Archive.fm

The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe

395: Getting All the Stuff Right with Dennis Quaid

Duration:
1h 14m
Broadcast on:
16 Jul 2024
Audio Format:
mp3

The veteran actor and gospel singer recounts his early career, what made him give up his dream of becoming a veterinarian, how he realized he had a problem with cocaine and what he did to fix it, how Jerry Lee Lewis taught him to play the piano, and what it was like playing Ronald Reagan for his upcoming movie. And at the end of the episode—he sings a song! The movie REAGAN is in theaters August 30. View the trailer HERE. Get advanced tickets HERE.

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[MUSIC] >> Mike Rowe here with another episode of The Way I Heard It. On today's show, you get to listen to me get to know one of my favorite actors. 150 movies, I don't even know how many plays, I don't know how much TV. And he sings Chuck and he plays the guitar. >> Yeah he does, yeah he does. He's played a lot of famous people, Mike. >> Couple of presidents as well. >> Yeah. >> In the, I think it was called The Special Relationship. He played Bill Clinton. Coming up at the end of the summer, he will be playing Ronald Reagan. He is Dennis Quaid. What an entrance man. What an entrance, he walks in here about an hour ago, maybe two hours ago I guess. Got a mouth full of food, he's eating some sort of steak hoagie. >> Yeah, looks good. >> It looked delicious man. And just, I think he's 70 years old, but he looks like he's, I don't know, 48, 49 or something. >> Yeah, he looks great. He's in great shape and sharp as a tack. >> Yeah, and fun to talk to, it's strange man. I mean, we've been in the business a while to have a star of that magnet to just come in and sit down and start chewing his food and then chatting with you. It's a kick. >> Felt like known him for a long time. >> Yeah, and look, I think that's something all successful actors haven't come. >> Actually, that's not true. Some don't. Some, it's like looking through cellophane, they're nothing. Or they're an amalgam of all of it, but you can't quite put your finger on it. He's Dennis Quaid. >> Yeah, I mean, he's just a nice guy from the get. >> Yeah, well, we spent 90 minutes together. We talk a lot about his new film, Reagan, which is coming out at the end of. >> August 30th, I believe, at the end of the summer, that's right. August 30th, we talk about some other stuff too, as it just turns out that my favorite movie is his favorite movie. He's happened to be in it, and I just happened to be in the audience. And I would of course was based on Tom Wolf's terrific book, The Right Stuff, which is why we call this episode getting all the stuff right. With Dennis Quaid, it's a treat, you're gonna like it, you're gonna like the way you look. I guarantee it. >> Remember that guy's name? >> Of course, yeah. >> No, you don't. >> His name, I remember the men's warehouse. >> You bet. >> Sigh something or other. Nobody cares. Dennis Quaid's next. [MUSIC] >> Tom. >> Growing up, you might have been told that patience is a virtue, and I guess it is. I mean, if you're waiting to turn at 16, so you can get your driver's license, or 18, so you can vote in the next election, or 21, so you can buy a beer at the baseball game, then you might as well be patient, because there's nothing you can do to make time go faster. But if you're trying to hire right now, patience is not a virtue, which is precisely why you ought to post a job for free on zippercruder.com/row. Do that, and you'll quickly receive a list of the most qualified candidates out there. Then you can quickly engage the ones you like to apply for the job you've been trying to fill sooner. This is why four out of five employers who post on zippercruder.com get a quality candidate within the first day. Trust me, if you're waiting for Haley's comment to pass by Earth again, it'll be here on July 28th, 2061. Be patient. But if you're trying to hire the right candidate for the right position right now, don't wait. Post a job for free at zippercruder.com/row, that's zippercruder.com/row, zippercruder. hardest way to hire. Okay, that's a good start. I mean, it was, we were halfway through the shoot. Actually, we were. Are they split hoved? The yachts. That one was. Okay. After he hit you in the head. Yeah. Yeah. And we were castrating and shaving and all that. So I didn't take it personally, you know, had I been in the accident. Shaving what? Whatever we're going to reach, you know, it was sweet, sweet, you know, how it is. I love that you were going to be a veterinarian. Yeah. This was, you're out of Houston? Yeah. Houston. Yeah. I was wanting to go to Texas A&M and do the whole thing and be a veterinarian. I had a job. I used to visit my grandfather and stay with him in East Texas, you know, to semi-rule during the summers and I got a job at the local veterinarian there, you know, like sweeping up and stuff. And I really, you know, that's where I was going to be. I decided and so, you know, I also got to kind of assist in a bunch of stuff, you know, all kinds of stuff. Dogs get shot, dogs with worms, you know, dogs coming in, they're putting to sleep. Sure. You know, tough stuff, all this stuff and all creatures got this call. Yeah, operations, you know, and I was still for doing it until that one day in my third year of doing it, third summer, that we got called out to a farm to castrate a horse. Yeah. And... Hell of a thing. Farmer did not want to sit out there with the horse while he recovered from the anesthesia. And so they only gave him half of it. So he was like half awake and they tied up the horse, cinched him up to the front leg, back leg on one side and they slid him open and brought out the calipers, basically, size of them. Yeah. And that horse went insane, crazy and stood up on two legs, one front and one back. And it was nuts, but it was so cruel. Nuts it was. I said, "I can't do this." Yeah. Yeah, we went through a very weird period on dirty jobs where the first time we showed a full AI program, the network was pretty sure that'd be the end of all of it. I mean, there's something very, this is breathtaking if you haven't seen it before, nobody's seen it before. Once they saw it, the audience went crazy and then the network was like, "Oh, well, what else can you collect from?" And then the show basically turned into a German porno. I mean, we just went to every barnyard there was. I mean, ah, what a steed. God, there were ostriches, there were emus, there were raccoons, I mean, everybody had a breeding program. Well, muscled. I just think, I mean, it's a family show, you know? Yeah. That was really cool with it because it was learning, like for every exploding toilet or every misadventure animal husband, you generally learned something like where your food came from. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So we were able to justify it. You learned that nobody's available on a three day weekend. That's what you learned. That's what you learned. Yeah. Well, then we got to the point where, you know, with lambs, with docking, you cut off the tails and you castrate them, those guys do it with their teeth, you know? Really? Yeah. For real. Up in Craig, Colorado. With their teeth. Actually... With what particular animal you said? Lambs. Lambs. So you get like a two month old... Lamb testicles? That's right. Yeah. So the lamb is on a post, the legs are spread, and you grab the scrotum, pull it toward you, and nip it off. Yeah. Push it back, expose the testicles, and you lean in, and you bite them, and then you snap your head back, and then you just spit it out and move to the next one. Yeah. And the punchline is what? That's the beginning and the middle of the end, and it's so shocking. I mean, this whole thing actually turned into a test. Okay. So they're spread with your thumb so you don't have your hands available. Is that it? Well, you need two people. If you do it, the recommended one. So what the HSUS and Peter will tell you is you need like a rubber band supposed to go around it, and then over a two day period, the blood... Yeah. It just falls off. Except, you got a rubber band around your scrotum for two days. For two days. Instead of the quick snap, correct? And we did it both ways. Sounds like, you know, there's a market that has been unexplored here. And maybe as entrepreneurs, we might want to go down this road. Tap into it. Yeah. Take a bite out of it. Yeah. That's the worst. Just gonna say that. Oh my God. Hey, man. Thank you for doing this, and I want to congratulate you. So this flew out of my mouth a second when I was driving you crazy. You were eating seconds ago, and now I've got a mouth full of sweet and sweet things. It looks like a kale to me. It was. Yeah. At one point. You'll be as charged. You said to me, "Why do they call it podcasts?" Or three cameras pointed at us. Yes. We're just making a TV show, basically. Right. How many of these have you done? I used to do... I did podcast myself, in fact, for a couple of seasons. Why'd you stop? Just got too busy to be able to do it. When I left the podcast, Audio Wup, which is an entity out there that I was involved with in getting started up, and I left the entity, and I was just getting really busy with work. Yeah. So I stopped doing it. Well, we'll attract it to you in the first place. Well, as an actor, I do research for every role I do in some way or another. Especially when I'm playing a real person, you know, at a lot of times I get to meet that person if they're alive. And that's why I love acting, is because I've always been fascinated with what makes people tick. So I like talking to them and figuring them out in some ways just a little bit at a time. But in a podcast, you're not going to take that knowledge and turn it into a performance. Just forgive me if I ask us wrong, but are you genuinely that curious? Yes. I am genuinely that curious. I really am. As virtues go, as virtues go, where is curiosity? As virtues go, well, I guess it's down there with a carnival, isn't it? And the circus and the magic acts, right? Well, sure. Yeah. I guess that's where curiosity is. Or it could also be on the Moon with Neil Armstrong, but it's got a wide berth. But I do have a curiosity about it to, you know, what comes out of people's mouths and in the way they look, the way they move, you know, we all give ourselves away. Everybody's got to tell. Yeah. Yeah. Sure, the first time your curiosity drove you into this business. Oh, yeah. It was my first week in Mr. Pickett's acting class at the University of Houston. Before that, I was cutting back and being an actor, I'm going to be a musician. I don't know what I'm going to, am I going to be a forest ranger, am I going to, I didn't know what to. Veterinary. Well, that was already three years ago, I'd given up that. But I've been his class and my brother had taken from him, and so it, you know, quite a few people that went on to work. And he ran into what, three, four years older than four years older, and he made acting, it was like psychology, you know, it was about what motivates people and about who we are. And the question is, what would I do if I were that person in that situation? Now, that's very interesting, right? Because then it makes it individual rather than just anybody doing the part. And along with that comes really kind of feeling who they are, putting yourself in another person's shoes and really getting to live that life. And it's turned out so fantastic because I get all these roles like I played an astronaut, I've got my pilot's license from that. I've played a firefighter, I've played two presidents and stuff, and I get to go on all these doors and say, "Authorize person, not only." Yeah. You know what I mean? That's the fun part. And find out stuff that in my lifetime, I would never get a chance to know. Yeah. So the line gets so blurry, right? One minute you're playing a role, and the next minute you're researching the role, or vice versa. And then the next minute you're really full on in real life, newly informed with whatever it was you learned. And take that into my life, like that's how I got to be a Renaissance man. It's a blessing. Or a complete idiot or a Renaissance man who flies to play. I don't know at all. Or not a veterinarian. Yes. Oh, wow. So pick it. You know, we had Mr. Pickett back in high school. His name was Fred King, and he was a music teacher for me. I mean, from me, people talk about schools all the time. This school, that school, great school, oh, that's a fine school. It's never about the school, right? It's like saying, "Oh, that studio's great." No, man. It's a project. And then the people on the project, our Mr. Pickett, I mean, would literally take you by the scruff of the neck. Not that way. This way. Yeah. Did he do that? Well, he would say stuff. He had what he called constructive criticism, you know what I mean? I do. And that would be you'd finish, you know, you'd finish the scene, and you know, there'd be quiet in front of the class that he'd go, "Well, of course you know you've failed miserably." I had a light touch, did he? But it wasn't really to put you down, or it was just like, you know, they'd tell you why, and this and that, and why did you do this when this person is like that, you know? And it was constructive. Then you'd go and work on the scene for another like four weeks and come back and the class would do it again. It wasn't about his ego, which I've been in a lot of classes that is about their ego or it's about them. He just really, he loved to teach too. Yeah. And what you're talking about, you guys had yours, you're talking about a mentor, having a mentor in life. Yeah, exactly right. Because it's not about the school, it's about a one individual that we are lucky enough to meet and that we're searching for. I mean, I'm searching for another one now, even, only now they're younger than me. Are you him? To anyone? Yes. Yes, I am. Well, that's a combination, devoutly, to the English. Yeah, it is. And you know it when it comes along, you know? It's good to give back. I'm a learner, I find that I myself learn a lot in the process by then entering somebody else. Yeah. Yeah. I think the first time I remember seeing you on the big screen, I was struck by how much fun you appeared to be having. This would have been the right stuff. Yeah. And... Which is my favorite movie? This is. That I've done, yes. Really? Yes. Because just that. What you just said, I grew up in Houston, I have a space city. The original seven astronauts came out like when I was in first grade, they wheeled the TV into the room to see Alan Shepard going up. And of those seven astronauts, Gordo Cooper was the youngest and he was also my favorite because he was like the rock and roll astronaut. I loved his name Gordo. Gordo, yeah. And so many, many decades go by there, you know, that replaced wanting to be a cowboy or a fireman or anything like that right away. Everybody wanted it to be an astronaut. Decades go by and the book comes out, you know, Tom Wolfe, the right stuff. Staggering. I got the book as soon as it came out, I read it, covered it, covered it like in a day and said to myself, man, if they ever made a movie out of this, I want to play Gordo Cooper. Got to a year later, they're making a movie of this. Screw you, Dennis Quaid. That's a bet. Come on. This never happens in life. No. I wasn't Dennis Quaid then, either. So, you know, I was just an actor messing around. But they're making the movie, I go in for the part and, you know, I say I want to play Gordo Cooper and wait around for four months because another guy already had the part. And he decided not to do it and I got it. And then I found out that Gordo Cooper lived three miles from me in LA. Wow. And I called him up and we became friends, turned me on to a flight school. But while in aviation over at Van Nuys Airport, where you can solo if you want to, but you don't have to. And Bud was three years younger than aviation itself, so I figured this is the guy. So I wound up, wound up getting my pilot's license and then my instrument and all the rest of that and then of course we did the movie and Chuck Yeager was on the set every day. Wow. Every single day. The balls on that guy. Wow. And I went flying with him in a little bonanza over the lake bed and there are Edwards, you know, where you. Did he try to make you puke? What? Did he try to make you puke? No, it's hard to get somebody to puke in a bonanza anyway, you know, but he just still like loved the land, you know, just use one of those screw type of things on it. But, you know, the movie bombed when it came out. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. But it's classic now. What a trip to watch that happen. You know, I mean, do you remember sitting in the theater for the first time watching the right stuff, weighing and measuring yourself and all of it. It came out and John Glenn was running for president at the same time that the movie came out and it betrayed the astronauts. You know, he was always kind of a Boy Scout thing and I have all the respect in the world for John Glenn and all of them too. But it sort of showed behind the scenes they weren't just like upright, you know, Boy Scouts all the time, you know, which they weren't, you know, they were fighter pilots the way they were going and it was also another era in time. So Walter Cronkite kind of put it down as well. But there was one thing that I think the flaw in the right stuff is this, it has to do with Gus Grissom, the second guy into orbit, the guy that lost the capsule when he landed it sank, like two miles down and he almost went down with it. In the book, Tom Wolf created this, the right stuff, which is like a pyramid that you go up, right? And that you get the top of pyramid and if you don't get there, you screwed up, you screwed the pooch and it's your fault. You screwed the pooch. No matter what happened, if something gets mechanical or whatever, no, it's you that were in the cockpit, so you screwed the pooch. Right. So he created that. So he kind of, for dramatic purposes, made that seem like that's the way it was that Gus was the one who screwed the pooch on it's second and he was responsible for losing his own spacecraft because he was more concerned about having his dimes and stuff that he was going to like sell afterwards for, you know, commemorative stuff. But that isn't what happened and, you know, he really came within an inch of death and what happened was, is that was the first time they had a hatch on the spacecraft so that they could blow it themselves and the thing had come off, they had a window there and the thing had blown out with the change of pressure coming down from space and that's what sank craft, not him. But if he had been screwed the pooch, then why did they give him the first Gemini flight? Yeah, right. And why did they give him the first Apollo flight in which he died and got fried with three others about the electrical system? The worst way to imagine. Yeah. You know, this guy was an American hero to be revered for his service and that of his family too, and to be betrayed like that, I actually kind of begged for it not to be in there because of Gus's family. Gordo told me about that and I wish it, the movie is still a great movie. I mean, I just love watching it, but there's just something I've digressed a lot on that. No, not at all. Really? That's good stuff though. No, it's great. One might say the right stuff. Uh huh. Is it just me or does anybody else like their meat in a box? I don't want to get too personal, but I love it in a box. In the summertime, I also like it on a grill, which is why I subscribe to ButcherBox. Every month this summer ButcherBox delivers a box of high quality meat and seafood right to my doorstep and I love it. 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Look man, there's some things you can't script. I narrate this show called Deadliest Catch, Bering Sea, Crab Fisherman. It's been on 20 years. It's not still on 'cause it's a great show, although it's good. It's on because you can't script the Bering Sea. And as a viewer, you watch that and you're like, I truly don't know what's gonna happen, right? Yeah, exactly. When I think about pushing the envelope the way Yeager did and the way a lot of smart people were just going, "Hey man, not for nothing, but we don't really know." It's on the other side of that barrier. We don't know. Smart people, we don't know. And he gets in there and just goes for it anyway. That gives me goosebumps thinking about it. So to be around him, to be in a plane with that guy. Yeah. Unpack that for a second. You know, he grew up, he was a lawnmower repairman. That's how he got into the Air Force, who worked on engines. And he took that into the Army Air Corps and then became a pilot because of his knowledge of engines. And he'd locked us in a room before we did the movie, All of Us Guys, and told us his whole story, including the World War II stories. And now he used to, like, you know, he had several, he down several of the German planes. And a couple of the instances and, you know, how he did it. And you know, what he'd been through and saw the film, the actual film, when he took, I think it's the F-105 Starchasers, but that he was testing up at high altitude, about 110. He took it up there. He got as close to space as you could possibly get in a regular jet. He got up there and it stalled. You watch this thing for like five minutes, you know, on three axis going this way, this way, and this way for five minutes. And how you don't pass out from that, and he watched that clock all the way down while he was spinning like that, where you can't even punch out until you get to about 25,000 feet. Otherwise, you're going to, you know, your toast with the pressure and with the oxygen, you know. How do you punch out when you're in a role? I mean, you could be upside down. That's the thing. I mean, that's very exciting. That's the thing. Yeah. I mean, he was the guy that he rejected, and when he ejected, he came out, and the rockets on the ejection seat caused his seat to catch on fire, which fed up into his helmet around here. And he had rubber all over his face, and he was blind. And now he's falling out of the sky from 15,000 feet, and comes down and, you know, that's all for military pay. That's the right stuff. You know, I read that Armstrong and Aldrin, before they went up, signed a few hundred headshots, because no insurance policy could be taken out. That they were coming back. Yeah. That was the thing that their wives could sell. Yeah. I mean, they could have been stranded easily, very easily. Chuck Yeager was checked out and raided in 195 separate aircraft. That's some kind of a wreck right there. But those guys, they got in there knowing that, you know, the chances were not good coin toss. And they weren't. You know? And if Grissom was complaining about the way they put those things together, because it was so fast, you know, we were on track to get there in a decade, and before 70 we were going to get to the moon, and, you know, all these different contractors putting this stuff together, and wires are just hanging out. He was kind of like on quality control, and then it wound up getting them. People don't realize how close, how often so many things have come. What we're talking about the other day with William Sapphire wrote a speech, right? Yeah. For Nixon. Yeah. All right. Now, the speech was never given. But it was rehearsed. Both. About the moon landing. Yeah. What did you do? Yeah. Stay in the Tran Quilliton space. Right. Rocket didn't go off. Beautiful speech. Thank God. Nobody's heard it. Yeah. But it's worth a Google, you know, because, I mean, to imagine those two guys up there alive for a couple of days. Yeah. But out of reach. Yeah. They probably would have gone, what, 10 days, you think? You're going to run out of water, and you're just going to run out of... You're probably going to run out of air, and all kinds of stuff. You're going to run out of everything. You know, Armstrong landed that thing here. I think he landed it with something like eight seconds of fuel left. That's exactly right. Eight seconds. Yeah. Right. Right. They came down to the landing spot. It had boulders all over it. It was impossible. The land. So he just took it like, you know, sideways right across the, you know, 40, 50 feet above, and looking for our landing spot. And you listen to his voice, "It is cool as can be." Yeah, man. And... Icewater. Boom. What a privilege to be around all that. It was, you know... It was pretty amazing. Well, I actually thought of that the other night, I had a chance to screen your new movie. Yeah. And you start thinking about these near misses, and what happens if Reagan is here, but not there, and says it this way, but not that way, and so forth, and so on. Yeah. Does that, I mean... The bullet was an inch from his heart. Crazy. And a ricochet. Yeah. A ricochet, an inch from his heart. Yeah, nobody thinks it was. What is? Right? Yeah. All right. Let's commence with some of the obvious questions. Forgive me as I impersonate an interviewer, but what attracted you to that? To Reagan? Well, it really frightened me more than anything else. Because you're already playing Clinton, right? Yes. Yes, I had. It always sounds like he's holding a hit, doesn't it? Yes, I am. It's like the first day of the all dressed up as Reagan, and we're doing the part where the pope gets shot, and we're watching on TV, and I go, "We should call the..." [laughter] Wrong one. "We should call our military and find out what's going on." Oh, wrong guy. Wrong guy. "We should call our military." Yeah. That's Mark Joseph sitting over there on our sofa, who produced this thing. Great job. I was filled with fear about it, and the truth. I also didn't see myself, "I don't look like Reagan, I don't really..." And plus, total transparency, he was my favorite president, and it's such a well-known figure. It's like playing Muhammad Ali. Everybody knows who he is, and you don't want to do some Saturday night live impression of him. It's just going to do more. You were convincing me. Well, thanks for that. I wasn't fishing for it. The fish is going to jump on the boat, thank you. So I said I really need to think about it. I didn't turn it down, but I said I really need to think about it. So I got invited up to the Reagan ranch, and when I came up there, the Reagan ranch came out through that gate. First off, it's up from the highway. It's the five miles of the worst road in California. Oh, really bad. Yeah. You have to think that the Queen of England went up that road to see him, because their helicopter didn't work amazing. But you come out, you go through the front gate, you come through, and there's the spot up on top of that mountain. You realize that Reagan was not a rich man, and he was a humble man. You can feel him, you can see all the work that he himself did there. You can feel him, and you can feel the humility of the man. Aggressive humility. Yeah. And that's the thing that made up my mind, was the house that they had, you know, it's not a tourist spot. It was the Western White House. The house is 1200 square feet, maybe. They had a king size bed, but it was two single beds that were zip tied together. Yeah. They had a GE appliances, because he used to be the spokesman for GE. 20%. He bought all that, like after he was governor, you know, at 20% off, that's right. And they had the general change that goes kapram, kapram, you know, and a little note from Nancy in the basket, and say, you know, how to operate the television with the three different controllers that they had to use to get there, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's supposed to be the nerve center of the Western Hemisphere. Right. Yeah. So, but yeah, that's the thing that convinced me, yeah, that that I can see this. I took my crew up there five years ago. Yeah, five or six. Yeah. And same thing. It was, it was the placement of those twin beds. It was his tool shed. John Barletta came out. Yeah. Right. He was there too. And that was a shame. We'll get to that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that would have been something. By the way, Clinton Hill, you guys ever crossed paths? No. Clinton was very close with John. Clinton guarded Kennedy, Jackie. Oh. He was the guy who dove on the back. Oh, yeah. That's Clinton. Five presidents. Yeah. So, yeah, he's been here and those stories are important, but that visit was interesting on a lot of levels, but down in the museum, I saw something I'm sure you did too, but it was an interactive display of the worst things that were said about Ronald Reagan while he was in office and while he was running, you know. And you know, I just mentioned it because we're living in a fairly divided time at the moment. Very, very similar, isn't it? Amazingly similar. And how? And same players. You got it ran. Yeah. Yeah. It's a weird Russia. There's China. But Russia's there. It's very strange time, dangerous times. So I think you're a couple of years older than me, but you lived through his presidents. Yes. Did you remember the vitriol? And did you? Oh, yeah. Warmonger. You know, kind of a bad actor, a bedtime for Bonzo, airhead, all those things that he was going into, you know, a lot of that still like remains today for a few diehards. Yeah. But this is the guy who won the Cold War. Yes. I will, you know, give props to the Pope and to like Valenza during that time, as well. This is the guy that really won it. And it was a plan that he had had for a while. And that was to basically our economy. We could bankrupt the Russia instead of meeting them militarily. We could battle them economically by forcing them to spend on military. And that's what brought the Soviet Union down because people just, they weren't getting from their government what they needed to get. You know, the Yeltsin story after the fact when he came, he was in Texas actually. Yeah. He had granddals for the supermarket. And that's when he knew the jig was up when he saw all that fruit, all that food, pudding pops, ultimately broke his heart, you know, at 20% off, 20% off right now. Right. Right. And there were like six different kinds, so many flavors like you didn't even have one in Russia. Yeah. But they had food lines. That's the way, you know, communist economy. That doesn't really supply incentive to people. And so, you know, to get the food to market and all that, you're going to get paid the same whether you get there, you know, in a day or four days. And so what does it matter? So the economy doesn't really work that well. And you know, we have them at an advantage that way, because we have what people want it. He waited them out. Pops. Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is he hadn't won it, but he's fighting it. He's having a hard time fighting it because they keep dying. It's a great editorial device you guys use. Yeah. Well, that's the way it seemed back then. Yeah. I don't know if you remember that, but it was like dying, dying. You know, he didn't even talk to the Soviets for the first, I think, five and a half years. Yeah. It didn't even talk to them, right? Yeah. They just kept dying. And yeah. How can I negotiate with them? Yeah. They keep dying on me. There was one scene that I remember, actually this isn't in the movie, but it's a story that I heard where Reagan took Gorbachev when he visited the United States to the suburbs in a helicopter and flew around and looked down at the houses and said, you know, you see all these houses down there? This is the working class. These people work in factories. They work in shops. They're not rich. And Gorbachev was amazed because they looked like palatial estates. Yeah. His vantage point. Yeah. I've been over to Russia, and I've seen that public housing that they have, and it just doesn't compare. You know, it's basically a box, right, is all you got, and it's not all that much. There's a lot of money in Russia, too. I mean, it's so much for the oligarchs and everything, and it was, you know, it's always been run that way in a sense. It's still a mess today, if you ask me, but Reagan was the, I think he was the great president of the 20th century when it comes down to it, because what he did with the Cold War actually put to rest World War I and World War II, because it was a century of war, of World War, and that was the end of that. It's just incredible. I mean, the times make the man sometimes, yes, you know, and it's impossible. I can remember my dad and my mom, both kind of just shaking their head, because they had seen those films. They remembered him as the G.E. spokesman. I used to remember him, you know, selling Baraxo soap on Death Valley days, you know, narrated, sort of like what you and I do, you know, they're debating a thing coming on. Death Valley days. Yeah. And the reason he did that is because I don't think he was ever satisfied with his acting career, take the truth, and he was kind of, John Wayne got his parts, and a few others that came along, and he was kind of relegated to the B movies, and the studio just never took him there. And then he married Jane Wyman, and she wins an Academy Award, you know, while he's married during, he's feeling like Mr. Mom, you know, kind of sitting at home and kind of washed up is what he was feeling. And he became the, which was not really a celebrated thing. He became the Vice President and then President of the Screen Actors Guild. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. Well, if you're looking for some good news in the world of public education, I'm afraid I don't have anything to share with you, test scores are down all over the country, unions are fighting with school boards about all sorts of things, the lockdowns left kids behind at a rate we've never seen before, and parents are at their wits end, and private alternatives are too expensive for most people to consider. Well, consider this, K-12 powered schools. K-12 powered schools are online, tuition free, fully accredited public schools for kindergarten through the 12th grade, designed to help your kid learn at his or her own pace with an engaging curriculum that supports individual learning styles. This is different from homeschooling, where you're responsible for doing the actual teaching. K-12 powered schools utilize hands-on innovative technology to make learning interactive, you know, like the way it's supposed to be. They also offer social opportunities, extracurricular activities, and in-person events. Again, this is not a new idea. It just feels that way. K-12 has more than 20 years experience helping millions of students gain the skills they truly need to thrive in the future. And if you're concerned about the state of public education in this country, go to k12.com/row. Find a tuition free K-12 powered school near you. That's the letter K, the number 12.com/r-o-w-e-k-12.com/row. By the way, what did I say to you when we walked out of the screening? That you wanted to lean into that even more. That to me is the most, like if you were to have taken one chunk of that movie and decided, okay, we're going to live here, right? This is what we're going to do for two hours. To me, that would have been the piece. People don't understand that time nearly as well as they should, and they don't understand the power of that union in the context of the studio system. In the context of the times. They come to find out after the Soviet Union fell and they started releasing and rummaging around documents that it actually was that the Soviet Union had infiltrated the unions of the United States in particular, the Actors Union and those that worked in and around it, including crew people and stuff like that, and they wanted to get control, and almost did. They knew then what, well, I guess it was Breitbart who said it right. Culture. Yeah. Because of upstream of politics, always. Yeah. Who controls the stories? Upstream. Because you're talking about hearts and minds of people, and if you get control of what they're watching and their culture, you'll have their hearts and minds and be able to bend the politics as well. So that was very interesting to me because I never thought that was what was really going on. I thought that had to be some kind of paranoia by our own government at the time. And there was the McCarthy hearings that were around there that ruined a lot of lives, actually. It turned out to be true, and that's where he became steel-hardened for fighting communism. Yeah. Ronald Reagan was there. Yeah. You know, there were brawls. They would come into a meeting and they used this diamond thing that socialists used to disrupt, where you put a guy on each side and in the corners, and then start agitating from there in a crowd towards the center and the next thing you know, you've got a brawl going on. And it seems like everybody's on separate sides there for some reason, or it was all the tactics they used. So Reagan fought communism. That's where he really saw its face and became dedicated to fighting communism right there. Maybe another example of how the headlines catch up to your thing, right? I mean, he was a decent actor, but you're right. He was what he was in that world. Yeah. And then he finds this role in this bureaucratic position, frankly, there's nothing sexy about it. No. But the world spins. Yeah. And one thing leads to the next, and it's such a slow burn. That's what I like about it. You can learn everything you need to know about that guy. Yeah. In those days. Years between being an actor in the studio system to kind of in a bad variety show in Las Vegas to becoming a spokesman for GE and selling soap on TV and ads and working for the Screen Actors Guild in a position like that, those are the things that really prepared him for getting into politics seemed very natural to get into politics like after that. He went around for GE, not only to spokesman, but he went around the country to every GE factory and talked to the workers in the factories and really spent time with them. That was the beginning of his political base. The working man. The working man all throughout the country, not just in California. Isn't it crazy how the labels have changed, the associations have changed, Republican, Democrat, whatever working guy, the way you think of unions, all of that, you know, you hear it a lot. I think Bill Maher said it the other day and a lot of people have said it. I didn't leave the Democratic party. Democratic party left me. That's what he said about leaving the Democratic party. Yeah. It feels like everything is shifting today and moving that light speed. And I just wonder, what do you want this movie to do aside from make money and be accepted? Well, first off, I wanted to entertain people. That's what we go for. We want to go and enjoy ourselves someplace, you know. It's not a school room or anything. It's not a lecture. No, it's not. Only this is a lecture. There's a sermon, actually, but it's not a sermon. And I want them to be entertained. I want them to feel things because I think that's why I go to movies and not to see things but to feel things. And I think people will be able to, who were born after a certain time, be able to see what this country, how it used to be. And for those that were born even before, it can remind us about what we can be. That's pretty much it. You're here because I wanted to meet you and I almost met you at that movie guide thing four months ago. Oh, yeah. I gave some award and I'm sitting out there and then I ran in the mark here and he was like, "Oh, I told me about the project." I'm like, "Oh, I'd love to say hello." And then you walked on stage called Chris Christoperson, which I love. Yeah, that was funny. Funny. Very funny. Right. And then you sang a song. And I said to Chuck, who was also there with me, I'm like, "You know something, I'm always interested." The way terms change, the way definitions evolve, you're an actor, obviously, but I watched you sing that song. Yeah, I mean, that's another way to tell a story. But I don't think you were performing like an actor. I felt like it seemed obvious to me that music played a huge role in your life. Yeah. And I don't know a ton about you. Yeah, it still does. Well, yeah. Always has. Why? Well, first thing I remember is Elvis and Hank Williams and growing up in Houston was very eclectic, kind of music that was there. And I always just love music. It's been kind of the solution for me for a lot of things. The Beatles came along and then my grandfather bought me a guitar at Western Auto, by the way. When I was 12 years old, those guys sell everything, those Western Auto guitars. I need a battery, a chassis, two tires and a guitar. But you know, first thing I learned was like my fire, I tried to learn because that's a real difficult song to learn and I'm a guitar. And it's something as a teenager, you can like, you could sit in your room alone and do it, you know? And in there, you know, acting, you got to least have one other person, otherwise you just still all along. Otherwise, it's kind of tragic. You got to know like in the mirror, and there's only one other thing to do alone in my room. So if anybody's into that, that's okay, that's your choice, but, you know, it was, and you know, it was, we're young, great weight girls, you know, girls, girls girls, and at the time, so. Well, that explains it 60 years ago, or 55 years ago. But you're still doing it? Yeah. You're right in albums. You're wound up kind of actually putting the two together. You know, I had several movies that I wrote songs for and that, you know, were music oriented. Jerry Lee Lewis. Jerry Lee. And then when I'm playing Jerry Lee Lewis, I didn't play the piano, but I, you know, had a year to learn it. And there's another one of those things about, you know, finding out big people take. Jerry Lee Lewis was my piano teacher. That's a good one. Yeah, that's, it was good. And was he kind, impatient? He could be like a 14 year old schoolyard bully. Or he could be the most generous, sweetest man. There was. But I saw him. But I saw him. I saw him. Sit at a piano when we were recording a soundtrack. He sat there for 10 hours and didn't get up even to pee. What? Yeah. That's not to say he didn't pee. He just didn't get up. Depends. It's like the thing. You were going to blink first, I could tell you that. But Jerry, Jerry, he carried around in his back pocket a lot, a 38 in his back pocket. And in this pocket, he had a bottle of Seagram 7, a pint bottle that he soaked his pills in. Oh my God. And you just want to take a drink of that bottle because I know a few people did. But then he got sober the last 10 years of his life. Everybody thought he'd be the first to die, that he was going to be the first to go. He hung on. He was like 88, he had a stroke and then was kind of downhill for a couple of years. But what a force, man. Nobody could play piano like that guy. He didn't play it, man. He hit it. Yeah. This is an athletic experience playing Jerry Lee because you got to get this left hand going. And if you got that, you can pretty much do anything else. You know, Neil Young, he'd break half a dozen strings every night. He played so hard, you know. It's so interesting to see different musicians, different instruments, like there's no playbook for it. I put Jerry Lee up against any concert pianist anywhere. Would you? Yes, I would. Did you ever... He was strong, he'd get hit, but he was the most dexterous of players that wasn't anything. Did you ever hear him play? He played with his feet. He knows. He played with everything. He played with his feet. Well, so I've heard. He was alone in his room. What else are you going to do? He can only play chopsticks that way, but... Just the right hand. I only need one hand for this. She's a whiz, man. All right. Is there a new album? I did a gospel record last year that's been out, and actually, on Amazon, it was number one there for quite a while. Nice. It was even beating Taylor Swift for entire week. Come on. Yes, it was. So, those... With these must have been really upset with you. Oh, well. Well, listen, it must have been the parent trap is what I say. You were a babysitter for a generation. Yeah. What I tell those kids that they're now like 30, about a parent trap, that I was your babysitter. He watched that like 40 or 50 times, and your parents put that on so they could go do what they wanted to do in the other room. Yeah, right. Right. Right. Right. Make more of you. Make more of you. So funny. So, how long have you been sober? 1990. Wow. Yeah. June 28th, '99. Was it... That's cocaine. I didn't do... I didn't... For 10 years, I did what they told me to do. But I do drink, and alcohol was never my problem. Never a thing. Never my thing. So, I mean, I did go 10 years without doing that because I wanted to get past all stuff. But it was cocaine for me. That was the thing that I could just could not put away until it was all gone. If it was sitting there, I couldn't leave it until it was gone. I don't overreach, but I'm so interested. We've been having a lot of conversations on this thing about addiction. I'm not drug addiction necessarily. I think addiction gets a bad rap, frankly, like there are a lot of wonderful things to be addicted to. Yeah. Well, I mean, cocaine was wonderful, because it's three phases, look, it's three phases. It's... Sorry. It's fun. That's the title, Chuck. Did you jot that down? It's fun. Cocaine's wonderful. It's fun, and then it's fun with problems, and then it's just a bunch of problems. Yeah. And that's what any addiction is, the way it works on you, because it gets to a point where your life becomes unmanageable, right? Well, happily, I don't have much experience with it. I think I've had some compulsions over the years, but I haven't felt ever that there's been a chemical that had that kind of hold on me. It's a lucky thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good thing. But I live in the real world, and I hope it wasn't weird when you walked in. I've got 300 bottles of yellow Tennessee whiskey named after my dad was talking about it. I thought that was from Memorial Weekend whatsoever, but that's all right. Oh, yeah. We're going to have a big time. Dennis Quays is coming by. I've got 300 of them. Yeah. Then we're going to sign them all. But, well, I'll just ask, how did you do it? How did you break it? Actually, I had one of those white light experiences to tell you the truth. By band at the time we were playing the Palace Theater down there on Vine Street, and the record companies came that night, and we got a record deal. And then we, just like that movie, the Commitments, we went back to the dressing room and we broke up and we broke up because of me, you know, because it was just like, I was not handling myself, right? I wasn't. And I was operating on an hour of sleep at night, maybe. I didn't have things right. It really had affected my life to that point. And I went home and I had one of those white light experiences where I kind of saw myself losing everything that was either going to be dead in jail or lose everything that was really dear to me in the next five years. And so the next day I went and checked myself in to a rehab facility at St. John's Hospital because they didn't have rehab back then. They had one at CDC, which was in the basement. So this isn't like on the beach, up in the mountains. No, it wasn't. Passages. Passages, no, you're in a basement. It wasn't transitions. It wasn't Pink Cloud. It was the CDC and the basement of St. John's Hospital. Oh, man. It was 28 days I was there and came out. And then that was great. You know, I went to meetings like every day and for two years I crowned my teeth for like four years because the urge was still there. Yeah. It didn't go away. Did you replace it with anything? I replaced it with golf the day I got out of it. They got a rehab. I replaced it with golf, something to really obsess and get mad at myself about. There you go. And it was more expensive cocaine or golf. That's a fair question. There's some parody there. Yeah. With that. Yes, for sure. I guess you would say. But four years before that kind of compulsion left me and then it went away and it's gone. You never had it. Never had it come back. I can't imagine it. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, Everman, ring a bells? No. He washed out of a couple bands, a pretty good guitar player, troubled kid, wrestled with all kinds of stuff. But he got so close and just same thing, commitments left, got another band, good guitar player. Same thing. The guy winds up going into the Rangers and fights in Kandahar and the pushtan. I mean, the guy who's just, I mean, truly becomes an American rock star, you know? And he's kind of a legend today. But the band's Dennis, the first one was called Nirvana and the second one was called Soundgarden. Wow. So I have to laugh when you. So they thought he was like a little too much? No, he literally blew himself up. Yeah. He self-sabotaged every good thing that was happening to him. Wow. So he just couldn't. Sounds from everything I've read about the guy that he didn't think he deserved any good thing. And so I think a lot of people do that in relative terms. You know, they don't necessarily do it with seminal rock band. Yeah. With him. And I think with all of us too is we're in search of our purpose. And sometimes you don't know what that purpose is. And if you ask God for it, you better be careful because he just might give it to you. Not in the way that you thought. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, this rhymes wonderfully, you know, when you think about a guy like Jason who finally finds his purpose on the other side of the earth running special ops and you'd think of a guy like Reagan who's hawking appliances and book and roles he doesn't need and still getting pissed off because he's in the 94% tax bracket. But he's not meaning purpose. He also came president at the exact right moment in history. Right. This country. We'd been through Watergate and through all that Jimmy Carter came along who I voted for, by the way, because it was a change. He was honest. There was this, you know, kind of like common man thing and it was like, but we went down a road. You could say, are you? Well, was it his fault? You know, he was in the office. So he was stewarding it, but it was also the times with the oil and gas and the malaise that took over this country. And you know, he even said so himself on television about the malaise that had taken over and we were country and declined. We were. You know, that started from the Vietnam era and Reagan came along and there was the perfect time for him to be told us that, you know, there's a light and America is a beacon on a hill and it's mourning and mourning in America. We are not in a nation and decline. We are a nation that is just getting started renewing itself. I met the guy who wrote that, the ad man. Yeah. Hal Ryan. Yeah. That was a good one. The most brilliant ad in all of it's the number one in political history, for sure. Yeah. What do you reckon the greatest ad is, just like the ads that stick, I'm fascinated by advertising. Yeah, me too. Just because it's because in the end, that's that is our business. We can't arbitrage, you know, the filthy Lucra out of the art, you know, they need each other. I think the most brilliant advertiser of recent history is Elon Musk because he didn't do anything. Yeah. Yeah. He didn't do anything with a Tesla. Yeah. No advertising. No it's. None. All he did was name it after the true king of electricity, Nicholas Tesla. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a great point. And still doesn't advertise straight to the consumer, Caterpillar, right? Because all you have to do is drive down the highway and there's a big hunk of yellow iron, you know, and people get it and they know it. And it's funny to me. Oh, Budweiser, remember this butts for you. Yeah. That was, I think, maybe the greatest tag line because this is another way of saying facts. Yeah. Just thanks, man. Yeah, you know. It's true. I think what a good ad man can do with a political campaign or with a consumer product, 20% off GE having a sale, you know, your business is not so different. You make decisions, you market yourself and we're all commodities. We're all brands. And that's the kind of way Mr. Bigget taught us to talk back in his acting class too that, you know, as an actor, what you get to know yourself and what you have to offer as an actor about what roles you can play and stuff and what you would be right for because you're a commodity. And so that's what you're going out to sell to people. Yeah. Yeah. How do you feel? Yourself. Well, I mean, John Wayne was such a great example, obviously. And so those guys, they didn't, like, how do you feel about that when you have the level of trust that comes with being a brand like John Wayne, he rarely went outside of that lane. I can't think of much, really. I mean, he was always the good guy, essentially, you know, always wrapped in some kind of virtue. Yeah. And then you got like a Jim Carrey. Yeah. Richard Cogburn was like the closest he ever got to bad closest, but he was still infused with so much righteousness. Yeah. But, you know, he was like, it was almost in some of the movies though you hated him. He was, you got to understand it's like the searchers, John Ford, Natalie Wood, you know, and it's the, the command she have killed the parents, burned the home and he goes at taking his niece hostage and he goes after him. When he finds her, he's almost going to kill her because she's been ruined. You know, the rage that he had, he could play rage really. Oh, yeah. And then the man who shot Liberty Valance, he was very jaded in that. So he wasn't nuanced, but he basically played, you know, he didn't take any, he had no patience for fools. Pretty good chess player too, from what I read. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I think where I was going was you come to trust a brand and the way you come to trust an actor to deliver a certain kind of experience and if it's Jim Carrey, like it's a comedian, I want to laugh. He's funny, funny, funny, funny, and then he gives you eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. Right. So like, as a performer, do you look at that and go, okay, that's too much cognitive dissonance. Where do you go, wow, good for him for stretching and making me think differently? I say, you know, it's, it's, he's done so much for the studios that if he wants to do something, let him do something. Yeah. There's no guarantee and that doesn't mean that the audience has to accept him in that role. Yeah. You know, I think all actors, it's never changed really. Remember Tyrone Power? Sure. There's people, do you know who Tyrone Power was? Yeah. He was Tom Cruise. He was a bad ass. You know, what I'm saying is, you know, Humphrey Bogart was Jack Nicholson, you know, George Clooney goes to Cary Grant or Tom Hanks, man. Yeah. Tom Hanks is Jimmy Stewart. There you go. The icons are the same. It's like the pantheon of Greek gods that each like star fills within that pantheon and a studio. And so you just have different people, there becomes a position available. Right. When somebody retires or gets to roll for two, right? So, you know, somebody else fills that role, whether it's the femme fatale, you know, the thing about what this, the fatty other, and it's always been that way, but it didn't come to me until later on in life. But as... Who did you replace? There you go. Yeah, that's a good one. It's kind of hard to say, tell you the truth, kind of tough to say. You do occupy some really interesting real estate now that I think about it. Maybe I'm still looking for a position. Maybe we will. We're still trying it on. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, there is a certain amount of ambiguity, right? I mean, it's 150 movies. Yeah, about that. Getting close. How many plays? How many plays, I'd say, two and a half? Well, hang on a second. Blaze, what are you talking about, the backwater of entertainment? Hang on a second. 1984. 1984. 1985. True West. True West, yeah, my brother. With your brother. With your brother. With your brother. Six months in New York. Okay. Another six out here. That was fantastic. It did a couple of other shows in New York and did a lot of theater. That's how I started when I was in theater and college. Well, I was going to say, I was going to college in New York at the time. My brother came to visit me. We went to see you and Randy do that show and we came backstage and actually met. I'm really fantastic. Because we thought we were very clever. It's like, hey, we're a couple of brothers who are going to see a show about two brothers who are played by two real brothers. Yeah, we tell you to get lost pretty much. Pretty much. But we did get backstage. Actually, you were very gracious. Both of you were very nice. Yeah, that was fantastic theater to do that to the Cherry Lane Theater and it was a great time in New York in the pre-aids '80s. I don't think that was pre-aids. That was '84 or '85. I'm pretty sure. This is still book time. Oh, yeah. They were it. You know what, man? It was the thick of it. They called it something else, man. They called it Grid. Yes. Right. Grid. Yeah. Gay related infectious disease, I think. Yeah. I was thinking that the other day because, you know, with the COVID and the lockdowns and what a time, man, to know there's a thing out there, a reaper of some kind and to not have a name quite yet for it, to understand what it is or what it does. I'm talking about AIDS. I'm talking about both. I'm talking about COVID. I'm talking about AIDS. I'm talking about it could be Ebola. Like before you put a name to a thing. And the thing is still undeniably real. I mean, that's the stuff of monsters. Yeah. AIDS was really scary. It was so insidious and it was like for gay people, it really became a really horrible thing of getting further removed from society. And there was a lot of hate out there about that and a lot of fear, a lot of fear. People were dying and, you know, alone. And during COVID, it was the same thing. People would just, people wouldn't touch you. They would put you into a hospital room and you would, three million people died alone in the hospital. You couldn't see your family. I know Charlie Pride was one of them. He was going to do his life story and he went to get a lifetime achievement award in Nashville. I got AIDS and the next thing, you know, he's separated from the family. That was a loss, man. You know who else was the loss recently, it was John Pride. Yeah. It's funny because I had reconnected with John Pride and I connected with Charlie. And you know, both of them like within months just went just like that. John was actually one of the first that died in this country that was kind of a known person because he had been in Italy. It was on the road in Italy and it hit their first. Yep. You remember we were seeing the pictures of Italy and everybody in their homes. Amazing. And gosh, I don't think we've actually digested it yet, really. I think we're still just trying to put it over there. Yeah, it's too much. Yeah. In a way. It was traumatic for everyone. Yeah. I remember you didn't know John Pride, but we talked about him at length one day because he wrote the saddest song. I thought the name sounded familiar. There's a hole in Daddy's arm. That's it. Yeah. There's a hole in Daddy's arm. We're all letting go. He's such great. Oh, my God. Yeah. Incredible. Yeah. So. Wait for it. I'm building tension. Oh, I know. I'm building tension. Two ears, one mouth. Sure. Sure. Don't worry, man. Just laughing. That's all. I'll land the plane. Just chuckling. Just trying to figure out how to wrap this up and I'm making it awkward for the guy. Yeah. Well, whatever you do, don't tell them. Well, look, there are a couple of things going through my mind, right? Like how long we've been talking? Well, that's one. Okay. That's pretty close. Yeah. Pretty close. Oh, you know, I used to be an actor. I know what an hour, 12 minutes feels like. I guess you do. It feels like that less pause we just had is what that feels like. Yeah. Feels like. Good. Driven a trunk through that thing there. Feels like a flight to San Francisco including the go-around. Oh, what would Mr. Pickett say in a moment like that? There's a hole in his head. There's a hole in his head. Give yourself an obstacle. An obstacle? Yeah, an obstacle. An obstacle to overcome, but he said obstacle for some reason. Give yourself an obstacle. An obstacle. An obstacle. Here's what distracting me. I don't know what the protocol is. I noticed the guitar. I'm like, "Oh, God, does he want to sing his gospel song? Is that weird?" No pressure, but it's there. On my way to heaven? You want me to do, please don't -- that song I did for a -- I thought that was a great song. For Kristofferson? Yeah. It was written about him. Why? Actually, well, he wound up doing a song of mine, which may or may not be the last song that he records, but it's -- God, is that even remotely? It's a song of mine called "All My Way to Heaven," which is a -- Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like a gospel song that he and Tanya Tucker and Brady Carlisle are on. And it's coming out this year. Nice. Yeah. And so we went to dinner afterwards, and his wife said, "Nobody ever calls John. They live over in Hawaii." And because they think he's a legend, and he won't talk to him. So he wants people to call. He just loads them. Yeah. So that's what I do now on my act when I do the song. I say, "I went home and wrote this song." And then when I do it, I say, "We're all going to call Krist." And say, "Hello." [ Laughter ] Tell him he's a legend. [ Music ] Please don't call me a legend. My humble life's not through. It's got up a gun in a middle, but there still ain't no end to what I might yet do. I might just -- if I climb all the Himalayas, plant a flag on a planet or two. But if you call me a legend again, please wait until I'm in my tune. And please don't treat me special. It makes me feel alone. I cannot be the simple person that I've always been. If you put me up on some throne, I'm quite capable of making my own mistakes. And I'm not afraid of failure. So if you call me a legend again, I might just have to see you later. [ Music ] Oh, please don't call me a legend. It makes me feel like I already died. That's just a third-hand story about some has been, and it's probably a lie. So I'll just keep on keeping on trucking, yeah. Yeah, after here. And if you call me a legend again, I might just have to box your ears, you know I will. I might just have to see you later. Bye-bye, bye-bye, I might just have to see you later. [ Music ] Yeah. [ Applause ] Thank you very much. And the crowd goes wild. [ Laughter ] Marker Calendar's Reagan, the movie. It's coming out the end of August. You'll be hearing a lot more about it. Your album is called -- It's called Fallen, a gospel record for sinners. I called it that because I wanted to get the biggest audience possible. [ Laughter ] Nailed it. Nailed it. All right, well folks, if you've seen today or are planning on it, you're going to be in your room all by yourself trying to figure out what to do. Maybe play the guitar, maybe play the piano, maybe who knows? Who knows? Just always remember, it's better not to be the horse all tied up there in the barnyard for the aspiring veterinarian to come by. Keep on picking that thing because you never know where your dreams are going to go. [ Laughter ] And is my grandpa for you to say it ain't going to pick itself, friends. See you next week. All right. ♪ If you're done, please subscribe ♪ ♪ Leave some stars, ideally five ♪ ♪ Five lousy little stars ♪ [ Laughter ] Without the ones like you, who work tirelessly to keep things running, everything would suddenly stop. Hospitals, factories, schools, and power plants, they all depend on you. No matter the weather, emergency, or time of day, you're the ones who get it done. At Granger, we're here for you. With professional grade industrial supplies, count on real-time product availability and fast delivery. Call clickgranger.com or just out by. With Granger, for the ones who get it done. Hey, it's Nick Vile, host of The Vile Files. I'm here to remind you to check out our show. Do you like reality TV? Are you interested in pop culture? Are you fascinated with relationships? Or are you struggling in your own relationship? Well, there's something for everyone here at The Vile Files, whether it's Ask Nick on Monday, or reality recap episodes that break down your favorite reality TV in pop culture moments, or are going deeper episodes that give you the blockbuster interviews with some of your favorite celebrities out there. Either way, we have something for everyone. So check out The Vile Files, wherever you get your podcast. your podcast.