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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to. Here's the thing,

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Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to

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Speaker 1: hear their stories. What inspired their creations, what decisions changed

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Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influenced their work. Both of my

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Speaker 1: guests today are pioneers. In nineteen seventy three, Erica John's

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Speaker 1: frank treatment of women's sexual desires in her novel Theory

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Speaker 1: of Flying was as controversial as it was revolutionary. Two

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Speaker 1: years later, in nineteen seventy five, Lauren Michaels created Saturday

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Speaker 1: Night Live, a television show that was and still is

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Speaker 1: the biggest influence on American comedy today. Here it is,

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Speaker 1: as you can see verifiably, it is a check made

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Speaker 1: out to you the Beatles for three thousand dollars. All

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Speaker 1: you have to do is sing three Beatle tunes She

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Speaker 1: loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. That's a thousand dollars right there.

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Speaker 1: Lauren Michaels has launched the careers of John Blue, She

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Speaker 1: Dan Ackroyd, Gilda Radner, and Bill Murray. Then there's Chris Farley,

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Speaker 1: Will Farrell, Tina Fey, Kristin Wigg and Chris Rock Always

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Speaker 1: I haven't been you, havn't been poor day since I

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Speaker 1: met Lauren Michaels, and I never been broke since I met.

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Speaker 1: Both on television and in film, Michael's is the kingmaker

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Speaker 1: of comic actors. He's also a rare producer and that

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Speaker 1: he's truly involved in all aspects of production. Yet he

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Speaker 1: says when he does his job right, he leaves no

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Speaker 1: fingerprints behind Lauren. Michael's life in comedy began in the

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Speaker 1: late nineteen sixties when he worked at the Canadian Broadcasting

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Speaker 1: Corporation in Toronto, alongside his writing and performing partner Heart Pomerats.

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't television. Lord Michaels started out in radio.

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Speaker 1: There's a show called five Nights a week at this time,

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Speaker 1: and we did political satire every week. We thought we

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Speaker 1: were potentially bringing down the government, and the fact that

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Speaker 1: no one was listening didn't occur to us for at

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Speaker 1: least the first year. But we loved doing it. It

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Speaker 1: was just a chance to write and perform every week. Now,

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Speaker 1: where did that begin though? For you? Did you go

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Speaker 1: to school for that or did you? No, no, no, no.

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Speaker 1: I went when I graduated from University of Toronto, I

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Speaker 1: had taken nothing that was of any drama theater. I'd

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Speaker 1: worked in the theater there, but it was more. There

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Speaker 1: was a review that University College u S Follies, which

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Speaker 1: was a satirical review music and comedy, and I co

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Speaker 1: wrote that and directed it. So so from the beginning,

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Speaker 1: I mean, even before you go into CBC radio and

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Speaker 1: before Hart pomerants there, even in college what you characterize

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Speaker 1: a satiric review comedy review, that was your Bailey Wick

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Speaker 1: from the beginning. I think it was what was in

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Speaker 1: the air at the time. It was just the beginning

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Speaker 1: of the questioning of authority, which was the year I

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Speaker 1: didn't four. We were no longer talking about World War Two,

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Speaker 1: the first part of my childhood. That's all anyone talked

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Speaker 1: about it. It was pretty much the gloom of that

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Speaker 1: hung over most of the fifties. Sur Yeah, and then

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Speaker 1: we television came into our lives and and everything changed.

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Speaker 1: So with a CBC how long are the radio years?

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Speaker 1: The radio years think three years? And then we began

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Speaker 1: writing for comedians Woody Allen and John Rivers and a

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Speaker 1: little bit Dick Cabot. How do you get into that door?

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Speaker 1: Heart Heart did that. He was very good at approaching people.

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Speaker 1: We would come down to New York to write for

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Speaker 1: people and Wood he who was incredibly generous and encouraging,

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Speaker 1: and we had no impact at all on his career,

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Speaker 1: but he was very helpful. Then we got hired on

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Speaker 1: a television show in night as writers called The Beautiful

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Speaker 1: Phillis Dealers Show and which was a variety show at

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Speaker 1: him See in Burbank. And then from there, when that

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Speaker 1: was canceled, we were hired on lap In, which was

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Speaker 1: in its first season for George for George Slaughter. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what was the dynamic when you go to Los Angeles

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Speaker 1: in the late sixties and you're writing for network television.

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Speaker 1: Did you feel like that was It wasn't at all.

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Speaker 1: The romantic idea of what I thought behind show business

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Speaker 1: would be well on lap In. The writers would write

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Speaker 1: and then it would be edited by a head writer,

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Speaker 1: and then we did not go to the read through.

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Speaker 1: We were at at a motel in Burbank, uh and

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Speaker 1: we would all have lunch together and that was fun

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Speaker 1: and didn't even have to have offices. No, we had offices,

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Speaker 1: but they were in a motel, which was you know,

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Speaker 1: it was the boom period of Burbank and so it

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Speaker 1: was the number one show and on one level it

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Speaker 1: was like the greatest credit you could have, and it

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Speaker 1: certainly did wonders for you know, like self image and career,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't fun. You'd write, you know, monologues for

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Speaker 1: Dan and Dick, who were really nice to us. Did

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Speaker 1: you get to go to the tapings of the show.

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Speaker 1: We'd go to the studio if they were doing the monologues,

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Speaker 1: and they would read it from the cards. They would

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Speaker 1: see it for the first They were some of the

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Speaker 1: most famous card readers, remember that also just they would

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Speaker 1: just see it for the first time on the cart.

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Speaker 1: They did not want their work in any way interfere

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Speaker 1: with their life. And we worked there for a year

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Speaker 1: and then I got a call from the head of

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Speaker 1: the CBC asking what it would take to bring us

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Speaker 1: back to do shows. We're still hard on television. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's where I learned how to do television. Why

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Speaker 1: do you say that, because I spent a huge chunk

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Speaker 1: of my twenties, you know, in an editing room. We

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Speaker 1: would shoot in the studio, we'd be in front of

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Speaker 1: an audience and then what were you doing? It was

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Speaker 1: called the heart and Louren terrific Hour and the Stars. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and there was you know, one ensemble and a musical guest.

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Speaker 1: James Taylor was on one. Cat Stevens Birth the idea

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Speaker 1: for the other show that you eventually wound up doing.

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Speaker 1: I don't know whether you know. There was a real

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Speaker 1: form then called Variety, and it was comedy variety and

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Speaker 1: it had you know, music and comedy, and we would

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Speaker 1: perform in front of an audience, but mostly it was

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Speaker 1: built in the editing room. And the way that laughed

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Speaker 1: in was I remember that we came out of the

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Speaker 1: first show with like sixteen hours worth of tape and

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Speaker 1: I met with the editor. He said, why don't we

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Speaker 1: just watch it? So we watched the first four hours.

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Speaker 1: We were discussing a sketch. He said, I think in

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Speaker 1: that piece we could pull out that part. And I

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Speaker 1: was still thinking script. I wasn't in any way thinking visually,

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Speaker 1: and he said, no, your arm there is is by

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Speaker 1: your temple and then you put it down. He was

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Speaker 1: looking for continuity. He was an editor. He actually saw it.

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Speaker 1: I said, how did you do that? And he said,

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Speaker 1: I can teach your eye to see and he did.

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Speaker 1: I learned how things are put together, and how what

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Speaker 1: to look for in composition and how to make something work,

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Speaker 1: and the role that sound played because it's all radio

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Speaker 1: with pictures. Nobody cared about sound then when we first

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Speaker 1: did SNL the first five years, it was a boom.

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Speaker 1: When you see Elvis Son, ed Sullivan, him and the

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Speaker 1: Jordan Eires, it's just a boom. They got what they got.

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Speaker 1: We have better sound on this interview than I had

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Speaker 1: in the first twenty years of my career. And what

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Speaker 1: I realized then about myself is that I'm much more

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Speaker 1: interested in the production that I am in performing. What

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Speaker 1: changed for you? I saw it in the editing room

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Speaker 1: one night. I looked at myself before a take. I

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Speaker 1: see my eyes checking the lighting, seeing where the cameras

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Speaker 1: are in terms of their angles, and you're seeing a

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Speaker 1: guy who all his instincts are technical and director and

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Speaker 1: just kind of look. Yeah, I'm seeing a guy who's preoccupied.

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Speaker 1: And then the slate happens and then there's this smiling

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Speaker 1: artificial Yeah, snapped artificial. I'm sure I was sincere. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: in my opinion, speaking for myself as all artificial, yes, exactly.

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Speaker 1: We had the same experience when I was on stage.

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Speaker 1: When I was at University of Toronto in the theater there,

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Speaker 1: I was in the middle of a scene with an

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Speaker 1: actor and it was exciting to be on stage and

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Speaker 1: all that. But I looked in his eyes and I realized, Oh,

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Speaker 1: he's actually that guy. You know. I knew he had

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Speaker 1: to my lines with some charm, but he actually had

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Speaker 1: become more character. Yeah, which I thought, Oh, I see,

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Speaker 1: that's what actors are. They actually can do that, you know.

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Speaker 1: Whereas I was Yes, for me, it was like it

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Speaker 1: was fun to be in shows and I've done them

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Speaker 1: at summer camp, and I've done them in high school

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Speaker 1: and and uh, but you had a pure instinct at

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Speaker 1: that time, but you just said there's this other thing

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Speaker 1: I'd rather be doing that. I was more and you

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Speaker 1: walked away. So so you So you ended that situation there. Yeah, Well,

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Speaker 1: in Canada there was still a kind of national self loading,

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Speaker 1: best expressed by the then head of the CBC. We

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Speaker 1: were slow in getting our start dates for production for

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Speaker 1: the next season, and I had been offered by Sandy

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Speaker 1: Warnick and Burney Brulstein, who I had met when I

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Speaker 1: was working in California, agent and manager respectively. They said,

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Speaker 1: you want to come back and work on a Burnston

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Speaker 1: Shreiver summer show for like, Yeah, they were and they

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Speaker 1: were funny and it was like smart shows. In ten weeks,

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Speaker 1: I went to the the head of the department at

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Speaker 1: the CBC and I said, I have this other offer,

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Speaker 1: but I will stay here. At the time, I was

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Speaker 1: caught up in the idea that I would be of

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Speaker 1: the first generation of Canadian artists who would be able

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Speaker 1: to stay in Canada. And why is that? Why did

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Speaker 1: you feel that because everyone had always left and the

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Speaker 1: moment that you left in Canada, people started to treat

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Speaker 1: you differently, And I thought, well, that's idiotic. We should

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Speaker 1: be We're involved enough, we should be able to stay

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Speaker 1: here and work here. They had the CBC that I

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Speaker 1: was working for, said, I said, I had this offer

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Speaker 1: and it's just for you know, ten weeks. He said, well,

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Speaker 1: if you're that good, why are you here? And I thought,

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Speaker 1: I want to be here that you know, And then

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Speaker 1: I realized you could never fight against yeah. And also

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Speaker 1: I realized is van Gogh a Dutch painter. He really

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Speaker 1: painted in France, And I thought, oh, I see, so

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Speaker 1: nationalism isn't the best way to you know, you go

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Speaker 1: where the work is. So I went out and I

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Speaker 1: did that, and then I came back. Even as we're

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Speaker 1: talking about Canada, your accent just came back. You just

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Speaker 1: said I went out. Yeah, I realized I'd come to

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Speaker 1: the end of that period and I moved back to

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Speaker 1: California nineteen seventy two, and I lived at the Chateau

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Speaker 1: Marmont until I moved here, which is seventy five. I

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Speaker 1: had my thirtieth birthday in the lobby the Chateau Marmont,

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Speaker 1: which hadn't had a party then, I believe since Dorry

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Speaker 1: lived there. Yeah. So um, you have a real fondness

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Speaker 1: from Los Angeles. Yeah, I love you have a Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you have a very very warm spot for Los Angeles

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Speaker 1: and you who are for London order. Yes. The nice

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Speaker 1: part about being Canadian is you don't have to make

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Speaker 1: that decision. You know, you're in California and it's there's

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Speaker 1: grass in February and the sun is shining. You know,

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Speaker 1: this is fantastic. But if you're from New York, then

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Speaker 1: l A becomes like, well know, you know, it becomes

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Speaker 1: that it's a lot of people get an entire career. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think different. That's true, and I've been very guilty

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Speaker 1: of that myself. The thing about Los Angeles, if you

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Speaker 1: do it in your twenties, you can find and understand sepulvida,

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Speaker 1: which is if you grew up in a city with

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Speaker 1: a grid, you're going, well, so what do you mean

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Speaker 1: this crosses Wilshire And then if you're on that set

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Speaker 1: off Robertson and you think you're up exactly, yes, exactly.

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Speaker 1: But when you're in your twenties, you're going to a

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Speaker 1: lot of parties where you're just following somebody or somebody

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Speaker 1: gives you directions. And this is at a time it's

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Speaker 1: hard to recall, but it's pre GPS. No. No one

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Speaker 1: wants to learn where they're going now. But anyway, I

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Speaker 1: had a very happy time there and I worked for

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Speaker 1: Lily Tomlin and I wrote on her show, which was

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Speaker 1: like ten or twelve weeks, and at the end of

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Speaker 1: it it was time to go back to Canada and

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Speaker 1: I realized I wasn't visa wise, I wasn't going back. No,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't that. It was that the CBC wanted me

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Speaker 1: to do something, but they want to be back six

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Speaker 1: months in advance of that. Naggie I'm gonna be the

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Speaker 1: normal leader of Canada or no, not even normally. I

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Speaker 1: think it was just that you would be able to

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Speaker 1: work there. But here's what I realized, without Malcolm Gladibell,

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Speaker 1: who's also a Canadian articulating it, because we didn't have

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Speaker 1: the benefit of that, then it's the ten thousand hours

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Speaker 1: in doing twelve shows in ten weeks. Working at that pace,

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Speaker 1: you get better. In Canada, working on a show every

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Speaker 1: four months or five months, you overthink everything. There's so

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Speaker 1: much at stake, and there was something about working at

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Speaker 1: that pace and working in a system that was really

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Speaker 1: clear cut, like if the numbers were there and you

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Speaker 1: had ratings, then you were hit, and they weren't there,

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Speaker 1: then you were a PLoP. And at that point in

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Speaker 1: my life I kind of needed clarity of which is

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Speaker 1: one of the reasons I'm drawn to comedy, because you're

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Speaker 1: trying really hard to make people laugh. If they don't laugh,

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Speaker 1: it's really it doesn't work. So I do. Lily Thomas

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Speaker 1: show gets nominated for an Emmy. It was a pilot

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Speaker 1: special four series and I am co producing with Jane Wagner.

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Speaker 1: We spent forever on it and then at the end

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Speaker 1: it didn't get picked up. But Dick Eversoul, who was

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Speaker 1: the new newly appointed head of late night, had come

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Speaker 1: from ABC Sports and had meant Herbschlosser on a plane

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Speaker 1: and by the time they landed he was the director

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Speaker 1: of late night Television and he had this idea of

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Speaker 1: doing many pilots in late night, using late night to

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Speaker 1: be a testing ground for prime time. I agreed to

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Speaker 1: do one for Dick. And I was, as I said,

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Speaker 1: living at the Marmont and I came home one night

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Speaker 1: two o'clock in the morning, which was not unusual for me,

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Speaker 1: and uh, there was a message from Dick. Could you

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Speaker 1: be at the poll Lounge at seven o'clock in the

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Speaker 1: morning for breakfast? No better for me then than it

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Speaker 1: is now. And I went, um, okay, what's it about it?

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Speaker 1: And he said they decided to do one show as

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Speaker 1: opposed to twenty pilots, and yours is one of the

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Speaker 1: ones that there, and they all want to meet you.

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Speaker 1: So I came and it was Dick and the head

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Speaker 1: of programming, the head of research, and the head of talent.

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Speaker 1: I could kind of tell that they were like tribal

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Speaker 1: elders in a way. They were just sort of looking

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Speaker 1: at me like is he all right? You know? It

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Speaker 1: was just basically an approval process. But I seem normal enough,

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Speaker 1: and was I, you know, trouble I had long That's

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Speaker 1: the interesting because because that's was ever thus in the

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Speaker 1: business where I mean, talent is not the only coin

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Speaker 1: of the realm. They want to realize can we hand

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Speaker 1: you a lot of money? And will it does seem

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Speaker 1: like a plaque or whatever? And I and I was

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Speaker 1: just turned thirty, but I did have credits and I

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Speaker 1: hadn't been nominated for stuff. And Dick called me and

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Speaker 1: he said it went well, and then they wanted me

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Speaker 1: to fly to New York and to how do you

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Speaker 1: feel about that? I was excited by it. But Herb Schlauser,

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Speaker 1: who had a very romantic notion of production in New York,

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Speaker 1: I thought it should be live. Well, I've never done

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Speaker 1: live except for radio. And I said, was everybody else

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Speaker 1: in the processing? Was he the lone voice? He was

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Speaker 1: the lone voice. He decided that it should be an

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Speaker 1: eight age because eight h was the big NBC studio

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Speaker 1: and it was lying vacant, and all of the production

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Speaker 1: moved to l A. All variety was in l All

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Speaker 1: of that crap music hall, all of those variety series

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Speaker 1: which were done in New York in this building was

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Speaker 1: all in everything as yeah, exactly for me, Live meant

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Speaker 1: this no pilot, having done three pilots that everybody thought

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Speaker 1: were great. But then somewhere in the process of making

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Speaker 1: a pilot all your most conservative instincts come out and

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Speaker 1: you find yourself doing the thing that you think is

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Speaker 1: going to be It's like a college essay. Is what

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Speaker 1: you really think or feel, it's what you think we'll

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Speaker 1: get you in or get you on the air. So

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Speaker 1: the idea that I could do a show in which

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Speaker 1: the audience would see it at the same time as

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Speaker 1: the network was trily and also I was at a

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Speaker 1: point in my career where I really thought I had

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Speaker 1: nothing to lose, so I was gonna take one more

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Speaker 1: shot at television. I was gonna see if I could

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Speaker 1: do it the way I wanted to do it, and

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Speaker 1: I pretty much did. The very first broadcast of the

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Speaker 1: show Live was when October. October oct n is the

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Speaker 1: first broadcast of the show, and was the structure virtually

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Speaker 1: the same it is now. Yeah, that part was all

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Speaker 1: the same, although I think for the first show we

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Speaker 1: did address rehearsal with the audience on Friday night, just

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Speaker 1: so that we'd have an extra one because we've never

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Speaker 1: actually done anything. The crew was like an original old

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Speaker 1: New York crew. They were all mildly overweight. They had donuts.

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Speaker 1: We had crewe Detey because we were from California. Jet yeah,

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Speaker 1: and until we saw the move the cameras around in

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Speaker 1: the way that they could because they knew that that world.

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Speaker 1: I once did a show at CBS in their big

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Speaker 1: studio and they have no tradition of this over at CBS,

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Speaker 1: and I realized when I had taken the tour that

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Speaker 1: all the cameras had stools beside them. It was only

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Speaker 1: later when I realized the show was a complete mess. Right,

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Speaker 1: They haven't moved cameras there, They just sort of aimed

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Speaker 1: it at Cronkite for the last forty years. They set

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Speaker 1: up their camera and then they sit on their stool.

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Speaker 1: The eight ah crew that crane flew around the studio.

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Speaker 1: They learned that we knew what we were doing in

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Speaker 1: terms of the content, and this is gonna be interesting

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Speaker 1: for them as well. Wasn't a desk and was coming

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Speaker 1: back to New York. There's a wonderful story. When Eugene Lee,

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Speaker 1: who's the designer I hired, who had just done Candide

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Speaker 1: on Broadway, we did the very first set, you know,

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Speaker 1: and it was like a two thousand dollars set. I

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Speaker 1: couldn't get approval, like they wouldn't authorize the budget for it.

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Speaker 1: I went up to Herb Schlaster's office. I just assumed,

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Speaker 1: being Canadian, that I was just supposed to do the

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Speaker 1: right thing and make a show that he would be

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Speaker 1: proud of since he had authorized it. So we took

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Speaker 1: it to his office. It was a little model and

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Speaker 1: I don't think you've ever seen a model, and suddenly

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Speaker 1: we're moving little cameras around and all that, and he said, well,

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Speaker 1: what's the problem. I said, well, they it's expensive, and they,

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Speaker 1: oh fine, And we got the approval and it was

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Speaker 1: very paternal in the best sense of it. But Eugene

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Speaker 1: had a very clear sense of what he wanted. We

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Speaker 1: were showing New York City as it then was, which

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Speaker 1: was kind of in decay and crumbleds So when Herb

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Speaker 1: came down to the studio the first time to see

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Speaker 1: it and looked at the cracked paint, you know, the

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Speaker 1: thing which was where all the money was, of course,

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Speaker 1: in terms of getting that exactly right. He said, I can't.

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Speaker 1: I don't know why, you know, I don't know what

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Speaker 1: I was thinking that. I just thought the shop did this,

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Speaker 1: you know, because he just said it was a really

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Speaker 1: bad and yeah, no, it was just that nobody knew

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Speaker 1: whether production could gear up again in New York, and

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Speaker 1: of course it did and still does. So when you

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Speaker 1: do the show October eleven, the first show is broadcast

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Speaker 1: live in years and when it's over, describe how you

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Speaker 1: feel after the very first show. I was the same

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Speaker 1: way then that I am now. I only see the mistakes,

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Speaker 1: and I tend to wear that up until about the

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Speaker 1: second drink at the party. Even last week's show. It

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Speaker 1: takes me really through midway through Sunday. You just take

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Speaker 1: me a couple of days. I can get over it

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Speaker 1: now in a day. Because you're always hoping that everything's

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Speaker 1: gonna work the way you were hoping it was gonna work.

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Speaker 1: You know, you see of something, Yeah, and you see

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Speaker 1: somebody enters, you know, on the left foot instead of

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Speaker 1: the right foot, or the camera cut is late, or

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Speaker 1: that Q gets screwed up, or that or somebody stuff

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Speaker 1: right before the slate was not looking at things. Yeah. Never,

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Speaker 1: he's still here. He's not going to coming up. Lauren

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Speaker 1: Michael's learns to fire people. I had to accept that

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Speaker 1: some people were not going to make it and that

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Speaker 1: I had better deal with that when it happened, as

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Speaker 1: opposed to just pretending painful but unavoidable yes. And so

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Speaker 1: I learned how to be a boss. This is Alec

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Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. This is

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Speaker 1: here's the thing. I'm Alec Baldwin back with Lauren Michael's

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Speaker 1: in his corner office at Rockefeller Center, seventeen floors above

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Speaker 1: the ice skating rink. He moved into this office when

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Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live mirrored in n and most of the

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Speaker 1: furniture is exactly most of their exactly the same. The

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Speaker 1: joke is we hope that the people who run the

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Speaker 1: network never really find out that where your this office is,

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Speaker 1: and how could you have it here? You know this desk.

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Speaker 1: We didn't have budget for that, so we there was

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Speaker 1: a maintenance guy here who said, well, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of furniture you know that's in storage, So we said,

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Speaker 1: can we see it? So it was all the stuff

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Speaker 1: in the thirties and forties, and this box of batons

390
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Speaker 1: for Toscanini to the then head of programming, and in

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Speaker 1: the desk was a couple of copies of like the

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Speaker 1: Racing Form and Jelu Sill and Maylox, and I thought,

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Speaker 1: what am I getting myself into? It was so it

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Speaker 1: was the reverse of kind of holistic view of California

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Speaker 1: which I'd come here with you. Now you look at

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00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:49,240
Speaker 1: the board for those people who don't know, the arc

397
00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:52,399
Speaker 1: of the whole season is on this infamous but corkboard

398
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Speaker 1: on the wall, and they are the dates of each broadcast,

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Speaker 1: the names of the confirmed hosts, some prospective hosts, and

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00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:03,000
Speaker 1: the musical guests and so forth, and the names of

401
00:23:03,040 --> 00:23:06,040
Speaker 1: the people are still not all of them, but many

402
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Speaker 1: of them. The biggest names in the business. The biggest

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Speaker 1: names in the business are coming here thirty something years

404
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:18,640
Speaker 1: later to host the show. Ben Stiller and Melissa McCarthy

405
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:22,199
Speaker 1: won the Emmy Award, and Katie Perry is coming, and

406
00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:26,880
Speaker 1: Jimmy Fallon, who's obviously double dipping on your payroll, Jonah Hill.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the people that are the biggest names in

408
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Speaker 1: the business are still coming here to host the show.

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Speaker 1: Why do you think that that stayed that way? What? Well,

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Speaker 1: I think, first of all, the best part is host.

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Speaker 1: You get the best parts in most scenes, and we

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Speaker 1: work really really hard tonight because it's Tuesday. I will

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Speaker 1: leave here probably around three. I used to do what

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Speaker 1: the younger ones do, which was pretty much go through

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Speaker 1: the night. But I don't anymore, you know. And and

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Speaker 1: I say it with Smigle until three in the morning

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Speaker 1: exactly with those and I go right, okay, and I

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Speaker 1: look at you good. They're like yeah, I'm like, I'm good.

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Speaker 1: And that's the commitment to it being the best it

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Speaker 1: possibly can be. But I think also to inject my

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Speaker 1: own perspective, having done it many times, many many times,

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00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 1: many many times too many times past year, there is

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Speaker 1: that's out there people. People do feel them well, but

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00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: it was just tweeting. This reekplaces a live component that

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Speaker 1: is missing in most people's careers. They don't do theater

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Speaker 1: a lot of them. This is a chance for them

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Speaker 1: to have a kind of a it's it's much more

428
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:35,399
Speaker 1: loose and kind of deconstructed, and it can get a

429
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 1: little sloppy if they're not like spot On and it

430
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:39,879
Speaker 1: doesn't have that, it doesn't have the kind of the

431
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:44,640
Speaker 1: gleaming perfection of movie making. And also Seth Meyers Norm

432
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: McDonald was at the show on Saturday, was and so

433
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 1: we were sitting at the party and and Seth pointed

434
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 1: out that Norman had given an interview somewhere recently where

435
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 1: he's talking about the show, and he said, in what

436
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:59,120
Speaker 1: I thought was a nice way, it's now the only

437
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 1: place left where you can be bad. You know, there's

438
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:05,439
Speaker 1: no lap track when something doesn't work, it's such a

439
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:10,400
Speaker 1: clear silence. And whereas you walk out of a situation

440
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:12,919
Speaker 1: comedy in front of a live audience, they're already cheering.

441
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:18,199
Speaker 1: You know, even the theater. The theater people stand the

442
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: audience thinks they're supposed to do with standing incovation, you know. Yeah,

443
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:25,880
Speaker 1: for a stand up comic talent like Norm, I think

444
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:28,439
Speaker 1: one thing he might be reacting to is it gives people,

445
00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 1: the hosts, whether they are comic performance or not, it

446
00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:33,719
Speaker 1: gives them the recreation of like a club being at

447
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 1: a club, and it's stripped down so that it's only

448
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:42,719
Speaker 1: at the end talent writing into the lens. There's no spectacle.

449
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 1: We don't have, you know, much of a wide shot.

450
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:49,360
Speaker 1: You're watching pure performance and for people to be able

451
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:52,760
Speaker 1: to soar like that, and when you see it happen,

452
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:57,159
Speaker 1: it is always amazing, you know, amazing to be standing

453
00:25:57,200 --> 00:26:00,359
Speaker 1: there being me having seen it as many times I have,

454
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,120
Speaker 1: and the fact that every week we don't know how

455
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 1: it's going to turn out, and the fact that I

456
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 1: am still as scared as I am every dress rehearsal.

457
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:12,600
Speaker 1: And honestly, I don't mean like we'll be drummed out

458
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:16,120
Speaker 1: of the business. I just mean that it is part

459
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: of the process that people have to be bad before

460
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 1: they can be good. When we have a great dress rehearsal,

461
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: when the audience is way too hot, invariably something gets

462
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 1: lost on air when you come and do the show. Um,

463
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: I've never felt more violated. I've come on here, you know,

464
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 1: seemingly weeks after I got divorced, and Bill Clinton a

465
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:42,920
Speaker 1: k a. Darryl Hammond is working out telling me to

466
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 1: put my oars in the water and set sailf of

467
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: the island of Ponani with him. Yes, and yeah, So

468
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering, I mean, do you do you find

469
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,120
Speaker 1: that that's a big part of their creative successes there

470
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: as you're complete, Yeah, I think there's something. They expect

471
00:26:56,480 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: us to be honest, They expected us to say what

472
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: what's actually happening? There's very little protection. Have you always

473
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: been this year? Reverence your whole life? So this was

474
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 1: really just meant to bit what's the first movie you made? Post?

475
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 1: I guess Wayne's World? You know wasn't the first? Sorry,

476
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 1: three amigos. I wrote with Randy Newman and Steve Martin.

477
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 1: I have a copy of your IMDb if you'd like

478
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,680
Speaker 1: to consult at thee No, no, but I uh that

479
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:31,360
Speaker 1: you wrote. Yes. We'd go to Steve's house every day,

480
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: Randy and I. We'd meet for lunch, talk it down,

481
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: and then we'd spend the afternoon writing and it was

482
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:39,199
Speaker 1: very happy time for me. And what about after that?

483
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 1: Was the next time a minute. Then I came back

484
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 1: to the show I had left s in and then

485
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:48,520
Speaker 1: Brandon was threatening to cancel it and he called me,

486
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 1: how many years were you gone? Five years? You were

487
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:55,920
Speaker 1: gone for five years. I left with the original group,

488
00:27:56,280 --> 00:28:00,040
Speaker 1: designers and musicians, the cast, the writers. Listen. In the

489
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: first five years, I didn't fire one person. So when

490
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 1: I came back I was sort of more psychologically built

491
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 1: for that that it wasn't family in that sense that

492
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:16,879
Speaker 1: the what William Seawan once called my pseudo egalitarianism was

493
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 1: not healthy. I had to accept that some people were

494
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 1: not going to make it and that I had better

495
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 1: deal with that when it happened, as opposed to just

496
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:29,159
Speaker 1: pretending paid yes. And so I learned how to be

497
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: a boss, which I I think I'd learned how to

498
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:34,920
Speaker 1: how to lead on some level, but I never learned

499
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:36,679
Speaker 1: how to be a boss. And I think when I

500
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: came back, um where you know, less of a peer

501
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 1: and more of a boss. Yes, And at some point

502
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: are you tempted to stop again and just go make films?

503
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 1: It is what I do. It's the thing that but

504
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: it also became and I don't mean to be, you know,

505
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 1: glib about it, but it also became like the aircraft

506
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 1: carrier that you launched many planes off. This is a

507
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: power bay for you as an entertainment producer. Question. Wayne's

508
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 1: World was the first of those. With Wayne's World, I

509
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 1: think what I wanted to prove was that I could

510
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 1: do a movie in the same way that sort of

511
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: the Marx Brothers used to do their movies. They tour

512
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: them first, so they knew where all the laughs were

513
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 1: and then they could go film them quickly to test. Yeah,

514
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: no one believes that we do what we do here

515
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: in six days because there's not much of an approval process.

516
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 1: It just heads to eleven thirty, whereas in l that

517
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: was my experience when I first did the show. Yeah, yeah,

518
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 1: there's so much money and habitat for humanity building a

519
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 1: house exactly. But the movie business because it's way better

520
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 1: run as his prime time television. Every paragraph is scrutinized

521
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 1: and reviewed. And I say it every week. We don't

522
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: go on because we're ready. We go on because it's

523
00:29:55,400 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 1: and that's just it's somehow focuses people, and I trust

524
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: that process. And so with Wayne's World, I think we

525
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: had I can't remember how many days when it was

526
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: like twenty seven or something like that. But towards the

527
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 1: end there was a plot with a father son which

528
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: Roblo was to be the son, and I was hoping

529
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: for Dennis Hopper to be the father. And as we

530
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: got close to shooting, which we were like three weeks away,

531
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: we went, oh, so we just made it one person.

532
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 1: We just made it Rob. You could make that kind

533
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 1: of decision quickly. The pace of ESNL was like, think

534
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: of it, do it, and then think of something else.

535
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:38,680
Speaker 1: Tina's is the same thing about thirty rock television conditions,

536
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 1: those muscles where you have to make fast decision, and

537
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 1: that puts the creative people in charge. I did a

538
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 1: movie with Mick Jagger based on a book we both

539
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 1: liked called Enigma, which is about code breaking in World

540
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 1: War Two, and michaelapp had directed it and it was

541
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 1: an independent film. It took us six years to get

542
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 1: it made, which was longer in World War Two, and

543
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: I and I realized worked on pretty hard. But when

544
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 1: I finally saw it, because there was German money in

545
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 1: it and there was I think Japanese. I'm looking at

546
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: the start of the movie, at the premiere, and all

547
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: of a sudden there's like all these names are there

548
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 1: as producers, you know, and I go, well, hey, excuse me.

549
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: I was like, And then I realized, in movies, the

550
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 1: person who does what I do isn't at the center.

551
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 1: Right here I am, and that's fulfilling. In movies. What

552
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 1: I like doing is the script, which I get obsessive

553
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 1: about a yeah, and then casting and then editing, and

554
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: then how to present it to the public. In the

555
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: sense of marketing. Now you have this great success in

556
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 1: you have the great success in late night television, and

557
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 1: then you have success in prime time television. You produce

558
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: TV shows, particularly now that I've done how and you

559
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 1: have great success in film. But you never worked in

560
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 1: cable and with your career, I mean you never worked

561
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 1: with I did with Kids in the Hall and I

562
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 1: did with now with Fred in portlanda which is on

563
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:12,320
Speaker 1: I f C. Do you feel that you haven't been

564
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: as aggressive and cable as you might have been. I

565
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 1: think that at the end of the day, you know

566
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: they're more comfortable with network because I've grown to prefer

567
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: network because you've got to walk that tight up and

568
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 1: you can't just go blue. With me, there's no creativity

569
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 1: without boundaries. If you're going to write a sonnet, it's

570
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:32,520
Speaker 1: fourteen lines, so it's solving the problem within the container.

571
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 1: And I think for me, commercial television and those boundaries,

572
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: I like it. I like that you can't use a

573
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: certain language. I like that you have to be bright

574
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 1: enough to figure out how to get your ideas across

575
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: in that amount of time, with intelligence being the thing

576
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:53,800
Speaker 1: that you're you hope is showing, not officially but you

577
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: wanted to be Oh, that was kind of bright. We

578
00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 1: have really good writers here. I think I can safely

579
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: say that a lot of people in comedy did their

580
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 1: best work here, even though there might be more successful

581
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 1: in the things they did, Apple more commercially successful. And also,

582
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 1: I really believe that if you're going to stay chap,

583
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: you have to take fights. And that means there's always

584
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 1: young people, there's always people who are hungrier and more

585
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 1: ambitious coming in, and you're working with people at the

586
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: point of their career when nothing matters but the work,

587
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 1: how they live, how they perceived. Most of the people

588
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: arrive here, their office is nicer than their apartment, you know,

589
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 1: and that's sort of what it's always been. And people

590
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: just completely devote themselves to the show. And I think

591
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 1: you can't do that past a certain age. You know,

592
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: you have become someone who when you genuinely talk to

593
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 1: people about what a producer does in a constructive sense

594
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 1: and you're not trying to be have a kind of

595
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: pejorative about, you know, meddlesome and kind of attention seeking

596
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: and credit seeking producers, you have become, you know, like

597
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 1: one of the most important producers in the history of television,

598
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 1: and a lot of that comes from in the history

599
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:18,960
Speaker 1: of the world, in all other universes and all other galaxies. Yeah, wherever,

600
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: wherever product is consumed around the capsy. But you have

601
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:27,399
Speaker 1: become uh, you just ruined my whole I was trying

602
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,919
Speaker 1: to be so heartfelt here, but you know it's okay,

603
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 1: you're not um well, but you have become someone who

604
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 1: embodies to me what a great producer really really is,

605
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:41,719
Speaker 1: and that is someone who you know everyone's job and

606
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: you know when what they're doing, even in the smallest detail,

607
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,959
Speaker 1: when it's working and when it's not working. I think

608
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 1: that what I liked, and maybe it's growing up in Canada.

609
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 1: But the actor manager, you know, I know with Shakespeare

610
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:57,399
Speaker 1: not to put myself in the same category. That's really

611
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 1: for others to do. But the I know that he

612
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: had to have a guy like Farley and Blushi that

613
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 1: the audience loved, and Falstaff ends up in play that

614
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 1: really did it doesn't, but you know he was brought

615
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: back by popular demand. And I think that when you're

616
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: dealing with actors and writing and costume people and an

617
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 1: audience and how you're going to get people into the globe, theater.

618
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:25,120
Speaker 1: It's not much different. And the fact that there's the

619
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 1: greatest poetry probably ever written in the English language is

620
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 1: also in there. That wasn't what he was advertising. Producing

621
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:37,480
Speaker 1: for me anyway, is like an invisible art. If you're

622
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: any good at it, you leave no fingerprints. The writer

623
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:43,320
Speaker 1: wrote it, you always say that was so and so script,

624
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: the director directed it. The star had the idea in

625
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 1: high school. And that's kind of what it is. And

626
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:53,439
Speaker 1: the only way you prove your worth is you leave

627
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: a body of work and people go, oh, that accident

628
00:35:55,719 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 1: happened there again that oh, I see. So you know,

629
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 1: you try and get the best out of people. If

630
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 1: you look around the room and you're the smartest person

631
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:09,239
Speaker 1: in the room, then you're in the wrong room. You know,

632
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:11,799
Speaker 1: you want to get the most talented people you can

633
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 1: find and then UMU the best of them. But you

634
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 1: also have, if I may say so, a kind of

635
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 1: Darwinnian approach to this. In the years I've been here,

636
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:23,319
Speaker 1: where you're not someone who's sitting down. I mean you've

637
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 1: had close personal relationships and you've developed lifelong or career

638
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,439
Speaker 1: long friendships with some of the most important people you've

639
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:33,360
Speaker 1: worked with. But as a rule. I don't see you

640
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:35,879
Speaker 1: sitting down like a father figure to the people here.

641
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: You tend to let them slug it out and let

642
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 1: the cream rise to the top. Correct somebody's in trouble.

643
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: But talking about in the creative process, I think that

644
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:51,839
Speaker 1: you kind of guide it, you don't make it. Yeah,

645
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: the only way you can manage creative people's very loose reigns.

646
00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 1: I think if you're all over everything between us in there,

647
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 1: you know what that meeting was like, and it's just

648
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:04,839
Speaker 1: there's no more appeal, then this is what we're doing,

649
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: this is how we're doing it, and and everyone falls

650
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: into place. But up to that point, it's kind of fractious,

651
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 1: and everybody's got an opinion and nobody likes anybody else's work.

652
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 1: The idea that it's a variety show. By that, I

653
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 1: mean that there's a variety of styles and tastes, that

654
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 1: there's the lowest comedy and and the brightest comedy, and

655
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: that they all coexist. Or that this group doesn't like

656
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: that musical act and that group thinks that the joke's

657
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:33,839
Speaker 1: on updated they don't agree with the politics of it.

658
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:38,880
Speaker 1: That's kind of the community of it, and that's Lord Michaels.

659
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 1: He says he picked up his value system at summer camp.

660
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: I wanted to make fair. What is never a fair thing?

661
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:51,759
Speaker 1: He said? Show business we were a community. It was

662
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:55,799
Speaker 1: just set up. What was a value system? Do you

663
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: know what I mean? It was not driven by economics.

664
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:01,399
Speaker 1: It was driven by if it's successful, will be more

665
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: than enough money. Uh. Are you're saying you're disappointed in

666
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: how you've done No, I'm saying I would do it

667
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: exactly the same way. Now. Yeah, I'm Alec Baldwin and

668
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:17,480
Speaker 1: this is here's the thing in depth conversations with artists, writers,

669
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:21,240
Speaker 1: policymakers and performers. Well, I have a half a bagel

670
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: in the morning with cheese. That's sort of my standard breakfast,

671
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:27,440
Speaker 1: and my wife gets on me for that. You can

672
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 1: listen to past episodes and here's the thing. Dot Org.

673
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:48,319
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.

674
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:53,960
Speaker 1: Divorce is terrible. Divorce is difficult. It's a chaos. We

675
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: have no rules for it. It's so incredibly painful. I

676
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:01,399
Speaker 1: think about the impact of worse on children a lot

677
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: because I'm divorced and have a daughter. Erica Young knows

678
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 1: a lot about divorce. She's been married four times. Divorce

679
00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: was the hardest thing I ever went through. I have

680
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:13,360
Speaker 1: a friend who said to me once when he was

681
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,800
Speaker 1: getting divorced from his wife, who could believe that after

682
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:20,440
Speaker 1: we were in the delivering room together, after I watched

683
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:24,279
Speaker 1: that baby come out, who could believe we'd ever be

684
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 1: a part? Both Erica and her daughter, Molly young Fast

685
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:32,760
Speaker 1: are writers. Erica is best known for her nineteen seventy

686
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: three book Fear of Flying, which ushered in the second

687
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:40,400
Speaker 1: wave of feminism. Molly, a mother of three kids herself,

688
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 1: published her second novel, The Social Climber's Handbook last year.

689
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:47,800
Speaker 1: What did you learn about marriage from your parents? Mom?

690
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:52,360
Speaker 1: Can I answer that question honestly? Honestly is the only way? Well?

691
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:56,319
Speaker 1: I would say, have you seen Kramer versus Kramer? That

692
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 1: was my general impression of marriage from my upbringing. But

693
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:04,840
Speaker 1: you know, my mom had some good, useful suggestions, but

694
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:08,000
Speaker 1: ultimately I sort of had to find my own way,

695
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:10,880
Speaker 1: though she did eventually marry a really great guy and

696
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:13,759
Speaker 1: they've been married for twenty one years. And he's a

697
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:17,080
Speaker 1: divorce lawyer. He's a practicing divorce Yeah, he is. And

698
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:19,479
Speaker 1: Molly used to say, when I married him and then

699
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:22,400
Speaker 1: she married the one you can never divorce the divorce.

700
00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: Is he a good guy. He's a really good guy.

701
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 1: He's a totally menchi person and I like him better

702
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 1: than when I married him. What was it like for

703
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 1: you to deal with your parents divorce? Your parents divorce

704
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,879
Speaker 1: as an only child? Who did you talk to? Who

705
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:45,480
Speaker 1: did you do? Obese nanny from Trumbull, Connecticut And she

706
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 1: was my confidence, like crumpets, those tasty cake ring everything. Um,

707
00:40:56,560 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 1: I think I mean Cramer Versus Kramer was a great

708
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:01,319
Speaker 1: movie because that was my story and it was a

709
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: lot of kids. It was just a really gruesome seventies

710
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 1: divorce and that's what they had during that time. Divorce

711
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:09,920
Speaker 1: wasn't set up the way it is now now. If

712
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: you have a divorce, there's no way that a mother

713
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:14,879
Speaker 1: is going to lose custody. Certain things are known. Back then,

714
00:41:14,920 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 1: it was a totally unknown world of divorce. Let me

715
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:21,360
Speaker 1: just I don't want to get carried away by divorce

716
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: being different in different decades, because I'm not sure that's true.

717
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:27,240
Speaker 1: I think it may look that way to you, Molly,

718
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:31,840
Speaker 1: but I think divorce is a catastrophic event for children

719
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:36,400
Speaker 1: for women from men. It's very, very difficult to go through.

720
00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:39,839
Speaker 1: It is traumatic. When you come to the other side

721
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 1: of it, you say, I will never do that again,

722
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:45,840
Speaker 1: which is why I was single for nearly a decade

723
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 1: between Molly's dad and Ken, because I wanted to make

724
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:52,759
Speaker 1: sure I would never make them. But after you have

725
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: three divorces, Yeah, you were divorced. What made you believe

726
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 1: success was a waiting you with your current husband? What

727
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:04,799
Speaker 1: gave you the We stamped on our wedding invitation a

728
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: triumph of hope over experience, which came as the result

729
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 1: of what how did you triumph? Ken had been married

730
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:13,319
Speaker 1: three times. I had been married three times. We were

731
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: very cautious about tying the non you were not that

732
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 1: cautious because you've only been together for three months. When

733
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:24,880
Speaker 1: you go, that's right? Am I right? Is she right?

734
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: We married after we knew each other three months. But

735
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 1: this isn't an amazing and it's been most successful with him. Yeah,

736
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:35,359
Speaker 1: but there are certain things about me and Ken. We

737
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 1: grew up in similar circumstances. Our parents were Depression era people.

738
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: We knew that you couldn't be married and fool around.

739
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 1: You couldn't be married. Secrets to their marriage. They have

740
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:54,360
Speaker 1: different bathrooms, right, They each of their own bath critical,

741
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:58,239
Speaker 1: and they're tired. They're too tired to to do new

742
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 1: curtains and bookshelves. The reason why we got married rather

743
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:04,400
Speaker 1: than lived together was because he said to me, if

744
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:06,919
Speaker 1: we just lived together, one day, we'll have a fight

745
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 1: and you'll say I'm leaving or I will. We have

746
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:14,439
Speaker 1: a bad record. If we get married, we know we're

747
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:18,959
Speaker 1: going to make it work. Marvin Worth, Marvin Great Marvin Worth.

748
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:21,480
Speaker 1: He was Lenny Bruce's manager, then went on to become

749
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:23,960
Speaker 1: a famous movie producer. Produced Malcolm X, the movie with

750
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 1: Spike Lee. Famous movie producer. He was from Brooklyn. He

751
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: had the heaviest New York accent of any man I've

752
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:29,920
Speaker 1: ever heard of my life. And I said to him,

753
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:31,279
Speaker 1: how did you and Joan do it? How have you

754
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: and John been married for for forty years? Like it

755
00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:37,040
Speaker 1: was you don't fight? And he said to me, uh do,

756
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 1: Joan and I fight? We fight every day. We fight

757
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 1: all day. What we do is fight, he said, But

758
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:45,839
Speaker 1: then we after we're done fighting. I say, Joan, I'm

759
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:48,840
Speaker 1: not going anywhere, and you're not going anywhere, So what

760
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 1: are we gonna do about this problem. I'm not going anywhere.

761
00:43:51,719 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 1: That's what Ken and I wanted, Like leaving is not

762
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:56,759
Speaker 1: an option. And actually this is very funny because he

763
00:43:56,840 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 1: says I'm not going anywhere, just what Rvin said, and

764
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: I say I couldn't stand anywhere else. And part of

765
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:07,840
Speaker 1: it is we really make each other laugh all the time.

766
00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:11,959
Speaker 1: When we have a disagreement. We always get it out there.

767
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:15,440
Speaker 1: We don't hold it in. Now that I have kids,

768
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 1: I feel like what they don't tell you about marriage

769
00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 1: is that marriage is incredibly hard work. Molly got married

770
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:30,360
Speaker 1: at but Molly's whole childhood and upbringing had been different

771
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:35,120
Speaker 1: from mine. I married my first lover, my college sweetheart.

772
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 1: I had no experience with anybody else when I married him.

773
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 1: That was very much my generation. Molly sewed her wild

774
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 1: oats during college, and when she met Matt, she knew

775
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: this was the man she wanted to be with. It

776
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: was a totally different pattern. But I think how much

777
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 1: wild else did? So what did you travel with the stones?

778
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:57,719
Speaker 1: I think I um, I really grew up because I

779
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:00,239
Speaker 1: got sober when I was nineteen, So I went to

780
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 1: rehab when I was a teenager, so that I was

781
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 1: until I went to we have very crazy. But then

782
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 1: once that happened, I then started to focus on, you know,

783
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 1: what was important. So by the time I got married,

784
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 1: I was already, you know, sober a long time. My

785
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:20,800
Speaker 1: grandmother was very bohemian, and my mother was very bohemian. Yeah,

786
00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:24,399
Speaker 1: and they all my grandparents had open marriages. I also

787
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:27,360
Speaker 1: wanted a bourgeois life, Like I didn't want to be bohemian.

788
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 1: I don't want to be single and have a boyfriend

789
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:32,920
Speaker 1: who had a motorcycle and cowboy boots. None of that

790
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:35,880
Speaker 1: appealed to me. What effect, if any, did it have

791
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 1: on you that your mother was viewed as and I'll

792
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 1: let you put in the words, you know, your mother's

793
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:43,719
Speaker 1: expertise and female sexuality. What impact did that have on

794
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:48,399
Speaker 1: you when you were growing up? Um? I think more

795
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: having a mother who was very successful in working a

796
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 1: lot at more of an effect on growing because she

797
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:57,279
Speaker 1: just traveled a lot and worked a lot and felt

798
00:45:57,400 --> 00:45:59,279
Speaker 1: very stressed a lot. I think that had more of

799
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 1: an effect on me. Then. I didn't particularly know what

800
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:05,680
Speaker 1: she did until when I was in sixth grade. I

801
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: went to this very progressive school and a little boy

802
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:10,920
Speaker 1: was like your mom writes dirty books. I went to

803
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 1: science teacher and I was like, he's not allowed to

804
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:13,959
Speaker 1: say that to me, and she was like, but she does.

805
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh my god, she does. But

806
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:18,799
Speaker 1: the fact that we grew up in a townhouse with

807
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:24,400
Speaker 1: a hot pink door and then it was purpose, it

808
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:28,600
Speaker 1: was right. We had paintings of naked lesbians having sex

809
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 1: on the walls. Yes, why because no they're not famous.

810
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:40,239
Speaker 1: Ladder Sladder. I have a schlatterer, but I keep it

811
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 1: under my bed. When I want to get things going,

812
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 1: I want to I want to pick it up. Would

813
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:50,439
Speaker 1: you like to? Relating to the erotic art I had

814
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:53,760
Speaker 1: lived in house guests. They had lived with Shirley McClain.

815
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: Sureley finally threw the map. They were about a hundred

816
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 1: years old at that point when Shirley threw them out.

817
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:01,759
Speaker 1: They came to live with me and they gave me

818
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:10,040
Speaker 1: erotic artists. Thank you can't imagine the Slatter sisters. They

819
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:15,360
Speaker 1: were really old fashioned bohemians like Henry Miller. In the sixties.

820
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 1: They had lived in Paris on the Boulevard Reastpy and

821
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:22,359
Speaker 1: had orgies that was all over. In the seventies they

822
00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:25,359
Speaker 1: went to India with Shirley and wrote about past life

823
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 1: regression in the eighties. They got into antioxidants before anybody

824
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:32,360
Speaker 1: knew about it. They were at the head of every curve.

825
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 1: They were not just about and they invented the iPad.

826
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:42,760
Speaker 1: They did not I admire them because they were true

827
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 1: bohemian to me. If they ever, don't comment on this

828
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 1: sho until she finishes. Describe your relationship with your mother,

829
00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:58,160
Speaker 1: Donick pleasant. She's very supportive, are you talking about She's

830
00:47:58,200 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 1: very supportive and she talking about you like she's your

831
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 1: husband's ex. Pleasant, Judy and I have a very pleasant relationship, affable, Charving. No,

832
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:11,160
Speaker 1: my mother has always been phenomenal with me, so supportive.

833
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:12,879
Speaker 1: I don't give her things to read because she says

834
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:14,680
Speaker 1: to me, she calls me if it says, how much

835
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 1: of a genius are you? She's very supportive. How would

836
00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:23,240
Speaker 1: you describe your relationship with Molly? I absolutely adore her

837
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:27,520
Speaker 1: beyond that though, beyond that, I think she's I think

838
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 1: she's smart, I think she's funny. I think she has

839
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:37,319
Speaker 1: incredibly good judgment. I've watched her grow and emotionally, and

840
00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:41,920
Speaker 1: she has bearded some dragons that were very hard. What

841
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:47,239
Speaker 1: do you disagree about everything, everything, something, Give me something primary,

842
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:51,600
Speaker 1: what's consistent? I think of her? It is very reactionary liberal,

843
00:48:51,719 --> 00:48:55,319
Speaker 1: and I'm much more conservative in certain ways politically. Yeah,

844
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 1: do you think that some of your conservatism stems from

845
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:01,759
Speaker 1: your reaction to her? The kind of sexual drum she

846
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:09,520
Speaker 1: was beating throughout her I take it was con I

847
00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 1: was not beating a sexual drum. What were you doing.

848
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 1: I was trying to write honestly about the way and

849
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:19,360
Speaker 1: a young woman thinks and feels. And because our society

850
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:25,439
Speaker 1: is so curiously puritanic, people took that honest book, which

851
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:29,360
Speaker 1: got inside a women's fantasy life, her marrital life and

852
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 1: so and they took it as a horny book. And

853
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:35,759
Speaker 1: I am truly disappointed that the closest person in the

854
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:39,400
Speaker 1: world to me has bought into that view. But okay,

855
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:42,840
Speaker 1: she doesn't have to be my literary critic. She's my daughter,

856
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:45,920
Speaker 1: and I love her, and she can do no wrong.

857
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 1: I hope that someday she will read my work and

858
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:52,320
Speaker 1: see that that was not what I was doing. Daughters

859
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 1: do torture you in a way that I mean that

860
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 1: sons are not capable of, in my opinion, But I

861
00:49:57,960 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 1: also think that my mom's legacy to me was a

862
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:02,280
Speaker 1: up being honest and how important it is to be honest.

863
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:04,640
Speaker 1: And I do really hate you know, that kind of

864
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:08,080
Speaker 1: pretension or falseness, and that is something that really has

865
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 1: been your legacy. Um, this is obviously an important subject

866
00:50:14,680 --> 00:50:17,319
Speaker 1: for me because I have a daughter, and that is

867
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 1: What do you think of the state of female sexuality

868
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:25,960
Speaker 1: in the culture today. I think they're overwhelmed with a

869
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:30,840
Speaker 1: false image of sexuality before specific before they're emotionally ready

870
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 1: to deal with it. I think they use their manipulation

871
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:38,359
Speaker 1: of boy's sexuality as a power trip to get even

872
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:41,399
Speaker 1: with men for the other power men have. But I

873
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 1: think to be a young woman today of the of

874
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 1: your daughter's age is a very sticky wicket, and I

875
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 1: think that you really need a parent who can guide you.

876
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:57,239
Speaker 1: How would they guide them to tell them that what

877
00:50:57,320 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 1: they see around them in the media is not true,

878
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:02,400
Speaker 1: because I try to do that. If I were dealing

879
00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:05,799
Speaker 1: with your daughter, I would try to reassure her that

880
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 1: this is a very confusing time of life. I don't

881
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:12,439
Speaker 1: and that what she sees around her as incredibly confusing.

882
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: Most of the women, the young women are as confused

883
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:20,239
Speaker 1: as she and are showing off by pretending to not

884
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:23,759
Speaker 1: be confused, and I would try to convey to her

885
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:28,160
Speaker 1: how difficult adolescence is, how many messages are coming at

886
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:30,919
Speaker 1: her at once, and how hard it is to make

887
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:34,319
Speaker 1: sense of it. That's what I would do. I plan

888
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 1: to do that with my granddaughter, who I'm sure we'll

889
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:40,840
Speaker 1: say something cynical to me. But I also think some

890
00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 1: of it is you, just as you can't hear that

891
00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:45,479
Speaker 1: kind of thing from a parent at I mean, maybe

892
00:51:45,520 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 1: there are some kids who can. I never could, you know.

893
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:53,680
Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure. I had a beloved child psychiatrist

894
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:57,040
Speaker 1: growing up who I really liked a lot, and I

895
00:51:57,080 --> 00:52:02,120
Speaker 1: think maybe that's possible, or teacher or school, so maybe

896
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:05,480
Speaker 1: the parent can't really say those things. I think it's right,

897
00:52:05,520 --> 00:52:09,000
Speaker 1: and I also think we don't automatically know how to be.

898
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:11,759
Speaker 1: I think it's primarily different from when you wrote your

899
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:14,520
Speaker 1: earlier books. What's changed for when the media is more

900
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:18,600
Speaker 1: all pervasive and the image of women is even more

901
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:22,759
Speaker 1: confusing than it's ever been. I believe that's true. On

902
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:25,240
Speaker 1: the one hand, you're supposed to look like a fashion

903
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:30,200
Speaker 1: model retouched, and on the other hand, you're supposed to

904
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 1: claim to a sophistication you don't and cannot have at

905
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 1: that age. And I think that women who are fourteen

906
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:41,840
Speaker 1: fifteen are in the most difficult position they have ever

907
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:44,480
Speaker 1: been in modern society. What do you think about that?

908
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:47,359
Speaker 1: I mean, I agree, I think there's a lot of sexuality.

909
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:50,719
Speaker 1: I think it's not explained to young girls in a

910
00:52:50,760 --> 00:52:54,600
Speaker 1: way very confusing, Molly. But I think that's a legacy

911
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:56,879
Speaker 1: of the feminist movement. I mean, we said we want

912
00:52:57,200 --> 00:53:00,600
Speaker 1: a legacy on the feminist movement. It is the legacy.

913
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 1: And here I really feel fierce. It is the legacy

914
00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:09,040
Speaker 1: of a distortion of women's desire for equal rights. Equal

915
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:13,759
Speaker 1: rights are not platforms, shooting and naked clothes equal right.

916
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:15,960
Speaker 1: But you can't blow up an atom bomb and then

917
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 1: choose how it's going to go. But we we did

918
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:22,920
Speaker 1: not blow up that atom bomb. The media took our

919
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 1: legitimate desire for equality and turned it into garbage. But

920
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:30,400
Speaker 1: they turned it into what the people wanted. First of all,

921
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 1: I don't think they wouldn't exist. It wouldn't exist people want.

922
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:39,319
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment after a word from

923
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:44,000
Speaker 1: our sponsored Victoria's secret. I disagree think, first of all,

924
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:46,600
Speaker 1: this is what the people want. People buy Britney Specs

925
00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:49,400
Speaker 1: because no, no, no, no, did he. This is what

926
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:51,759
Speaker 1: I disagree. I blame the media, and I blame the

927
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:54,160
Speaker 1: entertainment industry, and I blame that whole matrix for all

928
00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:57,600
Speaker 1: of it. I think of the most absurd person from

929
00:53:57,760 --> 00:54:01,520
Speaker 1: the past, if you took content loss and put him

930
00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:05,520
Speaker 1: on Glee, he'd become a gay icon today, content Flass.

931
00:54:05,800 --> 00:54:09,279
Speaker 1: I think it's brilliant. If the Internet had existed when

932
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:13,240
Speaker 1: content Flass was here, everybody would be worshiping Canton Flows.

933
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:17,440
Speaker 1: You can't and it has nothing to do with you.

934
00:54:19,719 --> 00:54:23,080
Speaker 1: You can't control what people are going to But this

935
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:26,960
Speaker 1: is what people want, this is what is thrust upon them,

936
00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:30,080
Speaker 1: and it has nothing to do with First of all,

937
00:54:30,239 --> 00:54:32,160
Speaker 1: you are the media, and you are the media, and

938
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:36,400
Speaker 1: I am in some effect of the media, So I

939
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:38,680
Speaker 1: disagree with you. I mean, I take a paycheck from

940
00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:41,160
Speaker 1: media companies to do what they pay me to do,

941
00:54:41,200 --> 00:54:43,759
Speaker 1: but I'm not responsible for everything else they do. Let's

942
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:46,759
Speaker 1: just say this. You take the top women in entertainment,

943
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:49,920
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be generous. I'll say half one half

944
00:54:49,960 --> 00:54:53,800
Speaker 1: of them really have talent. Mariah Carey really can sing.

945
00:54:54,280 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 1: Beyonce Knowles really can sing. But then there's the other half.

946
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:00,919
Speaker 1: They have no talent. It's all electronic, le enhanced. It's

947
00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:04,719
Speaker 1: all about many people who are talentless. But I think

948
00:55:04,719 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 1: the interpretation of of our of sexuality and our culture

949
00:55:09,760 --> 00:55:17,239
Speaker 1: is so twisted. Sexuality is and lubricant is true intimacy

950
00:55:17,320 --> 00:55:24,480
Speaker 1: with another person that sometimes results and genitals getting together

951
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:28,120
Speaker 1: and sometimes does not. Why are you so cynical? Why

952
00:55:28,160 --> 00:55:37,200
Speaker 1: are you so cynical that awful? You're the one saying

953
00:55:37,320 --> 00:55:41,200
Speaker 1: lubricants and dolls. I don't even think that's sex. I

954
00:55:41,239 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 1: think that if you have real intimacy with somebody, he

955
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:47,600
Speaker 1: can touch you here and you get excited. He can

956
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:50,359
Speaker 1: touch you on your neck, he can hold your hand

957
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:52,160
Speaker 1: in the movies later on. I'll show you the spot

958
00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:56,759
Speaker 1: I touch. It never fails. People have no idea what

959
00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 1: sexuality really is. I can talk with you about for

960
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:06,479
Speaker 1: a couple more hours. Let's do it next time. Erica

961
00:56:06,600 --> 00:56:09,960
Speaker 1: Jong and Molly young Fast. They say they've toyed with

962
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 1: the idea of writing something together many times, but both

963
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:18,560
Speaker 1: agree they never ever will. It would be just the

964
00:56:18,719 --> 00:56:22,400
Speaker 1: end of our relationship. Here's the thing is produced by

965
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:26,360
Speaker 1: Emily Boutine and Cathy Russo, with support from Jim Briggs,

966
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:30,879
Speaker 1: ed Herbstman, Melanie Hoops and Monica Hopkins. Thanks to Trey

967
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 1: Ka and Lou Okowski. This is Alec Baldwin and you're

968
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:36,919
Speaker 1: listening to here's the Thing.