I think it was, like, way north of a billion times. Because a lot of celebs, when they're on set, they'll do something, create a social media and, and our, our logo's in the back, and it'll go viral and get, you know, millions of hits.
[00:27:31] Rudy Callegari: So that, that we know. so that's free advertising, which is nice
[00:27:36] Don Levefe: who's the nicest celebrity you've worked with?
[00:27:39] Rudy Callegari: there's an amazing amount of, of like wonderful people in the industry.I really won't name names, but, um, the, the-- most people are really wonderful. Very rarely are people, idiots. I won't name the bad ones, that's for sure. But, there's some great people out there.
[00:27:59] Rudy Callegari: Adam Sandler's incredible. Uh, he films in New York a lot. there's tons of them.
[00:28:05] Don Levefe: Final thoughts. if you were gonna get into the car rental business today, if you're starting out, would you do it? And what advice would you pass on to somebody who's either thinking about or has recently started?
[00:28:20] Rudy Callegari: would I do it? Yeah, I absolutely would do it. again, you know, as I mentioned earlier, AI and technology is changing all of our industries, but we still need to get from A to B. I would give kind of the same advice that I took myself. you're never going to be able to compete as a small independent car rental or truck rental business with the majors.
[00:28:44] Rudy Callegari: So whatever market you're in, go after something that they're not doing. and that's where you find your niche. what are the local businesses? And then I would also, whatever niche you're into, advocate. Find out who the government group is that's advocating for that industry and become part of it.
[00:29:05] Rudy Callegari: being part of, uh, ACRA, uh, has been incredible for us, as we really know what's happening in the industry and being part of, helping make the right changes. So become involved politically regardless of what business you go into, and do something, in a niche where, where your competitors are not there for whatever reason.
[00:29:30] Rudy Callegari: And, and there's, there's plenty of that around. Uh, for us, it was entertainment. that's one way to look at it and, really make sure you're keeping an eye out on residual value 'cause that's where you could really get hurt in our industry. Timothy Leary. The best time I ever had, I did a TV show with Timothy Leary.
[00:29:51] Rudy Callegari: And if you guys remember, if you're at a certain age, you know who Timothy Leary is. And, uh, I was producing a Japanese TV show, and Timothy Leary, we had him playing God. And we were filming at night, and him and I would go out for dinner, and his agent came to me and said, he can't drink." And I'm like, "Okay."
[00:30:15] Rudy Callegari: So we go out for dinner at like ten, eleven o'clock at night, and immediately he started ordering, you know, vodkas, whatever, and wine. And we'd sit there, and after two hours of him telling me stories of his life, I was probably in my twenties at the time, and I'm just sitting there saying, "Oh my God, I'm with, you know, the man who, uh, has, changed so many people's lives."
[00:30:40] Rudy Callegari: I'd bring him back to set drunk, and he would act like God. that was a fun experience.
[00:30:47] Sharky Laguana: So when I
[00:30:48] Sharky Laguana: was first signed to the music industry, a record label flew me to Los Angeles. It was my very first flight to Los Angeles on somebody else's dollar. it was Def American, Rick Rubin's label. this A&R guy was, was really hot to sign me, so he flew me down. because I'm, a hustler, I decide I'm gonna meet with a couple other labels on his dime while I'm there.
[00:31:14] Sharky Laguana: I go to, uh, one of the labels and, and I go to the, the 7-Eleven across the street, I'm getting a soda and I hear this girl's voice and she says, "Sharky." And I look up, and it was this girl that I used to date. Um, and we stopped dating. We, you know, it was amicable, wasn't, wasn't any big deal.
[00:31:32] Sharky Laguana: She was happy to see me. I said, "Hey, how are, how you doing? What's going on?" T- you know. And she said, "Oh, I'm working in LA. What are you doing?" I said, "I'm, I'm down here for a label." And she said, um, "Let me introduce you to, my friend Timothy." And there was this old man standing Right
[00:31:50] Sharky Laguana: behind her, older man, and I introduced him and he goes, "Sharky."
[00:31:55] Sharky Laguana: Um, and, and he was just chuckling. Um,
[00:32:01] Rudy Callegari: Yeah,
[00:32:01] Rudy Callegari: yeah.
[00:32:02] Sharky Laguana: uh, she was working as his assistant, um, towards the very end of his life, his personal assistant and, and helping him out with, with things and stuff. Uh
[00:32:13] Sharky Laguana: but I, I sat there and talked with Timothy Leary for, in, in 7-Eleven for, I don't know, 5, 10 minutes.
[00:32:19] Sharky Laguana: And that's actually one of my funnest celebrity experiences. that's crazy
[00:32:24] Rudy Callegari: it's fun meeting really creative people. I worked with a lot of great musicians. David Byrne, I mean, what an incredibly talented man. And he was directing a music video I spent like two or three days with, um, on the set, and everybody was just, like, dancing and having a party.
[00:32:43] Rudy Callegari: It was like we weren't even working. I did a lot of stuff with Bon Jovi. They were great. Jon Bon Jovi is, like, the sweetest guy in the world. it's funny how, like, a lot of musicians get this, like, bad rap, these, these bad boy raps. I think one of the hardest working people, uh, Beyoncé, she worked for 20 hours, doing a music video.
[00:33:04] Rudy Callegari: She did, like, seven or eight costume changes, hair, wardrobe, and would come out and dance for, like, 10 minutes nonstop, go back, change, and do it again, and it just never ended. And I was like, I was just so utterly impressed with her, dedication and perseverance and, professionalism. She was phenomenal.
[00:33:28] Rudy Callegari: And, you know, you look at her career and it's like, yeah, she's in the top of her game. When Michael Jackson didn't show up for a three-day shoot, it was a charity event, and he was supposed to show up for that, and he never showed. That was weird. But, Who knows what else he had going on.
[00:33:46] Rudy Callegari: for the most part, people in, in the entertainment industry, it's just they're really hardworking, and it takes an enormous amount to be in front of the camera and to be forward-facing, where you'd go out for dinner with someone and the whole restaurant wants to come over and say hello and shake your hand and buy you a drink.
[00:34:07] Rudy Callegari: I was more impressed on, when you're with celebrities and you're out in public and how they handle, the people who are out there who just-- they just wanna come by and say hi and say, "Oh my God, I love your work." But, you know, imagine you're-- you go off to dinner with your wife, and every second person that walks by just comes over and wants to shake your hand.
[00:34:27] Rudy Callegari: It's, it's not easy. So every now and then when someone snaps and says, you know, "Get away from me," and then that's, you know, that's the s- the snippet in the news saying, "Oh, he's a horrible person," or, "She's a horrible person." It, it's, it's not that way. it takes an enormous amount to be at the top of your game and stay there when you're a celebrity.
[00:34:50] Rudy Callegari: So,to me, I always wanted to be behind the camera because I, I always thought being famous would be a curse. I'm sure if we stayed on, I'd come up with a million more stories. I need to be careful on what I say in public.
[00:35:06] Don Levefe: Rudy, thanks so much for being on the podcast. We really appreciate it. The man, the myth, the legend, Rudy Callegari
[00:35:14] Rudy Callegari: Thank you guys. Thanks so much
[00:35:17] Sharky Laguana: Thank you.
[00:35:19] Sharky Laguana: