WEBVTT - Legacies of Vietnam 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:07.920 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Today. 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:11.600 I talked with two colleagues, Brian Dellett and Dick Hughes, 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.120 men I've known for a long time. Both are actors 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:19.119 whose lives have also been touched by our country's war 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:24.200 in Vietnam. Dell Itt, my first guest, served in Vietnam 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:28.400 after high school. Hughes traveled to Vietnam as a conscientious 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:32.200 objector in his early twenties. The impact of the war 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:36.680 has stayed with both of them. Brian Delitt spent on 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:41.160 stage in movies and on TV. He's also a playwright. 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:45.400 His play Memorial Day tells the story of a Vietnam 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:49.919 veteran on the verge of suicide over a Memorial Day holiday. 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.800 He developed the play in collaboration with the Actor's Studio, 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:58.040 with support from actors like Harvey Kitel and Ellen Burston. 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:02.320 Memorial Day was ten years in the making dell It 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.600 started to play after he was living in New York 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.480 trying to become an actor, and one of the planes 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.720 flew over him that September morning. That's when all this 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.640 Vietnam stuff got triggered, uh In in a major way. 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:20.000 And I started to take pieces of it into the 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:27.080 actor's studio and are icons there Uh Norman Mailer Harvey 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.479 Allen said, you got to keep bringing more of this in. 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.440 And this was the beginning of what would become the 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:37.120 play Memorial Day. And Ellen was instrumental in helping me 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.200 shape it in terms of having a beginning, medal, and end, 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:44.800 and also not having to totally rely on the exact 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.600 details of my story, so that I started combining situations 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:51.480 that served the greater truth of what I was trying 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.880 to say. When you wrote this, and in the time 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.480 you've worked on this, I'm wondering did it bring about 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:03.360 interaction with other generations of soldiers? Yeah, there were some 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.720 older veterans, but there was the younger ones that started 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:10.360 coming around. There was a I guess like a halfway 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.639 house around the corner from the actor's studio where men 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:16.320 and women coming out of the service could transition into 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:18.400 civilian life for like the next six months if they 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:19.919 wanted to. It was I think it was on forty 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:24.040 three Street, and this UH guy came and he had 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.920 done a couple of tours in Afghanistan and I didn't 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.280 really know him, but we set a little a couple 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.240 of times and he said, if you do this again, 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:34.080 would you tell me let me know how? How can 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:35.720 I find out? And they said, well, you know, the 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.880 studio will mention it. And I think it was like 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.200 six months later. We did like two or three weekends 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.520 at this little theater called the Drilling Company up on 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.960 the Upper West Side, and he let me know that 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:50.920 he was bringing one of his buddies from Afghanistan that 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:52.919 he had been with and that they were going to 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:54.600 come and see it like the next night. I said, 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.840 we'll say hello afterwards. So they did. They came, and 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.480 because the play really addresses the whole notion of suicide 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:07.080 and the prevention of suicide ultimately is the goal of 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:10.000 the play, so he um, he comes with his friend 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.520 and I guess it was the next day he uh 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.840 contacts me and he says, you met my friend. You 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.480 met last night? I said yeah. He said we were 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:22.520 maybe two blocks away from the theater and he stopped 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.240 and said, I've been planning to kill myself the last 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.040 couple of months. I don't know what to do. At 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:31.360 that time, I was thinking of stopping doing this because 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.080 it was costing me money. It was no financial reward. 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:36.320 So that meaning when that guy said that to you, 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.040 that put the wind back in your sales for the project. Yeah, 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:40.840 I just thought there's a purpose for this. You know, 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:42.680 if one if I can keep one guy from eating 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.720 a bullet, you know, I want to go back and 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:47.840 I want to just do a little quick timeline. So 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.880 you grew up Brown in Jersey, raised in Pennsylvania. Your 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:58.480 dad sold bar related materials, mixers, alcohol or whatever, cordials. 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.720 I love that. Yeah, he was what they called a missionary. 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:06.240 He was also a liquor salesman. But he when he 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.440 was at the height of his career, he would go 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:12.560 around and he would present slide shows to the wholesalers 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.880 in New Jersey and basically say, look, we use only 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.160 purified water and we do this, and they have my 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.000 sister and I have to sit through these slide shows 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.640 where they show these guys, here's that much formooth. You 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:27.520 wanted that Martin us an eye dropper. And then you 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.440 got drafted or you enlisted. Oh I got drafted. Was 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.400 your dad in the military. He was a World War 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:36.440 Two guy. He flew twenty four liberators and uh he 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:41.400 was actually interestingly enough, he was not like you should 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.000 do this. Like my mom said, are you going to 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.039 go to Canada? And I said, no, I'm not gonna 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.240 go to Canada. And my father he was interesting. He 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:51.200 just said, I don't know if this wants for us? 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.560 And where where're you going to train? Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:58.159 And it was tough because that was the home of 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:00.320 the eighty second Airborne and a lot of those drill 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:05.600 sergeants had already been to Vietnam. They were uh in 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.120 some instances there were rangers and they just didn't take 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:13.960 any ship um and uh um. I don't know. I 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.400 was surprised because I went in kind of less a 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:18.920 fair like let's get this over with. And then when 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.279 you have someone in your face like that and knows 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.720 how to scare you in the best way, and so 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:26.320 that was it was it really, it was a really 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.760 powerful um preparation. And also I didn't expect to thrive 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.000 in the military. I didn't know. I didn't know it's 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.600 gonna be a good shot um. And I wouldn't even 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:38.719 figure this out till a couple of years ago that 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.680 the eye hand thing came from archery when I was 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.720 like eleven, twelve, thirteen years old, because I've never had 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.320 to handle the weapon. I haven't had a weapon since 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:51.880 the Army, So it's like, um, it was really weird 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.240 to to to suddenly go, wow, you can. You're an 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.960 expert shot with an M fourteen and X six thing. 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.440 So finally you go and you get over there, and 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.920 I mean, you're an actress, so I'm assuming there's gonna 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:08.200 be an interesting description here. What does it feel like? 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.680 What does it feel like? Okay, I'll get to that 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.200 in one second. I didn't I didn't see my first 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.320 professional play until after I came back from Vietnam, so 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:20.000 like like I had no and I mean I have 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.200 to say, I think you're you're picking up on something, 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.640 which was I guess I was recording this, you know, 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.279 just and I mean I had the thing. I think 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.880 Stone really captures it in a platoon when you get 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:35.000 off the plane and you get hit with the heat 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.200 and you don't know where you are and the smell 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.039 and everything like that, it's just like you feel like 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:44.479 you've arrived at another planet. And so uh, in my case, 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:49.200 I landed in Cameron Bay and then um, I was 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.240 sent up to this area. But the place that was 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.560 called True Lie that very the very first night. Um, 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.760 that gave us some bad chow and it was hot. 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:04.160 This was early March of six and they gave us 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:08.200 warm beers and we sat down in these benches and 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.679 they had this giant white plywood screen and we watched 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.600 the movie called The Devil's Brigade, a World War two movie. 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:21.120 And then um, I was right after the movie, about 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.400 twenty minutes after the movie, and I had just talked 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:29.480 to this guy from Philadelphia. We were talking about Acapella. Anyway, 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:32.600 after the movie, all of a sudden, the rockets came in. 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.680 We were getting rocketed, and I didn't know what the 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.720 hell was happening, and and they didn't tell us. They 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:41.120 didn't tell us where the bunkers were. You could see them, 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:44.320 but I wasn't paying attention, you know, I'd expect to 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:48.600 get hit that night. But the rockets poured in and um, 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:50.920 there was all the screaming and they black out everything. 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.280 They turned the lights out right away, and it's like 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.440 I hit the dirt. I'm in the sand and I 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.680 can't see anything. And it was in that moment that 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:05.240 I felt this and drogyn this something next to me. 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.920 Maybe just give me a kiss on the cheek, you know, 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.800 and it was really I felt it was like this 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:17.680 beautiful form of death. And I remember thinking, no, no, 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:19.640 I'm not going to do that with you, you know, 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:24.720 and by Jessica Lang and all that jet exactly, Yeah, totally, 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.520 And so that I pushed that away. And it was 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:32.120 at that moment I made this vow that somehow, some way, 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.800 I was going to get home. For people, like, when 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.360 you're in Fort Bragg and you're getting ready to deploy 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:41.120 and go over to Southeast Asia, do you basically are 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:45.160 you basically told in any terms, whether they're vague or 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.720 specific terms, and they basically are they telling you you're 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:50.080 going to the ship man, like you're not going to 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:53.800 work in some telegraph office, you're not gonna edit movies, 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.160 You're going to get a gun and you're going to 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.160 the thick of it. Did they tell you that when 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:00.600 you're on your way and they will tell you where 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.880 you're going? Well one plus, you don't know. If it's 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.800 hard to describe the where is July in the topography 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:10.920 and the geography of Vietnam, it's Um. If you go 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.600 back to when it was half and half North and 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.280 South Um, there was the second largest city was Danang 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.480 and truly was about seventy miles seventy five miles south 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.960 of Denang along the coast of the South China Sea. 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:31.360 When you were there, what do you do? Like drugs, alcohol, sex, food, whatever? 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:35.360 What did you do to get through the experience of 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:40.720 two years of this? Wow? Um? Well, I lived for 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.800 the letters that would come from my girlfriend Carol and 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:48.760 from my mom. My dad never wrote to me the 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:51.600 whole time, and I didn't even notice it. Why do 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.560 you think The rationalization, which I would find out in 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:58.480 psychoanalysis years later, was oh, he's not a letter writer. 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.000 It's like you mean you? I think this is me 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:03.880 getting nailed by the shrink. Did he need to disengage 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:05.800 because he thought maybe you weren't going to come back. 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:08.800 I don't know. I mean I I find when you 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.560 came back. What did he say? Well? I I never 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:13.560 brought it up because I just accepted it, because it 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:15.360 was like if people said, did your dad right you, 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.079 I'd say no, my mom wrote for both of them. 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.840 I had totally rationalized. But I lived for the letters. 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:25.120 I lived for the letters. Um. The letters from Carol 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.960 and the letters from my mom were like life sustaining. 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.840 They were tethers. And as far as the day to day, 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:34.640 it's truly one day at a time. Living. You're looking 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.160 at the calendar all the time. You're seeing guys who 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:39.040 are going to leave in thirty days. So you see 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:41.600 guys that are leaving, and you just do you feel 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:43.679 that thing in your chest. It's like, God, when's that? 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.480 When's that day going to come? There were two times 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:50.120 I cried in Vietnam. Um. Once when I was in 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.160 the hospital I had skin problems that were really bad. 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.040 The other time was when I left the day I 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:58.960 had to leave my company to come home. I was 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.280 walking to go to the jeep with my duffel bag 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:03.920 and a couple of the guys I was tight with 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.560 crew following me, and I started shaking. I didn't know 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:09.520 what was going on. I thought, what's the I've been 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.959 living for this day? And um, I'm like, I'm coming apart, 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.120 you know, And I uh, And of course they're laughing. 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.720 They're like, a man, you're going home. You know what's 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:26.680 your version of why one was? I made it? I'm 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:30.439 going home. Um. I have my opinions, but that's one 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:34.120 of the that's one of the most profoundly human emotions 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:38.000 you can feel is to finally be escaping the clutches 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.680 of a situation that you prayed would be over, and 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:45.280 it's finally over, and you just collapse. Why do you 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:47.560 think you collapse when it was over? You know, I 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:49.079 have to. I wanted to fit this in and I 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.000 hope it's not a non sequitur. But it's as opportunities 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:58.400 arrived to appreciate life's beauty, mysteries, truths, and heartbreak, to 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.880 understand life on a higher plane. That's from your memoir. 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.440 That's so anyway. I don't mean to throw that idea 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.320 like this, but I felt it yesterday thinking about it, 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:14.959 which was this is going be a conversation about transformation. 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.199 We'll talk about it. We have so much to cover 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.840 therapy forget about suicidal and the deepest painful thoughts. But 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:25.960 how soon do you want to go to therapy after 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.400 you get back? How soon? Oh? I got sent to 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:31.960 a shrink at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. I had to 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.200 do my last few months at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:36.480 So I was basically going back and forth from home. 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.600 But it was it was a disaster because I didn't 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:41.880 trust the guy, I mean, the key, the key things 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:46.080 with most veterans, and especially coming out of these situations 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.359 is trust. You know, who did you trust him? Why? 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:52.760 I just didn't trust him. I didn't think I wasn't 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.880 gonna talk to him at all. And I trusted the bars. 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.800 I was into the bars and drinking, and because I 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:01.960 didn't drink that much in Vietnam, I had a lot 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:06.680 of responsibility. So I took it pretty seriously. And uh um, 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.040 I mean I'd smoked grass once in a while and 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.320 stuff like that, but it was it was really about 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:14.720 the work, and also I want to be as responsible 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.520 as I possibly could. When I got home, I thought 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:19.560 I would sleep for the next two weeks. When I 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.800 got home, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep for more 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.200 than two hours a night, and every night I was 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.720 out drinking, and I had a load of cash. And 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:30.240 I got into trouble a couple of weeks after I 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:33.480 was back because I wasn't twenty one yet and in Pennsylvania, 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:35.640 you know, and I was getting away with it because 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.040 in those days, you had a military idea where you 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.080 had your picture on it, so and I was a 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.800 big kid, so they didn't even look at it. But 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.839 then I you know, I got into this scrap with 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.120 this owner of this bar, and uh, I got in 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.600 trouble and it was it was long. Not long after that, 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:55.319 there was a situation where, um, I was in New 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.800 Jersey and it was a very violent incident that took place, 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.360 um like right next to me. And it was the 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:06.240 day after that thereabouts, I just decided I had to 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.880 do something with my life because I was wrecking cards. 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.200 I was just I was feeling like it was me 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.840 against the world and uh and I just didn't trust 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.120 anything or anybody. And I was it with you. I 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.640 was with your girlfriend and your parents who were primary 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:23.400 to you while you were overseas. What was it like 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:26.880 when you we engaged with them? Um, I scared them. 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:31.280 Um My girlfriend, uh, Carol just kind of she wanted 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:33.880 to keep like this distance, you know, and it was 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.680 um and of course that made me crazy. And we've 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:43.120 had this incredible um relationship, really romantic and all that 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.680 stuff before I went over there. And when I got back, 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.600 you know, a year can change a lot of life 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:53.240 in a ninety twenty year old and uh so, um 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:55.800 so we had trouble, you know, finding our way back 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.880 to each other to the end eventually it was off. 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.440 I became a volcanic thing for the next few years. 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:09.280 I mean, um my, my dad was really worried. My mom. 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.960 They were worried continually, like what's he doing now? You know. 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.440 There would be like they'd see me open up the 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:17.760 trunk of the car and they'd be like, you know, 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.000 a bunch of coats from the army and stuff like that. 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.440 They didn't know what was going on. So what what 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.960 were the coats? They were, you know, like fatigue jackets 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.480 or they were those kind of dress army coats. And 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:33.480 what were you doing with them? I had I was 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.080 giving them away half the time. I didn't care, you know, 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:37.800 it was just I was And if somebody wanted to 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.080 buy one, I'd sell for five bucks or something. When 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:45.760 does the acting playwriting? When did the arts take hold? 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:48.560 My second year of college, where did you go? Again? 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.720 You said, Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania. What did 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.240 you study? I started just generally, and because I was 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.160 terrified of college because I had had bad reading learning 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:02.160 problems all through school, and so some confidence came from 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.080 the Army in terms of work ethic and stuff like that. 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.640 But I took a reading course to learn how to 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.840 really read. I had site things that I was doing 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:12.560 that we've never been corrected from the time I was 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.080 a kid. I got this guy. He saved me. He 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.360 just he set me up for college. It was the 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.480 first year I got my confidence because I got this 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.120 reading problem taking care of. And then in my second year, 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:25.640 I was thinking pretty mad because I had this confidence 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.880 I didn't have before. But I took this acting class 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.600 because I couldn't get the math teacher I wanted. He said, 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:34.960 get me next semester. So I, Uh. I took this 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:37.920 acting class, and two weeks into it, the guy said, 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.000 can you stay for a minute. So yeah, he said, 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:46.040 you should drop out? Why I love me drop bad? 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.440 He said, you're not You're not getting up, you're not working. 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.880 You can't just watch. So he gives me a monologue 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:56.040 from your good man Charlie Brown, and it's when Snoogy 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.040 goes up to fight the Red Barren. He should come 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.480 back with this next week. Don't come back. And so 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:02.360 I did. And I came back, and I was scared 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.120 the ship out of me. But I had a great time, 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:06.640 and I felt like, you know, I wanted to work 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.680 further into this fire. Then I got into this play 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:12.720 and then I started taking classes and when I transferred 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.120 the writer they had a really great little field apartment 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:17.520 there and they were right down the street from the Carter, 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.240 which is where I would do this internship. The following year, 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.720 my senior year. Um, it was in this melodrama called 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:29.960 Deadwood Dick and who wrote that idea? Because from like 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:33.560 the nineteen twenties or something. I played the sheriff and 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:35.640 it was bigger than life and I popped my arms. 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:39.119 Where did you do that? Where? At Fox County Community College? 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:42.119 I was terrified, but there was something there for me. 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:44.280 I knew there was something there for me. I had 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.919 no idea what was there for you? What? There was 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.760 a sense of purpose and there was a sense of 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.520 kind of just an approval. It's like you could get 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:58.520 this putty in yeah exactly. Yeah. And also the thing 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.600 too that that you get from the military and I'm 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:03.719 just thinking of this now, but from the military and 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:07.560 theater film people is you have a community. You know, 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:12.359 it's a very specific community and it has its own language. 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.920 You're part you're you're part of a society. You get 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:20.680 into a society where there are rules and beliefs. I 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:22.800 don't want to say it's a religion, but it's rules 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:26.000 and beliefs and language and codes and references that are 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.639 just unique. But you're in a world where you know 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.200 the passion runs pretty deep. You walk out a writer 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.919 with a degree in theater. Yes, And where do you go? 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.680 New York? I moved to New York and I don't 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:41.120 know anybody. Where do you live? Well, my first apartment 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:43.960 was on the Upper west Side. It was between Giverside 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.520 and West End, and when it was a dodge city days, 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.879 I called it the wild Wild West. Oh yeah, wild 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:53.280 West May. So you're there on the Upper west Side, 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:57.200 And do you tell yourself, I'm going after this professional thing? 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:59.880 Where you were because you sound unsure about a lot 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.800 of things in your alive Yeah, did you have the 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.119 confidence to turn pro? Now? I worked in restaurants. I 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:10.359 worked in restaurants for for almost four years, and I 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:14.040 started having nightmares about the war and it was like freaky. 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:15.560 It was like it was like if you touched the 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.440 stove and it was hot, and six months later you 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:20.680 feel your hand burn. It was like that kind of 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.280 like I didn't know what to do with it. A 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.840 pure PTSD exactly, but it was, but they didn't have 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:28.879 the name for it yet. So I did go to 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:30.960 the v A and when I got to the front 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:34.320 entrance when it was located on twenty three Street, I 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.440 threw up and I thought, I'm not supposed to be here. 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:40.840 That's what that means. Ended up working with this guy, 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:45.560 Larry Stern. He was a psychoanalyst and he really angel 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:47.680 the box among us. He was the one who really 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:50.440 get out of the hole that I was thinking and 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:52.679 at the time, as it was drinking too much and 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:55.240 it was just a it was at sober every here. 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.000 Uh see, I stopped on my own and eighty five 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:08.080 got into a recovery program, and the recovery program and so, um, 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:13.479 you're in the city, and uh, when you're riverside the 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:17.840 wild wild West, And when does the actor's studio become 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.119 an avenue for you? Oh? Not until Um I was 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:23.320 really putting my nose in the grindstone when I met you. 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.680 Did a little bit that little little student thing. When 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.600 I got my first job on a soap opera in 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:32.280 New York, they would put you in the show very sparingly. 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:33.960 They wanted to kind of build you into the show 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:35.800 so you didn't have much to do, so I worked 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:37.680 maybe a day. I mean if I worked two days 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.160 a week, it was it was epic and they paid 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:42.439 you per show. And I went and did a play 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.760 Summer Tree, a young guy whose family were pretty well 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.800 to do. They would produce him in these plays, and 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.400 I played, you know, the event, like the kid would 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:57.000 go into war and I would play the soldier I 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.080 would play. I played all the other ancillary characters in 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:01.120 these little bursts. So I do the play, and then 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:04.760 I would go to the student Film Bulletin Board at 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.879 n y U and they have casting cards put up 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.439 on the index cards wanted and I would read them. 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:13.359 And I ended up in a bar in Brooklyn with 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:16.560 you because while I was doing the soap right and 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:18.800 we shot that agend and the bar was closed. And 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.479 that's crazy fucking movie about who You were an alien? 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:24.880 Or I was an alien? Who was the alien? Oh? No, 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:27.119 I mean I I just played it. I just played 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.359 a pretty weird guy with a spider on my cheek 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:32.400 or something. I think you were the alien. I think 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:35.560 the bar Matter of Space and were Bartender was some 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.640