1
00:00:01,639 --> 00:00:05,320
Speaker 1: When you have spent hours telling the world how delicious,

2
00:00:05,400 --> 00:00:09,600
Speaker 1: fermented walrus Ainus can be get, you get to not

3
00:00:09,960 --> 00:00:13,200
Speaker 1: like a couple of things.

4
00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:17,520
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to off the cup my personal anti

5
00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:18,800
Speaker 2: anxiety antidote.

6
00:00:19,400 --> 00:00:22,920
Speaker 3: Today's guest is Well just one of my favorite people.

7
00:00:23,840 --> 00:00:26,079
Speaker 2: I love food, so I love foodies and chefs and

8
00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:27,920
Speaker 2: TV chefs, and he's just one of the all time

9
00:00:27,960 --> 00:00:31,800
Speaker 2: best in every possible way. I promise you know who

10
00:00:31,840 --> 00:00:34,800
Speaker 2: he is, because in addition to being so charming and

11
00:00:34,840 --> 00:00:37,240
Speaker 2: so smart and so kind and talented.

12
00:00:36,920 --> 00:00:38,159
Speaker 3: He's also so busy.

13
00:00:38,880 --> 00:00:41,880
Speaker 2: At any given time, it feels like he's on seventeen

14
00:00:42,040 --> 00:00:46,000
Speaker 2: TV shows at once, either in syndication or new series.

15
00:00:46,760 --> 00:00:48,920
Speaker 2: And I've had the pleasure of having him on my

16
00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:53,199
Speaker 2: news shows, and we have a lot in common. Cooking

17
00:00:53,400 --> 00:00:55,840
Speaker 2: Well is not one of those things that's all him.

18
00:00:56,440 --> 00:00:58,280
Speaker 3: But we are both deeply curious.

19
00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:02,240
Speaker 2: We are interested in politics and the world, but we

20
00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:05,440
Speaker 2: can't really be put in a single box. We both

21
00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:10,320
Speaker 2: love to write, We're both outdoorsmen, sportsman. We're both attuned

22
00:01:10,400 --> 00:01:13,679
Speaker 2: to the importance of mental health. We are both obsessed

23
00:01:13,720 --> 00:01:17,000
Speaker 2: with our kiddos. We love to travel and try new things.

24
00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:21,720
Speaker 2: We like to set social media boundaries. But the thing

25
00:01:21,800 --> 00:01:24,240
Speaker 2: I like most about him is his thoughtfulness because, in

26
00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:27,520
Speaker 2: the midst of doing all the shows and all the

27
00:01:27,560 --> 00:01:31,480
Speaker 2: things he does for so many people, randomly a package

28
00:01:31,520 --> 00:01:33,039
Speaker 2: will just show up at my house and it's a

29
00:01:33,080 --> 00:01:38,720
Speaker 2: treat from him, just because he's a chef, restaurateur, producer, philanthropist,

30
00:01:38,720 --> 00:01:42,640
Speaker 2: food critic, author, host of Bizarre Foods and its many spinoffs,

31
00:01:43,120 --> 00:01:46,640
Speaker 2: a four time James Beard Award winner, host of the

32
00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:48,720
Speaker 2: new show Field to Fire, and you can also learn

33
00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:51,880
Speaker 2: knife skills on his YouTube channel. I told you he's

34
00:01:51,960 --> 00:01:55,600
Speaker 2: very busy and I adore him. Welcome to Off the Cup,

35
00:01:55,680 --> 00:01:56,880
Speaker 2: Andrew Zimmern.

36
00:01:57,080 --> 00:01:59,120
Speaker 1: Thank you, my friend. That was very sweet of you.

37
00:01:59,640 --> 00:02:02,120
Speaker 3: Are you exhausted just hearing about all the things you do?

38
00:02:02,920 --> 00:02:07,560
Speaker 1: No, but I was. I never unless you're in the

39
00:02:07,600 --> 00:02:10,440
Speaker 1: position of actually writing it down, like if someone's getting

40
00:02:10,440 --> 00:02:15,760
Speaker 1: married or you are attending something at which you will

41
00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:21,680
Speaker 1: speak and be a part of a salutary event in

42
00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:26,320
Speaker 1: their honor, you never actually get to sit down and

43
00:02:26,880 --> 00:02:29,560
Speaker 1: write something like, oh, yeah, I have a lot in

44
00:02:29,600 --> 00:02:32,680
Speaker 1: common with those with that person. Everything you said that

45
00:02:32,720 --> 00:02:35,799
Speaker 1: we have in common is absolutely true, which I guess

46
00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:40,400
Speaker 1: is why we're friends in your life, but it I was.

47
00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:42,560
Speaker 1: You just kept going on and on, and I was like,

48
00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:45,840
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, yeah, uh huhah uh huh.

49
00:02:46,440 --> 00:02:47,639
Speaker 3: Yes, Well it's so true.

50
00:02:47,680 --> 00:02:50,960
Speaker 2: And I mean, you meet people in life that maybe

51
00:02:50,960 --> 00:02:53,200
Speaker 2: you have a lot in common with, but we, I

52
00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:57,080
Speaker 2: feel like, come from very similar places. We see the

53
00:02:57,120 --> 00:02:59,280
Speaker 2: world in a very similar way, and I think our

54
00:02:59,320 --> 00:03:00,840
Speaker 2: priorities are very similar.

55
00:03:00,880 --> 00:03:03,280
Speaker 3: And as we get through this interview, I think it'll come.

56
00:03:03,200 --> 00:03:07,720
Speaker 2: Up sort of repetitively how similar we are.

57
00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:09,400
Speaker 3: So let's just get into it.

58
00:03:09,440 --> 00:03:12,040
Speaker 2: I don't remember how we first got connected, how we

59
00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:12,519
Speaker 2: first met.

60
00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:13,200
Speaker 3: Do you remember?

61
00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:21,880
Speaker 1: Weren't we both guests on someone else's show on CNN?

62
00:03:22,280 --> 00:03:24,640
Speaker 2: That could definitely be, but then I had you on

63
00:03:24,680 --> 00:03:28,119
Speaker 2: my show, that is correct, But yeah, I don't remember. Yeah,

64
00:03:28,240 --> 00:03:31,200
Speaker 2: probably we met on someone else's show. And we don't

65
00:03:31,240 --> 00:03:33,760
Speaker 2: get very political here because Off the Cup is a.

66
00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:34,360
Speaker 3: Break from that.

67
00:03:34,560 --> 00:03:37,720
Speaker 2: But I remember saying to you, maybe as you were

68
00:03:37,720 --> 00:03:40,480
Speaker 2: going to come on my show, something like, I know

69
00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:42,600
Speaker 2: we don't totally agree politically, and you stop me and

70
00:03:42,640 --> 00:03:47,200
Speaker 2: you go, we don't. I think you'll be surprised at

71
00:03:47,240 --> 00:03:50,200
Speaker 2: how much we do agree on. And it seemed in

72
00:03:50,240 --> 00:03:53,840
Speaker 2: that moment, and probably more generally, it seems important to

73
00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:57,160
Speaker 2: you to find connections with people and look for those

74
00:03:57,240 --> 00:03:59,120
Speaker 2: inroads to connections with people.

75
00:04:00,080 --> 00:04:04,960
Speaker 1: Yes, because when I started Bizarre Foods in two thousand

76
00:04:04,960 --> 00:04:10,480
Speaker 1: and four, started pitching it, id eating it. It premiered

77
00:04:10,480 --> 00:04:13,280
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven and went on for twelve

78
00:04:13,280 --> 00:04:17,680
Speaker 1: thirteen years before Travel Channel had a vowel movement and

79
00:04:17,760 --> 00:04:23,599
Speaker 1: became turble TRVL on your screen. And when all ghosts

80
00:04:23,600 --> 00:04:29,320
Speaker 1: and paranormal I wanted to do a show about patience, tolerance,

81
00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:31,960
Speaker 1: and understanding in a world that I saw back then

82
00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:37,480
Speaker 1: was increasingly exhibiting less and less of it. There was

83
00:04:37,520 --> 00:04:42,080
Speaker 1: a divisiveness. I could smell it was, it was happening,

84
00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:46,960
Speaker 1: and I couldn't understand it. I am of a generation

85
00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:49,920
Speaker 1: and you know, from a Jewish family in New York.

86
00:04:49,960 --> 00:04:53,040
Speaker 1: When we were arguing at ten o'clock at night, you

87
00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:55,840
Speaker 1: did not go to sleep until it was settled. You

88
00:04:55,880 --> 00:04:58,840
Speaker 1: didn't carry anything over into the next day. And I

89
00:04:58,839 --> 00:05:01,039
Speaker 1: felt that we should all, well, that's sort of the

90
00:05:01,040 --> 00:05:06,039
Speaker 1: way political discourse should be and how municipalities and state

91
00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:11,400
Speaker 1: houses and Washington, DC should run. And I was schooled

92
00:05:11,600 --> 00:05:16,159
Speaker 1: very early on by a couple of men who were

93
00:05:16,160 --> 00:05:19,880
Speaker 1: well known politicians, both of whom have passed away, but

94
00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:24,480
Speaker 1: one of whom very famously was part of my twelve

95
00:05:24,480 --> 00:05:28,880
Speaker 1: step recovery group in Saint Paul. And when someone has

96
00:05:28,920 --> 00:05:32,440
Speaker 1: passed and has publicly acknowledged it and been public about

97
00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:37,159
Speaker 1: it themselves, we are not outing them. But Congressman Jim Ramstead,

98
00:05:37,920 --> 00:05:42,480
Speaker 1: Republican of Minnesota was the person who said to me, Hey,

99
00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:44,920
Speaker 1: hit me on the back of the head. As he's

100
00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:47,560
Speaker 1: saying it. You don't just have to do service for

101
00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:50,800
Speaker 1: other alcoholics and drug addicts and recovery. You're not in recovery.

102
00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:53,520
Speaker 1: You can knock on doors for the things you believe in.

103
00:05:53,600 --> 00:05:55,880
Speaker 1: And I was, like, knock on doors, what the heck is?

104
00:05:55,880 --> 00:05:58,799
Speaker 1: I'm from New York. You don't knock on someone's door. Actually,

105
00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:01,600
Speaker 1: it's not true. You knock on their door to tell

106
00:06:01,680 --> 00:06:04,640
Speaker 1: them their smoke coming out from under it. I mean,

107
00:06:04,640 --> 00:06:05,760
Speaker 1: that's like it.

108
00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:07,840
Speaker 2: I used to joke when I was living in Manhattan,

109
00:06:07,839 --> 00:06:09,679
Speaker 2: if someone knocked on my door, I'm calling the police.

110
00:06:09,760 --> 00:06:13,960
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, that's exactly right. Food delivery people buzz

111
00:06:14,120 --> 00:06:18,360
Speaker 1: everyone buzzes it. So it was with that in mind

112
00:06:18,440 --> 00:06:20,880
Speaker 1: and the stuff that I learned, you know, the first

113
00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:25,200
Speaker 1: seventeen eighteen nineteen years that I was sober. That caused

114
00:06:25,200 --> 00:06:28,120
Speaker 1: me to think about patient's tolerance and understanding with other

115
00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:30,919
Speaker 1: people in that specific way. And I thought, if I

116
00:06:30,920 --> 00:06:34,320
Speaker 1: could make a show where people in Canada could see

117
00:06:34,320 --> 00:06:38,960
Speaker 1: how people in Japan eight and how people in Uganda

118
00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:42,000
Speaker 1: could see how people in Sweden eat, yeah, and how

119
00:06:42,040 --> 00:06:44,200
Speaker 1: much we had in common, that I would actually be

120
00:06:44,320 --> 00:06:49,640
Speaker 1: doing something fulfilling. That healing and fulfilling. So yeah, well.

121
00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:52,760
Speaker 2: That comes across, That comes across, even in very short

122
00:06:52,800 --> 00:06:55,039
Speaker 2: interactions with you, and I want to get into some

123
00:06:55,160 --> 00:06:57,440
Speaker 2: of the challenges and then your incredible career.

124
00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:01,480
Speaker 3: But going back to the kid in New York's, what

125
00:07:01,560 --> 00:07:02,320
Speaker 3: kind of kid? Were you?

126
00:07:03,520 --> 00:07:08,960
Speaker 1: A smart ass, someone who thought he knew everything, over educated, spoiled.

127
00:07:09,240 --> 00:07:11,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, you went to some fancy schools.

128
00:07:13,280 --> 00:07:17,560
Speaker 1: Oh he did? Yeah, No, I definitely did. I went

129
00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:19,679
Speaker 1: to two schools my whole life. I went to Dalton

130
00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:23,800
Speaker 1: on the Upper East Side. I was a you know,

131
00:07:23,840 --> 00:07:29,680
Speaker 1: I started there in kindergarten, nursery school and went all

132
00:07:29,720 --> 00:07:33,040
Speaker 1: the way through to graduating. And then I went to

133
00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:37,400
Speaker 1: matriculated to Vassar College, the pearl of the mid Hudson

134
00:07:37,520 --> 00:07:42,720
Speaker 1: Valley and it was there for like sixteen years. That

135
00:07:42,840 --> 00:07:46,520
Speaker 1: took me to graduate because I had discovered women and

136
00:07:46,600 --> 00:07:50,000
Speaker 1: drugs and alcohol and rock and roll and just the.

137
00:07:49,960 --> 00:07:51,960
Speaker 3: Whole the didn't discover that at Dalton.

138
00:07:52,960 --> 00:07:55,840
Speaker 1: I did. Actually, I was I was hoping to skirt

139
00:07:55,960 --> 00:07:57,760
Speaker 1: buy that. I mean, it's funny that you mentioned that,

140
00:07:57,880 --> 00:08:03,240
Speaker 1: because there's in the bathroom in my home is the

141
00:08:03,280 --> 00:08:07,840
Speaker 1: opening night invitation to Studio fifty four. How I survived

142
00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:12,160
Speaker 1: homelessness and all my things being sold is only think,

143
00:08:12,840 --> 00:08:17,080
Speaker 1: in some small part to my stepfather who held on

144
00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:18,680
Speaker 1: to that. I guess I had come home at like

145
00:08:18,720 --> 00:08:22,000
Speaker 1: seven in the morning, passed out, and the you know,

146
00:08:22,080 --> 00:08:24,720
Speaker 1: he had tried to pick up after me, and you know,

147
00:08:24,800 --> 00:08:27,280
Speaker 1: the plots of and jetsam on the floors. I made

148
00:08:27,320 --> 00:08:29,880
Speaker 1: my way to my bedroom. Had included this invite and

149
00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:31,840
Speaker 1: he sent it aside, and he gave it to me

150
00:08:32,360 --> 00:08:34,240
Speaker 1: long after I sobered up, as one of my most

151
00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:39,920
Speaker 1: treasured possessions, because you know, famously, the opening nights there,

152
00:08:40,200 --> 00:08:45,080
Speaker 1: you know, were Andy Warhol's party, Halston's birthday, Pak Jagger

153
00:08:45,200 --> 00:08:49,840
Speaker 1: riding in naked on the horse. The whole thing. Now, yeah, yeah,

154
00:08:49,920 --> 00:08:53,360
Speaker 1: the whole nine yards and that was tenth grade. And

155
00:08:53,520 --> 00:08:56,880
Speaker 1: we went at night. And you know, if you said

156
00:08:56,880 --> 00:08:58,480
Speaker 1: to your parents, where are you going on? Once you

157
00:08:58,640 --> 00:09:01,560
Speaker 1: fifty fourth, they knew where you were and they went

158
00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:04,920
Speaker 1: there themselves. So it was it was just a whole

159
00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:08,880
Speaker 1: The seventies was a crazy time. You know. You you

160
00:09:08,960 --> 00:09:10,920
Speaker 1: have to remember, you know, Pink Floyd is playing and

161
00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:14,600
Speaker 1: led Zeppelin are playing at Madison Square Garden, and the

162
00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:18,240
Speaker 1: the Ramones and the Sex Pistols are playing down at CBGS,

163
00:09:19,120 --> 00:09:24,000
Speaker 1: and then there's discos in midtown and it was it

164
00:09:24,040 --> 00:09:26,000
Speaker 1: was a wild time to be in high school. People,

165
00:09:26,040 --> 00:09:29,640
Speaker 1: did you see a problem? So I came. I came

166
00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:33,280
Speaker 1: into college, you are correct. I came into college with

167
00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:38,800
Speaker 1: a heroin addiction, a cocaine addiction, a lucinogenics addiction, a

168
00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:44,920
Speaker 1: downer's addiction, a pot addiction, and very quickly because I

169
00:09:45,080 --> 00:09:48,840
Speaker 1: really hadn't been a drinker until I got to college.

170
00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:52,720
Speaker 1: College was way more about drinking because it was just

171
00:09:53,160 --> 00:09:55,080
Speaker 1: available and out there all the time. Growing up as

172
00:09:55,120 --> 00:09:57,920
Speaker 1: a kid in New York City, you know, drinking was

173
00:09:58,200 --> 00:10:00,960
Speaker 1: something you did. You know, he did too much coke.

174
00:10:01,200 --> 00:10:03,839
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just it was you know, how

175
00:10:03,920 --> 00:10:07,560
Speaker 1: you come down. It wasn't necessarily like the thing that

176
00:10:07,640 --> 00:10:10,520
Speaker 1: you went out and did being a city kid. However,

177
00:10:11,400 --> 00:10:14,120
Speaker 1: very quickly I realized, oh wow, this is great and

178
00:10:14,160 --> 00:10:18,320
Speaker 1: it's cheaper, and that proved to be in many cases

179
00:10:18,400 --> 00:10:21,240
Speaker 1: both a life saver for me and that it hastened

180
00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:23,560
Speaker 1: I didn't sober up for ten more years, but it

181
00:10:23,720 --> 00:10:28,600
Speaker 1: hastened my downfall and at the same time, probably in

182
00:10:28,640 --> 00:10:30,800
Speaker 1: many ways, saved my life.

183
00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:36,960
Speaker 2: So take me back before that, you how do you

184
00:10:37,240 --> 00:10:41,960
Speaker 2: start attending James Beard's Christmas parties Sunday Sunday party dead.

185
00:10:42,480 --> 00:10:43,319
Speaker 3: How does that happen?

186
00:10:44,480 --> 00:10:48,560
Speaker 1: Well, my dad had moved out of my mother's My

187
00:10:48,679 --> 00:10:52,960
Speaker 1: parents divorced when I was really young, nineteen sixty five

188
00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:58,960
Speaker 1: sixty six. I was fish. My father had gotten married

189
00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:00,679
Speaker 1: to my mother so that he could have a son.

190
00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:03,360
Speaker 1: He knew since the time he was in high school

191
00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:05,920
Speaker 1: that he was gay. I found this all out much

192
00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:12,040
Speaker 1: later in life, and they had a child. Their intense

193
00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:16,240
Speaker 1: friendship and relationship did not survived the marriage, but they stayed,

194
00:11:16,720 --> 00:11:19,840
Speaker 1: you know, very close for the rest of their lives.

195
00:11:20,280 --> 00:11:23,280
Speaker 1: My father, I guess, about a year before he left

196
00:11:23,320 --> 00:11:26,040
Speaker 1: our apartment on the Upper East Side, met and fell

197
00:11:26,080 --> 00:11:28,040
Speaker 1: in love with the love of his life, the person

198
00:11:28,080 --> 00:11:31,560
Speaker 1: that he was with for nearly fifty years, finally marrying

199
00:11:32,080 --> 00:11:36,160
Speaker 1: my stepfather, Andrea Laporte, who was very famous painter and

200
00:11:36,240 --> 00:11:41,720
Speaker 1: designer when Maine passed the Marriage Equality Act. My father

201
00:11:41,800 --> 00:11:44,920
Speaker 1: and Andrea, you know, loved to cook, They loved to travel.

202
00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:47,319
Speaker 1: You know, we had a house in the Hampton's they

203
00:11:47,480 --> 00:11:51,760
Speaker 1: you know, they were living that life. And downtown you

204
00:11:51,920 --> 00:11:55,160
Speaker 1: had sort of a gay food mafia that had retreated

205
00:11:55,600 --> 00:11:59,480
Speaker 1: to the West Village, you know, James Beard, Craig Claiborne,

206
00:11:59,559 --> 00:12:02,800
Speaker 1: you know, on and on and on, and so, you know,

207
00:12:02,920 --> 00:12:05,960
Speaker 1: everybody knew everyone. New York City is a is a

208
00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:08,719
Speaker 1: big town, but it's also a city of small neighborhoods,

209
00:12:08,800 --> 00:12:11,440
Speaker 1: and people who love the same things tend to find

210
00:12:11,480 --> 00:12:15,640
Speaker 1: each other, even in a city of fourteen fifteen million people.

211
00:12:15,640 --> 00:12:20,600
Speaker 1: It's just how it is. And so my father and

212
00:12:20,600 --> 00:12:24,640
Speaker 1: Andre got invited to Beard's house on Sundays for his

213
00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:27,600
Speaker 1: famous brunches, which did not start at eleven am. They

214
00:12:27,640 --> 00:12:31,679
Speaker 1: started at one point thirty in the afternoon, okay, because

215
00:12:32,040 --> 00:12:33,959
Speaker 1: Jim Beard liked to drink a lot the night before

216
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:35,920
Speaker 1: and have a good time and sleep in and then

217
00:12:35,960 --> 00:12:39,240
Speaker 1: get up and cook. And a couple of times I

218
00:12:39,400 --> 00:12:42,560
Speaker 1: was spending the weekend with my dad's but they felt

219
00:12:42,600 --> 00:12:45,200
Speaker 1: they had to stop by, and I was just fascinated

220
00:12:45,200 --> 00:12:47,720
Speaker 1: by it. And he lived in this big brownstone. We

221
00:12:47,840 --> 00:12:51,920
Speaker 1: lived two blocks south at two Horatio Street, and I

222
00:12:52,040 --> 00:12:57,480
Speaker 1: just remember running around this crazy, big house, and you know,

223
00:12:57,720 --> 00:13:01,440
Speaker 1: the food was insane, the music was great. The people

224
00:13:01,480 --> 00:13:05,679
Speaker 1: look fantastic, and they looked like my father's friends. They

225
00:13:05,720 --> 00:13:08,840
Speaker 1: came in pairs of men and pairs of women. It

226
00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:11,920
Speaker 1: just seemed like a very natural thing. Oh that's what

227
00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:15,680
Speaker 1: my dad's world was. And I was lucky enough to

228
00:13:15,720 --> 00:13:19,400
Speaker 1: have met him a couple of times chastised. I remember

229
00:13:19,440 --> 00:13:22,360
Speaker 1: him yelling at me because in our home, when my

230
00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:27,000
Speaker 1: dad was carving the Thanksgiving or holiday roast, little bits

231
00:13:27,040 --> 00:13:29,640
Speaker 1: of the best bits fall on the cutting board and

232
00:13:29,720 --> 00:13:32,560
Speaker 1: I would stand next to him while he was doing

233
00:13:32,600 --> 00:13:36,760
Speaker 1: this and reaching and spitsh from the cutting board. And

234
00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:39,520
Speaker 1: I did that. At beard time, I was the only

235
00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:42,440
Speaker 1: kid there and I did that, and I mean he

236
00:13:42,520 --> 00:13:45,199
Speaker 1: looked down and slapped my hand and said, you need

237
00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:47,200
Speaker 1: to learn how to behave. And it was just one

238
00:13:47,240 --> 00:13:50,960
Speaker 1: of the great moments of my life, especially as I've

239
00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:54,520
Speaker 1: become more and more involved over the years with the

240
00:13:54,520 --> 00:13:57,120
Speaker 1: Beard Foundation. You know, I cooked in the James Beard

241
00:13:57,120 --> 00:14:00,920
Speaker 1: House three or four times, both over four different decades,

242
00:14:01,880 --> 00:14:05,439
Speaker 1: both before the renovation after the renovation. I've been heavily

243
00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:08,920
Speaker 1: involved in the house during all of its administrations. I've

244
00:14:08,920 --> 00:14:11,880
Speaker 1: been lucky enough to be nominated for I don't know

245
00:14:12,040 --> 00:14:16,640
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen awards and won a bunch of them, which

246
00:14:16,679 --> 00:14:22,040
Speaker 1: is really flattering and humbling. And you know, I'm still involved. Yeah,

247
00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:26,360
Speaker 1: So it's neat being one of those few people that

248
00:14:26,800 --> 00:14:30,640
Speaker 1: actually met him, the grandfather of American cookie.

249
00:14:30,880 --> 00:14:33,840
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and that's like very young exposure to a

250
00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:39,920
Speaker 2: very rarefied world. Was that exposure sort of you know,

251
00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:41,520
Speaker 2: informative of where you were going to go?

252
00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:43,240
Speaker 3: Did you know then this is what I want to do?

253
00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:46,240
Speaker 1: No, it was symptomatic of it. It was It was

254
00:14:46,280 --> 00:14:51,280
Speaker 1: really my father's you know, here's the deal. During the wintertime,

255
00:14:51,720 --> 00:14:55,200
Speaker 1: we would go and have eleven o'clock dim sum down

256
00:14:55,360 --> 00:14:59,200
Speaker 1: at Bobo's in Chinatown, a restaurant that no longer exists. Yeah,

257
00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:02,120
Speaker 1: and then we would go shop on Arthur Avenue in

258
00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:05,360
Speaker 1: the Bronx and take stuff home and make a big

259
00:15:05,400 --> 00:15:08,240
Speaker 1: Italian feast, or maybe eat a five o'clock meal out

260
00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:10,600
Speaker 1: in Arthur Avenue and then bring the stuff home to

261
00:15:10,640 --> 00:15:12,320
Speaker 1: make a big Italian feast on Monday.

262
00:15:12,480 --> 00:15:15,200
Speaker 3: Sounds amazing that that was how I grew up.

263
00:15:15,320 --> 00:15:18,680
Speaker 1: We went to cool restaurants what few there were in

264
00:15:18,720 --> 00:15:21,320
Speaker 1: New York in the sixties, because New York in the

265
00:15:21,320 --> 00:15:23,720
Speaker 1: sixties was not New York in the late seventies. There's

266
00:15:23,760 --> 00:15:27,080
Speaker 1: that fifteen years was an explosive growth in the history

267
00:15:27,080 --> 00:15:30,200
Speaker 1: of New York City restaurants and American restaurants in general.

268
00:15:30,240 --> 00:15:31,880
Speaker 1: I think you can say it of almost every large

269
00:15:31,920 --> 00:15:35,840
Speaker 1: city in America. People think it was always like it

270
00:15:35,920 --> 00:15:38,840
Speaker 1: is now. It was not always like it is now.

271
00:15:39,280 --> 00:15:44,440
Speaker 1: But summertime things took on a whole new bent. We

272
00:15:44,520 --> 00:15:48,119
Speaker 1: went fishing, We went surf casting. In the late afternoon,

273
00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:50,480
Speaker 1: my dad would hold me by the legs and lower

274
00:15:50,560 --> 00:15:53,960
Speaker 1: me in the jetties on Georgiica Beach at Main Beach

275
00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:57,200
Speaker 1: to pull up big ropes of fat, black muscles to

276
00:15:57,280 --> 00:16:00,480
Speaker 1: throw into the pot. Yeah, we took chicken legs and

277
00:16:00,560 --> 00:16:02,880
Speaker 1: let them rot for a week, and then the next

278
00:16:02,920 --> 00:16:05,200
Speaker 1: weekend we would when my dad came out, we'd throw

279
00:16:05,240 --> 00:16:07,640
Speaker 1: them on a string, get out into Georgia pond and

280
00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:10,440
Speaker 1: pull it in and scoop up all the blue crabs

281
00:16:10,440 --> 00:16:15,040
Speaker 1: that follow the chicken leg. He collected rose hips in

282
00:16:15,200 --> 00:16:17,680
Speaker 1: late August early September so my mother could make rose

283
00:16:17,720 --> 00:16:20,680
Speaker 1: hip jelly. We didn't call it foraging. We didn't call

284
00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:26,320
Speaker 1: dragging a clam rake in Barnes Landing clamming. We just

285
00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:28,640
Speaker 1: called it fun. I realized it was an excuse for

286
00:16:28,680 --> 00:16:32,000
Speaker 1: my father actually to drink beer while I opened clams

287
00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:37,280
Speaker 1: for him. But you know, that's how I grew up,

288
00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:40,920
Speaker 1: and so going to places where there were food people

289
00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:44,880
Speaker 1: and food was front and center is more a symptom

290
00:16:44,960 --> 00:16:49,240
Speaker 1: of the greater ecosystem that was going on. I knew

291
00:16:49,240 --> 00:16:51,520
Speaker 1: from the time I was three or four years old

292
00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:52,760
Speaker 1: that I was going to be in food.

293
00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:09,320
Speaker 2: You start working very young, at like fourteen at the

294
00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:11,720
Speaker 2: quiet clam.

295
00:17:11,040 --> 00:17:13,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not allowed today. Can you work at fourteen now?

296
00:17:14,960 --> 00:17:17,840
Speaker 1: Not? Really? No, not the way I worked back then.

297
00:17:18,080 --> 00:17:20,840
Speaker 1: I think it's ran that was That was a con

298
00:17:20,960 --> 00:17:23,600
Speaker 1: job that I ran on my parents everything in my

299
00:17:23,840 --> 00:17:25,560
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not sure what this says about me,

300
00:17:25,600 --> 00:17:29,679
Speaker 1: but I ran. I still run a lot of con jobs.

301
00:17:30,040 --> 00:17:36,560
Speaker 1: I my father said when the summer of seventy five

302
00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:39,919
Speaker 1: rolled around, he said, what are you going to do

303
00:17:40,520 --> 00:17:44,480
Speaker 1: this summer? And I was like, beach tennis club, you know. Say.

304
00:17:44,960 --> 00:17:48,000
Speaker 1: I was like, but you know, and he said, but

305
00:17:48,080 --> 00:17:50,760
Speaker 1: there's no allowance this year. And I said, excuse me,

306
00:17:51,320 --> 00:17:55,119
Speaker 1: come again and he he said no, no. You know,

307
00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:58,240
Speaker 1: my dad ran away at age sixteen and a half

308
00:17:58,640 --> 00:18:02,359
Speaker 1: seventeen to join the name in World War Two. He

309
00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:05,679
Speaker 1: came back and ran as far as he could to

310
00:18:05,720 --> 00:18:08,560
Speaker 1: the Midwest, where they were literally paying kids to go

311
00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:11,560
Speaker 1: to school who were returning on troop carriers because these

312
00:18:11,600 --> 00:18:17,160
Speaker 1: big Midwestern universities had emptied themselves out of and many

313
00:18:17,200 --> 00:18:21,560
Speaker 1: women to serve. And my dad had left a boy,

314
00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:23,200
Speaker 1: came back a man and didn't want to go back

315
00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:26,600
Speaker 1: home to his parents' apartment on seventy ninth and West End.

316
00:18:27,160 --> 00:18:31,639
Speaker 1: So you know, it was that same sort of attitude

317
00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:34,560
Speaker 1: that he carried with me. He was strict about a

318
00:18:34,560 --> 00:18:36,439
Speaker 1: lot of things, and he's like, yeah, you know, do

319
00:18:36,560 --> 00:18:41,959
Speaker 1: something with yourself. And I was smart, I thought, and

320
00:18:42,040 --> 00:18:44,800
Speaker 1: I sort of said okay, and then went and got

321
00:18:44,800 --> 00:18:48,159
Speaker 1: a job at my godmother's restaurant, which was, you know,

322
00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:52,240
Speaker 1: a cheek little seafood restaurant in the seventies out in

323
00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:56,000
Speaker 1: East Hampton, and my parents were horrified, but they really

324
00:18:56,040 --> 00:18:59,160
Speaker 1: couldn't dial it back because after a night or two

325
00:18:59,240 --> 00:19:03,080
Speaker 1: of being there, you know, my godmother, you know, kind

326
00:19:03,080 --> 00:19:04,040
Speaker 1: of relied on me.

327
00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:05,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, cover it.

328
00:19:05,320 --> 00:19:07,280
Speaker 1: Like I knew how to shuck clams and oysters. That's

329
00:19:07,280 --> 00:19:09,800
Speaker 1: where I started. I was faster than other people, and

330
00:19:09,840 --> 00:19:12,639
Speaker 1: I was dirt cheap, you know, I was a dollar

331
00:19:12,640 --> 00:19:14,840
Speaker 1: an hour or whatever. But I didn't want to I

332
00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:18,960
Speaker 1: didn't want to whole wheelbarrows of manure around like my

333
00:19:19,320 --> 00:19:21,879
Speaker 1: friends were doing for the landscaping company from five in

334
00:19:21,920 --> 00:19:24,760
Speaker 1: the morning to four in the afternoon, then catching a swim,

335
00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:28,600
Speaker 1: passing out and repeating, I wanted to be with older people.

336
00:19:29,359 --> 00:19:32,320
Speaker 1: You know, there were cool people listening to cool music,

337
00:19:32,560 --> 00:19:36,560
Speaker 1: smoking a joint after work. You know. I this this,

338
00:19:36,840 --> 00:19:40,119
Speaker 1: I mean, I found my tribe in restaurants and I

339
00:19:40,200 --> 00:19:43,800
Speaker 1: had a talent for it. So I worked there for

340
00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:47,600
Speaker 1: a couple of summers during high school. My last two years,

341
00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:50,159
Speaker 1: I worked a day a week, well one night a

342
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:53,359
Speaker 1: week for some pretty famous chefs in New York because

343
00:19:53,359 --> 00:19:56,040
Speaker 1: I beg my parents let me. I want to cook

344
00:19:56,080 --> 00:19:57,480
Speaker 1: in a better restaurant. I want to cook in a

345
00:19:57,480 --> 00:19:59,919
Speaker 1: better restaurant, and so I worked at One Fifth for

346
00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:05,760
Speaker 1: Leslie Revson and in a couple other pretty cool restaurants

347
00:20:05,800 --> 00:20:08,560
Speaker 1: and knew right away this is what I wanted to

348
00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:10,960
Speaker 1: do with the rest of my life. But my father

349
00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:13,760
Speaker 1: had convinced me, and I believed it to be true

350
00:20:13,760 --> 00:20:16,400
Speaker 1: that going to school and getting an education was really important.

351
00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:19,919
Speaker 1: And I felt in my heart I could do both.

352
00:20:20,480 --> 00:20:23,159
Speaker 1: That there wasn't a clock running, and I went and

353
00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:27,240
Speaker 1: visited Vassar and really liked it. Vassar in nineteen seventy

354
00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:32,080
Speaker 1: nine was perfect for me, and so you know, off

355
00:20:32,119 --> 00:20:36,160
Speaker 1: I went, and interestingly enough, I studied history and art history.

356
00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:40,320
Speaker 1: I was a double major. And I loved the storytelling

357
00:20:40,359 --> 00:20:42,159
Speaker 1: of it. It's what I loved about history. It's what

358
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:45,280
Speaker 1: I loved about the good history teachers and the good

359
00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:48,680
Speaker 1: art history teachers is they just got sucked into this.

360
00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:52,439
Speaker 1: You didn't realize you were being taught something or just

361
00:20:52,760 --> 00:20:58,000
Speaker 1: learning these incredible stories. And it wasn't until my first

362
00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:01,919
Speaker 1: year doing bizarre foods I was, or maybe was the

363
00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:05,160
Speaker 1: second year. I was in a jungle market in the

364
00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:09,280
Speaker 1: wilds of Nicaragua and there was this bowl of chung faina,

365
00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:12,920
Speaker 1: this gut soup that was put into my hands, and

366
00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:15,240
Speaker 1: I looked at the camera and I just started telling

367
00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:21,840
Speaker 1: them everything about you know, two thousand and nine in Nicaragua,

368
00:21:22,560 --> 00:21:28,560
Speaker 1: in the wilds of the untamed mountainside villages of that country,

369
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:31,320
Speaker 1: by looking at that bowl of soup. Yeah, And I

370
00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:34,240
Speaker 1: put it down, and our director was like, wow, that

371
00:21:34,400 --> 00:21:37,480
Speaker 1: was so cool, and it's a great moment in the show.

372
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:41,679
Speaker 1: But to me, I realized months later that it was

373
00:21:41,760 --> 00:21:44,639
Speaker 1: exactly what my art history teacher had done when she

374
00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:49,280
Speaker 1: popped up a slide of sixteenth century Flemish life and

375
00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:51,680
Speaker 1: there were seven elements in it and no one knew

376
00:21:51,720 --> 00:21:54,480
Speaker 1: what the heck it was. But she could look at

377
00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:58,720
Speaker 1: that picture and tell you everything about sixteenth century fresh

378
00:21:58,760 --> 00:22:03,959
Speaker 1: life through that that picture. And so I finally wound up.

379
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:06,359
Speaker 1: When my dad saw that episode, he finally felt that

380
00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:08,760
Speaker 1: my education was worth.

381
00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know.

382
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:14,280
Speaker 2: I was also an art history major and drawn to

383
00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:17,200
Speaker 2: it for the same reasons because you learned a lot

384
00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:19,120
Speaker 2: about a lot, and it didn't feel like you were

385
00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:23,680
Speaker 2: actually doing much learning. You were just these slides, these

386
00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:28,320
Speaker 2: paintings or sculptures were portals into a place and time

387
00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:31,520
Speaker 2: and a people and a culture, and I was just

388
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:34,639
Speaker 2: endlessly fascinated. The visual was the way in and I

389
00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 2: loved the visual, but the visual was the way into

390
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:42,560
Speaker 2: a story. And I loved that about art history. I

391
00:22:42,600 --> 00:22:46,240
Speaker 2: love that about food and travel as well. Again, another

392
00:22:46,240 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 2: thing we have in common. So you're kicking around, you're

393
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:50,640
Speaker 2: working at a bunch of cool restaurants.

394
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:52,520
Speaker 3: What brings you?

395
00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:55,479
Speaker 2: I know what brings you to Minnesota, but what in

396
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:58,400
Speaker 2: your life makes you decide now I need to go.

397
00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:03,320
Speaker 1: To Minnesota surviving suicide. I mean it's.

398
00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:07,159
Speaker 2: It's where are you in your life and your career

399
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:07,800
Speaker 2: at this time.

400
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:10,879
Speaker 1: So I graduate school. I was on a five year plan.

401
00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:14,000
Speaker 1: I graduate school, I go back to New York, I

402
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:18,800
Speaker 1: start cooking. I have a rocket ship career. I'm doing

403
00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:21,920
Speaker 1: a lot of really great things and with some incredible organizations.

404
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:25,280
Speaker 1: I realized that I want to I want to have

405
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,800
Speaker 1: the best restaurant company that I can. I don't want

406
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:31,000
Speaker 1: to be tied to a restaurant. I don't want to

407
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 1: be the world's greatest chef. I don't want to be

408
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:36,119
Speaker 1: the world's greatest operator. I want to have a hospitality

409
00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:40,639
Speaker 1: company that defines the industry. And so I cooked, I

410
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:43,720
Speaker 1: managed restaurants. I worked for Roger Martin, who at the

411
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,879
Speaker 1: time was the big pr guy in the in the

412
00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 1: eighties in New York as it was sort of exploding.

413
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:52,439
Speaker 1: I did a lot of cool things during the decade

414
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 1: of the eighties that I remember. I did a lot

415
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:56,400
Speaker 1: of cool things that I don't remember that had been

416
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:59,200
Speaker 1: told to me later. I called the eighties my missing decade.

417
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:02,640
Speaker 1: But I do know that over the course of the eighties,

418
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:09,080
Speaker 1: I went from being talented, hard working, good guy, somewhat

419
00:24:09,119 --> 00:24:11,640
Speaker 1: reflective of the person i'd like to think I am

420
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 1: now to being a one d percent unredeemable human being,

421
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 1: user of people, taker of things. Count on him to

422
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:25,240
Speaker 1: always be lying, always be cheating, always be stealing, because

423
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:29,679
Speaker 1: I was in a very high stakes game of survival

424
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 1: where my drugs and alcohol were making every decision for me,

425
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:40,240
Speaker 1: and at one point, fascinatingly in an apartment building where

426
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 1: I was living next to Chris Farley over on the

427
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,720
Speaker 1: West Side in forty fifth forty sixth Street, one of

428
00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 1: the first big towers to kind of go up in

429
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:55,439
Speaker 1: what was the beginning of the cleanup project of that

430
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:58,879
Speaker 1: part of the city. My father, one last time trusted me,

431
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:03,879
Speaker 1: bought an apart for me and said, yeah, you just

432
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:06,439
Speaker 1: pay the you know, the mortgage on it. That's going

433
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:09,640
Speaker 1: to be your rent and your name's on it, and

434
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:13,920
Speaker 1: good luck. And I blew that Sheriff of New York.

435
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:15,840
Speaker 1: I didn't know there was a sheriff in New York.

436
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 1: I knew there was a Sheriff of Nottingham. I didn't

437
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:20,320
Speaker 1: know there was a Sheriff of New York.

438
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 3: It turns out they or it does.

439
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,640
Speaker 1: It turns out they mostly do evictions. So I met

440
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: the Sheriff of New York and I went down to

441
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:34,639
Speaker 1: the shot and beer bar behind Penn Station, where I

442
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:36,920
Speaker 1: had spent many a night. Because open until six in

443
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: the morning, they hosed the place down and reopened at seven.

444
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: And I was complaining to everyone there, you know, because

445
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 1: everything was your fault. Everything was your fault. You know,

446
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:50,679
Speaker 1: I didn't have this. That was your fault, that was

447
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,280
Speaker 1: their fault. I got five. That's there. I mean, I

448
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:55,720
Speaker 1: never pointed the finger at myself, even though in my

449
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: heart of hearts, I knew that I was to blame

450
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:01,239
Speaker 1: in my drugs and alcohol were to blame. I just

451
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 1: I just had to try everything I could except that

452
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:11,399
Speaker 1: to accept quitting to get well. And they said, hey,

453
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 1: why don't you come stay with us, you know? And

454
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:16,760
Speaker 1: I had my duffel bag with me with a whole

455
00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 1: bunch of dirty clothes, and I went down to this

456
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 1: abandoned building on Sullivan Street, just south of Houston. Now,

457
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: I will tell you today there's an Agnus b boutique there.

458
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:33,880
Speaker 1: Sondra Bullock has a very famous double brownstone on that block.

459
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:37,399
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful block. So don't ever take friends down

460
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 1: there and say, not looking at it, this is the

461
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 1: hell hole I crawled out of which I have had done,

462
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:48,479
Speaker 1: only to have them say this looks pretty nice. And

463
00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 1: I was like oh. I turned around and I was like,

464
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:54,760
Speaker 1: oh no, no, no. Back then it was wind swept. It

465
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: was a very scary part of New York. It was

466
00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 1: abandoned building with case cement casements in the windows instead

467
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 1: of pains, and seven or eight people all run by

468
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:10,160
Speaker 1: this street urchin named a j Why I remember this stuff.

469
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: He had no teeth, but he kind of ran the house.

470
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 1: And I got a place on the floor and I

471
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:18,919
Speaker 1: dumped my dirty laundry out and I stole a bottle

472
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: of Comet cleanser every two or three days from the

473
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: local bodega and sprinkled it in a circle around the

474
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:27,399
Speaker 1: pile of dirty clothes so the rats and roaches wouldn't

475
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: crawl over me. After I passed out, I stole purses

476
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:37,479
Speaker 1: off benches at fancy restaurants with outdoor cafes to you know,

477
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:41,880
Speaker 1: finance my At that point my drinking, I'd stopped doing drugs.

478
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,159
Speaker 1: Drugs were bad, Drugs were my problem, and I just

479
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:48,920
Speaker 1: exclusively drank, which is actually when things really went off

480
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:53,359
Speaker 1: the rails. And ultimately I just thought of myself as

481
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: as a loser in life, and I, you know, bought

482
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:02,040
Speaker 1: a fistfull of barbituates and got a case of popuav

483
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 1: vodka and checked into the San Pedro Hotel. The word

484
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 1: hotel is the word looking back, and it was a

485
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: marketing mistake on their part, since there were no hotel

486
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:18,400
Speaker 1: services there. There was a bulletproof glass fronting behind which

487
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:22,200
Speaker 1: a gentleman sat and he would with a little tiny

488
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 1: six inch TV set that he was always watching, and

489
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: the place charged by the hour. And I shoved like

490
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars into the till area, a little scoop under.

491
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 3: Things, and.

492
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 1: Basically just said, you know, hold my calls, and went

493
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 1: upstairs and shoveled all the barbituates into my body and

494
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 1: drank a bottle of pop Off and somehow woke up

495
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:54,479
Speaker 1: two days later and I wasn't dead, which it is

496
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 1: truly a miracle. Based on number one my intent number two,

497
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: I followed through number three what I consumed, and I

498
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:08,960
Speaker 1: had a moment of clarity, very brief, that just said

499
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: you need to ask for help. And I mean this

500
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: very seriously. I had never had the thought ever in

501
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: my life to ask anyone for help for anything. The

502
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 1: words I don't know how to do X, can you

503
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: help me? Had never left my lips. And I plugged

504
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 1: the phone back into the wall in the hallway and

505
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 1: which was right outside my room, and I called one

506
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: of my friends and I said, can you come get me.

507
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: I'm in trouble. I need help. And he said where

508
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: are you? We thought you were dead? And I said,

509
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: I'm at the San Pedro hotel and you know, and

510
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: I gave him the address and he said there's a

511
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 1: hotel there and I said yes. Anyway, he came and

512
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: got me, tried to drive me out in his apartment.

513
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 1: That didn't really work. But he didn't care because he

514
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: was already working with an interventionist and a bunch of

515
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: my other friends. And I went to my you know,

516
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 1: unteenth meeting where people were going to tell me how

517
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: much they loved me and how I should go to treatment.

518
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: Except this time I walked in and I just said,

519
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 1: what time's my plane? And I let everyone talk and

520
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:19,080
Speaker 1: I got on the plane and left for Center City,

521
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: Minnesota and began my relationship with the Hazelden Continuum of Care.

522
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 1: And that was, well, this January, it'll be thirty three

523
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 1: years ago.

524
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 3: When you woke up, Were you relieved.

525
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 1: At Hazelden.

526
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 3: No, when you woke up at the San Pedro Hotel.

527
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 1: Yet, Well that's a no one's ever asked me that question. No,

528
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: I wasn't.

529
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 3: I was.

530
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: I was scared. I was so, so, so so scared

531
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 1: because I didn't know what was going on. Yeah, I had.

532
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: I had made a decision, a horrific decision, a pained

533
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:10,560
Speaker 1: decision with a capital P. It didn't work. I was alive.

534
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do. My mind was racing

535
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: with all these things. I just knew I at that moment,

536
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 1: because I kept using Later that night, I started using

537
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:30,640
Speaker 1: right now again. But that late morning early afternoon, I

538
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: didn't feel like using. I just wanted someone to help me,

539
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 1: which had literally never occurred to me before. So it

540
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 1: was really scary and really confusing the emotions and things

541
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: I had never felt before. And I kept drinking. I

542
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 1: was stealing booze at Clark's house, you know, from the

543
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: moment I got there later that evening. You know, he

544
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 1: made me take a couple of showers. You have to

545
00:31:54,680 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: remember we didn't bathe at the home that I was squatty.

546
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 3: Squatting, and yeah, so.

547
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 1: You know, I looked like one of those people you

548
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 1: cross the street to avoid hair matted and greasy layers

549
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 1: of clothes because I'm essentially living and sleeping outside. It's

550
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: January and New York City, so lots of layers, and

551
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,479
Speaker 1: you know, black and soot and grease on my face

552
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 1: from a lifestyle of not caring really bad skin issues.

553
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I was, I did not look well, and

554
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: it was It's just it shows you how powerful the

555
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 1: disease is. That the minute I got to my friend's

556
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: house that night, I start stealing his liquor and not

557
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 1: tell him about it, but I started doing things like saying, hey,

558
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 1: this has been great. I know I called you and

559
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 1: I asked you for help, but if you could just

560
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: give me like five grand, then I can do you know.

561
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: I started hustling and chucking and jiving again. It was

562
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: it was awful. It was really truly awful. I did

563
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:09,080
Speaker 1: not have a sense of relief until probably about ten

564
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 1: eleven days into my stay at Hazelden, where I started

565
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: to realize get my first clue that I was in

566
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 1: a safe space and that maybe, like an iota, like

567
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 1: a million of one percent, this may work.

568
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 2: Out, which you had not contemplated before. How will this

569
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 2: get solved? This doesn't feel solvable.

570
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: That's why I tried to kill myself. There was, you know,

571
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 1: my relief. My solution was to just take myself off

572
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: the board, and there was no doubt in my mind

573
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 1: that that was the best decision at the time. As

574
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 1: I learned and listened to more stories of hope and

575
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: heard from more people just like me who had the

576
00:33:56,520 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: same experiences, who I grably over a couple of days

577
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: learn to trust and be like, oh, this is interesting,

578
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 1: And then heard people with real long term sobriety speaking

579
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 1: on the in the auditorium at Bigelow where you went

580
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:16,880
Speaker 1: every night at seven o'clock to hear it outside speaker

581
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 1: come in.

582
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 3: It was.

583
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:23,279
Speaker 1: It was quite a profound experience. And then I, through

584
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 1: other people on my unit, I began to understand that

585
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 1: this thing that I thought, because I thought happiness and

586
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 1: success was for everyone else in the world but me.

587
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 1: When I got to treatment, I felt recovery was for

588
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: everyone else but me. And then around eleven days I

589
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 1: started to realize that I thought maybe I could do

590
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 1: this too. And it was a very it was a

591
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:52,839
Speaker 1: very specific moment that I will think, I think would

592
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: bore a lot of people unless they're in recovery or

593
00:34:57,239 --> 00:35:00,840
Speaker 1: challenged by it. But I would share that it was

594
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: pointed out to me. You know, I thought you had

595
00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:06,760
Speaker 1: to have this relationship with God and work these steps

596
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 1: and get an a from you know, sobriety school, and

597
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:13,360
Speaker 1: that was the only way it worked. But in fact,

598
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 1: someone pointed out to me on day eleven that the

599
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 1: twelfth step in our program is written in the past

600
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: tense and it says having had a spiritual experience as

601
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:27,920
Speaker 1: the result of these steps. Well that was important to

602
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:30,840
Speaker 1: me because the book said you can't stay sober without

603
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:34,919
Speaker 1: having had some kind of spiritual experience, some exchange of ideas,

604
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: that the way I was running my life was not

605
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: how to do it, and that letting something else run

606
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:45,320
Speaker 1: my life, letting go, connecting with a higher power, listening

607
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,320
Speaker 1: to other people, just have other people make your decisions

608
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:52,240
Speaker 1: for you much better was the way to go. And

609
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 1: it's written in the past tense for a reason. And

610
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:58,880
Speaker 1: I realized that a friend talked to me about this

611
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 1: and said, yeah, I mean, you know, it's a rope thing.

612
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: You just go through the steps as a result of

613
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: which you will have a spiritual experience. And I was

614
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god, that sounds like the ticket.

615
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:15,360
Speaker 1: You know, I just have to do the homework. I

616
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 1: can do the homework. And I asked someone two days

617
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 1: later to be my sponsor. And I've been sober and

618
00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: a proud member of my twelve step groups ever since.

619
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for sharing that.

620
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:49,320
Speaker 2: You know, we try to do that here in this space,

621
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 2: to talk openly about.

622
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 3: People those kinds of challenges will have.

623
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:57,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, make no mistake about it. I mean

624
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 1: everyone has those challenges. Yes, I mean me A person

625
00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 1: who doesn't have doesn't want to talk about mental health issues.

626
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: Doesn't want to talk about fears and successes and failures.

627
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:12,800
Speaker 1: And I'll show you someone who's really sicker than hurting.

628
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:17,880
Speaker 1: They know and hurting. And you know, it's fascinating because

629
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 1: Jim Ramstead, who was a member of one of my

630
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: groups when I was when I sobered up here and

631
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:30,400
Speaker 1: a ferocious advocate for mental health parody laws, actually teamed

632
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 1: up with Paul Wellstone, who I mean you talk about it.

633
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: I mean, Jim today would be called a very centrist geopier.

634
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:42,800
Speaker 1: Wellstone today would still be all the way to the

635
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 1: left of center. I mean, he was very much a

636
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: progressive progressive and the two of them were fast brands,

637
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 1: and they helped introduce the very first mental health party

638
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:56,240
Speaker 1: law legislation. The first time I ever went to lobby

639
00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:01,240
Speaker 1: anyone about anything was with them. Didn't get to say anything.

640
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 1: I was in the shut up and listen of contingent

641
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 1: on the side. But it fascinated me, like, oh my god,

642
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: we can change laws and help other people. And that

643
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:17,720
Speaker 1: really set me on the course on the second half

644
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:20,839
Speaker 1: of my life, because you know, people know me over

645
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 1: the last twenty years, most from television and then a

646
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:28,400
Speaker 1: big step down anything else. I mean, television is a

647
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: very powerful medium for recognition. However, I probably spend the

648
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:37,360
Speaker 1: majority of my time working for the boards and nonprofits

649
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 1: and civic causes that I hold so near and dear.

650
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 1: One of the big ones is still to try to

651
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 1: put more teeth in the mental health parity laws that

652
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 1: we have on the books. They're a little bit toothless.

653
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:54,959
Speaker 1: Senator Tina Smith, one of my senators here in Minnesota,

654
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: has been advocating for that a lot over the last

655
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: four years, especially in the wake of the COVID nightmare

656
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:05,839
Speaker 1: that we lived through for so long. So it's kind

657
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,920
Speaker 1: of in our Minnesota DNA out here, and we have

658
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 1: so many, so many really committed people around the country

659
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 1: who want there to be a solution for folks for

660
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 1: whom they have. They want to be treated just like

661
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 1: you have a broken arm. You know, the hospital pays

662
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 1: you and bills you, and if the government pays for it,

663
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 1: the government pays for it. And look, I'm no advocate

664
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:31,400
Speaker 1: for the healthcare industry here. I think we've got a

665
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 1: lot of problems with our healthcare system, but we need

666
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: to have we need to treat mental health issues the

667
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:41,160
Speaker 1: same way that we treat broken arms because hurt people

668
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:44,880
Speaker 1: hurt people, and we see so much of that in

669
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: society today. I think it's really really important.

670
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 3: Yes, and I do too, And I'm wondering if you

671
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:52,880
Speaker 3: can tell me.

672
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 1: So.

673
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:57,480
Speaker 2: I stay incredibly busy for a number of reasons. One,

674
00:39:57,480 --> 00:39:59,319
Speaker 2: I'm always afraid I'm going to lose my job or

675
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 2: one of them, so I I've always gone a bunch

676
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 2: of jobs.

677
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 3: That's the media paranoia that comes with this industry.

678
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:09,240
Speaker 2: Same same, But also it is good for my mental

679
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 2: health to feel productive. When I don't feel productive, when

680
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 2: I don't feel valued at work, when I feel disconnected

681
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:21,000
Speaker 2: from work, I spiral into a bad place. Because I've

682
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 2: learned through therapy in many years that a lot of

683
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 2: my self worth and self identity is connected to my work, for.

684
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 3: Better or worse. That's just how I am.

685
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:39,239
Speaker 2: Why I say, I mean, there's lots of reasons, but

686
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 2: I was a hyper ambitious kid. I you know, was

687
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:46,360
Speaker 2: great at school but also in this very competitive classical

688
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 2: ballet environment and wanting to be really good at stuff.

689
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:54,279
Speaker 1: I find it fascinating. I mean, I was talking at

690
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:59,400
Speaker 1: work today with a colleague about burying myself in work

691
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:04,879
Speaker 1: at times in my life as a way to not

692
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:09,799
Speaker 1: deal with something, right, huh. And you know I have

693
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:13,720
Speaker 1: to be very careful that I'm not practicing avoidance. Yes,

694
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:17,479
Speaker 1: when I do that, it's fascinating to hear you talk

695
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:21,960
Speaker 1: about it, as you know, from a productivity standpoint, because

696
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:26,279
Speaker 1: I have. I have learned that and I have to

697
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 1: be careful with it that I can be like, oh no, no, no,

698
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 1: I have to go to one week save the world

699
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:35,839
Speaker 1: crusade over to this far corner, like everything in balance, right,

700
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:40,319
Speaker 1: And you know, so I can feel you know, I

701
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:43,400
Speaker 1: call it work. But if I really look at it carefully,

702
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: I can make myself busy in other ways. There are

703
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:50,120
Speaker 1: some people I know who have made themselves busy perpetually

704
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:54,879
Speaker 1: twenty four seven three sixty five through do good riism. Yes, right,

705
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what it is, it's all. It's all

706
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 1: a different form of avoidance of something. And the avoidance

707
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:08,799
Speaker 1: for me is sitting with my feelings of discontent. I

708
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:13,120
Speaker 1: was in Sicily for eight or nine days and I

709
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 1: had a horrible day. No access to the internet, phone

710
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: was I was in rural Sicily. I had to focus

711
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:24,319
Speaker 1: on what I was doing at the time, some of

712
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 1: which was God forbid relaxing for a few hours, that exactly.

713
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 1: And I had to just sit with some really, really

714
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:39,360
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable shit. And that happens to me once a month,

715
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:43,280
Speaker 1: and I have to I have to just literally focus

716
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: on the fact that that's what I'm doing and that

717
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 1: it's good for me. Like a sauna that feels too

718
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:50,880
Speaker 1: hot and you're like, I got to get out of here. No,

719
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 1: you don't. You're gonna be fine. You're not going to

720
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:58,680
Speaker 1: pass out. It's not two hundred and ten degrees, right,

721
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:02,840
Speaker 1: it's well below that. You're fine, you're hydrated. It just

722
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 1: feels uncomfortable, right, But sitting with that discomfort is how

723
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 1: is how I learn to not use another crutch like work,

724
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 1: like do good rism or some other some other ism, overeating,

725
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, we gambling. I mean, I could

726
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:29,560
Speaker 1: add seven hundred things to that to that list. They're

727
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:34,440
Speaker 1: all isms. And at least for me, my voyage of

728
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 1: emotional sobriety over the last ten, twelve, fourteen years has

729
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:41,880
Speaker 1: learning how to live with that. What I'm still really

730
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:45,239
Speaker 1: shitty at is telling the people in my life this

731
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 1: is what I'm dealing with. I'm not really pleasant right now.

732
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I need a minute, I need some time.

733
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:54,960
Speaker 1: And telling people that because they think, I mean your kids,

734
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 1: your significant others, your colleagues are like whoa, someone got

735
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 1: off on the wrong the wrong side.

736
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:01,080
Speaker 3: Of the band.

737
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:05,359
Speaker 1: It's like, no, I just if truth. Here's the thing

738
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:08,880
Speaker 1: for so many people, and this speaks to being honest.

739
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 1: The truth is option five. The truth should not be

740
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:16,920
Speaker 1: option five. The truth needs to be option one and

741
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:20,719
Speaker 1: option one A and then way far down there is two.

742
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:25,759
Speaker 1: But essentially by telling the truth and not having it

743
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:29,600
Speaker 1: be option five, you then vault ahead of ninety nine

744
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:34,040
Speaker 1: percent of evolved humankind, for whom the initial response, hey,

745
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:38,960
Speaker 1: how you doing fine? Everyone who says that is not fine? Right,

746
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: so already they're using what's fine? Option three? Telling some

747
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:48,280
Speaker 1: other lies Option four. I mean option five I always

748
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,240
Speaker 1: joke about is the way I want you to think

749
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:56,799
Speaker 1: I am right. It's craziness. And the reason why it's

750
00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 1: it's real craziness is that it's super dangerous to how

751
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: we live our lives, our relationships to ourselves, our relationships

752
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: to other people, that become toxic when we become habitual

753
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:13,279
Speaker 1: untruth tellers. Yeah, it is practice, not perfection.

754
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 2: Right, I've started recently answering that very question, how are

755
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:24,400
Speaker 2: you by saying I don't know, which is one hundred

756
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 2: percent true and liberating and I don't have to be fine.

757
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 2: I don't have to put up a facade. But also

758
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:35,880
Speaker 2: I don't have to unpack it. That's right, because I

759
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 2: don't know it right now. Maybe I'll find out in

760
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 2: my next therapy session. Maybe I'll find out when I'm

761
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:45,920
Speaker 2: on the door. Answer right, But for me, I don't know,

762
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 2: is okay?

763
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 3: Is enough? Is enough?

764
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:52,800
Speaker 2: And people laugh because they think I'm joking and it's funny,

765
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 2: and that's fine too. That's fine too. It's disarming a

766
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 2: little bit, But for me, it's an honest answer.

767
00:45:57,920 --> 00:45:58,839
Speaker 3: I don't know. Let me.

768
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 2: I'll get back to you on that, And there's nothing

769
00:46:01,719 --> 00:46:02,319
Speaker 2: wrong with that.

770
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 1: It's a great one. I got to remember that one.

771
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 2: Okay, there's one more question that's a little tough before

772
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 2: we get to sort of.

773
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 3: A lightning round.

774
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:28,839
Speaker 1: I love the lightning round.

775
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:30,080
Speaker 3: Oh, the lightning Round's fun.

776
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 2: I knew this person a little bit at CNN, but

777
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:35,839
Speaker 2: certainly not as well as you knew him.

778
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:38,720
Speaker 3: Tell me about Tony Bourdain.

779
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:52,720
Speaker 1: The most magnetic, charming, smart person that I've ever met

780
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 1: one of the top five. You know, hard to think

781
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:01,279
Speaker 1: of another four, But you know, I don't want to

782
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:03,839
Speaker 1: be so absolutist or put him up on too much

783
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:12,160
Speaker 1: of a pedestal. A glorious, glorious human being funnier in hell.

784
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:18,439
Speaker 1: For those of us that were close to him, I'm

785
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 1: not sure there was anything more fun than the two

786
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:25,080
Speaker 1: times a year we were in either that we were

787
00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 1: in the same city and one of us would text

788
00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:32,760
Speaker 1: the other one like, oh my god, we're both in Paris,

789
00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:34,960
Speaker 1: or we're both in New York, or we're both in

790
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 1: la or whatever. I want to grab dinner. Yeah, and

791
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 1: we would go out to dinner and laugh yeah, so hard.

792
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:49,880
Speaker 1: I mean how he was in real life and is

793
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:54,320
Speaker 1: how he was in many ways on TV, but in private,

794
00:47:55,560 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 1: so wickedly funny and by the way, conversing about things

795
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:04,640
Speaker 1: that he and the other person wanted to converse about.

796
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 1: So I mean, just fantastic, glorious, glorious human being and someone.

797
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:15,839
Speaker 1: But you know, I think about him all the time,

798
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 1: but I'm also asked about him on a weekly basis.

799
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I goes by oh yeah, because it's

800
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:25,080
Speaker 1: it's you know, he has that kind of outsized impact

801
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:30,760
Speaker 1: on our culture and just adored him a great, great

802
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 1: great man.

803
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 3: Okay, lightning round Question one, Why walnuts?

804
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 1: The answer really is why walnuts?

805
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:50,160
Speaker 3: But people like them. It's a thing that people like.

806
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:54,240
Speaker 1: Fine, and that's why there's chocolate and vanilla walnuts. Walnuts

807
00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:59,759
Speaker 1: are arguably the least interesting nut on planet Earth, right

808
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 1: above a brazil nut. When they're when you have to

809
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:06,800
Speaker 1: walk past a beautiful roasted pecan to get to a walnut.

810
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:07,960
Speaker 1: I don't understand it.

811
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:12,279
Speaker 2: That it's interesting. But why do you dislike them so much?

812
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:16,239
Speaker 1: Because I don't like them? And when you have spent

813
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 1: hours telling the world how delicious fermented walrus anus can be,

814
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: you get to not like a couple of things. So

815
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:27,879
Speaker 1: I don't like walnuts. I don't like raw cookie dough

816
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:30,840
Speaker 1: ice cream, I don't like raw cookie dough. I don't

817
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:31,640
Speaker 1: like oatmeal.

818
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:34,880
Speaker 2: These are odd things to not like, considering the things

819
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:35,960
Speaker 2: you have eaten and enjoy it.

820
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 1: I can make a very powerful case for all of them.

821
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:43,800
Speaker 1: Oatmeal is essentially gruel with Oliver twist. When Dickens wanted

822
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 1: to put the worst possible to do that in an

823
00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:50,440
Speaker 1: orphan's bowl, it was gruel. Otherwise known as oatmeal.

824
00:49:51,239 --> 00:49:58,239
Speaker 3: Okay, perfect, Okay, the bear. How realistic is it? Uh?

825
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:02,400
Speaker 1: Very? I see it more as a passion play about

826
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:10,440
Speaker 1: isms and alcoholism. Are there some cartoonish elements in it

827
00:50:10,520 --> 00:50:15,040
Speaker 1: that are played for the theatricality of the of the

828
00:50:15,200 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 1: entertainment vehicle? Of course, of course there are. I got

829
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:21,879
Speaker 1: into it the other day with someone who said, well, yeah,

830
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 1: I think it was you know, season one, episode four

831
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:30,160
Speaker 1: or five, the cousin puts the tranquilizers and the kids

832
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 1: punch at the birthday party. All the kids are passed

833
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 1: out on the lawn end scene. We all know that

834
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:42,520
Speaker 1: if that happened in real life police swat team, I

835
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:46,440
Speaker 1: mean eighteen children on the ground, jail, it's jail, I

836
00:50:46,480 --> 00:50:52,520
Speaker 1: mean so, and that didn't happen, So it's it's obviously there.

837
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:54,640
Speaker 1: And I use that as an example because that, to me,

838
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:57,840
Speaker 1: was the biggest thing in season one that wasn't necessarily true.

839
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:01,720
Speaker 1: And I don't really care that they have no money,

840
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 1: and yet in season one, Army is you know out,

841
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:08,040
Speaker 1: you know, getting people to stage with them and doing

842
00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:11,279
Speaker 1: all this kind of dreaming and stuff like that. If

843
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:14,080
Speaker 1: you're looking at it so hard, then you're missing the

844
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: beauty of what's going on in front of you. Entourage,

845
00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 1: same thing, La law same thing, you know. I mean,

846
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:24,439
Speaker 1: they're they're great shows. I have lawyer friends that can't

847
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:27,359
Speaker 1: watch lawyer shows. I get it. I get it. I

848
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:30,120
Speaker 1: have trouble watching food shows, I'm sure. But that one,

849
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 1: that one I love, that one I like. And you know,

850
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:37,239
Speaker 1: I have look, I know everyone, you know, I know

851
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 1: the people in it. And with each increasing year, they

852
00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:41,560
Speaker 1: have more and more cameos and more and more in

853
00:51:41,640 --> 00:51:44,719
Speaker 1: this and more and more of that. I was backstage

854
00:51:44,719 --> 00:51:49,440
Speaker 1: at the Beard Awards, the first one after COVID, I think,

855
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:52,880
Speaker 1: and I was going out to present an award. I was,

856
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:56,240
Speaker 1: I think I was. I was in between hosting years

857
00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 1: and I'm standing there and I'm getting ready for my

858
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 1: queue and I sent someone's behind me, and I turned

859
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:06,439
Speaker 1: around and it's Jeremy Allen White and I knew him.

860
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:09,920
Speaker 1: The bear hadn't come out yet, but people knew the

861
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 1: bear was coming out. But I knew him from that

862
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 1: great show on Showtime with William Macy about the Alcoholic Family.

863
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 1: I'm banking on the name, and he a show that

864
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 1: really did alcoholism. I mean, they nailed a couple of

865
00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:29,799
Speaker 1: things about alcoholism. Shamel, Well, they're Shameless, thank you. And

866
00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:32,880
Speaker 1: I turned around to him and I said, oh my gosh.

867
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:35,840
Speaker 1: I turned to introduce myself. I said, I'm Andrew Zimmern.

868
00:52:35,880 --> 00:52:39,560
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of your work on Shameless. And

869
00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:41,759
Speaker 1: he looked at me and he just was kind of

870
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: like dumbstruck for a second. And you have to remember

871
00:52:45,200 --> 00:52:48,279
Speaker 1: the show's not come out yet, but he's still a

872
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:52,200
Speaker 1: working actor with a big show on television. And he

873
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:54,560
Speaker 1: looks at me and he says, if I could tell

874
00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 1: you how many times I've watched your show, listen to

875
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:00,920
Speaker 1: take you know, like in doing research for the Bear,

876
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:03,239
Speaker 1: because he was about to give the award after the

877
00:53:03,280 --> 00:53:04,880
Speaker 1: award that I was going out to give, and they

878
00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:08,080
Speaker 1: kind of queue you up like planes on the tarmac

879
00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:11,320
Speaker 1: as you're getting ready to take off. And I talked

880
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 1: him for a little while afterwards. An absolutely brilliant, insightful guy.

881
00:53:17,719 --> 00:53:19,799
Speaker 1: Can't wait to see what he does with Bruce Springsteen.

882
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:24,320
Speaker 1: Love what they've done. I love with Chris Storer. Taking

883
00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:28,080
Speaker 1: nothing away from the great acting in that show. The

884
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:32,759
Speaker 1: ensemble is fantastic, the writing is great. But Chris Storer,

885
00:53:33,800 --> 00:53:38,239
Speaker 1: the creator, writer, director, who's the artistic genius sort of

886
00:53:38,280 --> 00:53:42,480
Speaker 1: behind the thing is just lights out brilliant.

887
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:43,200
Speaker 3: Yeah.

888
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 2: I consulted for a show, an Aaron Sorkin show called

889
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:48,920
Speaker 2: the Newsroom, and he.

890
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:49,799
Speaker 3: Would I'd be on Aaron.

891
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 2: He'd call in the break to be like, what you know,

892
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:54,399
Speaker 2: unpack what just happened, and blah blah blah.

893
00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:55,240
Speaker 3: One time.

894
00:53:56,560 --> 00:54:00,840
Speaker 2: I saw a script and in it a producer is

895
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:05,200
Speaker 2: calling for sound on tape and in the business which

896
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:07,879
Speaker 2: that's a SOT, and we just call it a SOT,

897
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:09,080
Speaker 2: And I said.

898
00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:11,040
Speaker 3: Aaron, No one would say that.

899
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:13,800
Speaker 2: No producer would say, okay, now we go to sound

900
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 2: on tape.

901
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:15,359
Speaker 3: They'd say, now we go to SOT. And he goes,

902
00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:16,520
Speaker 3: I don't like the way that sounds.

903
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:21,480
Speaker 2: It sounds ugly, said okay, And he's right, of course,

904
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:26,799
Speaker 2: viewers don't care about versamilitude. But this is this is

905
00:54:26,840 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 2: a thing that comes up repeatedly, especially with a lot

906
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:31,480
Speaker 2: of sort and work, because he, you know, he has

907
00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:35,000
Speaker 2: very particular ways about the way things should sound.

908
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:39,000
Speaker 1: I'm kind of obsessed by him, he has said. As

909
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:43,399
Speaker 1: someone who writes and someone who makes TV and makes

910
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:46,120
Speaker 1: TV for other people and does all that other kind

911
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:49,400
Speaker 1: of stuff, I'm always for some reason, he always pops

912
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:52,280
Speaker 1: into my head. I mean for a million great sortasms.

913
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:54,759
Speaker 1: But you know, put two people in the room who

914
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:57,280
Speaker 1: disagree and you have a story, and I just love

915
00:54:57,960 --> 00:55:00,800
Speaker 1: how distilled down and simple that is. I was a

916
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: huge fan of Newsroom. I've had the opportunity to do

917
00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:08,440
Speaker 1: three or four different shows like that where I was

918
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:11,919
Speaker 1: the you know, off camera consultant, none of which went

919
00:55:12,120 --> 00:55:15,719
Speaker 1: every anywhere. So I'm over four. So I'm like, oh,

920
00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:20,279
Speaker 1: you know, for Frick's sake, when is when is it?

921
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:25,360
Speaker 1: When is my We were we were so close, like

922
00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:28,200
Speaker 1: uh like a year ago. We'll we'll get there, We'll

923
00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:30,359
Speaker 1: get there, So I can you know, I can put

924
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:31,839
Speaker 1: all my It's.

925
00:55:31,800 --> 00:55:34,200
Speaker 3: Really They're great. I did.

926
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:37,040
Speaker 2: I did the Newsroom, and then I consulted on Apple

927
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:40,319
Speaker 2: TV's The Morning Show, which when I was brought in

928
00:55:40,480 --> 00:55:42,320
Speaker 2: was meant to be a comedy. I was very excited

929
00:55:42,320 --> 00:55:46,399
Speaker 2: about someone kind of skewering my business and making fun

930
00:55:46,440 --> 00:55:48,320
Speaker 2: of it, and it turned into a drama after.

931
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:49,800
Speaker 3: But but it's.

932
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:51,760
Speaker 1: A good drama, A good drama.

933
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:52,600
Speaker 3: Oh it's terrific.

934
00:55:52,880 --> 00:55:56,400
Speaker 1: I love Newsroom. I mean there's things in Newsroom that

935
00:55:56,520 --> 00:56:01,480
Speaker 1: I you know, still to this day, will pull up

936
00:56:01,520 --> 00:56:02,920
Speaker 1: on YouTube or something, and.

937
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:05,680
Speaker 2: It was wonderful because yeah, I love it, so what

938
00:56:05,760 --> 00:56:09,320
Speaker 2: a great show. I made some wonderful friends from that business. Okay,

939
00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:11,200
Speaker 2: best food Destination.

940
00:56:12,360 --> 00:56:15,840
Speaker 1: You know, earlier in the podcast, you asked what I

941
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 1: thought was one of the most insightful questions that nobody

942
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:19,160
Speaker 1: has ever asked me.

943
00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:21,120
Speaker 3: Oh, and then this is the worst, got it? Okay?

944
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:24,040
Speaker 1: Now the worst? The worst one is what's the worst

945
00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:25,040
Speaker 1: thing you've ever eaten?

946
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:26,400
Speaker 3: I would never ask you that.

947
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:29,279
Speaker 1: And but but here's the problem with this is the

948
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:33,600
Speaker 1: second work Best Destination. No, it's it's just it's trying

949
00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:38,440
Speaker 1: to compare things for which there is no equal footing

950
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:42,960
Speaker 1: to compare those and you know you, I mean, look,

951
00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:48,320
Speaker 1: France and Italy have very narrow takes on food.

952
00:56:48,520 --> 00:56:50,840
Speaker 3: Mm hmm okay, but they do them so well.

953
00:56:50,840 --> 00:56:54,319
Speaker 1: They're an inch deep and they're an inch wide. But

954
00:56:54,400 --> 00:56:58,239
Speaker 1: everything in that box is insanely great, right, and I

955
00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:03,960
Speaker 1: love eating there. Yeah, you know. Mexico China are the

956
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:06,400
Speaker 1: two greyst cuisines in the world. They are a mile

957
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:11,040
Speaker 1: wide and a mile deep. The techniques, the regions, the flavors,

958
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:16,200
Speaker 1: the textures, the contrasts, the difference in style, you don't

959
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:18,800
Speaker 1: even know you're eating the same country. If I put

960
00:57:18,840 --> 00:57:21,840
Speaker 1: two bowls of food in front of you simultaneously, if

961
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 1: I was able to sort of play that way, you know,

962
00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:30,400
Speaker 1: So do I pick anything from those four? Everyone? Everyone?

963
00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:35,400
Speaker 1: Who I When I'm telling you, you know, gun to

964
00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:39,320
Speaker 1: my head, send me to Tokyo. Y you know, send

965
00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:42,919
Speaker 1: me to Tokyo. And then once I say that, I'm like, jeez,

966
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:47,480
Speaker 1: but what about and oh gosh, you know the answer.

967
00:57:48,680 --> 00:57:51,600
Speaker 1: You know, there's food is so good all over the world.

968
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:54,360
Speaker 1: My usual stock answer that is wherever I've just come

969
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:57,840
Speaker 1: back from. And I just came back from Sicily, where

970
00:57:58,120 --> 00:58:04,680
Speaker 1: I was reminded about how perfect microregional Italian cuisine is,

971
00:58:04,720 --> 00:58:07,520
Speaker 1: to the point where I was in an olive vineyard

972
00:58:07,840 --> 00:58:10,760
Speaker 1: and I had a bowl of chickpea soup with five

973
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:13,880
Speaker 1: ingredients in it. One of the ingredients was brand new

974
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:17,840
Speaker 1: oil just been crushed, bitter and green and drizzled all

975
00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 1: on top of it. I literally said, this is the

976
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:22,640
Speaker 1: best I turned someone next to me, I said, this

977
00:58:22,680 --> 00:58:24,720
Speaker 1: is the best thing I've eaten in the last five years.

978
00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:27,680
Speaker 1: And I hunt it. And then I was talking about

979
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 1: this chickpea soup at a at a vineyard like ten

980
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:36,760
Speaker 1: kilometers away and they're like, oh, there's chickpea soup around here.

981
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:41,240
Speaker 1: I mean like literally, it was like we made fava

982
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:46,400
Speaker 1: bean soup, we would chickpeas. What are you crazy? And

983
00:58:47,240 --> 00:58:50,040
Speaker 1: I just I mean that's how micro regional and unique

984
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 1: Italy is in a way that many just doesn't exist

985
00:58:53,720 --> 00:58:56,840
Speaker 1: almost any other place in the world where it's microregional,

986
00:58:56,960 --> 00:59:03,200
Speaker 1: micro seasonal, and micro simple. It just it's unique that way,

987
00:59:03,200 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 1: and it's why we love it. That and tomatoes have

988
00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:06,760
Speaker 1: all those glutamates.

989
00:59:07,080 --> 00:59:12,000
Speaker 2: Yes, right, Okay, Yeah, what's the best movie about food?

990
00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:16,640
Speaker 1: Someone posted that question on Twitter the other day, sorry,

991
00:59:16,680 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 1: on x the other day, and I had to scroll

992
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:24,160
Speaker 1: through about one thousand really bad answers to find someone

993
00:59:24,200 --> 00:59:27,000
Speaker 1: who mentioned what I believe are the truly great food

994
00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:33,760
Speaker 1: movies of this or any other age, in no particular order.

995
00:59:33,800 --> 00:59:37,479
Speaker 1: Big Night is in my top five. Yeah, but The Cook,

996
00:59:37,560 --> 00:59:41,439
Speaker 1: the Thief, her wife, and his lover is number two

997
00:59:41,600 --> 00:59:46,760
Speaker 1: for me. Babbett's Feast is number one. Okay, Babbet's Feast

998
00:59:46,480 --> 00:59:50,720
Speaker 1: is one of the most brilliant food movies ever made.

999
00:59:50,880 --> 00:59:54,960
Speaker 1: Because I am increasingly convinced that most people in the

1000
00:59:55,000 --> 00:59:59,680
Speaker 1: food industry are not talking about what defines Babbett's feast,

1001
00:59:59,680 --> 01:00:01,960
Speaker 1: and that that is I'll put my chef hat on,

1002
01:00:02,560 --> 01:00:06,240
Speaker 1: I toil for two days over a dish, I put

1003
01:00:06,240 --> 01:00:08,960
Speaker 1: it in a bowl, I put it down in front

1004
01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:13,960
Speaker 1: of you. I am done with my relationship with that dish.

1005
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:18,480
Speaker 1: That is it. My experience is over. Your experience starts,

1006
01:00:18,520 --> 01:00:21,880
Speaker 1: and they are too, can can be diametrically opposed, they

1007
01:00:21,880 --> 01:00:25,120
Speaker 1: can have overlap, but it is a completely different experience.

1008
01:00:25,560 --> 01:00:28,720
Speaker 1: I don't think we talk about that enough. We fetishize,

1009
01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:33,920
Speaker 1: We fetishize the world of the chef. We fetishize just

1010
01:00:33,960 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 1: look at Instagram and TikTok and all the rest of

1011
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:39,360
Speaker 1: the world of the eater, right, and we're not understanding

1012
01:00:39,400 --> 01:00:42,760
Speaker 1: that they are two very different experiences. They are not

1013
01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:46,280
Speaker 1: the same experience shared by two different types of people.

1014
01:00:46,600 --> 01:00:50,960
Speaker 1: They are different experiences. And that that's feast. That is

1015
01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:54,280
Speaker 1: the integral part of that idea. She serves this incredible

1016
01:00:54,360 --> 01:00:56,880
Speaker 1: multi course meal to people who've never seen this type

1017
01:00:56,880 --> 01:01:02,520
Speaker 1: of food before. Eat Drink Man Woman, Uh, Tampopo, Big

1018
01:01:02,640 --> 01:01:06,240
Speaker 1: Night are all right up there.

1019
01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:09,560
Speaker 3: For me, those are great. I love Big Night. It's

1020
01:01:09,600 --> 01:01:10,840
Speaker 3: one of my all time favorite.

1021
01:01:10,520 --> 01:01:13,960
Speaker 1: Movies as as as do I as do I.

1022
01:01:14,240 --> 01:01:18,240
Speaker 2: Okay, the last question is very very important to me culturally,

1023
01:01:18,480 --> 01:01:21,120
Speaker 2: spiritually spicy Mark.

1024
01:01:21,720 --> 01:01:24,400
Speaker 1: Hmm oh, I thought the answer was going to be

1025
01:01:24,400 --> 01:01:27,440
Speaker 1: spicy Mark close though. Okay.

1026
01:01:27,640 --> 01:01:30,080
Speaker 3: When is iced coffee season.

1027
01:01:32,360 --> 01:01:36,960
Speaker 1: Well, I drink an inordinate amount of coffee and I

1028
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:40,520
Speaker 1: do pour over coffee, so it's like consummate. It's very

1029
01:01:40,600 --> 01:01:43,280
Speaker 1: low acid. So if the pot doesn't get consumed, it

1030
01:01:43,280 --> 01:01:47,360
Speaker 1: goes into the refrigerator. And when I get a quart

1031
01:01:47,760 --> 01:01:50,919
Speaker 1: of it, yes, I turn it into granita. I turn

1032
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:53,760
Speaker 1: it into something I will cook with it, or I

1033
01:01:53,800 --> 01:01:58,400
Speaker 1: will just that's a Sunday morning milk ice and just

1034
01:01:58,720 --> 01:02:00,600
Speaker 1: sip it all more long.

1035
01:02:00,720 --> 01:02:01,040
Speaker 3: Okay.

1036
01:02:01,720 --> 01:02:04,160
Speaker 1: I love ice coffee twelve months a year, and that

1037
01:02:04,200 --> 01:02:07,000
Speaker 1: includes January Minnesota when it's thirty below zero.

1038
01:02:07,160 --> 01:02:09,360
Speaker 3: That is the correct answer. The correct answers. Your route,

1039
01:02:10,080 --> 01:02:13,440
Speaker 3: your route, You answered correctly. I knew you would. I

1040
01:02:13,520 --> 01:02:17,240
Speaker 3: knew you would. Thank you, my friend. This was wonderful.

1041
01:02:17,680 --> 01:02:19,720
Speaker 1: Thank you, my friend.

1042
01:02:21,960 --> 01:02:24,240
Speaker 2: Coming up next week on Off the Cup, I sit

1043
01:02:24,320 --> 01:02:26,120
Speaker 2: down and talk to doctor Drew Pinsky.

1044
01:02:26,720 --> 01:02:29,480
Speaker 3: By the way, there's no blueprint for anything I've done.

1045
01:02:29,560 --> 01:02:31,720
Speaker 1: I did not expect to be doing any of this,

1046
01:02:32,160 --> 01:02:33,520
Speaker 1: It happened by an accident.

1047
01:02:36,800 --> 01:02:39,240
Speaker 2: Off the Cuff is a production of iHeart Podcasts as

1048
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:40,720
Speaker 2: part of the Reason Choice Network.

1049
01:02:41,000 --> 01:02:43,160
Speaker 3: If you want more, check out the other Reason.

1050
01:02:42,960 --> 01:02:47,080
Speaker 2: Choice podcasts, Politics with Jamel Hill and Native Land Pod.

1051
01:02:47,520 --> 01:02:49,600
Speaker 2: For Off the Cop, I am your host, Si Cup.

1052
01:02:49,840 --> 01:02:53,280
Speaker 2: Editing and sound design by Derek Clements. Our executive producers

1053
01:02:53,320 --> 01:02:57,240
Speaker 2: are me Se Cop, Lauren Hanson, and Lindsay Hoffman. Rate

1054
01:02:57,280 --> 01:03:00,840
Speaker 2: and review wherever you get your podcasts, follow or subscribe

1055
01:03:01,080 --> 01:03:02,840
Speaker 2: for new episodes every Wednesday.