395: Getting All the Stuff Right with Dennis Quaid
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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. A couple presidents as well. Yeah. In the, I think it was called The Special Relationship. He played Bill Clinton.

Coming up at the end of this 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 mouthful of food. He's eating some sort of steak hoagie. Yeah, it looked good. It looked delicious, man. I think he's 70 years old, but he looks like he's...

I don't know, 48, 49 or something. Yeah, yeah. He looks great. He's in great shape and sharp as a tack. Yeah, and fun to talk to. You know, it's strange, man. I mean, we've been in the business a while, you know, and to have a star of that magnitude 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 have in common. Actually, that's not true. Some don't. Some, it's like looking through cellophane, you know. 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. 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...

is his favorite movie. He just happened to be in it, and I just happened to be in the audience. That, of course, was based on Tom Wolfe'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 going to like it. You're going to like the way you look. I guarantee it. Remember that guy's name? Of course, yeah. No, you don't. I don't remember the guy's name. I remember the men's warehouse. You bet. Size something or other. Nobody cares. Dennis Quaid's next.

Dum

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I mean, it was, we were halfway through the shoot. Actually, we were towards... Are they split hoved, the yaks? That one was. After he hit you in the head. Yeah. Yeah. No, we were castrating and shaving and all that. So I didn't take it personally. Yeah. Had I been in the yaks position. Shaving what? Whatever we could reach. It was sweeps week. You know how it is.

I love that you were going to be a veterinarian. Yeah. 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, which was semi-rural 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. 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 that are putting to sleep. Sure. I mean, just, you know, tough stuff, all this stuff. All creatures. 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.

Hell of a thing. Farmer did not want to sit out there with a 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 bolt cutters, basically, the size of them. 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 that'd be the end of all of it. I mean, it is something very, this is breathtaking if you haven't seen it before. Nobody's seen it before. But 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, it's like everybody had a breeding program. Well-muscled.

I just think, I mean, it's a family show, you know? Yeah. And we got away with it because it was learning. Like for every exploding toilet or every misadventured animal husbandry, you genuinely learn something. Like where your food came from, right? Yeah. So we were able to justify it. You learn that nobody's available on a three-day weekend. That's what you learn. That's what you learn. Yeah. Well, then we got to the point where, you know, with lambs, with docking, you know, you cut off the tails and you castrate them. Those guys do it with their teeth.

Really? Yeah. For real. Up in Craig, Colorado. With their teeth? It's 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, nip it off. Yeah. Push it back, expose the testicles, and you lean in, and you bite him, 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. It's so shocking.

Mean this whole thing actually turned into a TED talk. So you they're spreads you Spread them up 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 way well, so what the HS us and PETA will tell you is you need a like a rubber band that's supposed to go around it and yeah over a two-day period and

- Yeah. - That just falls off. - It just falls off. - Except you got a rubber band around your scrotum for two days. - For two days. - It's miserable. - Instead of the quick snap, right? - Correct. And we did it both ways. - Sounds like 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. Just going to 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 ago. It's driving me crazy.

We were eating seconds ago, and now I've got a mouthful of sweet greens. It looks like kale to me. It was at one point. Guilty as charged. You said to me, why do they call it podcasts? There's 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 it. I did a podcast myself, in fact, for a couple of seasons. Why'd you stop? Just got too busy to be able to do it. And I left the podcast audio up.

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. And so I stopped doing it. Well, what attracted to you in the first place? Well, you know, as an actor,

I do research for every role I do in some way or another, especially when I'm playing a real person. Sure. You know, 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, you know? But in a podcast, you're not going to take that knowledge and turn it into a performance. You're just, forgive me if I ask this 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 the 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, too. What comes out of people's mouths and the way they look, the way they move. You know, we all give ourselves away sometimes.

Everybody's got to tell. Yeah. So do you remember 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...

I'm going to be 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? I didn't know what... Veterinarian? Well, that was already three years ago. I'd given up that. But I'd been in his class, and my brother had taken from him. And so quite a few people that went on to work. And he... Randy's what? Three, four years older than you? 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 got my pilot's license from that. I played a firefighter. I played two presidents and stuff. And I get to go on all these doors that say authorized personnel 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 a plane. Or a real jerk know-it-all. Yeah, or not a veterinarian. Yes. Oh, wow. So Pickett, 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, for me personally.

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 is great. No, man, it's about the project. And then the people in the project are Mr. Pickett. I mean, we literally take you by the scruff of the neck. Not that 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 a scene and it would be quiet in front of the class. Then he'd go, well, of course you know you've failed miserably. You know? Had a light touch, did he? But it wasn't really to put you down or anything. It was just like...

You know, they tell you why and this and that and why did you this but when this person is like that, you know And it was constructive then you go and work on the scene for another like four weeks and come back into class and 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. And what you're talking about, you guys had yours, you're talking about a mentor. That's right. Having a mentor in life. That's 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 conservation devoutly to the English. Yeah, it is. And you know it when it comes along. It's good to give back. I find that I myself learn a lot in the process by mentoring somebody else. 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. Which is my favorite movie. Is it? That I've done, yes. Really? Yes. Why? Because just that. What you just said. I grew up in Houston. That was Space City. The original Seven Astronauts came out 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. Terrific. So many, many decades go by there. That replaced wanting to be a cowboy or a fireman or anything like that right away. Everybody wanted to be an astronaut. Decades go by, and the book comes out, Tom Wolfe, great stuff. Staggering. I got the book. As soon as it came out, I read it.

cover to cover like in a day and said to myself, man, if they ever made a movie out of this, I want to play Gordo Cooper. Cut to a year later, you're making a movie of this. Screw you, Dennis Quaid. That's a, 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, uh,

They're making the movie. I go in for the part. And, you know, I say I want to play Gordo Cooper. And I 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 L.A. Wow. And I called him up. And we became friends. Turned me on to a flight school.

Bud Wallen 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 getting my pilot's license and then, you know, 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. Yeah. On that guy. Wow. And I went flying with him in the little Bonanza over the lake bed. And there at Edwards, you know, where he landed the X1. 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, it's a single-engine plane. But he just still, like, loved the land, you know. He was one of those screw-type guys.

Things that I, but I just loved it. You know, the movie bombed when it came out. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, but it's a 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? Mm-hmm. 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. He was always kind of a Boy Scout thing. 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 Boy Scouts all the time, which they weren't. They were fighter pilots. That's the way they were going. 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 Wolfe created this, the right stuff, which is like a pyramid that you go up, right? And that you get to the top of the 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 is mechanical or whatever, no, it's you that were in the cockpit. So you screwed the pooch. Consequences. 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 that Sega, 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 sell afterwards for commemorative stuff. Yeah. But that isn't what happened. Yeah.

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 a change of pressure coming down from space. And that's what sank Kraft, 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? The electrical system. The worst way to imagine. You know, this guy was an American hero to be revered for his service and that of his family, too, and to be portrayed like that. I actually kind of begged for it not to be in there because of...

Gus's family. Gordo had told me about that. Really? Yeah, I wish it... The movie is still a great movie. I mean, I just love watching it. But there's just something... I have digressed a lot on that. No, not at all, really. That's good stuff, though. Yeah. No, it's great. One might say the right stuff. Uh-huh. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-dum!

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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 because 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 going to 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 what'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. I mean, that gives me goosebumps thinking about it. So to be around him, to be in a plane with that guy, unpack that for a bit. You know, he grew up, he was a lawnmower repairman.

That's how he got into the Air Force. They worked on engines. And he took that into the Army Air Corps and then became a pilot because of his knowledge of engines. He 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 how he used to, like, you know, he had several, he downed several of the German planes. And a couple of the instances and 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 one F-105 Star Chaser, but that he was testing up at high altitude, about 110. He took it up there and 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, 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 to where you can't even punch out until you get to about, Oh, 25,000 feet. Otherwise you're going to, you know, you're toast with the pressure and with the,

with the oxygen. How do you punch out when you're in a roll? I mean, you could be upside down. That's the thing. I mean, that's very sporty. Yeah. He had to time it. He ejected, 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 he comes down, and, you know, that's all for military pay. Oh, yeah.

That's the right stuff. Yeah. You know, I read that Armstrong and Aldrin, before they went up, signed a few hundred headshots. Mm-hmm.

because no insurance policy could be taken out of it. 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. Very easily. Chuck Yeager was checked out and raided in 195 separate aircraft. That's some kind of a record there. But those guys, they got in there...

knowing that the chances were not good. Coin toss. And they weren't. And Grissom was complaining about the way they put those things together because it was so fast. We were on track to get air in a decade. Before 70, we were going to get to the moon. And 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 him. People don't realize how close, how often so many things have come. What were we talking about the other day with William Sapphire wrote a speech. Right. For Nixon. Yeah. All right. Now the speech was never given, but it was rehearsed. Oh, about the moon landing?

What to do if they stay in the Tranquillitatis Basin. 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 days. Yeah. But out of reach. Yeah. They probably would have gone on, what, 10 days, you think? Yeah.

You're going to run out of water. You're probably going to run out of air. Air and all kinds of stuff. You're going to run out of everything. You know, Armstrong landed that thing. I think he landed it with something like eight seconds of fuel left. That's exactly right. Eight seconds. Yeah. And it came down to the landing spot. It had boulders all over it. It was impossible to 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's as cool as can be. Yeah, man. Ice water. Boom.

What a privilege to be around all that. 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... That bullet was an inch from his heart. Crazy. Yeah.

And a ricochet. Yeah. A ricochet an inch from his heart. Yeah, nobody thinks about it. 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 had already played Clinton, right? Yes. Yes, I had. It always sounds like he's holding in a hit, doesn't it? Yeah. Yes, I had. In fact, the first...

I think the first day of all dressed up as Reagan and we're doing the part where the Pope gets shot and we're watching it on TV and I go, we should call the... 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, to tell you the truth. And 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 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 drama

It'll do a parody. Live impression of him. You know, that's not going to do. No, you were convincing me. So, well, thanks for that. I wasn't fishing for it, but I'll take it. If 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. And 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 fantastic.

Up from the highway, it's five miles of the worst road in California. Horrible road. Really bad. To think that the Queen of England went up that road to see him because her helicopter didn't work. Amazing. But you come out, you go through the front gate, and 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. That's the thing that made up my mind, was the house that they had. It's not a tourist spot. It was the Western White House. The house is 1,200 square feet, maybe. They had a king-size bed, but it was two single beds that were zip-tied together. Tied together, yeah. They had a...

GE Appliances, because he used to be the spokesman for GE. 20% off. And he bought all that after he was governor. Oh, my gosh. And he got 20% off. That's right. And they had the channel change that goes kaprong, kaprong. And a little note from Nancy in the basket.

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, right, right. The free world. Yeah, yeah. So, but yeah, that's the thing that convinced me. Yeah. That I can see this.

I took my crew up there five years ago. Yeah, five or six. And same thing. It was the placement of those twin beds. It was his tool shed. John Barletta came by. He was still alive. He was there too. And that was a shame. We'll get to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would have loved to have him in the movie. Well, that would have been something. By the way, Clint Hill, you guys ever cross paths? No. Clint...

was very close with John, Clint guarded Kennedy, Jackie. Oh. He was the guy who dove on the back. Oh, okay. That's Clint. 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. And I just mention it because we're living in a fairly divided time.

At the moment. Very, very similar, isn't it? Amazing. Extremely similar. And how... And same players. You've got Iran. Yeah, yeah. It's a wheel, right? Instead of Russia, there's China. It's just a wheel. But Russia's... It's a very strange time. Dangerous times. So I think you're a couple years older than me, but you lived through his presidency. Yes. Did you remember the vitriol? Oh, yeah. Warmonger. You know, kind of a...

Bad actor, Bedtime for Bonzo, Airhead, all those things that he was called. A lot of that still remains today for a few diehards. But this is the guy who won the Cold War. Yes, I will give props to the Pope and to Leg 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 was at a Randall's supermarket. And that's when he knew the jig was up, when he saw all that fruit, all that food, and

Pudding pops ultimately broke his heart. Yeah. At 20% off. 20% off, right? And you could buy three and get two. And there were like six different kinds. That's right, six different kinds. So many flavors. They didn't even have one in Russia. Yeah, but they had food lines. That's the way a communist economy works.

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 had them at an advantage that way. Because we had what people wanted. You waited them out. Pops. Yeah. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is –

He hadn't won it, but he's fighting it. But 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. I don't know if you remember that, but it was like dying, dying. Gone, gone. He didn't even talk to the Soviets for the first, I think, five and a half years. Yeah. He didn't even talk to them. Right. They just kept dying. How can I negotiate with them? Yeah. They keep dying on me. So...

Well, 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.

tops, they're not rich. And Gorbachev was amazed because they looked like palatial estates from 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. It's basically a box is all you got and it's not all that much. There's a lot of money in Russia too. So much. I mean, the oligarchs and everything. And it was...

It's always been run that way, in a sense. It's still a mess today, if you ask me. But Reagan was, 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, I guess. 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 GE spokesman. I used to. I remember him, you know, selling Barraxo soap on Death Valley Days. You know, narrated sort of like what you and I do. Yeah. Narrating 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, to tell you 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.

While he's married to her and 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. Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-

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. Parents are at their wits' end, and private alternatives are too expensive for most people to consider. Well, consider this. K-12 powered schools.

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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. That would have been it. People don't understand that time nearly as well as they should. They don't understand the power of that union in the context of the studio system. In the context of the times. Yes. You know, 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 Russia

the unions of the United States, in particular, you know, 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. Upstream of politics always. Yeah. And you... 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 it had to be some kind of paranoia by our own government at the time. Right.

And, you know, there was the McCarthy hearings that were around there that ruined a lot of lives, actually. But turned out to be true. And that's where he became steel-hardened for fighting communism. Ronald Reagan was there. Yeah. You know, there were brawls. They would come into a meeting and they used this diamond thing that...

socialists use 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, you know, 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 just, it was all the tactics they used. So, but Reagan, you know, fought communism. That's where he really saw its face and became a,

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. And then he finds this role in this bureaucratic position, frankly. There's nothing sexy about it. But the world spins...

And one thing leads to the next. It's such a slow burn. That's what I like about it. You can learn everything you need to know about that guy in those days. In those 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 online.

And working for the Screen Actors Guild in a position like that, those are the things that really prepared him for getting into politics. It seemed very natural to get into politics after that. He went around for GE, not only to spokesmen, 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. Well, 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. Yeah. About leaving the Democratic Party. Yeah. Yeah.

It feels like everything is shifting today and moving at 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 want it to entertain people. That's what we go for. We want to go and enjoy ourselves someplace. Yeah. You know? It's not a schoolroom or anything. It's not a lecture? No, it's not. Only this is a lecture. This is a sermon, actually. Yeah. And 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, 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 into Mark here, and he was like, oh, told me about the project. I'm like, oh, I'd love to say hello. And then you walked on stage, called Chris Christopherson, which I love. Yeah, it was fun. 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. Still does. Well... Yeah, always has. Why? Why?

Well, first thing I remember is like Elvis and Hank Williams and growing up in Houston was very eclectic, the kind of music that was there. And I always just loved music. It's been kind of the solution for me for a lot of things. The Beatles came along and then it was my grandfather bought me a guitar at Western Auto, by the way.

When I was 12 years old. I mean, those guys sell everything. Those Western auto guitars. I need a battery, a chassis, two tires, and a guitar. But the first thing I learned was Light My Fire. I tried to learn because that's a real difficult song to learn on a guitar. And it's something as a teenager you can sit in your room alone and do it. Been there. Yeah.

you got to at least have one other person. Otherwise, you're just still alone. Otherwise, it's kind of tragic. You're kind of like in the mirror. And there's only one other thing to do alone in my room. If anybody's into that, that's okay. It's your choice. But, you know, it was...

And, you know, we're young. Great weight girls, you know, girls. Of course. Guitarist girls at the time. Well, that explains it 60 years ago or 55 years ago. Yeah. But you're still doing it? Yeah. You're writing albums? Yeah, I wound up kind of actually putting the two together. You know, I had

had several movies that I wrote songs for and that, you know, were music oriented. Jerry Lee Lewis, didn't he? And then wound up 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 makes people think Jerry Lee Lewis was my piano teacher. Just kidding.

That's a good one. Yeah, it was good. 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. Sounds like the guy named Pickett I heard about. I saw him sit at a piano 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, see, that's commitment. You were going to blink first, I can tell you that. But Jerry, he carried around in his back pocket a 38 in his back pocket. And in this pocket, he had a bottle of Seagram 7, a pint bottle. Jesus. That he soaked his pills in. Oh, my God.

And you won't take a drink of that bottle. There's no few people who did. But then he, you know, he got sober last 10 years of his life. Yeah. Everybody thought he'd be the first to die, that he was going to be the first to go. He hung on. He hung on. He was like 88. You know, he had a stroke and then it 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. Hit it. It was an athletic experience playing Jerry Lee because you've got to get this left hand going. And if you've 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'd put Jerry Lee up against any concert pianist anywhere. Would you? Yes, I would.

Yeah, he was strong. He could get hit, but he was the most dexterous of players that wasn't anything he could do. Did you ever hear him play? He could play with his feet. He played with everything. Played with his feet. Well, so I've heard. He was alone in his room. What else are you going to do? He could only play chopsticks that way. Just the right hand. I only need one hand for this.

She's a whiz man. All right, so 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 an entire week. Come on. Yes, it was. The Swifties must have been really upset with you. Oh, well.

It must have been the parent trap is what I say. You were a babysitter for a generation. Yeah. That's what I tell those kids that, you know, they're now like 30. It's about parent trap that I was your babysitter. You know, you watch that like 40 or 50 times and, you know, your parents put that on so they could go do what they wanted to do in the other room. Yeah, right, right. Just make more of you. Make more of you. So funny. So...

How long have you been sober? 1990. Wow. Yeah. June 28th, 1990. And that's cocaine. You know, 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, did I go 10 years without doing that because I, you know, wanted to get past all the stuff. But it was cocaine for me. That was the thing that I 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 want to overreach, but I'm so interested. We've been having a lot of conversations on this thing about addiction and 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 fun. That's the title, Chuck. Jot that down. It's fun. Cocaine's wonderful.

It's fun, then it's fun with problems, and then it's just a bunch of problems. 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...

that there's been a chemical that had that kind of hold on me. That's a lucky thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good thing. No, because I live in the real world, and I hope it wasn't weird when you walked in. I've got 300 bottles of Nova Tennessee whiskey. It's quite a hello. Named after my dad. I thought that was Memorial Weekend leftover, but that's all right. We're going to have a big time. Dennis Quaid's coming by. I've got 300 of them. Yeah, and 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. My 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 our 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 a 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 I 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 rehabs 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 in the basement of St. John's Hospital. Oh, man. And 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. It didn't go away. Did you replace it with anything? I replaced it with golf the day I got out of rehab. I replaced it with golf, something to really obsess and get mad at myself about. There you go. What's more expensive, cocaine or golf? That's a fair question. laughter

There's some parody there with that, yes. I guess you would say. But it was four years before that kind of compulsion left me. And then it went away and it's gone. I just never had it. Never had it come back. I can't imagine it. Yeah. You know Jason Everman, Ring Any Bells? No. He washed out of a couple bands. 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 man good guitar player same thing the guy winds up going into the Rangers and fights and Kandahar and the push tan I mean the guy is just I mean truly becomes an American rock star, you know, and he's kind of a legend today but the bands Dennis the first one was called Nirvana and

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. He just couldn't...

It 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. They don't necessarily do it with seminal rock bands. Yeah. With him, and I think with all of us too, is we're in search of our purpose, right?

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. 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 think of a guy like Reagan,

He's hawking appliances and book and rolls 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 became president at the exact right moment in history. Right. This century. We've been through Watergate, went 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 kind of like common man thing. And it was like, but we went down a road. You could say, well, it wasn't his fault. 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 he even said so himself on TV.

on television about the malaise that had taken over. And we were a country in decline. We were. That started from the Vietnam era. And Reagan came along, and that was the perfect time for him to... He told us that there's a light, and America's a beacon on a hill, and it's morning. Morning in America. We are not...

In a nation under decline, we are a nation that is just getting started, renewing itself. I met the guy who wrote that, the ad man. Yeah. Hal Reine. Yeah. That's a good one. Probably the most brilliant ad ever.

In all of, it's the number one. In political history. Political history. For sure. 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 is our business. We can't arbitrage, you know, the filthy lucra out of the art. You know, they need each other. You know, I think the most brilliant advertiser of recent history is Elon Musk. Sure.

Because he didn't do anything. Yeah. Yeah. He didn't do anything with a Tesla. Yeah. No advertising. No ads. None. All he did was name it after the true king of electricity. Yeah. Nicholas Tesla. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a great point. You know, I worked for a company that didn't 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 Bud's for you. Yeah. That was, I think, maybe the greatest tagline because this is another way of saying thanks. Just thanks, man. Yeah. You know?

It's true. So, you know, when I think of 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. We're all commodities. We're all brands. And that's kind of what Mr. Pickett taught us, taught 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 is,

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. Yeah. You know, always wrapped in some kind of virtue. Yeah. And then you got, like, a Jim Carrey. Yeah, Rooster 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've got to understand, it's like The Searchers. John Ford. Natalie Wood. Yeah. You know, and it's the Comanche have killed the parents, burned the home, and he goes taking his niece hostage, and he goes after her. 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, John Wayne. And then...

The man who shot Liberty Valance. He was very jaded in that. So he was 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 in 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. So like, as a performer, do you look at that and go, okay, that's too much cognitive dissonance? Or do you go, wow, good for him for stretching and making me

I say, you know, he's done so much for the studios. 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. You know, I think all actors, it's never changed, really. Remember Tyrone Power? Sure. I like to ask people, do you know who Tyrone Power was? Yeah. He was Tom Cruise. He was a badass. 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? 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 in a studio. And...

So you just have different people. There becomes a position available when somebody retires or gets too old. Table for two, right? So somebody else fills that role, whether it's the femme fatale, they go with this, the daddy other. And it's always been that way.

They 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, to 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 were still trying it on. 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. Plays? What are you talking about? Backwater of entertainment? Backwater of entertainment. Hang on a second. In 1984, 1985, True West off Broadway with your brother. True West, yeah, my brother and I did that play for six months in New York. Okay. Another six out here. That was fantastic. And did a couple of other shows in New York and did a lot of theater. That's how I started was in theater and

college. Well, I was going to say... Which is a great way to start. 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. Yeah. And we came backstage and actually met. Oh, really? I didn't tell you this before. Yeah. 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'd tell you to get lost.

Pretty much. But we did get backstage. Actually, you were very gracious. Both of you were very nice. That was fantastic theater to do that in, too. 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. It was a simple 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...

Yes. Remember 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 and to not understand what it is or what it does. Are you 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, you know,

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, where 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 hospitals. You couldn't see your family. I know. Charlie Pryde was one of them. We were going to do his life story. He went to get a Lifetime Achievement Award at Nashville and got AIDS. And next thing you know, he's separated from the family. That was a loss, man. You know who else was a loss recently? It was John Pryne. Yeah. It's funny because...

I had reconnected with John Prine and I had connected with Charlie. And 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 there first. You remember we were seeing the pictures from Italy and everybody in their homes. Crazy. And gosh, I'm...

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 soon. Yeah. In a way. It was traumatic for everyone. Yeah. I remember...

You didn't know John Prine, but we talked about him at length one day because he wrote the saddest song. I thought the name sounded familiar. That's There's a Hole in Daddy's Arm? That's it. Sam Stone? There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes. He's such a great song. Oh my God. Incredible. So...

Wait for it. I'm building tension. Oh, I know. 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 without making it awkward for the guy. Yeah. Well, whatever you do, don't tell him that you're trying to wrap it up. Well, look, there are a couple things going through my mind right now. Like how long we've been talking? Well, that's one. I'm guessing an hour and 12 minutes. That's pretty close. Yeah. Pretty close. You know, I used to be an actor. I know what an hour and 12 minutes feels like. I guess you do. It feels like that last pause we just had is what that feels like. Yeah.

Could have driven a truck through that thing there. Feels like that flight to San Francisco, including the go-around. What would Mr. Pickett say in a moment like that? He would say, give yourself an obstacle. An obstacle? Yeah, an obstacle to overcome. But he said obstacle for some reason. Give yourself an obstacle. An obstacle. Here's what distracted 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? Or is that weird? No pressure, but it's there. All My Way to Heaven? You want me to do Please Don't? That song I did for... I thought that was a great song. For Chris Toverson? 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... God, is that even remotely intuitive? He did a song of mine...

called On My Way to Heaven, which is a gospel song that he and Chaney Tucker and Brandy 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.

because they think he's a legend and he won't talk to them. So he wants people to call him. - He's lonesome. - Yeah, so that's what I do now on my act when I do this song. I say, I went home and wrote this song and then when I do it, I say, we're all gonna call Chris and say hello. Tell him he's a legend. ♪ Please don't call me legend ♪ ♪ My humble life's not through ♪

♪ That's got a beginning, 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 legend again ♪ ♪ Please wait until I'm in my tomb ♪ ♪ 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 need legend again I might just have to see you later

Oh please don't call me 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 through here and if you call

Yeah!

Thank you very much. And the crowd goes wild. Mark your calendars. 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. Nailed it. Nailed it. All right, well, folks, if you've sinned 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. And as my grandpappy used 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 Star