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Speaker 1: Comedian Tom Dreesen toured and opened for Frank Sinatra around

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Speaker 1: the world for fourteen years, but it was the personal

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Speaker 1: lessons he picked up from the chairman of the board

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Speaker 1: that marked his life and career. He shares some of

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Speaker 1: those lessons and the Sinatra few ever got to see

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Speaker 1: on this edition of the Arroyo Grande Podcast. Come on,

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Speaker 1: I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to the Arroyo Grande Podcast. Go

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Speaker 1: subscribe to the show. Now turn the notifications on. Do that.

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Speaker 1: I don't want you to miss what's coming. First, a

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Speaker 1: little free flow before we get to Tom Dreesen. Have

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Speaker 1: you seen this video of French President Emmanuel Macrone arriving

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Speaker 1: in Vietnam. They opened the door to his plane and

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Speaker 1: his wife Brigitte mauls him like an aged bear. What

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Speaker 1: is that? I love the attempt at recovery. He sees

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Speaker 1: the camera. He seems to say, I'm perfectly fine, He's okay.

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Speaker 1: The last time I saw a spouse treated this badly

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Speaker 1: on camera it was video from the Ditty Trial. Whatever

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Speaker 1: tiff these two were having. The Macrones pulled themselves together

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Speaker 1: and descended the staircase. Missus Macron did not take her

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Speaker 1: husband's arm. The President later said, we were squabbling and

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Speaker 1: rather joking with my wife. When she smacks you in

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Speaker 1: the face in public, I wouldn't call that a joke.

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Speaker 1: I'd call for a restraining order. Whatever's happening between the

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Speaker 1: president and his wife, they are both representing their country.

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Speaker 1: This is not a moment to audition for real housewives

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Speaker 1: of Paris Brigitte, or to humiliate your spouse during an

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Speaker 1: official foreign trip. That's what hotel rooms are for. My

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Speaker 1: favorite quote was from the Illas Palace. They said it

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Speaker 1: was a moment of closeness between the couple. Yeah, her

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Speaker 1: hands were close to his face. It was a moment

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Speaker 1: when the president and his wife were relaxing one lafe time,

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Speaker 1: having a laugh. I'd hate to see what a cry

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Speaker 1: looked like in the Makron house. Anyway, I'm glad the

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Speaker 1: President had no visible scars from his closeness, and I

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Speaker 1: hope next time Ms Macrone remembers to keep her domestic

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Speaker 1: abuse domestic. Now to our deep dive. Tom Dreesen is

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Speaker 1: a comics comic. He has opened for everyone from Smokey

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Speaker 1: Robinson to Sammy Davis Junior. He's appeared on national television

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Speaker 1: more than five hundred times. For fourteen years he toured

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Speaker 1: with and befriended the legendary Frank Sinatra. Tonight, he joins

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Speaker 1: me to talk about his incredible career, what Sinatra taught him,

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Speaker 1: and why he always had to wear a tucks with

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Speaker 1: the chairman of the board. Here's Tommy Dreason. What was

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Speaker 1: your favorite night with Frank Sinatra?

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Speaker 2: Wow? You know there were so many, so many nights

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Speaker 2: that in the car alone with him, where he opened

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Speaker 2: up to me about his child and about his driving

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Speaker 2: a dad does and Palm Desert. He would come and

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Speaker 2: get me out of my bungalow, and his compound was

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Speaker 2: his bungalows all on the outer perimeter New York, New York,

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Speaker 2: Strangers in a night tender trap, my way named after

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Speaker 2: a song. And he'd come and get me out of

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Speaker 2: my bungalow and just stick a ride on me, and

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Speaker 2: we'd ride it. Some nights. He'd open up about his

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Speaker 2: salad and things like that. One night he told me

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Speaker 2: something really personal, really really personal. And after he told

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Speaker 2: it to me, he said, I shouldn't have told you that.

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Speaker 2: I said, well, and I'm driving back to the compound.

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Speaker 2: The son's coming up and I said, well, it won't

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Speaker 2: go any further than this car. He said, I know,

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Speaker 2: I know, but I shouldn't have told you that. I said, well,

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Speaker 2: you know, it's not like we're strangers. We're friends. And

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Speaker 2: I don't know what made me do it. I said,

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Speaker 2: strangers in the night. He said, for God's sake, if

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Speaker 2: you're going to sing a song, get in key. So

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Speaker 2: he goes strangers in the night, I said, exchanging glances.

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Speaker 2: He said, wondering in the night. I said, we're the change.

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Speaker 2: Now we're singing that song. Pulling into the compound and

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Speaker 2: we get out of the car park, carry got a

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Speaker 2: car of good night, tom can I Tommy, I'm going

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Speaker 2: back to my Bunglow And I'm thinking if I were

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Speaker 2: to go back to my own neighborhood and tell all

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Speaker 2: the guys in the bar. I was just riding around

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Speaker 2: with Frank Sinatra and we were singing Strangers in the Night.

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Speaker 2: They'd say, get the hell out of here. But it happened,

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Speaker 2: and it was a moment. I'll never forget going to

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Speaker 2: church with him, being on stages, with him, him calling

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Speaker 2: me back out for another bow. He'd do that every

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Speaker 2: night in Vegas, Like when I finished my show. I

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Speaker 2: would exit stage right, he would interstage right, we'd criss cross.

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Speaker 2: He'd go to center stage while the band is vamping,

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Speaker 2: and he'd call me, Tommy, come back and take another bow.

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Speaker 2: Tommy treson this shoeshine boy on my hands and knees,

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Speaker 2: and Frank Sinatras on the jukebox. And now I'm in

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Speaker 2: this private jet flying all over the world, and now

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Speaker 2: he's calling me back out on stage. Those are moments.

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Speaker 2: Those are hard to describe.

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Speaker 1: Tommy, come out, take another bow.

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Speaker 2: Tom Grayson, Lady and gentlemen, there he is. That's my man,

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Speaker 2: my number one man.

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Speaker 1: Tell me how growing up in Chicago prepared you for

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Speaker 1: this life avocation.

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Speaker 2: I grew up in a suburb on the south side

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Speaker 2: of Chicago called Harvey, Illinois, with steel mills and factories.

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Speaker 2: They made everything from klutch plates, the crank shafts, thirty

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Speaker 2: six taverns in the town, steel mills all around the town.

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Speaker 2: And I had eight brothers and sisters. We lived in

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Speaker 2: a shack, very poor. We had no bathtub, no shower,

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Speaker 2: no hot water. If you had holes in your shoes,

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Speaker 2: you put cardboard in. If a window broke, you stuck

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Speaker 2: a rag in it, you know. So I shined shoes

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Speaker 2: in taverns, I set pins and bowling alleys. I caddied

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Speaker 2: in the summertime. I sold newspapers on the corner, all

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Speaker 2: to help feed my brothers and sisters. And none of

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Speaker 2: this do I regret at all. I think it was

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Speaker 2: a great one of the greatest blessings. But how I

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Speaker 2: got interested in comedy. The last tavern that I would

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Speaker 2: go to, i'd shine shoes. And all the taverns in

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Speaker 2: my neighborhood, there was eight of them in my neighborhood.

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Speaker 2: The last tavern i'd go to, my mother was a bartender,

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Speaker 2: and my uncle owned the bar, my mom's brother in law,

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Speaker 2: uncle Frank Frank Pelisia, And he told jokes behind the bar.

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Speaker 2: And I would sit in the bar and wait for

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Speaker 2: the shifts to change to go back out there. But

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Speaker 2: I watch him, and he would tell jokes behind the bar.

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Speaker 2: And I was a kid, but I was fascinated. I

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Speaker 2: was nine years old, ten years old. I was fascinated

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Speaker 2: that with his vocabulary, his vernacular, that he could pause

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Speaker 2: at him and say something and cause his sound to

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Speaker 2: come out of everybody's body and fill the room like electricity.

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Speaker 2: And unite everybody. And I just thought that was fascinating.

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Speaker 2: And I used to tell many of his jokes that

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Speaker 2: should not be told on a Catholic school playground. But

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Speaker 2: that's what got me interested in being funny.

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Speaker 1: Wow, and you go. It was a It was a

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Speaker 1: mixed neighborhood you grew up in, Oh yeah, which also

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Speaker 1: would pay dividends down the road. I mean your great

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Speaker 1: comic pairing, which I'll get to in a minute, But

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Speaker 1: tell me about there's a shoeshine incident that you relate

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Speaker 1: in your book Still Standing, and where a guy demands

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Speaker 1: that you sing a song.

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Speaker 2: What happened my brother? You know, I was supposed to

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Speaker 2: try out for a little league. Little league had come

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Speaker 2: to Harvey, Illinois, and I was a good athlete. I

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Speaker 2: love sports, and so I went to try out for

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Speaker 2: it and I made it. But at the end, the

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Speaker 2: guy said each kid would need twenty dollars and it

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Speaker 2: was for like insurance, and you had to buy your

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Speaker 2: own spikes or something like that. You got your uniform free,

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Speaker 2: and I walked away knowing I can't get that wouldn't

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Speaker 2: happen for me. I had to meet my brother that

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Speaker 2: night and shine shoes and all the bars. You know,

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Speaker 2: my older brother and I would go in the bars,

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Speaker 2: and the first part we went to was Spurrows Tavern

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Speaker 2: and it was a straight bar. My brother went to

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Speaker 2: the end of the bar and I started the front

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Speaker 2: shoe Shine, shoe Shine. We sharged fifteen cents of shine.

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Speaker 2: Most of the time you got a quarter if you're lucky,

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Speaker 2: you know, yeah, so nohow. The third guy I got

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Speaker 2: to was a big red face drunk. He turned around

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Speaker 2: and he said to me, yeah, I want to shine,

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Speaker 2: I want to shine, and I'm going to give you

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Speaker 2: two dollars and he put two one dollar blows up. Now,

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Speaker 2: when my brother and I had a good night, rarely

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Speaker 2: had a good night would happen. But if we had

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Speaker 2: a reugen night, we could go to the bakery and

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Speaker 2: get e claars day old e clares and bringing home

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Speaker 2: to my brothers and sisters. And we looked like Babe

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Speaker 2: Ruth and Mickey Malo walking through that with a clers.

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Speaker 2: So when he held up the two dollars, I looked

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Speaker 2: at her and he said, I'm gonna give you two dollars,

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Speaker 2: and my brother looked out and you know it's e

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Speaker 2: Claire time. I said, yes, sir, I got. I said, oh,

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Speaker 2: hold on, hold on, you got to sing Chad Noooga

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Speaker 2: shoeshine boy while you're shining my shoes. Now, it was

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Speaker 2: on all the juke boxes, and I knew the song,

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Speaker 2: but I was too shy and too embarrassed to do that.

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Speaker 2: I said, sir, I don't know that song. And my brother,

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Speaker 2: my older brother, was tough guy. He said, sir, he

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Speaker 2: knows that song. And he gave me that look like

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Speaker 2: it could be also butt whip and time if you know.

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Speaker 2: Now I'm so embarrassed, and all the bar got quiet,

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Speaker 2: and I start going, have you ever passed the corner

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Speaker 2: of Fourth and Grand We're a little ball? No, No,

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Speaker 2: I can't here. We can't hear him, can we?

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Speaker 1: Boys can't hear him?

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Speaker 2: Now I'm just about ready to cry, you know, All

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Speaker 2: of a sudden, I hated this big, fat, red face drunk.

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Speaker 2: I hated him, and I hated my father because my

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Speaker 2: father wasn't an alcoholic. I mean, at that moment, I

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Speaker 2: hate him that I wouldn't be on this bar. I'd

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Speaker 2: be out there playing baseball with the kids. But I

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Speaker 2: sang that song, and I sang with more energy. You know,

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Speaker 2: have you ever passed the corner up fourth and Grand

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Speaker 2: or a little ball of ribbon has a shoe shine? Stand?

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Speaker 2: And I did some. He pops a boogie woogie rag

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Speaker 2: and I popped there, pow that chad nooga shoeshand. But

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Speaker 2: when I got done, I stood up and I said,

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Speaker 2: I want my two dollars. And he started to applaud,

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Speaker 2: and the whole bar started to applaud, and no one

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Speaker 2: had ever applauded me before, and I thought, wow, all

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Speaker 2: of a sudden, he didn't look like a big red facebalk.

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Speaker 2: He looked like Santa Claus. And I want and I

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Speaker 2: always say to this day, whenever I walk by a

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Speaker 2: baseball park, if I see a little boy with the

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Speaker 2: holes in his shoes and raggedy clothes peeking through the

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Speaker 2: fence that every little boys with baseball uniforms, I know

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Speaker 2: just how he feels. And to this day, whenever I

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Speaker 2: see somebody on stage getting applause and cheers for the

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Speaker 2: first time, I know just how they feel too. And

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Speaker 2: then I walk away and saying, have you ever passed

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Speaker 2: the corner from.

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Speaker 1: Pop that rank? Tell me you you then go into

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Speaker 1: the navy, you sell insurance. When you come out and

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Speaker 1: you're really good at it. Tell me how you meet

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Speaker 1: Tim Reid, who would become your comedy partner.

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Speaker 2: I dropped out of high school at sixteen, running with

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Speaker 2: a tough group and all that stuff. At age seventeen,

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Speaker 2: I went in the Navy, got a high school high

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Speaker 2: school diploma from the Navy, and I said, I went

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Speaker 2: taking courses in junior college and stuff. Anyhow, I get

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Speaker 2: out of the Navy, I get married, I got three kids.

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Speaker 2: I'm wandering from job the job. I'm a bartender. I'm

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Speaker 2: a truck driver. I'm a Teamster Union guy loading trucks.

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Speaker 2: Then I dropped my teams to car and I became

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Speaker 2: foreman of all these these teams. Heares you know, forty

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Speaker 2: eight guys. I just went from job. I'm wandering aimlessly,

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Speaker 2: never finding what it is I wanted to do. I

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Speaker 2: joined a civic group called the jc's Junior Chamber of

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Speaker 2: Commerce that worked on problems of the community, and doing

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Speaker 2: so was the leader. You taught you leadership training program,

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Speaker 2: serve on the committee, how to share a committee, how

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Speaker 2: to conduct the meeting, Robert rules of order, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: Eache And I got very active in community affairs, and

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Speaker 2: I wrote a drug education program, teaching grade school children

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Speaker 2: the ills of drug abuse with humor, a concept I

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Speaker 2: had that getting in those days. They weren't teaching drug

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Speaker 2: education at a college or a high school level, let

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Speaker 2: alone elementary school level. But I wanted eighth graders to

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Speaker 2: know about this before they went into high school. In

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Speaker 2: many cases, we were too late.

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Speaker 1: They were already and using comedy to do.

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Speaker 2: It well, playing records, getting their tension and then doing

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Speaker 2: jokes and getting the kids laughing, and then planning the siege,

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Speaker 2: opening up their minds, you know, getting them relaxed and

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Speaker 2: tim read again. Let me digress here from it. I

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Speaker 2: was praying at that time. I was wandering aimlessly. I

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Speaker 2: was saying, God, what is I'm supposed to be doing this?

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Speaker 2: Can't be at these job after job after job. I

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Speaker 2: would do them well, but I wasn't satisfied. I was

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Speaker 2: being the bars of my buddies at two o'clock in

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Speaker 2: the morning, drinking, thinking I don't belong here, but I

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Speaker 2: didn't know where I belong. Some praying at a cension church,

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Speaker 2: at a cension church where I had been an altar boy.

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Speaker 2: You did your homework I've been in Altimore. I sang

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Speaker 2: in the choir. My mom sang in the choir when

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Speaker 2: she was a young girl. Anyhow, and so the night

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Speaker 2: I'm proposing this drug education program to the jc's for

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Speaker 2: then the sanction it. After I got done, a young

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Speaker 2: black man comes up. He had just joined the chapter.

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Speaker 2: He graduated from Norfolk State College. EI Doan recruited him

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Speaker 2: in the Chicago. He comes up to me and he said,

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Speaker 2: I'd like to work with you on that project. I said, gee,

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I already got a guy, a friend of

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Speaker 2: mine named John Debora, a white guy. Again as prayers

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Speaker 2: are answered. The next day, John de Borr Calls me

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Speaker 2: and said, I can't do that with you. I got

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Speaker 2: a new job and I can't do that project. I said, gee,

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Speaker 2: what was that black guy's name? Oh yeah, Tim Reid. Wow,

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Speaker 2: call Tim. We worked on the program. We go into

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Speaker 2: the school systems. The program became very successful. Jc's used

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Speaker 2: it as a model program in fifty states and twenty

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Speaker 2: two foreign countries on how to teach drug education at

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Speaker 2: an eighth grade level program very successful. One day, leaving

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Speaker 2: the class from a little eighth grade girl said, you

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Speaker 2: guys are funny you ought to become a comedy team

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Speaker 2: in the thought of a black white comedy team intrigued

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Speaker 2: us because no one had ever done that before. So

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Speaker 2: we start writing what we thought was a material. Keep

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Speaker 2: in mind, there weren't any comedy clubs in America in

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Speaker 2: those days nineteen sixty nine, there were no where.

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Speaker 1: Did you play?

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Speaker 2: We had to do what they called the Chitlin circuit,

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Speaker 2: black owned, black operated nightclubs. The twenty Grand in Detroit,

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Speaker 2: that's where the motown was in those days, the High

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Speaker 2: Chaparral in Chicago, the Learning Spare of Guys in Galas Lounges,

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Speaker 2: the Cotton Club, Sugar Shack and Boston, the Club Haarlem

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Speaker 2: and Atlantic City, and then we ended up working the

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Speaker 2: Playboy circuit as well.

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Speaker 1: But what was it like to be the first integrated

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Speaker 1: comedy act. Well, it was the first of its kind.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, First people had to go.

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Speaker 1: There had to be some audiences that went, whoa you could?

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Speaker 2: You would be in a rowdy, noisy club, hu and

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Speaker 2: they'd introduce us people in here in the introduction. We'd

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Speaker 2: walk on stage and you're here a hush, oh, what

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Speaker 2: is this all about? A black guy and a white guy?

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Speaker 2: You know, and it was I mean, on the fourth

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Speaker 2: time on stage, the guy put a cigarette out on

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Speaker 2: Tim's face and then tried to beat the hell out

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Speaker 2: of me. And I boxed when I was in the service,

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Speaker 2: but he outweighed me by one hundred pounds. And it

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Speaker 2: was just some redneck. You know. The interesting thing about

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Speaker 2: racism in those days, if there was a black guy

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Speaker 2: who hated white people, I hated him with a passion.

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Speaker 2: He wasn't mad at me. He was mad at Tim

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Speaker 2: for being with me. If there was a redneck white

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Speaker 2: guy who hated you know, black people, he was mad.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't matter Tim.

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Speaker 2: He was mad at me for being with Tim. You know,

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Speaker 2: I was the N word lover, and he didn't mind

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Speaker 2: calling me that, you know. So, but that happened rarely.

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Speaker 2: For the most part, people liked what we did. Once

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Speaker 2: in a while, you'd run into that element.

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Speaker 1: Well when I I mean, I remember seeing clips of

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Speaker 1: the act and pictures of you altogether. It seems to

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Speaker 1: me it was really a continuation of what you were

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Speaker 1: doing in your program because you were bringing people together,

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Speaker 1: You were unifying people to trying to lighten their load

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Speaker 1: a bit and realize we're all we're all in this together,

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Speaker 1: and we're really the same.

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Speaker 2: Well. Absolutely. The interesting thing is people think that the

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Speaker 2: comedian is bringing the audience together. The audience is bringing

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Speaker 2: the audience together with their laughter. The audience brings themselves

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Speaker 2: together with their laughter. You know, they you know, I

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Speaker 2: don't know how many times I've said this, but the

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Speaker 2: one thing that I will take to my grave and

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Speaker 2: Tim will do the same. I can't tell you how

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Speaker 2: many times we did college as high schools anywhere there

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Speaker 2: was racial tension. We went the prisons. We did eleven

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Speaker 2: prisons in one year. I can't tell you how many

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Speaker 2: times a young black kid would come up to us

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Speaker 2: afterward and say, you know, I got a white friend

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Speaker 2: that i'd like to reach out to, but if I do,

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Speaker 2: the brothers are going to call me names. But after

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Speaker 2: watching you and Tim, I'm going to do that. Then

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Speaker 2: a white kid would say, you know, I have a

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Speaker 2: black friend that I like, but the white guys are

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Speaker 2: going to give me bad time. But after watching you

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Speaker 2: and tell them, I'm going to reach out to my

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Speaker 2: black friend.

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Speaker 1: Why did the act work, Tom? What did it work?

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Speaker 2: It worked because a we really liked one another, We

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Speaker 2: really were good friends. We liked one another, and we

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Speaker 2: had some funny stuff. I mean, we walk out in

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Speaker 2: front of We used to work a place called the

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Speaker 2: Club Harlem in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In most nightclubs

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Speaker 2: in those days, you opened on a Monday and closed

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Speaker 2: on a Saturday. At the Club Harlem, you opened on Saturday,

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Speaker 2: first show ten o'clock at night. You closed on the

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Speaker 2: following Friday. First show ten o'clock at night, Second show

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Speaker 2: two o'clock in the morning, Third show six am in

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Speaker 2: the morning, called the Breakfast Show. All the waiters and

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Speaker 2: the waitress and all the night people would come and

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Speaker 2: all the pimps would bring their hoes from Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan,

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Speaker 2: New You come down for the Club Harlem. The show

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Speaker 2: would open with Mamalou Parks and her dancers. Have got

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Speaker 2: a heavy set black woman with all these dancers, get

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Speaker 2: them rocking and roll, and there'll be a male singing group,

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Speaker 2: a female singing group, then comedy. Then the headline would

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Speaker 2: be Smokey Robinson are temptations of the OJS or whatever?

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Now the thirteen hundred black people when it came time

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Speaker 2: for us to come out to MC would say, ladies

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Speaker 2: and gentlemen, we have a comedy team from Chicago. This team,

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Speaker 2: he kept saying, team came all the way from Chicago,

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Speaker 2: and it's the first time this comedy team's been here

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Speaker 2: in Atlantic City. Welcome the comedy team of Tim and Tom.

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Speaker 2: And Tim would walk out by himself and we're really

360
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Speaker 2: happy to be here, you know, blah blah blah, and

361
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Speaker 2: pretty soon people saying, he said, we just arrived yesterday.

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Speaker 2: I don't see we I see he What are you

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Speaker 2: talking about? Now? I would start coming out stage left.

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Speaker 2: The spotlight would hit me and you here, Oh, what

365
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Speaker 2: do we got here? I'd slowly, I've been looking in

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Speaker 2: the audience. I worked my way up to Tim, and

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Speaker 2: he said, where have you been? Man? I don't see

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Speaker 2: any of my people out there? He said. Now people

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Speaker 2: are laughing me, so I don't see any of your

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Speaker 2: people either. I'd say, put my arm around them. Well,

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Speaker 2: we better be funny. What do you mean we white? Man?

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Speaker 2: And there and not laughter? And one more thing, I

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Speaker 2: want to tell you that picture you see of Tim

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Speaker 2: and Tom, there's a picture of us on stage at

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Speaker 2: mister Kelly's in Chicago. I'll show you. I wanted that

376
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Speaker 2: our book we wrote a book called Tim and Tom

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Speaker 2: in American comedy in black and White. I wanted the

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Speaker 2: book to be called Before Our Time because everybody who

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00:18:05,600 --> 00:18:08,119
Speaker 2: saw us said, you guys were before your time. That

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Speaker 2: picture of Tim and I and mister Kelly's I was doing.

381
00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:12,879
Speaker 2: We were doing a routine where I was interviewing the

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Speaker 2: first black president of the United States in nineteen seventy.

383
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Speaker 2: We were doing that bit and I said, do him,

384
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Speaker 2: now that you've become president, what are you going to do?

385
00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:23,520
Speaker 2: He said, I'm going to ask Congress to an act

386
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Speaker 2: of law that life that dead people are not allowed

387
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Speaker 2: to vote in Chicago, big laugh. I said, what's the

388
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Speaker 2: second thing you do? He said, I'm gonna ask Congress

389
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Speaker 2: and act the law that live people aren't allowed to

390
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Speaker 2: vote in Mississippi, and we.

391
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Speaker 1: Have them, and it would go it would go on

392
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Speaker 1: from there. Why did you all end up breaking up?

393
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Speaker 2: We have two sides of this story, Tim and I,

394
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:48,760
Speaker 2: but we love each other. He's like a brother to me.

395
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Speaker 2: His children call me Uncle Tom. I mean, I mean,

396
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Speaker 2: which was his funny? Oh, I'll tell you a funny

397
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Speaker 2: story about that later. And know he a woman the

398
00:19:00,280 --> 00:19:05,480
Speaker 2: act up, you know, and we always knew the first

399
00:19:05,560 --> 00:19:08,480
Speaker 2: time we started to go in to show business. My

400
00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:10,679
Speaker 2: only reference to show biness where I grew up was

401
00:19:10,680 --> 00:19:13,200
Speaker 2: a black singing group called the Dells. They had over

402
00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:15,480
Speaker 2: the night stay in my corner, and I went over

403
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Speaker 2: to the lead singer's house with Tim. Marvin had lived

404
00:19:18,359 --> 00:19:20,639
Speaker 2: across Supim when I was growing up, and I said, Marvin,

405
00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:22,840
Speaker 2: we want to become a comedy team, and he gave

406
00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:25,800
Speaker 2: us encouragement. As we were leaving, he said, you know

407
00:19:25,840 --> 00:19:28,719
Speaker 2: they're going to break you up. We were leaving, We

408
00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:31,200
Speaker 2: told us. He said they, I said who. He said,

409
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:33,880
Speaker 2: There's a game people play called divide and conquer. They're

410
00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:36,280
Speaker 2: not going to like the fact that you two are

411
00:19:36,280 --> 00:19:39,760
Speaker 2: getting along. There's certain people black and white that aren't

412
00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:42,280
Speaker 2: going to like that, so be careful. And Tim and

413
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Speaker 2: I got in the car and said, we're't going to

414
00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:46,199
Speaker 2: have let anybody break us up. But one day it happened,

415
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Speaker 2: and in retrospect today we talk about it all the

416
00:19:50,040 --> 00:19:51,680
Speaker 2: time that it was the best thing to happen for

417
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Speaker 2: both of us. Because Tim went on to be Venus

418
00:19:54,160 --> 00:19:57,639
Speaker 2: fly Trap on w KRAP Cincinnati. He was on Simon

419
00:19:57,680 --> 00:19:59,520
Speaker 2: and Simon, He played Downtown Brown, he was on a

420
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Speaker 2: show call Frank's Place that we had, the brilliant show

421
00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:05,680
Speaker 2: that he created. He was in another show called Sister's History.

422
00:20:05,680 --> 00:20:08,040
Speaker 2: He played the father, very successful director.

423
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and tell me when you when you just in

424
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Speaker 1: passing reference the people that you were performing with, Smokey Robinson,

425
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Speaker 1: I mean the quality of those performers, the Dells, Marvin Gey.

426
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Speaker 1: We don't have anything like that today, Tom and the variety,

427
00:20:28,760 --> 00:20:33,680
Speaker 1: the the entire idea of an act with talent that

428
00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:37,840
Speaker 1: you could do anywhere. That's really not It's not part

429
00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:40,400
Speaker 1: of the American entertainment today in that way.

430
00:20:40,520 --> 00:20:43,200
Speaker 2: You know why, because we paid more dues in those days.

431
00:20:43,320 --> 00:20:46,080
Speaker 2: By the time we got there, we were ready for

432
00:20:46,119 --> 00:20:48,280
Speaker 2: the for the for what you'd call the big time. Yeah,

433
00:20:48,320 --> 00:20:50,639
Speaker 2: you know, we paid a lot of dues. Sometimes they

434
00:20:50,720 --> 00:20:53,080
Speaker 2: go on TV now with five or ten minutes and

435
00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:56,840
Speaker 2: they're thrown into a headlining situation. You know, it was

436
00:20:56,880 --> 00:21:00,000
Speaker 2: a dues paying Yeah. And in that era, oh my.

437
00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:04,640
Speaker 1: The camaraderie I always you know. I interviewed Tim Conway

438
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:07,400
Speaker 1: once and I said, why did why did the cow

439
00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:11,000
Speaker 1: Burnet Show work? And just what you told me, we

440
00:21:11,040 --> 00:21:11,680
Speaker 1: loved each other.

441
00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:14,560
Speaker 2: Can I tell you an interesting story about that. Jerry

442
00:21:14,640 --> 00:21:16,840
Speaker 2: Lewis and I knew Dean very well. I did the

443
00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:20,320
Speaker 2: Dean Martin shows and I did the telethon maybe twenty

444
00:21:20,359 --> 00:21:23,080
Speaker 2: two times, and Jerry and I got along with Jerry's

445
00:21:23,080 --> 00:21:25,240
Speaker 2: in my dressing room. One night, came to my show

446
00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:27,280
Speaker 2: and I was working at the Riviera, and we were

447
00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:29,640
Speaker 2: talking about comedy teams because I was with a team,

448
00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:31,600
Speaker 2: and of course he was with the famous Dean Martin,

449
00:21:31,720 --> 00:21:34,760
Speaker 2: Martin and Lewis. And he said something very interesting. He said, Town,

450
00:21:34,760 --> 00:21:37,960
Speaker 2: when Dean and I started out, we didn't have great material.

451
00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:39,920
Speaker 2: We had material like did you take a bath today?

452
00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:40,040
Speaker 1: No?

453
00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:43,240
Speaker 2: Why is one missing? He said? Oh, vaudeville jokes, he said,

454
00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:46,119
Speaker 2: But we had the love we had for one another.

455
00:21:46,359 --> 00:21:49,800
Speaker 2: The audience saw that. They saw that we loved one another.

456
00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:52,600
Speaker 2: And he said, you know, Tom, they also saw when

457
00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:53,840
Speaker 2: we didn't love one another.

458
00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:56,920
Speaker 1: The audience always knows.

459
00:21:57,119 --> 00:22:00,159
Speaker 2: It picked up on at that time, a Catholic and

460
00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:03,760
Speaker 2: a Jew being a comedy team. Wow, who would have thought?

461
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:06,720
Speaker 2: And yet it worked because they really loved one another.

462
00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:09,040
Speaker 1: At that time you could feel yeah, and the audience

463
00:22:09,200 --> 00:22:11,439
Speaker 1: was pulled into it. Tell me about being booked on

464
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:14,679
Speaker 1: the Tonight Show what that was like the first time.

465
00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:19,040
Speaker 1: Because people don't realize. Kids don't realize, but they should.

466
00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:23,840
Speaker 1: The Tonight Show of Johnny Carson's era, and even before

467
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:26,760
Speaker 1: it was not the Tonight Show of today. Now this

468
00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:31,359
Speaker 1: was a You had twenty thirty forty million people watching

469
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:33,399
Speaker 1: this show at night. It was huge.

470
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:36,400
Speaker 2: One appearance on the Tonight Show and your career was made.

471
00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:38,639
Speaker 2: Freddie Prince did one appearance, You got a sitcom the

472
00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:41,480
Speaker 2: next day. Now, that was in nineteen seventy two or

473
00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:43,760
Speaker 2: seventy three. Johnny Carson came out here in seventy two.

474
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:46,400
Speaker 2: When the team split up. It was nineteen seventy five.

475
00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:48,720
Speaker 2: I came out here. I'm broke. I leave a wife

476
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:51,879
Speaker 2: and three kids back in Chicago. I ended up sleeping

477
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:54,800
Speaker 2: in an old Nash Rambler, not my car, a car

478
00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:57,239
Speaker 2: that was up on blocks. The front seat came down

479
00:22:57,320 --> 00:22:59,040
Speaker 2: and I slept in that car for over a month,

480
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:02,359
Speaker 2: hitchhiking up and down Sunset Boulevard, begging to work for

481
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:04,919
Speaker 2: free at the Comedy Store, and finally got on at

482
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:07,000
Speaker 2: the Comedy Store. Took a long time. I got the

483
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:09,160
Speaker 2: Tonight Show to come and see me. A guy named

484
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:13,240
Speaker 2: Craig Tennis was a talent coordinator and auditioned that night

485
00:23:13,280 --> 00:23:15,439
Speaker 2: with a comedy team called bauman Est and a new

486
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:17,920
Speaker 2: kid named Billy Crystal. I don't know whatever happened to him.

487
00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:19,000
Speaker 1: What happened to Billy Chris.

488
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:23,439
Speaker 2: I'm on the Raymond Auroro Show. Eat your heart out, Billy,

489
00:23:23,640 --> 00:23:27,040
Speaker 2: that's right, But any and Billy and I got the show.

490
00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:30,040
Speaker 2: So now I get there. They tell me you're on

491
00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:32,560
Speaker 2: next Tuesday. I was so excited. I tell the whole world.

492
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 2: I get there. They put me in makeup. They take

493
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 2: you up to your dressing room and bring it down

494
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:39,160
Speaker 2: to the green room. You're getting They come into greenroom, said,

495
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:41,160
Speaker 2: we ran out of time. You have to come back

496
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:43,960
Speaker 2: next week. They bumped me. I came back next week

497
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:46,640
Speaker 2: in the makeup upstairs down to day. They ran out

498
00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 2: of time three weeks in a row. The fourth week

499
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:51,240
Speaker 2: I get there, I'm in the makeup room. The producer

500
00:23:51,320 --> 00:23:53,320
Speaker 2: Fred the cordover came and they said, I got bad

501
00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:55,360
Speaker 2: news for you. I said, what he said, You're going

502
00:23:55,359 --> 00:24:00,760
Speaker 2: on tonight, thirty million people watching the show. Wow, you

503
00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:03,199
Speaker 2: get a lump in the size of a grapefruit. But

504
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:05,720
Speaker 2: I get behind that curtain. The coordinator is my turn

505
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:07,879
Speaker 2: to go on, and the coordinator said, y okay, I'm fine.

506
00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 2: Behind that curtain. Doc Severnston's playing music because they're in

507
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:14,600
Speaker 2: commercial break. The music stops and your heart stops because

508
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 2: Johnny's starting to introduce you. Now a light comes on

509
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:19,920
Speaker 2: the curtain. You're about to go through there. Not only

510
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 2: does every coordinator and all the talent scouts of the

511
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 2: Las Vegas and managers and agents and casting people watch

512
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 2: that show, but my mother had everybody in back in

513
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:32,840
Speaker 2: Harvey illin, OI if I bomb, I can't even go

514
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:36,680
Speaker 2: back home. Johnny says, we're back now, and I'm glad

515
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 2: you're in such a good mood tonight. Because my next

516
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:41,680
Speaker 2: guest is making his first appearance on the Tonight Show.

517
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 2: That one line he never does it again. That first time,

518
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:48,159
Speaker 2: I'm glad you're in such a good mood tonight. He

519
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 2: set that tone. They open up the curtain, you walk out.

520
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:53,119
Speaker 2: I can't see the audience bright lights. I hit my

521
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,399
Speaker 2: mark on the floor. I do the first joke and

522
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:57,879
Speaker 2: it gets a laugh. I do the second joke, it

523
00:24:57,920 --> 00:24:59,399
Speaker 2: gets a laugh. I do the third joke. I hear

524
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:01,399
Speaker 2: Johnny and Ed McMahon laughing behind me. Now I'm on

525
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 2: a roll, I get it an applause. I ended up

526
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:06,960
Speaker 2: getting eight applause. It was a hot show. I closed

527
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 2: with I said, you've been a wonderful audience, and this

528
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:12,720
Speaker 2: is show business is a tough life. So if you

529
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 2: liked me, just if you liked me and your Protestant,

530
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:18,439
Speaker 2: say a prayer. If you're a Catholic, light a candle.

531
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 2: If you're Jewish, somebody in your family owns a night club,

532
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 2: tell him about me, will you?

533
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:26,960
Speaker 1: I love that you remember the joke you told on

534
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:29,200
Speaker 1: the Tonight Show. I guess it's just one of those

535
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 1: moments you can't you never find.

536
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:33,119
Speaker 2: I did sixty one appearances on the Tonight Show, but

537
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:35,439
Speaker 2: I never forgot that first one, that first one the

538
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 2: next day. I never stopped working since that night. I

539
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,199
Speaker 2: never stopped. When I was fifty five, I'm in the

540
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:43,560
Speaker 2: business fifty five years, but that was fifty years ago.

541
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:47,000
Speaker 2: After that, I'm doing Dinah Show and Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas,

542
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 2: Shandy Carson, Midnight Special, Rock Concert, Soul Train. I'm the

543
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:52,879
Speaker 2: only white committee to ever do Soul Train because I

544
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:54,679
Speaker 2: had an elbow mountain front of an all black audience

545
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 2: called that white boy is crazy, you know, son, And

546
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 2: then Sammy Davis Junior took me on the road.

547
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 1: Tell me about working with Sammy. You write about Sammy

548
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:05,920
Speaker 1: in the book. And I saw Sammy so many times.

549
00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: He was really special and good to you.

550
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:12,200
Speaker 2: And really good to me. It is nobody Sammy Davis Junior.

551
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:15,159
Speaker 2: There was nothing he couldn't do on a stage. He

552
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 2: could sing as good as anybody. After Frank Sinactor told me,

553
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:19,640
Speaker 2: he said, I never heard Sammy hit a clinker. Once

554
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:21,400
Speaker 2: in a while, Frank would hit a clinker. He said,

555
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 2: I never heard Sammy. He could sing as good as anybody. After.

556
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 2: He could dance better than anybody after he could do it.

557
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 2: He could play the drums, he could play the zil

558
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 2: he could play xylophone, he could play the trumpet, he

559
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 2: could play piano. He could do impressions to me better

560
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 2: than any impression out there. And he just was magic

561
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:40,679
Speaker 2: on the stage. And he saw me, and I did that.

562
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:42,440
Speaker 2: I did a whole routine about growing up in a

563
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:45,439
Speaker 2: black neighborhood and about how the black girl's jumprope and

564
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 2: how the white girl's umprope me being the only white

565
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 2: player on all black basketball team. Sammy fell on the

566
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 2: floor laughing at him, said, I'm going to take you

567
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:54,400
Speaker 2: on the road with me. He had a TV show

568
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 2: called Sammy and Company.

569
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: Because you did the show, I did the show.

570
00:26:57,200 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 2: And then he said, and he did. He took me

571
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 2: on the road for three years. Took me the first

572
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 2: time he took me to Vegas. He said, have you

573
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 2: ever worked Las Vegas? We were at the Mill Run

574
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:07,440
Speaker 2: Theater in Chicago. I said, no, I never worked for

575
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,120
Speaker 2: He said, well, I'm taking you there January. You open

576
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 2: there in January. We go there jet Lands, We're coming

577
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 2: down the ship. My name on the Marquee with Sammy

578
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:19,360
Speaker 2: Davis Junior. Now a lot of opening acts didn't get

579
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 2: their name on the marquee, you know, or if he

580
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 2: did very small. Sammy had my name up there big

581
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 2: on the Marquee, you know. Now we go into rehearsal.

582
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 2: Matt brandywe was the entertainment director that He said, Tommy,

583
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:32,400
Speaker 2: you'll do twenty minutes. Sammy does an hour and ten.

584
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 2: We know, you know, we do an hour and a

585
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 2: half show or a ninety minute show. Sammy said, no,

586
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 2: hold on, He said, they serve food here when Tommy's on.

587
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 2: This is Tommy's first time in Las Vegas, and all

588
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 2: the critics are there. He's got a score net. He said.

589
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 2: I'll go on first. I'll do three or four songs.

590
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:52,160
Speaker 2: When the room is clear, I'll bring Tommy out. This

591
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 2: is unheard of on.

592
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 1: The headliner opening for you my.

593
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 2: First time in Las Vegas. That's the kind of guy,

594
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 2: Sammy Davis Junior. What so Now he goes out. Now

595
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 2: the waiters and waitress their job is to get the

596
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 2: food out of there before the headliner comes out. Right,

597
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 2: Sammy walks out. They're taking food away from people haven't

598
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 2: even started eating yet. They're snatching food off the table.

599
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 2: Sammy does four songs, three four songs. Now the room

600
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 2: is now up here, he said, Ladies and gentlemen, He

601
00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 2: do this every night. He said. Through the years, you

602
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 2: stuck with me through the good times in the bad times.

603
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:25,440
Speaker 2: He said. I think of my audience is as family,

604
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 2: and your family to me, he said, when people do

605
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:30,679
Speaker 2: good things for you, family, you want to do something

606
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 2: for them, like maybe get them a gift. I got

607
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 2: a gift for you. I saw this kid, You're going

608
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 2: to like this his first time in Las Vegas. That's

609
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 2: the way you introduced me. And I was always thinking

610
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 2: now a little bit, you know. But I would walk

611
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 2: out every night and I'd say, you know, I always

612
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 2: dream that i'd work Las Vegas, and I always dreamed

613
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 2: it would be Caesar's Palace, but I never dream that

614
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 2: Sammy Davis Junior would be my opening. And sam you

615
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 2: liked the line.

616
00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 1: It's a great life And how long do you tour with.

617
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 2: The three three years? Yeah? He told me one time,

618
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:04,200
Speaker 2: he said, Tom, you got to move on. I want

619
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:06,240
Speaker 2: you to become a bigger stuff. If you stay with me,

620
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 2: that won't happen. He said, I'm going to take you

621
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 2: from those days. He said, from thirty five hundred dollars

622
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 2: a week. There's seventy five hundred dollars a week. That

623
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:15,239
Speaker 2: was the pay in those days, which was a lot

624
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 2: of And he did. He increased my pay and then

625
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:20,960
Speaker 2: I went on the road after that with Smokey Robinson

626
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 2: and the Gladast Night and the Pips Natalie Call. But

627
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 2: Smokey and I toured together for several years too.

628
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:28,240
Speaker 1: Really, what was that like? You don't mention him much

629
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: in the book.

630
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 2: Well, I love Smokey Robinson like a brother. Every year

631
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 2: I'd run twenty six miles from multiple sclerosis because my

632
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 2: sister had MS. We called it twenty six miles for darning.

633
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 2: I'd bring in twenty thirty celebrities to run with me

634
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 2: a block, two blocks a mile, top knot celebrities and

635
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 2: Smoky Smokey ran all twenty six miles. He's the only

636
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 2: one who ran twenty six miles with me. And it's

637
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 2: touring with Smokey. I mean, you know, he calls me

638
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:57,480
Speaker 2: baby brother. We play golf together and everything, and probably

639
00:29:57,480 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 2: when I get down, I'll call him and say a

640
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 2: load to him. And yet no one loves to sing

641
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 2: for you more than Smokey Robinson. He loves to sing

642
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 2: for you. He wants to sing for you. It isn't

643
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 2: a job for him. Yeah, he's he's just he's really special.

644
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,320
Speaker 2: And he's by the way, he's written almost five thousand songs.

645
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 1: You know that I did No, No, I did not,

646
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: And we've seen it. I've taken my children to see

647
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: him and it's magical, and it's magic.

648
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 2: He's the most Christian man I've ever met in my life.

649
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 2: He truly loves all people. He truly does. He's the

650
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:31,720
Speaker 2: most Christian man I've ever met.

651
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: Tell me about meeting Jack Benny, and he gave you

652
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: some advice about stand up.

653
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:38,959
Speaker 2: And when I was in that was only a comedian

654
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 2: about four months and a man named IRV Cups in

655
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 2: it from Chicago who had a column in the Chicago

656
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 2: Sun Times had a TV show and he coupan to

657
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 2: put on a young comedian, a new commedity and a

658
00:30:49,280 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 2: more senior commedy. And I'm a fan of Jack Benny's

659
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 2: a kid. We had radio, we didn't have TV in

660
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 2: the shack I liveing. I heard him on the radio.

661
00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 2: I've always thought an artist a person who's an artist

662
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 2: and in the endeavor if you're a truck driver, a bricklayer,

663
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:06,760
Speaker 2: a bartender, if you make your work look one word effortless.

664
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra made singing look easy. You will be my music.

665
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 2: He will be my song. Is I can do that? No,

666
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 2: you can't. He just made it look like you could.

667
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 2: Jack Benny made comedy look easy. He just made it

668
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 2: look easy. He made it look easy, and it wasn't.

669
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 2: It isn't easy. So I was a big fan. But

670
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 2: you know, he said to me, tell me where are

671
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 2: you from. I said, I'm from Harvey, Illinois. He said,

672
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 2: talk about that in your act, I said, Harvey. He said,

673
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 2: talk about when the first time you do the Tonight Show. Now,

674
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 2: the Tonight Show was the furthest thing from my mind. Wow,

675
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:37,479
Speaker 2: he said, first time you do the Tonight Show, you're

676
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 2: going to introduce yourself to millions of people. Do comedy

677
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 2: about where you're from, so they know your accent, your

678
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 2: brothers and sisters, where you went to school. So for

679
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:48,760
Speaker 2: this on your mom and dad. So after you walk

680
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 2: off the Tonight Show in six minutes and say say,

681
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 2: wasn't he funny? And do you know that he's from Harvey, Illinois?

682
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 2: And do you know that he had eight brothers and sisters?

683
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 2: And do you know that he went to Catholic school

684
00:31:57,480 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 2: and you know that his mom wanted him to be

685
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 2: a priest. These routines, you know.

686
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: So you're introducing yourself to the audience as you're entertaining.

687
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 2: That's the lesson. He said to me, Where am I from? Tommy,

688
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 2: I said, Walkegan Alloy said, how do you know that?

689
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 2: I said, I've heard you said it's you, damn right.

690
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:14,240
Speaker 2: I said that I'm the only comedian you ever heard

691
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 2: of from Waukegan, Illinois, And you're the only comedian I've

692
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 2: ever heard from Harvey Illinois and Tommy. There's more Harvey's

693
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 2: out there than there are Chicago's.

694
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:25,320
Speaker 1: I love it. What great advice?

695
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 2: Where that terrific? And I followed it my whole life.

696
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: How do you build a set? Tom how do you work?

697
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 2: It? Starts with one joke at a time. If you

698
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 2: can write a joke, I tell young comedians today, if

699
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 2: you're in the business and you want to be a comedian,

700
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 2: you can't write material. Take courses on how to write jokes,

701
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 2: or or if you're wealthy, or get a good job

702
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 2: in a lot of money and pay people to write

703
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 2: your jokes. Says that's the hardest part of it all

704
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 2: is writing jokes, is writing material that you can keep

705
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 2: coming up with new material. As I pointed out, I

706
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 2: did sixty one a peers on The Tonight Show, and

707
00:32:57,760 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 2: you had to do a new six minutes. Every time

708
00:32:59,560 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 2: you did.

709
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 1: It, you had to throw it out because everybody's seen it.

710
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, Johnny didn't want two guys going to bar jokes.

711
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 2: He wanted original monologue. So I'm in a constant state

712
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 2: of writing material at that time. But it's it's not

713
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 2: rocket science. But if you're writing a joke. Comedy is

714
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 2: usually just two things. Number one, it's nine tenths surprise.

715
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 2: The audience laughs because they didn't think you were going

716
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 2: to say that or do that. So the set up

717
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:26,920
Speaker 2: line has to hide the punchline. They're the rulers. There

718
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 2: are no victimless jokes. Who's the victim and a joke me? You, society,

719
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 2: the government, somebody, the airlines.

720
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 1: Somebody is going to hurt when it's over.

721
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 2: Somebody's wrong, and there's a joke.

722
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:39,600
Speaker 1: Robin Williams stole your joke at the jokes at the

723
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 1: comedy club, the comedy store.

724
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, him and I. When Robin first started out, I

725
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 2: was I had done two Tonight shows and he was

726
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 2: brand new. He came in from San Francisco. I was

727
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 2: headlining a club out in Newport Beach called the Laugh Stop,

728
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 2: and I had opening acts Roger and Roger, Willie Tyler

729
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 2: and Leicster, a black guy who has a puppet, and

730
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 2: new kid named Robin Williams. And when they told me,

731
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,400
Speaker 2: I said to the guy, what kind of material does

732
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 2: she do? He said, no, it's not a guy, and

733
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:08,279
Speaker 2: not a girl, it's a guy. I soa And then

734
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:10,919
Speaker 2: Robin did fifteen minutes and he was brilliant, and he's

735
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 2: just there was no one like Robin Williams. But he

736
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 2: also had this mind that could grasp every joked absorb

737
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 2: and he did a joke of mine on when he

738
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:23,880
Speaker 2: was on Mark and Mindy. At the end of the show,

739
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:26,799
Speaker 2: he closed with a monologue to Orc and he did

740
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 2: a joke about it, and I went and talked to

741
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 2: him about it, and then he was I wasn't mad.

742
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 2: He wanted to pay me, he wanted to get me.

743
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:34,640
Speaker 2: I said, I don't want him money for it. I said, Robin,

744
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:37,040
Speaker 2: now I can't do it. You know, never to say

745
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 2: you stole that from Robin.

746
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: You know that's right. It's dead to me. Now, what

747
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 1: is the power of comedy? I mean when I look

748
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: at when I look at you, it really all started

749
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 1: with you wanting to help people and use laughter to

750
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:56,240
Speaker 1: help kids. Then it grew into really you were teaching

751
00:34:56,360 --> 00:35:01,280
Speaker 1: racial healing and joy at once. What the power of comedy?

752
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:04,839
Speaker 2: It's heating. It was a theory many years ago that

753
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:08,399
Speaker 2: you know, laughter is psychologically a deterrent because if you're

754
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:11,480
Speaker 2: watching your comedian work or listening to a comedy album,

755
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 2: you're not thinking of your problems because the brain can

756
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 2: function two thoughts at the same time. So comedy is

757
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 2: psychologically a deterrent. But because of Norman Cousins, the man

758
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 2: who wrote Laughter, Maath the heating of a heart or something,

759
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:27,800
Speaker 2: the doctor told him he was going to die because

760
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 2: he had stress. He had a heart condition and years

761
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:32,879
Speaker 2: of stress. And he laid in the hospital and thought,

762
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:36,239
Speaker 2: if stress negative input made me ill, then positive input

763
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:38,880
Speaker 2: would make me well. He checked out the hospital. He

764
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 2: would only watch Ila Lucy reruns, Candid Camera, three Stooges,

765
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 2: Marx Brothers. He wouldn't watch the evening news. He would

766
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,319
Speaker 2: He lived twenty seven years after the doctors told him

767
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:50,759
Speaker 2: he was going to die. Because of him, UCLA did

768
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:54,319
Speaker 2: research on what happens to the brain when you laugh,

769
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:58,399
Speaker 2: when you have a hearty laugh and you've laughed so hard, oh,

770
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 2: and tears are coming on here and your body, oh,

771
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 2: this sense of well being, your body's going through an

772
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 2: actual chemical change. So laughter is not only psychologically a deterrent,

773
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 2: it's physiologically therapeutic. So therefore comedians are physicians of the soul.

774
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 2: So you can call me doctor.

775
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:16,399
Speaker 1: Dreeson, doctor Dreeson, thank you.

776
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:18,719
Speaker 2: So, but laughter is heating, and that's why people are

777
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 2: drawn laughter more than ever now. These comedy clubs here

778
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:25,920
Speaker 2: in La the Comedy, the Laugh Factory, the Flappers Comedy

779
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:29,840
Speaker 2: Chateau packed every night because people now, especially after the

780
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 2: COVID lockdown, and they realize how much they miss laughter.

781
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 2: Now you know it's it's and also it's addicting.

782
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is addicted. You want to keep laughing, you

783
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: want to keep enjoying this with other people, and we

784
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 1: need more laughter. What's missing in comedy today in your opinion.

785
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:50,800
Speaker 2: Well, you know what's missing is And I'm not approved.

786
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:53,719
Speaker 2: I'm a street guy. I don't have a degree from academia.

787
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 2: I got a doctorate from the streets. So here what

788
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:56,760
Speaker 2: I'm saying, yeah.

789
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:58,759
Speaker 1: But you had of a doctorate from working with the

790
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 1: legends of common and entertainment and music, and you yourself

791
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 1: are on that level. That's where you live. So you're

792
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:09,839
Speaker 1: down here now. I'm asking you to look at these

793
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 1: people down here. They have to say the F word

794
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 1: every other sentence.

795
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:15,799
Speaker 2: I'm at the Laugh Actory a while back and I'm

796
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:17,959
Speaker 2: waiting to go on, and two young comedians are around

797
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:19,719
Speaker 2: the corner, and I don't know if they're there and

798
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:22,719
Speaker 2: they don't know I'm there, and I'm looking at my

799
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:24,359
Speaker 2: nose because I'm getting on next. And I hear one

800
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 2: of the communitys say, you know, Tom Dreesen's here, and

801
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:28,479
Speaker 2: the other commedian and said, yeah, you know, he's old

802
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 2: school and my year is perk up and the other

803
00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:32,600
Speaker 2: community city he's old school. What do you mean, he said, Well,

804
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:34,319
Speaker 2: you know, he doesn't use the F word. The other

805
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 2: community city he doesn't use the F word. What does

806
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:40,319
Speaker 2: he use for adjectives? I stick my head around the

807
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:46,320
Speaker 2: corner and I said, adjectives, real, that's right. But but

808
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 2: you know, so I think I think comedy is a

809
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 2: lot meaner now than it was. And I and I'm

810
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 2: sad that the audience really likes that kind of stuff too.

811
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 2: But that's pretty probably the It's easy to write those

812
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 2: kind of things.

813
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:05,239
Speaker 1: I was about to say, it's a cheaper laugh, though,

814
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 1: isn't it.

815
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:08,120
Speaker 2: Hey, I can do that. I do stags do I've

816
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 2: done stag. I could do a stag gross for the

817
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:11,800
Speaker 2: best of I'm gonna ask you. I I'm all that stuff.

818
00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 2: But when I opened for Smokey Robinson, Sammy Davis, r

819
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin mac Davis, Tony Orlando and Don

820
00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:26,319
Speaker 2: Ladys Night, Nipips, Natalie Call. They had family audiences, yeah,

821
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 2: and that was their audience, not mine. I was the opener.

822
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 2: So my responsibility is to get that audience up for them,

823
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 2: not to get the audience angry or to insult him.

824
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 2: So I had to learn the work clean. I had

825
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:40,640
Speaker 2: to work and doing the tonight. So you had to

826
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 2: write material that can make grandma and grandpa, mom and

827
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:46,439
Speaker 2: dad and the kids laugh. Now I can. Here's the difference, Ray,

828
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 2: I can be. There's a difference between being naughty and.

829
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 1: Dirty right right in your window. Is one thing I

830
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 1: can do naughty, yeah, but the other is yeah, it's easy. Laugh,

831
00:38:57,280 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 1: it's cheap. I call it low here and sadly, that's

832
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 1: what passes for general comedy today.

833
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:08,440
Speaker 2: And you know what, cable television came along. Before cable

834
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 2: television in order for you to get on and become

835
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 2: known as a comedian, you'd say, how do I get

836
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 2: on to tonight? So you watch those comedians and you

837
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 2: knew you had to do clean material. Then cable came along,

838
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 2: you'd say whatever you want to say. Now, the problem

839
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 2: is every two years, as a brand new audience. All

840
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:26,400
Speaker 2: these young kids today are going to those comedy clubs

841
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 2: for the first time and they think, oh, that's comedy.

842
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 2: You know, women talking about those women today that Red

843
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 2: Fox would walk out of. And guys, you know, tell

844
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:47,239
Speaker 2: me about how Sinatra came into your orbit and he

845
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 2: loved your material? Why, you know, tell you how it happened. Accidentally.

846
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 2: I'm touring with Smokey Robinson. I'm working in Lake Tahoe

847
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 2: at Caesars. Frank Sinatra's appearing at Harra's next door. Well,

848
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 2: I'd work Herra's men times, you know, And so I'm

849
00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 2: went Smoky for one week again, divine intervention. I could

850
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 2: have gone any one of those seven nights over to

851
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:10,839
Speaker 2: see Frank. I don't know why I went that night.

852
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 2: So after my show at Caesar's and they tew, I

853
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 2: bolted out the side door. It did e'n change out

854
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 2: of my stage clothes. There's one casino. I ran past it,

855
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 2: ran into Harris. I'm running into the showroom. The vice

856
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:24,240
Speaker 2: president of Harry's Hotel, Holmes Hendrickson is standing there talking

857
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:26,359
Speaker 2: to a big, heavy set guy with a cigar. As

858
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:28,320
Speaker 2: I'm running into the showroom because I didn't want to

859
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 2: miss Frank's opening. Frank Sinatra created more excitement, as you know,

860
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:35,239
Speaker 2: walking to the microphone than most people did with the

861
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:37,319
Speaker 2: whole act. It was a thrill when he walked out

862
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:39,879
Speaker 2: in that arena and wherever it was, and I didn't

863
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:41,879
Speaker 2: want to miss that, So I'm running to go in there.

864
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:44,799
Speaker 2: And Holmes Henderson saw Henderson saw me. He said, Tommy

865
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 2: kmire reluctantly whenever he said, Tommy, this is Mickey Ruden,

866
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 2: while I recognize a name that was Frank Sinatra's lawyer,

867
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,880
Speaker 2: very powerful guy in our business. He said, Mickey, this

868
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 2: is Tom Recent and I think tom would make a

869
00:40:57,239 --> 00:40:59,879
Speaker 2: great opening act for Frank Sinatra. And the lawyer got

870
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 2: a pain the expression on his face like you heard

871
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 2: it a million times, and he winked at the Vice president,

872
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 2: but I caught the wink. He said to me, a kid,

873
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 2: if I gave you a week with Frank, would you

874
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 2: want more than fifty thousand? I said, mister Ruden, put

875
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 2: it this way, if you gave me a week with Frank,

876
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:17,799
Speaker 2: would you want more than fifty thousands? He laughed. He said, oh,

877
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:20,080
Speaker 2: I like this kid. They gave me a week with Frank.

878
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,280
Speaker 2: At the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City. The second night there,

879
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:25,640
Speaker 2: we went out to dinner. Afterward, Frank and his wife

880
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 2: Barbara took me out to dinner. I can remember like

881
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 2: it was yesterday. Ray. He set his knife in his

882
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:31,759
Speaker 2: fork down. We're sitting just like this, he said, his

883
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:33,799
Speaker 2: knife and his fork down. He said, I like your

884
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 2: material and I like his style. I'd like you to

885
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:39,880
Speaker 2: do a few other dates with me, if you're interested.

886
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:43,799
Speaker 2: And I didn't say, let me check my calendar. I said, yeah, Yes.

887
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:47,359
Speaker 2: Turned into fourteen years, forty five fifty cities a year,

888
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 2: a friendship that I stayed in his home six eight

889
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 2: times a year, toured with them all over it, drove

890
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:56,359
Speaker 2: with him in his car till the sun came up

891
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 2: night after night. I was a Paul bar at his funeral,

892
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 2: and I spoke at his funeral, and I miss him

893
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 2: every day of my life. There was no describing the

894
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:06,800
Speaker 2: excitement of flying in Frank Sinatra's jet all over the

895
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:09,760
Speaker 2: world and walking out in front of fifteen twenty thousand people,

896
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:13,279
Speaker 2: forty thousand in Hawaii, and the challenge that I got

897
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:16,360
Speaker 2: to get this audience up for this guy. He was

898
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:18,680
Speaker 2: so exciting and so challenging, you know.

899
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: He said, you were neighborhood guys.

900
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:23,040
Speaker 2: Yeah too, You don't having a guy from the New

901
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 2: York Times one times, she said to him, he wasn't doing

902
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,239
Speaker 2: an interview. We were in a place in New York.

903
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:30,600
Speaker 2: You know, you know Patsy's in New York.

904
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, sure, his favorite Sinatra's favorite restaurant.

905
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, and mine too. And you know, but we a

906
00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:39,680
Speaker 2: guy was walking out from The New York Times, and

907
00:42:39,719 --> 00:42:42,280
Speaker 2: he walked up and he said to Frank, Hey, Frank,

908
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 2: how come you keep this guy dreasing? Jokingly? How can

909
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 2: you keep this guy dreasing? He said, you mean, besides

910
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:51,400
Speaker 2: the fact that he's funny, And he said, yeah, besides that.

911
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 2: He said, well, if I'm a saloon singer and I am,

912
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:57,200
Speaker 2: then Tommy's a saloon comedian. He said, by that, I

913
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 2: mean we're just a couple of neighborhood guys. And I

914
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 2: never forgot that quote. That's really touching to me because

915
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 2: that's what I am. And when I was alone with

916
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 2: him in the car till dawn and we drove around,

917
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 2: he never went to bed till the sun came up.

918
00:43:11,520 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 2: He was nocturnal. There were so many nights He wasn't

919
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 2: the great Frank Sinatra, and I wasn't this kid comedian.

920
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:22,719
Speaker 2: We were two guys from a neighborhood. It's kind of

921
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:25,640
Speaker 2: similar neighbors. He had three children, girl boy girl. I

922
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 2: had three children, girl boy girl. You know I'm Catholic,

923
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:31,279
Speaker 2: he's Catholic. I'm half Cecilian. He's half to say, and

924
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:34,440
Speaker 2: you know, the other half is Irish. He used to

925
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:37,040
Speaker 2: tell me. He used to tell me Sicilians, Tommy, we're

926
00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 2: talking about getting emotional. He said, Sicilians cry alone, Tommy,

927
00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 2: Cicilians don't cry in public. They cry alone. I said, well,

928
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:46,439
Speaker 2: I'm half Irish. He said, Irish cry when they changed

929
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 2: bus drivers. Because at his funeral, I told the joke.

930
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:54,719
Speaker 2: And I knew he wanted me to be funny, and

931
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:57,280
Speaker 2: I told a funny story because I kept thinking, he said,

932
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 2: because I was emotional. I was afraid I was going

933
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 2: to burst into tears. But I remember what he told me,

934
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:05,280
Speaker 2: he said, sayans cry alone.

935
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 1: You know, m you went to Mass with him? Oh yeah,

936
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:12,040
Speaker 1: and you're and you're a man of fa Yeah.

937
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:14,040
Speaker 2: I mean, well, I go to Mass here too.

938
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. In the book, you describe h that going to

939
00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:20,240
Speaker 1: Mass with Sinatra, and he's.

940
00:44:20,120 --> 00:44:24,239
Speaker 2: Making you work at the Saint Francis of CC down

941
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:26,759
Speaker 2: in if you ever go down in the desert, that

942
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:30,240
Speaker 2: church is an exact replica of the Saint Francis Church

943
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:33,399
Speaker 2: in Italy. And Frank Sinatra and his mother, his mother

944
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:36,200
Speaker 2: wanted to build that church, and he did shows and

945
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 2: raised a lot of money to build that church. So

946
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:39,799
Speaker 2: that's when I was down there with him. We'd go

947
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:44,080
Speaker 2: to Mass there on Sundays. But one particular time he says,

948
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:47,280
Speaker 2: there was like twenty house guests, and you know, he said,

949
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 2: all right, we're all going to Mass tomow All the

950
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 2: Catholics had to go to Mass, the Jews and the

951
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 2: Protestants could stay home. There kind of happy about that.

952
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:57,399
Speaker 2: So Frank we go there and we get to church

953
00:44:57,400 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 2: and Frank said, by the way, we're going to read

954
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 2: the Gospel today. And I said, why are we going

955
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:03,120
Speaker 2: to read the Gospel? He said, because they want lay

956
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 2: people to do that, Tommy. So I told Father blew

957
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 2: with that we read. I said, okay, now I'm getting

958
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:08,919
Speaker 2: the mist because you know, there's a lot of words

959
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:11,799
Speaker 2: in there. You know that I knew I wouldn't and

960
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get my stuff down, and I had

961
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 2: to follow Gregef. First of all, the priest says reading,

962
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:20,279
Speaker 2: we're sitting on the altar, and if he said reading

963
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 2: from today's Gospel will be mister Gregory Peck, mister Roger Moore,

964
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:28,839
Speaker 2: mister Frank Sinatra, and mister Tom Dreeson, and the whole

965
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 2: church began the buzz. Who's Tom? Now? Now I had

966
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 2: all the pressure. Now I got to follow Gregory Peck.

967
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 2: When Gregory Peck reached the gospel, people say didn't he

968
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:44,400
Speaker 2: write this? You know? Thank God? I had to follow,

969
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:46,960
Speaker 2: and I got through it. Now, at the end of

970
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 2: the Mass, ready to go, as you know, the pries

971
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:51,799
Speaker 2: said go. The Master's ended, all right, but he said,

972
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:54,320
Speaker 2: but before you go. Perhaps some of you may have

973
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 2: seen comedian Tom Reeson on the Tonight Show talking about

974
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 2: his Catholic school upbringing. Maybe he'll on us with a joke.

975
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 2: Frank said, get up, tell him a joke. I couldn't ray.

976
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 2: I couldn't think up a joke to tell in church.

977
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 2: I'm going to the pulprat and I'm saying, God, you know, no,

978
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:12,919
Speaker 2: I can't do that one. I can't do that. I'm finny, funny,

979
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:17,440
Speaker 2: I said, many years ago, in a parish in the Midwest,

980
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 2: priest was serving Mass, and he turned around in the

981
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 2: middle of the Mass and he said to the congregation,

982
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 2: I'm the priest in his parish, and I make two

983
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:30,080
Speaker 2: hundred dollars a week, and that's not enough. Moment later

984
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:32,240
Speaker 2: and the bishopmen's out of the sacracy. I'm the bishop

985
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:34,359
Speaker 2: in his diocese, and I make four hundred dollars a week,

986
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 2: and that's not enough. And up in the choir, the

987
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 2: guy playing the organ says, I'm the organist in his diocese,

988
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 2: and I make two thousand dollars a week. And there's

989
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 2: no business like show. And the church cracked up, and

990
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:50,319
Speaker 2: Frank Frank said, funny, let's get good.

991
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:54,320
Speaker 1: Let's waiting. He always left when at the end of

992
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 1: the night, when you will When he finished New York,

993
00:46:57,160 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: New York took about.

994
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:00,759
Speaker 2: He left like the bill was on fire.

995
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 1: There was no waiting in the dressing room or cleaning up.

996
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:04,839
Speaker 1: You had to be ready to roll.

997
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:08,359
Speaker 2: The limos were waiting right off stage when we got

998
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:11,840
Speaker 2: When we went off stage, they enter the people with us,

999
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:15,279
Speaker 2: esc everybody into that we would shoot to the private jet.

1000
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:17,359
Speaker 2: There were many nights we were in the private jet

1001
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 2: flying over the venue. People weren't even their cars yet

1002
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 2: except toward the inn. Toward the inn. The last couple

1003
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 2: of years, he started lingering on the stage longer and

1004
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 2: longer because they see everywhere we were going, people were

1005
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:34,360
Speaker 2: coming to say goodbye to him. And he picked up

1006
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 2: on that. I told him that one night in Salt

1007
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:39,399
Speaker 2: Lake City, the audience couldn't get They threw flowers on him,

1008
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:42,880
Speaker 2: and they standing ovation after standing ovation. As he was

1009
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 2: leaving the arena, they were throwing flowers on him. We

1010
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:47,400
Speaker 2: got in the car and the limo, we were rushing

1011
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 2: toward the private jet to the airport and he was

1012
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:53,480
Speaker 2: staring out the window, just him and I and I said,

1013
00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 2: great crowd tonight. He goes, yeah, yeah, I said yeah.

1014
00:47:56,760 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 2: He said, I think I think, Tommy, I think they

1015
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 2: think they're seeing me for the last time. And once

1016
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:07,080
Speaker 2: again he read an audience he knew. And I said

1017
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:09,440
Speaker 2: to him, well, yeah, you know, we haven't been here

1018
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 2: in a long time, and he said, yeah, but they're

1019
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:15,320
Speaker 2: coming to say goodbye to me now. And that's exactly

1020
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:17,200
Speaker 2: what they were doing everywhere we were going those like

1021
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:21,440
Speaker 2: a couple of years. Omaha, Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska. Wherever we went,

1022
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,360
Speaker 2: they knew he wasn't coming back there again. And his

1023
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:26,879
Speaker 2: fans were coming to say goodbye to him. And people

1024
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 2: would say that towards the end, you know, he didn't

1025
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 2: sing as good as you. They didn't care. He could

1026
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 2: have read the phone book. They wanted to be in

1027
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:35,240
Speaker 2: the same room with this living legend.

1028
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:39,319
Speaker 1: You know, it was, I mean, they grew more. Look,

1029
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 1: I saw him first when I was maybe I know,

1030
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:43,719
Speaker 1: was seventeen years old, and I took my wife to

1031
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 1: see him. You know, we went to see him in

1032
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 1: Maryland at the Radio City. There was nothing like it,

1033
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:51,400
Speaker 1: and it got more emotional as it went on. It

1034
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 1: frankly didn't matter whether he was in top voice night

1035
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:59,120
Speaker 1: or not. He was. He was the twentieth century when

1036
00:48:59,160 --> 00:48:59,879
Speaker 1: he walked out there.

1037
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:01,919
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, Frank Sinatra, if you were Frank

1038
00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 2: Sinatra fan, his music was a soundtrack of your life.

1039
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:09,320
Speaker 2: You know, you got you and steady when somebody loves you.

1040
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:11,839
Speaker 2: It's no good unless you got married to his music.

1041
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:13,960
Speaker 2: Love then Mary's you know, you got divorced to his

1042
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 2: musices quarter to three, you got remarried the second time around.

1043
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:22,839
Speaker 2: His music was a soundtrack of Your Life. And again

1044
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 2: in the end, it wasn't for them, it was also

1045
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 2: for him. You know, I've seen him days where he

1046
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 2: was up in years and you could see he didn't

1047
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 2: want to go, and we'd get to the show, you say,

1048
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:35,239
Speaker 2: But then when he got on stage and that light

1049
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 2: hit him, twenty years would fall off his face and

1050
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 2: you know, come fly with me, let's fly away.

1051
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:44,160
Speaker 1: No, it's like his body remembered. Yeah, he would just

1052
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 1: go to that place sometimes, song to songs, because one

1053
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:50,520
Speaker 1: he did in the fifties, the next one he did

1054
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:53,840
Speaker 1: in the seventies. Yeah, you could hear the difference in voice.

1055
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:56,440
Speaker 1: It was like he was younger when he sang the

1056
00:49:56,520 --> 00:49:59,399
Speaker 1: older song. It was very odd watching him live.

1057
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:02,520
Speaker 2: First, when most people have to realize about Frank shanat Worth,

1058
00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:05,040
Speaker 2: they forget all the time what a brilliant actor he was.

1059
00:50:05,440 --> 00:50:07,600
Speaker 2: He won the Academy Award, From Here to the Ettornity,

1060
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:09,080
Speaker 2: he should have won the Academy Award and The Man

1061
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:11,920
Speaker 2: with the Golden Arm. But when you gave Frank Shanatra

1062
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 2: a song, it was a script. You know, the words,

1063
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:16,960
Speaker 2: you just had him to that later it was a script.

1064
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:18,960
Speaker 2: What did the writer feel the night the writer took

1065
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 2: pen in hand. He would immerse himself in that lyric

1066
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:23,399
Speaker 2: and become that lonely guy in the bar whose woman

1067
00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 2: left him and he's never going to find love again,

1068
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:29,480
Speaker 2: and you felt that and the joy of a song. No,

1069
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:33,320
Speaker 2: there's no comparison to him in any other singer. I

1070
00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 2: don't care who you talk about. And this is what

1071
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:37,560
Speaker 2: I brought this for because I thought this would come up.

1072
00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:40,799
Speaker 2: Bob Dylanman said right from the beginning, he was there

1073
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 2: with the truth of things in his voice. He was

1074
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:45,920
Speaker 2: one of the very few singers without a mask. I

1075
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 2: could hear everything in his voice. Death, God, the universe, everything.

1076
00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:52,800
Speaker 2: He is the mountain. That's the mountain you have to climb,

1077
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:55,439
Speaker 2: even if you only can get part of the way there. Wow,

1078
00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 2: that's what he said, the singing truth from Bob Dylan.

1079
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 1: Did he warm up before a show.

1080
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:02,920
Speaker 2: He had a thing that he told me. An old

1081
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:06,879
Speaker 2: Irish teacher in New York, he's a paying a dollar

1082
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:09,840
Speaker 2: an hour when he was a kid, taught him this

1083
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:15,120
Speaker 2: vocalize comment, take oh walk with me? He would at

1084
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:16,879
Speaker 2: home he would do that. You would take up another

1085
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:18,000
Speaker 2: doc comment.

1086
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:21,480
Speaker 1: Take oh walk with me and keep going up the scale.

1087
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 2: Sometimes. Bill Miller did have a piano in the stress

1088
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:27,000
Speaker 2: room for the show. Go up to scale, Bomb comment,

1089
00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 2: take a walk with me. Then Bomb comment, take oh,

1090
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 2: walk with me. You'd take up the scale, you know.

1091
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:37,520
Speaker 2: And that's how he warmed up before the show. Ye.

1092
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:39,480
Speaker 2: And the other thing too, is something that I tell

1093
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:41,360
Speaker 2: young singers all the time. When he was going to

1094
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:44,279
Speaker 2: do a new song, record, all day long, he would

1095
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:47,400
Speaker 2: walk the floor and talk that song as a poem.

1096
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:52,719
Speaker 2: You will be my music. You will be my song.

1097
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:55,839
Speaker 2: When all the songs are out of tune and all

1098
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 2: the rhymes rings so untrue, then you you will be

1099
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:02,560
Speaker 2: mine music. He would do it as a poem all

1100
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:04,239
Speaker 2: day long, and then you go sing.

1101
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:07,760
Speaker 1: It like a monologue. Yeah, why did he wear the tucks?

1102
00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:10,760
Speaker 1: He told you what. He always wore the tucks.

1103
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 2: Every singer that I worked with, I'd say to them

1104
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:15,040
Speaker 2: if it was their show, if I was opening act

1105
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:16,799
Speaker 2: when a headline, I can wear whatever I want to wear.

1106
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:18,759
Speaker 2: But when I was opening he I'd say, how would

1107
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:21,759
Speaker 2: you like me to dress? Sammy Davis Junior once said,

1108
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:23,960
Speaker 2: I think we should dress at least as good as

1109
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,520
Speaker 2: those who came to see us. So in Vegas. In

1110
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:29,440
Speaker 2: those days, the first show doing a show, shoot and tie.

1111
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:31,759
Speaker 2: Second show would be like sport coat. But then as

1112
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:34,440
Speaker 2: time has gone by, that doesn't exist. But Frank Sinatra,

1113
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 2: we always wore a tuxedo. And I said to him

1114
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:39,960
Speaker 2: one time, why do we wear a tuxedo? He said, Tommy,

1115
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 2: if we were going to do a show for the

1116
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 2: King and the Queen tomorrow, would we wear a tuxedo?

1117
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:49,120
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, yeah. He said, well, that garage mechanic

1118
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:51,799
Speaker 2: in Detroit and his waitress wife, who work all year

1119
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:54,360
Speaker 2: long to buy two tickets to our show, they're just

1120
00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:56,520
Speaker 2: as much royalty as a king and the queen. And

1121
00:52:56,600 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 2: that's why we were a tuxedo for them too. I said,

1122
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:02,840
Speaker 2: oh that every night there's a command performance.

1123
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:07,239
Speaker 1: It had that air of class about it. My grandfather,

1124
00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:09,720
Speaker 1: who was you know, working now, I'm gonna cry, working

1125
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 1: class guy, had his restaurant. He when Sinatra came to

1126
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:18,759
Speaker 1: his restaurant two times, when Frank walked in, you would

1127
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:21,680
Speaker 1: have thought God himself Moses was coming to the place.

1128
00:53:21,719 --> 00:53:22,239
Speaker 2: I mean it was.

1129
00:53:22,920 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 1: And he said, and the one thing he always said, boy,

1130
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:29,720
Speaker 1: he brings such class. He walks in, he's got class,

1131
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 1: and it was. He did bring that elegance. There was

1132
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: an elegance to him which you have in your comedy

1133
00:53:34,640 --> 00:53:34,920
Speaker 1: as well.

1134
00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:36,719
Speaker 2: By the way, that's kind of you, you know. But

1135
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:40,239
Speaker 2: the thing that Frank I always say Frank Sinatra wasn't

1136
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:42,840
Speaker 2: a saint, but he did some saintly things. There's a

1137
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:45,200
Speaker 2: lot of people critics who don't like him, and you'll

1138
00:53:45,200 --> 00:53:46,719
Speaker 2: see it on the internet now, say he was this

1139
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:48,520
Speaker 2: he was at and they always bring up the mob

1140
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:50,279
Speaker 2: and all this other kind of stuff. But there was

1141
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:53,200
Speaker 2: something about old school about Frank Ray. If we were

1142
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:55,719
Speaker 2: sitting at a table and there were like five or

1143
00:53:55,760 --> 00:53:57,960
Speaker 2: six women, five or six guys were eating and one

1144
00:53:58,000 --> 00:53:59,719
Speaker 2: of the ladies got up to use the ladies room

1145
00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:01,799
Speaker 2: down at the end of the table, he'd be talking

1146
00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:03,120
Speaker 2: to you, but at the corner of his eye he

1147
00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:05,800
Speaker 2: would rise out of his chair because the lady just

1148
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:08,400
Speaker 2: got up, man, And then he'd be continue talking to

1149
00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:10,680
Speaker 2: you like this, and she would come back, and before

1150
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:12,719
Speaker 2: she sat down, he would rise out of his chair

1151
00:54:13,080 --> 00:54:15,919
Speaker 2: what her to be seated. He had old school type

1152
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:19,719
Speaker 2: manners in a lot of ways. And again he was

1153
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:24,040
Speaker 2: I mean, he was There was no middle with Frank

1154
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:26,440
Speaker 2: Sinata in a lot of ways. If Frank worked, he

1155
00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:28,719
Speaker 2: worked harder than anybody. And you better know your job

1156
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:32,200
Speaker 2: because he knew everybody's job. Nelson Riddle said, Frank was

1157
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:34,880
Speaker 2: just another instrument in the orchestra. He blended in with him.

1158
00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:38,960
Speaker 2: He knew. One time in Caesar's with Nelson Riddle arrangements,

1159
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:41,960
Speaker 2: they had all these strings and Frank at rehearsal, stopped

1160
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:43,160
Speaker 2: in the middle of a song and said to the

1161
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:46,120
Speaker 2: third violinist, you're out of tune. This guy was in

1162
00:54:46,200 --> 00:54:49,360
Speaker 2: the La Philharmonic, and he said, no, I'm not in

1163
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:51,680
Speaker 2: The other guy said, Ray, you are. You know the

1164
00:54:51,719 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 2: guy Harry, And sure enough Frank's ear picked up. And

1165
00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 2: so when it comes showtime, he worked as hard as anybody.

1166
00:54:59,080 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 1: I know.

1167
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:02,319
Speaker 2: You want to play, He's said out every night till

1168
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:04,080
Speaker 2: six o'clock in the morning. He could play as hard

1169
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:06,879
Speaker 2: as anybody know. In the fourteen years I toured with Frank,

1170
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:09,439
Speaker 2: I turned down more sitcoms and most comedians get offered

1171
00:55:09,480 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 2: on a lifetime because I knew this was the end

1172
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:14,920
Speaker 2: of an era. And also it was it was this

1173
00:55:15,719 --> 00:55:19,080
Speaker 2: full circle thing. Ten year old boy shinning shoes and

1174
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 2: it's not just on the jukebox and now that ten

1175
00:55:21,080 --> 00:55:23,200
Speaker 2: year old boy Frank's calling him back out to take

1176
00:55:23,239 --> 00:55:25,480
Speaker 2: another bow. Those are moments.

1177
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:26,080
Speaker 1: You know.

1178
00:55:26,960 --> 00:55:29,239
Speaker 2: It's even now when I'm telling you this, I'm getting chows.

1179
00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:32,360
Speaker 1: Well the book, the book captures that. Your book captures

1180
00:55:32,400 --> 00:55:35,120
Speaker 1: so much of that. I was in tears reading parts

1181
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:40,560
Speaker 1: of the book because you are commemorating and capturing the

1182
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:44,640
Speaker 1: end of that era. I mean, not only this amazing

1183
00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:48,120
Speaker 1: performer and your your time with him, but your own career.

1184
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:51,280
Speaker 1: And tell me about the other, the other great Frank

1185
00:55:51,440 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 1: in your life, your uncle Frank, unless he was much

1186
00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:57,160
Speaker 1: more than Uncle Frank believes.

1187
00:55:57,239 --> 00:56:00,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was funny. I wrote. My book is called

1188
00:56:00,719 --> 00:56:04,880
Speaker 2: Still Standing. The subtitle is My Journey from streets and

1189
00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:07,719
Speaker 2: saloons to the stage and Sinatra. That's a cheap plug

1190
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:08,640
Speaker 2: on Amazon.

1191
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:10,319
Speaker 1: It's worth the read.

1192
00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:17,080
Speaker 2: And I decided that I had come clean with this story.

1193
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:21,280
Speaker 2: There were eight of us kids. I grew up Recan children,

1194
00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:25,719
Speaker 2: and I didn't look like my brothers and sisters. I

1195
00:56:25,800 --> 00:56:31,239
Speaker 2: had dark hair, black haron and and you know Frank

1196
00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:34,520
Speaker 2: Poliicy was my mom's brother in law who owned the

1197
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:36,680
Speaker 2: bar that I told you about earlier that I used

1198
00:56:36,680 --> 00:56:40,480
Speaker 2: to emulate. Tell it jokes and stuff, and I loved him.

1199
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 2: He was my favorite uncle. He was just my favorite uncle.

1200
00:56:42,920 --> 00:56:44,360
Speaker 2: He was a guy. He was a tough guy. He

1201
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:47,920
Speaker 2: didn't take anything from anybody anywhere anytime. He ran the bar.

1202
00:56:48,360 --> 00:56:51,239
Speaker 2: And he had a band called Frank Policity and the Venetianears,

1203
00:56:51,560 --> 00:56:54,840
Speaker 2: and he sang and my mom would sometimes sing in

1204
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:57,279
Speaker 2: the band, and my dad, Walter Trison, played trumpet in

1205
00:56:57,360 --> 00:57:01,279
Speaker 2: the Brandy and anyhow, and I love the guy Frank Plas.

1206
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:05,040
Speaker 2: He's just and he slipped me an extra quarter once

1207
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:07,560
Speaker 2: in a while, a half a dollar, but when I

1208
00:57:07,680 --> 00:57:11,840
Speaker 2: was shining shoes. But anyhow, I looked just like his

1209
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:15,600
Speaker 2: two sons. And everywhere I'd go when I was a

1210
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:17,680
Speaker 2: little boy, a lot of times people say, hey, Pulisy,

1211
00:57:17,720 --> 00:57:19,600
Speaker 2: how are you doing. I said, my name is in policy.

1212
00:57:19,680 --> 00:57:22,520
Speaker 2: My name is Teresan. He's my uncle. Oh and I

1213
00:57:22,560 --> 00:57:26,280
Speaker 2: think they thought it might be my mom's brother. Anyhow,

1214
00:57:26,320 --> 00:57:30,040
Speaker 2: long story short. When I'm about fourteen years old, I'm

1215
00:57:30,080 --> 00:57:32,680
Speaker 2: learning where babies come from. I didn't want to think

1216
00:57:32,720 --> 00:57:34,600
Speaker 2: that my mom and dad did this little my mom

1217
00:57:34,680 --> 00:57:36,720
Speaker 2: and my uncle, you know, my mom's brother in law.

1218
00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:39,960
Speaker 2: And it just tortured me because I didn't know what

1219
00:57:40,040 --> 00:57:43,000
Speaker 2: to do. I had these thoughts that what if my

1220
00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:45,040
Speaker 2: mom and him and maybe that's why I look like

1221
00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:50,000
Speaker 2: my two cousins. Yeah, And one day I went I

1222
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 2: wanted to talk to him, and I went for a walk.

1223
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:54,560
Speaker 2: When he said, what is I said, I think that

1224
00:57:55,320 --> 00:57:59,240
Speaker 2: that you're my father? And he got uptight. He said,

1225
00:57:59,320 --> 00:58:01,560
Speaker 2: why do you think that? I said, because I don't

1226
00:58:01,600 --> 00:58:03,400
Speaker 2: look like my brothers and sisters and I looked like

1227
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:07,400
Speaker 2: down and buzz his kids. He said. He walked for

1228
00:58:07,440 --> 00:58:11,600
Speaker 2: a little bit and he said, well it's true. He said,

1229
00:58:11,640 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 2: then you can go tell the world, but you'll ruin

1230
00:58:14,120 --> 00:58:18,000
Speaker 2: your mom and dad's marriage and mine too. And I said,

1231
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:19,800
Speaker 2: I don't want to do that. I don't want to

1232
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:23,440
Speaker 2: do that. I just needed to know. And anyhow, I

1233
00:58:23,640 --> 00:58:27,040
Speaker 2: got distant from him after that. I was very uncomfortable

1234
00:58:27,440 --> 00:58:30,080
Speaker 2: around him. After that, I was like fifteen. I went

1235
00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:33,000
Speaker 2: in the Navy. At seventeen. After a couple of years

1236
00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:34,680
Speaker 2: in a navy, I come home and leave. And at

1237
00:58:34,720 --> 00:58:37,560
Speaker 2: that point I didn't care who planted to seed. I

1238
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:40,240
Speaker 2: still love Walter Dreesen. He was my dad. He's always

1239
00:58:40,280 --> 00:58:42,919
Speaker 2: going to be my dad. And I always called him unk,

1240
00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:48,920
Speaker 2: but anyhow, we start getting real close and it was

1241
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:51,440
Speaker 2: our secret and no one knew. I would not tell anybody,

1242
00:58:51,480 --> 00:58:52,960
Speaker 2: and that was our secret. And I carried that with

1243
00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:57,160
Speaker 2: me throughout the years. And finally, you know, Walter Dreason

1244
00:58:57,240 --> 00:59:00,960
Speaker 2: died and Frank Polizi died. Was that was my mom

1245
00:59:01,480 --> 00:59:04,800
Speaker 2: and my aunt and they lived together at that time. Ah,

1246
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 2: so I wasn't going to ever tell. And then my mom.

1247
00:59:07,960 --> 00:59:10,280
Speaker 2: Before my mom passed away, I had a long talk

1248
00:59:10,360 --> 00:59:13,480
Speaker 2: with her. I sat down and she was one of

1249
00:59:13,520 --> 00:59:16,240
Speaker 2: those Irish Catholics. She had gone to confession and that's

1250
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:19,200
Speaker 2: behind her and we don't want to talk about it.

1251
00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:22,720
Speaker 2: But one night I said to her, Mom, I know,

1252
00:59:23,440 --> 00:59:26,640
Speaker 2: you know, I know, and Frank knew and he told

1253
00:59:26,680 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 2: me and so forth and so on. But it doesn't matter, Mom,

1254
00:59:29,760 --> 00:59:32,560
Speaker 2: it doesn't she said, Tommy. Sometimes we do things when

1255
00:59:32,600 --> 00:59:34,760
Speaker 2: we're young that when we look back over our life,

1256
00:59:35,160 --> 00:59:38,520
Speaker 2: why we did them, and we're sorry for them. I said,

1257
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:42,480
Speaker 2: well it's over now, I said, besides, Mom, had it

1258
00:59:42,600 --> 00:59:44,959
Speaker 2: not happened, I wouldn't be standing here right now telling

1259
00:59:45,000 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 2: you how much I love you. You know, she's and

1260
00:59:47,280 --> 00:59:51,120
Speaker 2: we never talked about it again. But on his deathbed,

1261
00:59:51,200 --> 00:59:53,800
Speaker 2: when Frank Plizzy was dying. I went to the hospital

1262
00:59:54,680 --> 00:59:58,280
Speaker 2: and everybody was leading and I was left alone with him,

1263
00:59:58,560 --> 01:00:02,600
Speaker 2: and I said to him, you know we were talking

1264
01:00:02,680 --> 01:00:05,720
Speaker 2: and he never cried. He was a toughest say it.

1265
01:00:06,080 --> 01:00:09,000
Speaker 2: He said to me, do you have any ill feedings

1266
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:11,320
Speaker 2: about us that you want to talk about? I said no.

1267
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:14,280
Speaker 2: He said, Tommy, don't hold back just because you know

1268
01:00:14,320 --> 01:00:16,400
Speaker 2: I'm dying. He said, is there anything you want to

1269
01:00:16,400 --> 01:00:18,400
Speaker 2: get off your chest? I said no, I have no

1270
01:00:18,520 --> 01:00:21,720
Speaker 2: ill feedings whatsoever. I said, everything I own, everything I have,

1271
01:00:23,000 --> 01:00:26,680
Speaker 2: I'm here. So I said, do you have any ill feedings?

1272
01:00:27,080 --> 01:00:28,880
Speaker 2: He said, the only thing I feel bad about was

1273
01:00:29,320 --> 01:00:31,360
Speaker 2: every time I'd be in a bar somewhere or somewhere

1274
01:00:31,360 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 2: and you were on TV. I couldn't tell people that's

1275
01:00:34,160 --> 01:00:37,400
Speaker 2: my kid, that's my boy. And I said, well, one

1276
01:00:37,480 --> 01:00:39,680
Speaker 2: day I'm going to win an award and show business

1277
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:42,000
Speaker 2: or something. Because he had sung as a young guy.

1278
01:00:42,360 --> 01:00:44,400
Speaker 2: I said, and I'll accept that award in your name.

1279
01:00:44,680 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 2: And you did, and he turned his head with tears

1280
01:00:47,160 --> 01:00:49,439
Speaker 2: in his eyes, said, don't tell myself cry. And years

1281
01:00:49,520 --> 01:00:51,040
Speaker 2: later I received the l Side in the Medal of

1282
01:00:51,080 --> 01:00:53,920
Speaker 2: Honor award, where he had come to this country when

1283
01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:56,280
Speaker 2: he was seven years old on Alis sid and you know,

1284
01:00:56,400 --> 01:01:00,160
Speaker 2: on the USS Italian and I accepted the award in

1285
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:01,280
Speaker 2: his name, and.

1286
01:01:02,880 --> 01:01:07,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, so beautiful, beautiful, tell me to bring the Sinatra

1287
01:01:07,200 --> 01:01:10,640
Speaker 1: story full circle. Tom. You were with him in Richmond,

1288
01:01:10,840 --> 01:01:14,240
Speaker 1: Virginia when he falls. It was hot, and it was

1289
01:01:14,440 --> 01:01:17,000
Speaker 1: it was blazing hot out and I guess it was

1290
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:18,280
Speaker 1: what dehydrated, right.

1291
01:01:18,560 --> 01:01:21,000
Speaker 2: You know, Frank sit up till dawn and then he'd

1292
01:01:21,040 --> 01:01:23,080
Speaker 2: get up. He see catnapp during the day. He get

1293
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:24,360
Speaker 2: up and he had a cup of coffee and comes

1294
01:01:24,400 --> 01:01:27,920
Speaker 2: to do the show. When I was on stage, I said, man,

1295
01:01:27,960 --> 01:01:30,120
Speaker 2: it is stuffy in here. I never sweat when I'm

1296
01:01:30,160 --> 01:01:32,360
Speaker 2: stage unless I'm bombing, but I haven't done that a while.

1297
01:01:33,520 --> 01:01:35,880
Speaker 2: That never happened. I never sweat on stage. And I

1298
01:01:36,080 --> 01:01:37,680
Speaker 2: was sitting and I said, man, it's warm in here.

1299
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:40,320
Speaker 2: It's really warm in here. And you know when Frank

1300
01:01:40,360 --> 01:01:42,480
Speaker 2: goes out. He was in the middle of my way

1301
01:01:42,600 --> 01:01:44,200
Speaker 2: and his next song is New York, New York, and

1302
01:01:44,320 --> 01:01:46,880
Speaker 2: he's going home, but he will never take his coat off,

1303
01:01:47,160 --> 01:01:51,240
Speaker 2: and he was sweating profusely. He dehydrated. He collapsed. At first,

1304
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:52,960
Speaker 2: we thought it was a heart attack, and we rushed

1305
01:01:53,000 --> 01:01:55,760
Speaker 2: out there and everything, you know, and then and then

1306
01:01:56,160 --> 01:01:59,160
Speaker 2: he collapsed and a doctor came running up on a stage.

1307
01:01:59,400 --> 01:02:02,120
Speaker 2: Paramedics came and they're trying to get him out of there.

1308
01:02:02,440 --> 01:02:03,080
Speaker 2: And he wouldn't go.

1309
01:02:03,200 --> 01:02:05,120
Speaker 1: You wouldn't stay at the hospital, he said.

1310
01:02:05,480 --> 01:02:08,920
Speaker 2: They said, the paramedics couldn't release him. They said, only

1311
01:02:09,000 --> 01:02:11,760
Speaker 2: the hospital can release you, mister Sinatra. We can't really,

1312
01:02:11,880 --> 01:02:14,280
Speaker 2: we have to take you there because it's a state law.

1313
01:02:14,840 --> 01:02:17,600
Speaker 2: They you know, So take him to the hospital. Now,

1314
01:02:17,960 --> 01:02:26,840
Speaker 2: three doctors, a neurologist, heart specialist, and some other natural doctors.

1315
01:02:27,200 --> 01:02:30,560
Speaker 2: But they all cleared him, and all three now he

1316
01:02:30,640 --> 01:02:33,240
Speaker 2: wants he's there too long now, and he's getting testy.

1317
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:35,800
Speaker 2: And Hen Katano, Frank's road manager, and I are there

1318
01:02:36,160 --> 01:02:40,040
Speaker 2: in the in the room. Frank's testy. He said, the

1319
01:02:40,120 --> 01:02:41,959
Speaker 2: jet ready, He said, yeah, the jets ready, he said.

1320
01:02:42,640 --> 01:02:46,280
Speaker 2: First doctor comes in, mister Sinatra. I checked you out.

1321
01:02:46,600 --> 01:02:48,840
Speaker 2: You're in real good shape. He said, I would prefer

1322
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:51,280
Speaker 2: you spend the night here, he said, so that we

1323
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:52,840
Speaker 2: can release you in the morning and know that there's

1324
01:02:52,880 --> 01:02:55,280
Speaker 2: nothing wrong. But it's your call. He said, doctor, thank

1325
01:02:55,320 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 2: you very much. Then the neurologists came in. He said,

1326
01:02:58,160 --> 01:03:01,280
Speaker 2: mister Snaptra, all the scams came in. You're fine, but

1327
01:03:01,600 --> 01:03:04,240
Speaker 2: I too would prefer that you spend the night here,

1328
01:03:04,680 --> 01:03:06,240
Speaker 2: you know, but it's your call. I said, thank you, doctor.

1329
01:03:06,240 --> 01:03:09,200
Speaker 2: Another third guy, he's doing one of these. Mister Sinatra,

1330
01:03:10,680 --> 01:03:14,000
Speaker 2: I'm paraphraesian, But unlike my two colleagues, my esteem colleagues,

1331
01:03:14,000 --> 01:03:16,760
Speaker 2: who I have tremendous respect for, I'm not going to

1332
01:03:16,920 --> 01:03:19,440
Speaker 2: ask you to spend the night here. I'm going to

1333
01:03:19,920 --> 01:03:21,480
Speaker 2: demand that you spend the night here.

1334
01:03:21,520 --> 01:03:21,640
Speaker 1: Now.

1335
01:03:21,640 --> 01:03:23,800
Speaker 2: In the moment you said that, Hanka town, you looked

1336
01:03:23,800 --> 01:03:25,400
Speaker 2: at me. I looked at me, Oh, this ain't going

1337
01:03:25,920 --> 01:03:28,320
Speaker 2: this is not going to go well, he's going on,

1338
01:03:28,720 --> 01:03:31,080
Speaker 2: I graduated second in my class or something like that,

1339
01:03:31,200 --> 01:03:34,640
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah. And if I would not on

1340
01:03:34,800 --> 01:03:37,840
Speaker 2: my watch, that something would go wrong with the great

1341
01:03:38,280 --> 01:03:42,360
Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra. So therefore I insist that you spend the night.

1342
01:03:42,640 --> 01:03:44,360
Speaker 2: And Frank said, that's it. You see, I said, let's

1343
01:03:44,400 --> 01:03:45,080
Speaker 2: get the hell out of you.

1344
01:03:45,760 --> 01:03:46,120
Speaker 1: That's it.

1345
01:03:46,720 --> 01:03:46,959
Speaker 2: Both.

1346
01:03:48,520 --> 01:03:51,520
Speaker 1: That was the release typical of Frank. What did he

1347
01:03:51,840 --> 01:03:56,480
Speaker 1: teach Tom Drace Sinatra that time with him? What did

1348
01:03:56,560 --> 01:03:59,120
Speaker 1: he teach you as a man, as a performer.

1349
01:04:00,120 --> 01:04:02,600
Speaker 2: As a performer, that party as much as you want,

1350
01:04:03,080 --> 01:04:07,200
Speaker 2: but don't throw this show away. Don't throw the show away.

1351
01:04:07,560 --> 01:04:09,960
Speaker 2: That every night is a command performance. That when you

1352
01:04:10,040 --> 01:04:12,160
Speaker 2: walk out on the stage, you take command. This is

1353
01:04:12,520 --> 01:04:15,120
Speaker 2: these people paid to see you, and they deserve the

1354
01:04:15,280 --> 01:04:18,000
Speaker 2: best you got. Even if you're not feeding good. You've

1355
01:04:18,000 --> 01:04:19,880
Speaker 2: got to go deep inside and come up with the

1356
01:04:19,920 --> 01:04:23,040
Speaker 2: best you got that night. The second thing that I'll

1357
01:04:23,080 --> 01:04:28,240
Speaker 2: never forget this is Frank Sinatra, arguably the greatest career

1358
01:04:28,640 --> 01:04:33,720
Speaker 2: show business has ever known, the actor Grammy's Emmy's Oscars.

1359
01:04:34,800 --> 01:04:37,600
Speaker 2: Never ever, ever, ever in his life was he late.

1360
01:04:38,120 --> 01:04:41,520
Speaker 2: Never was he ever late for anything, any performance. Anytime

1361
01:04:41,560 --> 01:04:43,400
Speaker 2: you told him to be there, he was on time.

1362
01:04:44,200 --> 01:04:47,160
Speaker 2: If you told him to be there. If he told

1363
01:04:47,200 --> 01:04:50,280
Speaker 2: you wheels up at nine o'clock and you showed up

1364
01:04:50,280 --> 01:04:51,920
Speaker 2: at nine o one, you were watching a plane go

1365
01:04:52,000 --> 01:04:52,680
Speaker 2: down the runway.

1366
01:04:52,840 --> 01:04:53,080
Speaker 1: Wow.

1367
01:04:53,520 --> 01:04:56,480
Speaker 2: He was always early, always on time. I learned that

1368
01:04:56,560 --> 01:04:59,919
Speaker 2: in the military. Fortunately, I went four years in moment

1369
01:05:00,080 --> 01:05:02,800
Speaker 2: terry before I toured with him, because he was always

1370
01:05:02,920 --> 01:05:06,240
Speaker 2: on time, always early. So he said to me one time,

1371
01:05:06,720 --> 01:05:09,040
Speaker 2: if someone tells you to be in their office at

1372
01:05:09,160 --> 01:05:11,440
Speaker 2: nine o'clock and you show up at nine point fifteen.

1373
01:05:11,720 --> 01:05:14,240
Speaker 2: You just told them your time is far more important

1374
01:05:14,240 --> 01:05:16,680
Speaker 2: than their time. He said, no one's that important, Tommy.

1375
01:05:17,160 --> 01:05:21,120
Speaker 2: You know, respect everybody else's time. That's another great lessonself

1376
01:05:21,200 --> 01:05:26,840
Speaker 2: and his generosity. Raymond, you cannot describe how generous this

1377
01:05:27,080 --> 01:05:30,240
Speaker 2: man was and did not want you to know, did

1378
01:05:30,320 --> 01:05:32,120
Speaker 2: not want people to know. And if you witness it,

1379
01:05:32,360 --> 01:05:35,320
Speaker 2: you better not talk about it, you know, I really

1380
01:05:35,840 --> 01:05:38,680
Speaker 2: we talked one time. He was an avid reader. He

1381
01:05:38,760 --> 01:05:41,040
Speaker 2: read a book called The Magnificent Obsession as I did too,

1382
01:05:41,080 --> 01:05:43,840
Speaker 2: by Lloyd C. Douglas. Its predecessor was a book called

1383
01:05:43,880 --> 01:05:46,880
Speaker 2: Doctor Hudson's Secret Journal. In the book, it is the

1384
01:05:46,960 --> 01:05:50,600
Speaker 2: secret of success. If you want to become successful, then

1385
01:05:51,360 --> 01:05:53,200
Speaker 2: what you have to do once you ask your master

1386
01:05:53,760 --> 01:05:55,240
Speaker 2: I want to be a comedian, or I want to

1387
01:05:55,280 --> 01:05:57,000
Speaker 2: be a singer, I want to be whatever it is.

1388
01:05:57,200 --> 01:05:58,800
Speaker 2: I want to be an engineer. I want to own

1389
01:05:58,880 --> 01:06:01,919
Speaker 2: my own restaurant. You pray that you have to really

1390
01:06:02,000 --> 01:06:04,880
Speaker 2: believe that ask and you shall receive. You have to

1391
01:06:04,960 --> 01:06:07,160
Speaker 2: rebelieve that your master is going to do that. But

1392
01:06:07,960 --> 01:06:12,680
Speaker 2: from the moment you make that request, that request, then

1393
01:06:13,080 --> 01:06:14,720
Speaker 2: from that moment on. You got to keep your eyes

1394
01:06:14,760 --> 01:06:17,600
Speaker 2: and ears open for his less fortunate children and do

1395
01:06:17,760 --> 01:06:20,440
Speaker 2: something for them without them knowing it. And if you

1396
01:06:20,560 --> 01:06:22,800
Speaker 2: do that within thirty days, your Master will reward you

1397
01:06:22,880 --> 01:06:27,320
Speaker 2: towards your endeavor. So if you saw somebody, if somebody

1398
01:06:27,360 --> 01:06:29,000
Speaker 2: needs them up, and you can help them without them

1399
01:06:29,080 --> 01:06:31,520
Speaker 2: knowing it, that's how it worked. Now, if you had

1400
01:06:31,560 --> 01:06:34,120
Speaker 2: to do something for somebody and there's no way they

1401
01:06:34,160 --> 01:06:36,240
Speaker 2: wouldn't know it, you had to swear them the secrecy.

1402
01:06:36,280 --> 01:06:38,439
Speaker 2: So I'll do this for you, Raymond, but you must

1403
01:06:38,560 --> 01:06:42,040
Speaker 2: not do this for anyone else. Pay It Forward. That

1404
01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:44,320
Speaker 2: book was written long before the movie Pay It Forward

1405
01:06:44,360 --> 01:06:47,760
Speaker 2: came out, and he not only talked that talk, he walked.

1406
01:06:47,480 --> 01:06:51,960
Speaker 1: That talk amazing. Tell me about your cancer struggle, which

1407
01:06:52,120 --> 01:06:57,240
Speaker 1: I was completely unaware of, and how your faith sustained.

1408
01:06:56,720 --> 01:07:01,160
Speaker 2: You through that. You know, I had cancer twice and

1409
01:07:01,240 --> 01:07:03,840
Speaker 2: I beat it both times, and it's it could be

1410
01:07:03,880 --> 01:07:07,680
Speaker 2: on the horizon again because it keeps reoccurring. But you know,

1411
01:07:08,520 --> 01:07:11,680
Speaker 2: at one time, the second time I had it, my

1412
01:07:11,840 --> 01:07:13,880
Speaker 2: daughter and I went over to USC to two experts,

1413
01:07:14,080 --> 01:07:16,040
Speaker 2: a man and a woman doctor. They're looking at two

1414
01:07:16,080 --> 01:07:18,320
Speaker 2: big screens. I sat in the office and They're looking there,

1415
01:07:18,480 --> 01:07:21,200
Speaker 2: typing in and whispering each other time and I figured

1416
01:07:21,240 --> 01:07:23,560
Speaker 2: they're going to put me on chemotherapy or something. And

1417
01:07:23,680 --> 01:07:25,720
Speaker 2: the doctor turned around. He said to me, mister Dreeson,

1418
01:07:26,080 --> 01:07:27,960
Speaker 2: go home and put your affairs in order. That was

1419
01:07:28,120 --> 01:07:34,480
Speaker 2: July twenty eighteen. Wow. And I said. My daughter started

1420
01:07:34,480 --> 01:07:37,280
Speaker 2: to cry. I said, are you telling me that I'm

1421
01:07:37,360 --> 01:07:41,760
Speaker 2: going to die? He said yes. I said, how much

1422
01:07:41,880 --> 01:07:44,280
Speaker 2: time do I have? He said, only God knows that.

1423
01:07:45,200 --> 01:07:46,600
Speaker 2: I said, well, I'm going to ask God for a

1424
01:07:46,640 --> 01:07:51,480
Speaker 2: second opinion. And I left there. But I you know,

1425
01:07:52,520 --> 01:07:53,680
Speaker 2: I wasn't panicked.

1426
01:07:54,000 --> 01:07:54,920
Speaker 1: You weren't panicked.

1427
01:07:55,000 --> 01:07:58,520
Speaker 2: Well, no, I thought about death many many times in

1428
01:07:58,600 --> 01:08:01,480
Speaker 2: the military and before that all your life and planes,

1429
01:08:01,520 --> 01:08:04,960
Speaker 2: and I thought about death a lot. And and as

1430
01:08:05,000 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 2: you know, growing up Catholic and the altar boy and

1431
01:08:06,720 --> 01:08:08,120
Speaker 2: all that heaven and.

1432
01:08:08,440 --> 01:08:10,320
Speaker 1: Is ever having, Eternity is always in front of you,

1433
01:08:10,600 --> 01:08:11,880
Speaker 1: all this, you know, And I thought.

1434
01:08:12,320 --> 01:08:14,720
Speaker 2: One thing I thought about. I said, I hope when

1435
01:08:14,760 --> 01:08:17,800
Speaker 2: my time comes. I hope that if I have time,

1436
01:08:18,240 --> 01:08:20,760
Speaker 2: I'll have the courage, not the whimper and moan and

1437
01:08:20,880 --> 01:08:22,560
Speaker 2: whine and complain, why me, why me?

1438
01:08:22,960 --> 01:08:24,479
Speaker 1: To accept it? You know?

1439
01:08:24,640 --> 01:08:26,920
Speaker 2: For two reasons. One is because I have a great

1440
01:08:26,960 --> 01:08:29,760
Speaker 2: I had a great life. All my dreams came true.

1441
01:08:29,880 --> 01:08:31,960
Speaker 2: I had a tough childhood. It was like it was

1442
01:08:32,040 --> 01:08:34,479
Speaker 2: like God said, I'm going to put a load on

1443
01:08:34,560 --> 01:08:36,240
Speaker 2: you for the first half of your life, but if

1444
01:08:36,280 --> 01:08:39,479
Speaker 2: you survive, the second half is on me. And that's

1445
01:08:39,520 --> 01:08:42,000
Speaker 2: what happened. So I wanted to have that courage if

1446
01:08:42,080 --> 01:08:43,640
Speaker 2: I if I was told that I was going to die,

1447
01:08:43,640 --> 01:08:44,960
Speaker 2: I want to have the courage that I would face

1448
01:08:45,000 --> 01:08:49,800
Speaker 2: it with courage. And also because my children, one day

1449
01:08:49,800 --> 01:08:51,840
Speaker 2: they're going to die and they're going to watch how

1450
01:08:51,920 --> 01:08:54,720
Speaker 2: I die. And I wanted to if I could, to

1451
01:08:54,960 --> 01:08:57,920
Speaker 2: to go out with courage so that my children would say,

1452
01:08:58,320 --> 01:08:59,960
Speaker 2: one day, when their time comes, I want to go

1453
01:09:00,040 --> 01:09:00,559
Speaker 2: lot like dad.

1454
01:09:00,640 --> 01:09:01,040
Speaker 1: You know so.

1455
01:09:01,160 --> 01:09:03,160
Speaker 2: And my daughter was with me at that time. So

1456
01:09:03,360 --> 01:09:05,360
Speaker 2: but I went back to my home. I called a

1457
01:09:05,360 --> 01:09:07,120
Speaker 2: good buddy of my name, John Rumo, who used to

1458
01:09:07,120 --> 01:09:10,479
Speaker 2: write for Jay Leno. He's a researcher. Whatever you say,

1459
01:09:10,479 --> 01:09:11,880
Speaker 2: you say, you know, I got dandref dandruff.

1460
01:09:11,920 --> 01:09:13,280
Speaker 1: You'll find it, You'll figure it out.

1461
01:09:13,720 --> 01:09:15,479
Speaker 2: But I called him and I told him this is

1462
01:09:15,479 --> 01:09:17,560
Speaker 2: what I got, blah blah blah. And I told just

1463
01:09:17,600 --> 01:09:20,479
Speaker 2: a small body of people, my nephew and his wife,

1464
01:09:20,840 --> 01:09:24,519
Speaker 2: my my my daughters, and they all became my road

1465
01:09:24,560 --> 01:09:29,240
Speaker 2: manager and his girlfriend. They became my support team, you know.

1466
01:09:29,680 --> 01:09:33,800
Speaker 2: And they start researching all over Israel, Germany, everywhere. But

1467
01:09:33,920 --> 01:09:38,439
Speaker 2: they came across two names, two doctors a doctor, doctor

1468
01:09:39,120 --> 01:09:43,599
Speaker 2: doctor Lowy and San Diego. And there's another doctor doctor

1469
01:09:44,040 --> 01:09:46,439
Speaker 2: back record and from Washington d C. In my mind

1470
01:09:46,479 --> 01:09:50,000
Speaker 2: by my nephew got ahold of doctor and DC. He said,

1471
01:09:50,000 --> 01:09:51,920
Speaker 2: I won't operate on your uncle, he's too old. I

1472
01:09:51,960 --> 01:09:54,519
Speaker 2: wouldn't operate on a man half his age. He said,

1473
01:09:54,760 --> 01:09:57,040
Speaker 2: it's it's a serious It's a ten hour surgery called

1474
01:09:57,120 --> 01:09:59,880
Speaker 2: highpek h i PEC, which is where they put you

1475
01:10:00,120 --> 01:10:01,800
Speaker 2: under and they go in and get all the cancer

1476
01:10:01,880 --> 01:10:04,479
Speaker 2: out and they flush out that area with hot chemo

1477
01:10:04,840 --> 01:10:08,200
Speaker 2: and it's four hundred times more effective, not one hundred,

1478
01:10:08,479 --> 01:10:12,759
Speaker 2: four hundred times more effective while you're under. But so anyhow,

1479
01:10:13,360 --> 01:10:16,960
Speaker 2: the Clint Eastwood fixed me up with M. D Anderson

1480
01:10:17,520 --> 01:10:21,719
Speaker 2: in Houston, and there was a doctor Curry there research doctor.

1481
01:10:22,439 --> 01:10:24,519
Speaker 2: I kept talking to him, but I said to one day,

1482
01:10:24,520 --> 01:10:26,040
Speaker 2: do you know what doctor Lowie? He said, Tom, he

1483
01:10:26,160 --> 01:10:28,120
Speaker 2: trained here at M d Anderson. You want me to

1484
01:10:28,200 --> 01:10:30,960
Speaker 2: call him for you? I said yeah. Forty eight hours later,

1485
01:10:31,040 --> 01:10:33,200
Speaker 2: as busy as doctor Lowie as he took me into

1486
01:10:33,240 --> 01:10:36,160
Speaker 2: his office, looks over everything, did a pathology on me.

1487
01:10:36,439 --> 01:10:40,280
Speaker 2: Said I can do the surgery, and he said on

1488
01:10:40,400 --> 01:10:42,240
Speaker 2: this date. I said, could you do it a week

1489
01:10:42,320 --> 01:10:44,280
Speaker 2: later because I'm playing in the at and t and

1490
01:10:44,360 --> 01:10:46,880
Speaker 2: the golf tournament. He laughed and he said, yeah, I'll

1491
01:10:46,920 --> 01:10:49,360
Speaker 2: do it a week later. Ah. And I went in.

1492
01:10:49,439 --> 01:10:51,320
Speaker 2: There was seven a half an hour surgery. When I

1493
01:10:51,400 --> 01:10:53,960
Speaker 2: came to, he said, we got it all. You disease free.

1494
01:10:54,520 --> 01:10:57,360
Speaker 2: I said, Doc, you saved my life. You're a genius.

1495
01:10:57,400 --> 01:10:59,599
Speaker 2: He said, no, I'm not. I'm stubborn. I said, I'll

1496
01:10:59,640 --> 01:10:59,840
Speaker 2: take that.

1497
01:11:00,200 --> 01:11:00,879
Speaker 1: Take stubborn.

1498
01:11:01,800 --> 01:11:02,040
Speaker 2: Wow.

1499
01:11:02,560 --> 01:11:04,360
Speaker 1: And your faith really carried you well.

1500
01:11:04,520 --> 01:11:06,800
Speaker 2: You know, because I believe in the power of prayer.

1501
01:11:07,080 --> 01:11:08,720
Speaker 2: And I went back to my church and I gave

1502
01:11:08,760 --> 01:11:11,080
Speaker 2: a sermon at assens In Church on the power of prayer.

1503
01:11:11,680 --> 01:11:15,519
Speaker 2: Huh when I wanted when I got my first laugh

1504
01:11:15,560 --> 01:11:17,560
Speaker 2: on show Business the night I was with Tim, I

1505
01:11:17,600 --> 01:11:19,680
Speaker 2: couldn't sleep that whole night. It was a Friday night.

1506
01:11:20,120 --> 01:11:22,400
Speaker 2: Saturday morning I got up. I couldn't sleep on night

1507
01:11:22,560 --> 01:11:24,160
Speaker 2: I got up Saturday morning. I went to church, the

1508
01:11:24,280 --> 01:11:26,960
Speaker 2: church where I had been an altar boy, and there

1509
01:11:27,000 --> 01:11:28,679
Speaker 2: was no one in church, an empty church, and I prayed.

1510
01:11:28,680 --> 01:11:30,360
Speaker 2: I got on my hands knees and I prayed. I said, God,

1511
01:11:30,479 --> 01:11:33,120
Speaker 2: now I know what I want. If you could let

1512
01:11:33,200 --> 01:11:35,599
Speaker 2: me make my living as a comedian, I'll never ask

1513
01:11:35,720 --> 01:11:38,120
Speaker 2: for anything else if I could make I didn't want

1514
01:11:38,120 --> 01:11:39,560
Speaker 2: to become a star or I didn't say any of

1515
01:11:39,560 --> 01:11:43,040
Speaker 2: that stuff my own series. The thought that you could

1516
01:11:43,120 --> 01:11:46,679
Speaker 2: make a living making people laugh overwhelmed me. And I said,

1517
01:11:46,680 --> 01:11:48,719
Speaker 2: if I can make a living making people, I promise

1518
01:11:48,760 --> 01:11:51,040
Speaker 2: I'll do charities, and I'll promise i'll give back. I'm

1519
01:11:51,040 --> 01:11:53,800
Speaker 2: making all these promises. Well, all those prayers came true.

1520
01:11:55,120 --> 01:11:57,040
Speaker 2: Everything I prayed for it came through. And he held

1521
01:11:57,080 --> 01:11:58,920
Speaker 2: you to them, and he helled me to it. Because

1522
01:12:00,360 --> 01:12:02,479
Speaker 2: I went back to that church and I told the

1523
01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:07,200
Speaker 2: congregation this story about the cancer. It's listened to me.

1524
01:12:07,280 --> 01:12:09,519
Speaker 2: I said, how many of you out there, we're ever

1525
01:12:09,680 --> 01:12:12,400
Speaker 2: thinking about someone that you hadn't seen in a long time.

1526
01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:14,599
Speaker 2: And the phone rang and you pick it and said person,

1527
01:12:15,240 --> 01:12:16,960
Speaker 2: and you said you won't believe this. I was just

1528
01:12:17,080 --> 01:12:19,960
Speaker 2: thinking about you or how many times you thinking about

1529
01:12:20,000 --> 01:12:21,559
Speaker 2: someone You're walking on the street. I haven't seen him

1530
01:12:21,560 --> 01:12:23,360
Speaker 2: in tweve years. You turn the corner and there's that person.

1531
01:12:23,479 --> 01:12:25,080
Speaker 2: You're saying, I was just thinking about it, And they said,

1532
01:12:25,080 --> 01:12:27,160
Speaker 2: you know what, I was thinking about you too. How

1533
01:12:27,200 --> 01:12:29,320
Speaker 2: many has that ever happened to you? The whole congregation

1534
01:12:29,479 --> 01:12:32,400
Speaker 2: raised a hand. I said, if we humans can transfer thought,

1535
01:12:33,400 --> 01:12:36,800
Speaker 2: then how much can Supreme Being transfer thought? If we

1536
01:12:36,960 --> 01:12:40,240
Speaker 2: can transfer thought, and obviously we can. So my prayers,

1537
01:12:40,360 --> 01:12:43,360
Speaker 2: I know are being heard. They've been heard, you know,

1538
01:12:43,479 --> 01:12:47,160
Speaker 2: being heard. So you know, when I was going under

1539
01:12:47,600 --> 01:12:50,760
Speaker 2: in that surgery room, there were three big lights on me,

1540
01:12:51,439 --> 01:12:54,240
Speaker 2: you know, And I remember reading something that said look

1541
01:12:54,280 --> 01:12:57,120
Speaker 2: for me and I'll be there. I read it in

1542
01:12:57,160 --> 01:12:59,560
Speaker 2: one of those books about Jesus. It said look for

1543
01:12:59,640 --> 01:13:01,360
Speaker 2: me and I'll I'll be there. But I was laying

1544
01:13:01,400 --> 01:13:02,720
Speaker 2: on the operator to have look up and there was

1545
01:13:02,720 --> 01:13:05,599
Speaker 2: three lights and I went Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

1546
01:13:05,880 --> 01:13:08,679
Speaker 2: and I went out there. They are, yeah, wow, yeah,

1547
01:13:09,080 --> 01:13:10,840
Speaker 2: it's just it. Look for me and I'll be there.

1548
01:13:10,920 --> 01:13:11,040
Speaker 2: You know.

1549
01:13:11,200 --> 01:13:14,559
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you made it and you're here. Why

1550
01:13:14,600 --> 01:13:15,880
Speaker 1: do you think you're still here?

1551
01:13:16,040 --> 01:13:16,280
Speaker 2: Tom?

1552
01:13:17,439 --> 01:13:19,599
Speaker 1: And what are you called to? Do in this moment.

1553
01:13:20,960 --> 01:13:24,960
Speaker 2: I really believe that, now that all my prayers have

1554
01:13:25,000 --> 01:13:27,479
Speaker 2: been answered, that I got to motivate other people. I

1555
01:13:27,560 --> 01:13:32,280
Speaker 2: get motivation talks on four subjects, perception, visualization, self talk,

1556
01:13:32,520 --> 01:13:34,600
Speaker 2: and develop a sense of humor. I do it for

1557
01:13:34,680 --> 01:13:37,439
Speaker 2: corporate America. I do it for colleges, high schools. But

1558
01:13:37,560 --> 01:13:40,200
Speaker 2: I do it for comedians for free. I call it

1559
01:13:40,320 --> 01:13:42,360
Speaker 2: the joy of stand up comedy and how to get there.

1560
01:13:42,720 --> 01:13:44,920
Speaker 2: I do it at the laugh Factory, at the comedy Store,

1561
01:13:45,080 --> 01:13:48,040
Speaker 2: at the comedy Chateau. I've done it in New York.

1562
01:13:48,040 --> 01:13:50,440
Speaker 2: I've done it in Chicago. I've done it in Philadelphia.

1563
01:13:51,520 --> 01:13:55,479
Speaker 2: And I think that's what I'm here, to inspire and

1564
01:13:56,800 --> 01:13:59,719
Speaker 2: to make people feel good. I love hearing the sound

1565
01:13:59,760 --> 01:14:03,960
Speaker 2: of life. I was touring with Sammy Davis Junior and

1566
01:14:04,800 --> 01:14:08,320
Speaker 2: got to Caesar's Palace and just thought, Wow, my prayers

1567
01:14:08,360 --> 01:14:11,559
Speaker 2: are being answered in five minutes maybe ten. I wrote

1568
01:14:11,600 --> 01:14:13,880
Speaker 2: this down, and I do it once in a while,

1569
01:14:13,920 --> 01:14:17,360
Speaker 2: and I say, it's called the sound of laughter. As

1570
01:14:17,400 --> 01:14:19,960
Speaker 2: far back as I can remember or shortly thereafter, I

1571
01:14:20,120 --> 01:14:23,080
Speaker 2: love to hear the sound of laughter, whether grown ups

1572
01:14:23,160 --> 01:14:24,800
Speaker 2: or children. That really didn't matter to me. If I

1573
01:14:24,840 --> 01:14:27,160
Speaker 2: can make people laugh. I was as happy as I

1574
01:14:27,240 --> 01:14:29,519
Speaker 2: can be. You see, when you make people laugh, they

1575
01:14:29,560 --> 01:14:31,680
Speaker 2: get such a lift. My mom once told me this

1576
01:14:31,840 --> 01:14:33,920
Speaker 2: is a god given gift because you'll get so much

1577
01:14:34,040 --> 01:14:36,479
Speaker 2: love and yet you're still able to give. I knew

1578
01:14:36,520 --> 01:14:38,360
Speaker 2: I wanted to do this for as long as I live,

1579
01:14:38,880 --> 01:14:41,200
Speaker 2: so I left my home in Harvey, Illinois to tour

1580
01:14:41,240 --> 01:14:44,000
Speaker 2: around the country and spread some joy. Success was ahead.

1581
01:14:44,320 --> 01:14:46,040
Speaker 2: I just didn't know how far or soon. I was

1582
01:14:46,120 --> 01:14:49,240
Speaker 2: broke and sleeping in a car. But I worked and

1583
01:14:49,360 --> 01:14:52,360
Speaker 2: I prayed, and I planned and I dreamed. There were

1584
01:14:52,439 --> 01:14:56,200
Speaker 2: times I was alone, or so it seemed. I begged

1585
01:14:56,240 --> 01:14:58,479
Speaker 2: for jobs everywhere I could, and I bombed a lot

1586
01:14:58,520 --> 01:15:01,320
Speaker 2: of times. But I started getting good. They laugh one

1587
01:15:01,400 --> 01:15:03,240
Speaker 2: night in Boston, I'm proud of saying, soon they were

1588
01:15:03,320 --> 01:15:05,560
Speaker 2: laughing out in La Now, if you're a comedian in

1589
01:15:05,600 --> 01:15:07,680
Speaker 2: those days and you wanted America to know, you had

1590
01:15:07,680 --> 01:15:09,720
Speaker 2: to get a spot on the Johnny Carson Show, Well

1591
01:15:09,760 --> 01:15:11,439
Speaker 2: that happened one night, and what a break for me.

1592
01:15:12,000 --> 01:15:15,040
Speaker 2: Soon my name was on Caesar's Palace Marquee. Well, God's

1593
01:15:15,040 --> 01:15:17,200
Speaker 2: been with me now and I've gone pretty far. Who knows,

1594
01:15:17,280 --> 01:15:18,960
Speaker 2: maybe one day I'll become a big star. But if

1595
01:15:19,000 --> 01:15:21,240
Speaker 2: I don't, it won't matter at all. But leave me

1596
01:15:21,320 --> 01:15:23,080
Speaker 2: when I tell you, I've had a ball. So now

1597
01:15:23,120 --> 01:15:26,519
Speaker 2: I wish for everyone what's happened to me to find

1598
01:15:26,600 --> 01:15:29,040
Speaker 2: the work that you love, because that's really the key.

1599
01:15:29,520 --> 01:15:31,800
Speaker 2: So when I die and go to the hereafter, I'll

1600
01:15:31,840 --> 01:15:34,360
Speaker 2: miss all of you, my friends, but most of all,

1601
01:15:34,479 --> 01:15:35,960
Speaker 2: I'll miss the sound of your laughter.

1602
01:15:37,960 --> 01:15:40,599
Speaker 1: Wow, it's full circle.

1603
01:15:41,280 --> 01:15:43,640
Speaker 2: It is the full circle I wrote. I wrote that

1604
01:15:43,720 --> 01:15:45,680
Speaker 2: almost in ten minutes. I just it just came to me.

1605
01:15:46,240 --> 01:15:49,160
Speaker 1: And you know, when you were playing with which, Yeah,

1606
01:15:49,160 --> 01:15:49,720
Speaker 1: And I went back to my.

1607
01:15:49,800 --> 01:15:52,640
Speaker 2: Dressing room one night, and I'm.

1608
01:15:51,600 --> 01:15:53,040
Speaker 1: Going to ask you a few questions. I do a

1609
01:15:53,080 --> 01:15:57,320
Speaker 1: little questionnaire, okay, and these are rapid fire, take your time, Okay.

1610
01:15:57,720 --> 01:16:00,599
Speaker 1: The person you most admire Tom is home.

1611
01:16:03,800 --> 01:16:06,400
Speaker 2: You know my dream would have been that the person

1612
01:16:06,479 --> 01:16:10,720
Speaker 2: I most admire was me, but I never lived up

1613
01:16:10,760 --> 01:16:17,120
Speaker 2: to that. Wow, that's really really the person I most admire.

1614
01:16:17,760 --> 01:16:17,920
Speaker 1: You know.

1615
01:16:18,560 --> 01:16:20,400
Speaker 2: I know this is going to sound hokey to a

1616
01:16:20,479 --> 01:16:23,320
Speaker 2: lot of people, but even as a little boy, I

1617
01:16:23,439 --> 01:16:26,800
Speaker 2: wanted to talk to Jesus. I just wanted. I can't

1618
01:16:26,880 --> 01:16:30,519
Speaker 2: believe that this guy at age thirty He only preached

1619
01:16:30,600 --> 01:16:33,840
Speaker 2: three years, he only left, He never left, He never

1620
01:16:33,880 --> 01:16:37,040
Speaker 2: went to thirty five miles outside of his own town.

1621
01:16:37,560 --> 01:16:43,800
Speaker 2: And what he did this incredible thing, I mean, and

1622
01:16:44,000 --> 01:16:46,920
Speaker 2: I mean I wanted to ask him so many questions,

1623
01:16:47,360 --> 01:16:50,200
Speaker 2: you know, And and I admired the courage that he

1624
01:16:50,320 --> 01:16:55,080
Speaker 2: went to the cross, the courage, the beatings, the ridicule,

1625
01:16:55,200 --> 01:16:59,960
Speaker 2: the spitting on him, and that life changed the life

1626
01:17:00,280 --> 01:17:03,880
Speaker 2: of so many. So so yeah, I would have to

1627
01:17:04,400 --> 01:17:05,240
Speaker 2: have to go there.

1628
01:17:05,520 --> 01:17:11,920
Speaker 1: What is your best feature? Keep it clean?

1629
01:17:12,080 --> 01:17:18,240
Speaker 2: Tom I think I think it's always that that I

1630
01:17:18,360 --> 01:17:21,120
Speaker 2: really do like people, and I really do like making

1631
01:17:21,200 --> 01:17:24,479
Speaker 2: them laugh. You know. All the time I had the cancer,

1632
01:17:24,840 --> 01:17:27,280
Speaker 2: I never told anybody at my country club. I never

1633
01:17:27,360 --> 01:17:30,720
Speaker 2: told anybody there because every time I walk in that, hey,

1634
01:17:30,760 --> 01:17:32,479
Speaker 2: here's Tommy, what's the new joke? Tell us the new

1635
01:17:32,560 --> 01:17:35,160
Speaker 2: latest SKA. I didn't want people looking at me with

1636
01:17:35,280 --> 01:17:38,280
Speaker 2: puppy eyes and how you doing? Is it okay? You're

1637
01:17:38,280 --> 01:17:38,920
Speaker 2: going to be fine?

1638
01:17:39,200 --> 01:17:39,439
Speaker 1: Words.

1639
01:17:39,840 --> 01:17:44,160
Speaker 2: But so I think it's that that that I really

1640
01:17:44,200 --> 01:17:47,599
Speaker 2: do enjoy people, and I enjoy being around them, entertaining them.

1641
01:17:47,680 --> 01:17:49,880
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you, Raymond, I could be feeling if

1642
01:17:49,920 --> 01:17:51,719
Speaker 2: I was home for a few days. I'm a bachelor.

1643
01:17:51,960 --> 01:17:54,280
Speaker 2: You know, I'm divorced, my X ray passed away. But

1644
01:17:56,160 --> 01:17:57,760
Speaker 2: if i'm if I'm at home for a couple of

1645
01:17:57,800 --> 01:17:59,639
Speaker 2: days and maybe I'm not feeling good for some reason,

1646
01:18:00,080 --> 01:18:01,360
Speaker 2: but if I go out and all of a sudden

1647
01:18:01,400 --> 01:18:03,960
Speaker 2: with some people, I feel good. I'm a people person.

1648
01:18:04,160 --> 01:18:05,240
Speaker 1: What's your worst feature?

1649
01:18:07,240 --> 01:18:08,559
Speaker 2: My temper on the golf course.

1650
01:18:09,800 --> 01:18:10,880
Speaker 1: Only on the golf course.

1651
01:18:11,400 --> 01:18:16,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Irish Italian, there's a war going on inside

1652
01:18:16,360 --> 01:18:16,519
Speaker 2: of me.

1653
01:18:17,040 --> 01:18:19,960
Speaker 1: I know that I recognize that war, but believe me personally.

1654
01:18:20,160 --> 01:18:21,880
Speaker 2: Irish guy says, I don't get mad at I'm buy

1655
01:18:21,960 --> 01:18:23,439
Speaker 2: him a drinking. The Italian guy said, buy him a

1656
01:18:23,479 --> 01:18:24,200
Speaker 2: drink and then beat the.

1657
01:18:24,240 --> 01:18:27,080
Speaker 1: Hell out your greatest regret.

1658
01:18:29,680 --> 01:18:35,719
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a good question. My greatest regret. My greatest

1659
01:18:35,760 --> 01:18:40,680
Speaker 2: regret is that when I went through a divorce, I

1660
01:18:40,760 --> 01:18:42,640
Speaker 2: wish I would have done it better. I wish I

1661
01:18:42,680 --> 01:18:45,200
Speaker 2: would have Frank Sinatra told me when I was going

1662
01:18:45,240 --> 01:18:49,960
Speaker 2: to my divorce. He said, I went into Vegas. We're

1663
01:18:49,960 --> 01:18:52,040
Speaker 2: working at the MGM Grand He said, hey, you're bringing

1664
01:18:52,080 --> 01:18:53,639
Speaker 2: the wife with you. I said, no, Frank, we're getting

1665
01:18:53,640 --> 01:18:55,880
Speaker 2: a divorce. And he said, oh, Tommy, I can't give

1666
01:18:55,920 --> 01:18:59,720
Speaker 2: you any advice on marriage, but I can give you

1667
01:18:59,760 --> 01:19:02,720
Speaker 2: advice I was on divorce. He said, stay friends with her,

1668
01:19:03,240 --> 01:19:06,880
Speaker 2: not for you, but not for her, but for the children.

1669
01:19:07,320 --> 01:19:12,000
Speaker 2: Stay friends with her. And I and I didn't. We

1670
01:19:12,439 --> 01:19:15,160
Speaker 2: had a bitter divorce. We later talked for a little while,

1671
01:19:15,200 --> 01:19:17,240
Speaker 2: and then we did. And I carry this to my

1672
01:19:17,320 --> 01:19:19,519
Speaker 2: grave and I say a prayer for her every night

1673
01:19:19,840 --> 01:19:23,200
Speaker 2: because I wish I without her, I wouldn't have had

1674
01:19:23,240 --> 01:19:26,880
Speaker 2: my children, my grandchildren, my great grandchildren. I wish I

1675
01:19:26,920 --> 01:19:29,080
Speaker 2: would have been friendly with her. That's my greatest regret,

1676
01:19:29,640 --> 01:19:31,439
Speaker 2: and I feel real bad about that.

1677
01:19:31,600 --> 01:19:35,800
Speaker 1: Wow, what's the greatest piece of advice you ever got?

1678
01:19:36,560 --> 01:19:38,479
Speaker 2: The greatest advice I ever got was probably from the

1679
01:19:38,520 --> 01:19:40,559
Speaker 2: books I read, literally hundreds of books on the powers

1680
01:19:40,600 --> 01:19:44,760
Speaker 2: of the mind. But that this is your universe, and

1681
01:19:44,880 --> 01:19:47,719
Speaker 2: you're in charge of this universe. This is your universe.

1682
01:19:48,320 --> 01:19:52,400
Speaker 2: That you don't have to you are careful what you

1683
01:19:52,640 --> 01:19:55,200
Speaker 2: put in here, So be careful what you put in here.

1684
01:19:55,880 --> 01:19:59,120
Speaker 2: Negative thoughts are dirt. You don't have to they'll flow

1685
01:19:59,160 --> 01:20:02,479
Speaker 2: into your mind. You don't have to let them flourish,

1686
01:20:03,080 --> 01:20:06,000
Speaker 2: you know, So you are in control of this universe

1687
01:20:06,040 --> 01:20:07,680
Speaker 2: of what goes in here and what goes in here?

1688
01:20:08,040 --> 01:20:11,040
Speaker 2: When I'm giving the motivation talks I talk to I

1689
01:20:11,160 --> 01:20:12,880
Speaker 2: take a glass of water and I pour dirt in it,

1690
01:20:13,080 --> 01:20:14,560
Speaker 2: and I stir it up, and I say, drink this.

1691
01:20:14,960 --> 01:20:17,320
Speaker 2: Somebody drink this, and they won't. I said, you won't

1692
01:20:17,520 --> 01:20:19,559
Speaker 2: put filth in here? Why would you put filth in here?

1693
01:20:19,800 --> 01:20:21,760
Speaker 2: If you won't drink dirt, why would you think dirt.

1694
01:20:22,360 --> 01:20:24,200
Speaker 2: You can get negative thoughts out of your mind and

1695
01:20:24,280 --> 01:20:28,400
Speaker 2: replace them what positive thoughts. That's that's great advice because

1696
01:20:28,560 --> 01:20:30,680
Speaker 2: it shows you that this is the universe you've been

1697
01:20:30,720 --> 01:20:33,040
Speaker 2: given and you're in charge of it. You really are.

1698
01:20:33,240 --> 01:20:36,200
Speaker 2: You have more power. You are far more powerful than

1699
01:20:36,240 --> 01:20:36,879
Speaker 2: you realize.

1700
01:20:38,120 --> 01:20:42,000
Speaker 1: If you could not do what you're doing now, entertaining people,

1701
01:20:42,200 --> 01:20:45,680
Speaker 1: making them laugh, bringing them joy, what would you do.

1702
01:20:48,040 --> 01:20:54,800
Speaker 2: Well if I couldn't do that, I probably you know,

1703
01:20:54,880 --> 01:20:56,639
Speaker 2: I've probably maybe been a writer.

1704
01:20:57,240 --> 01:20:57,400
Speaker 1: You know.

1705
01:20:57,520 --> 01:21:01,040
Speaker 2: I really like the military saved my life in a

1706
01:21:01,040 --> 01:21:03,240
Speaker 2: lot of ways. I was a raggedy kid. I went

1707
01:21:03,240 --> 01:21:04,560
Speaker 2: in the military the first time in my life. I

1708
01:21:04,600 --> 01:21:06,920
Speaker 2: had three squares a day, first time in my life.

1709
01:21:06,920 --> 01:21:08,960
Speaker 2: I was equal to everybody. They shaved all of our

1710
01:21:09,000 --> 01:21:11,200
Speaker 2: heads and we all had the same clothes on. I'd

1711
01:21:11,240 --> 01:21:17,200
Speaker 2: been a raggedy poor kid. I really love America. I've

1712
01:21:17,240 --> 01:21:20,519
Speaker 2: been around the world. I love this country. It is

1713
01:21:20,640 --> 01:21:23,800
Speaker 2: the greatest country. And the people that put us into

1714
01:21:23,880 --> 01:21:27,120
Speaker 2: this position, those people who founded this country, who wrote

1715
01:21:27,160 --> 01:21:30,840
Speaker 2: that constitution, those are brilliant human beings. The men and

1716
01:21:30,880 --> 01:21:33,880
Speaker 2: women who died, you know, in World War Two, that

1717
01:21:34,320 --> 01:21:36,040
Speaker 2: if we lost that word. You want to argue with

1718
01:21:36,120 --> 01:21:38,120
Speaker 2: me about wars, you can argue about everywhere you want,

1719
01:21:38,280 --> 01:21:41,639
Speaker 2: you can argue with about World War Two, that if

1720
01:21:41,680 --> 01:21:43,360
Speaker 2: we lost that word, there's no doubt what Hitler had

1721
01:21:43,400 --> 01:21:45,280
Speaker 2: in mind for us, no doubt what Tojo had in

1722
01:21:45,360 --> 01:21:48,160
Speaker 2: mind for us. Those men and women, the women that

1723
01:21:48,280 --> 01:21:50,400
Speaker 2: went to work and went and went to war in

1724
01:21:50,479 --> 01:21:53,680
Speaker 2: the minile that they were heroes to me. You know

1725
01:21:54,120 --> 01:21:59,360
Speaker 2: that again, I think, I just love this country. I

1726
01:21:59,439 --> 01:22:01,600
Speaker 2: wish I maybe I would like to have been a

1727
01:22:01,680 --> 01:22:05,680
Speaker 2: politician that would in a way, it's kind of one

1728
01:22:05,720 --> 01:22:08,840
Speaker 2: who was a really who really believed in the Constitution,

1729
01:22:09,520 --> 01:22:12,719
Speaker 2: We believed in the Prince of You know, Harry Truman

1730
01:22:13,040 --> 01:22:16,439
Speaker 2: once said, show me a politician who comes out of

1731
01:22:16,479 --> 01:22:18,439
Speaker 2: office with more money than he went in with, and

1732
01:22:18,520 --> 01:22:21,120
Speaker 2: I'll show you a crook. We got a lot of

1733
01:22:21,160 --> 01:22:23,040
Speaker 2: them today and they're all coming out with more money.

1734
01:22:23,760 --> 01:22:24,639
Speaker 2: There's a long answers.

1735
01:22:25,240 --> 01:22:27,960
Speaker 1: No, it's a good answer. And Tom, I have to

1736
01:22:28,040 --> 01:22:30,000
Speaker 1: tell you what a joy to spend time with you.

1737
01:22:30,720 --> 01:22:33,439
Speaker 1: I have been the beneficiary of your talent and your

1738
01:22:33,520 --> 01:22:36,800
Speaker 1: gifts to us for so many years, and to spend

1739
01:22:36,840 --> 01:22:39,560
Speaker 1: this time with you has just been an honor for me.

1740
01:22:39,640 --> 01:22:40,360
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it.

1741
01:22:40,400 --> 01:22:44,320
Speaker 2: But whenever I do these interviews, I always think that, Wow,

1742
01:22:44,360 --> 01:22:46,160
Speaker 2: we did an hour and a half and you know,

1743
01:22:46,320 --> 01:22:47,719
Speaker 2: watch it and be like twelve minutes.

1744
01:22:47,880 --> 01:22:51,280
Speaker 1: No, I'm going to give you the hour you deserve it.

1745
01:22:51,600 --> 01:22:53,479
Speaker 2: Thank you, God, bless you, thank you.

1746
01:22:53,880 --> 01:22:56,120
Speaker 1: All Right, here's the whole of all the people I

1747
01:22:56,200 --> 01:22:58,160
Speaker 1: get to interview. I have to admit you probably already

1748
01:22:58,240 --> 01:23:03,160
Speaker 1: know I love entertainers most because they care about the audience,

1749
01:23:03,560 --> 01:23:06,720
Speaker 1: they care about their craft. And Tom Dreesen is not

1750
01:23:06,840 --> 01:23:09,360
Speaker 1: only hilarious, but you see what kind of heart he has.

1751
01:23:09,840 --> 01:23:12,080
Speaker 1: I knew a lot about Frank Sinatra. I saw him

1752
01:23:12,160 --> 01:23:15,280
Speaker 1: thirty times in concert, I met him. I am just

1753
01:23:15,400 --> 01:23:18,400
Speaker 1: about everything he recorded, even some things that aren't released,

1754
01:23:18,640 --> 01:23:20,960
Speaker 1: and I've read a ton of books about him. But

1755
01:23:21,080 --> 01:23:24,600
Speaker 1: I had never heard those two lessons of Sinatra that

1756
01:23:24,760 --> 01:23:28,360
Speaker 1: Tom shared today. His deep respect for the audience, which

1757
01:23:28,840 --> 01:23:31,400
Speaker 1: even touched the way he dressed, and his cared to

1758
01:23:31,479 --> 01:23:35,799
Speaker 1: hit the mark on time, and never throw a show away.

1759
01:23:36,640 --> 01:23:39,280
Speaker 1: Never throw a show away. I encounter so many people

1760
01:23:39,600 --> 01:23:42,479
Speaker 1: who phone it in and just do the minimum. The

1761
01:23:42,640 --> 01:23:46,000
Speaker 1: greats never do that. They never throw a show away.

1762
01:23:46,240 --> 01:23:48,240
Speaker 1: I want to thank Tom Dreesen for his gift of

1763
01:23:48,360 --> 01:23:51,160
Speaker 1: healing laughter. Boy do we need it today. What a

1764
01:23:51,240 --> 01:23:54,559
Speaker 1: great talent he is and a great interview. I hope

1765
01:23:54,600 --> 01:23:57,080
Speaker 1: you'll come back to a royal Grande soon. Why live

1766
01:23:57,160 --> 01:23:59,800
Speaker 1: a dry, constricted life when if you fill it with

1767
01:24:00,040 --> 01:24:04,719
Speaker 1: good things, it can flow into a broad, thriving Arroyo Grande.

1768
01:24:05,000 --> 01:24:08,879
Speaker 1: I'm Raymond Arroyo. Make sure you subscribe and like this episode.

1769
01:24:08,920 --> 01:24:13,040
Speaker 1: Thanks for diving in. See you next time. Arroyo Grande

1770
01:24:13,240 --> 01:24:16,840
Speaker 1: is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is available

1771
01:24:17,160 --> 01:24:20,280
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts