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Speaker 1: I didn't want to, but the reaction to the Sydney

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Speaker 1: Sweeney ad demands some thoughts and imagine dedicating your whole

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Speaker 1: life to one pursuit. Then you get a call to

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Speaker 1: devote yourself to something new and entirely different. That's what

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Speaker 1: happened to actor Gary Sinise responding to the call, how

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Speaker 1: do you do it all? On this edition of the

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Speaker 1: Arroyo Grande Show. Come on, I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Arroyo Grande. Go subscribe to the show right now. Turn

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Speaker 1: those notifications on. I don't want you to miss what's coming.

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Speaker 1: Now you've seen this Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ad.

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Speaker 2: By now I am sure.

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Speaker 3: I'm not here to tell you to buy American Eagle chans,

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Speaker 3: and I definitely won't say that they're the most comfortable chance.

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Speaker 4: I've ever worn.

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Speaker 2: Sidney Sweeney has very keen You see what I did

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Speaker 2: there right? Well?

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Speaker 1: Some are claiming the double edged tagline Sidney Sweeney has

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Speaker 1: great genes evokes the Nazis and more.

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Speaker 5: A blonde haired, blue eyed white woman is talking about

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Speaker 5: her good genes like that is Nazi propaganda.

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Speaker 6: Look, I'm not saying that Sidney Sweeney personally wrote this

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Speaker 6: ad to revive the Third Reich, but American Eagle absolutely

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Speaker 6: knew what they were doing here. You don't get to

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Speaker 6: drop lines about inherited traits, blue eyes and great genes

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Speaker 6: while zooming in on somebody that could have walked straight

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Speaker 6: off of a Nazi propaganda poster and expect people not

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Speaker 6: to catch that reference. You guys are complaining about that

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Speaker 6: Sydney Sweeney gens ads.

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Speaker 4: So I went and saw it.

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Speaker 2: That's Nazi propaganda. Wow.

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Speaker 7: The pun good genes activates a troubling historical associations for

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Speaker 7: this country, the American eugenics movement, and it's primed between

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Speaker 7: like nineteen hundred and nineteen forty weaponized the idea of

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Speaker 7: good genes.

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Speaker 1: Okay, this is lunacy. When was the last time you

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Speaker 1: heard anyone call out actual eugenics? Call me when the

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Speaker 1: professor does, of course, on Margaret's sanger and why planned

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Speaker 1: parenthood clinics are in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Look,

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Speaker 1: I watch that ad and I've yet to see the

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Speaker 1: Nazi or eugenics propaganda. Yes, she is white and blue eyed,

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Speaker 1: but so what tons of models are they're selling? Genes

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Speaker 1: with a kind of obvious play on words. And my

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Speaker 1: guess is the admin probably saw this old Brookshields Genes

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Speaker 1: Genes ad from the nineteen eighties, where she shimmies into

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Speaker 1: Calvin's with similar pattern.

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Speaker 3: Certain genes may fade away while other genes persist, and finally,

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Speaker 3: by natural selection, which filters out those genes better equipped

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Speaker 3: than others to endure in the environment, this may result

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Speaker 3: in the origin of an entirely new species, which brings

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Speaker 3: us to Calvins and the survivor of the fittest.

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Speaker 2: Nothing is new, kids.

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Speaker 1: The angry reaction to this very tame, and as you see,

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Speaker 1: they're imitative commercial seems to be about something else. Are

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Speaker 1: they upset that Sydney Sweeney is the it girl of

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Speaker 1: the moment, or that she's returning advertising to a beauty

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Speaker 1: standard that we're used to seeing in ads. I don't know,

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Speaker 1: but the overblown furious reactions to this ad are totally

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Speaker 1: over the top. I mean, the genes look like mom

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Speaker 1: jeans to me. They don't even showcase her figure. The

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Speaker 1: last time anyone modeled a high waisted baggy denim like this,

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Speaker 1: Barack Obama was throwing out an opening pitch They're not

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Speaker 1: exactly Versace or Calvins. Those were built to accentuate the

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Speaker 1: curves and they did, making the high dudgeon from some

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Speaker 1: of these influencers all the more absurd. From the nineteen

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Speaker 1: forties to the early aughts, American marketers used attractive models

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Speaker 1: to sell stuff, particularly clothes. That's hardly news. We're all

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Speaker 1: to beautiful people. It's an attention getter. So why is

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Speaker 1: this particular ad so triggering? I think because the Sweeney

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Speaker 1: campaign symbolizes.

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Speaker 2: A beauty boomerang.

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Speaker 1: For years, Madison Avenue has tried to convince people that

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Speaker 1: this is beautiful every shape and size and spread and sprawl. Look,

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Speaker 1: Beauty comes in many guises, but it may not be

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Speaker 1: everyone's cup of deep TEA. Part of the reaction you

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Speaker 1: saw there is because they know this Sweeney ad feels

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Speaker 1: like a counter to the recent trend, and that's upsetting

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Speaker 1: to some.

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Speaker 2: But think about it.

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Speaker 1: Do flabby guys fly into a rage on social media

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Speaker 1: every time some actor shows his abs in a spread? No,

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Speaker 1: you hit the gym, you eat less, or you ignore

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Speaker 1: it and order a double Shack burger and fries then

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Speaker 1: hit KFC on the way home. But why are people

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Speaker 1: so jumpy over this Sydney sweeneyad. I think because they're

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Speaker 1: worried about protecting an imaginary idea of beauty rather than

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Speaker 1: letting people decide for themselves. And they don't like the

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Speaker 1: idea that some might find a blonde, blue eyed gal attractive.

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Speaker 1: If out of shape people can be beautiful, so can

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Speaker 1: fetching actresses, even if she is wearing mom jeans.

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Speaker 2: Now to our deep dive.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever had a feeling that you were supposed

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Speaker 1: to do something else, something totally different, Well, that's what

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Speaker 1: happened to actor Gary Sinise.

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Speaker 2: I spoke to.

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Speaker 1: Him about the calling to care for our troops and

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Speaker 1: first responders and their families, and later to care for

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Speaker 1: his own family as both his wife Moira and his

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Speaker 1: son Mac battled cancer. Gary's an Emmy and Tony Award

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Speaker 1: winning actor a director, best known for his Oscar nominated

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Speaker 1: role as Lieutenant Dan and Forrest Gump. But Gary sinise

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Speaker 1: reshaped the American theater before all that. When he founded

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Speaker 1: a theater company in Chicago called Steppenwolf along with John

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Speaker 1: Malkovich and Joan Allen Lori Medcalf. He left a mark

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Speaker 1: on the acting approach of America that really has stayed

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Speaker 1: to this day. He took Broadway by storm in True

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Speaker 1: West The Grapes of Wrath Orphans, But it was during

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Speaker 1: his last Broadway show that he felt a different call

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Speaker 1: that would change his life forever.

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Speaker 4: And the last thing I did was One Flew over

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Speaker 4: the Kuchar's Nest on Broadway, and that was two thousand

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Speaker 4: and one. So we closed July twenty ninth, two thousand

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Speaker 4: and one. Six weeks later, September eleventh, two thousand and one,

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Speaker 4: the attack on our country, and everything changed for me.

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Speaker 2: At that point.

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Speaker 4: I started thinking about different things, and I wanted to

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Speaker 4: kind of get very involved in supporting the men and

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Speaker 4: women who were deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. I just

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Speaker 4: got very involved in that. Never returned to the theater

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Speaker 4: after that.

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Speaker 2: Isn't that amazing?

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Speaker 1: You did a show when you were at Steppenwolf Tracers.

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Speaker 1: Tell me about that.

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Speaker 2: And did that?

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Speaker 1: Did that plant any seeds for the next phase of

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Speaker 1: Gary Sinice's life.

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Speaker 4: It definitely was a seed that was planted in terms

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Speaker 4: of supporting veterans and trying to do something to help,

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Speaker 4: especially our Vietnam veterans.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I tell people the Tracery is about that. That's

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Speaker 2: what Tracers is about.

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Speaker 4: It's a story that was written by a group of

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Speaker 4: Vietnam veterans and they performed it on stage.

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Speaker 2: So they got together.

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Speaker 4: One guy conceived the idea, a guy named John Difusco.

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Speaker 2: He's a Vietnam veteran.

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Speaker 4: He put an ad in the paper and said, hey,

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Speaker 4: I want to make a plan, and I'm looking for

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Speaker 4: Vietnam veterans. So he got he got some guys together

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Speaker 4: and they started. Every day they would go into like

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Speaker 4: a workshop where they talk about their experiences in Vietnam

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Speaker 4: and he would write things down and then they would

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Speaker 4: improvise and work on and they, you know, over the

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Speaker 4: course of time, they created a play so that they

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Speaker 4: call Tracers, and it was a play about the Vietnam experience.

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Speaker 4: I discovered it as the artistic director of Steppenwolf looking

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Speaker 4: for a play to do about Vietnam, because I had

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Speaker 4: Moira's two brothers served in Vietnam and her sister's husband,

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Speaker 4: Jack Terteres, also served in Vietnam as a combat medic.

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Speaker 4: And I got to be you know, I got to

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Speaker 4: know them a little bit, got to hear their stories,

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Speaker 4: got to feel a lot of compassion for them, and

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Speaker 4: quite frankly, a lot of guilt because they were just

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Speaker 4: a little bit older than I was during the Vietnam War,

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Speaker 4: and I was at high school and the chasing girls

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Speaker 4: around and you know, playing guitar and doing plays, and

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Speaker 4: they were getting shot at. And so when I met them,

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Speaker 4: I got to feel a little guilty about being kind

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Speaker 4: of oblivious during that period of time. So I wanted

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Speaker 4: to do something that spoke to the Vietnam experience, and

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Speaker 4: so I started to look and I found the play Tracers.

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Speaker 4: We eventually did it in Chicago, and that was a

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Speaker 4: big thing.

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Speaker 1: When I read about that experience, you really building with others,

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Speaker 1: but you building and then guiding Steppenwolf. I see Gary

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Speaker 1: Sonise the builder, and you do have that in you

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Speaker 1: where you I mean, obviously your cause at that moment

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Speaker 1: was theater and creating great plays in some ways preserving

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Speaker 1: American classics of mice and men, which I saw. How

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Speaker 1: did that carry on into the next phase of your life?

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Speaker 1: How did it prepare.

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Speaker 2: You for what you're doing now? And the building of

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Speaker 2: the foundation. Did it?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? I think all all those things did. I think,

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Speaker 4: you know, if I look back to how I grew

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Speaker 4: up as a kid. My dad was a film editor

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Speaker 4: and in Chicago, and you know, the bulk of the

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Speaker 4: film work in Chicago in those days was like the

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Speaker 4: mad Men Show. You know, remember the advertising agency. So

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Speaker 4: the advertising guys were constantly making commercials and they needed

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Speaker 4: the editors to crank out these commercials and get them

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Speaker 4: done no matter what time it was because they were

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Speaker 4: all on deadline.

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Speaker 2: So my dad would work these crazy hours.

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Speaker 4: And I don't remember dad being, you know, just around

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Speaker 4: that much, you know, when I was growing up in

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Speaker 4: terms of high school or any of that. So I

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Speaker 4: got to I got to kind of work things out

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Speaker 4: on my own anyway. My mom had her hands full

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Speaker 4: with she was taking care of her mom and her

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Speaker 4: sister and me and my brother and sister, and I

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Speaker 4: kind of developed this sort of do it yourself sort

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Speaker 4: of you know, I just can't wait around for somebody

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Speaker 4: to tell me what to do kind of thing. And

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Speaker 4: I sort of developed that at an early age, and that,

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Speaker 4: you know, then I got into high school and decided, well,

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Speaker 4: what I want to do is start a theater.

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Speaker 2: I could.

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to college because nobody told you you

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Speaker 1: couldn't that's right.

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Speaker 4: Nobody said you couldn't. And I had a great mentor

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Speaker 4: in high school. Her name's Barbara Patterson, and.

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Speaker 1: She stayed in touch with her for a long time.

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Speaker 4: I did.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: She was the drama teacher in high school and we

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Speaker 4: we became very close and stayed in touch with her.

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Speaker 4: And she saw me as a kid who you know,

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Speaker 4: I was bad in school and didn't you know, grades

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Speaker 4: were no good and all that, but I could actually act.

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Speaker 2: She saw something in she saw badasses which she saw.

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Speaker 4: She saw well, she saw a guy who could, you know,

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Speaker 4: just let it rip. And because I didn't, I didn't.

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Speaker 4: I didn't have any training or anything like that. I

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Speaker 4: just came to my first and started just doing what

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Speaker 4: I thought I should do.

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Speaker 2: And she kind of said, go with that.

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Speaker 4: That's good. And so she gave me a lot of

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Speaker 4: courage and a lot of self confidence in terms of

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Speaker 4: just believing in my particular approach to things. And so

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Speaker 4: I just had a particular approach, and I also kind

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Speaker 4: of developed this sort of folk focus on leadership and

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Speaker 4: kind of seeing a thing over here and then going

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Speaker 4: and trying to make it happen. And there, you know,

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Speaker 4: that manifested itself into kind of finding a space and

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Speaker 4: creating a theater company and then you know, making movies

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Speaker 4: and conquering Broadway.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I remember with True West.

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Speaker 4: I was the artistic director of Stepping Will at that time,

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Speaker 4: and I really wanted to move that show. I was

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Speaker 4: looking like as soon as I took over as the

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Speaker 4: artistic director of Stepping Will, one of the things I

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Speaker 4: wanted to do because I thought we were really good

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Speaker 4: and I thought, you know, the next thing we got

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Speaker 4: to do is, you know, if we want we want

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Speaker 4: to be more well known in Chicago, and I think

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Speaker 4: that a good way to do that is to be

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Speaker 4: well known in New York.

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Speaker 2: So so smart move.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So we we took.

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Speaker 4: A play there and it was a big, big hit,

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Speaker 4: and John John became a movie star. Steppenwolf got all

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Speaker 4: this attention. We all producers started coming to Chicago to

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Speaker 4: see our work. We ended up doing play after play

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Speaker 4: there every year in.

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Speaker 2: Incredible all hits.

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Speaker 4: They were all doing great, and it really it really

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Speaker 4: set the stage for being able to build a building,

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Speaker 4: you know, because we were being recognized as really talented

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Speaker 4: group of people, and we were starting because of our

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Speaker 4: success in New York, starting to develop this sort of

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Speaker 4: international reputation because we would get all these great reviews

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Speaker 4: in New York and all those reviews would trickle out

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Speaker 4: to the West Coast and all around, and people were

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Speaker 4: starting to recognize Steppenwolf as something positive. So we were

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Speaker 4: able to raise the money in Chicago to build a building,

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Speaker 4: and that's what we did.

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Speaker 1: I know there was a big shift after nine to

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Speaker 1: eleven for you, at least in your own mind and heart.

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Speaker 1: But back in nineteen ninety four, Gary, you right after

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Speaker 1: Forrest Gump, you're addressing a group of disabled veterans. Tell

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Speaker 1: me about that moment and what you learned in that moment.

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Speaker 4: That was Ye. Forrest Gump came out in on July sixth,

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Speaker 4: nineteen ninety four, thirty years ago. Wow. And shortly after that,

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Speaker 4: I received an invitation to come to the National Convention

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Speaker 4: of the Disabled American Veterans Organization, which I was not

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Speaker 4: aware of. Didn't didn't know the organization at all, but

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Speaker 4: they've been around for decades and decades, and so I

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Speaker 4: kind of looked into what is it? And they at

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Speaker 4: that point they represented about one point five million mooded

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Speaker 4: veterans going back to World War Two, and they wanted

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Speaker 4: to give me an award for playing Lieutenant Dan wounded guy,

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Speaker 4: and they thought I did a good job, and they

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Speaker 4: wanted to, you know, kind of bring me out there

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Speaker 4: and kind of give me something. So I went there.

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Speaker 4: Convention that year was in Chicago, and I went to

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Speaker 4: the Conrad Hilton in Chicago in August of ninety four,

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Speaker 4: just maybe six weeks after the movie came out, and

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Speaker 4: I'm standing on stage.

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Speaker 2: In fact, the.

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Speaker 4: First pages of my book Grateful American described this moment

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Speaker 4: of walking out on stage and looking out in the

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Speaker 4: in the crowd and there's you know, two thousand wounded

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Speaker 4: veterans out in this ballroom and they're all cheering for me.

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Speaker 2: And I was so moved by it.

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Speaker 4: And just kind of the impact that was made by

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Speaker 4: seeing all these wheelchairs and you know, just wounded folks

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Speaker 4: just applauding me for playing this part was profound. And

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Speaker 4: so I stayed in touch with them and started working

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Speaker 4: with them and supporting them over the years. And I

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Speaker 4: think the Tracer's experience of working on that and getting

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Speaker 4: involved with local Vietnam Veterans groups in Chicago ten years later,

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Speaker 4: the Lieutenant Anne experience getting involved with our wounded supporting them.

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Speaker 4: Those were just those were seeds that were being planted

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Speaker 4: that would grow in to this full on mission after

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Speaker 4: September eleventh, two thousand and one, and.

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Speaker 2: I was just I just felt like call to action at.

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Speaker 4: That at that point to get involved in a deeper way,

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Speaker 4: both those things the tracers experience in the Lieutenant.

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Speaker 1: Dan acclaim after the film, I mean it was it

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Speaker 1: was a cultural moment. But for the veterans community, they

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Speaker 1: saw themselves in a positive light. And as you mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 1: if you look at the Vietnam films and those stories

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Speaker 1: told before, it always ended horribly for them.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it was depressing and dark or you just you

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Speaker 4: He always wondered, I'm just not sure that Vietnam veteran

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Speaker 4: is going to be okay. And after this film is over, Yeah,

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Speaker 4: Like look at the Coming Home, That's what came to mind.

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Speaker 2: Coming back.

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Speaker 4: You see Bruce Dern, what's he do. He's so racked

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Speaker 4: with guilt and everything. He takes off his uniform and

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Speaker 4: swims out in the ocean. He's not coming back. You

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Speaker 4: wonder at the end of Platoon, when Charlie Sheen is

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Speaker 4: flying over the battlefield and he's looking down and he

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Speaker 4: sees all these bodies, and you know, the battle is

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Speaker 4: over and every lot of buddies are gone and he's

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Speaker 4: flying off. At the end of that movie, you just

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Speaker 4: wonder that guy's going to have a tough time going

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Speaker 4: into life casualties of war.

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Speaker 2: The same thing with Michael J.

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Speaker 4: Fox. And then you got, Gosh, you got Martin Sheen

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Speaker 4: at the end of your Apocalypse. Now you got look

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Speaker 4: what happens to Chris walk And at the end of

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Speaker 4: Deer Hunt.

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Speaker 2: Deerhunter.

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Speaker 1: These are all dark endings, That's what I mean. They're

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Speaker 1: all dark to semi dark endings. Lieutenant Dan is the.

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Speaker 2: Only happy ending. That's what was different about it.

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Speaker 1: And they are still talking about it and watching it today.

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Speaker 1: So after nine to eleven, what happens you start? When

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Speaker 1: do you start the band? The Lieutenant Dan Band.

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Speaker 4: So I'd done Truman and I just finishedoing George Wallace

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Speaker 4: in like old January or February of ninety seven, and

334
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Speaker 4: then I went to Chicago to play Stanley Kowalski in

335
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Speaker 4: the streetcar named Desire. And I was on stage in

336
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Speaker 4: Streetcar and there was a guy who had written the

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Speaker 4: music for Streetcar named Keimo Williams and Kemo.

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Speaker 2: He was a bass player, but.

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Speaker 4: He liked to play guitar, and he heard I was

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Speaker 4: a bass player, so he said, hey, you know, if

341
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Speaker 4: you ever want to come over in jam, you know,

342
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Speaker 4: come on over.

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Speaker 2: And so I was so busy during the run of

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Speaker 2: the show, I could never do it. I was tired.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's a shark. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I just wanted to get to get through it. And

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Speaker 4: so right at the end we wrapped the show. I

348
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Speaker 4: got a couple of days before I'm going to fly

349
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Speaker 4: back to California, and I called him up and said,

350
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Speaker 4: why don't we get some pizza and we'll get some

351
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Speaker 4: guys and we'll play. And I went over started playing.

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Speaker 4: So that kind of rekindled some bass stuff in me.

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Speaker 2: I used to play bass and guitar and everything.

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Speaker 4: I put it away when I was gotten so busy

355
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Speaker 4: with Stepping Wolf and everything. I hadn't really played much,

356
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Speaker 4: but playing it really got me going again. And then

357
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Speaker 4: I went Shortly after that, I went up to Atlantic

358
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Speaker 4: City and then Montreal to do a movie with Nick

359
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Speaker 4: Cage called Snake Eyes. And when I was up doing

360
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Speaker 4: Snake Guys in Canada, there were some guys on the

361
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Speaker 4: crew that played, and so we went and started playing,

362
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Speaker 4: and I called Chemo up and said, come on up

363
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Speaker 4: here and play with us. So he flew up to

364
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Speaker 4: Montreal and we were playing. And then after September eleventh,

365
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Speaker 4: I wanted to do more for the troops and I

366
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Speaker 4: started going on USO tours and handshaking and taking pictures,

367
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Speaker 4: and I went to the war zones a couple of times.

368
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Speaker 2: I went to.

369
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Speaker 4: Germany, I went to Italy and went to Walter Reed,

370
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Speaker 4: I went. You know, I was doing all this stuff

371
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Speaker 4: in two thousand and three, going one month after another

372
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Speaker 4: to some military base or something like that.

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Speaker 2: Just meet get so you got the band, no band, No,

374
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Speaker 2: it was.

375
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Speaker 4: It was a series of meet and greets for the

376
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Speaker 4: for for for six or seven months.

377
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Speaker 2: I was I was going out.

378
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Speaker 4: Didn't have a job at that time that was keeping

379
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Speaker 4: me in towns, but I wanted. I wanted to help

380
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Speaker 4: our troops. You know, we had you know, we'd been

381
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Speaker 4: attacked and I wanted to do something. And so I

382
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:39,679
Speaker 4: started visiting them and I had, you know, because I

383
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:42,320
Speaker 4: had some jammers that I would play with from time

384
00:21:42,359 --> 00:21:45,080
Speaker 4: to time. I said to the USO, let me take

385
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Speaker 4: them on a tour. And eventually they said okay. So

386
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Speaker 4: I called up Chemo and said, hey, let's let's put

387
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Speaker 4: some folks together and and let's go and so we

388
00:21:58,040 --> 00:22:01,359
Speaker 4: we started touring and that that that's what began the

389
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Speaker 4: lieutenant and band. Kimo left the band after after a while,

390
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Speaker 4: and you know, we've we've now the band has played

391
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Speaker 4: Oh gosh, we've played one hundred, five hundred and seventy

392
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Speaker 4: five concerts on military basis. Incredible. I've been I've been

393
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Speaker 4: to I've been over one hundred and seventy five military

394
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Speaker 4: bases myself, you know, in the hospitals and all that stuff.

395
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Speaker 2: Why do you still do it? Gary?

396
00:22:26,760 --> 00:22:28,919
Speaker 4: Once I started doing it, I could see that it

397
00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:32,159
Speaker 4: was impactful. It was in a positive way, like it

398
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:34,840
Speaker 4: was it was good that I was there. You know,

399
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:39,720
Speaker 4: I'd walk into a hospital room and maybe maybe there'd

400
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:46,919
Speaker 4: be a wounded soldier service member in the bed, completely unconscious,

401
00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:52,479
Speaker 4: you know, hadn't woken up yet. Family is standing around

402
00:22:52,520 --> 00:22:56,840
Speaker 4: waiting for that moment, praying for that moment. And I

403
00:22:56,960 --> 00:23:01,160
Speaker 4: come in and they've been there for weeks, just dealing

404
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:04,679
Speaker 4: with the issues, and somebody like me comes in and

405
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 4: the light faces light up, and you know, start taking pictures,

406
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:12,040
Speaker 4: and it changes the mood, it changes the tone, and

407
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:14,840
Speaker 4: I could see that showing up was making a difference.

408
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:15,760
Speaker 2: So then I.

409
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:17,840
Speaker 4: Wanted to do it again, and I wanted to do

410
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:20,320
Speaker 4: it again after that, and I just kept wanting to

411
00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:22,280
Speaker 4: do it because I could see that it was helping.

412
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:26,119
Speaker 4: Of course, if I had seen me, if I hadn't

413
00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:28,240
Speaker 4: felt that it was helping, I wouldn't there.

414
00:23:28,160 --> 00:23:30,439
Speaker 2: To be how garrison these foundations, I mean, how did

415
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:31,400
Speaker 2: the foundation start?

416
00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:34,120
Speaker 1: Tell me about the founding. So you're out doing these

417
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:38,560
Speaker 1: USO tours with the band. I know, you're also collaborating

418
00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 1: with other organizations that are building homes for veterans and

419
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:45,160
Speaker 1: helping veterans in various ways, and you're donating a lot

420
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:50,359
Speaker 1: of the money from these concerts to these partner organizations.

421
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:53,000
Speaker 1: But when do you start your own foundation? What was

422
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:53,879
Speaker 1: the impetus for that?

423
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:59,160
Speaker 4: Well, you know, when I started making those tours, those

424
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 4: early tours, just volunteering to go to the hospitals or

425
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:08,399
Speaker 4: you know, go shake hands or something, or you know,

426
00:24:08,560 --> 00:24:12,080
Speaker 4: now take the band and go play on military bases

427
00:24:12,119 --> 00:24:17,320
Speaker 4: and whatnot. One of the things that I also wanted

428
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:20,679
Speaker 4: to do was to try to help more people was

429
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:25,520
Speaker 4: to volunteer for a lot of different other organizations. There

430
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:27,880
Speaker 4: were a lot of service organizations out there that were

431
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 4: supporting veterans and first responders, and I wanted to help

432
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 4: veterans and first responders, so I would volunteer to you know,

433
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 4: raise money for these organizations, raise awareness for what they

434
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 4: were doing by doing PSAs or whatever. So I just

435
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:50,359
Speaker 4: started volunteering wherever I could for multiple organizations. So I

436
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:54,680
Speaker 4: learned a lot about all these different needs and organizations

437
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:58,120
Speaker 4: were filling this need, you know, you know, we were

438
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:01,639
Speaker 4: building homes for our wounded, we were taking care of

439
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 4: our goal start children, or families of our fallen entertainment,

440
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 4: you know, whatever it was. It was a lot of

441
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 4: different things, and I support a lot of different organizations.

442
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 2: After doing that for you know, ten.

443
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 4: Years or whatever it was, it was clear that this

444
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:22,119
Speaker 4: was something that was just a big part of my life.

445
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:26,119
Speaker 4: And I started thinking, well, you know, I've got to

446
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 4: find a way to do this in a different way.

447
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 4: And I've seen all these nonprofits pop up and I've

448
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 4: tried to help them all. Why didn't I just start

449
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:39,440
Speaker 4: my own? And at that point, I had been doing

450
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 4: it long enough that I had a pretty good reputation

451
00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 4: with you know, trying to help, and so that's why

452
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:49,159
Speaker 4: I put my name on the on the foundation. I

453
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 4: called it Gary Sneeze Foundation, because there was already a

454
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 4: you know, I already had a relationship with the military families,

455
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 4: and I had been raising money for all these other organizations.

456
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:05,080
Speaker 4: I was on television, you know, Weekly and CSI New York.

457
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 4: So I just said this, let's do it. I want

458
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 4: to do more, and I think the way to do

459
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:15,480
Speaker 4: that is to start raising our own money so that

460
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 4: I can hire people to do more. So we started

461
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,400
Speaker 4: out very small, a couple of people, and now we've

462
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:22,879
Speaker 4: got a giant organization.

463
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:25,359
Speaker 1: Now give me a sense, and I won't make you

464
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: go through every program, but you all do things that

465
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 1: I don't see other organizations doing.

466
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 2: Years ago.

467
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 1: I know you took over the Snowball Express program. Tell

468
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:40,239
Speaker 1: me about that. I mean, I've covered it. It's the

469
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: most it's one of the most moving and I think

470
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 1: amazing and important moments at Christmas time. I think of

471
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: almost any organization in the country.

472
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 4: It's beautiful. It's focused on the children of our fallen heroes.

473
00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 4: And it was started at Disneyland in two thousand and

474
00:26:57,480 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 4: six by a group of folks that just want to

475
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 4: help the kids of our fallen heroes and help them

476
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 4: through the holidays by taking them to a happy place

477
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 4: like Disneyland and letting them play and letting them meet

478
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 4: each other, to see that they weren't alone, you know,

479
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:16,560
Speaker 4: in their grief and what they were going through. There

480
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 4: was a lot of other kids that have lost a

481
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 4: parent in military service, and it was very.

482
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 2: Bonding and healing.

483
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 4: I got involved with it the second year they had

484
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:30,359
Speaker 4: done They had done one event at Disneyland. I was

485
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 4: shooting CSI New York and Studio City. They contacted me

486
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:37,879
Speaker 4: and said they wanted to come and show me a

487
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:42,199
Speaker 4: video of their first event. And I saw that, I

488
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,919
Speaker 4: said I wanted to be involved. I volunteered to donate

489
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:48,959
Speaker 4: my band the following year to come play for the kids.

490
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,680
Speaker 2: I did that, then I went back the next year.

491
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 4: Then I donated and just kept doing it every year,

492
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 4: help helping to raise money or raise awareness or raised

493
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:04,320
Speaker 4: spirits by bringing the band and playing.

494
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 2: For the kids. I've done it.

495
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:09,880
Speaker 4: You know, I don't know we're in our eighteenth year.

496
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 4: I know it snowballs in its eighteenth year. So in

497
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen. Having American Airlines is a big, big sponsor

498
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 4: of ours.

499
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 2: With multiple programs.

500
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:28,439
Speaker 4: But American had actually gotten very, very involved, and so

501
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 4: the event moved from Anaheim and Disneyland after three years

502
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 4: to Dallas, and because that's the hub of American Airlines,

503
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 4: have got a lot of good support there. They could

504
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 4: do a lot of things for the kids. So it

505
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 4: was there for a number of years and then I

506
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:50,360
Speaker 4: mentioned to the folks that were kind of in charge

507
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 4: of it at that time, Hey, you know, I've been

508
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 4: narrating the show at disney World for you know, a

509
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 4: dozen years. That's a great place for the kids. I

510
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 4: think we should take it take it there. Uh well,

511
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 4: it was going to cost a lot of extra money

512
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 4: to do that, and that's when we decided to fold

513
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:15,440
Speaker 4: Snowball Express into the Garysonese Foundation as one of our

514
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 4: programs because we had the ability to raise raise the

515
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:22,479
Speaker 4: amount of money to you know, you're taking a thousand

516
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:24,719
Speaker 4: kids to Disney World. You got to get a lot

517
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 4: of hotel rooms and all.

518
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 2: You know, it's a logistical and transportation.

519
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 4: It's a big big thing. So American provides all the

520
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 4: all the transportation. Uh, you know, multiple charter airplanes that

521
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 4: come from all over the country with these kids on board.

522
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 4: All you know, all the people that all the flight attendants,

523
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 4: all the pilots, everybody volunteers their time. American donates the

524
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 4: airplane planes. We get all the kids to the Disney.

525
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 4: My foundation is the is the you know, it's the

526
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 4: Garysonese Foundation program. So we raise all the additional money

527
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 4: to do everything. They work passes and they and the

528
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 4: hotels and the food and every everything like that. It

529
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 4: costs a lot of money, hundreds and hundreds of volunteers

530
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 4: and we bring them in for you know, we bring

531
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 4: them in on a Saturday and they're there till like Wednesday,

532
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 4: and it's it's it's life changed. A lot of days

533
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 4: of fun and healing for these kids. You know, they

534
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 4: make lifelong friendships with somebody with another kid who's who's.

535
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 2: Lost a parent.

536
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: Tell me about the Soaring Valor program, which we were

537
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: talking about the other day.

538
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:36,120
Speaker 2: Which I knew.

539
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 1: I've seen them when I'm in and out of airports,

540
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: particularly down in New Orleans. I didn't realize the other

541
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: part of the city. It's not just veterans of war

542
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: that you're bringing in on these Soaring Valor trips.

543
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 2: Well, Soaring Valor is I have that.

544
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 4: That's one that started with my relationship with the National

545
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 4: World War Two Museum in New Orleans, and Tom Hanks

546
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 4: invited me to. He was helping to make the movie

547
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 4: that plays in the theater there called Beyond All Boundaries,

548
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 4: and so Tom called some of his palace to do

549
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 4: voices in the movie. And I did the voice of

550
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 4: Ernie Pyle. And this goes back to two thousand and

551
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 4: nine or so, so I did the voice of Ernie Pyle.

552
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 4: And then I sent my uncle there, who was a

553
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 4: navigator on a B seventeen bomber over Europe and World

554
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 4: War Two, and they recorded my uncle on video for

555
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 4: the archive at the museum. And that's one of the

556
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 4: programs that they have at the museum where they tried

557
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 4: to get as many World War Two veterans to tell

558
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 4: their stories on camera and they preserve them in their

559
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 4: archives and they use.

560
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 2: These stories throughout the museums.

561
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 4: You'll go to an exhibit, you'll hit a thing, and

562
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 4: a and elderly World War Two veteran will come out

563
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 4: and start telling his story, right, and then you see

564
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 4: all this stuff there and he's telling the story of

565
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 4: what it was like to try to take that bridge

566
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 4: or whatever it is. So these you know that after

567
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 4: my uncle died. My uncle Jack died in twenty fourteen,

568
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 4: I called them and I said, can you send me

569
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 4: that video of my uncle Jack. They sent me the

570
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 4: video and I watched it and I was, you know,

571
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 4: just tears, and I got so moved by it. I

572
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 4: called them up and I said, you know, I'm so

573
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 4: lucky that I have this video of my uncle. Everyone

574
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:50,239
Speaker 4: who has a World War Two veteran should have a

575
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 4: video of them telling their stories like this. Is there

576
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 4: anything I can do to help you get more of

577
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 4: these stories, to make sure that we preserve more of

578
00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 4: these stories? And they said, you know, why don't you

579
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 4: fund some of our historians. So I said, great, We'll

580
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 4: fund historians to go out around the country and videotape

581
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 4: these World War Two veterans. And here's another thing that

582
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 4: I'd like to do. I'm going to approach my friends

583
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 4: in American Airlines and I'm going to pitch them an

584
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 4: idea to fly World War Two veterans down to the

585
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 4: National World War Two Museum to see this museum. Because

586
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 4: they are all over the country and many of them

587
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 4: will never see this museum that was built for them,

588
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 4: and so getting them there is super important. So I

589
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 4: want to start a program where we can fly these

590
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 4: veterans down there. So we started taking veterans in twenty fifteen,

591
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 4: and then in twenty seventeen, I thought, let's add another

592
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 4: component to this, and I pitch that to my team

593
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 4: at the foundation and also to American and I said,

594
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:06,719
Speaker 4: I want to take high school kids on these trips

595
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:10,280
Speaker 4: with the veterans, and pair up a high school student

596
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 4: with a World War Two veteran and they travel together

597
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:18,080
Speaker 4: and experience the music, experience the museum with somebody who

598
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 4: lived through the experience. It'll be an education unlike anything

599
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 4: they'll ever get. Well, now we've done twenty seven trips

600
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:31,800
Speaker 4: something like that taking World War II veterans and students

601
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 4: down to the National War War Two Museum, and you

602
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 4: can go on the Garysonese Foundation website and look at

603
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:39,960
Speaker 4: our YouTube channel and you'll see a whole bunch of

604
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:42,800
Speaker 4: videos of how special it is for these kids to

605
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 4: spend this time with these American heroes.

606
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 2: It's beautiful.

607
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, and you're also teaching that generation the cost

608
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:56,920
Speaker 1: of their freedom and what. There's nothing like being confronted.

609
00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: I remember taking my kids to you know, we're walking

610
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: through the Marines Museum out in Vietnam, Virginia, and as

611
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: we passed through, there was a retired elderly marine who

612
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:14,840
Speaker 1: had been Aty Regima. Well, my kids were just fascinating

613
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:17,840
Speaker 1: because we'd just come out of the See Regima exhibit

614
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 1: and here was the living embodiment of it. And this

615
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:24,879
Speaker 1: man he sat with my kids for like a half hour,

616
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:28,120
Speaker 1: and you could see the tears rolling down his face

617
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:31,359
Speaker 1: because aid they were interested in what he had gone through,

618
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:34,840
Speaker 1: and b he was passing it along to a younger

619
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:37,720
Speaker 1: generation and they were excited about it. So the wonder

620
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: of what you're creating there and passing the history along

621
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 1: is so critical and important.

622
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 4: It's beautiful, Raymond. I mean when you see it time

623
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 4: after time. I did the first It's been a while

624
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:52,360
Speaker 4: since I've been able to get on a trip, but

625
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 4: I did the first twelve to fifteen trips.

626
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:56,239
Speaker 2: You know, every one of.

627
00:35:56,160 --> 00:36:00,839
Speaker 4: These trips, you know, you know, helping these veterans get

628
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 4: through the museum and watching them interact with the students,

629
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:07,840
Speaker 4: and watching the students interact with them, and the students

630
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:11,239
Speaker 4: opening their eyes to what it is. I mean, the

631
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:15,320
Speaker 4: cost of freedom is high. And you know they learn

632
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 4: from these veterans what they did that relates to them today, right.

633
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 4: I mean you know, without this, without us winning that war,

634
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:30,840
Speaker 4: the Allies winning that war, we the world would have

635
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 4: been completely different and they would have grown grown up

636
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 4: in a completely different America.

637
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: I remember my son telling me after meeting that it

638
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 1: would seem a veteran when we were leaving. He said, Dad,

639
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,799
Speaker 1: he's not that much older than I am now when

640
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: he went to war. I said, that's right, that's the lesson.

641
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:53,240
Speaker 1: These were boys who went off to defend this freedom.

642
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:56,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's incredible. It is an incredible sacrifice, and that's

643
00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:57,800
Speaker 2: a beautiful program.

644
00:36:57,800 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 4: They want.

645
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll say no, The Soaring Vellor is in all

646
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: of your program I mean your wellness programs. You have

647
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 1: the Rise program, which is about giving homes to your

648
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 1: to severely disabled vets. I mean we could spend an

649
00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 1: afternoon talking about all the programs. You should go to

650
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 1: Garrisonese's Foundation website and look at it all. It's incredible work.

651
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:17,920
Speaker 1: I want to talk though, about the string that I

652
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:21,839
Speaker 1: see that runs through your life. Really from the time

653
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:24,880
Speaker 1: you're in step and well, founding the foundation and then

654
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 1: in your personal life, and there is this string of

655
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 1: sacrifice that I see running through it and devotion to others.

656
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:37,680
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, your son Mac is diagnosed with a

657
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 1: very rare form of cancer on his spine. It turns

658
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:46,799
Speaker 1: into tumors that are popping out that the doctors can't control.

659
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:51,760
Speaker 1: Your wife and during multiple surgeries at the same time

660
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:57,280
Speaker 1: she's having her own cancer battle. How did you contend

661
00:37:57,360 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 1: with all this? First of all, what did you think

662
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:00,320
Speaker 1: was happy?

663
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 2: Well, it's just like you're getting punched.

664
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 4: You know. When we found out my wife there was

665
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:21,320
Speaker 4: you know, she had an mammogram and now we didn't

666
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 4: hear anything for a bit, you know, like so we

667
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 4: just assumed, you know, well maybe everything's okay. Then, I

668
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 4: don't know, maybe a month later, we get this letter

669
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,279
Speaker 4: that said, you know there, you know, we'd like you

670
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 4: to come back in for another check, you know, like

671
00:38:38,040 --> 00:38:40,840
Speaker 4: a month later, we're like, what what's this?

672
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, So a.

673
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:45,880
Speaker 4: Month later we go back in, she gets another test,

674
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 4: and then they want her to go and see the

675
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:56,720
Speaker 4: surgeon and he confirms that she has you know, cancer

676
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:03,880
Speaker 4: in her limp Notes and that she's going to need surgery.

677
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:08,800
Speaker 4: So they did a lump ectomy on my wife, which

678
00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:12,440
Speaker 4: you know, she didn't have to it's not a mass sectomy.

679
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:13,880
Speaker 2: She didn't lose her breast.

680
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 4: But they did a lump acter mey whether it took

681
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:22,719
Speaker 4: out nineteen nodes and then five of them were infected

682
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 4: with cancer. And it was successful surgery according to him.

683
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 4: But she was going to need to go through chemo

684
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 4: and radiation. You started chemo, she went through, you know,

685
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 4: all the chemo treatments, thirty five radiation treatments. And during

686
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 4: that time, you know, not too long after she had

687
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:56,920
Speaker 4: had her initial surgery, Mac was having trouble with it

688
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 4: was just he was in pain when he was sitting

689
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 4: down and like his tailbone was hurting him. So we

690
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 4: sent him to a Moira's spine surgeon. And I get

691
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:11,840
Speaker 4: this call that Mac has a has a tumor on

692
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 4: his sacrum. And I'm sitting there with Moira talking about

693
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 4: her breast cancer. I get a call Max now got cancer.

694
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:24,279
Speaker 4: He's and it's something called cordoma, which is a very

695
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:26,320
Speaker 4: very rare cancer.

696
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:28,839
Speaker 2: I mean so rare. You know, when you think of rare, you.

697
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,360
Speaker 4: Think in the United States, well, maybe that's five thousand

698
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 4: people or something. This is three hundred per year, you know,

699
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:39,920
Speaker 4: three hundred per year are diagnosed with this kind of tumor.

700
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 4: And it starts in the spine. It can start up here,

701
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:46,440
Speaker 4: you know, at the top of the spine or at

702
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 4: the base of the spine. And with Mac that tumor

703
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 4: was was this big wrapped around his sacrum. And it's

704
00:40:55,600 --> 00:41:01,840
Speaker 4: such a slow growing tumor that it could very possibly

705
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 4: have been growing since birth that that long because it

706
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:11,279
Speaker 4: grows very very slowly to get to that size. They

707
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 4: said that could have been there for a long long time.

708
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 4: And the only way to cure it is to take

709
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:27,160
Speaker 4: it out and hopefully the surgeon gets every cell, every

710
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:31,800
Speaker 4: bit of it, and that can happen successfully about seventy

711
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 4: percent of the time, but thirty percent of the time

712
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 4: they will take take it out and then it'll come

713
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:45,440
Speaker 4: back and spread. And when it comes back and spreads,

714
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 4: there's very little it can be done. They try to

715
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 4: radiate it, they try any drug, any cancer drug they can.

716
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 4: We found out he had his initial tumor taken out

717
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:05,760
Speaker 4: in September of twenty eighteen, and by May of twenty nineteen,

718
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 4: we found out that a cancer came back. So then

719
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 4: he went into like chemo treatments, radiation stuff, more surgeries

720
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:16,920
Speaker 4: because now it was spreading to the neck, right had

721
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 4: he had tumors on his neck. He had in fact,

722
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 4: see this picture back here, that is five days before

723
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,720
Speaker 4: he had to go in the hospital and get tumor

724
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 4: taken off his neck. In fact, you know, when he

725
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 4: wasn't on camera or getting his picture taken, they gave

726
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 4: him a neck brace to where when they discovered that

727
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 4: there was tumor on his neck, they didn't want him

728
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 4: to do anything that would you know, screw, you know,

729
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 4: pop anything, or that tumor was growing there and it

730
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 4: could fracture something. So they gave him a neck brace.

731
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:49,399
Speaker 4: And he was wearing a neck brace until we got

732
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:53,479
Speaker 4: into the hospital five days after that picture was taken. There.

733
00:42:56,239 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 4: But and he's also going through chemo and radiation, and

734
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 4: you know, they kept he had multiple spine surgeries because

735
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:06,319
Speaker 4: he was in a lot of pain and the only

736
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 4: thing they could do was try to take the tumors

737
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 4: out off his spine. Each time they did that, he

738
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:17,279
Speaker 4: became a little more disabled, until finally at the end

739
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:21,840
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty, this was twenty twenty, he was in

740
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 4: a wheelchair and then he was still able to stand up,

741
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:30,280
Speaker 4: but shortly after that he lost the use of his legs.

742
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:32,719
Speaker 4: I remember coming in. I would come in and I

743
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:35,759
Speaker 4: would stretch his legs out and have him push, you know,

744
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 4: his legs. And I came in and I said, Okay,

745
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 4: lift your leg up, but and he couldn't do it.

746
00:43:43,920 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 4: And he couldn't lift his leg up, and he just

747
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 4: looked at me, you know, he couldn't do it, and

748
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:53,280
Speaker 4: he took it in stride. Raymond.

749
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 2: I mean it was like like he's laying there.

750
00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 4: I think he knew something was happening, was getting harder

751
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 4: and harder to move his leg, and then when it happened,

752
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 4: it was like.

753
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 2: Can't do it. Then he was resigned to it. Yeah,

754
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't like he started crying or.

755
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:20,359
Speaker 4: Anything. He was just.

756
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:24,839
Speaker 2: We're in a different world now, you know. Now we're

757
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:26,480
Speaker 2: in a we've moved to a new place.

758
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:29,920
Speaker 4: We're in another level of what we're going to do.

759
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 1: The amazing thing to me is through all of this,

760
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 1: I mean, in twenty twenty one, you lose your father,

761
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:41,360
Speaker 1: your wife is still battling cancer. Mac is now battling cancer,

762
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: but the mission, Max's mission and his love of music

763
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 1: never wanes.

764
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:49,840
Speaker 4: Gary.

765
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 1: In fact, I would argue, well, you named the album

766
00:44:55,160 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 1: where he did resurrection and revival. It resurrects and revives him. Yeah,

767
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: in the last year of his life. Tell me about that,

768
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:07,320
Speaker 1: what you saw, the drive you saw.

769
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 2: In him, and the impact it had on you.

770
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:17,760
Speaker 4: Yeah. This record, this is part two of the first record,

771
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 4: the first record. In February of twenty twenty three, he'd

772
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 4: been fighting cancer and all of that, and he said

773
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 4: to me, Dad, there's a piece of music that I

774
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 4: wrote that I never finished in college, and I think

775
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 4: I'd like to try and finish it. So he contacted

776
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 4: one of my band members who he'd worked with a

777
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 4: little bit on some things, and my violin player Dan,

778
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 4: and Dan went to work with him on it to

779
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 4: help them kind of flesh out the ideas, and then

780
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 4: my piano player went to work on.

781
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 2: It with him. Ben Lewis helping him.

782
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:00,719
Speaker 4: Ben would play things for him, send it back to

783
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:03,359
Speaker 4: Mac and he'd make notes and send it back to Ben.

784
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:07,280
Speaker 4: Then Ben would adjust. And then his buddy Oliver Shnae

785
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:09,279
Speaker 4: came into the picture, who he.

786
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:10,240
Speaker 2: Hadn't seen for a while.

787
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 4: Oliver went to college with him, Yeah, and they hadn't

788
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 4: seen each other for a long time, and Mac played

789
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 4: him this piece of music that he'd been working on,

790
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:23,440
Speaker 4: and Oliver went to work on it with him to

791
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 4: finish it. They went into the studio in July of

792
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:31,759
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three and recorded the piece of Arctic Circles,

793
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:37,400
Speaker 4: which is on Maxinese YouTube. Now that started the ball

794
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 4: rolling for Mac wanting to do an entire album, and

795
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:45,640
Speaker 4: that's where Resurrection and Revival came from. I don't know where,

796
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 4: where he why he decided that that was the title,

797
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 4: but named it yeah, oh yeah, Mac Mac did.

798
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:52,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, he.

799
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 1: Was.

800
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:55,280
Speaker 2: It was his project.

801
00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:59,120
Speaker 1: Well clearly it was resurrection and revival of his music,

802
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: but now in the light of what we know and

803
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 1: what's happened, it takes on a far greater significance.

804
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was.

805
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 4: It was reviving him, you know, personally, to be to

806
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 4: be resurrecting some old pieces of music and bringing him

807
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:16,360
Speaker 4: to new life.

808
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:19,439
Speaker 2: And you know, even that even that cover right there,

809
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 2: he who is this?

810
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:23,919
Speaker 4: That's my grandfather and his grave grandfather in World War

811
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:24,720
Speaker 4: One who.

812
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:26,279
Speaker 1: Kind of looks like Mac, I have to say, And

813
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:28,520
Speaker 1: a little bit, but he looks he looks a little

814
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 1: bit like that he does. And when I saw it,

815
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, he put his face. He super imposed

816
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 1: his face on an old picture. But it's not as

817
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 1: a relative, no.

818
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 2: He he kind of revived that picture.

819
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:42,400
Speaker 4: One of the things he did when he was working

820
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:46,360
Speaker 4: at the Foundation was kind of preserved things in archive

821
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 4: and he would take like, I had a lot of

822
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:50,960
Speaker 4: these old pictures of my grandfather from World War One,

823
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 4: and he took them and kind of lightened them up

824
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 4: and fixed them up, made it look better and everything.

825
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 4: And his mom, you know, he's looking for one of

826
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 4: those pictures to use the cover, and he showed his

827
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:04,640
Speaker 4: mom one over here, and she.

828
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:09,880
Speaker 2: Said, what about that one with Grandpa on the horse? Huh?

829
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:11,919
Speaker 4: And Mac went back and got that and he looked

830
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:14,120
Speaker 4: at it and he thought, you're right, mom, that's that's

831
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 4: a great that's a great shot.

832
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:19,640
Speaker 1: I had you on the show on my show on

833
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 1: a WTN on Fox and when the first album came out,

834
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:25,839
Speaker 1: and as I listened to you, now you said when

835
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 1: Mac saw these pictures, he would brighten them up and

836
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:32,439
Speaker 1: revive them. But it seems to me now now you've

837
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 1: released the second album of his work, some of which

838
00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:37,680
Speaker 1: you discovered like hidden treasure in.

839
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 2: His devices after his death.

840
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:43,880
Speaker 1: You are the one who has now brightened and revived

841
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:45,880
Speaker 1: and restored.

842
00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:51,600
Speaker 2: These works that he left you. In many ways.

843
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, finding these musical treasures on his laptop after

844
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 4: he died was a blessing because it's given me this project,

845
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 4: you know, throughout this first year of our lives without

846
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:20,920
Speaker 4: Mac that has really helped me through quite a bit.

847
00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 4: It's resurrected me and revived me a bit from this

848
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:29,400
Speaker 4: terrible grief that we're going through after losing him, you know,

849
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:33,800
Speaker 4: and I'm grateful for that. You know, not everybody loses

850
00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 4: somebody and then has you know, a treasure trove of

851
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 4: music to produce or something like that message.

852
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:41,839
Speaker 2: As you've told me.

853
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:45,880
Speaker 1: I mean, you were going clearly opening his opening these devices.

854
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:47,960
Speaker 1: I'm sure the first impulse wasn't oh, I'm going to

855
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 1: go find some more music. You were looking for clues

856
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 1: in the sense of what he was going through. I imagine.

857
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:57,840
Speaker 4: I don't know what I was looking for Raymond.

858
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:03,040
Speaker 2: After he died. I you know, I don't know.

859
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:07,360
Speaker 4: Within days, I just went to his phone and I

860
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:10,040
Speaker 4: just opened up his phone. I had his password, and

861
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:12,239
Speaker 4: I opened up his phone and I started looking at

862
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 4: his text messages with people, and I looked at I

863
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:20,799
Speaker 4: found voicemails of people that sent him.

864
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 2: I mean that that.

865
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 4: Called him the day he died, not knowing that he

866
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:31,040
Speaker 4: was gone, or shortly after he died, not knowing he

867
00:50:31,080 --> 00:50:33,239
Speaker 4: was gone. These are friends that I didn't really know

868
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:36,440
Speaker 4: very well. So and I found these voice messages. So

869
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:39,880
Speaker 4: I ended up calling these these friends of his and

870
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 4: telling them, you know, we lost Mac. He's you know,

871
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 4: I just wanted you to know. I found this voicemail

872
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:50,040
Speaker 4: that you left. I found text messages from different people.

873
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 4: I'm in fact, one of the one of the songs

874
00:50:56,080 --> 00:51:03,160
Speaker 4: on the record, it's It's he calls it quasi love.

875
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:06,920
Speaker 4: It's you know, I know quasi is the pronunciation. But

876
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 4: Mac wanted to kind of do some some something different

877
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:14,399
Speaker 4: with it, his own jazz, his own thing. And uh

878
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:19,880
Speaker 4: So I found him singing into his phone the melody

879
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:25,040
Speaker 4: for this song, uh into his voice message, and he

880
00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:26,799
Speaker 4: was writing a song in his head and he was

881
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:29,880
Speaker 4: singing into his song. Then I found the chart for it,

882
00:51:30,080 --> 00:51:32,759
Speaker 4: and then I found text messages between him and my

883
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:36,719
Speaker 4: violin player Dan talking about this song. And so I

884
00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:39,799
Speaker 4: went to Dan and said, what what what were you?

885
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:43,240
Speaker 4: Were you working on another song with with Mac besides

886
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 4: Arctic Circles?

887
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:47,360
Speaker 2: And he said, oh yeah, Mac had this cool idea

888
00:51:47,440 --> 00:51:48,840
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah.

889
00:51:48,880 --> 00:51:50,920
Speaker 4: And I said, we'll finish that song because we're going

890
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:53,440
Speaker 4: to put it on We're doing a second record and

891
00:51:54,080 --> 00:51:57,040
Speaker 4: I want it on the record. And so it's on

892
00:51:57,080 --> 00:51:59,399
Speaker 4: the record. And I just found all kinds of things

893
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 4: on his phone, Raymond that I don't even know what.

894
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:06,840
Speaker 4: I didn't know what I was looking for. I was

895
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:12,160
Speaker 4: just I was just driven to find things and find

896
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:14,960
Speaker 4: what was happening at the end of his life. Who

897
00:52:15,080 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 4: was who was he talking to? And do they know

898
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:19,960
Speaker 4: what happened? You know?

899
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:23,040
Speaker 2: And so I had to let them know. And what's

900
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:23,840
Speaker 2: the message?

901
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 1: What did you discover that you didn't know that he

902
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 1: was going through at the end of his life.

903
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 2: Gary, through all of this.

904
00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 4: You know, I never wanted to have that sort of

905
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 4: what if conversation with Mac.

906
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:44,120
Speaker 2: Mac.

907
00:52:44,239 --> 00:52:48,400
Speaker 4: You know, we're fighting cancer and it's you know, it's tough,

908
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:52,560
Speaker 4: and what if this happens were I never wanted to

909
00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:55,000
Speaker 4: have that conversation with him, you know, do you want

910
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:56,759
Speaker 4: me to do this or do you want me to

911
00:52:56,760 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 4: do that? There was only one time where I asked

912
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:04,880
Speaker 4: him about out something, what what would you want to

913
00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:09,000
Speaker 4: happen with your bank account? Because he'd saved a lot

914
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 4: of money, and what would you want to happen?

915
00:53:13,360 --> 00:53:13,719
Speaker 2: You know?

916
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:18,120
Speaker 4: And he paid for the first record himself, I mean

917
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 4: out of out of his savings and everything.

918
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:22,880
Speaker 2: But he saved a fair.

919
00:53:22,719 --> 00:53:25,480
Speaker 4: Amount of money, and so I asked him and he

920
00:53:25,520 --> 00:53:28,040
Speaker 4: told me what he would want with that. But then

921
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:33,359
Speaker 4: I didn't I didn't want to have that conversation with him,

922
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:37,920
Speaker 4: because I did. I didn't want him or me to

923
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:41,799
Speaker 4: feel like we were we were looking at the end

924
00:53:41,960 --> 00:53:46,080
Speaker 4: of the road. I was always from the from the

925
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:48,719
Speaker 4: get go, trying to find the drug, trying to find

926
00:53:48,760 --> 00:53:53,080
Speaker 4: the doctor, trying to find the procedure. What can we try?

927
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:56,279
Speaker 4: Where can we try it? In fact, there was there

928
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:59,799
Speaker 4: was Mac was getting ready to do another treatment when

929
00:53:59,840 --> 00:54:01,920
Speaker 4: he ended up in the hospital the last time he

930
00:54:02,680 --> 00:54:06,040
Speaker 4: was scheduled for another treatment and then he ended up

931
00:54:06,080 --> 00:54:10,400
Speaker 4: going into the er because his breathing was affected, and

932
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 4: we lost him on January January fifth.

933
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:24,280
Speaker 1: What did he teach you about sacrifice and staying on mission?

934
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:26,400
Speaker 1: Did he teach you anything.

935
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, he fought this with such grace and courage that,

936
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:38,120
Speaker 4: you know, I can only hope that I'm going to

937
00:54:38,120 --> 00:54:42,840
Speaker 4: be as graceful and courageous when you know, things get tough,

938
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 4: you know, for me, because I watched him knowing that

939
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:59,000
Speaker 4: he knew how bad things were for him, and yet

940
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:00,080
Speaker 4: he never.

941
00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:02,920
Speaker 2: Never stop smiling through it.

942
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:06,200
Speaker 4: You know, if he was not in pain or not

943
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 4: feeling sick from the treatments, he was smiling. He was

944
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:13,919
Speaker 4: watching the Cubs. He was a big Cubs.

945
00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 2: Fan all this, all through.

946
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:18,560
Speaker 4: The summer of twenty twenty three, he was watching the

947
00:55:18,600 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 4: TV with his mom, watching the Cubs. My mom was

948
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:25,600
Speaker 4: in there all through Moira, My mom and Mac all

949
00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:28,720
Speaker 4: had their Cub bats and they're all watching the Cub games.

950
00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:32,759
Speaker 4: He was smiling through that. He was playing ens harmonica.

951
00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:36,000
Speaker 4: He was working on the music. The entire last year

952
00:55:36,040 --> 00:55:39,320
Speaker 4: of his life. He was focused on creating this album,

953
00:55:39,640 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 4: and so was He was filled with like joy and

954
00:55:44,760 --> 00:55:47,200
Speaker 4: happiness for what he was doing, and it was giving

955
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:52,120
Speaker 4: him this this amazing thing to look forward to every day.

956
00:55:52,840 --> 00:55:56,360
Speaker 4: I'm making a record. I'm going into the studio. He

957
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 4: was in the studio in July twenty twenty three. He

958
00:55:59,239 --> 00:56:02,280
Speaker 4: was back in the studio in November twenty twenty three.

959
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:06,600
Speaker 4: The record was finished in December, he heard all the music,

960
00:56:07,120 --> 00:56:11,880
Speaker 4: he designed the cover, and he saw the final videos

961
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:16,759
Speaker 4: that were made. And then a day later he was

962
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:19,680
Speaker 4: in the hospital and we lost him six days later.

963
00:56:20,120 --> 00:56:22,560
Speaker 4: So that whole last year he was filled with joy

964
00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:27,319
Speaker 4: and happiness of working on this music and accomplishing this

965
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:30,000
Speaker 4: thing that he wanted to do, and this beautiful music.

966
00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:31,640
Speaker 2: I mean, it's stunning.

967
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:36,200
Speaker 4: So I watched him just gracefully go through the last

968
00:56:36,280 --> 00:56:40,319
Speaker 4: year of his life, you know, being paralyzed, being you know,

969
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:43,000
Speaker 4: struggling with different things.

970
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:48,279
Speaker 2: Yet Mac never ever looked like he was given up.

971
00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:51,080
Speaker 1: Well, I love how you've continued. You took the baton

972
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:56,520
Speaker 1: from him and in his passing, finished the work. Because

973
00:56:56,560 --> 00:56:58,799
Speaker 1: now you've gotten two more album I mean, it's really

974
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:00,440
Speaker 1: two more albums.

975
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:03,200
Speaker 2: I know it's Resurrection and Revival part two. It's actually

976
00:57:03,239 --> 00:57:05,560
Speaker 2: part three two. I mean, you've got a lot here,

977
00:57:05,680 --> 00:57:07,479
Speaker 2: doule double disc. It's a double disc.

978
00:57:07,640 --> 00:57:09,880
Speaker 1: I mean it's a lot of music. It's nineteen tracks

979
00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 1: and they're very diverse. There's jazz, there's orchestra, orchestra, there's

980
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:18,880
Speaker 1: a beautiful harmonica with strength. I mean, there's the diversity

981
00:57:18,920 --> 00:57:23,920
Speaker 1: of his musical palette is pretty wide and uh, in fact,

982
00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:27,880
Speaker 1: kind of fascinating. And I imagine as a father. I

983
00:57:27,920 --> 00:57:29,640
Speaker 1: mean I listened to it one way, but I'm sure

984
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:31,479
Speaker 1: as a dad you listen to it and go wow.

985
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:34,920
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that he had that in him, or

986
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:39,240
Speaker 1: I didn't know he had he felt that, because I mean,

987
00:57:39,280 --> 00:57:40,320
Speaker 1: it's a wash of feeling.

988
00:57:40,480 --> 00:57:42,320
Speaker 2: That's really what this is. It's an album is a

989
00:57:42,440 --> 00:57:43,120
Speaker 2: wash of feelings.

990
00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:46,080
Speaker 4: And yeah, some of the stuff I discovered was I

991
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:49,440
Speaker 4: was totally just like, wow, why didn't he ever?

992
00:57:49,840 --> 00:57:53,000
Speaker 2: Why didn't he play that for me? It's so beautiful.

993
00:57:53,040 --> 00:57:55,720
Speaker 4: There's a song called just for Now on it that

994
00:57:55,800 --> 00:57:59,520
Speaker 4: he did all on his computer programs. A lot of

995
00:57:59,520 --> 00:58:02,680
Speaker 4: the stuff he would write, you know, on his programs,

996
00:58:02,800 --> 00:58:05,240
Speaker 4: like just for Now, he did everything on his programs.

997
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:09,520
Speaker 4: We took the just renowned track that Mac created with

998
00:58:09,560 --> 00:58:12,480
Speaker 4: the original vocals and everything like that. We added some

999
00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 4: strings on top of some some of it, just just

1000
00:58:17,800 --> 00:58:21,000
Speaker 4: to give it a little more. But the track could

1001
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:24,320
Speaker 4: have been put on the record all by itself because Mac.

1002
00:58:24,320 --> 00:58:26,800
Speaker 2: Mack did it. It's just a beautiful song.

1003
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:31,120
Speaker 4: His friend from college, Lou Roy, sings on it. She's

1004
00:58:31,160 --> 00:58:33,720
Speaker 4: got a beautiful voice. She sings on three of the

1005
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:38,400
Speaker 4: songs on the record. There's other other music on the

1006
00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:41,600
Speaker 4: record that Mac did all by himself. There's a cover

1007
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:44,360
Speaker 4: of nature Boy, the old song by Natkin col.

1008
00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:45,680
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1009
00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:48,600
Speaker 4: Mac does a version of nature Boy where he plays

1010
00:58:48,680 --> 00:58:52,880
Speaker 4: all the instruments and he sings, and he recorded everything.

1011
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:54,520
Speaker 2: And he had that all on the computer. Where was this?

1012
00:58:54,640 --> 00:58:54,840
Speaker 4: That was?

1013
00:58:55,040 --> 00:58:56,000
Speaker 2: That was in his files?

1014
00:58:56,320 --> 00:58:56,560
Speaker 4: Wow?

1015
00:58:57,040 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 2: In his file?

1016
00:58:57,720 --> 00:58:59,200
Speaker 1: What do you think he would say if he saw

1017
00:58:59,240 --> 00:59:05,600
Speaker 1: this part to What would he say to you?

1018
00:59:05,640 --> 00:59:09,760
Speaker 2: What would he say to me? I hope you'd say,

1019
00:59:10,040 --> 00:59:10,919
Speaker 2: let's do part three?

1020
00:59:13,960 --> 00:59:16,680
Speaker 1: He may he may give a g yet, Gary, Okay,

1021
00:59:16,760 --> 00:59:19,160
Speaker 1: there's a there's a string of questions I ask every

1022
00:59:19,160 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 1: I call this my royal Grande questionnaire.

1023
00:59:21,480 --> 00:59:23,080
Speaker 2: So now you're going to be subjected to it.

1024
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:25,240
Speaker 1: These are fast you don't have to spend much time

1025
00:59:25,280 --> 00:59:28,040
Speaker 1: on these, but I'm warning you they are deadly questions.

1026
00:59:28,080 --> 00:59:37,160
Speaker 1: You're right, who's the person you most admire? Jesus Hm,

1027
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:38,280
Speaker 1: who do you most attest?

1028
00:59:38,640 --> 00:59:38,760
Speaker 3: Oh?

1029
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:41,680
Speaker 2: I can't say that, Come on, I can't. Everybody tries

1030
00:59:41,720 --> 00:59:43,200
Speaker 2: to dodge on you right now.

1031
00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:46,080
Speaker 1: Thank you yeah for asking that question, you awful person.

1032
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:48,160
Speaker 2: What is your best feature?

1033
00:59:52,080 --> 00:59:58,680
Speaker 4: I don't know. Maybe mmm, hard to say. Persistence, maybe persistence.

1034
00:59:58,680 --> 01:00:06,040
Speaker 2: What's your worst? Your worst feature? Maybe persistence, the double

1035
01:00:06,120 --> 01:00:07,360
Speaker 2: edged sort of persistence.

1036
01:00:07,400 --> 01:00:09,720
Speaker 1: Well, you don't build a foundation and call it the

1037
01:00:09,760 --> 01:00:15,120
Speaker 1: Gary Sneze foundation without a little persistent Your favorite meal, Gary.

1038
01:00:15,120 --> 01:00:18,760
Speaker 2: Oh, dear gosh.

1039
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:23,640
Speaker 4: Maybe one of my favorite meals is chicken pacata.

1040
01:00:24,120 --> 01:00:26,600
Speaker 2: Chicken pacata. Yeah, well, I see, I evade.

1041
01:00:27,240 --> 01:00:29,520
Speaker 1: I like anything Italian, So my favorite meal is one

1042
01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:30,200
Speaker 1: I get to eat with.

1043
01:00:30,160 --> 01:00:33,240
Speaker 2: Family or friends. That's my favorite, Well, like the one

1044
01:00:33,240 --> 01:00:34,560
Speaker 2: I had last night with somebody.

1045
01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:37,600
Speaker 4: But my dad used to make chicken pecata and that's

1046
01:00:37,600 --> 01:00:38,000
Speaker 4: a good man.

1047
01:00:38,080 --> 01:00:39,440
Speaker 2: But I like a lot of food.

1048
01:00:40,360 --> 01:00:56,560
Speaker 4: What do you fear, Gary, Failure? Maybe maybe loss?

1049
01:00:58,680 --> 01:01:01,880
Speaker 1: Your greatest virtue is what? What do you what do

1050
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:04,320
Speaker 1: you consider the greatest virtue? Not your greatest virtue, but

1051
01:01:04,360 --> 01:01:06,960
Speaker 1: what do you consider the greatest virtue?

1052
01:01:10,720 --> 01:01:12,760
Speaker 2: Honesty? Maybe honesty?

1053
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:18,000
Speaker 4: Why? Well, if you're if you're not honest, you know,

1054
01:01:18,120 --> 01:01:20,600
Speaker 4: and nobody's gonna trust you. Yeah.

1055
01:01:20,640 --> 01:01:22,680
Speaker 2: What's that old line? My great grandmother had a line.

1056
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:25,200
Speaker 2: If you lie, you cheat, If you cheat, you steal.

1057
01:01:25,280 --> 01:01:28,760
Speaker 2: If you steal, you're no good. I guess that's I

1058
01:01:28,760 --> 01:01:41,560
Speaker 2: guess that's true. What could you not live without? Mm air? Well,

1059
01:01:41,640 --> 01:01:44,520
Speaker 2: that's a good answer. I guess that's that's kind of universal,

1060
01:01:44,560 --> 01:01:48,000
Speaker 2: Gary Oxygen. What is your biggest regret?

1061
01:01:48,360 --> 01:01:52,760
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, you know, I I've thought about this with

1062
01:01:52,920 --> 01:02:01,400
Speaker 4: regards to Mac and just wishing that I had in

1063
01:02:01,440 --> 01:02:05,760
Speaker 4: those final days I had asked him if he was

1064
01:02:05,840 --> 01:02:13,400
Speaker 4: afraid and and let him talk to me a little

1065
01:02:13,440 --> 01:02:13,880
Speaker 4: bit more.

1066
01:02:14,000 --> 01:02:16,439
Speaker 2: But neither of us wanted to go there.

1067
01:02:16,520 --> 01:02:21,880
Speaker 4: You know, I don't know if that's my biggest regret,

1068
01:02:21,960 --> 01:02:28,040
Speaker 4: but when I think of it, I wished i'd before

1069
01:02:28,120 --> 01:02:32,160
Speaker 4: he was unable to speak again, you know, because he

1070
01:02:32,240 --> 01:02:37,680
Speaker 4: lost that capacity with what was going on with his lungs.

1071
01:02:39,040 --> 01:02:42,880
Speaker 4: It went so quickly that I wished that I had

1072
01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:48,120
Speaker 4: spent more time in those last days having you know,

1073
01:02:50,120 --> 01:02:54,200
Speaker 4: having that having some kind of more in depth conversation

1074
01:02:54,360 --> 01:02:59,160
Speaker 4: with him about his feelings, what he what he'd been

1075
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:01,480
Speaker 4: through and what he was going going through. But again,

1076
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:04,760
Speaker 4: like I said, I never wanted to feel like I

1077
01:03:04,840 --> 01:03:06,680
Speaker 4: was given up and you.

1078
01:03:06,560 --> 01:03:07,160
Speaker 2: Were in the fight.

1079
01:03:07,240 --> 01:03:12,400
Speaker 1: And I would argue, if you'll permit me, you helped

1080
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:18,880
Speaker 1: fill his last year and those last days with great

1081
01:03:19,000 --> 01:03:23,760
Speaker 1: joy and accomplishment for Mac. I mean I saw that

1082
01:03:23,800 --> 01:03:27,560
Speaker 1: from the little piece we did after Christmas, just on

1083
01:03:27,600 --> 01:03:30,640
Speaker 1: the cusp of the new year, the reaction he had

1084
01:03:30,680 --> 01:03:34,440
Speaker 1: to that, and the pride he had in that showing

1085
01:03:34,480 --> 01:03:36,720
Speaker 1: it to other people, and that was all you're doing

1086
01:03:37,160 --> 01:03:39,720
Speaker 1: so and it was the culmination of his work.

1087
01:03:40,400 --> 01:03:45,560
Speaker 4: And yeah, and his mom and his two sisters. He

1088
01:03:45,720 --> 01:03:50,120
Speaker 4: loved them so much, and they loved him so much,

1089
01:03:50,160 --> 01:03:54,960
Speaker 4: and you know, we all pulled together, and they were

1090
01:03:55,000 --> 01:03:59,640
Speaker 4: a big part of everything, no question. Without their support,

1091
01:04:00,600 --> 01:04:03,520
Speaker 4: I couldn't have you know, I couldn't have gone gone

1092
01:04:03,560 --> 01:04:05,880
Speaker 4: through everything I was doing. And they were helping Mac

1093
01:04:05,960 --> 01:04:08,920
Speaker 4: in so many ways, so many beautiful ways.

1094
01:04:09,200 --> 01:04:12,280
Speaker 1: What is the best piece of advice you've ever received?

1095
01:04:14,680 --> 01:04:17,880
Speaker 4: I always I always give this one to like young

1096
01:04:17,960 --> 01:04:22,360
Speaker 4: actors who asked me for advice, and I save your money?

1097
01:04:24,560 --> 01:04:25,720
Speaker 2: Is that the best piece?

1098
01:04:25,800 --> 01:04:26,160
Speaker 4: Gary?

1099
01:04:26,600 --> 01:04:30,040
Speaker 2: Save your money? That's all the broke actors out there.

1100
01:04:31,520 --> 01:04:34,360
Speaker 4: I know the feeling, right SA saving good things are

1101
01:04:34,400 --> 01:04:36,560
Speaker 4: good today, but they might not be good tomorrow.

1102
01:04:37,280 --> 01:04:38,440
Speaker 2: Save your money, Okay, I.

1103
01:04:38,360 --> 01:04:40,840
Speaker 1: Guess it's good advice if you could not do what

1104
01:04:40,880 --> 01:04:42,520
Speaker 1: you're doing. Now, what would you like to do?

1105
01:04:44,320 --> 01:04:47,200
Speaker 4: These are these are difficult questions because I don't I

1106
01:04:47,200 --> 01:04:52,920
Speaker 4: don't ever think about that. You know, I'm I'm fairly

1107
01:04:53,360 --> 01:04:56,520
Speaker 4: at you know, I'm at peace with what I'm doing.

1108
01:04:57,280 --> 01:04:59,440
Speaker 4: I've done a lot of things in my life with

1109
01:04:59,760 --> 01:05:02,600
Speaker 4: the and I've got a great family.

1110
01:05:02,680 --> 01:05:06,080
Speaker 2: My family is it's great.

1111
01:05:06,320 --> 01:05:11,040
Speaker 4: May maybe spend more and more time with my family,

1112
01:05:11,480 --> 01:05:15,360
Speaker 4: you know, I'm still trying to accomplish a lot with

1113
01:05:15,440 --> 01:05:18,840
Speaker 4: the foundation work and the band and supporting the troops,

1114
01:05:18,840 --> 01:05:21,720
Speaker 4: and that takes me away sometimes. And you know, my

1115
01:05:21,840 --> 01:05:26,680
Speaker 4: wife is just the best person I know, and you know,

1116
01:05:26,960 --> 01:05:31,320
Speaker 4: and I look at how she has sacrificed for this

1117
01:05:31,440 --> 01:05:33,840
Speaker 4: mission that I've been on, because she spent a lot

1118
01:05:33,880 --> 01:05:37,440
Speaker 4: of time without me there because I've been going somewhere

1119
01:05:37,560 --> 01:05:43,640
Speaker 4: to do something, and she's she's a real she's a

1120
01:05:43,680 --> 01:05:49,760
Speaker 4: real hero and my biggest champion. You know, her brother

1121
01:05:49,920 --> 01:05:52,240
Speaker 4: served in Vietnam, and she always wanted me to go

1122
01:05:52,320 --> 01:05:55,200
Speaker 4: out there and try to make sure that our service

1123
01:05:55,240 --> 01:05:59,920
Speaker 4: members know they're appreciated because her brothers didn't get that

1124
01:06:00,080 --> 01:06:02,560
Speaker 4: when they came home. And so she's been backing me

1125
01:06:02,640 --> 01:06:06,320
Speaker 4: up every step in the way. So just you to

1126
01:06:06,400 --> 01:06:08,880
Speaker 4: spend in more time with them, and that you know,

1127
01:06:08,960 --> 01:06:13,120
Speaker 4: that's the important thing, and the grandkids and all.

1128
01:06:13,000 --> 01:06:17,320
Speaker 1: That final question what happens when this is over, not

1129
01:06:17,480 --> 01:06:19,440
Speaker 1: the interview, this life.

1130
01:06:22,360 --> 01:06:24,440
Speaker 2: Well, I hope I'll be welcomed.

1131
01:06:26,480 --> 01:06:31,200
Speaker 4: And Lord will say good job.

1132
01:06:33,120 --> 01:06:37,320
Speaker 1: I think you'll not only be welcomed, you'll hear familiar music, music,

1133
01:06:37,360 --> 01:06:41,080
Speaker 1: maybe Arctic circles played when you get there, my friend.

1134
01:06:41,240 --> 01:06:43,400
Speaker 2: So great to see you. God, bless you, thank you,

1135
01:06:43,520 --> 01:06:45,800
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you. Rim here's the whole.

1136
01:06:46,160 --> 01:06:50,560
Speaker 1: Gary is a wonderful reminder that we receive calls to

1137
01:06:50,720 --> 01:06:55,320
Speaker 1: action when we least expect them. Through providential events and moments.

1138
01:06:55,440 --> 01:06:59,040
Speaker 1: Were sometimes called to leave something behind and do something

1139
01:06:59,080 --> 01:07:03,080
Speaker 1: new for others. For Gary, his acting legacy gave him

1140
01:07:03,080 --> 01:07:06,000
Speaker 1: the visibility to help veterans, and he would devote his

1141
01:07:06,040 --> 01:07:08,360
Speaker 1: life to them. Then, when his son and his wife

1142
01:07:08,360 --> 01:07:12,480
Speaker 1: face cancer, his mission changed again. And now he's extending

1143
01:07:12,640 --> 01:07:16,840
Speaker 1: and spreading Max music in incredible ways. If you haven't

1144
01:07:16,880 --> 01:07:21,560
Speaker 1: heard Maxnice's Resurrection and Revival, go to his YouTube page

1145
01:07:21,840 --> 01:07:25,840
Speaker 1: and order copies at Gary Sinisefoundation dot org.

1146
01:07:26,320 --> 01:07:27,840
Speaker 2: I hope you'll support their good work.

1147
01:07:28,280 --> 01:07:30,320
Speaker 1: I know I do, and I'm so glad you spent

1148
01:07:30,440 --> 01:07:33,240
Speaker 1: time with us today. Why live a dry, narrow, constricted

1149
01:07:33,280 --> 01:07:35,320
Speaker 1: life when if you fill it with good things, it

1150
01:07:35,360 --> 01:07:39,120
Speaker 1: can flow into a broad, thriving Arroyo Grande.

1151
01:07:39,520 --> 01:07:40,400
Speaker 2: I'm Raymond Arroyo.

1152
01:07:40,720 --> 01:07:43,880
Speaker 1: Make sure you subscribe, like this episode, come back for more,

1153
01:07:44,320 --> 01:07:46,120
Speaker 1: Thanks for diving in, and we'll see you next time.

1154
01:07:47,240 --> 01:07:50,840
Speaker 1: Arroyo Grande is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and

1155
01:07:50,960 --> 01:07:53,920
Speaker 1: is available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get

1156
01:07:53,960 --> 01:08:00,480
Speaker 1: your podcasts.

1157
01:08:00,480 --> 01:08:05,080
Speaker 3: Spokust Perkastans Expence and spokes Constans

1158
01:08:06,640 --> 01:08:08,080
Speaker 2: Spokus Perkistans