Disgraced Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld Is A Friend Of Mine...

Good morning.  First of all, I would like to thank Manka Bros. President & COO Lloyd Grohl for taking over my job for a couple of hours last week while I was in surgery to remove the screws from my foot.  I understand he was very productive.  It's never easy to cut $1 billion dollars a year from your capital budget but I think he did it with class and I'm sure even those who lost their jobs must be pleased with the way things were handled.

This week, the financial world is in shock.  Lehman Brothers is bankrupt after 158 years in business and my friend, Richard Fuld, is the Chairman & CEO of Lehman Brothers.  If he can fail, then what chance do the rest of us have?  Actually, quite a good chance, since we're still here and he's looking for a job.  Ha ha.  [Off the record, I have offered Dick a first-look production deal at Manka Bros.  He has a couple of screenplay ideas that sound really good.  He'll let me know by tonight.]

Richard "The Gorilla" Fuld and I met over 30 years ago.  He was a die-hard Deadhead and used to follow the Grateful Dead in a Volkswagen van (he notched over 300 shows before Jerry Garcia died!).  As you all may know, I was in my own band back then and would catch the Dead whenever they played Southern California because of the easy access to experimental drugs.  Dick Fuld was known as the King of the Deadhead Parking Lot.  He organized drum circles, tie-dye t-shirt joint ventures, brownie sales, etc.  I knew he was cut out for business when he told me that he "increased bongo playing by 10% after just one week on the road".

I met him in the ocean near the Ventura County Fairgrounds where the Dead were playing.  He seemed a little out of it.  He had just seen Jaws and was trying to get a shark to eat him.  I pulled him out of the ocean, gave him a beer and we've been friends ever since.

After he worked his way up the Lehman Brothers chain, finally becoming Chairman & CEO in 1994, we continued to be close.  Lehman Brothers funded every Manka Bros. project I threw his way.  He once told me, "If you can dream it - I can fund it." 

Our most recent deal with Lehman was in 2007.  Dick gave us a $500 million dollar line of credit to complete Rampage Of The Stegosaur (which went on to lose over $200 million) and several other movies on our slate that year.  We had run out of money by Valentine's Day and really needed that infusion of cash to get us through the year.  I remember Dick Fuld telling me after I asked for the money:  "Look, Khan, I'm pissing thousand dollar bills these days.  And I drink a lot of water.  So I make a lot of piss.  Whatever you need, you got."  Those days are apparently over.

I assume we don't have to pay that money back now.  Which is good - because we don't have it.

Khan Manka, Jr. - Chairman & CEO - Manka Bros. Studios