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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Sydney Bullet. Sid tell me about

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Speaker 1: seeing the Stones in nineteen sixty six.

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Speaker 2: Oh, he starts right in, all right, Yeah, I was young.

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Speaker 2: I was about fifteen, and my brother dropped me off.

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Speaker 2: He was supposed to go with me, of course, and

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Speaker 2: my older brother and said, nah, you go, and I'm

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Speaker 2: going to go see my friends. And I, like all

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Speaker 2: other teenagers back in the day in the mid sixties,

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Speaker 2: was totally enchanted by the Stones. I was taken over

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Speaker 2: by their music, their energy, their grit, you know, the

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Speaker 2: whole pack just to me, spoke to me, and I

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Speaker 2: really and and I had this thing where I I

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Speaker 2: like to call it the hips and lips. I had

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Speaker 2: the lips, and I had the the moves, and I

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Speaker 2: just wanted to be Mick Jagger. And so when I

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Speaker 2: they were coming to Lynn, Massachusetts, which was on their

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Speaker 2: first ever tour of the US. I think I may

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Speaker 2: be wrong about that, but I think it was. And

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Speaker 2: H and I went and I wandered around in the crowd.

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Speaker 2: It was all kids. There were very few adults. It

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Speaker 2: was on this muddy field outside and Lynn Massachusetts, and uh,

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Speaker 2: the story which I described in the book in my memoir,

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Speaker 2: I did work my way up front, and a kind

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Speaker 2: police officer let me into that forbidden zone between the

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Speaker 2: wooden horses, remember those bob the wood absolutely back then

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Speaker 2: that that provided whatever security was going to be, like

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Speaker 2: they were going to hold anything back, and the stage

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Speaker 2: between the sawhorses and the stage. So I was right there,

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Speaker 2: feet away from Mick Jagger watching him. And as the

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Speaker 2: story goes, there was a terrific thunderstorm and it started

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Speaker 2: raining really hard, and for some reason in my in

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Speaker 2: my imagination or in my view, the electricity just you know,

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Speaker 2: infused the crowd, and the crowd and the stones were

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Speaker 2: infusing the crowd, and suddenly there was this burst of

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Speaker 2: eight thousand kids toward the stage, toward me, and uh,

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Speaker 2: I got caught up in it, and the stones ran

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Speaker 2: off the stage. Uh. You know, the limos were parked

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Speaker 2: right to the side of the stage. Back in those days.

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Speaker 2: We didn't have all the security, as I said, And

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Speaker 2: I got swept up into the crowd and there was

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Speaker 2: tear gas and it was pouring rain with lightning, and

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Speaker 2: it was a movie scene. And I got pushed up

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Speaker 2: into the limbo right there with Mick Jagger's face looking

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Speaker 2: at me. It was just wild. It was great. I

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Speaker 2: loved it. That was to me. It was all I

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Speaker 2: needed to know that this was what I wanted to do.

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Speaker 2: It was rock and roll. It was the mud, it

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Speaker 2: was the grit, it was the music, It was the fans,

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Speaker 2: it was the the electricity of it. Loved it.

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Speaker 1: So did you grow up? Was there music in the house?

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Speaker 1: Did you play an instrument?

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Speaker 2: I did. I started playing guitar when I was about ten.

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Speaker 2: My brother already, who's five years older, already he was

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Speaker 2: playing guitar. By that time. He was doing you know,

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Speaker 2: folk music and stuff, which I wasn't really into, but

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Speaker 2: of course I did. My first song I learned was

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Speaker 2: a Bob Dylan song like the Times They Are Changing?

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Speaker 2: Or where have all the Flowers Gone? Or something like that.

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Speaker 2: But and my parents were not musicians, but they loved jazz.

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Speaker 2: So we had everything from Benny Goodman to Miles Davis

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Speaker 2: to Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson. They loved jazz for which

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Speaker 2: I'm really grateful because even though I don't play jazz,

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Speaker 2: it was a wonderful education on you know music. And

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Speaker 2: they weren't classical people they didn't like I mean, my

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Speaker 2: parents were middle class from Boston, you know, they didn't

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Speaker 2: listen to classical music. However, I will put this caveat on.

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Speaker 2: My mother made all five kids sit down and watch

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Speaker 2: Leonard Bernstein.

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Speaker 1: Of course, so.

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Speaker 2: Every whatever it was, Saturday morning, Sunday morning, whenever it

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Speaker 2: was on, I don't remember, but she used to make

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Speaker 2: us sit down and watch it. So that was like

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Speaker 2: her concession to Okay, I'm going to broaden my kid's,

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Speaker 2: you know, views on music. So there was music in

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Speaker 2: the house all the time. And every time my parents

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Speaker 2: had a party, somebody one of their friends played piano,

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Speaker 2: and there was always there was always music in the house.

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Speaker 2: So even though they didn't play.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I'm your contemporary just a few years older than

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Speaker 1: I am, and Elvis was before my time. I remember

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Speaker 1: the Four Seasons and the Beach Boys, but the Beatles

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Speaker 1: hit in January sixty four. The Way's Party. It was

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Speaker 1: never the same, was that your experience?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely? Absolutely, The Beatles came on before the Stones. They

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Speaker 2: kind of people think about it at the same time.

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Speaker 2: But the Beatles, it really they really did, as they say,

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Speaker 2: sweep the nation you know, I mean they came. Everybody's

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Speaker 2: who's into you know, the music of the sixties has

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Speaker 2: seen the pictures of them coming down the from the

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Speaker 2: plane and in at Kennedy Airport where whatever it was

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Speaker 2: at the time in New York, waving to you know,

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Speaker 2: throngs of fans and all the girls crying and everything.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, they were a phenomenon and they did change

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Speaker 2: forever and ever the landscape of music and pop music

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Speaker 2: and maybe other music. And yeah, I was swept up

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Speaker 2: into it as much as anybody else. I wasn't one

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Speaker 2: of those girls screaming and crying and doing all that,

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Speaker 2: and you know that gets into the other part of

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Speaker 2: my story. But I loved the music and what I

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Speaker 2: loved about the Beatles. So there's two things, the Stones

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Speaker 2: and the Beatles. What I loved about the Stones, I said,

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Speaker 2: you know, the grit, the rock, the beat the influence

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Speaker 2: of the blues and so on, R and B. What

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Speaker 2: I loved about the Beatles was the melody and the harmonies.

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Speaker 2: Because I was born, I believe with a sense of harmony.

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Speaker 2: You know, I love to harmonize. Even when I was

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Speaker 2: a little kid, somebody would be singing on the radio

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Speaker 2: or whatever, or in our house, and I would start harmonizing,

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Speaker 2: and my sisters and brother and I we would sing

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Speaker 2: and I would be the harmony, and and so it

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Speaker 2: to me. They were the melody, they were the music,

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Speaker 2: and the Stones were the beat the grit. And I

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Speaker 2: loved them. I loved them both for those different reasons.

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Speaker 1: You were infected by the sound. At what point did

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Speaker 1: the switch flip and you said, I want to do this.

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Speaker 2: The switch flip before the Beatles and the Stones. And

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Speaker 2: it was when I heard when I was, you know,

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Speaker 2: in single digit numbers of age, when I heard Little Richard.

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Speaker 2: When I heard because I had an older brother and

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Speaker 2: a sister who was eight years older, and they listened.

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Speaker 2: They were into the music of the day of the fifties.

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Speaker 2: And when I heard Little Richard's two Dy Fruity, and

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Speaker 2: I was about four or five six, I said, that's

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Speaker 2: what I want to do. And it just I just

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Speaker 2: got You used the word swept before I got swept

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Speaker 2: into that rhythm, into that and I keep using the

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Speaker 2: word grit because that's what I felt. It was this energy,

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Speaker 2: of this kinetic energy, which of course became you know,

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Speaker 2: the anathematic people who didn't want who thought rock and

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Speaker 2: roll was the devil's music. Well that's what back in

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Speaker 2: the day, right, That's what infused me. So I had

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Speaker 2: already decided on some level that I was going to

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Speaker 2: be in music. I mean I used to imitate I

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Speaker 2: was six years old, imitating Elvis Presley and for my

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Speaker 2: parents at their parties, you know, and lip syncing. And

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Speaker 2: you know, I started playing piano. I'm not a piano

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Speaker 2: great piano player. I'm a still in novice fifty sixty

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Speaker 2: years later, but I did start making up my own

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Speaker 2: songs and the piano I started, you know, air guitar

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Speaker 2: playing before I even started playing. And so I was

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Speaker 2: infused with the music at an early age. But the

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Speaker 2: Beatles and the Stones when I was a teenager or

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Speaker 2: what put me over the edge. And I mean I

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Speaker 2: started writing songs even when I was about twelve or thirteen,

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Speaker 2: but they were more of the folky kind of things

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Speaker 2: until the Beatles and the Stones came along. So they

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Speaker 2: are what put me on the track of real rock

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Speaker 2: and roll.

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Speaker 1: Okay, when you were in high school, did you sing

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Speaker 1: in bands?

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Speaker 2: I did, but yes I did. I tried to put

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Speaker 2: together my own bands and I did sing in some

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Speaker 2: other bands I was. I played my guitar a lot solo.

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Speaker 2: I used to go to this. If anybody's from Massachusetts,

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Speaker 2: who's north shore of Massachusetts, who's listening. There was a

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Speaker 2: club in Ipswich, Massachusetts, called the King's Rook, and everybody

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Speaker 2: came there. I mean all the old blues guys, you know,

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Speaker 2: John Lee Hooker, you know Sunny Terry and Brownie McGhee,

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Speaker 2: you know, all the people who played at like Club

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Speaker 2: forty seven in Boston would come up to the King's

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Speaker 2: Rook and play there as well. And I used to

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Speaker 2: go there and do the the hout Nanny night and

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Speaker 2: you know Monday nights. You know, I'd play my guitar

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Speaker 2: and I did that kind of thing. So, yeah, I

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Speaker 2: played in high school.

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Speaker 1: Okay, while you're in high school, you run away to

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Speaker 1: New York. Tell us that Steward.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd had it with my I was fifteen. It

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Speaker 2: was January of nineteen sixty six, and I had had

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Speaker 2: it with my home life, with school. My parents had

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Speaker 2: moved from one town and northern northeastern Massachusetts to another.

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Speaker 2: I was not happy. It was the middle of my

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Speaker 2: sophomore year. I was leaving my friends in my community

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Speaker 2: that I had grown up in in West Newbury, Massachusetts,

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Speaker 2: and I was not a happy camper. I had, you know,

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Speaker 2: I had started smoking weed, you know, and doing all

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Speaker 2: the things that we did back then in the mid sixties,

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Speaker 2: and my home life was chaotic at best, and I

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Speaker 2: just said, I'm out of here. And my thought at

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Speaker 2: fifteen years old, because I had this fantasy about Greenwich Village.

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Speaker 2: Greenwich Village was the place to be, you know, it

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Speaker 2: had all those folk clubs that were now they had

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Speaker 2: some other stuff going on with the music and with

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Speaker 2: rock and all that, and I just said, that's where

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Speaker 2: I'm going. So a friend who said I'll go with you,

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Speaker 2: who was a year older and had twenty dollars which

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Speaker 2: I didn't have, so and so I ran away. One night,

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Speaker 2: I told my mother I was going to the library

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Speaker 2: with Jane, my friend, and I walked up to her

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Speaker 2: house from my house and then we walked onto Route one,

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Speaker 2: which we both lived near, and caught walked down to

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Speaker 2: the gas station wherever the bus from where Greyhound came

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Speaker 2: from north to south, and took a bus into Boston

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Speaker 2: and then switched and took a bus and arrived in

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Speaker 2: New York City at about two thirty in the morning

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Speaker 2: into a port authority and there we were fifteen and

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Speaker 2: sixteen year old girls, even though nobody knew whether I

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Speaker 2: was a boy or a girl, because that's the way

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Speaker 2: I liked it. And you know, not knowing a thing,

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Speaker 2: never having been in New York, not knowing what to

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Speaker 2: do or where to go or anything. And a very

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Speaker 2: after a couple of attempts of guys trying to pick

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Speaker 2: us up, this very attractive, tall black man approached just

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Speaker 2: and said, do you need a place to go? And

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Speaker 2: I looked him in the eye and I knew that

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Speaker 2: he was safe. And he grabbed Jane's bag, which was

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Speaker 2: very heavy, and my I only had a backpack, and

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Speaker 2: he walked us side of the Port Authority down eighth

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Speaker 2: Avenue or whatever it was, and into a YMCA on

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Speaker 2: the thirty fourth Street YMCA, and that's where we stayed

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Speaker 2: for the first night. And then we found a hotel,

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Speaker 2: a flea bag I like to say, a flea bag

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Speaker 2: hotel in Washington Square and for two fifty a night,

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Speaker 2: two dollars and fifty cents a night, and you know,

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Speaker 2: it was a flea bag hotel, and now, of course

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Speaker 2: it's still there, it's just not a flea bag hotel anymore.

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Speaker 2: And we were there for a while, about a week

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Speaker 2: or so, and then I started getting hints that my

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Speaker 2: mother was looking for me. I had a friend who

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Speaker 2: was at Ris, not Rizstie, that was in Rhode Island,

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Speaker 2: Pratt in Brooklyn, Pratt Art School, the art school, an

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Speaker 2: older friend from high school, and my mother had contacted her.

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Speaker 2: This little bit is not in my book, but it is.

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Speaker 1: Just to stop for a minute. Yeah, Sid has a

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Speaker 1: book called trans Electric My Life is a Cosmic rock Star.

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Speaker 1: It's a fascinating quick read that will hook you and

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Speaker 1: two days you'll be done. You'll hear all of these

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Speaker 1: stories in many Moore, although I'm sure we'll cover some

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Speaker 1: stuff that's not in the book like this, So continue

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Speaker 1: your tale.

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Speaker 2: Yeah so, and thanks for the promotion. Yeah. So, I

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Speaker 2: had this friend who went to Pratt and my mother

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Speaker 2: had contacted her, and of course my mother had the

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Speaker 2: police with her. They had the FBI out looking, you know,

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Speaker 2: and they had a fifty state alert out for me,

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Speaker 2: and my friend was finally because she refused to tell

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Speaker 2: them at first, and finally, of course, you know, she

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Speaker 2: was just a freshman in college, and you know, they

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Speaker 2: coerced her into saying where I was. So a few

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Speaker 2: days later there was a big knock at our door,

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Speaker 2: our hotel door, and then they busted in. We hid.

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Speaker 2: It makes me laugh now, you know. One of us

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Speaker 2: went under the bed, one went in the closet. You know,

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Speaker 2: there was no place to hide. It's a hotel room.

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Speaker 2: Where are you going to hide, you know, And and

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Speaker 2: a small one at that. And they came in and

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Speaker 2: dragged us out. They told us, and know un certain

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Speaker 2: we had befriended. Let me back up a little bit.

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Speaker 2: We had befriended a couple of drug addicts who were

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Speaker 2: in the hotel, and they were nice guys older than us,

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Speaker 2: and they had entered one of the guy's rooms and

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Speaker 2: beaten the guy up. We didn't see him, We never

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Speaker 2: saw him, but they told us it was it was

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Speaker 2: a scene again, another movie scene, and dragged us down

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Speaker 2: the stairs. And there was my mother and my aunt,

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Speaker 2: her sister who lived in New Jersey, who was the

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Speaker 2: socialite that I talk about in the book. And I

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Speaker 2: was not happy. I did not want to go home,

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Speaker 2: in fact, because I knew that my mother was looking

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Speaker 2: for me, and the police were out looking for me.

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Speaker 2: I had decided that I was I don't even know

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Speaker 2: why I was. One of the guys who we were

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Speaker 2: talking to in the hotel had a friend in Philadelphia

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Speaker 2: or something. I don't quite remember, but we were going

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Speaker 2: to be on our way to Philadelphia the next day

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Speaker 2: because I knew my mother was in town, so I

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Speaker 2: had no intention of ever going home again. At fifteen,

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Speaker 2: I did not want to go home, and in that,

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Speaker 2: you know, I don't What I do talk about in

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Speaker 2: the book, which we haven't talked about here, is that

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Speaker 2: I did think, before I knew my mother was in town,

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Speaker 2: that I could get some kind of work as a

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Speaker 2: musician in one of these folk clubs or something. And

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Speaker 2: I went around, knocked on the doors during the day,

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Speaker 2: went in, you know, talked to the managers, you know,

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Speaker 2: trying to get some connection of how I could, you know,

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Speaker 2: get some work, even if it was, you know, passing

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Speaker 2: the hat, which I, by the way, did later when

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Speaker 2: I went back to school in New York City, I

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Speaker 2: did work at the folk clubs passing the hat. So

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Speaker 2: that was the runaway story. They did take me back

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Speaker 2: to Topsfield, Massachusetts and My mother was a force to

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Speaker 2: be reckoned with, with all her issues, and she convinced

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Speaker 2: the school board, who wanted nothing to do with me,

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Speaker 2: to not expel me. They did. They did expel my

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Speaker 2: friend Jane, and they didn't expel me. And I went

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Speaker 2: back to school unhappily. But that was the story of

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Speaker 2: my running away. But I did run away after that again,

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Speaker 2: but not it wasn't quite as dramatic.

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Speaker 1: Okay, but you do graduate and go to the American

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Speaker 1: Academy of Dramatic ORIGS in New York City. How does

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Speaker 1: that happen?

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Speaker 2: My mother, as I said, was a force to be

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Speaker 2: reckoned with. And I did graduate from high school, not

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Speaker 2: with honors, but I did get out of there. And

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Speaker 2: I said, you know, I had no intention of going

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Speaker 2: to school after I didn't apply to any colleges. I

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Speaker 2: was going to be a musician. That's what I was

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Speaker 2: going to do. Or maybe I thought, in the back

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Speaker 2: of my mind an actor, you know, because I was

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Speaker 2: in plays and stuff in high school. Mostly I was

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Speaker 2: not actually that's not true. I was in some musicals

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Speaker 2: and stuff. But anyway, and then my mother said, no,

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Speaker 2: you've got your going to school, so pick a school.

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Speaker 2: You're going to go to and that's what's going to happen.

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Speaker 2: And I ended up going to New York to the

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Speaker 2: American Academy of Dramatic Arts. So back to New York

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Speaker 2: I went. And it was a great experience for me

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Speaker 2: actually to go to the Academy. It was taught me

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Speaker 2: a lot. I still have you know, a couple of

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Speaker 2: my best friends in my roommate from those days is

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Speaker 2: still my closest friend. And it was a great experience.

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Speaker 2: I actually learned a lot. I got rid of my

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Speaker 2: Boston accent, which I can bring back in any time

316
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Speaker 2: if you want to hear it. In fact, whenever I

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Speaker 2: get within one hundred miles of Massachusetts or you know,

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Speaker 2: New England, it comes back automatically. But you know, I

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00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 2: learned some great life lessons there. I had a great time.

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Speaker 2: I started doing more drugs and drinking a little bit,

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Speaker 2: but which I talk about in the book later what happened.

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Speaker 2: But my mother was right, you know, I needed that time.

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Speaker 2: I needed that experience to be in a I'm going

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Speaker 2: to say in a controlled environment, although I'll say not

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Speaker 2: controlled structured environment.

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Speaker 1: So did you actually go to school?

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Speaker 2: Two years I graduated the American Academy at Dramatic Arts.

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Speaker 1: Okay, and since it is an acting school, to what

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Speaker 1: degree did you try to be an actor?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I tried. I stayed in New York for another

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Speaker 2: year trying to get roles. But because I didn't look

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Speaker 2: like a normal girl back then, I did grow my

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Speaker 2: hair the last year of the Academy just so I could, like,

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Speaker 2: because I always had short hair, so I could look

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Speaker 2: more like a girl and try to get some parts.

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Speaker 2: But I just didn't have that ingenu look I They

337
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Speaker 2: just I couldn't get work. I mean, I did get

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Speaker 2: called back for some you know, for not Jesus Christ Superstar,

339
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Speaker 2: I've forgotten the name of it now, but I got

340
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Speaker 2: called for some things that were musicals because I did

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00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 2: sing and play guitar and so on, and I did finally,

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Speaker 2: after many, many, many rejections, and I hated auditioning, by

343
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Speaker 2: the way, but after many rejections, I got cast in

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Speaker 2: a Broadway show because I played guitar quote like a guy,

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Speaker 2: Oh ask me. And I get cast in the band

346
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Speaker 2: of the musical Lisistrata, which is a Greek play with

347
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Speaker 2: Molina mccurree. For those of you of a certain age,

348
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Speaker 2: She was the lead in a movie called Never on Sunday,

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Speaker 2: and she was a big Greek star and it was

350
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Speaker 2: directed by Michael Kachianus, who was a great Greek director

351
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Speaker 2: and both of whom had made their way into American movies,

352
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Speaker 2: and so it was a big deal. I was. So

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Speaker 2: I was put in the band, but then they gave

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00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 2: me three lines because they liked me. I was the

355
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 2: youngest member of the cast. There was all these big

356
00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:25,359
Speaker 2: Broadway show stars in the cast, you know, and so

357
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Speaker 2: I did that. It flopped, so it wasn't a big thing,

358
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 2: but but I made money. I made some money. I

359
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 2: you know, was living in Greenwich Village in a you know,

360
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:39,959
Speaker 2: apartment with three other people, and so I got that.

361
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:46,119
Speaker 2: But then I decided that acting really wasn't what I

362
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 2: wanted to do. But I'd keep it in my back

363
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 2: pocket and I'd go to LA and I'd see if

364
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:54,240
Speaker 2: I could find some work there, either as an actor

365
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 2: or a musician. And that's when my career started. When

366
00:25:57,760 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 2: I went to La.

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Speaker 1: Okay, you go to LA and you stay with Diane Bennett.

368
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:10,400
Speaker 2: No. I stayed with a woman named Helen Gorman, who

369
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 2: was a friend of Diane ben Right Helen Gorman, that's

370
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 2: her maiden name. And she was a friend of a

371
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Speaker 2: friend of a somebody I had met in New York

372
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Speaker 2: who was a producer for ABC Television, who I met

373
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Speaker 2: on a bus. You know, you know, it was just

374
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:31,400
Speaker 2: one of those random things. My life, as you will

375
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:35,160
Speaker 2: read in the book those of you choose to read it,

376
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:38,440
Speaker 2: is a series of coincidences of who I meet and

377
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 2: how it leads me to one thing and the other,

378
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 2: which is why the title the Cosmic rock Star applies,

379
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:48,199
Speaker 2: cosmic being the operative word, meaning you know, I'm not

380
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 2: a rock star on earth, but my life was lived

381
00:26:53,720 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 2: like one. And anyway, so Helen Gorman, this guy who

382
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 2: I had randomly met in New York City, and we

383
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 2: became acquaintances, and he liked me, you know, and and

384
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 2: he called his friend of a friend who called another

385
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:17,479
Speaker 2: friend who happened to be Helen Gorman. And Helen Gorman

386
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 2: turned out to be the the producer of the Johnny

387
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 2: of the Jay Leno Show. And you know, she went

388
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 2: on to do great things. But at the time she

389
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:31,479
Speaker 2: was writing for The Hollywood Reporter, which still is in

390
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:38,440
Speaker 2: existence today. Weekly rag out for the for the show

391
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:43,959
Speaker 2: business and she was friends with Diane Bennett, who also

392
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 2: wrote for The Hollywood Reporter. So Helen Gorman let me

393
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 2: sleep on her couch and for a long time actually,

394
00:27:55,160 --> 00:28:01,879
Speaker 2: until she kicked me out. And you know the stories

395
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:05,199
Speaker 2: Bob go, you know, they weave into each other. So

396
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 2: you know, I can stop, I can go, I can,

397
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:14,159
Speaker 2: you know, well tell us about meeting Bob Crue. Yeah. So,

398
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 2: so the Diane Bennett reference is because one day I

399
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 2: got a job in a gas station on little Santa

400
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 2: Monica Boulevard, which is no longer there. The gas station

401
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 2: Jerry's Phillips sixty six, you know, and I had worked

402
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 2: in a gas station in high schools. I loved pumping gas.

403
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:40,200
Speaker 2: These were before self serve, and I loved working on cars.

404
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 2: I can't couldn't do much, you know, oil changes and stuff.

405
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:46,479
Speaker 2: I'm not a mechanic, but anyway, I loved being around

406
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:50,840
Speaker 2: that atmosphere and getting dirty and all that stuff because

407
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 2: I was really not that. Women don't like that too,

408
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 2: and women aren't great mechanics. But in those days, you know,

409
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 2: I it was just to guys thing to do. So

410
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 2: but Jerry I went around to try to find work,

411
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 2: and Jerry gave me a job and working at the

412
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 2: gas station. So I came home to Helen Gorman's one afternoon,

413
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 2: all right from work, and she said, change your clothes,

414
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 2: get your little three inch reel to reel demo tape

415
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 2: which I had recorded in New York before I came

416
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 2: of a few songs I had written. And you're going

417
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 2: to go to this house in Beverly Hills, to Diane

418
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 2: Bennett's house, and she's having a dinner party and Bob

419
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 2: crue is going to be there.

420
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: Diane ben In covered music quite powerfully for the Hollywood Reporter, just.

421
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she was a she was well known at

422
00:29:54,880 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 2: the time. She was high powered, and her husband, Peter Bennett,

423
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 2: was a very high powered attorney at the time, and

424
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 2: he was Bob CRUs attorney. So Helen said to me

425
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 2: go to that because I had no car. I was

426
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 2: hitchhiking back and forth to my work and wherever I

427
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 2: had to go. And she said, take my car, take

428
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 2: your clean up, take your tape, and go to the

429
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 2: servant entrance at Diane Bennett's house and give the tape

430
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 2: to whoever opens the door. And under no circumstances for

431
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 2: you to go into that house. Do not go into

432
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 2: the house. Said okay, So I get in her car.

433
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 2: I find the gate, you know, gated gated, big house

434
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 2: in the flats, but it was gated and it's starting

435
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:57,760
Speaker 2: to go up Cold Water Canyon or something. And I

436
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 2: go in and I go to the entrance and I

437
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 2: knock on the door or ring the bell, and after

438
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 2: a few minutes, this guy opens the door and it's

439
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 2: this very handsome charism I could tell that charisma was

440
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 2: oozing out of him, very flamboyant, you know, with a

441
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 2: low cut bell bottoms with the big belt buckle and

442
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:30,959
Speaker 2: a shirt open and blonde hair kind of almost toewish

443
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 2: shoulders and opens the door. And I was a little

444
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 2: stunned because I thought somebody who was a servant or

445
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 2: a maid or something was gonna housekeeper was going to

446
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 2: come to the door. And I said, I'm here to

447
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 2: give Bob, to give this tape to Bob Crue. And

448
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 2: he said, well, I'm Bob Crue, and he literally reached

449
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 2: grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the house.

450
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, no, you know, because I'm

451
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 2: telling you, Helen Gorman must have told me a hundred

452
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 2: times do not go into the house. Do not go

453
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 2: into the house. So I'm like, oh, shoot, you know,

454
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 2: I'm in trouble. So he drags me, and it was

455
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 2: the servants enterest So we go through the kitchen and

456
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 2: into the living room, which was kind of like a

457
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 2: living room, and then there was a dining area with

458
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 2: a step above in another area of the house, but

459
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 2: they were conjoined, and and here's all these people standing

460
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 2: around and and Diane Bennett gives me the devil's look,

461
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 2: and Bob goes set an. We hadn't even talked nothing.

462
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 2: He drags me by the arm into the living room

463
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 2: and says to Diane set another place at the dinner table.

464
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 2: It was really something, and so Diane was really agitated

465
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 2: and mad. But of course Bob Crewe had say over everything.

466
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 2: He was the star of the evening. And so I

467
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 2: sat down to dinner and with I don't know eight

468
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 2: or twelve people, ten people, and it was just that

469
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 2: a wild you know, another coincidence where one of the

470
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 2: people at the table had said, you look familiar. He

471
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 2: looked at me, and it turned out that we had

472
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 2: sat beside each other on a plane going from New

473
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 2: York to Los Angeles, and he was the road manager

474
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 2: for Frank Sinatra and fly in the family Stone, And

475
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 2: I mean, how does that happen? You know? And there's

476
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 2: another part of that where they, you know, I wasn't

477
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 2: supposed to be in first class and that that flight,

478
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 2: you know. But here I was this young kid, and

479
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 2: I had somehow they bumped me up to first class.

480
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 2: I don't even remember why. And and I sat beside

481
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:35,840
Speaker 2: this guy and here he was at this dinner table

482
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 2: months later with Bob Crewe and Diane Bennett, and he

483
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,440
Speaker 2: gave me his phone number, took me to some studios

484
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:47,280
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah. But that's where I met Bob Crewe,

485
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 2: who becomes and still is a part of the rest

486
00:34:52,680 --> 00:35:00,080
Speaker 2: of my life, you know. And and Bob Crewe I

487
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:02,319
Speaker 2: got kicked out of. I guess I'll go on with

488
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 2: the story I got. I went back to Helen Gorman's.

489
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:08,919
Speaker 2: Of course, I got kicked out because I had done

490
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 2: the one thing I was supposed to do, which was

491
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:15,319
Speaker 2: go into the house. So Helen Gorman kicked me out

492
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 2: of her apartment. And she should have anyway, I was

493
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 2: there for like a month, you know, And so I

494
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 2: only number I had in my pocket was Bob crue.

495
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 2: And I called Bob from a phone booth the next

496
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,040
Speaker 2: day and said, I'm I need a place to stay.

497
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 2: I had no money, no place to stay. I was

498
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 2: making like two bucks an hour at the gas station.

499
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 2: And he said, call me back in an hour, and

500
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:54,320
Speaker 2: so I did. I called it. And there's other parts

501
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:56,240
Speaker 2: of the story which you'll read about in the book.

502
00:35:56,280 --> 00:36:01,919
Speaker 2: But I called him back in the meantime. I had

503
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 2: found a place to stay with some runaways in that hour.

504
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:08,839
Speaker 2: So I called him back and I said, I found

505
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 2: a place to stay. He said, good, be in the

506
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 2: studio at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. I want you to

507
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:22,000
Speaker 2: sing backup on a record I'm producing. It's just I mean,

508
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 2: I'm pausing because even my own life, you know, when

509
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 2: I think about these things, how things happened, how interconnected

510
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 2: things were, the coincidences. If you believe in coincidences, you

511
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 2: know how the connectors of my life just keep going

512
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 2: and going and going. And from that moment where I

513
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 2: went to the studio the next day, I took the

514
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:49,320
Speaker 2: bus to I can't I think it was hit Factory

515
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 2: or one of those places in LA in the middle

516
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 2: of Hollywood, and sound factory one of those and Hit

517
00:36:58,080 --> 00:36:59,959
Speaker 2: factories in New York. I think it was sound fact

518
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 2: And I walked in and started singing backup vocals for

519
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 2: Bob Crue, and I never stopped. I didn't stop just.

520
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,400
Speaker 1: For a second. Do you know if he actually listened

521
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 1: to your demo tape?

522
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 2: No, No, nobody's ever asked me that question. Nobody in

523
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:21,839
Speaker 2: my whole life has ever asked me that question. I

524
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 2: don't know. I never asked him if he listened to

525
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:27,799
Speaker 2: that demo tape, because.

526
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:30,439
Speaker 1: I've had someone where you had to do demos and

527
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:31,759
Speaker 1: the guy offered me a job. You go, Do you

528
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:33,719
Speaker 1: read what I wrote? He goes no, They said, well

529
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 1: read the first says no, come to work. So this

530
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:38,719
Speaker 1: is when I was a lawyer for ten minutes. But

531
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:42,799
Speaker 1: in any event, you sing background, tell us how it

532
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 1: plays out from there.

533
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 2: Well, that begins the rest of my life, as they say,

534
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 2: because I did end up becoming what this is the

535
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:59,279
Speaker 2: way I frame it. I became Bob Crue's gopher protege,

536
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:05,840
Speaker 2: and after my time living staying with the runaways, and

537
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 2: then I ended up staying in the house with the

538
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 2: other people who were putting up the runaways for a

539
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 2: few months. Then Bob asked me to move in, and

540
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 2: I moved into his storage unit on which was actually

541
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 2: like a basement apartment or little studio apartment done in

542
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:31,919
Speaker 2: the basement of his penthouse, a building on Appian Way,

543
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 2: not Appian Way. That's where he lived later in Hollywood,

544
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:40,879
Speaker 2: West Hollywood. And so I moved into his storage unit

545
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 2: and I started really being his gopher protege. I went

546
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 2: with him everywhere. I drove him around, I did tasks

547
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 2: for him, I did errands for him. I answered the

548
00:38:56,160 --> 00:39:00,960
Speaker 2: phone for him, and in return say it like that,

549
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 2: because to me, it was in return what I got

550
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 2: was an education in the music business as well as

551
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 2: production and studio work, because I sat beside him when

552
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 2: he worked with Hank Sakala, the great you know engineer,

553
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:26,319
Speaker 2: and Tom Dowd another great engineer. You know, look these

554
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:29,919
Speaker 2: people up, they've they're on every album from from those days,

555
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:34,279
Speaker 2: the sixties and the seventies and onward. You know, I

556
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 2: got to meet Jerry Wexler and Joe Smith, you know,

557
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 2: and people who in the business. I mean, Jerry Wexler

558
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:48,720
Speaker 2: and I became friends. I'm still friends with his wife

559
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 2: Renee today, and you know, sit in the rooms when

560
00:39:56,160 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 2: deals were made, I got to I just he just

561
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 2: took me everywhere I was. I was like almost like

562
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 2: a fly on the wall. And I sat beside him

563
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:10,760
Speaker 2: at the consoles with those great engineers, and I looked

564
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 2: and I learned, and I asked questions, and I got

565
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:17,319
Speaker 2: to do an input. You know, I got to have

566
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:21,000
Speaker 2: input in these things, not without asking or not without

567
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:25,240
Speaker 2: somebody asking me. I didn't interject myself where I wasn't involved.

568
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:29,319
Speaker 2: I was a sponge. So Bob Crue, for all his

569
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 2: craziness and as a you know, as a human, he

570
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:43,680
Speaker 2: was brilliant and a genius. He invented pop music basically

571
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 2: with Four Seasons and Mitch Rider in the Detroit Wheels.

572
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 2: He invented Frankie Valley. Frankie Valley didn't sing in Falsetto

573
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 2: before Bob Crue got to him. You know, I was there.

574
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:00,560
Speaker 2: I was there when they did My eyes doored you.

575
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 2: I was one of the background singers, you know, and

576
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 2: and swearing to God and in the later for it,

577
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 2: Frankie Valley hits and I was there. I watched Bob

578
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:17,360
Speaker 2: Crue go into the studio and sing frank Frankie Valley's

579
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 2: part for Frankie Valley, and then Frankie Valley would go

580
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:27,160
Speaker 2: in and imitate Bob Crewe. Not that Frankie Valley didn't

581
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 2: have his own voice. He did, but it was you know,

582
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 2: I owe Bob Crewe a lot, and he was not

583
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 2: a perfect person, you know, he was a very flawed person.

584
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 2: But he gave me my the foundation of my career.

585
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 2: And and then as the story goes, as you will read,

586
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 2: I ended up marrying his brother and my two children,

587
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 2: you know, are from Dan Crewe and Bob Crewe was

588
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 2: the uncle. And the story goes on from there.

589
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: Okay, you're Bob Gopher. To what degree are you in

590
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 1: the studio? And how do you end up singing the

591
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:27,480
Speaker 1: songs on Greece.

592
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:31,400
Speaker 2: I was in the studio, as I said, all the time,

593
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:32,319
Speaker 2: with Bob Crewe.

594
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: I guess what I mean is performing.

595
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:38,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. He had me do my first single, which is

596
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 2: I talk about the book. My first single that I

597
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:48,399
Speaker 2: ever sang on was called My Happy Birthday Baby, and

598
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:51,439
Speaker 2: it was a single with me and Kenny Nolan, who

599
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:56,200
Speaker 2: was his writing partner at the time, who wrote Lady Marmalade.

600
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 2: I was in the room when that song was written.

601
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:02,960
Speaker 2: Lady marmalade, and he wrote my eyes Adore You and

602
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 2: swear to God and all that with Bob and uh.

603
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 2: So Bob, I sang a single uh and and I

604
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 2: started uh. But that wasn't the beginning of my personal

605
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 2: career because that song was a Bob Crue production and

606
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:25,640
Speaker 2: I sang on you know, I say, I was in

607
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:29,359
Speaker 2: disco Texas. If somebody really does their deep dive into

608
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:32,920
Speaker 2: me and asks me about disco texts and the sex,

609
00:43:32,960 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 2: so lets I know they've done a deep dive into me.

610
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 2: And so I was on those records too, and uh

611
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 2: and Bob. This is a bone of contention for me

612
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 2: because the one thing Bob did which I kind of

613
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 2: regret in my you know, in my career, was that

614
00:43:56,719 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 2: he encouraged me to sing in a high voice. And

615
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 2: it started with that single My Happy Birthday Baby, which

616
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 2: if you can find I doubt anybody can. It was

617
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 2: on twentieth Century Fox at the time, the album the label,

618
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 2: and he said, you've got to sing in a high voice.

619
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:19,279
Speaker 2: You've got to sing in a high voice. I had

620
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 2: an alto naturally low voice, not quite as low as

621
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 2: it is today, but I had a naturally low voice.

622
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 2: If you find the bootlegs of the Rolling Thunder review,

623
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 2: which I did, you'll hear me sing in my natural voice.

624
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:38,120
Speaker 2: But he said, you got to sing in a high voice,

625
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 2: you know, like Frankie Valley. It has more energy, it

626
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 2: has more oo, you know, people relate to it or whatever.

627
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 2: So I started singing in this I you know, I

628
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 2: didn't want to, but I did. And then you know

629
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:57,760
Speaker 2: the end of that story is is that I sang

630
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 2: my first two albums in that high voice, which I

631
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:04,279
Speaker 2: can't listen to still today. The good songs, but the

632
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 2: high voice. Nah. So but Bob was an influence on

633
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 2: me and I started that started off my career and

634
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:16,719
Speaker 2: through Bob, I met Bobby Newarth through you know and I,

635
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:20,399
Speaker 2: as I said, Jerry Wexler and other people, and through

636
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:24,360
Speaker 2: Bob Newarth, I ended up doing some of the Rolling

637
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,400
Speaker 2: Thunder review and meeting those guys who are still friends

638
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 2: of mine. And you know, it's it's multi layered.

639
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 1: Okay. I have to ask Desmond Child was a protege

640
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: of Bob Grew at one point. Yeah, and he would say,

641
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 1: start with the title, come up with a good title.

642
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:45,720
Speaker 1: Did you have that experience with Bob?

643
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:49,440
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I still use it to this day. You know,

644
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:53,799
Speaker 2: I mean the title is the you know for me.

645
00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I learned obviously, I learned a lot about

646
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 2: songwriting from Bob Crue, even though my style is not his.

647
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:10,799
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not a commercial writer. But yeah, he

648
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 2: started with the titles Lady Marmalade, you know. You know

649
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:24,280
Speaker 2: they were talking about you know, and I can't remember

650
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 2: now whether Kenny had come up with a riff on

651
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:31,360
Speaker 2: the piano or whether Bob just said, I want to

652
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 2: write a song about a hooker in New Orleans, you know.

653
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 2: And but that's what he did. He started, and and

654
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 2: Bob didn't play an instrument. He didn't play an instrument.

655
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:54,839
Speaker 2: He didn't He he sang the melody. He made up beats.

656
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 2: You know, he clap his hands or stomp his feat

657
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 2: and you know, you know, snap his fingers. He was

658
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 2: a big finger snapper. And he would sing the melody

659
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 2: and he sometimes it was nonsensical words, which I still

660
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 2: do today as well, just to get the flavor, the

661
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 2: feeling of what words would be fit into those points

662
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 2: in the song. And he was brilliant, and he was

663
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:31,239
Speaker 2: just brilliant. And yeah, Desmond Child, I met Desmond in

664
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:35,560
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty, I think, and we became friends back then, and.

665
00:47:37,239 --> 00:47:40,240
Speaker 1: Okay, touch. You make a big point in the book

666
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:44,440
Speaker 1: that Bob gets you seriously into drugs and more or

667
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:47,440
Speaker 1: less pushes you into this lesbian relationship.

668
00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:55,759
Speaker 2: Well, yes, I started. I mean I had smoked marijuana

669
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:59,840
Speaker 2: and uh stuff from the time I was a teenager,

670
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 2: as I said, but I was never into hard drugs

671
00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:06,240
Speaker 2: or and I didn't drink much because my parents drank

672
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:08,440
Speaker 2: and I didn't really want to be like them, and

673
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:11,399
Speaker 2: I didn't want to drink. I just didn't like what

674
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:15,439
Speaker 2: alcohol did to people. And Bob drank, you know, and

675
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 2: I didn't like what it did to him. But being

676
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:24,800
Speaker 2: in that environment living with him, and you know, I

677
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:26,719
Speaker 2: can't blame it all on Bob. I have to make

678
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:30,480
Speaker 2: my own choices, you know. But it was available then

679
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:33,839
Speaker 2: with Bob all the time, and he, you know, he'd

680
00:48:33,840 --> 00:48:37,320
Speaker 2: make himself a drink and make me one, you know. Well, okay,

681
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 2: you know, and he started, you know, he was into cocaine,

682
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:48,400
Speaker 2: and so I got into cocaine and which was my downfall.

683
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:55,480
Speaker 2: And he didn't push me into a relationship with this woman,

684
00:48:56,320 --> 00:49:00,720
Speaker 2: but he encouraged things. I mean, I was very very naive,

685
00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:04,520
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, you know, I look back and

686
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 2: I just put my head in my hands, you know,

687
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 2: because I was very gullible. I was very naive. I

688
00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 2: you know, I just didn't think through things and didn't

689
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:28,479
Speaker 2: see behind the curtains, and so Bob encouraged me into

690
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:33,040
Speaker 2: this relationship. But you know, I mean it was my

691
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:38,400
Speaker 2: choice and I didn't really have a relationship with this woman,

692
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 2: although she wanted one. But it was where I started

693
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:48,840
Speaker 2: my hard drug uses because and this story is in

694
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:51,360
Speaker 2: the book and it still gives makes me kind of

695
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:54,200
Speaker 2: sick to my stomach. When it was hard for me

696
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:56,239
Speaker 2: to write that in the book. It was hard for

697
00:49:56,280 --> 00:50:04,959
Speaker 2: me to really be honest about how how far down

698
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:10,440
Speaker 2: I went and what happened, and you know, taking responsibility

699
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 2: for my own choices in getting into drugs. But this woman, Sue,

700
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:21,960
Speaker 2: shot up cocaine and one night she invited me to

701
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 2: do that and I had had enough to drink, and

702
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:31,280
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, I said okay, And that was my bottom,

703
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 2: you know a few months after that, because I continued

704
00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:38,680
Speaker 2: to do it, and luckily I got sober, you know,

705
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:40,799
Speaker 2: not long after that.

706
00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 1: Okay, just going back, how did you end up singing

707
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 1: on the Grease soundtrack.

708
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:48,319
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you asked me that. Sorry, I didn't get

709
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:52,880
Speaker 2: to that. Bob Crue in nineteen seventy seven, so I

710
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 2: was sober by this time. By the way, I got

711
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 2: sober not long. I only had a very short drug

712
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:02,719
Speaker 2: career about years with Bob two and a half years.

713
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 2: And I did get sober and clean and sober in

714
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:10,919
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six. So in nineteen seventy seven, Bob Crewe,

715
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:14,880
Speaker 2: who was also sober at that time, called me up

716
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:16,600
Speaker 2: and he said, you're going to get a call from

717
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:21,920
Speaker 2: a guy who's gonna you know who. I recommended you

718
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 2: because they wanted somebody who could sing in a young

719
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 2: woman's voice, a young girl's voice. And I suggested you

720
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 2: just ironic when you know my whole story, And I said, okay.

721
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:45,719
Speaker 2: And I assumed that it was background vocals for a

722
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:48,200
Speaker 2: movie soundtrack. That's all I knew. I had dead, no

723
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:52,280
Speaker 2: name or nothing. So this guy called me Lewis Saint Louis,

724
00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:54,759
Speaker 2: and he was one of the producers, and he said,

725
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:56,719
Speaker 2: I want you to come in and sing, you know,

726
00:51:56,920 --> 00:51:58,880
Speaker 2: just be at the studio. Again. I thought it was

727
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:02,240
Speaker 2: background vocals, and I was going to get paid ninety dollars,

728
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:04,799
Speaker 2: you know, which was the going rate for three hour

729
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:08,279
Speaker 2: session back then. So I was thrilled. And I walk

730
00:52:08,360 --> 00:52:12,560
Speaker 2: in and Lewis says to me, we'd like you to

731
00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:18,360
Speaker 2: sing lead on this song. And I was like lead, okay,

732
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:21,839
Speaker 2: But it was unexpected and it was Freddie my love

733
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:25,440
Speaker 2: on the Grease movie soundtracked. So after I did that one,

734
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 2: he said how about this one? And it was raining

735
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:33,600
Speaker 2: on prom night and I said great, and then and

736
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:36,920
Speaker 2: then I sang a duet called Mooning with Lewis. So

737
00:52:36,960 --> 00:52:40,760
Speaker 2: I did three lead vocals on that album, all because

738
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:44,520
Speaker 2: of Bob Crue, which people still come up to me today.

739
00:52:46,239 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 2: Go the Grease movie soundtrack, you know, it's still one

740
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:51,719
Speaker 2: of those things that people hang on to.

741
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 1: Okay, you were not in the movie. The movie was

742
00:52:56,960 --> 00:53:01,080
Speaker 1: a juggernaut, as was the double au them that accompanied it.

743
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:04,000
Speaker 1: And you do mention once in the book about getting

744
00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:06,440
Speaker 1: a big royalty check would help you with the time.

745
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:09,919
Speaker 1: To what degree has that been a profitable experience?

746
00:53:10,760 --> 00:53:13,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a mistake on their part, And there's

747
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:17,120
Speaker 2: some side tentacle stories to that, but we won't we

748
00:53:17,160 --> 00:53:23,520
Speaker 2: won't go into all of that. But I didn't expect

749
00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:26,280
Speaker 2: to get royalties I did. I just sang the songs.

750
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:29,920
Speaker 2: I went home. I got a call. I don't know

751
00:53:29,960 --> 00:53:32,319
Speaker 2: how long later, a week later, a couple of weeks later,

752
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, and the guy says to me, we

753
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:44,120
Speaker 2: forgot to have you sign a release. Will you come

754
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 2: in and sign a release? And this is absolutely a

755
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:50,839
Speaker 2: true story. There was a voice. Now, I knew very

756
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:53,200
Speaker 2: little about business. I'd been in on some of these

757
00:53:53,680 --> 00:53:57,320
Speaker 2: conversations with Bob Crue and stuff, but I was naive.

758
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:00,880
Speaker 2: I was happy to get paid whatever I was getting paid,

759
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:08,239
Speaker 2: and I worked for Bob for basically nothing, so, you know,

760
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:14,400
Speaker 2: except a place to live. So I but this voice

761
00:54:14,400 --> 00:54:24,480
Speaker 2: in my head said say no. So I said no,

762
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:30,560
Speaker 2: and the guy went what And I said no. He said,

763
00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:34,879
Speaker 2: let me call you back. So a day later, I'm

764
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:38,680
Speaker 2: not sure how long, another guy calls and he says,

765
00:54:41,320 --> 00:54:45,800
Speaker 2: we'll give you thirty thousand dollars in cash if you

766
00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:53,480
Speaker 2: sign a release. And I was not stupid. So I

767
00:54:53,560 --> 00:54:57,279
Speaker 2: might have been naive, but I was not stupid. But

768
00:54:57,400 --> 00:54:59,759
Speaker 2: I had no real money. I mean, I'd done a

769
00:54:59,800 --> 00:55:02,279
Speaker 2: couple of gigs with Elton John and I had some

770
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:05,840
Speaker 2: I had a nice apartment. I was living in Hollywood Hills.

771
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:10,080
Speaker 2: You know, I got a car. I was sober. I

772
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 2: was doing a sessions here and there. You know, I

773
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:14,759
Speaker 2: was okay, but I didn't you know, I wasn't rich.

774
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:19,680
Speaker 2: I didn't have a lot of money. So thirty thousand

775
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:22,960
Speaker 2: dollars back in nineteen seventy seven was a lot of money.

776
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:28,240
Speaker 2: It's still a lot of money. And that little voice

777
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:34,480
Speaker 2: inside my head said say no, and so I said no.

778
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:41,759
Speaker 2: And at the time, this manager, Tony Defreese was courting me,

779
00:55:42,680 --> 00:55:47,400
Speaker 2: who I had not met yet. But Bobby Newarth had

780
00:55:49,040 --> 00:55:51,280
Speaker 2: talked to Tony. He was doing a project with Tony

781
00:55:51,320 --> 00:55:54,920
Speaker 2: and said, Tony, you got to talk to Cindy Bullen's

782
00:55:56,760 --> 00:56:01,040
Speaker 2: you guys should get together. So Tony had heard some

783
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:03,040
Speaker 2: stuff that I'd done and knew what I had done,

784
00:56:03,080 --> 00:56:07,960
Speaker 2: and he was courting me. So I told I just

785
00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:09,640
Speaker 2: happened to be on the phone with him. He was

786
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:11,600
Speaker 2: in New York. I was in LA and I said,

787
00:56:11,719 --> 00:56:13,480
Speaker 2: you know, I've got this thing where they you know,

788
00:56:13,600 --> 00:56:15,920
Speaker 2: the Grease movie santre He said, let me take care

789
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:22,440
Speaker 2: of it. So Tony Defreese doesn't have the greatest reputation,

790
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:27,839
Speaker 2: but he did me that favor, and so I got

791
00:56:27,840 --> 00:56:31,400
Speaker 2: a royalty, a royalty from that Grease album. And like

792
00:56:31,440 --> 00:56:33,760
Speaker 2: I said, there is there are tentacles. At the time,

793
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:39,000
Speaker 2: I did make a lot of money. Now I was

794
00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:43,880
Speaker 2: naive and stupid and young, and the money was spent

795
00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:46,200
Speaker 2: without me knowing, and we're not going to go into

796
00:56:46,239 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 2: that story. And I invested in some things that I

797
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:52,160
Speaker 2: was told to invest in, which I made no money from,

798
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:55,480
Speaker 2: so that money didn't last a long time. I didn't

799
00:56:55,520 --> 00:56:58,000
Speaker 2: spend it. I bought a car, That's what I bought.

800
00:56:58,040 --> 00:57:04,160
Speaker 2: I bought a Jeep Cherok wagon and which was twelve

801
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:08,120
Speaker 2: thousand dollars in cash. And that's what I did. But

802
00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:10,960
Speaker 2: here's the tentacle I want to talk about. Can I

803
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 2: do this? Can I Okay? Years later and we'll get

804
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:18,920
Speaker 2: to this. I'm sure we'll get to this, But I

805
00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:27,520
Speaker 2: want to say how these things weave together. Years later,

806
00:57:27,720 --> 00:57:30,680
Speaker 2: after the death of my daughter, my younger daughter, Jesse,

807
00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:33,480
Speaker 2: who was eleven, and I was writing. So I know

808
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:35,800
Speaker 2: I'm jumping ahead, but I have to tell this. I'm

809
00:57:35,880 --> 00:57:40,960
Speaker 2: jumping ahead. I was writing. I had written some songs.

810
00:57:41,560 --> 00:57:43,640
Speaker 2: I didn't know it was going to become an album

811
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:48,480
Speaker 2: from nineteen ninety seven in ninety eight.

812
00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:49,840
Speaker 1: And.

813
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:54,800
Speaker 2: I at the time, I had written enough songs. And

814
00:57:54,880 --> 00:57:56,800
Speaker 2: that's a whole story in the book. It's a whole

815
00:57:57,080 --> 00:58:02,240
Speaker 2: big bunch of chapters in the book. And I wanted

816
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:04,520
Speaker 2: to I now knew I had enough songs to make

817
00:58:04,560 --> 00:58:06,800
Speaker 2: an album, and I wanted to make an album in

818
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:11,000
Speaker 2: honor of my daughter. But I didn't know how to

819
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:16,240
Speaker 2: do it because I didn't have the money. And I

820
00:58:16,280 --> 00:58:19,360
Speaker 2: won't go into the whole thing, but I found out

821
00:58:19,720 --> 00:58:25,640
Speaker 2: through my sister who had no no no, my older

822
00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:29,400
Speaker 2: sister had She was a housewife and Darienne, Connecticut. She

823
00:58:29,480 --> 00:58:35,080
Speaker 2: had no business in the music nothing, knew nothing. She

824
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:37,840
Speaker 2: kept asking me if I had received grease from movie

825
00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:41,320
Speaker 2: soundtrack royalties, and I'm like, what are you talking about.

826
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:44,360
Speaker 2: I don't know. I didn't I was in grief. My

827
00:58:44,480 --> 00:58:47,240
Speaker 2: daughter had died. I was not thinking about anything. She

828
00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:49,720
Speaker 2: kept asking me. She was like, she had this thing

829
00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:54,560
Speaker 2: from heaven or wherever, the universe or whatever. Anyway. I

830
00:58:54,560 --> 00:58:57,439
Speaker 2: finally said, Okay, Nancy, I'll find out. So I asked Dan,

831
00:58:57,560 --> 00:59:00,200
Speaker 2: who's my husband, who was in the music business, this

832
00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:03,960
Speaker 2: and new publishing and everything. He found out that I

833
00:59:04,000 --> 00:59:12,000
Speaker 2: hadn't been paid for seven years. So that money that

834
00:59:12,160 --> 00:59:17,480
Speaker 2: came in the accumulation of seven years royalties paid for

835
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:23,600
Speaker 2: my album Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth, which became my

836
00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:27,400
Speaker 2: signature album. It's my legacy. So that's a little tentacle

837
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:28,320
Speaker 2: from the Grease movies.

838
00:59:28,720 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 1: Just to stay on this one point, do you still

839
00:59:31,560 --> 00:59:33,960
Speaker 1: own those royalties? Do you still get payments?

840
00:59:35,320 --> 00:59:38,560
Speaker 2: Very little because there are mechanicals, you know, I mean

841
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:42,680
Speaker 2: I didn't write the songs, you know, I get you know,

842
00:59:42,760 --> 00:59:45,439
Speaker 2: I get a little bit from Paramount Pictures, but I'm

843
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:51,360
Speaker 2: talking like two figures, you know, and I get twice

844
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:55,640
Speaker 2: a year. I get mechanicals, but it's very It's not

845
00:59:55,720 --> 00:59:57,520
Speaker 2: a lot, not a lot of money, but I still

846
00:59:57,560 --> 01:00:03,920
Speaker 2: get them.

847
01:00:04,120 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the seventies. How do you

848
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:06,840
Speaker 1: meet Elton John?

849
01:00:08,080 --> 01:00:12,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I, uh, I had hutzpah back then. I had

850
01:00:12,880 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 2: some Like I said, I was young and naive, but

851
01:00:18,920 --> 01:00:21,960
Speaker 2: I was not stupid, and I had some hutzpah. And

852
01:00:22,120 --> 01:00:26,560
Speaker 2: apparently I had some charisma too, because that's that's uh,

853
01:00:26,600 --> 01:00:30,120
Speaker 2: you know, I guess what pulled people into me. But

854
01:00:31,920 --> 01:00:35,080
Speaker 2: I was at Cherokee Studios where a lot of stuff

855
01:00:35,080 --> 01:00:38,440
Speaker 2: went on I met the guys who owned Cherokee, the

856
01:00:38,520 --> 01:00:43,120
Speaker 2: Rob Brothers, excuse me, through Bob Crue, because he recorded

857
01:00:43,160 --> 01:00:47,000
Speaker 2: there as well. And I would hang out at the

858
01:00:47,040 --> 01:00:51,840
Speaker 2: studio and you know, I'd get coffee for people I did,

859
01:00:52,040 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 2: you know, just hang out with the guys. And I

860
01:00:56,800 --> 01:00:59,840
Speaker 2: loved hanging out at Cherokee Studios. When they moved to

861
01:01:00,040 --> 01:01:04,240
Speaker 2: Airfax Avenue, I just loved it, and I was friends

862
01:01:04,280 --> 01:01:07,040
Speaker 2: with them, and people would come in and I would

863
01:01:07,080 --> 01:01:12,680
Speaker 2: just be there anyway. So one day I was rehearsing

864
01:01:12,720 --> 01:01:16,680
Speaker 2: with Bob Crue for a project that he wanted to

865
01:01:16,680 --> 01:01:23,040
Speaker 2: put together, and it was stupid. It was not something

866
01:01:23,080 --> 01:01:28,400
Speaker 2: I liked, and I was mad at him, and because

867
01:01:28,400 --> 01:01:33,640
Speaker 2: he was not yet sober, and it was lashing out,

868
01:01:33,880 --> 01:01:37,720
Speaker 2: and so I left that rehearsal and went to Cherokee Studios,

869
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:42,040
Speaker 2: where I knew they were doing a press party for

870
01:01:42,160 --> 01:01:48,160
Speaker 2: Neil Sedaka, who was a hit songwriter and singer in

871
01:01:48,200 --> 01:01:53,440
Speaker 2: the sixties who had signed with Rocket Records and was

872
01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:57,560
Speaker 2: having a comeback single in nineteen This was nineteen seventy.

873
01:01:57,200 --> 01:02:00,280
Speaker 1: Five, Rocket Records being Elton's record.

874
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:06,440
Speaker 2: That's right, And so I knew that Elton was going

875
01:02:06,480 --> 01:02:10,480
Speaker 2: to be there at they were doing this press party

876
01:02:10,480 --> 01:02:14,320
Speaker 2: at Cherokee Studios in the big room, and I was

877
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:18,440
Speaker 2: a fan of Elton like everybody else, and I thought, oh,

878
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:22,960
Speaker 2: I'm going to go and and I had no intention

879
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:26,360
Speaker 2: at the time of meeting him or doing anything, just

880
01:02:26,640 --> 01:02:29,920
Speaker 2: going to hang out with the rob brothers. So I

881
01:02:30,000 --> 01:02:33,840
Speaker 2: walked into the control room and all they're all the

882
01:02:33,920 --> 01:02:37,959
Speaker 2: three brothers and the father were all you know there,

883
01:02:38,040 --> 01:02:40,400
Speaker 2: and there probably was a couple other people. And I'm

884
01:02:40,400 --> 01:02:43,520
Speaker 2: in the control room watching this press party what I

885
01:02:43,560 --> 01:02:46,160
Speaker 2: call like looking into a fish bowl of all these

886
01:02:46,680 --> 01:02:52,120
Speaker 2: press people and publicists. And Neil Sadaka was in there,

887
01:02:52,440 --> 01:02:55,439
Speaker 2: and so there wasn't stars or anything. It was all

888
01:02:55,480 --> 01:03:01,520
Speaker 2: press people and there was Elton standing in the corner.

889
01:03:01,680 --> 01:03:05,520
Speaker 2: And for I don't even remember what I was thinking.

890
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:10,320
Speaker 2: I just turned to the guys and I said I'm

891
01:03:10,320 --> 01:03:13,840
Speaker 2: going in. I'm going to go in there. And they said, no,

892
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:16,560
Speaker 2: you're not, you can't go in, and I said, yes,

893
01:03:16,600 --> 01:03:21,400
Speaker 2: I can. I opened the door and walked in and

894
01:03:21,440 --> 01:03:25,480
Speaker 2: headed straight for the food. This is the absolute truth.

895
01:03:26,080 --> 01:03:28,080
Speaker 2: I didn't go right up to Elton. I didn't have

896
01:03:28,120 --> 01:03:31,400
Speaker 2: that much hutzbah, you know. I walked to the food.

897
01:03:31,600 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 2: I got a glass of wine or something and some

898
01:03:34,640 --> 01:03:38,480
Speaker 2: carrots and crew de tee or whatever, and I'm like

899
01:03:38,600 --> 01:03:45,360
Speaker 2: standing there hoping that something, you know, I don't even

900
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:48,160
Speaker 2: know what. Anyway, I started talking to this one guy.

901
01:03:49,920 --> 01:03:52,280
Speaker 2: I can't remember who it was or what he did.

902
01:03:53,400 --> 01:03:55,440
Speaker 2: And I said, yeah, I work with Bob Crewe, and

903
01:03:55,480 --> 01:03:59,240
Speaker 2: of course everybody knew Bob Cruise, so I was, you know, valid,

904
01:03:59,800 --> 01:04:03,040
Speaker 2: you know, and you know, I'm a background singer. I

905
01:04:03,040 --> 01:04:06,200
Speaker 2: sing with Bob Crue. I had not yet sung in

906
01:04:06,240 --> 01:04:11,040
Speaker 2: the Grease movie contrac This is nineteen seventy five, and

907
01:04:11,080 --> 01:04:14,400
Speaker 2: I had, you know, met Bobby new Earth and stuff,

908
01:04:14,440 --> 01:04:18,320
Speaker 2: so I knew some people and I said that, and

909
01:04:18,360 --> 01:04:22,080
Speaker 2: so we started talking and I expected to be kicked out,

910
01:04:22,080 --> 01:04:23,880
Speaker 2: but I wasn't. And out of the corner of my

911
01:04:23,960 --> 01:04:26,360
Speaker 2: eye he went away, that guy I was talking to,

912
01:04:26,400 --> 01:04:29,280
Speaker 2: and I'm standing there again, and out of the corner

913
01:04:29,320 --> 01:04:33,560
Speaker 2: of my eye, I see Elton walking toward me. And

914
01:04:33,640 --> 01:04:35,680
Speaker 2: my first thought was he's going to kick me out,

915
01:04:36,440 --> 01:04:38,680
Speaker 2: which is stupid because Elton wouldn't be the one to

916
01:04:38,760 --> 01:04:42,160
Speaker 2: kick me out, but that's what I thought. And he

917
01:04:42,240 --> 01:04:47,160
Speaker 2: walks up and he says, verbatim I'll never forget it. Hi,

918
01:04:47,280 --> 01:04:55,040
Speaker 2: my name is Elton. I don't believe we've met yet.

919
01:04:55,320 --> 01:05:04,280
Speaker 2: And I went completely black, you know, I said, Hi,

920
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:10,840
Speaker 2: my name is Cindy, but I really don't remember anything

921
01:05:10,880 --> 01:05:15,000
Speaker 2: else we said. And but we talked for a few

922
01:05:15,040 --> 01:05:21,080
Speaker 2: minutes and until one of his people came up and

923
01:05:21,400 --> 01:05:24,880
Speaker 2: kind of dragged him away, and nobody kicked me out.

924
01:05:26,360 --> 01:05:32,760
Speaker 2: And then so I'm like, okay, I'm here. I start

925
01:05:32,840 --> 01:05:35,080
Speaker 2: talking to some other people, and then a woman walks

926
01:05:35,160 --> 01:05:40,760
Speaker 2: up to me, a young woman, and she asks me

927
01:05:40,840 --> 01:05:43,640
Speaker 2: what I do, and I said, well, I'm you know,

928
01:05:43,920 --> 01:05:47,160
Speaker 2: I'm a singer, you know, like with all the you know,

929
01:05:47,520 --> 01:05:52,760
Speaker 2: whatever I could put into that. And we talked for

930
01:05:52,760 --> 01:05:56,520
Speaker 2: a minute. She goes away, and I hang out for

931
01:05:56,520 --> 01:05:58,640
Speaker 2: a little while longer, and I'm just about to leave

932
01:05:59,280 --> 01:06:01,800
Speaker 2: because I'd met Elton by this time. What else am

933
01:06:01,840 --> 01:06:09,360
Speaker 2: I going to do? And I go up to her

934
01:06:10,000 --> 01:06:14,280
Speaker 2: hold on a second, just and I mean, she walks

935
01:06:14,360 --> 01:06:18,520
Speaker 2: up to me, and it turns out her name is

936
01:06:18,560 --> 01:06:26,720
Speaker 2: Connie Pappus and she works with Elton and in his

937
01:06:26,880 --> 01:06:30,280
Speaker 2: management with John Reid. She works with John Reid Management,

938
01:06:31,040 --> 01:06:34,400
Speaker 2: And she says to me, what are you doing for

939
01:06:34,440 --> 01:06:42,400
Speaker 2: the next two months, and I thought, uh oh, and this,

940
01:06:42,560 --> 01:06:45,160
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell the whole story because it it

941
01:06:45,320 --> 01:06:47,920
Speaker 2: is it. I did know what I was doing for

942
01:06:47,960 --> 01:06:51,160
Speaker 2: the next two months. I was supposed to go on

943
01:06:51,200 --> 01:06:53,880
Speaker 2: the road with the Rolling Thunder Review with Bob Dylan.

944
01:06:55,600 --> 01:06:58,600
Speaker 2: That's a whole nother story that's in the book. But

945
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:07,120
Speaker 2: I said, I don't know why, And she said, Elton

946
01:07:07,160 --> 01:07:08,560
Speaker 2: wants to know if you want to go on the

947
01:07:08,640 --> 01:07:16,560
Speaker 2: road with him. Now this isn't an hour later from

948
01:07:16,560 --> 01:07:23,320
Speaker 2: when I met him. He hadn't heard me sing. He

949
01:07:25,000 --> 01:07:28,000
Speaker 2: The reason for him to walk up to me, you know,

950
01:07:29,040 --> 01:07:33,760
Speaker 2: was I think to see if I was a boy

951
01:07:33,840 --> 01:07:37,920
Speaker 2: or a girl, a man or a woman, because I

952
01:07:37,960 --> 01:07:43,480
Speaker 2: had a very androgynous look. So here's what I think happened.

953
01:07:43,520 --> 01:07:48,280
Speaker 2: So this was a Wednesday night. It was September seventeenth

954
01:07:48,320 --> 01:07:54,200
Speaker 2: to nineteen seventy five Wednesday. The rehearsals for the road

955
01:07:54,280 --> 01:08:02,160
Speaker 2: started Friday, two days from when. So the next day,

956
01:08:02,400 --> 01:08:05,360
Speaker 2: so I so I was like, what do I do.

957
01:08:05,480 --> 01:08:09,120
Speaker 2: I've got to choose between Elton John and Bob Dylan

958
01:08:10,480 --> 01:08:13,240
Speaker 2: because the Bob Dylan Rolling Thunder Review is going to

959
01:08:13,240 --> 01:08:20,280
Speaker 2: start like in two weeks from then, and they were overlapping,

960
01:08:20,360 --> 01:08:22,759
Speaker 2: so I couldn't do both. I had to choose between

961
01:08:22,880 --> 01:08:30,080
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan and Elton John, and I chose Elton, much

962
01:08:30,120 --> 01:08:39,080
Speaker 2: to Bobby Newris's Chagrinny never forgave me. And so the

963
01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:41,280
Speaker 2: next day on Thursday, and I was living in a

964
01:08:41,280 --> 01:08:45,240
Speaker 2: little hovel on Honey Drive in Hollywood, on the bottom

965
01:08:45,280 --> 01:08:52,400
Speaker 2: of Laurel Canyon, and a limo pulls up and drops

966
01:08:52,439 --> 01:08:57,280
Speaker 2: off a stack of Elton John records, even in those days,

967
01:08:57,320 --> 01:09:00,960
Speaker 2: and I had a turntable on the floor. I had

968
01:09:01,000 --> 01:09:07,559
Speaker 2: no furniture except a couch, no table, no coffee table,

969
01:09:07,720 --> 01:09:10,320
Speaker 2: no nothing. I had a single bed and a couch.

970
01:09:11,040 --> 01:09:14,400
Speaker 2: So my turntable was on the floor of this hovel.

971
01:09:15,560 --> 01:09:19,479
Speaker 2: And I'm supposed to learn these songs before the next

972
01:09:19,560 --> 01:09:24,599
Speaker 2: day when I go to rehearsal. But anyway, my feeling

973
01:09:24,680 --> 01:09:30,320
Speaker 2: on how I got that was two is twofold. I

974
01:09:30,320 --> 01:09:33,080
Speaker 2: think Elton liked the liked me. I think he liked

975
01:09:33,120 --> 01:09:45,840
Speaker 2: the way I looked. But Connie Pappis sister is Renee Pappis,

976
01:09:46,280 --> 01:09:53,120
Speaker 2: who is married to Jerry Wexler, So I think that

977
01:09:53,800 --> 01:09:56,240
Speaker 2: con somehow they had to I'm sure somebody said to

978
01:09:56,280 --> 01:09:59,400
Speaker 2: Elton you know, you can't just hire this kid because

979
01:09:59,800 --> 01:10:01,479
Speaker 2: you we got to find out if they can sing.

980
01:10:02,880 --> 01:10:06,240
Speaker 2: So I think what happened? I should ask Renee because

981
01:10:06,280 --> 01:10:11,040
Speaker 2: she and was that somebody said to Elton, you got

982
01:10:11,080 --> 01:10:16,880
Speaker 2: to find out, So Connie, I don't know. Probably I

983
01:10:16,920 --> 01:10:19,320
Speaker 2: think Jerry Wexler probably said, yeah, I go for it.

984
01:10:19,439 --> 01:10:22,360
Speaker 2: You know, they probably got, you know, through those circles.

985
01:10:23,479 --> 01:10:26,559
Speaker 2: So I ended up on the road rehearsing with Elton

986
01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:29,200
Speaker 2: john in two days after I met him.

987
01:10:30,720 --> 01:10:35,719
Speaker 1: Okay, you end up working with Elton for years. During

988
01:10:35,800 --> 01:10:40,839
Speaker 1: that time, you are, as they say, partying, but unlike

989
01:10:41,080 --> 01:10:44,360
Speaker 1: a lot of the people on the road, you're actually

990
01:10:44,640 --> 01:10:48,640
Speaker 1: hanging without Elton. So what was the experience of the

991
01:10:48,680 --> 01:10:50,920
Speaker 1: Blue Moves and all that other stuff.

992
01:10:52,560 --> 01:10:57,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, Elton and I became really close and I adore

993
01:10:57,840 --> 01:10:59,720
Speaker 2: him to this day. The best part of all this

994
01:11:00,040 --> 01:11:04,320
Speaker 2: story is that we are still friends, and he wrote

995
01:11:04,360 --> 01:11:10,000
Speaker 2: the little forward for my book, for my memoir, which

996
01:11:10,000 --> 01:11:12,360
Speaker 2: he did not have to do. I mean, we're still

997
01:11:12,360 --> 01:11:19,400
Speaker 2: friends to this day. And but going back, yeah, I

998
01:11:19,479 --> 01:11:21,719
Speaker 2: we he kind of took me. He took me under

999
01:11:21,720 --> 01:11:24,120
Speaker 2: his wing. He didn't kind of he did take me

1000
01:11:24,200 --> 01:11:27,360
Speaker 2: under his wing, you know, kind of like Bob Crue

1001
01:11:27,439 --> 01:11:29,680
Speaker 2: and Bobby Newarth, those three people. If you look on

1002
01:11:29,720 --> 01:11:32,840
Speaker 2: the back of my first album, Desire Why, you'll see

1003
01:11:32,840 --> 01:11:37,040
Speaker 2: it's dedicated to three people, three men, Bob Crue, Bobby

1004
01:11:37,120 --> 01:11:44,080
Speaker 2: Newirth and Elton John Because those three guys really and

1005
01:11:44,120 --> 01:11:48,679
Speaker 2: they each saw different things than me. But whatever they saw,

1006
01:11:48,760 --> 01:11:53,920
Speaker 2: they brought me into their worlds and they elevated me

1007
01:11:54,800 --> 01:12:01,040
Speaker 2: to a different plane. They educated me the elevation, They

1008
01:12:01,080 --> 01:12:06,640
Speaker 2: taught me things. They they allowed me to, you know,

1009
01:12:06,760 --> 01:12:09,160
Speaker 2: become more of who I was and as an artist

1010
01:12:09,400 --> 01:12:13,960
Speaker 2: and uh and as a human. So being with Elton

1011
01:12:14,120 --> 01:12:19,080
Speaker 2: was an education first of all about what it was

1012
01:12:19,200 --> 01:12:21,960
Speaker 2: like to be the most famous person on earth at

1013
01:12:21,960 --> 01:12:25,360
Speaker 2: that time. He was the Taylor Swift of the mid seventies,

1014
01:12:25,479 --> 01:12:35,600
Speaker 2: you know, and it burst my bubble of to understand

1015
01:12:35,640 --> 01:12:41,840
Speaker 2: what happens when you're that famous personally to someone. But

1016
01:12:41,960 --> 01:12:47,160
Speaker 2: it was also fun. It was it was he was

1017
01:12:47,280 --> 01:12:53,400
Speaker 2: so kind and loving to me. He he brought me everywhere.

1018
01:12:53,400 --> 01:12:58,960
Speaker 2: He took me to England. I had, you know, so

1019
01:12:59,120 --> 01:13:03,920
Speaker 2: many private moments with him. He took me. I mean,

1020
01:13:03,960 --> 01:13:07,320
Speaker 2: I went to dinner with Shirley Maclain and you know,

1021
01:13:08,200 --> 01:13:11,920
Speaker 2: I mean, and it wasn't just about the famous people

1022
01:13:12,000 --> 01:13:14,960
Speaker 2: that he introduced me to or the places. It was

1023
01:13:15,040 --> 01:13:18,679
Speaker 2: the intimate moments that we had together in talking or

1024
01:13:19,360 --> 01:13:24,720
Speaker 2: just being together. And I will cherish those for the

1025
01:13:24,760 --> 01:13:26,840
Speaker 2: rest of my life. And singing on the you know,

1026
01:13:26,920 --> 01:13:29,000
Speaker 2: being asked to sing on the Don't Go Break in

1027
01:13:29,080 --> 01:13:30,120
Speaker 2: My Heart, I sang all.

1028
01:13:30,080 --> 01:13:32,160
Speaker 1: The woo's nobody knows.

1029
01:13:31,960 --> 01:13:35,080
Speaker 2: You know, all that stuff, you know, Don't Go Break

1030
01:13:35,120 --> 01:13:38,000
Speaker 2: in my Heart, the Blue Moves album, being invited to

1031
01:13:38,800 --> 01:13:47,960
Speaker 2: be a part of those. But more than anything in

1032
01:13:47,960 --> 01:13:53,400
Speaker 2: my relationship with Elton, it is those quiet moments and

1033
01:13:53,439 --> 01:13:58,240
Speaker 2: the moments you know, and he'd sit at the piano

1034
01:13:58,320 --> 01:14:01,720
Speaker 2: and play me song, you know, and just he and

1035
01:14:01,760 --> 01:14:06,519
Speaker 2: I in the room, you know, or just talking about

1036
01:14:07,120 --> 01:14:11,200
Speaker 2: things and he he It wasn't all about Elton all

1037
01:14:11,240 --> 01:14:14,840
Speaker 2: the time. You know. I don't know what conceptions people

1038
01:14:14,880 --> 01:14:18,479
Speaker 2: have about Elton John, but he is one of the

1039
01:14:18,479 --> 01:14:26,000
Speaker 2: most kind, loving people I've ever known, and he cares.

1040
01:14:26,120 --> 01:14:29,479
Speaker 2: He cares. He cares about people both individually and of

1041
01:14:29,520 --> 01:14:31,960
Speaker 2: course we all know what he's done with the AIDS

1042
01:14:32,000 --> 01:14:39,360
Speaker 2: Foundation and more things like that, raising millions and millions

1043
01:14:39,400 --> 01:14:44,280
Speaker 2: and millions of dollars for those in need. And yeah,

1044
01:14:44,439 --> 01:14:50,120
Speaker 2: is he complicated. Absolutely, you can't not be and be

1045
01:14:50,240 --> 01:14:54,839
Speaker 2: that famous. You can't. You can't navigate in the world

1046
01:14:54,960 --> 01:15:00,519
Speaker 2: without having some defense systems and so on. But I him,

1047
01:15:02,000 --> 01:15:04,000
Speaker 2: I absolutely adore him.

1048
01:15:04,320 --> 01:15:08,840
Speaker 1: But you in the book say you had a breakup,

1049
01:15:09,040 --> 01:15:14,120
Speaker 1: falling out when something happened on stage you weren't happy about,

1050
01:15:14,640 --> 01:15:19,439
Speaker 1: and you confronted him in his dressing room. Yeah. In

1051
01:15:19,560 --> 01:15:23,920
Speaker 1: the book, you do not talk about a reconciliation. You

1052
01:15:24,000 --> 01:15:27,479
Speaker 1: say that it's basically over between you and Elton. So

1053
01:15:28,160 --> 01:15:31,519
Speaker 1: tell us, really what happened to the aftermath of you

1054
01:15:32,240 --> 01:15:35,280
Speaker 1: cursing him out in front of a bunch of people backstage,

1055
01:15:35,680 --> 01:15:36,920
Speaker 1: and how you reconnected.

1056
01:15:37,760 --> 01:15:41,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I regret because a couple of people

1057
01:15:41,280 --> 01:15:44,439
Speaker 2: have said to me, you don't talk about reconciliation. And

1058
01:15:44,560 --> 01:15:49,599
Speaker 2: I thought I had covered that when I said after

1059
01:15:49,640 --> 01:15:52,040
Speaker 2: the end of the and I'll go back into that incident.

1060
01:15:52,120 --> 01:15:54,559
Speaker 2: But when I said at the end of that, when

1061
01:15:54,600 --> 01:15:56,559
Speaker 2: he said to me at the end of the tour,

1062
01:15:56,680 --> 01:15:59,360
Speaker 2: he gave me a big hug instead, it's your turn now,

1063
01:16:00,360 --> 01:16:07,519
Speaker 2: And it was basically that that was the reconciliation. I mean,

1064
01:16:07,560 --> 01:16:10,360
Speaker 2: I made amends when I got sober, I made amends

1065
01:16:10,400 --> 01:16:12,880
Speaker 2: to him for it, and you know, and he said,

1066
01:16:12,920 --> 01:16:15,960
Speaker 2: you don't owe me any amends but the incident itself.

1067
01:16:16,520 --> 01:16:20,759
Speaker 2: And to be perfectly honest with you, I really didn't

1068
01:16:20,880 --> 01:16:27,160
Speaker 2: want to write about that incident at all because it's

1069
01:16:29,439 --> 01:16:34,000
Speaker 2: a blip in our relationship. The reason I wrote about

1070
01:16:34,040 --> 01:16:38,160
Speaker 2: that incident where and it was me. I mean, he

1071
01:16:38,160 --> 01:16:40,680
Speaker 2: he had his part in it, but it was my

1072
01:16:40,880 --> 01:16:51,200
Speaker 2: reaction that that was the issue. But I wrote about

1073
01:16:51,240 --> 01:17:00,439
Speaker 2: it because it led to my my looking in word

1074
01:17:00,640 --> 01:17:04,880
Speaker 2: at myself and saying, what the heck are you doing

1075
01:17:05,080 --> 01:17:08,400
Speaker 2: and why? And you got to get your shit together

1076
01:17:08,680 --> 01:17:13,519
Speaker 2: to myself. But anyway, so the incident was that we

1077
01:17:13,520 --> 01:17:19,720
Speaker 2: were on stage in Greenville, South Carolina, Greensboro, South Carolina,

1078
01:17:21,200 --> 01:17:27,080
Speaker 2: and some one of those anyway, uh, And it was

1079
01:17:27,120 --> 01:17:30,280
Speaker 2: at the end of a long two tours put together.

1080
01:17:30,400 --> 01:17:39,800
Speaker 2: Everybody was exhausted. We it was just everybody was exhausted,

1081
01:17:40,120 --> 01:17:44,360
Speaker 2: and you know it was there was a lot of

1082
01:17:44,439 --> 01:17:47,800
Speaker 2: drug usage, there was a lot of I'm speaking for myself,

1083
01:17:49,200 --> 01:17:53,240
Speaker 2: you know, I was out of control on a lot

1084
01:17:53,280 --> 01:18:02,160
Speaker 2: of levels. And this one night, something happen in one

1085
01:18:02,200 --> 01:18:06,519
Speaker 2: of the songs and toward the end of the set

1086
01:18:08,680 --> 01:18:14,640
Speaker 2: and the music kind of hung there, and the background vocalists,

1087
01:18:14,640 --> 01:18:18,320
Speaker 2: of which I was one of three, could have could

1088
01:18:18,400 --> 01:18:20,519
Speaker 2: either make come in at the time we were supposed

1089
01:18:20,560 --> 01:18:24,160
Speaker 2: to come in or let it just play out. And

1090
01:18:24,520 --> 01:18:28,519
Speaker 2: we came in and at the time we were supposed to,

1091
01:18:28,760 --> 01:18:31,120
Speaker 2: and of course we should have waited for the for

1092
01:18:31,200 --> 01:18:34,080
Speaker 2: Elton to do whatever he was going to do. And

1093
01:18:34,160 --> 01:18:40,880
Speaker 2: Elton turned around and gave us the finger, and I

1094
01:18:40,920 --> 01:18:49,599
Speaker 2: went ballistic and I the song finished. I mean, it's

1095
01:18:49,600 --> 01:18:53,160
Speaker 2: in much more detail in the book. The song finished,

1096
01:18:53,200 --> 01:18:55,759
Speaker 2: and I went off stage and went into the dressing

1097
01:18:55,840 --> 01:18:58,040
Speaker 2: room and it was crowded with people, and I put

1098
01:18:58,080 --> 01:19:00,280
Speaker 2: my finger in his face and I said, don't to

1099
01:19:00,360 --> 01:19:03,040
Speaker 2: ever do that to me again. I took it. You know,

1100
01:19:03,040 --> 01:19:06,000
Speaker 2: it wasn't about me. He wasn't even given their finger

1101
01:19:06,040 --> 01:19:09,800
Speaker 2: to the three of us. But I was so you know,

1102
01:19:09,880 --> 01:19:13,560
Speaker 2: I was doing a lot of cocaine. I was drinking.

1103
01:19:13,800 --> 01:19:17,679
Speaker 2: I was My ego was out of control at that point,

1104
01:19:18,880 --> 01:19:25,360
Speaker 2: and uh, you know, I I so, I you know,

1105
01:19:25,960 --> 01:19:28,000
Speaker 2: I went in and put my finger in his face,

1106
01:19:30,160 --> 01:19:35,040
Speaker 2: and he was stunned and started to you know, we

1107
01:19:35,120 --> 01:19:38,640
Speaker 2: started to get into it, and I, of course was

1108
01:19:38,760 --> 01:19:41,519
Speaker 2: as I talk about in the book. I was pulled

1109
01:19:42,080 --> 01:19:48,360
Speaker 2: away by everybody who was around, taken by the bodyguards

1110
01:19:48,880 --> 01:19:52,679
Speaker 2: out of the room, and thrown into a shower stall

1111
01:19:52,880 --> 01:19:58,200
Speaker 2: somewhere down the hall. And I knew I had completely

1112
01:19:58,240 --> 01:20:02,400
Speaker 2: screwed up. I knew because you know, I don't know

1113
01:20:02,400 --> 01:20:05,439
Speaker 2: if you've ever had this happen, but you know, when

1114
01:20:05,479 --> 01:20:08,320
Speaker 2: you're doing something and you can see yourself doing something

1115
01:20:08,400 --> 01:20:10,439
Speaker 2: and you're going, what the heck am I doing? I'm not,

1116
01:20:10,840 --> 01:20:15,799
Speaker 2: you know, you're kind of outside your self doing something.

1117
01:20:15,960 --> 01:20:18,479
Speaker 2: And that's the way it was. As I'm pointing my

1118
01:20:18,560 --> 01:20:22,160
Speaker 2: finger in his face, don't ever do that to me again,

1119
01:20:23,960 --> 01:20:26,760
Speaker 2: I'm going, what the hell are you doing? You know?

1120
01:20:27,040 --> 01:20:34,519
Speaker 2: And anyway, he didn't speak to me for the rest

1121
01:20:34,560 --> 01:20:42,400
Speaker 2: of the tour, and it was it crushed me, and

1122
01:20:42,479 --> 01:20:46,479
Speaker 2: I knew I was wrong. And I don't blame him.

1123
01:20:46,840 --> 01:20:49,640
Speaker 2: I mean, he was hurt. I know. I know a

1124
01:20:49,680 --> 01:20:51,800
Speaker 2: lot of the details that I don't put in the book,

1125
01:20:53,160 --> 01:20:57,360
Speaker 2: the private details about what happened after, you know, and

1126
01:20:57,400 --> 01:21:02,360
Speaker 2: how he felt. But I say in the book I

1127
01:21:02,400 --> 01:21:05,880
Speaker 2: had betrayed as trust and I did, you know. And

1128
01:21:09,520 --> 01:21:12,760
Speaker 2: it was a turning point for me in terms of

1129
01:21:12,800 --> 01:21:15,840
Speaker 2: looking at my own self and my own actions and

1130
01:21:15,960 --> 01:21:24,000
Speaker 2: my own what I was, where I was, and I

1131
01:21:24,479 --> 01:21:27,840
Speaker 2: it was the beginning of the end for me in

1132
01:21:28,000 --> 01:21:32,680
Speaker 2: terms of my drug usage and my alcohol usage. It

1133
01:21:32,760 --> 01:21:36,120
Speaker 2: took another two months for me to get sober, but

1134
01:21:36,439 --> 01:21:39,880
Speaker 2: it was it was the beginning of the end. And

1135
01:21:39,920 --> 01:21:42,320
Speaker 2: that's why I bring it up in the book because

1136
01:21:42,320 --> 01:21:48,720
Speaker 2: it's not really relevant, I mean, to anything else in

1137
01:21:48,760 --> 01:21:53,760
Speaker 2: my mind. And and Elton and I we reconciled right

1138
01:21:53,800 --> 01:21:59,920
Speaker 2: after the tour, you know, and there was no no

1139
01:22:00,120 --> 01:22:02,200
Speaker 2: harm done. And when I did, when I did get

1140
01:22:02,240 --> 01:22:04,880
Speaker 2: sober and made an amends, I wrote him a letter.

1141
01:22:06,280 --> 01:22:12,200
Speaker 2: He wrote me back, and you know, making amends for that,

1142
01:22:12,280 --> 01:22:14,880
Speaker 2: which is one of the steps in alcoholics anonymous. And

1143
01:22:14,920 --> 01:22:17,400
Speaker 2: I'm breaking my own inanimity, but I can do that

1144
01:22:18,479 --> 01:22:24,080
Speaker 2: after forty seven years, and you know, I had to

1145
01:22:24,120 --> 01:22:27,280
Speaker 2: make amends to him, and I did, and to other

1146
01:22:27,360 --> 01:22:32,320
Speaker 2: people who are on that tour. He never he said,

1147
01:22:32,360 --> 01:22:35,560
Speaker 2: you don't owe me any amends. You know, it just

1148
01:22:35,560 --> 01:22:42,160
Speaker 2: just happened. And but it was the incident that was

1149
01:22:42,240 --> 01:22:47,120
Speaker 2: kind of the last Neon sign for me. You're in trouble, Cindy,

1150
01:22:49,400 --> 01:22:54,800
Speaker 2: get it together. You're going down the wrong path. And

1151
01:22:54,840 --> 01:23:07,320
Speaker 2: because I had heard him so badly. Let's jump forward.

1152
01:23:08,200 --> 01:23:13,479
Speaker 2: You end up marrying Bob, who's brother who you say

1153
01:23:13,479 --> 01:23:16,760
Speaker 2: in the book from the beginning is gay. Yeah, you

1154
01:23:17,000 --> 01:23:21,920
Speaker 2: also say, although it's not really clear that you are gay.

1155
01:23:21,960 --> 01:23:25,240
Speaker 2: But at that time, were you only with women or

1156
01:23:25,280 --> 01:23:29,160
Speaker 2: were you with men too, or what? So? I had

1157
01:23:29,280 --> 01:23:35,720
Speaker 2: very few relationships, in fact, almost none, because I didn't know.

1158
01:23:36,280 --> 01:23:40,679
Speaker 2: I mean, I kind of thought, well, maybe I'm gay,

1159
01:23:40,720 --> 01:23:43,400
Speaker 2: you know, because I'm attracted to women, but I'm also

1160
01:23:43,760 --> 01:23:46,200
Speaker 2: you know, have some attraction to men and so on.

1161
01:23:47,160 --> 01:23:50,280
Speaker 2: But I always felt like I was a guy. I

1162
01:23:50,320 --> 01:23:52,519
Speaker 2: always felt like I was a guy from the time

1163
01:23:52,560 --> 01:23:54,519
Speaker 2: I was three years old and I told my mother,

1164
01:23:55,360 --> 01:23:58,080
Speaker 2: I'm a guy. I'm a boy. Don't call me Cindy,

1165
01:23:58,200 --> 01:24:03,160
Speaker 2: I'm a boy. So so, but growing up in puberty

1166
01:24:03,280 --> 01:24:05,920
Speaker 2: and then beyond and then not knowing, you know, nobody

1167
01:24:05,960 --> 01:24:10,280
Speaker 2: knew anything about the word transgender wasn't even in the vocabulary.

1168
01:24:10,360 --> 01:24:14,600
Speaker 2: There was no word transgender back then. It was transsexual

1169
01:24:14,800 --> 01:24:18,240
Speaker 2: if anything, and it was kind of a pathological, you

1170
01:24:18,280 --> 01:24:26,000
Speaker 2: know condition. And so yes, Dan, Dan, and I I

1171
01:24:26,120 --> 01:24:30,559
Speaker 2: was I did have some attraction to men and and

1172
01:24:30,600 --> 01:24:33,240
Speaker 2: but I didn't have a lot of relationship Bob. I didn't.

1173
01:24:33,479 --> 01:24:38,080
Speaker 2: I avoided them like the plague because I didn't know

1174
01:24:38,479 --> 01:24:41,080
Speaker 2: who I was. I didn't feel like I was in

1175
01:24:41,120 --> 01:24:44,720
Speaker 2: the wrong body. So I didn't really want to, you know,

1176
01:24:44,840 --> 01:24:47,599
Speaker 2: I just it was I just wanted to stay away

1177
01:24:47,640 --> 01:24:52,679
Speaker 2: from physical contact as much as possible with anybody. And

1178
01:24:53,400 --> 01:24:58,439
Speaker 2: but I did have a couple of short relationships with women,

1179
01:24:58,680 --> 01:25:07,160
Speaker 2: one in high school and one afterwards. But I I

1180
01:25:07,200 --> 01:25:10,120
Speaker 2: didn't consider myself gay, although I thought, well, that's what

1181
01:25:10,240 --> 01:25:16,640
Speaker 2: I must be. Anyway, I met Dan through Bob, obviously,

1182
01:25:17,000 --> 01:25:22,879
Speaker 2: and he was completely gay, had never had a relationship

1183
01:25:22,960 --> 01:25:27,720
Speaker 2: with a woman before. And when he was older. He's

1184
01:25:27,760 --> 01:25:32,559
Speaker 2: older than me, He's sixteen years older. And we met

1185
01:25:32,960 --> 01:25:35,840
Speaker 2: and we had an attraction to each other, and we

1186
01:25:35,880 --> 01:25:39,519
Speaker 2: had a little fling for about eight months, and then

1187
01:25:39,600 --> 01:25:44,639
Speaker 2: we didn't and then we after we both got sober

1188
01:25:45,840 --> 01:25:52,479
Speaker 2: in AA. Bob got sober too, he and we were friends.

1189
01:25:52,680 --> 01:25:54,519
Speaker 2: He said to me, I think we should get married,

1190
01:25:54,520 --> 01:25:57,200
Speaker 2: and I said, you're crazy. I don't want to get married.

1191
01:25:57,320 --> 01:25:59,400
Speaker 2: I met in the middle trying, you know that I

1192
01:25:59,439 --> 01:26:02,679
Speaker 2: was recording my first album, and this was in nineteen

1193
01:26:02,720 --> 01:26:06,320
Speaker 2: seventy eight, and I was, you know, on the road

1194
01:26:06,360 --> 01:26:09,120
Speaker 2: and doing my thing and trying to become a rock star.

1195
01:26:10,720 --> 01:26:13,160
Speaker 2: He said, we have the same values. We have, you know,

1196
01:26:13,600 --> 01:26:20,960
Speaker 2: we should get married. And you know, finally, after a

1197
01:26:21,000 --> 01:26:26,320
Speaker 2: while I said yes, because I was getting beaten up

1198
01:26:26,360 --> 01:26:33,559
Speaker 2: in the record business. And you know, I love Dan.

1199
01:26:33,720 --> 01:26:36,360
Speaker 2: I still love him today. I'll see him next week.

1200
01:26:36,840 --> 01:26:43,880
Speaker 2: But you know, I I just thought, well, if I'm

1201
01:26:43,920 --> 01:26:45,519
Speaker 2: not going to be able to be a rock star,

1202
01:26:45,680 --> 01:26:49,599
Speaker 2: because in nineteen seventy nine, a lot of stuff started

1203
01:26:49,640 --> 01:26:53,560
Speaker 2: happening and I and you know, I was nominated for

1204
01:26:53,600 --> 01:26:56,240
Speaker 2: a Grammy and good stuff and all that, and then

1205
01:26:56,400 --> 01:26:59,519
Speaker 2: the record companies folded, and you you know all the story.

1206
01:26:59,640 --> 01:27:04,360
Speaker 2: Plus yes, I was being told to be more feminine

1207
01:27:04,640 --> 01:27:08,679
Speaker 2: if I wanted to get ahead in the music business.

1208
01:27:09,760 --> 01:27:14,639
Speaker 2: And I said, no, not changing who I am, I can't.

1209
01:27:16,000 --> 01:27:23,519
Speaker 2: And that didn't go over real well. And so I

1210
01:27:23,640 --> 01:27:28,120
Speaker 2: married Dan and we had two kids. We moved back

1211
01:27:28,160 --> 01:27:37,040
Speaker 2: East and we had a monogamous relationship. It wasn't an

1212
01:27:37,160 --> 01:27:40,240
Speaker 2: arrangement like somebody think, oh, well, okay, he's gay and

1213
01:27:40,280 --> 01:27:47,599
Speaker 2: you're trands and you know whatever. But we didn't. We tried.

1214
01:27:48,400 --> 01:27:51,320
Speaker 2: I don't even know why, but we tried to be

1215
01:27:51,640 --> 01:27:54,559
Speaker 2: a normal couple. And of course we weren't, so it

1216
01:27:54,640 --> 01:27:57,280
Speaker 2: led to a lot of issues, but we had two

1217
01:27:57,360 --> 01:28:01,639
Speaker 2: beautiful children and we're still friends.

1218
01:28:02,720 --> 01:28:07,439
Speaker 1: Okay, you don't have children immediately. If I remember correctly,

1219
01:28:07,520 --> 01:28:12,280
Speaker 1: Bob suggests having children, What did you think about having children?

1220
01:28:12,960 --> 01:28:16,160
Speaker 2: No, I don't think Bob's I don't remember Bob suggesting

1221
01:28:16,200 --> 01:28:18,960
Speaker 2: having children. Dan was the one who suggested.

1222
01:28:18,560 --> 01:28:20,360
Speaker 1: That that's what I meant to say, I said, Bob,

1223
01:28:20,400 --> 01:28:20,920
Speaker 1: I meant.

1224
01:28:20,800 --> 01:28:24,559
Speaker 2: Dan, Yeah, yeah, Dan, And we sat down and we

1225
01:28:24,600 --> 01:28:29,960
Speaker 2: talked about it very honestly one night. I talk about

1226
01:28:29,960 --> 01:28:33,360
Speaker 2: that in the book, because we looked at each other,

1227
01:28:33,439 --> 01:28:36,320
Speaker 2: and you know, he was gay and I was who

1228
01:28:36,360 --> 01:28:39,080
Speaker 2: I was. And I was still in nineteen eighty one

1229
01:28:39,240 --> 01:28:41,760
Speaker 2: trying to even though we'd moved to New York by

1230
01:28:41,760 --> 01:28:48,080
Speaker 2: that time, but I still wanted to have some kind

1231
01:28:48,120 --> 01:28:56,160
Speaker 2: of career. Now for those younger people, I was thirty

1232
01:28:56,280 --> 01:29:01,040
Speaker 2: years old, and I and you were old to have

1233
01:29:01,080 --> 01:29:05,360
Speaker 2: a career when you were thirty years old back then,

1234
01:29:06,000 --> 01:29:12,880
Speaker 2: and so time was running out for me. But I did,

1235
01:29:13,040 --> 01:29:16,240
Speaker 2: in the back of my mind somewhere want to have kids.

1236
01:29:16,760 --> 01:29:20,519
Speaker 2: And I thought, Okay, if the music business isn't going

1237
01:29:20,600 --> 01:29:24,439
Speaker 2: to happen for me, then you know, I want to

1238
01:29:24,479 --> 01:29:27,519
Speaker 2: have kids. And Dan and I did discuss the fact

1239
01:29:27,560 --> 01:29:30,680
Speaker 2: that we weren't normal. I hate that we use the

1240
01:29:30,720 --> 01:29:37,160
Speaker 2: word normal. We weren't typical male, female, married couple having children,

1241
01:29:38,439 --> 01:29:44,160
Speaker 2: but we both wanted kids and we did.

1242
01:29:46,800 --> 01:29:51,040
Speaker 1: Okay, you end up moving to Connecticut, you're a suburban

1243
01:29:51,160 --> 01:29:55,479
Speaker 1: mom prior to your younger daughter than getting ill. Were

1244
01:29:55,520 --> 01:29:58,840
Speaker 1: you happy the circumstances you were under or was it

1245
01:29:58,880 --> 01:29:59,520
Speaker 1: a struggle?

1246
01:30:00,160 --> 01:30:03,800
Speaker 2: It was a struggle. It was always a struggle for me.

1247
01:30:04,200 --> 01:30:10,880
Speaker 2: It was always a struggle for me. I felt like

1248
01:30:11,000 --> 01:30:13,879
Speaker 2: I was living out of my own body. I felt,

1249
01:30:14,200 --> 01:30:19,320
Speaker 2: you know, we really did, honestly try to fit in

1250
01:30:19,320 --> 01:30:23,840
Speaker 2: in Westport, Connecticut because we moved out of New York.

1251
01:30:23,840 --> 01:30:25,840
Speaker 2: We had a lot of gay friends, a lot of

1252
01:30:25,880 --> 01:30:29,320
Speaker 2: friends in the LGBTQ community in New York and in

1253
01:30:29,520 --> 01:30:32,599
Speaker 2: LA and when we moved to Westport, Connecticut, that kind

1254
01:30:32,640 --> 01:30:36,520
Speaker 2: of fell away. And here we were going to preschool

1255
01:30:36,720 --> 01:30:41,280
Speaker 2: with you know, the Montessori school and all these you know,

1256
01:30:41,680 --> 01:30:46,479
Speaker 2: straight couples and you know, living in Westport, Connecticut, and

1257
01:30:47,320 --> 01:30:52,439
Speaker 2: we both Dan and I really tried to fit in

1258
01:30:52,840 --> 01:30:57,160
Speaker 2: and do you know all the things that parents, young

1259
01:30:57,280 --> 01:31:05,599
Speaker 2: parents do and with the kids, and I listen, I

1260
01:31:05,680 --> 01:31:09,920
Speaker 2: loved having children. There's nothing about having children that I regret,

1261
01:31:11,000 --> 01:31:16,720
Speaker 2: even with the death of my younger daughter. And I

1262
01:31:16,760 --> 01:31:23,360
Speaker 2: loved being pregnant. I loved breastfeeding. I loved being a mother.

1263
01:31:23,560 --> 01:31:31,400
Speaker 2: I still love I love being a grandparent. But that

1264
01:31:31,960 --> 01:31:37,360
Speaker 2: wasn't what the struggle was. The struggle was presenting as

1265
01:31:37,840 --> 01:31:42,080
Speaker 2: a straight couple, even though we didn't lie, we just

1266
01:31:42,320 --> 01:31:48,000
Speaker 2: were and trying to fit the square peg of a

1267
01:31:48,040 --> 01:31:51,959
Speaker 2: relationship or a couple into the round hole of Westport,

1268
01:31:52,000 --> 01:31:56,680
Speaker 2: Connecticut and what that meant. And it was a struggle.

1269
01:31:56,800 --> 01:32:00,679
Speaker 2: And I was still I still had some creativetivity left

1270
01:32:00,720 --> 01:32:04,519
Speaker 2: in me, and I still had the desire to write

1271
01:32:04,600 --> 01:32:09,679
Speaker 2: and perform and record. So that presented its own struggle

1272
01:32:09,880 --> 01:32:12,160
Speaker 2: for me because I had kids.

1273
01:32:12,520 --> 01:32:18,679
Speaker 1: Your daughter tragically dies of cancer. A you work out

1274
01:32:18,720 --> 01:32:22,599
Speaker 1: your grief ultimately in the album that you referenced earlier,

1275
01:32:22,720 --> 01:32:27,000
Speaker 1: that you made with the Grief Royalties. As time has

1276
01:32:27,040 --> 01:32:31,720
Speaker 1: gone by, to what degree does that metabolize, to what

1277
01:32:31,800 --> 01:32:35,000
Speaker 1: degree can one get over it? Or is it always

1278
01:32:35,040 --> 01:32:36,639
Speaker 1: a hole that can't be filled?

1279
01:32:37,800 --> 01:32:41,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I my belief, and I've talked to thousands of

1280
01:32:41,960 --> 01:32:44,719
Speaker 2: brave parents because I worked with them for fifteen years

1281
01:32:44,760 --> 01:32:47,439
Speaker 2: with that music from Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth.

1282
01:32:49,280 --> 01:32:52,000
Speaker 1: Uh.

1283
01:32:52,520 --> 01:32:56,000
Speaker 2: My experience for myself and for anyone I've ever talked

1284
01:32:56,040 --> 01:32:57,880
Speaker 2: to who's a brief parent, is that you never get

1285
01:32:57,880 --> 01:33:00,840
Speaker 2: over it. There is no such thing as getting over it.

1286
01:33:01,560 --> 01:33:05,880
Speaker 2: You can get through it. And even that, I say

1287
01:33:05,880 --> 01:33:09,840
Speaker 2: with some kind of caveat, it's a hole that never

1288
01:33:09,920 --> 01:33:14,479
Speaker 2: goes away. There's never I mean, Jesse's birthday is this month,

1289
01:33:15,200 --> 01:33:19,880
Speaker 2: you know, she would have been thirty nine years old.

1290
01:33:20,320 --> 01:33:29,439
Speaker 2: Her death day is next month, and it's complicated for those.

1291
01:33:30,120 --> 01:33:33,160
Speaker 2: So grief, grief has a has a life of its own,

1292
01:33:33,439 --> 01:33:36,679
Speaker 2: and it and it and it grows and changes and

1293
01:33:37,160 --> 01:33:43,439
Speaker 2: shifts and sometimes it metastasized in the early days and

1294
01:33:43,439 --> 01:33:45,639
Speaker 2: and and then it kind of shifts around to different

1295
01:33:45,680 --> 01:33:49,400
Speaker 2: places in your life. It's an entity all its own

1296
01:33:51,000 --> 01:34:03,960
Speaker 2: and it's always there. And so Jesse's death presented me

1297
01:34:06,360 --> 01:34:09,080
Speaker 2: not only with abject grief, which I had to go

1298
01:34:09,160 --> 01:34:14,720
Speaker 2: through and did go through, but it also gave me

1299
01:34:16,560 --> 01:34:25,120
Speaker 2: a different life on a bunch of levels. It gave

1300
01:34:25,160 --> 01:34:27,679
Speaker 2: me a different life because you're never the same person

1301
01:34:28,760 --> 01:34:34,720
Speaker 2: after the death of a child. It affected my relationship

1302
01:34:34,760 --> 01:34:38,040
Speaker 2: with my older daughter. Of course it affected her, her

1303
01:34:38,040 --> 01:34:46,240
Speaker 2: sibling died. It affected my relationship with life, but it

1304
01:34:46,439 --> 01:34:51,400
Speaker 2: also now looking back, and it's going to be next month,

1305
01:34:51,439 --> 01:34:55,160
Speaker 2: it'll be twenty seven years since her death. It's a lifetime,

1306
01:35:01,920 --> 01:35:07,400
Speaker 2: actually be twenty eight years. Twenty eight years, and her

1307
01:35:07,560 --> 01:35:11,479
Speaker 2: death gave me a new life. I can only say

1308
01:35:11,520 --> 01:35:15,400
Speaker 2: that now and have only been able to say that

1309
01:35:15,479 --> 01:35:19,679
Speaker 2: for the last ten years, let's say, or fifteen years,

1310
01:35:20,800 --> 01:35:23,960
Speaker 2: because she gave me a different life. She made me

1311
01:35:24,040 --> 01:35:27,200
Speaker 2: a more compassionate person. She gave me the gifts of

1312
01:35:27,240 --> 01:35:31,160
Speaker 2: those songs from somewhere between heaven and Earth that were

1313
01:35:31,280 --> 01:35:35,200
Speaker 2: all channeled from and I'm using that word loosely from

1314
01:35:35,280 --> 01:35:40,080
Speaker 2: a different place in me that before that album and

1315
01:35:40,240 --> 01:35:44,559
Speaker 2: after that album. Nope, those songs that I wrote before

1316
01:35:44,920 --> 01:35:56,760
Speaker 2: and after do not have the same depth or weight

1317
01:35:57,600 --> 01:36:00,439
Speaker 2: of those songs. They didn't cut those songs before and after.

1318
01:36:00,439 --> 01:36:03,160
Speaker 2: It didn't come from the same place those ten songs

1319
01:36:03,160 --> 01:36:07,080
Speaker 2: from that album came from. And that's that album continues

1320
01:36:07,120 --> 01:36:12,160
Speaker 2: to this day. I get emails from people, you know,

1321
01:36:12,600 --> 01:36:16,280
Speaker 2: messages from people. I have to answer one today. I

1322
01:36:16,400 --> 01:36:19,920
Speaker 2: just got, you know that about somebody listening to that

1323
01:36:20,040 --> 01:36:26,719
Speaker 2: album after the death of someone a loved one. Mostly

1324
01:36:26,720 --> 01:36:30,480
Speaker 2: it's children, but it could be anybody saying how profoundly

1325
01:36:30,520 --> 01:36:34,840
Speaker 2: it affected them to this day. That album is my legacy.

1326
01:36:34,920 --> 01:36:38,559
Speaker 2: There's other things to the book and one person show

1327
01:36:38,640 --> 01:36:41,000
Speaker 2: and another show, you know, things like that, But that

1328
01:36:41,160 --> 01:36:45,240
Speaker 2: album is my true legacy. There is and that would

1329
01:36:45,240 --> 01:36:51,080
Speaker 2: not the horrible thing about it. And it brought me

1330
01:36:51,120 --> 01:36:58,640
Speaker 2: back into the music business, to that album. So I

1331
01:36:58,640 --> 01:37:03,960
Speaker 2: I would much rather have a tall, redheaded adult standing

1332
01:37:04,000 --> 01:37:11,080
Speaker 2: in front of me, who's my beautiful daughter, than I

1333
01:37:11,120 --> 01:37:13,280
Speaker 2: would all the rest of the life that came in

1334
01:37:13,320 --> 01:37:19,200
Speaker 2: the last twenty eight years, but her gifts to me

1335
01:37:19,479 --> 01:37:24,719
Speaker 2: in her death, I would not have the same life.

1336
01:37:24,840 --> 01:37:29,320
Speaker 2: I would not have been the most more compassionate or

1337
01:37:29,439 --> 01:37:32,439
Speaker 2: would have had my legacy. I would have just been

1338
01:37:33,360 --> 01:37:47,040
Speaker 2: another struggling whatever. And so it's a complicated issue about

1339
01:37:47,080 --> 01:37:51,760
Speaker 2: the death of a child. But does the grief go away? Nope,

1340
01:37:52,040 --> 01:37:54,840
Speaker 2: it doesn't. And there are choices to be made when

1341
01:37:54,840 --> 01:37:59,200
Speaker 2: a child dies. You either live or you die figuratively

1342
01:37:59,479 --> 01:38:02,880
Speaker 2: or live or physically. Because I know parents who have

1343
01:38:03,000 --> 01:38:10,240
Speaker 2: physically died from the death of their children. So somehow,

1344
01:38:12,520 --> 01:38:19,360
Speaker 2: in some way I chose to live and I can't

1345
01:38:19,400 --> 01:38:22,720
Speaker 2: take credit really for somewhere between Heaven and Earth, that

1346
01:38:22,840 --> 01:38:26,360
Speaker 2: album and those songs, other than the fact that I

1347
01:38:26,439 --> 01:38:30,360
Speaker 2: was compelled to show up to do them, to write them,

1348
01:38:30,600 --> 01:38:35,840
Speaker 2: and to record them, and then the powers that be

1349
01:38:36,000 --> 01:38:39,240
Speaker 2: took over and took it in a direction and took

1350
01:38:39,240 --> 01:38:42,000
Speaker 2: it out into the world that I had no intention

1351
01:38:42,280 --> 01:38:43,280
Speaker 2: of doing myself.

1352
01:38:44,600 --> 01:38:49,160
Speaker 1: Now, do you still think of Jesse every day? Does

1353
01:38:49,200 --> 01:38:51,920
Speaker 1: the number of times you think about her fate over

1354
01:38:51,960 --> 01:38:53,439
Speaker 1: the years.

1355
01:38:55,280 --> 01:38:58,479
Speaker 2: No. I think about her every day. She's with me

1356
01:38:58,640 --> 01:39:03,960
Speaker 2: every day. If you talk to a bereef parent, more

1357
01:39:04,000 --> 01:39:06,840
Speaker 2: than likely they will have some kind of symbol that

1358
01:39:06,920 --> 01:39:12,559
Speaker 2: represents their child. To me and to many other people

1359
01:39:12,600 --> 01:39:15,840
Speaker 2: who've lost loved ones, it's a cardinal. Jesse had red hair,

1360
01:39:16,320 --> 01:39:22,600
Speaker 2: really red hair, this beautiful auburn, thick hair, and the

1361
01:39:22,800 --> 01:39:26,639
Speaker 2: stories about cardinals that appeared to people when she died

1362
01:39:26,640 --> 01:39:29,200
Speaker 2: and they knew she had died, and so the cardinal

1363
01:39:29,280 --> 01:39:32,360
Speaker 2: became symbol for her. I have tons of cardinals in

1364
01:39:32,400 --> 01:39:36,040
Speaker 2: my yard, you know, And but I think of her

1365
01:39:36,160 --> 01:39:40,000
Speaker 2: even beyond the cardinals and stuff. I think of her

1366
01:39:40,040 --> 01:39:43,160
Speaker 2: all the time. I've got her pictures right here. I've

1367
01:39:43,160 --> 01:39:49,120
Speaker 2: got pictures right here. She's become a part of me

1368
01:39:49,640 --> 01:39:55,960
Speaker 2: in you know, she's become a part of my own being.

1369
01:39:57,720 --> 01:40:03,840
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm walking around and that part of

1370
01:40:03,880 --> 01:40:07,880
Speaker 2: my mission here on earth is to let people know

1371
01:40:07,960 --> 01:40:12,360
Speaker 2: that she lived and that she was important, and that

1372
01:40:15,760 --> 01:40:20,360
Speaker 2: part of my gifts come which I just said, are

1373
01:40:21,000 --> 01:40:26,280
Speaker 2: from her. And so she's always with me at all times,

1374
01:40:26,479 --> 01:40:30,240
Speaker 2: and I never there's not a day that goes by.

1375
01:40:31,680 --> 01:40:34,240
Speaker 2: I don't know that she's not a part of my day.

1376
01:40:37,160 --> 01:40:43,120
Speaker 1: Switching gears at this late date, can you be totally

1377
01:40:43,280 --> 01:40:49,960
Speaker 1: comfortable being a trans man in society, both internally and externally.

1378
01:40:50,240 --> 01:40:53,360
Speaker 1: Do you feel comfortable inside and do you find the

1379
01:40:53,400 --> 01:40:56,440
Speaker 1: perceptions of others or such that you can feel comfortable.

1380
01:40:57,800 --> 01:41:01,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. I feel comfortable within myself.

1381
01:41:02,520 --> 01:41:07,040
Speaker 2: If I didn't have to deal with transphobia and the

1382
01:41:07,080 --> 01:41:12,640
Speaker 2: outside world, I would be very happy about that. It

1383
01:41:12,840 --> 01:41:22,599
Speaker 2: really is. So it's such a shame that a certain

1384
01:41:22,680 --> 01:41:32,839
Speaker 2: group of people are targeting trans people. People don't understand,

1385
01:41:32,840 --> 01:41:35,600
Speaker 2: and I don't expect people to understand that it's a

1386
01:41:35,640 --> 01:41:39,400
Speaker 2: real thing. That it's not, you know, some crazy whim

1387
01:41:39,760 --> 01:41:45,160
Speaker 2: you know, or some psychological problem or anything like that.

1388
01:41:45,520 --> 01:41:57,920
Speaker 2: It is a physiological condition. And I mean I have

1389
01:41:58,080 --> 01:42:00,000
Speaker 2: known since I was three years old. As I meant

1390
01:42:00,280 --> 01:42:04,160
Speaker 2: before that, I was a boy at that time, a

1391
01:42:04,200 --> 01:42:08,080
Speaker 2: boy in a girl's body, and one of There is

1392
01:42:08,120 --> 01:42:11,880
Speaker 2: a spectrum of transgenderness too, I mean people transgenderness. That's

1393
01:42:11,920 --> 01:42:15,439
Speaker 2: not even a word, but there is a spectrum, and

1394
01:42:15,600 --> 01:42:17,880
Speaker 2: there are people who feel differently than I do. There

1395
01:42:17,920 --> 01:42:20,480
Speaker 2: are people who are on a different part of the spectrum,

1396
01:42:20,479 --> 01:42:24,479
Speaker 2: who feel that they're gender fluid or something like that.

1397
01:42:24,720 --> 01:42:30,720
Speaker 2: I am on the real side, you know, flat end

1398
01:42:30,920 --> 01:42:35,040
Speaker 2: of the spectrum where I never in my life felt

1399
01:42:35,080 --> 01:42:38,559
Speaker 2: like a female. I don't relate to women, never did

1400
01:42:38,600 --> 01:42:42,160
Speaker 2: relate to women. I loved being a mother, I loved

1401
01:42:42,160 --> 01:42:46,320
Speaker 2: being pregnant, I loved breastfeeding. But I even then, even

1402
01:42:46,400 --> 01:42:49,000
Speaker 2: at nine months pregnant, I didn't relate to being a woman.

1403
01:42:49,080 --> 01:42:56,920
Speaker 2: I was just a vessel carrying a baby. And I

1404
01:42:56,920 --> 01:43:03,800
Speaker 2: I just so sociologically it's difficult, I look even though

1405
01:43:03,840 --> 01:43:06,040
Speaker 2: no one. I mean, I've been, Believe me, I've been

1406
01:43:06,040 --> 01:43:09,760
Speaker 2: in men's rooms in Fenway Park and Jillette Stadium and

1407
01:43:09,960 --> 01:43:13,160
Speaker 2: Titans Nissan State. You know I've been. I've been in

1408
01:43:13,240 --> 01:43:15,920
Speaker 2: men's room and gas stations out in the middle of Nebraska.

1409
01:43:16,000 --> 01:43:19,720
Speaker 2: You know, no one will ever look at me and

1410
01:43:19,760 --> 01:43:26,120
Speaker 2: say there's something about that guy that looks like a woman. Nobody.

1411
01:43:27,640 --> 01:43:31,439
Speaker 2: But I still look over my shoulder. I am still

1412
01:43:31,479 --> 01:43:34,439
Speaker 2: aware of where I am at all times in public,

1413
01:43:35,720 --> 01:43:39,840
Speaker 2: you know, and what's around me. If I go into

1414
01:43:39,880 --> 01:43:42,680
Speaker 2: a restroom and into a stall, if you want to

1415
01:43:42,720 --> 01:43:46,000
Speaker 2: get personal about it, I make I have to, you know,

1416
01:43:46,080 --> 01:43:54,040
Speaker 2: I make sure that I'm safe. It's a shame that,

1417
01:43:55,360 --> 01:43:59,760
Speaker 2: as I said, that people don't and don't want to understand.

1418
01:44:00,080 --> 01:44:05,599
Speaker 2: They don't want to believe that this is just a

1419
01:44:05,880 --> 01:44:10,320
Speaker 2: human condition, just like other human conditions. I say at

1420
01:44:10,360 --> 01:44:16,559
Speaker 2: the end of my book in the epilogue, you know,

1421
01:44:16,720 --> 01:44:20,960
Speaker 2: if we are indeed the most advanced species on Earth,

1422
01:44:21,200 --> 01:44:26,840
Speaker 2: then wouldn't we by definition be the most diverse. And

1423
01:44:28,920 --> 01:44:33,320
Speaker 2: we are diverse, you know, we are. We don't look

1424
01:44:33,400 --> 01:44:37,200
Speaker 2: at whatever that fish is or whatever that bug is

1425
01:44:37,840 --> 01:44:42,040
Speaker 2: where the male gives birth and say that's an anomaly

1426
01:44:42,120 --> 01:44:47,120
Speaker 2: of nature. We say, oh, that's a male fish who

1427
01:44:47,200 --> 01:44:58,040
Speaker 2: gives birth. Wow. You know. It's the misinformation and the disinformation,

1428
01:44:58,200 --> 01:45:02,360
Speaker 2: as people like to say about trans people that bothers

1429
01:45:02,479 --> 01:45:05,240
Speaker 2: me the most. And that's why I'm an advocate, and

1430
01:45:05,280 --> 01:45:10,040
Speaker 2: I try to speak out loud about being trans. Now,

1431
01:45:10,320 --> 01:45:13,160
Speaker 2: we could get into a whole political discussion about why

1432
01:45:13,200 --> 01:45:16,320
Speaker 2: there are bathroom bills. Guess what, there's not a bathroom

1433
01:45:16,320 --> 01:45:18,719
Speaker 2: bill because somebody's afraid that I'm going to walk into

1434
01:45:18,720 --> 01:45:24,640
Speaker 2: a men's room. Nobody knows. I could stand washing my

1435
01:45:24,720 --> 01:45:32,719
Speaker 2: hands beside Mitch McConnell or you know, one of the

1436
01:45:32,760 --> 01:45:36,680
Speaker 2: red wing, red wing I was gonna say, red neck,

1437
01:45:37,200 --> 01:45:40,439
Speaker 2: right wing, one of the right wing politicians. I could

1438
01:45:40,439 --> 01:45:45,000
Speaker 2: stand beside any one of them in a restroom washing

1439
01:45:45,040 --> 01:45:48,720
Speaker 2: my hands and they wouldn't know. Why do they have

1440
01:45:48,800 --> 01:45:52,960
Speaker 2: bathroom bills? Why is it illegal for me to walk

1441
01:45:53,000 --> 01:45:58,320
Speaker 2: into a restroom in many states? Even though I do anyway?

1442
01:45:59,800 --> 01:46:05,320
Speaker 2: Because it's the trans women who they're afraid of. Men

1443
01:46:05,600 --> 01:46:11,040
Speaker 2: are afraid of trans women. It threatens their masculinity for

1444
01:46:11,080 --> 01:46:20,200
Speaker 2: some reason. And yeah, I could go on a whole

1445
01:46:20,240 --> 01:46:27,880
Speaker 2: diatribe and I won't, but it, you know, we have

1446
01:46:27,960 --> 01:46:30,240
Speaker 2: to educate. That's the only way we can do it.

1447
01:46:30,280 --> 01:46:34,679
Speaker 2: And the only you know, I'm out. I'm an out

1448
01:46:34,800 --> 01:46:42,080
Speaker 2: trans person, you know. And do I worry every once

1449
01:46:42,120 --> 01:46:47,360
Speaker 2: in a while that some person's gonna say, uh, you know,

1450
01:46:48,760 --> 01:46:55,040
Speaker 2: Sydney Bullens is a trans person and doesn't deserve to live. Yeah,

1451
01:46:55,120 --> 01:46:58,680
Speaker 2: I worry about that sometimes, but I can't live my

1452
01:46:58,800 --> 01:47:01,880
Speaker 2: life doing that. What I can live my life doing

1453
01:47:02,240 --> 01:47:06,960
Speaker 2: is talking about it, writing about it. You know the

1454
01:47:07,000 --> 01:47:11,599
Speaker 2: thing about my story, Bob, which you got when you

1455
01:47:11,640 --> 01:47:15,000
Speaker 2: wrote about it, you got it. It's a human story.

1456
01:47:15,160 --> 01:47:19,040
Speaker 2: It's not about being a transgender person who happened to

1457
01:47:19,040 --> 01:47:21,960
Speaker 2: have a career in rock and roll or happen to

1458
01:47:22,000 --> 01:47:25,960
Speaker 2: have kids, even though that thread runs through the book

1459
01:47:26,040 --> 01:47:31,160
Speaker 2: along with the music. It's a human story. My story

1460
01:47:31,240 --> 01:47:34,519
Speaker 2: is human. I lived as a woman for sixty one years.

1461
01:47:34,640 --> 01:47:37,760
Speaker 2: I had two babies. I watched one of them take

1462
01:47:37,800 --> 01:47:46,519
Speaker 2: their last breath. I have four beautiful granddaughters, grandbabies, two

1463
01:47:46,560 --> 01:47:53,080
Speaker 2: granddaughters and two grandsons, four beautiful grandchildren. You know, I'm

1464
01:47:53,120 --> 01:48:01,120
Speaker 2: a grandparent. I act like a grandparent. I'm not a

1465
01:48:01,160 --> 01:48:07,480
Speaker 2: freak or an anomaly or a deranged person. I contribute

1466
01:48:07,520 --> 01:48:11,479
Speaker 2: to my community, and that's what we really That's what

1467
01:48:11,520 --> 01:48:14,479
Speaker 2: my book is about. It's about a human story. So

1468
01:48:14,520 --> 01:48:18,160
Speaker 2: that maybe if somebody chooses to read it, although it's

1469
01:48:18,200 --> 01:48:22,800
Speaker 2: got trands in the title, maybe they'll have a different view.

1470
01:48:22,880 --> 01:48:25,559
Speaker 2: Maybe they'll get a different perspective. Maybe they'll say, you

1471
01:48:25,560 --> 01:48:31,240
Speaker 2: know what, maybe I can learn a little bit from this.

1472
01:48:31,920 --> 01:48:35,519
Speaker 2: And I don't want to start pontificating, but it bugs me. Yeah,

1473
01:48:35,560 --> 01:48:38,559
Speaker 2: And I'm afraid for the trans people. And know I'm

1474
01:48:38,600 --> 01:48:42,840
Speaker 2: not always comfortable in the world, but I'm comfortable within

1475
01:48:42,920 --> 01:48:47,920
Speaker 2: myself and I don't regret making the decision, even though

1476
01:48:49,280 --> 01:48:54,560
Speaker 2: let's get honest here, it's harder for me in the

1477
01:48:54,680 --> 01:48:59,280
Speaker 2: music business. It's harder for me out in the world.

1478
01:49:00,600 --> 01:49:04,439
Speaker 2: It's harder for me to meet people. It's harder for

1479
01:49:04,479 --> 01:49:06,840
Speaker 2: me to tell my story. Somebody says, what do you do? Well?

1480
01:49:06,920 --> 01:49:07,320
Speaker 1: I do this?

1481
01:49:07,840 --> 01:49:09,840
Speaker 2: Oh what have you done in the past? Ah. I

1482
01:49:09,920 --> 01:49:12,559
Speaker 2: sang with Elton John. I sang on the Grease movie soundtrack.

1483
01:49:12,840 --> 01:49:17,479
Speaker 2: Guess what Cindy sang on the Grease movie soundtrack. Cindy

1484
01:49:17,560 --> 01:49:20,280
Speaker 2: sang with Elton John. So now they go and look

1485
01:49:20,320 --> 01:49:21,960
Speaker 2: me up. I had this happen the other day with

1486
01:49:22,040 --> 01:49:24,040
Speaker 2: a guy with the Trump. I was in a store

1487
01:49:24,080 --> 01:49:27,960
Speaker 2: and he had a Trump, you know, cut out, a

1488
01:49:28,000 --> 01:49:32,559
Speaker 2: life sized Trump cut out, and I mistakenly said to him,

1489
01:49:32,720 --> 01:49:37,160
Speaker 2: you know, I was doing a transaction, and he I

1490
01:49:37,240 --> 01:49:40,360
Speaker 2: mistakenly said, yeah, yeah, he said, what do you do?

1491
01:49:40,400 --> 01:49:42,960
Speaker 2: I said, I'm you know, I'm one of those songwriters

1492
01:49:42,960 --> 01:49:46,840
Speaker 2: in Nashville. He looks up my name and I had

1493
01:49:46,840 --> 01:49:49,760
Speaker 2: to turn to him and I said, wait until I

1494
01:49:49,880 --> 01:49:57,160
Speaker 2: leave before you look me up. And I laughed and

1495
01:49:57,200 --> 01:50:02,400
Speaker 2: he put his phone away. So it's harder for me

1496
01:50:02,840 --> 01:50:07,559
Speaker 2: to live in the world as a trans person. But

1497
01:50:07,640 --> 01:50:12,160
Speaker 2: do I regret it, No, because I am being the

1498
01:50:12,240 --> 01:50:18,080
Speaker 2: person that I am meant to be and part of that.

1499
01:50:19,000 --> 01:50:26,320
Speaker 2: When when my siblings didn't want me to transition, when

1500
01:50:26,320 --> 01:50:28,840
Speaker 2: I told them I was going to one of my

1501
01:50:28,960 --> 01:50:33,840
Speaker 2: sisters said why, why, why why? And I said, well,

1502
01:50:33,840 --> 01:50:37,280
Speaker 2: there's a couple of reasons. One is I I want

1503
01:50:37,320 --> 01:50:38,800
Speaker 2: to see what it feels like to be in the

1504
01:50:38,840 --> 01:50:44,800
Speaker 2: body it was meant to have, minus a few things. Two,

1505
01:50:47,240 --> 01:50:51,480
Speaker 2: if I can, because I'm a known person in certain communities,

1506
01:50:52,520 --> 01:50:55,599
Speaker 2: maybe not a household name, but I'm a public figure.

1507
01:50:56,479 --> 01:50:59,800
Speaker 2: If I can change one person's opinion about what a

1508
01:51:00,080 --> 01:51:03,920
Speaker 2: transperson is, then it's worth it to me. Just like

1509
01:51:04,000 --> 01:51:07,160
Speaker 2: I did with the death of a child, I affected,

1510
01:51:07,600 --> 01:51:10,960
Speaker 2: not me, that music affected a lot of people in

1511
01:51:11,040 --> 01:51:16,120
Speaker 2: a positive way in expressing their grief, in knowing they

1512
01:51:16,160 --> 01:51:20,599
Speaker 2: weren't alone, whatever it was so with somewhere between heaven

1513
01:51:20,640 --> 01:51:24,240
Speaker 2: and Earth. So now it's this. Now I'm a transperson.

1514
01:51:26,000 --> 01:51:29,840
Speaker 2: If I can affect anybody to maybe take it just

1515
01:51:30,080 --> 01:51:34,360
Speaker 2: a little bit of a deeper beak into what it

1516
01:51:34,600 --> 01:51:39,160
Speaker 2: is to be transgender, or to empathize a little bit

1517
01:51:39,240 --> 01:51:49,240
Speaker 2: with the fact that this is a human condition, then

1518
01:51:49,320 --> 01:51:50,360
Speaker 2: it's worth it to me.

1519
01:51:52,600 --> 01:51:57,479
Speaker 1: Okay, you transitioned a little over a decade ago. In

1520
01:51:57,600 --> 01:52:01,040
Speaker 1: that time, although I have a friend who has a

1521
01:52:01,920 --> 01:52:04,960
Speaker 1: brother who turned into as she would say, his sister,

1522
01:52:05,520 --> 01:52:08,519
Speaker 1: and I've known that person for thirty five years. In

1523
01:52:08,600 --> 01:52:12,680
Speaker 1: the last half a decade, this has become more of

1524
01:52:12,720 --> 01:52:14,400
Speaker 1: a public issue.

1525
01:52:14,680 --> 01:52:15,040
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1526
01:52:15,120 --> 01:52:17,479
Speaker 1: Has this been better or worse for you?

1527
01:52:19,960 --> 01:52:23,840
Speaker 2: Oh, it's been. It's been worse that it's been a

1528
01:52:23,880 --> 01:52:27,320
Speaker 2: public issue because, as I said, you know, I look

1529
01:52:27,360 --> 01:52:31,640
Speaker 2: over my shoulder. Look. I transitioned in Portland, Maine. I

1530
01:52:31,720 --> 01:52:34,559
Speaker 2: lived in Maine. You know, I'm a big fish in

1531
01:52:34,600 --> 01:52:37,280
Speaker 2: a little pond in Portland, Mainor I was you know

1532
01:52:37,400 --> 01:52:39,960
Speaker 2: where I you know, I was known to a lot

1533
01:52:39,960 --> 01:52:42,360
Speaker 2: of media people. I've done a lot of charity work.

1534
01:52:42,479 --> 01:52:46,920
Speaker 2: I've done a lot of things there. When I started transitioning,

1535
01:52:47,000 --> 01:52:50,599
Speaker 2: the local networks did stories on me as like, oh

1536
01:52:50,680 --> 01:52:55,160
Speaker 2: you know this, you know this person is transitioning, and

1537
01:52:55,200 --> 01:52:58,840
Speaker 2: what a great story this is and great for them

1538
01:52:58,960 --> 01:53:05,080
Speaker 2: and me, and you know, little did I know, and

1539
01:53:05,160 --> 01:53:11,679
Speaker 2: its been twelve years that the world that we would

1540
01:53:11,760 --> 01:53:19,720
Speaker 2: become trans people would become the number one targeted group

1541
01:53:21,880 --> 01:53:34,120
Speaker 2: of all the vitriol, that the violence that trans people

1542
01:53:34,240 --> 01:53:42,400
Speaker 2: encounter is off the charts. So, as I said, it's harder,

1543
01:53:42,720 --> 01:53:45,880
Speaker 2: and especially living now in a red state, even though

1544
01:53:45,960 --> 01:53:51,880
Speaker 2: Nashville is a blue city, and having all these laws

1545
01:53:51,960 --> 01:53:59,280
Speaker 2: passed and everything else, it's much harder. One of the

1546
01:53:59,280 --> 01:54:03,240
Speaker 2: reasons I moved back to Maine. Not that there aren't

1547
01:54:03,400 --> 01:54:06,599
Speaker 2: people who disagree in Maine too, you know, every place

1548
01:54:06,640 --> 01:54:16,439
Speaker 2: has its as it's you know, divisions, but uh yeah,

1549
01:54:16,560 --> 01:54:20,400
Speaker 2: it's it is harder. It's much harder, Okay.

1550
01:54:20,479 --> 01:54:24,560
Speaker 1: In the seventies, mid seventies, I lived in Salt Lake City.

1551
01:54:24,800 --> 01:54:27,240
Speaker 1: Utah is not the same state it used to be.

1552
01:54:28,000 --> 01:54:31,320
Speaker 1: It used to be very heavily Mormon. Not that there

1553
01:54:31,320 --> 01:54:33,880
Speaker 1: aren't a lot of Mormons there, but they really dominated.

1554
01:54:34,360 --> 01:54:39,240
Speaker 1: And within a month seemingly every Jew in Utah found

1555
01:54:39,280 --> 01:54:45,240
Speaker 1: me and I wasn't looking for them. Okay, is their compassion.

1556
01:54:46,080 --> 01:54:47,880
Speaker 1: Is there I hate to use the word network's got

1557
01:54:47,880 --> 01:54:53,600
Speaker 1: a weird connotation. Is there a community that strengthens each

1558
01:54:53,720 --> 01:54:55,920
Speaker 1: individual in the trans world.

1559
01:54:57,400 --> 01:55:02,200
Speaker 2: There are many communities that are are out there, and

1560
01:55:02,240 --> 01:55:05,400
Speaker 2: I list a bunch of resources in the back of

1561
01:55:05,440 --> 01:55:14,120
Speaker 2: my book for people. I mean, every city and some

1562
01:55:14,320 --> 01:55:22,320
Speaker 2: towns have their own LGBTQ organizations that help people. Obviously,

1563
01:55:22,360 --> 01:55:26,360
Speaker 2: there is human rights organizations all over the place, so

1564
01:55:26,400 --> 01:55:32,480
Speaker 2: there are places to go and places that are safe

1565
01:55:32,680 --> 01:55:35,600
Speaker 2: for people, and certainly online there's a ton of ton

1566
01:55:35,640 --> 01:55:37,800
Speaker 2: of them for trans people. I'm not going to name

1567
01:55:37,840 --> 01:55:45,480
Speaker 2: them all, but yes, and we need every single one.

1568
01:55:46,000 --> 01:55:53,560
Speaker 2: We need every single person. I'm privileged. I'm lucky. First

1569
01:55:53,600 --> 01:55:59,919
Speaker 2: of all, I have support human support for me personally.

1570
01:56:00,600 --> 01:56:09,000
Speaker 2: My family, my friends, my colleagues, you know, support me

1571
01:56:09,280 --> 01:56:12,880
Speaker 2: in what I've done in terms of transitioning and who

1572
01:56:12,920 --> 01:56:15,960
Speaker 2: I am now and who they want me to be

1573
01:56:16,160 --> 01:56:19,000
Speaker 2: and how they want me to be. So I'm supported.

1574
01:56:19,320 --> 01:56:23,200
Speaker 2: I also am invisible two people who don't know me.

1575
01:56:24,600 --> 01:56:28,000
Speaker 2: Like I said, I can walk down the street and

1576
01:56:28,440 --> 01:56:32,280
Speaker 2: no one's going to be the wiser. No one ever

1577
01:56:32,400 --> 01:56:35,240
Speaker 2: raises their eyebrows at me. I'm just a guy. I'm

1578
01:56:35,240 --> 01:56:39,240
Speaker 2: an old man. You know, I'm just another old white guy,

1579
01:56:39,520 --> 01:56:44,000
Speaker 2: you know that's wandering through the world. And so I

1580
01:56:44,080 --> 01:56:47,360
Speaker 2: have privilege in that I'm now seen as an older

1581
01:56:47,400 --> 01:56:53,400
Speaker 2: white male, and believe me, I have I'm like a

1582
01:56:53,400 --> 01:56:55,800
Speaker 2: fly on the wall. I'm like a spy because i

1583
01:56:55,880 --> 01:56:57,800
Speaker 2: was a woman for sixty years and now I've been

1584
01:56:57,800 --> 01:57:02,360
Speaker 2: a guy, and I there are believe me, there are

1585
01:57:02,360 --> 01:57:10,720
Speaker 2: big differences. But I'm privileged. Not everybody is. And my

1586
01:57:10,960 --> 01:57:17,640
Speaker 2: concern now more than anything is the trans youth. And

1587
01:57:17,720 --> 01:57:20,840
Speaker 2: there are a lot of organizations out there for trans youth,

1588
01:57:21,400 --> 01:57:23,800
Speaker 2: but it's the youth who are being punished now more

1589
01:57:23,840 --> 01:57:26,640
Speaker 2: than anything with the laws that are being taken away

1590
01:57:27,040 --> 01:57:33,280
Speaker 2: about trans care. And people can have their opinions about

1591
01:57:33,280 --> 01:57:37,680
Speaker 2: this stuff, but you know, you don't have the right

1592
01:57:37,760 --> 01:57:45,480
Speaker 2: to take away what someone needs to live their life.

1593
01:57:46,160 --> 01:57:48,080
Speaker 2: There's going to be and I hate to be so

1594
01:57:48,560 --> 01:57:53,240
Speaker 2: crass about it, but each state Ohio being the last

1595
01:57:53,560 --> 01:58:00,240
Speaker 2: last week that takes away trans care for youth is

1596
01:58:00,280 --> 01:58:06,800
Speaker 2: causing the death of kids. There are kids who will

1597
01:58:06,800 --> 01:58:10,680
Speaker 2: commit suicide because they don't think they have any options

1598
01:58:10,800 --> 01:58:18,960
Speaker 2: left in becoming who they feel they are. And that's

1599
01:58:19,040 --> 01:58:25,360
Speaker 2: not a joke. There's no fun in that. You know,

1600
01:58:25,440 --> 01:58:30,000
Speaker 2: there's no you know, people who you know, they brush

1601
01:58:30,040 --> 01:58:33,640
Speaker 2: off trans people. You know, Oh, they're just crazy, you know,

1602
01:58:33,720 --> 01:58:36,320
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, there is no there's only two genders

1603
01:58:36,360 --> 01:58:46,880
Speaker 2: and all this bullshit. You know, you don't know. They're ignorant.

1604
01:58:48,200 --> 01:58:52,080
Speaker 2: If you were inside my body, you would know. You

1605
01:58:52,120 --> 01:58:54,520
Speaker 2: can't be inside my body any more than you can

1606
01:58:54,600 --> 01:58:59,000
Speaker 2: understand what it's like to lose a child. If you haven't,

1607
01:59:01,320 --> 01:59:04,240
Speaker 2: you can't understand what it's like to be transgender. And

1608
01:59:04,320 --> 01:59:08,200
Speaker 2: I don't expect anybody to understand. What I expect is

1609
01:59:08,240 --> 01:59:13,080
Speaker 2: that you let me live and that you don't make

1610
01:59:13,440 --> 01:59:18,240
Speaker 2: decisions and assumptions about my life. For me, it's the

1611
01:59:18,280 --> 01:59:20,960
Speaker 2: same with Roe v. Wade. But we could get into women,

1612
01:59:21,280 --> 01:59:23,600
Speaker 2: you know, we could go into all of that stuff too.

1613
01:59:24,240 --> 01:59:30,400
Speaker 2: Don't you who don't know anything about me make decisions

1614
01:59:30,480 --> 01:59:36,160
Speaker 2: about my life. Believe me, it's not just the trans

1615
01:59:36,200 --> 01:59:39,280
Speaker 2: youth medical care that's going to be taken away. These

1616
01:59:39,400 --> 01:59:43,800
Speaker 2: people in these states want to take away all transcare

1617
01:59:44,640 --> 01:59:51,960
Speaker 2: for all trans people, which means I take testosterone. You know,

1618
01:59:53,840 --> 01:59:56,920
Speaker 2: they want to take that away from me. They don't

1619
01:59:57,240 --> 02:00:01,240
Speaker 2: Florida the law or Texas. I can't remember which one,

1620
02:00:01,280 --> 02:00:04,080
Speaker 2: but just in the last week or so, you can't

1621
02:00:04,200 --> 02:00:08,080
Speaker 2: have your name. My name is Sydney now right, I

1622
02:00:08,120 --> 02:00:12,800
Speaker 2: have a license it says Sydney Bullens mail my birthday,

1623
02:00:13,160 --> 02:00:16,920
Speaker 2: all of that now. I think it's the state of Texas.

1624
02:00:17,000 --> 02:00:19,200
Speaker 2: I couldn't be wrong, so I don't want to. But

1625
02:00:19,400 --> 02:00:23,240
Speaker 2: in some state, just in the last week or two,

1626
02:00:24,360 --> 02:00:26,920
Speaker 2: it is now illegal to have my I couldn't have

1627
02:00:26,960 --> 02:00:30,320
Speaker 2: Cindy on my license, Sydney. I'd have to have Cindy

1628
02:00:31,800 --> 02:00:38,880
Speaker 2: Bulloans on my license looking like I look, you know,

1629
02:00:40,280 --> 02:00:50,600
Speaker 2: don't take away my right to exist. And that's what

1630
02:00:50,640 --> 02:00:51,520
Speaker 2: I have to say about it.

1631
02:00:52,040 --> 02:00:56,400
Speaker 1: What might you say to someone who is struggling with

1632
02:00:57,560 --> 02:01:00,400
Speaker 1: feeling that they're born in the wrong body and are

1633
02:01:00,400 --> 02:01:01,800
Speaker 1: contemplating transition.

1634
02:01:06,760 --> 02:01:11,200
Speaker 2: Well, it depends if if they're a youth or an

1635
02:01:11,280 --> 02:01:16,200
Speaker 2: adult or what or whatever. But there are lots and

1636
02:01:16,280 --> 02:01:20,280
Speaker 2: lots of resources out there, there really are, So I

1637
02:01:20,320 --> 02:01:27,160
Speaker 2: would go online or find your local LGBTQ community and

1638
02:01:28,600 --> 02:01:32,880
Speaker 2: or talk talk to anybody you can. I have people

1639
02:01:32,920 --> 02:01:36,160
Speaker 2: emailing me, you know, telling me about their son or

1640
02:01:36,200 --> 02:01:42,960
Speaker 2: their daughter, their brother or sister, you know, and sometimes themselves.

1641
02:01:44,720 --> 02:01:48,760
Speaker 2: You know who I've chatted with about it. It's a

1642
02:01:48,800 --> 02:01:57,760
Speaker 2: serious consideration. There are differences between transitioning with trans women

1643
02:01:57,880 --> 02:02:05,560
Speaker 2: and trans men. There are different procedures, different costs, so

1644
02:02:05,840 --> 02:02:13,320
Speaker 2: it's not a one, one size fits all decision. I

1645
02:02:13,440 --> 02:02:16,520
Speaker 2: know people who feel that they are transgender, who have

1646
02:02:16,640 --> 02:02:22,320
Speaker 2: never transitioned and who will never transition because they don't

1647
02:02:22,360 --> 02:02:26,720
Speaker 2: want to go through the hardships of transitioning, or they

1648
02:02:26,720 --> 02:02:29,720
Speaker 2: don't have the cost of doing it, or they're afraid

1649
02:02:30,360 --> 02:02:37,160
Speaker 2: for their lives and their livelihoods. Because many trans people

1650
02:02:37,280 --> 02:02:42,440
Speaker 2: lose jobs or don't get jobs because they're trans. They're

1651
02:02:42,480 --> 02:02:48,520
Speaker 2: a transperson. We're discriminated against. So there's so many considerations

1652
02:02:48,880 --> 02:02:51,480
Speaker 2: that it's not just a one sentence or a one

1653
02:02:51,560 --> 02:02:55,440
Speaker 2: even a one paragraph answer. But the but what I

1654
02:02:55,440 --> 02:03:02,880
Speaker 2: would say is talk to people. You know what I did, well,

1655
02:03:02,920 --> 02:03:04,920
Speaker 2: I read every book I could get my hands on.

1656
02:03:05,640 --> 02:03:08,440
Speaker 2: I went on I did find some books written by

1657
02:03:08,440 --> 02:03:12,000
Speaker 2: trans people, and I read every one of them that

1658
02:03:12,040 --> 02:03:18,440
Speaker 2: I could, and I watched YouTube videos of trans people

1659
02:03:19,520 --> 02:03:23,680
Speaker 2: there were I had no idea there was so many

1660
02:03:23,720 --> 02:03:31,160
Speaker 2: trans people out there who were transitioning, and and I

1661
02:03:31,160 --> 02:03:33,480
Speaker 2: did a lot of I went to my doctor, I

1662
02:03:33,560 --> 02:03:40,040
Speaker 2: went to a gender therapist in Boston so that I

1663
02:03:40,080 --> 02:03:44,560
Speaker 2: could because I never talked about it. I never I

1664
02:03:44,640 --> 02:03:47,120
Speaker 2: put it so far back in the back of my

1665
02:03:48,040 --> 02:03:52,440
Speaker 2: mind that I didn't keep up with it. I didn't,

1666
02:03:53,120 --> 02:03:57,240
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, I read Chaz Bono's book before

1667
02:03:57,280 --> 02:04:01,720
Speaker 2: I decided to transition, just because you know, it was there.

1668
02:04:01,760 --> 02:04:04,120
Speaker 2: But I never. If you had told me a day

1669
02:04:04,160 --> 02:04:06,520
Speaker 2: before I decided that I had to look into it,

1670
02:04:06,520 --> 02:04:08,080
Speaker 2: that I was going to look into it, I would

1671
02:04:08,080 --> 02:04:11,960
Speaker 2: have told you were crazy. I was living my life.

1672
02:04:12,040 --> 02:04:15,800
Speaker 2: I was Cindy Bullen's I had grandchildren by that time.

1673
02:04:15,960 --> 02:04:18,480
Speaker 2: I was in the refugees and doing some gigs and

1674
02:04:19,840 --> 02:04:25,480
Speaker 2: you know, hi, but I had to do it. So

1675
02:04:26,280 --> 02:04:28,760
Speaker 2: there's a lot to consider. And I would just say,

1676
02:04:28,880 --> 02:04:35,000
Speaker 2: find as many resources as you possibly can before you

1677
02:04:35,160 --> 02:04:38,200
Speaker 2: move forward with it. But let me just tell you something.

1678
02:04:39,800 --> 02:04:43,760
Speaker 2: Once I knew it was possible for me, there was

1679
02:04:43,800 --> 02:04:47,040
Speaker 2: no going back. There was no going back, even though

1680
02:04:47,080 --> 02:04:49,760
Speaker 2: I talk about it in the book that yes no, yes, no,

1681
02:04:49,960 --> 02:04:53,920
Speaker 2: yes no. But all the while I was transitioning, even

1682
02:04:53,960 --> 02:04:57,160
Speaker 2: though I was afraid at certain points.

1683
02:04:57,760 --> 02:05:01,440
Speaker 1: And how do you feel about the piction of trans

1684
02:05:01,600 --> 02:05:07,680
Speaker 1: people in the generically called Hollywood. We have the show Transparent,

1685
02:05:08,120 --> 02:05:12,640
Speaker 1: We've had other transactors. Do you feel this is fair

1686
02:05:12,760 --> 02:05:15,200
Speaker 1: or they're not getting it right?

1687
02:05:16,240 --> 02:05:19,760
Speaker 2: To be perfectly honest with you, I don't watch much

1688
02:05:19,800 --> 02:05:24,480
Speaker 2: TV and at all I know obviously I watched a

1689
02:05:24,480 --> 02:05:30,880
Speaker 2: few episodes of Transparent a few years ago. The general

1690
02:05:32,280 --> 02:05:43,839
Speaker 2: statement I have, I'm really kind of neutral about trans

1691
02:05:43,920 --> 02:05:48,880
Speaker 2: people playing trans people. I think, if at all possible,

1692
02:05:49,600 --> 02:05:53,520
Speaker 2: if there's a trans character, it could should be played

1693
02:05:53,520 --> 02:05:58,280
Speaker 2: by a trans person. But that's not always possible, like

1694
02:05:58,400 --> 02:06:04,879
Speaker 2: in Transparent. You know, I'm not a militant trans person.

1695
02:06:05,240 --> 02:06:10,840
Speaker 2: I think there are circumstances that you have to weigh

1696
02:06:11,280 --> 02:06:16,960
Speaker 2: about depicting trans people. And my hope was and I

1697
02:06:17,000 --> 02:06:23,560
Speaker 2: actually developed a TV pilot with a writer in Hollywood.

1698
02:06:23,600 --> 02:06:28,560
Speaker 2: We haven't sold it yet, but we're developing a TV

1699
02:06:28,680 --> 02:06:30,320
Speaker 2: pilot about a trans character.

1700
02:06:30,720 --> 02:06:35,160
Speaker 1: And my.

1701
02:06:38,280 --> 02:06:42,400
Speaker 2: View, what I'm trying to put into it is the

1702
02:06:42,480 --> 02:06:48,720
Speaker 2: reality both internally and externally. Like you asked me, how

1703
02:06:48,760 --> 02:06:52,960
Speaker 2: comfortable am I? How happy I am I internally and externally?

1704
02:06:53,200 --> 02:06:57,360
Speaker 2: So there's an internal thought process with being trans that

1705
02:06:57,440 --> 02:07:00,760
Speaker 2: people don't think about, like going into to a restroom

1706
02:07:00,800 --> 02:07:07,840
Speaker 2: for example. You know, And so I'm trying to interject,

1707
02:07:08,000 --> 02:07:15,560
Speaker 2: you know, little incidences and idiosyncrasies about being trans, and

1708
02:07:15,680 --> 02:07:21,920
Speaker 2: so I think that Hollywood needs to educate themselves as

1709
02:07:22,040 --> 02:07:26,360
Speaker 2: much as possible so that those idiosyncrasies and the reality

1710
02:07:26,480 --> 02:07:29,640
Speaker 2: of being trands, not just the violent part and not

1711
02:07:29,760 --> 02:07:35,280
Speaker 2: just the horrible parts of what happens, and not just

1712
02:07:35,440 --> 02:07:42,160
Speaker 2: making you know, comedies about us, but really having an

1713
02:07:42,240 --> 02:07:45,720
Speaker 2: in depth view of what it is and in a

1714
02:07:45,800 --> 02:07:49,360
Speaker 2: character and the pathos of it.

1715
02:07:51,040 --> 02:07:54,839
Speaker 1: Okay, there's a lot of stuff going in the wrong direction,

1716
02:07:55,680 --> 02:07:59,200
Speaker 1: the hate, the laws. You know, I tend to be

1717
02:07:59,200 --> 02:08:03,240
Speaker 1: a glass half empty person. But is there any sunlight

1718
02:08:03,320 --> 02:08:06,080
Speaker 1: in this situation, anything positive happening?

1719
02:08:08,520 --> 02:08:11,400
Speaker 2: You know, I'm I think I become a class half

1720
02:08:11,480 --> 02:08:17,640
Speaker 2: empty person too, Bob. But here's my hope. My hope

1721
02:08:17,680 --> 02:08:21,000
Speaker 2: is with the young people. You know, I'm an old

1722
02:08:21,040 --> 02:08:24,920
Speaker 2: guy right now. I'm you know, I'm I try to

1723
02:08:24,920 --> 02:08:28,120
Speaker 2: be as helpful and as informed as I can be

1724
02:08:28,480 --> 02:08:31,240
Speaker 2: on this in this world until the day I drop

1725
02:08:31,280 --> 02:08:34,080
Speaker 2: dead or get hit by a bus or whatever is

1726
02:08:34,080 --> 02:08:39,280
Speaker 2: going to happen. But my hope is with the young people,

1727
02:08:39,400 --> 02:08:45,800
Speaker 2: because they don't care about your pronouns. I have a

1728
02:08:46,080 --> 02:08:50,320
Speaker 2: sixteen year old and fourteen year old granddaughters. You know,

1729
02:08:50,840 --> 02:08:57,080
Speaker 2: they don't care. What's your pronoun them? Okay, you know,

1730
02:08:57,440 --> 02:09:02,120
Speaker 2: all right, they don't care. They don't care if you're

1731
02:09:02,160 --> 02:09:07,720
Speaker 2: a trans girl or a trans boy, or you're you know,

1732
02:09:07,760 --> 02:09:14,240
Speaker 2: a they or you know, they don't care. Now, if

1733
02:09:14,280 --> 02:09:18,280
Speaker 2: you're brought up by somebody who is vitriolic and and

1734
02:09:18,360 --> 02:09:21,080
Speaker 2: doesn't understand as a young person, then you're going to

1735
02:09:21,120 --> 02:09:24,040
Speaker 2: have your parents' viewpoint more than not. But there are

1736
02:09:24,120 --> 02:09:28,800
Speaker 2: more people. But you know, evolution goes on whether we

1737
02:09:28,960 --> 02:09:31,840
Speaker 2: like it or not, and sooner or later, all of

1738
02:09:31,920 --> 02:09:36,520
Speaker 2: us old white guys are going to be dead, and

1739
02:09:36,640 --> 02:09:39,800
Speaker 2: the younger people are going to bring us up. If

1740
02:09:39,840 --> 02:09:42,880
Speaker 2: we can live that long, if we can retain our democracy,

1741
02:09:44,280 --> 02:09:48,640
Speaker 2: if we can retain our planet, then these which is

1742
02:09:49,200 --> 02:09:53,200
Speaker 2: really the critical question, these young people will show the way.

1743
02:09:53,280 --> 02:09:57,840
Speaker 2: I have great faith in the young people. I have

1744
02:09:57,880 --> 02:10:02,320
Speaker 2: a twenty six year old step You know, I have

1745
02:10:02,400 --> 02:10:07,680
Speaker 2: great faith. My daughter is forty, but she's you know hip,

1746
02:10:07,880 --> 02:10:11,600
Speaker 2: you know, she's she knows, she doesn't care, she doesn't

1747
02:10:11,680 --> 02:10:14,040
Speaker 2: care for her kids are gay, straight, whatever they are.

1748
02:10:14,880 --> 02:10:19,760
Speaker 2: You know. It's so the hope that I have is

1749
02:10:19,800 --> 02:10:29,400
Speaker 2: with the young people, and we do have advocates, and

1750
02:10:29,400 --> 02:10:34,360
Speaker 2: that beyond the young people, and I hope to be

1751
02:10:34,440 --> 02:10:37,400
Speaker 2: one of them. I hope that people will hear my

1752
02:10:37,600 --> 02:10:43,280
Speaker 2: story and ask me questions and understand that I'm just

1753
02:10:43,320 --> 02:10:47,000
Speaker 2: a human being. You know, I'm a human being who

1754
02:10:47,040 --> 02:10:53,120
Speaker 2: has lived a full, complicated, not easy life with lots

1755
02:10:53,120 --> 02:11:00,960
Speaker 2: of bells and whistles, and that there's more about us

1756
02:11:01,000 --> 02:11:04,000
Speaker 2: that you know. You've heard this term before, but it

1757
02:11:04,120 --> 02:11:09,920
Speaker 2: stands true here too. There's more about me, you know,

1758
02:11:10,200 --> 02:11:15,760
Speaker 2: us all being alike, trans people and non trans people

1759
02:11:15,800 --> 02:11:19,400
Speaker 2: being alike. Then there are differences because we're all human.

1760
02:11:21,280 --> 02:11:26,200
Speaker 2: So I have hope, but I go into the glass

1761
02:11:26,200 --> 02:11:29,560
Speaker 2: half empty thing a lot. I have to pull myself

1762
02:11:29,640 --> 02:11:31,160
Speaker 2: out of the bottom of the glass.

1763
02:11:33,360 --> 02:11:36,760
Speaker 1: Well, Sid, I want to thank you for being so

1764
02:11:37,080 --> 02:11:40,440
Speaker 1: open and honest with my audience today. You know, this

1765
02:11:40,600 --> 02:11:45,280
Speaker 1: is not a plug, but the book is fascinating. It

1766
02:11:45,400 --> 02:11:48,440
Speaker 1: certainly fleshes out a lot of these stories. It talks

1767
02:11:48,480 --> 02:11:52,920
Speaker 1: more about Sid's musical endeavors. But we only have so

1768
02:11:53,040 --> 02:11:56,880
Speaker 1: much time today, So in any event, Sydney, I want

1769
02:11:56,880 --> 02:11:59,320
Speaker 1: to thank you so much for speaking with my audience.

1770
02:12:00,120 --> 02:12:02,760
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Bob Great

1771
02:12:02,800 --> 02:12:03,080
Speaker 2: to be with.

1772
02:12:03,200 --> 02:12:07,840
Speaker 1: You until next time. This is Bob left sets