Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Hello friends.
Speaker 1: This week we are joined by a guest who I
Speaker 1: am such an unabashed fan of. I'm so excited that
Speaker 1: he's here. We have friends in common who've told me
Speaker 1: I'd love him for so long that I knew today
Speaker 1: was going to be fun, and it was still better
Speaker 1: than I could have imagined. You might know him from
Speaker 1: his hit show Somebody Feed Phil. You might know him
Speaker 1: as the creator and writer and visionary behind Everybody Loves Raymond.
Speaker 1: You might know him as the author of You're Lucky
Speaker 1: or Funny How Life Becomes a Sitcom? And you might
Speaker 1: know him as Murray the Dog's Dad on Instagram. However
Speaker 1: you know him, you know Phil Rosenthal is hilarious, has
Speaker 1: great taste in food, and perhaps even better taste in friends. Today,
Speaker 1: he's here to talk about how he managed to turn
Speaker 1: his love of meeting people and breaking bread into a
Speaker 1: hit series on Netflix where he gets to travel the
Speaker 1: world and do just that city to city, country to country.
Speaker 1: And we're also going to talk about something he's doing
Speaker 1: that really has captured my excitement. He's written a book
Speaker 1: with his daughter Lily called Just Try It. About a
Speaker 1: food loving dad encouraging his picky eater daughter to just
Speaker 1: try something new, and as I'm sure you would have
Speaker 1: guessed by now, knowing that he bases just about everything
Speaker 1: on his life and manages to turn his very specific
Speaker 1: into our very universal. Even this book that Phil and
Speaker 1: Lily wrote together is based on their experiences as a
Speaker 1: dad and daughter. Let's get to it. People know you
Speaker 1: from Somebody Feed Phil. People know you from creating one
Speaker 1: of their favorite TV shows ever, everybody loves Raymond. People
Speaker 1: know you from Instagram because they love to follow the
Speaker 1: adventures of Murray the Dog. But I want to know
Speaker 1: who you were before you became the Phil Rosenthal we
Speaker 1: all know today. Were you like if we rewound into
Speaker 1: your early childhood and you were like you would not
Speaker 1: six years old or eight years old? Oh come on, yes,
Speaker 1: I would have. We would have been like, we would
Speaker 1: have been out snacking.
Speaker 2: Would you have been in the in like the after
Speaker 2: school plays and things like that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh okay, because that's why I just wanted to be funny.
Speaker 2: I just my dad was funny. In fact, my mom
Speaker 2: first saw him he was doing amateur night jokes in
Speaker 2: a club in New Jersey. She was on another date.
Speaker 1: Wait, we're in New Jersey.
Speaker 2: I don't remember the exact SKay.
Speaker 1: My family comes from Tack, which is why I'm asking.
Speaker 2: Ah, eh, it might have been around there.
Speaker 1: Okay, So she was on a date with some other guy.
Speaker 2: If you see that episode that was a tribute to
Speaker 2: my parents, the from season six. Okay, we did, because
Speaker 2: they both passed now. But so my brother and I
Speaker 2: put together a tribute to them of all their greatest
Speaker 2: hits from the show and a little bit of their
Speaker 2: history and their story. And they got together with their
Speaker 2: surviving friends who are in their nineties, and they told
Speaker 2: me the story for the first time. I didn't know.
Speaker 2: This is how they met. Sure's all. They go to
Speaker 2: some club in New Jersey on a date and there's
Speaker 2: it's amateur night and people are getting up and either
Speaker 2: playing the trumpet or do it. And my dad got
Speaker 2: up and told some jokes. He was a tailor, okay,
Speaker 2: in the garment district.
Speaker 1: But unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I wanted to tell jokes, so we did. And I
Speaker 2: always said, if he's not funny on that night, I'm
Speaker 2: not here.
Speaker 1: So funny is literally in your DNA. Okay, So you
Speaker 1: come from this great meet cute? Hey, yeah, who are
Speaker 1: you as a kid? Where do you grow up?
Speaker 2: Up?
Speaker 1: Were you into food? And were you funny?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: Were you tell me who you were when you were
Speaker 1: like nine years old?
Speaker 2: I was a skinny, little nothing, you know what mubbish means. H.
Speaker 2: So that was me, really small, really skinny, jealous of
Speaker 2: my very cute younger brother who got all the attention
Speaker 2: and still does. And I, you know, I was picked on.
Speaker 2: It's such a cliche, like I used funny as a defense.
Speaker 2: And also the only way I was going to get
Speaker 2: make friends or get a girl to talk to me
Speaker 2: was to try to be funny. That's all I could offer, right,
Speaker 2: And because my dad was funny. My mom was actually
Speaker 2: very funny too, in a different way. And everyone I
Speaker 2: saw on TV. Everyone I saw Johnny Carson, you know, Donicos,
Speaker 2: all those famous old borsch Belt comedians. And I listened
Speaker 2: to mel Brooks call Reiner Records, you know, the two
Speaker 2: thousand year old man. Do you know that? It is
Speaker 2: so good? And I just if someone was funny, that
Speaker 2: they had my heart. That was it, and that's all
Speaker 2: I wanted to be. And so the school plays were
Speaker 2: the only outlet for that, and I started as early
Speaker 2: as junior high. I wanted to be in the school plays.
Speaker 2: Not because I thought of myself as a great actor,
Speaker 2: but this was the only outlet to be funny, and
Speaker 2: because I could do voices and I could do characters.
Speaker 2: So I wasn't a stand up comedian. I tried that once,
Speaker 2: didn't like it. So if you've ever been in school play,
Speaker 2: the audience comes, they sit there and they watch. If
Speaker 2: you try stand up, you're in a bar or a club,
Speaker 2: and the bar is taught they're not going to shut
Speaker 2: up for you, especially there for the first time. So
Speaker 2: I liked it better when I was in the show. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I was very encouraged in high school to pursue this.
Speaker 2: I was a big star in high school, and then
Speaker 2: I went to Hofstein University. I was a big star
Speaker 2: at Hofstra and and I moved into New York City,
Speaker 2: and nobody called New York City to tell them what
Speaker 2: a big story I was in high school and come.
Speaker 2: So I turned to writing, and that way I could
Speaker 2: eat what I wanted. And I loved to answer your question,
Speaker 2: I love food. I just in my parents' house. I
Speaker 2: wasn't in an environment where that love could flourish. They
Speaker 2: weren't cooks. They they worked. They both worked. And you know,
Speaker 2: the cuisine in the house was cheap. Yeah, whatever we
Speaker 2: could afford. I used to say. In our house, meat
Speaker 2: was a punishment, was dry and tough. I didn't have
Speaker 2: steak until I was like twenty three in New York.
Speaker 2: Somebody said, we're going to steakhouse tonight. You want to
Speaker 2: come in? Who would want to go to a steakhouse?
Speaker 2: That's not terrible? Because I had terrible meat in my
Speaker 2: and then I so I went and comes this gorgeous thing.
Speaker 1: That steak change your whole life.
Speaker 2: And I ate like that steak. I went on and
Speaker 2: yelled at my mom.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I think I got lucky because okay,
Speaker 1: so not dissimilarly to your parents. My parents have a
Speaker 1: meet cute. Yes, they lived in the same apartment building
Speaker 1: my mom grew up. My mom's family came to the
Speaker 1: East Coast through Ellis Island from Italy on a boat.
Speaker 1: My mom grew up in the Bronx and then eventually
Speaker 1: her dad had saved up enough money to move them
Speaker 1: into a little suburban New Jersey. And my mom's mother,
Speaker 1: you know, my grandmother's mother, My great grandmother was the
Speaker 1: one who came, you know, with her children. And so
Speaker 1: if you fast forward to my mom being a little kid,
Speaker 1: you have this woman who's transplanted from Italy but who's
Speaker 1: still handmaking pasta and you know, her own sausage and
Speaker 1: everything in this apartment building in the Bronx. And my
Speaker 1: mom grew up watching her cook. And it was in
Speaker 1: that era where everybody was trying to assimilate so hard
Speaker 1: that my grandparents said, you will not speak Italian to
Speaker 1: the grandkids. So in one generation they lost language. But
Speaker 1: my mom remembers a lot of the food, and so
Speaker 1: there are things like I grew up with my grandma's
Speaker 1: meatballs in my house. And fast forward to you know,
Speaker 1: adulthood from my mom. She's like tending bar in New
Speaker 1: York and it's wild here, and she gets to a
Speaker 1: point where she's like, I got to get out of
Speaker 1: New York City and decides she wants to move to
Speaker 1: la and she moves into this apartment building in mid
Speaker 1: Wiltshire and her dog is like growling at this guy
Speaker 1: in the elevator and she's like, I'm so sorry. He's
Speaker 1: never he's never so much as sniff to person. He's
Speaker 1: so well behaved, I don't know why he has a
Speaker 1: problem with you. You know. My dad's like I was
Speaker 1: shaken in my boots trying not to get eaten by
Speaker 1: a Doberman. But I knew why the dog didn't like me.
Speaker 1: I had a crush on this woman in my building,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know how to ask her out. And
Speaker 1: you know, my mom grew up around like East Coast
Speaker 1: tough guys, and she was like, I didn't think he
Speaker 1: was trying to ask me out. He was like this
Speaker 1: soft spoken artist guy. I thought he was gay. So
Speaker 1: it took my parents a minute to figure it out.
Speaker 1: And that's that's where I come from. It's a love
Speaker 1: story thanks to a dog.
Speaker 2: Your grandmother was a great cook, and your mom watched
Speaker 2: her and then brought in some of that. Okay, so
Speaker 2: my grandmother was a good cook too, but my mother
Speaker 2: didn't watch her. She wasn't interested, She didn't have the
Speaker 2: time or the temperament for it. Yeah, you know, so
Speaker 2: it wasn't until I left that house that I had
Speaker 2: food with what they call flavor.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's wild, isn't it. And it's it's funny too,
Speaker 1: because you know, we all have these interesting markers of
Speaker 1: you know, success, and when you work in this business
Speaker 1: and you're lucky enough to write a show or be
Speaker 1: on a show for a long time, and like you said,
Speaker 1: you can go out and you can eat what you want.
Speaker 1: The thing that feels like the biggest luxury to me
Speaker 1: in my adulthood is having time to cook.
Speaker 2: Oh that's great.
Speaker 1: Like it is, just I love it so much.
Speaker 2: That's great. I can't cook. I inherited that I can't cook.
Speaker 2: But you'll never see a bigger fan than me of
Speaker 2: people who can.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: I even invest in restaurants because I'm not very bright,
Speaker 2: but I love you know, said my wife and I.
Speaker 2: We support the arts, and that's one of the arts.
Speaker 1: To me, food is absolutely an art. We're going to
Speaker 1: have to talk about restaurant investing. I want to learn.
Speaker 1: I need a mentor pill. I'm signing myself up to
Speaker 1: go to phil school.
Speaker 2: I've done pretty well mainly because I don't care about
Speaker 2: the money. I don't do it for the money. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I do it. Here's my one criteria. Here's my first
Speaker 2: piece of advice. You taste of food. Yeah, do you
Speaker 2: love it? I mean love it? You can't wait to
Speaker 2: have this again. That's a good sign.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that should kind of be it.
Speaker 2: That's it. I don't care about the trendiness. In fact,
Speaker 2: the less trendy, the better. Those trends come and go.
Speaker 2: Great food if you can maintain it. The first restaurant
Speaker 2: I was involved in was a restaurant called Jar Jar.
Speaker 2: No Jar is one of the great La classics now
Speaker 2: because it's been there almost like is it twenty years
Speaker 2: maybe more. It's fantastic. It's on Beverly and it's just
Speaker 2: a classic American they call it American chop house, right.
Speaker 2: And the chef has stayed there the whole time, which
Speaker 2: is another very good sign that the chef is dedicated
Speaker 2: and staff is you know, pretty much intact. So that's
Speaker 2: all all I care about.
Speaker 1: So cool. Okay, So now you're talking about investing in
Speaker 1: restaurants because you love food so much, and you talked
Speaker 1: about landing in New York as a student and winding
Speaker 1: up a writer. Yes, we've skipped a lot of life
Speaker 1: in between here.
Speaker 2: We skipped a lot of hearty I bet a lot
Speaker 2: of crying alone in the apartment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like everybody says, it takes ten years to
Speaker 1: become an overnight success in this town.
Speaker 2: By the way, I did that at least twice because
Speaker 2: after Raymond, Okay, you would think and people expected, you're
Speaker 2: going to write another sitcom. I expected it of myself. No,
Speaker 2: didn't happen. The business changed a lot in that time,
Speaker 2: and I had this dream to do what I'm doing now,
Speaker 2: and that took another ten years wow to get it. Yes,
Speaker 2: even after success.
Speaker 1: I think, I don't know if you agree with this,
Speaker 1: but you know, Raymond, I mean, my god, the size
Speaker 1: and scope of that show, what you guys did, and
Speaker 1: to have a show that big on for that long,
Speaker 1: you know, I think about my first show. It is
Speaker 1: a bit like lightning in a bottle, right, Like we
Speaker 1: signed up to do One Tree Hill. We didn't know
Speaker 1: it was going to be on for nine years. We
Speaker 1: didn't know it was going to be this cult classic.
Speaker 1: And we were one of those shows. Maybe it's because
Speaker 1: we were young, and it's how they avoided ever having
Speaker 1: to give us a raise. But you know, they would
Speaker 1: say every year, while you're on the bubble, you might
Speaker 1: get canceled, So we never really even knew that we
Speaker 1: were a hit.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and I know that.
Speaker 1: Right, And then in hindsight, it's like, Holy, this show
Speaker 1: is huge, and it stays huge in this crazy way.
Speaker 1: I really do feel as we've come up on this
Speaker 1: anniversary of it and we're like, Wow, it's been ten
Speaker 1: years since the show ended. I've done a lot of
Speaker 1: shows in between, and they've been great, But I really
Speaker 1: only feel now like I have fully processed that decade
Speaker 1: and like I'm I'm really ready for the next decade,
Speaker 1: like the next big project, not something I want to
Speaker 1: do for a minute, or a movie I want to
Speaker 1: do for a summer, Like I'm just getting my appetite back.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like that second ten year shift between
Speaker 1: Raymond and your show, your docuseriies, Does it feel a
Speaker 1: little bit like that to you, Like in a way
Speaker 1: you had to sort of you had to live as
Speaker 1: long off the show as you were on the show.
Speaker 2: Yes and no. So I came to LA. I was
Speaker 2: twenty nine, okay when I came to LA in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine. Then we did get work right away, writing
Speaker 2: on sitcoms ONSA and This Is You and Your Brother. No,
Speaker 2: my writing partner at the time. I met a writing
Speaker 2: partner because I hadn't written before a sitcom before, so
Speaker 2: we wrote a spec script based on something that happened
Speaker 2: to me in real life in an odd job in
Speaker 2: New York. I wrote a book about this called You're Lucky,
Speaker 2: You're Funny. How life becomes a sitcom, And it's how
Speaker 2: to take maybe the terrible things that have happened in
Speaker 2: your life and maybe use them to do something that
Speaker 2: you would never have dreamed of doing, like maybe making
Speaker 2: a sitcom. Right, Yeah, I had my pa cocta family
Speaker 2: in the back of my head. When I met Ray
Speaker 2: Romano five years after coming to LA and working on
Speaker 2: other sitcoms, he told me about his family and the
Speaker 2: physical aspects of Raymond, meaning the parents that lived close by,
Speaker 2: the brother who was older and jealous, the man caught
Speaker 2: between being a wife, I mean between his wife and mother,
Speaker 2: being a brother, being a son, being a father. All
Speaker 2: that we were taking from our lives. Every single thing
Speaker 2: you saw on Raymond happened to me, or to Ray
Speaker 2: or to one of the writers. If you work for me,
Speaker 2: your job was to go home, get in a fight
Speaker 2: with your spouse, come back and tell me about That
Speaker 2: was where all the material came from. And that's probably
Speaker 2: I would say why it was successful. Because people could
Speaker 2: relate to it. The biggest compliment we got was you
Speaker 2: were listening outside our house last ning. Yes, we didn't
Speaker 2: have to listen to your house. We had it in
Speaker 2: our house.
Speaker 1: It really did feel that way. I don't know anybody
Speaker 1: who watched that show and didn't kind of look over
Speaker 1: their shoulder, going, like, am I in the Truman Show?
Speaker 1: What's happening here?
Speaker 2: But that's the thing, And this is what I didn't realize.
Speaker 2: I learned it by trial and error working on the
Speaker 2: pilot script. Right, You write a script and you want
Speaker 2: to put in something that you think maybe a funny scene.
Speaker 2: So I put in this scene in the pilot of
Speaker 2: when I gave my parents Fruit of the Month club.
Speaker 2: You know what that is? Fruit of the Month.
Speaker 1: Club, like a delivery of fruit.
Speaker 2: It was called Harry and David's. I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's the light. Yeah, I remember though, I sent my parents,
Speaker 2: you know, a box of pears, and my mother was upset.
Speaker 2: I got your present, I said, that's nice, he goes,
Speaker 2: but there's so many this pair. Did you realize it
Speaker 2: was a box of pears? I said, yeah, but there's
Speaker 2: so many of them. There's over a dozen pairs. What
Speaker 2: am I gonna do with all these pairs? I said,
Speaker 2: I think you're supposed to eat them and get myself.
Speaker 2: I said, wolled, share them with dad? How many pairs
Speaker 2: can you father eat? Do me a favor, Please don't
Speaker 2: send us any more food again. Oops? And I said, well, ma,
Speaker 2: another box is coming next month? And she said, what
Speaker 2: more pears? And I said, no, a different box every month?
Speaker 2: She said, every month. What am I going to do
Speaker 2: with all this? I said, share with your friends? Which friends?
Speaker 2: I said, lion stand? Lion stand by their own fruit.
Speaker 2: Why did you do this to me?
Speaker 1: Is this? She said?
Speaker 2: I can't talk anymore. There's too much fruit in the house.
Speaker 2: I put that in the pilot thinking that, uh, people
Speaker 2: will see this and think Rai's parents are crazy, right.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that your parents are crazy too, Maybe
Speaker 2: not that exact way, but it's relatable because they get
Speaker 2: upset over something that you think was gonna be nice.
Speaker 2: You're right, uh, And so that was the lesson. You
Speaker 2: write as specifically as you can. Yes, and therein lies
Speaker 2: the universality. We didn't let it's from Sri Lanka. That's
Speaker 2: my mother. I don't know your mother in Sri Lanka.
Speaker 1: I was writing my mother and now a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsors, who make this show possible. So you've moved
Speaker 1: out to la as you said with your writing partner.
Speaker 1: At twenty nine, when you went to New York for college,
Speaker 1: what happens? What happens in that decade?
Speaker 2: Odd jobs?
Speaker 1: Okay, So did you come here for school?
Speaker 2: No, I came to so right after graduating college, I
Speaker 2: move into the city with nothing. That's nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: Now I see I don't have an agent, I don't
Speaker 2: have any prospects. I go to open calls what they
Speaker 2: call cattle calls. Yeah, you walk into a room and
Speaker 2: there's three hundred guys there for maybe a walk on, like.
Speaker 1: A one liner. If you're lucky.
Speaker 2: It's not what I expected. I heard it might be rough,
Speaker 2: but I didn't think it would be that rough. And
Speaker 2: maybe you're lucky to get one of those once every
Speaker 2: couple of weeks. How are you going to do it?
Speaker 2: You're you're one of forty thousand actors in New York
Speaker 2: going for the same So I get odd jobs. I
Speaker 2: worked as a security guard at the metropolit Museum of Art,
Speaker 2: and I worked the graveyard shift at one time, and
Speaker 2: I was fired because I fell asleep on a three
Speaker 2: hundred year old bed in an exhibit. Oh dear, yes,
Speaker 2: oh dear, And I was fired. You didn't like you
Speaker 2: touching the art, let alone sleeping on it. Turns out,
Speaker 2: turns out, And so that was terrible. And then I
Speaker 2: worked as a bartender. That was terrible. I worked as
Speaker 2: a temp I worked for a movie company that was
Speaker 2: somewhat more interesting, but then that business went out after
Speaker 2: three years. And then some friends of mine wrote a
Speaker 2: show for ourselves to be in. Finally, after seven or
Speaker 2: eight years of knocking around, like what are we doing?
Speaker 2: What are we doing? This is terrible. We're not acting
Speaker 2: number one, We're not having fun. Number two. I actually
Speaker 2: enjoyed pursuing the happiness. Like it says in the Declaration
Speaker 2: of Independence, we have the freedom to pursue happiness.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love that, being out on my own and at
Speaker 2: least going after what I like. Right, And I thought
Speaker 2: I was a grown up. I had an apartment I
Speaker 2: shared with another guy. We took the A train all
Speaker 2: the way up down. It was it was kind of
Speaker 2: fun New York in the eighties. It was dirty and gritty,
Speaker 2: and you know, you see it in the movies. Now,
Speaker 2: if you look at movies from them, you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: people live there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well and everybody lived on top of everybody.
Speaker 1: It was so cool.
Speaker 2: Times Square was not the Disneyland that it is net right,
Speaker 2: it was really rough.
Speaker 1: I'm a little but I mean, listen, ah, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: there's something I'm missing. But I kind of I miss
Speaker 1: old New York because I spent my whole life coming
Speaker 1: as a kid, you know, and spending time in the
Speaker 1: summer with my family. And yeah, there was something shifted,
Speaker 1: Like it really became apparent to me. It was obviously
Speaker 1: shifting and things certain things needed to be cleaned up.
Speaker 1: Of course I get it. But and now everything kind
Speaker 1: of feels like a pottery barn.
Speaker 2: Well, and it looks you know, Time Square could be
Speaker 2: Las Vegas, yeah, or any other major metropolitan thing. You
Speaker 2: don't want things homogenized. Yeah, just like I said about
Speaker 2: writing specifically, we want New York to be specific New York.
Speaker 1: Yes, we want it to exactly go to New York.
Speaker 2: We don't want it to feel like La or Las
Speaker 2: Vegas or Atlanta or anywhere else. We want New York. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's why we go there. But what if Paris look
Speaker 2: like that? Yeah, you go. You ever go to another
Speaker 2: country and you're like, I'll be in Venice and it's
Speaker 2: the most gorgeous. Oh my god, I can't believe how
Speaker 2: beautiful just walking around the canals and the little bridges
Speaker 2: and everything. You turn the corner there's a burger king.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, exactly what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, get out of here. You're ruining it.
Speaker 2: Get out of here. Yeah, we don't need that. I
Speaker 2: didn't come here for that.
Speaker 1: So what happened in eight New York with this show
Speaker 1: you guys wrote?
Speaker 2: It became a big hit. It became one of the
Speaker 2: most successful off Broadway shows in history. It was called
Speaker 2: Tony and Tina's Wedding. Have you heard of that? Wow?
Speaker 2: It's still being done.
Speaker 1: Wait the alarm bells going off in my brain right now, Phil.
Speaker 2: Yes, Wow. I wrote that with my friends from college.
Speaker 2: I was the original priest in the off Broadway production.
Speaker 2: They put a blonde wig on me, and you know,
Speaker 2: it didn't end well for anybody. Sometimes things that you
Speaker 2: do with friends, they can get ugly and nasty. That's
Speaker 2: what happened. But it was a good It was a
Speaker 2: good lesson At the same time, a friend of mine
Speaker 2: named Alan Kirshenbaum, who I knew from high school. He
Speaker 2: was already working out as a writer in Hollywood and
Speaker 2: he was a year behind me. But he said, I
Speaker 2: don't like this sitcom I'm working on. Let's write a
Speaker 2: screen pla. I said, I don't know how to do that.
Speaker 2: He said, yeah, but you're funny. We'll write a screenplay together.
Speaker 2: And we thought of something and we wrote it and
Speaker 2: we sold it. Wow, like all of a sudden, all
Speaker 2: these years of trying to make it as a character actor,
Speaker 2: nothing's happening. All of a sudden, Off Broadway show sold
Speaker 2: the screenplay. God is telling me, be a writer. Be
Speaker 2: a writer. Yeah, now that the screenplay was never made.
Speaker 2: But you know, at that time, I had maybe two
Speaker 2: hundred dollars in the bank, and we sold the screenplay
Speaker 2: to HBO for seventy thousand dollars. I was now a.
Speaker 1: Thousand air a thousand air honey.
Speaker 2: I could eat whatever I wanted. So I saw me
Speaker 2: in the play and said, if you come to Hollywood,
Speaker 2: you will never stop working as an actor. So I
Speaker 2: packed a bag and I moved to Hollywood, and I
Speaker 2: never started working as an actor. But I did start
Speaker 2: working as a writer right away. Right away. Wow, my
Speaker 2: friend and I wrote a spec script, a spec Roseanne.
Speaker 2: We write him out. I said, what if John Goodman?
Speaker 2: They need extra money? So he gets a job at
Speaker 2: night working as a guard at the museum and he
Speaker 2: falls asleep on a three hundred year old bed.
Speaker 1: Incredible.
Speaker 2: And people around town read that and said, what an imagination.
Speaker 1: Just pulled from your life.
Speaker 2: Yes. And then five years after working on various different
Speaker 2: terrible sitcoms, I met Ray Ramondo.
Speaker 1: And when you guys met, did you have just that
Speaker 1: instant kind of friend chemistry where you went, oh, we're
Speaker 1: going to do this.
Speaker 2: No. I liked that he was from Queen's and I
Speaker 2: was from Queen's.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: I liked how he talked. I thought he was funny.
Speaker 2: I had seen him on David Letterman, and from that
Speaker 2: one six minute appearance on David Letterman show, David Letterman
Speaker 2: said there should be a show for that guy. So
Speaker 2: they set about looking for writers to create the show
Speaker 2: for him. That's how it works, And so I took
Speaker 2: the meeting. I don't think I was his first choice,
Speaker 2: even I think he wanted someone from Friends, and I
Speaker 2: don't blame him because Friends was a big hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you weren't trying to make New York like
Speaker 1: Os Vegas. You were trying to make a city all
Speaker 1: its own. Thank god, you guys wound up with each other.
Speaker 2: I think, But thank god. Right when you look back on.
Speaker 1: That now, thinking about, you know, from your meeting and
Speaker 1: then beginning to create this show together, it's such a
Speaker 1: big life. Do you have favorite memories that jump out
Speaker 1: at you right away when you think about doing the show.
Speaker 2: He was very wary of the business of the of
Speaker 2: being on TV, of acting, even you know, we now
Speaker 2: know him as a great actor. Yeah, he's in Scort
Speaker 2: Sasey movies. He made his own movie. He did did
Speaker 2: something called Somewhere in Queens that you should see on Hulu.
Speaker 2: Everybody he wrote, directed, produced and stars it.
Speaker 1: Oh cool.
Speaker 2: I couldn't be proud of him. It's a fantastic movie.
Speaker 2: But when he was starting, he was very wary, especially
Speaker 2: of me, coming from, you know, having worked on sitcoms. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he didn't want to do a kind of bad sitcom.
Speaker 2: I'd blame him. I didn't trust me either, So it
Speaker 2: was rough at the beginning. As we're trying to feel
Speaker 2: each other out. We don't even know we know what
Speaker 2: the story of the show will be, but we don't
Speaker 2: know the tone exactly, and you have to find that
Speaker 2: and the only way to find that is by doing it. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: you find the tone. Like I'm sure when you started
Speaker 2: your show it wasn't bang. This is the best it's
Speaker 2: ever going to get. Hopefully it's good enough to get
Speaker 2: on and then it grows in quality. So that's what
Speaker 2: we think happened. And we had you know, I think
Speaker 2: we picked a great cast and we picked great writers
Speaker 2: to help us, and that was that was how so
Speaker 2: favorite memories are Like the first time we got maybe
Speaker 2: it was the third episode that we filmed. The audience
Speaker 2: that's coming is maybe people from nursing homes and prisons
Speaker 2: because they don't know the show yet. So they're literally
Speaker 2: grabbing warm bodies off the street to come please watch
Speaker 2: our sitcom taping, right, and they don't know the show.
Speaker 2: It hasn't been on TV yet. This is something that
Speaker 2: they're watching. But we got to laugh a very big
Speaker 2: laugh during that third taping that was so big that
Speaker 2: went beyond it was a character laugh. It wasn't just
Speaker 2: they said a funny word. It was they understood a
Speaker 2: relationship between husband and wife and they related. And I
Speaker 2: looked at the other writers at that moment, I said,
Speaker 2: we're all going to be millionaires.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: I didn't really mean it, but I just thought, this
Speaker 2: is the I knew enough that that is the secret sauce.
Speaker 2: That's what you need, is that relatability? Yeah, and now
Speaker 2: we knew what to shoot for.
Speaker 1: That's so cool. Yeah, and you just kept going yeah.
Speaker 2: And then you know when you're recognized, if you're up
Speaker 2: for awards or win awards, those evenings are very special,
Speaker 2: not just because of the wind, but because you're sharing
Speaker 2: the win with your friends. My best friends, and we're
Speaker 2: still best friends. Ray and I. We go on vacation
Speaker 2: together every year with our families that have grown up.
Speaker 2: The kid's been little and now they're getting married.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so special. Is it true that he helped
Speaker 1: inspire somebody feed film?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? In between season one and two, I asked him
Speaker 2: where he was going to go on his hiatus and
Speaker 2: he said, I go to the Jersey Shore. And I
Speaker 2: said that's nice. Have you ever been to Europe? You said, nah,
Speaker 2: Now I'd been to Europe since I was, you know,
Speaker 2: been going since I was twenty three. I got a
Speaker 2: free flight to Europe when I was twenty three, a
Speaker 2: currier flight who yeah, a DHL. Used to before they
Speaker 2: would DHL, they would send their cargo as your excess baggage,
Speaker 2: so you would be a kid. All you had to
Speaker 2: do is bring the luggage tags and there'd be a
Speaker 2: guy at the other end, let's say in Zurich with
Speaker 2: as sign saying DHL. You get them the luggage tags,
Speaker 2: you're free to go. They don't pay you, but you
Speaker 2: get a coach seat on an airline that's going overseas,
Speaker 2: and you could even have your friend get the flight
Speaker 2: the day before on that route, meet up, have two
Speaker 2: weeks to come back, do the same thing on the
Speaker 2: way back.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 2: So that was amazing. I don't know if that exists anymore.
Speaker 2: Maybe if you if you're a drug courier.
Speaker 1: Maybe I was going to say, probably not new with
Speaker 1: that whole like did you pack these bags yourself?
Speaker 2: Right? Right? Probably not? So that that was my way
Speaker 2: in and since then I was like, oh I realized
Speaker 2: right away twenty three years old. First of all, oh
Speaker 2: my god, the food. Second of all, this is what
Speaker 2: your money's for. This is what you're excess money is for.
Speaker 2: For travel, not to buy crap that you don't need. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for these experiences. Have you traveled a lot? I have.
Speaker 1: I've been really lucky. I similarly to you, I got
Speaker 1: the bug early and yeah, because you know, I had
Speaker 1: the sort of golden handcuff situation of being on a
Speaker 1: show from the time that I was twenty one to thirty.
Speaker 1: I could never really go anywhere for an extended period
Speaker 1: of time because I was always working. But I started
Speaker 1: to figure out how to navigate, like, oh, if I
Speaker 1: have a Friday off, I can go to this city
Speaker 1: and visit this restaurant. Oh if I you know. A
Speaker 1: couple of seasons into our show being on, I think
Speaker 1: it was like season five, we all put our foot
Speaker 1: down and said, this Thursday Friday off for Thanksgiving is impossible.
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving is not a holiday. It's like you jump into family.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, you're cooking, it's stressful, you got to come
Speaker 1: back on Sunday. We said, let's just start three days
Speaker 1: earlier in July, and then we'll do the Monday, Tuesday,
Speaker 1: Wednesday also off, so people get a Saturday to the
Speaker 1: following Sunday with their families and you can actually see
Speaker 1: your family because you know, you're on set one hundred
Speaker 1: hours a week. And then I was like, my family,
Speaker 1: I love you, I'm traveling. So I went to Barcelona,
Speaker 1: I went to Iceland. I would take that week and
Speaker 1: go somewhere because I'd really never been able to go
Speaker 1: anywhere before, and it really started to change my life.
Speaker 2: It does change your life. Yeah, that's the whole message. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, I tell everybody it's very good for you
Speaker 2: to go because if you're nice, we should That's what
Speaker 2: we should be exporting is nice, and what you get
Speaker 2: back is invaluable. This new perspective, yeah, on life that
Speaker 2: you take with you.
Speaker 1: And you realize people everywhere are mostly the same. That's right,
Speaker 1: We're mostly the same. We mostly just want to take
Speaker 1: care of our families and have a good meal and
Speaker 1: have somebody make up laugh.
Speaker 2: And it's pretty amazing, great and nice and incredibly nice,
Speaker 2: Like you can't believe how nice they are a stranger,
Speaker 2: a visitor.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Well, and I like that you talk about
Speaker 1: that philosophy and that experience when you talk about your show,
Speaker 1: you really, you know, in reading interviews, you speak about
Speaker 1: how the show is really about human connection.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm just using food in my stupid sense
Speaker 2: and humor to get you in so that you'll get
Speaker 2: the real message.
Speaker 1: And I think for me especially, you know, my mom's
Speaker 1: family being Italian and then I'm this whole mixed bag
Speaker 1: of like Italian Catholics, Jews and atheists from Canada and
Speaker 1: my family, it's like it's a wild ride and we
Speaker 1: have a lot of very traditional food, which I love,
Speaker 1: and culturally, for me, the experiences have always been about
Speaker 1: breaking bread together and then you know, these these other
Speaker 1: cultures I've been lucky enough to study in the places
Speaker 1: in the world I've been able to travel. You know,
Speaker 1: whether it's sitting down for traditional food with people in Turkey,
Speaker 1: or you know, breaking Ramadan with my Muslim friends or
Speaker 1: whatever whatever, wherever you come from. The gathering around a
Speaker 1: table and walking people through your food and introducing people
Speaker 1: to where your food comes from and why the dishes
Speaker 1: are traditional. It's like, it's just one of my favorite
Speaker 1: things about being a person is getting to have that experience.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's great, that's everything. I got to experience Ramadan
Speaker 2: this season. Cool by how was it? Workers? Thousands of
Speaker 2: them in the street. They laid down tarps on the street.
Speaker 2: Everybody comes and sits cross legged on the streets the
Speaker 2: c you hear the call to prayer all around you.
Speaker 2: It's magical, so beautiful. That's in Dubai. You'll see gorgeous
Speaker 2: and the people are so sweet and friendly and welcoming.
Speaker 2: And it was great.
Speaker 1: Oh, I can't wait to see it on the show.
Speaker 2: Anyway, that day, when Raymond said, he goes to the
Speaker 2: Jersey store. He said, how about Europe. You ever been
Speaker 2: in Europe? He goes, nah, I said why now, and
Speaker 2: he goes, I'm not really interested in different. So they
Speaker 2: go to Jersey and I'm like, okay, we're gonna do
Speaker 2: that episode. He goes, what do you mean. I go,
Speaker 2: We're going to send you over as you and you're
Speaker 2: gonna come back as me. And we did that episode.
Speaker 2: Took four years to get him on a plane. He
Speaker 2: didn't want to fly, but we did it a two
Speaker 2: parter called Italy, and it came out very well. But
Speaker 2: the best thing about that is I saw the change
Speaker 2: that I wrote in the character. I saw happen to
Speaker 2: the person. I saw it happened to ray Ramon. I
Speaker 2: saw like he comes running over to me. He goes, Phil,
Speaker 2: have you had Jelato?
Speaker 1: Incredible?
Speaker 2: Then that got in deep know that you're doing what
Speaker 2: you do because you like turning people onto stuff you like. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's why we do things. That's my favorite thing, face this, Yeah, right.
Speaker 1: My favorite thing is to have an interesting conversation with someone.
Speaker 1: And I figured out how to turn it into my job.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: And the thing I like about it is that I
Speaker 1: can kind of do it anywhere anytime, so I can
Speaker 1: work it around a TV show or a movie. I
Speaker 1: can I can meet people where they are, I can
Speaker 1: meet people on zoom. It's just this incredible realization that
Speaker 1: much like sharing a meal, I can just share a
Speaker 1: conversation with someone.
Speaker 2: Well on my podcast, which you're inviting you now, I'll
Speaker 2: be there anytime. I hear both. Oh, it's called Naked Lunch.
Speaker 1: Love it.
Speaker 2: And we film it. We take it right here. This
Speaker 2: is my son's old bedroom and he moved out because
Speaker 2: he's because he's an adult. Table and chairs and that's
Speaker 2: where we do the podcast. We order in lunch and
Speaker 2: it's fun.
Speaker 1: Amazing. Yeah, what a dream. Yeah, and now a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsors.
Speaker 2: After Raymond, I thought, I'm going to write sitcoms. That's
Speaker 2: what I'm supposed to do. Nobody wanted them. Yeah, business change,
Speaker 2: while in those nine years everybody wanted friends. Right, well,
Speaker 2: I can't write friends. It's not my sensibility. I like
Speaker 2: the show, but it's not me. I write Everybody loves
Speaker 2: Raymond or that kind of family thing that I identify with. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they didn't want it. They said, just try to you know,
Speaker 2: we like you, but just do something more hip and edgy.
Speaker 2: I said, well you got the right guy. I'm mister
Speaker 2: hip and Edgy. And I knocked around for years. Again,
Speaker 2: like I said, but I had this idea, this dream
Speaker 2: of doing a food and travel show, and after ten
Speaker 2: years of trying to sell it to everyone, I finally
Speaker 2: walked into PBS. That was the first place that we did.
Speaker 2: The show was called I'll Have what Phil's Having, and
Speaker 2: I sold the show with one line. This is the line,
Speaker 2: I'm exactly like Anthony Bourdain if he was afraid of everything.
Speaker 2: And they understood what the show would be.
Speaker 1: They got it.
Speaker 2: They got it, and so I did six episodes there,
Speaker 2: and those first six episodes did very well. We won
Speaker 2: the James Beard Award for best show. Yeah, and then
Speaker 2: we were canceled. Don't know why. I think money had
Speaker 2: something to do with it. But there came this new
Speaker 2: place Netflix. Wow, and now you're going to see March
Speaker 2: first season seven.
Speaker 1: Incredible seven years. Yeah, what do you think when you
Speaker 1: look at these seven because you know, you can look
Speaker 1: back at these nine years of Everybody Loves Raymond and
Speaker 1: now you're looking back at these seven years of this show.
Speaker 1: Are there similar moments that just sing out at you
Speaker 1: as well? That was exceptionally cool.
Speaker 2: There's something in every episode where I never thought I
Speaker 2: would do it, and usually it's because my brother forced
Speaker 2: me to do it. It usually goes something like this,
Speaker 2: You're going to jump in that cold water. No I'm not,
Speaker 2: He says, yes you are. He said, no I'm not.
Speaker 2: He goes, yes you are. And then I do it
Speaker 2: and I may not enjoy it at the moment, but
Speaker 2: I'm then glad that I did it. And that baby
Speaker 2: step out of your comfort zone makes you braver next time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And for a lot of us, just getting off the
Speaker 2: couch and going somewhere is that baby step out of
Speaker 2: the comfort zone. And that's who the show's for. Yes,
Speaker 2: the show is for if you enjoyed your trip to Venice,
Speaker 2: you might enjoy seeing you to get right, But what
Speaker 2: about a place you've never been? And my attitude is like,
Speaker 2: if this puts me can go outside, maybe you can too. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm not Anthony Bourdaina. I'm not brave like he was.
Speaker 2: I'm not an adventurer like he was. I'm just a
Speaker 2: guy who likes to be comfortable, to be honest, and
Speaker 2: doesn't like going out of his comfort zone. But that's
Speaker 2: where all the magic happens.
Speaker 1: I like that though, think about it that way, a
Speaker 1: step towards bravery. And it's not lost on me that
Speaker 1: your brother does for you on your show, what you
Speaker 1: were doing for Rey when you made him go to Italy.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we all need that little push in the tush, right,
Speaker 2: we just let's go, let's go move, go. You can
Speaker 2: do it. Yeah. Sometimes terrible sometimes, Like in Austin, Texas,
Speaker 2: he put me in the Formula one Ferrari around their
Speaker 2: Formula one track. That was the worst thing that ever
Speaker 2: happened to me. Have you ever done that terrifying fast
Speaker 2: in a car?
Speaker 1: Terrifying?
Speaker 2: You did it?
Speaker 1: I didn't do a full Formula one. I did like
Speaker 1: a stop at a NASCAR thing, which is very similar
Speaker 1: and fast. Did you go enough that I felt like
Speaker 1: my eyeballs were going to come out of the back
Speaker 1: of my skull.
Speaker 2: Yes, I went hundred eighty seven miles an hour.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 2: You it's not pleasant at all. It's very violent. It's
Speaker 2: not And they hit the turns at that speed, and
Speaker 2: we see it on TV. Ites goes zoom m zoom
Speaker 2: around the track. No, it doesn't. You hit the brakes
Speaker 2: as you would have to going into a turn really hard,
Speaker 2: and you're thld one side and then the other and
Speaker 2: then back again. Foe, I'm old man.
Speaker 1: It might not be for people like us. Pill people
Speaker 1: like us want to eat food, not get beaten up
Speaker 1: at Well, that's what.
Speaker 2: I couldn't eat for like three days after that because
Speaker 2: I was so like. I went from there. I went
Speaker 2: to the pepto bismal factor.
Speaker 1: That's a horror show for you, it is. It is okay,
Speaker 1: So formula one aside.
Speaker 2: Yes, some of the.
Speaker 1: Things made perhaps like cold plunging. In hindsight, you're glad
Speaker 1: you've done it because you knew he'd push you. Was
Speaker 1: it nerve wracking to partner with your brother on this
Speaker 1: show or is it part of the reason you wanted
Speaker 1: to do The first.
Speaker 2: Call I made was to him because he'd already been
Speaker 2: a producer in TV shows and and I don't know
Speaker 2: if you're gonna if you get your dream, like PBS said,
Speaker 2: we're giving you six on the air, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The first person I call was him. I said, I
Speaker 2: got this, this gig. He's really they're gonna let you
Speaker 2: go around the world and eat what are they gonna
Speaker 2: call this show? The lucky bastard? I said, quit your
Speaker 2: job and come produce the show with me, and we'll
Speaker 2: call our production company lucky bastards.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, Yes, yes, amazing.
Speaker 2: And now I get to travel the world with my
Speaker 2: best friend.
Speaker 1: That's all I never he know, well, he won't hear this, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 2: To make sure you have to be team filled, not people.
Speaker 2: I do the live tour when I go and speak,
Speaker 2: and invariably somebody will raise their hand and where's Richard?
Speaker 2: And I call security.
Speaker 1: Wonderful, throw them out.
Speaker 2: That's right, turn the.
Speaker 1: Whole world upside down enough. He's a lucky enough bastard.
Speaker 2: But we do have fun and we we you know,
Speaker 2: we all I share the food, with the crew and
Speaker 2: with him, and it's just you see it. It's it's
Speaker 2: we understand me. Especially how lucky. How that's the I mean,
Speaker 2: who gets to do this?
Speaker 1: It's so cool? Where are you guys taking us? In
Speaker 1: season seven?
Speaker 2: Season seven, Dubai I mentioned right, we also go to Mumbai, India,
Speaker 2: have you no?
Speaker 1: I haven't. I'm dying to go.
Speaker 2: Amazing, absolutely amazing. Uh. They call it maximum City because
Speaker 2: it's everything. It's if you wanted to see New York
Speaker 2: in the seventies and this is like as one hundreds.
Speaker 2: You can't believe. It's like the first place I went
Speaker 2: in the show. You'll see it. It's like being dropped
Speaker 2: into the middle of a giant Times Square packed with
Speaker 2: people really hot on New Year's Eve. Wow, like that
Speaker 2: that's the feeling, okay, And with every manner of transportation scooters,
Speaker 2: tuk tuks, buses, cars, taxis, cows in the street. Yeah, insane,
Speaker 2: and they're all friendly and nice and great, amazing. You
Speaker 2: can't even believe how this is possible. Why there isn't
Speaker 2: a fistfight, but there's no traffic lights. Everyone's honking, beeping, beeping,
Speaker 2: but it's not hounk get out of my way, you know, jerk,
Speaker 2: it's I'm here. I'm here coming in. Oh okay, you're right,
Speaker 2: friendly and sweet. You see rich and poor next to
Speaker 2: each other, you see, but you don't see the kind
Speaker 2: of things we're seeing in LA and New York on
Speaker 2: the streets that I did not see in Mumbai, which
Speaker 2: I expected to see. Yes, there are people living in
Speaker 2: housing that you can't believe, like ten shacks on the
Speaker 2: way from the airport into the city. It's upsetting even
Speaker 2: but I didn't see the kind of I don't know,
Speaker 2: misery that I see in America. And there's something to
Speaker 2: be taken from that. I know there is. It kept
Speaker 2: me from going to Mumbai for a long time. How
Speaker 2: am I going to have my lighthearted food and travel
Speaker 2: show in such a place with such poverty? How do
Speaker 2: you square that? And then I realized, I guess I
Speaker 2: do what I always try to do, which is try
Speaker 2: to leave the place a tiny bit better than you
Speaker 2: found it. So we focus on at least one one
Speaker 2: or two charities per episode so that you see and
Speaker 2: maybe even get ideas of how you can give or
Speaker 2: start something here. Yeah, right, and then you're fun.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that you try to remind
Speaker 1: people that there is always something to do. Yes, always,
Speaker 1: you know, people will ask me, when the world's on fire,
Speaker 1: how do you also have joy? Especially because I do
Speaker 1: a lot. I try to do as much as I can,
Speaker 1: you know, political advocacy and volunteer work and fundraising, and
Speaker 1: I come back all the time. I've talked about it
Speaker 1: on this show before. There's a I don't know if
Speaker 1: you're a poetry fan, but there's a poet called Jack Gilbert.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and he wrote this poem called A Brief
Speaker 1: for the Defense, Okay, And the whole thesis of the
Speaker 1: piece is that there is always suffering somewhere, right when
Speaker 1: there's a group of people laughing in one city there's
Speaker 1: a group of people wailing in grief in another, and
Speaker 1: that this is the way of the world and it'll
Speaker 1: break your heart. But what it cannot do is make
Speaker 1: you abandoned delight, because if you are experiencing delight, you
Speaker 1: better experience it to the fullness of your being, because
Speaker 1: how dare you not knowing how many people are suffering
Speaker 1: and that you could be the one suffering next, Like,
Speaker 1: when you have delight, you gotta take it. And if
Speaker 1: you can turn your delight into a way to channel
Speaker 1: resources toward others at the same time. Yeah, what a
Speaker 1: gift like you can highlight charities on a show about food.
Speaker 1: What an amazing thing you get to do, and you
Speaker 1: better enjoy it for as many episodes as you get
Speaker 1: to do it.
Speaker 2: Nobody enjoys it more than me. I realize that that's
Speaker 2: maybe the meaning of life at my old age. This
Speaker 2: is what I've learned.
Speaker 1: Say more about that.
Speaker 2: It's a one way street. Right, Let's assum for a
Speaker 2: minute that maybe there's no heaven, maybe this is all
Speaker 2: there is, and then if there's heaven, we'll be delightfully surprised.
Speaker 2: Some of us may be going the other way. But
Speaker 2: let's assume why not live life as if this is
Speaker 2: all there is? Because for all we know, it may be.
Speaker 2: So do we want to be happy or saying? Do
Speaker 2: we want to be joyful or terrible? And most people
Speaker 2: in the world that I meet, which makes me more joyful,
Speaker 2: most people are nice. Yeah, you know stuff that we
Speaker 2: see on the news. Of course it's depressing, and of
Speaker 2: course I get upset and angry even and frustrated at
Speaker 2: the injustices and the terribleness. But we have to realize
Speaker 2: that it's on the news because it's out of the ordinary.
Speaker 2: Not everybody's like that. There's not horrible criminals doing terrible
Speaker 2: things all the time. In fact, most people are nice
Speaker 2: and get along in the world. I even say this
Speaker 2: as a generality. Most people are so much better than
Speaker 2: their governments. Yes, they, like you said, we do all
Speaker 2: want the same thing, a happy, healthy life for us
Speaker 2: and our kids. Right, good schools, good food, clean air
Speaker 2: and water. Right, we all want that, and that's how
Speaker 2: most of us live in the world. You've seen it.
Speaker 2: If you trap, you've seen it, and there are ideas
Speaker 2: to be taken from other countries who seem to have
Speaker 2: the answers. Have you been to Japan?
Speaker 1: Yeah, once in my teens. I'd really like to go
Speaker 1: back as an adult.
Speaker 2: So we go to Kyoto in this season, and Kyoto
Speaker 2: is one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been
Speaker 2: in my life. I can't believe how spectacular beautiful it is. Now.
Speaker 2: Monica got to come with me, my wife got to
Speaker 2: come with me, and it was like a second honeymoon
Speaker 2: being there. So it was the only Japanese city that
Speaker 2: wasn't bombed during World War two and so it has
Speaker 2: over two thousand ancient temples and shrines in the city,
Speaker 2: right that are like a thousand years old. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: will love it. And of course the food and just
Speaker 2: the way of their esthetic, their way of being. You know.
Speaker 2: My line is that you go to the drug store
Speaker 2: and you buy a pack of gum and they wrap
Speaker 2: it for you as if it's for your one hundredth birthday.
Speaker 2: That's the care and attention to detail and kind of
Speaker 2: serene beauty that permeates every aspect of life, it seems
Speaker 2: there and you try to get some of that in
Speaker 2: your life.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, it reminds you much like that idea of
Speaker 1: what you were sharing a moment ago. You can choose
Speaker 1: to cling to the joy in every day. You can
Speaker 1: choose to see it every day.
Speaker 2: It is a choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know you can. You can wrap a
Speaker 1: pack of gum if you want to. You can make
Speaker 1: anything beautiful.
Speaker 2: That's right. I got to show you one thing. Can
Speaker 2: you see that? Do you know what that is? Can
Speaker 2: you see that?
Speaker 1: What is that? It looks like an apple, but I
Speaker 1: can tell it's made of paper or maybe it's candy.
Speaker 2: It's something wrapped in cloth. That's a cloth wrapping.
Speaker 1: Oh, it looks like a green apple to me on
Speaker 1: the zoom scull.
Speaker 2: That's right, it does. Yeah. That is the extra roll
Speaker 2: of toilet paper in the hotel, built on a shelf
Speaker 2: designed just for that purpose. It's so grateful. Wow, isn't
Speaker 2: that great?
Speaker 1: So cool?
Speaker 2: That's just an idea of how it is in Kyoto.
Speaker 2: You won't believe. Whoa, that's an ice cream cone. That's
Speaker 2: an ice cream cone. All of that is edible.
Speaker 1: Beautiful.
Speaker 2: Isn't that gorgeous? And the ice cream store is a
Speaker 2: combination ice cream store and florist. Wow, so there's something
Speaker 2: is your edible flower ice cream cone?
Speaker 1: So beautiful?
Speaker 2: Yeah? How do you not like transform by magic like that? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So special? You see the care and detail and then
Speaker 2: it's delicious too. Mm hmm uh So what did I say? Kyoto, Mumbai, Dubai, Taipei.
Speaker 2: Have you been a Taipei Best street food in the world.
Speaker 2: I gotta go a lot of the Chinese food that
Speaker 2: we have in La, especially in the San Gabriel Valley.
Speaker 2: You can find a lot of Taiwanese.
Speaker 1: Yeah, incredible food in the valley.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Iceland, you mentioned you had been, we go there.
Speaker 2: I love it spectacular. Did you see the northern lights?
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 2: I've been a times, a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I loved Iceland so much. I've now been three times.
Speaker 1: I just think it's magic.
Speaker 2: Wow. We were there when the volcano was starting to
Speaker 2: go off. No, yeah, not the giant eruption, but you saw,
Speaker 2: we saw the fire. We saw it stuff. It was awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, spectacul Isn't it wild when something like that happens
Speaker 1: and you go, oh, I forgot that We're just these
Speaker 1: tiny little people on a planet.
Speaker 2: Yes, So enjoy every second because you never know when
Speaker 2: the volcano is going to come up underneath you.
Speaker 1: There it is?
Speaker 2: It is it?
Speaker 1: Is it that spirit of joy you think because it
Speaker 1: I mean it just it seeps out of you. Phil,
Speaker 1: It's who you are. Is that something that when you
Speaker 1: think about ways you want to grab it, harness it,
Speaker 1: what you want to do with it? Is that what
Speaker 1: inspired you to write a children's book with your daughter?
Speaker 1: As if you're not doing enough cool things? You've written
Speaker 1: a children's book. Can you walk us through it and
Speaker 1: tell us what it's about? I mean, friends, you know
Speaker 1: how I geek out on great children's books, and this
Speaker 1: one is so special. I need to know how you
Speaker 1: guys decided to do it this year.
Speaker 2: What happened. I have a very smart, beautiful daughter named
Speaker 2: Lily who's twenty six now, and she texts me one
Speaker 2: day she found the text from two years ago. Dad,
Speaker 2: you should write a children's book about how you eat
Speaker 2: everything and you had a little girl who wouldn't eat anything.
Speaker 2: And I said, that's a great idea, Lily, I'll do
Speaker 2: it with you, and she said you will, I said,
Speaker 2: of course. And we wrote it together and we found
Speaker 2: a great illustrator and it's called just Try It about
Speaker 2: a dat who eats everything in this little girl who
Speaker 2: won't eat anything.
Speaker 1: It's so sweet.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Thanks, And we have.
Speaker 2: A little tour coming up where we'll be going to
Speaker 2: like five cities and doing bookstores and yeah, I wasn't
Speaker 2: reading to the kids. Yeah, Lily's really looking forward to it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's it's so fun. What a cool thing that
Speaker 1: you get to do that with your daughter.
Speaker 2: Every morning I wake up and feel grateful. That's I'm
Speaker 2: sure you've heard this from other people that you've spoken to,
Speaker 2: that that's really the secret, and I'm sure you feel
Speaker 2: the same way. I'm grateful that I got up. Look
Speaker 2: at my dog is on my bed and next to
Speaker 2: me is my wife of thirty four years. Wow, life
Speaker 2: is good. I have a house, I have a roof
Speaker 2: over my home. My kids are happy, my son is
Speaker 2: getting married. My daughter has a nice boyfriend who's a chef.
Speaker 2: He's a great chef. I win again. So that's the
Speaker 2: base level is gratitude. Now, it doesn't mean that I
Speaker 2: don't get angry and frustrated and upset about terrible things
Speaker 2: that happen. No, of course I'm a person. But people
Speaker 2: say they see me on the show, you look so happy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm happy doing that, right, Why wouldn't I be happy?
Speaker 2: Walk through? Like, here we go again in another place.
Speaker 2: I've gotta eat. No, I'm thrilled to be there. I'm
Speaker 2: thrilled to see the new place and meet the new people.
Speaker 2: They're always sweet to me, so I look forward to it.
Speaker 2: That the hardest part of doing my show is waiting
Speaker 2: to do the show.
Speaker 1: I love that if you love what you do for work,
Speaker 1: it'll never feel like work in your life.
Speaker 2: Right, exactly right. Mark Twain said, make your vacation your vocation.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. And now a word from our wonderful sponsors.
Speaker 1: That feels like a good segue into my favorite question, Phil,
Speaker 1: because you've nailed it, you know, from the charitable work
Speaker 1: you do on the show, and you know, I even
Speaker 1: got to read about the incredible work you did hosting
Speaker 1: rescued recipes, this fundraiser dinner that raised money for Holocaust remembrance.
Speaker 1: That's such a big, heavy cultural experience. And then you
Speaker 1: travel the world and you bring joy into these places
Speaker 1: and these populations of people, and where there is light,
Speaker 1: there is heaviness, and you highlight both. You highlight joy
Speaker 1: and culture. You sit down with people who suffer around
Speaker 1: the world, and you make sure you advocate for their causes,
Speaker 1: for their communities, for their charities, and then you figure
Speaker 1: out these incredible ways to turn your happiest moments into
Speaker 1: projects we get to share, like this book that you're
Speaker 1: doing with your daughter. You remind me that it is
Speaker 1: possible to do all of it and still carry your
Speaker 1: lightheartedness in everything that you do. And I wonder when
Speaker 1: when you think about what's next or how you want
Speaker 1: to continue you on this path. As you look into this,
Speaker 1: you know, opening year of twenty twenty four, what feels
Speaker 1: like your work in progress because from the outside it
Speaker 1: looks like you have a lot of things figured out.
Speaker 1: So so if you think about a work in progress,
Speaker 1: are what are you still working on? What are you
Speaker 1: still tinkering with?
Speaker 2: The show has my heart And because it's not a
Speaker 2: year round gig, you know, we can film the season
Speaker 2: in three months. What do I do the rest of them? Wow? Right?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Because it's usually you know, five six episodes, right, and yeah,
Speaker 2: sometimes the order is for ten episodes. This order that's
Speaker 2: coming up season seven is eight episodes, but one season, right,
Speaker 2: so that's before it would be ten episodes seasons five
Speaker 2: and six, right, so this is eight episodes, so actually
Speaker 2: two episodes less, just eight episodes at once. Okay, fine,
Speaker 2: but now I have to wait to see if we're
Speaker 2: picked up again. You never know, just like you were saying,
Speaker 2: you were always on the bubble. That's how I live now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But what do I do in the meantime? I do
Speaker 2: the children's book with Lily. I do the live tour
Speaker 2: where I go around and get to talk about exactly
Speaker 2: what we're talking about. This is the message, right, we
Speaker 2: sure highlight real. I'm on with a moderator for a
Speaker 2: little while then I open it up to audience questions,
Speaker 2: which is always my favorite part because I get to
Speaker 2: meet more great people right around the country and even
Speaker 2: I've done it in Europe and I just got back
Speaker 2: from Australia this fall. It's lovely. The best thing about
Speaker 2: the job, and I'll bet you'll agree about what you do,
Speaker 2: is meeting the people who are so sweet, right. That
Speaker 2: makes you feel good about the world when you meet
Speaker 2: so many nice people. So that's everything to me, and
Speaker 2: that's the project. It doesn't mean I don't have other
Speaker 2: ideas try to pursue. Sometimes I'll even have a sitcom
Speaker 2: idea and I'll ride it with a friend of mine
Speaker 2: or something, or a younger person who knows more about
Speaker 2: the world today and what. But so far, I just
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't have to tell you the business
Speaker 2: seems crazy right now.
Speaker 1: It's wild out there.
Speaker 2: It's wild out there, yes, so can we can either
Speaker 2: worry about it or get on a plane maybe.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that if you're lucky enough
Speaker 1: to be able to travel, go that's it.
Speaker 2: And my kids kids are like, oh, well, you get
Speaker 2: to go, you get to go fancy. I'm like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I built my way up to fancy. No, I've earned
Speaker 2: the right, and I'm the age where I'm going to
Speaker 2: lie down on the flight, especially a flight that's you know,
Speaker 2: fifteen sixteen hours.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, you've earned it.
Speaker 2: But when I was a kid, when I was in
Speaker 2: my twenties, took the coach seat the cheapest, even when
Speaker 2: I wasn't a courier. They had very cheap flights to
Speaker 2: Europe at that time. They still have bargains like this.
Speaker 2: You get the cheapest flight you can because the main
Speaker 2: thing is to get there. And then you're in Paris
Speaker 2: and you buy a baguette and a piece of cheese
Speaker 2: and you sit in the park for free, and for
Speaker 2: five bucks you're having the most delicious thing you ever
Speaker 2: had in your life, in the most beautiful place you've
Speaker 2: ever seen, and you're as good as anybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, And you know what, the really special
Speaker 1: thing you learn when you've lived long enough is that
Speaker 1: that's still the thing you want to do. You might
Speaker 1: have earned, you know, you might be your age and
Speaker 1: have earned a better seat on the way over there, whatever,
Speaker 1: but you still just I still just want to get
Speaker 1: the bag out and sit in the park, That's right.
Speaker 1: Sit on the sand, get a cheap bottle of wine
Speaker 1: with two friends.
Speaker 2: Hey, they have some pretzels there, Mustard, let's go, let's
Speaker 2: go fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the rest of it's a little bit of an illusion.
Speaker 1: But when you get on to what really lights up
Speaker 1: your soul. Yeah, like we said earlier, we're all the same.
Speaker 2: I love the street food. I'd rather have a great
Speaker 2: hot dog than a four hour French meal where my
Speaker 2: back hurt's thinking about it, I'd rather just have the
Speaker 2: delicious thing. Just give me the delicious thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me walk around and eat the delicious things
Speaker 1: and meet new people. Oh, I love it. I can't
Speaker 1: wait to come over for lunch.
Speaker 2: Come on, where are you traveling next?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm on the East Coast this month, so I'm
Speaker 1: stopping in at you know, all my favorite spots to eat.
Speaker 2: In New York. And yeah, have you been to the
Speaker 2: Industry Pizza yet?
Speaker 1: No? I just went to Ruby Rosa last week, which
Speaker 1: that's good.
Speaker 2: Oh, and I want to recommend Mama's too, Okay for
Speaker 2: the West Side one hundred and sixty Broadway, that's great,
Speaker 2: all the way up okay, and Raza's and Jersey City great.
Speaker 1: I'll take your whole list.
Speaker 2: Okay, people, if you're listening, go to Phil rosenthalworld dot com.
Speaker 2: You have all my picks from the shows.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that. Yeah, that'll be a good resource
Speaker 1: friends at home. We'll put that up on our Instagram
Speaker 1: resources for this episode, so you guys have a nice
Speaker 1: quick link. Phil. You're just a ball. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on today. I just I adore you.
Speaker 1: I knew I would because all my friends told me so,
Speaker 1: but I'm so glad to have finally had a moment
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 2: Well, Sophia, you do not disappoint as they say. You're
Speaker 2: lovely and great and sweet things. And we're gonna be
Speaker 2: friends now and we're going to eat.
Speaker 1: Can't wait.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me