WEBVTT - Robin Green 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:13.240 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftst Podcast. My 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:18.560 guest today is Robin Greene, an executive producer of The Sopranos, 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:22.480 a writer for Rolling Stone, an author of the book 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:24.160 The Only Girl. 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:26.800 Why was the book called The Only Girl? Robin? 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.800 I seem to be chronically the only girl. I was 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.479 the only girl at Rolling Stone, not working there, but 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.080 on the masthead with eight boys, you know, with Hunter 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.320 and the Tim's you know, Tim k Hill, Tim Krause 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:43.720 and all those, and David Felton and me. You know, 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:46.960 there were like eleven guys and me on the masthead, 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:50.760 just purely by accident, but there it was. And then, 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.280 you know, I was the only girl on the on 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:57.520 the paper at Brown too. I went to Brown University 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:02.760 of Pembroke then, and they were all men there except me. 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.959 I was the only female editor. Girls were just you know, 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:10.399 they were meeting husbands, they weren't necessarily writing anything or 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.760 anything like that. So I just seemed to find myself 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.119 in that position. And it's also when a Sopranos too, 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.240 it was mostly there were some girls that came through women, 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.319 you know. Tony calem came on, wrote a script and 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:28.280 a few other women later, but first, for years I 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.480 was the only girl, so that it was a natural. 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.200 Okay, is that more a comment on you or the 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:35.960 other girls? 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:42.040 Both? And probably me? You know, I don't I've never 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.679 had like a real me too moment, you know, so 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.440 maybe I just don't notice or something that that I'm 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.840 a girl. I don't know. That's not really true, but 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:57.480 I don't know. It's a good question. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.320 Well, growing up, were you always a guy's girl? Were 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:04.960 you friends with the boys or friends with the girls? 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:05.800 How did it work out? 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:11.239 Girls? Definitely? Yeah, No, I was a teeny bopper and 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.560 I had a girlfriends. I had three close girlfriends in Providence, 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:18.040 Rhode Island. You know, the music was just starting to happen, 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.560 so you know, there was dancing on the board walk 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.000 at Scarborough and you know, sort of disgraceful bathing suits 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.600 for the time and stuff like that. But I was 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:33.480 definitely I had girlfriends. I did have girlfriends, and then yeah, 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:35.440 I guess I started hanging out with guys, but not 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:37.160 without the girls, you know. 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.040 Okay. You know one thing that's clear in the book, 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:45.839 which is your autobiography, is you make left field choices 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:49.840 all the time, whereas today's kids seem to know what 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:51.839 they're going to do, and I'm going by road. From 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.240 a very young age, they see college as a trade school. 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:56.920 They go to work for the bank, they go to 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:01.000 work for Google. What'd your parents say about you? Constantly 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:03.280 sing we have an ivy leave education, but I'm going 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.679 with my boyfriend to Canada. You know I'm doing this. 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:12.000 They were horror horrified because, excuse me, I have a 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.800 little frog in my throat allergies from the autumn in 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:19.000 the country. But I got out of Pembroke and I 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:23.200 went immediately to Martha's Vineyard with a boyfriend, you know. 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.760 With my college it which my Ivy League education. You know, 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:29.600 I was the first generation to go to college. My 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.960 grandparents were immigrants and they lived upstairs. It was their 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.440 house we had. They owned the house. We went to 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.480 the downstairs flat. But my parents didn't go to college 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.680 for various reasons. They were very bright and funny. But I, 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:43.960 you know, me and me and my brother were the 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.320 ones that first went. It was very important for them 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.120 for me to go to an Ivy League school because 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:54.280 I had I had a free ride at full ride 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.120 at Risdie. You know that is an art. 0:03:57.000 --> 0:03:58.880 School, Yeah, Road Island School Design. 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:02.040 So I got my Yes, so I got my because 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.640 I was a talented artist as a child, you know, girl. 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.480 But they wanted and also they didn't think I could 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:10.440 earn a living that way, and I had to take 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:14.160 typing and things like that because that's what girls did. 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.040 This was, you know, nineteen sixty three when I went 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.120 to college, so you know, the expectations and girls and 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.880 now they're like women are all my doctors practically, do 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.520 you know what I mean? Then it just wasn't so 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.279 at all. But anyway, I graduated and I went with 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:36.440 a boyfriend this sort of day class, a Greek American 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:42.799 from Providence, and we went to Martha's Vineyard and my waitress, 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:48.200 you know. So my parents were horrified whether that they 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:56.000 they they never withdrew their love. You know, they were 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:59.359 entertained by me. I brought home Jimmy Cliff's album and 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:01.560 showed them the dance and took them. I think they 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.680 took them to the movie Harder They Fall on, you know, 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.720 Providence on Fair Street, and they dug it, you know, 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:09.720 because so they were alive, you know, they used to 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.760 go down to New York and see plays and things. 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.479 So they sort of dug what happened to me, and 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.960 they were tolerant, although they'd make fun of me a 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:21.480 lot to their friend. 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.239 Made fun of you. Tell us more about that, well. 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:27.200 I mean they would say, Robin's looking for herself. She 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:31.520 thinks now she's in California. Stuff like that, you know. 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.080 Or once I had I had knitted. I was a 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:39.599 knitter one winter and I knitted this scarf that I 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:42.440 wore as a shawl in Berkeley. And it was the 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:44.120 days in Berkeley dressing. 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:44.800 You know. 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:49.560 I had this maddress floor length Indian dress was stunning, 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.880 wraparound really and I looked great. You know, I had 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:55.440 such a good figure as a girl. I didn't know it, 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.600 but I did, And so I wore the you know, 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.760 I was back in Providence visiting my family, and I 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:06.120 wore the white nick shawl, and my mother took my 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:12.960 grandmother's afghan that she had a crochet or something, you know, 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.039 this white big afghan and mocking me war it to 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.040 the cookout at the Barad's house. Do you understand, just 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:21.040 making me? 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:22.120 I understand? 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:24.880 Okay, Well, she was making fun of the hippie look 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:29.920 and pearl Barad Ronnie's mother said to my mother, you're 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:34.479 making yourself look bad. Robin looks beautiful. But so my 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:39.080 mother was, Yeah, my mother was undermining my father was. 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:41.680 You know, he would just light up when I came 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.279 in the room, and she did too. Really they were great. 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:49.640 Okay, let's go sideways for a second. What did your 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:50.960 brother do in his life? 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.320 Oh God, thank God for Ronnie. He was two and 0:06:55.320 --> 0:07:01.120 a half, two years four months older, and he was 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:02.919 kind of a real nerd. You know, I was the 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.960 talented one, and he had no rhythm. You know, he 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:11.240 wasn't good at piano hour. He was short, and then 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:14.360 he kind of blossomed in college. He didn't get into 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.760 hyvy league school. He went to u URI, you know. 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:19.680 U Uri University of Island. 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:24.320 It was an ivy league. He ended up by the well. 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.520 So he ended up by the way teaching a medicine 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:31.040 of all things. He's a neuroscientist, and he taught medicine 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.160 at Dartmouth his entire life. So he had this ivy 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.960 League experience. But the thing about him was he met 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.800 his wife while he was just coming into himself in 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:45.560 college in the biology lab. A friend of his parked 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:47.920 or with him, because you know, while he had to 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:53.040 go someplace on some weekend and you know, some kind 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:55.920 of homecoming weekend or something. But he parked his girlfriend, 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.040 Sue with Ronnie because he didn't consider Ronnie a threat. 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:04.360 Ronnie ended up marrying her and they've been married since 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:07.320 they were children, you know, and they have children. So 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.760 my brother had this. He was a doctor, which was 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:14.840 like god in the Jewish community, you know, you know, 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:19.760 we were all sort of all of the people in Providence, 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.400 especially in the Jewish community. I can't really speak for 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:26.040 any others. It was kind of an upscale Jewish part 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.040 of town. You know. The wasp fled when we moved 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:33.080 in in the fifties. They fled out to Barrington and 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:37.200 Bristol and stuff like that. But we were pawns in 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:41.679 their game, as Dylan I guest said, you know, and 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.880 so you know, it was important for you to be 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.480 a doctor or go to an Ivy League school just 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.000 to be in the sweepstakes, you know what I. 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.520 Mean, amplify pawns in their game. 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:56.960 Oh, isn't there like we were only pawns in their game. 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.920 No, that's definitely a Dylan line, but that it applied 0:08:59.920 --> 0:09:02.640 to you in Providence because because. 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.560 You know, well, my daughter's going to Pembroke, my daughter, 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:10.360 my son is teaching at Dartmouth. Oh and where does 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.000 your girl go? Oh? Well, should be you? Oh that's 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.040 too bad, you know that sort of thing. There was 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.920 a contest and we won, My brother I won. We 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:22.280 were you know, we were the house. We didn't have 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:24.560 as much money as everybody else in that house. But 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:27.560 it was the smallest house in a good neighborhood, like 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.199 in like Who's the Who's the writer, you know, Jane 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:36.120 Austen or something novel, The smallest house in the nice neighborhood. 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:38.959 And we lived there. But it was to our house 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:43.240 that people came for fun. That's where the cocktails were happening, 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:44.880 do you know what I mean, That's where they were. 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.720 I grew up. I'm a little younger than you. But 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.520 it's amazing the life our parents led relative to ours. 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:54.640 It was like a floating party. They had a million friends. 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:57.760 They weren't looking to become famous, but the lifestyle was 0:09:57.800 --> 0:09:58.360 pretty good. 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:00.959 Oh that's interesting. Where are you from. 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.240 I'm from Connecticut. I'm from Fairfield, Connecticut, which is fifteen 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:07.120 weeks from New York City. The most important thing that's 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:09.760 you know New York media. But I have an older 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:11.719 sister and a younger sister. We talk about it all 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:13.800 the time. They had a million friends. They were having 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.359 theme parties. How did your family end up in Providence? 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:24.280 Well, my grandmother it's like the Bayflowership. She actually was 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:28.920 born there, but no one else. Yeah, well that was one, 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.559 but the others were you know. You know, my grandfather 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:37.760 actually came from Russia. He was avoiding the draft, right, 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:42.000 Nicholas right, right? Yeah, So he's a Russian immigrant nineteen 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:48.319 seventeen draft dodger, and he came to Newark, Newark, New Jersey. 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.760 It was a butcher and I think that he killed 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:57.360 somebody there. Something happened and he had to get out, 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.560 and he came up to Providence. I guess, you know 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:03.880 Jewish people. That's how my grandmother came from Hungary and 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:06.959 she came to Providence because somebody else had come to Providence, 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:09.280 do you know what I mean? And she came illegally. 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:12.120 Wait wait too them, I know because all my mother's 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.439 family came to the Boston area. How did she come illegally? 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:18.960 Oh? She said she was someone's daughter and she wasn't 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.840 you know, I have actually she came with her with 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:30.760 her comforter, her down comforter, you know, Hungarian down, Hungarian down, Yeah, 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.840 a ghost down or something. My mother put it in 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.120 her couch, the goost down, and then I have it 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.120 in something here. I can't remember what exactly, but we 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:44.120 kept that down going, you know. But she came. She 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.000 had that's all she had. She has had a straw 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:51.640 hamper with this down down comforter in it, and she 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:55.520 was gorgeous. She was like six feet tall. My grandfather 0:11:55.679 --> 0:12:01.360 was this little crude Jewish barrel chested criminal. Really he 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:06.520 was a bootlegger and he was a gangster. He was, 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.840 you know, he had I think he had a gun, 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.240 but you know there. I didn't put it together then, 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.280 but later in life when I worked for Sopranos, I 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.200 could see that's what he was, and I talked to 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.719 my mother about it, and for sure, you know, they 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.240 because she would live in many many places in Wickford, 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.440 for instance, because that the boats would come in from Canada. 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:33.640 So my grandfather, my little Jewish grandfather would go down 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.240 there with his men and his gun and receive the 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:41.000 barrels and protect the booze from you know, other gangsters. 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.800 I guess they would try to take it and then 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:49.880 they would actually make They had Gordon's gin labels and 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:55.600 so they would bottle the illegal gin in this you know, 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:59.040 these Gordon and put the Gordon and I drank Gordon's 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.880 gin to this day, and so did my parents did 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:07.920 so did your parents have cocktails and things? 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:10.360 My father owned a liquor store. That's how he earned 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:11.319 his living for a long time. 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:15.320 That's what Grandpa did. After proefficient ended, he had a 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.440 liquor store left to trade pictures, right. 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:20.959 What about the other side of your family. 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:26.800 Oh, they were kind of Jewish, you know, like Grandpa. 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:33.440 They were both named Morris, but that Grandpa Morris green Grenawskamshire. 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:39.040 At some point he was an immigrant, tall, handsome. He 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.480 had a cap factory and they had cars and they 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:48.040 were doing very well. And then my father's older brother 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:52.520 got epilepsy. He had a grandma seizure. But he was 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:56.560 giving the valedictorian speech at his high school and it 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:01.520 was there was no Ti Lanton then, and so he 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:05.160 was at Brown, which was very unusual for jew in 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.160 those days. It was the twenties, I think, and he 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:14.120 had to stop going to Brown because Brown University this 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.480 is where I went because it was freaking everybody out. 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:22.400 These seizures were so grotesque and scary. So he went 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.200 home and the family kind of failed after that. So 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:32.080 Dad stepped in. My charming, funny father, very talented performer, 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.120 and he supported the family however he could. Oh, then 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.320 he wanted to be in a stock market, but it 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:45.160 was nineteen twenty nine. But still he was the funniest. 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.120 You know. He loved people. He looked at people and 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:54.080 he appreciated them, and he ended up his life in 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:58.200 a happy job. He became a sales representative so he 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.520 could go in his car and charm people with his 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:05.000 sample cases. He was Willy Lowman, but without the Dan Draft. 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:05.240 You know. 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:08.480 Okay, you're in Providence. 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:09.520 We live in going. 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.440 No, it is perfect, perfect, you're in. 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:16.800 I get going. I don't shut up or something. 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:21.520 No, no, perfect, keep rolling all right. There are fifty 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:27.320 states in America. There are many institutions of higher learning. 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:30.760 Your brother and your yourself just end up in Providence. 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:32.840 You don't think, well, maybe I'll go to New York City, 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.720 I'll go to New Haven, I'll go somewhere else. 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:40.800 I means for college. Yeah, well no, I was scared 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.720 and uh, number one and number two I didn't get 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.840 into brandeis those pricks. 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.560 It's kind of interesting to get especially by today's standards, 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:56.800 because it's certainly reversed. Okay, many people there. The line 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:01.320 of demarcation is when the Beatles hit basically January of 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.520 sixty four. You were into music before that. For a 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:07.680 lot of people are unaware of what it was like. 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.760 Tell me about your interest in music then before the Beatles. 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:16.640 Oh, man, well, definitely, you know, I guess the first 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:22.400 thing I evers stole was Elvis Presley forty five, right, 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.640 Elvis Presley must have been thirteen. And my friend Ronnie 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:29.200 was a really talented singer, the one that killed herself. 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.400 She was also named Ronnie. As a matter of fact. 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.960 Her personality was so strong that we called my brother 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:43.440 Ronnie Green differentiated because there was only one Ronnie. But 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:46.040 she was my best friend. We were born two weeks apart, 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:50.200 and we you know, it was the Watusi. It was 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:53.080 all that kind of teeny bopper music. I know, the 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.360 lyrics to like a million songs, those teeny bopper songs. 0:16:56.560 --> 0:17:00.640 And then oh then you know guys, the cool guys 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.280 at Moses Brown there was this one guy, Joel'sas I think. 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.320 Which is a private high school in the Rhode Island. 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:11.359 Yeah, it's where the which you know, which those who 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:13.359 could afford it, My friends, a lot of them went 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:15.560 to the private school. It was a girls was Lincoln 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:21.119 and the boys was Moses Brown and Wheeler. But Joel's 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.280 Auce I think he still plays around. Have you ever 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:23.879 heard that name? 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.679 Oh yeah, Joelsas wrote too Long at the Fear, the 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:29.119 opening song on the second side of the second Bonnie 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:30.760 Right album. Loved that song. 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:32.199 No, really, Joel. 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:37.480 That's wonderful about Joel Sauce and musicians cos s Absolutely, 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:39.080 I've heard from him a couple of times. 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.639 Oh my god. Well, I don't know if you'd remember me, 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:43.760 but he went to Moses Brown and he was a 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.320 friend of my boyfriend David Leech's, and so you know, 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.880 he was the barefoot kid with a guitar, you see, 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:53.080 And we would go to clubs and stuff, and I 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:56.280 was at the first row of the Newport Jazz Festival 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.199 with David. David was a huge music lover and of 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.239 jazz and he you know, when I lived with him 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.600 in Chicago. I can't remember exactly the details, but we 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:11.000 saw like Mangus or somebody, you know, really important jazz people. 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:12.840 I was so stoned all the time though. I just 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:17.120 don't remember the details unfortunately, but I know we did 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.720 go to clubs and black clubs and hear black musicians. 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:24.720 But you know, he took me to the Newport Jazz Festival. 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:26.920 We sat in the first row. You know. 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:38.360 Okay, you're in college when the Beatles hit? How did 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.240 you first hear the Beatles? Into? What impact did they 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:43.040 have for you and your friends? 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:46.840 Well? I didn't have any friends at college. 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:49.919 But wait, let's just slow that you were living at 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:51.160 home or living in the dorm. 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:53.800 Oh, I lived well, first of all, they had this 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:57.600 sort of dorm for townies, which I was that it was. 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:03.600 It was just a shithole. Now it's the like Vegan dorm. 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.320 You know. It was this old funky house, so they 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.560 would they let the towny stay there. And then after 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.600 a semester they let me. They gave me a room 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:16.080 at the actual college with others, you know, with four 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.760 three other girls. And the next year after that I 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.080 had a single. I mean, I rose very quickly at 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:29.480 the university, but I didn't have any friends really, and 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:36.000 I don't. I don't think music was. I know that 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:40.000 my one friend, one girl I did know, was really 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:44.439 into Dylan, but I wasn't at that point. But the 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:50.119 Beatles definitely, you know. I just remember which album was 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:52.240 Rubber Soul that was later, wasn't it. 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.480 Yeah, Rubber Soul was sixty five, So. 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.680 When did they show up? Sixty four? 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:00.920 They showed up in January of sixty four, and Rever 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:05.439 Seoul was the end of sixty five. Then Revolver was 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:07.359 sixty six, and Sergeant Pepper. 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:10.160 Was Yeah, no, yeah, I remember, I want to hold 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:14.160 your hand and all that. Sure, Yeah, I love it it, Okay? 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:16.240 How come you had no friends? Usually people go to 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:17.720 college and make friends. 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:25.760 Hmm. It just wasn't my scene. I didn't like it 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.480 very much the first year. I didn't the girls were 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:35.600 too preppy or something. I just didn't attach. And I 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:39.919 was very serious about school, you know, classes and things, 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.439 and you know, I had this kind of you know, 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:48.000 I wore jeans and black sweaters and black boots and 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:50.800 had an art board and went down the hill to 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:53.879 Rizdy to take courses. I was kind of a beatnik, 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:59.560 and so I I just wasn't, you know, I think 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:01.560 I went to a football game once and had a 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.720 date once, you know, it went to a fraternity party. 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:07.600 But I didn't like it. I just didn't like it. It 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:11.840 wasn't my scene. And I kept my Providence friends and 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:16.280 that actually led to you know, I was friends with 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:20.080 my boyfriend David. One of his friends at Moses Brown 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:24.080 was the Raymond Patriarch Junior. Raymond Patriarch Junior was the 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:26.560 son of the head of the New England mafia, Raymond 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:27.520 Patriarch Senior. 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.360 So you know, they did a whole podcast about that. 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:35.600 What do you mean about the patriarchis he did? Oh? Absolutely? 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:36.520 Oh my god? 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:40.760 A few years ago. You know why my podcast Who 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.200 Knows Why the people started doing there were multiple seasons 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:47.520 about the Patriarch family. You did no, I mean I 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:49.360 I listened to it. I didn't do it. 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:53.399 Oh you didn't do it. But there was one yes, Ah, 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:56.400 I say, well, you know, the Godfather book hadn't come 0:21:56.440 --> 0:21:59.679 out yet. The movie of course hadn't come out yet. 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:02.959 But I was I didn't know my grandfather was a 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:07.320 small time gangster. But I was just so fascinated and 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.680 kind of excited by the whole scene, you know, because 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:16.359 Raymond Junior, who's a friend of my boyfriend. You know, 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:19.760 I got friends with his girlfriend, Rosemary Scanlon, and she 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:23.280 lived near Brown. So I just escaped Brown and went 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:27.760 and stayed with her down the hill with her and 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:30.840 her roommate, you know, in one room or something. You know, 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:33.200 she and ray Junior used to go into the closet 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.480 and have sex in there, and I wrote about it. 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.320 That was my first short story. Actually it was my 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.280 second short story, but nobody you know, I wrote this 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:47.040 pretty good short story that got me, you know, I 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:52.280 became the editor of the literary magazine. And they read 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:58.119 it at this huge convocation of blonde girls. Do you 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:03.199 understand I was understand. I keep saying that to you, 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:06.200 but you do understand. But I was alienated. I would 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:11.240 say I was scared alienated. So I pretended and I 0:23:11.280 --> 0:23:15.280 guess maybe I was cool, you know, maybe I was hip. 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:19.400 It's possible, okay, if they read it at this convocation. 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:22.280 Did you envision yourself becoming a writer. 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:32.800 Yes, But then there was this magazine contest that Mademoiselle 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:36.760 magazine had a contest, so I entered it with this story, 0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:39.480 you know, and when they read it in front of 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:42.439 three hundred people that it was an editor from the 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:44.520 New Yorker that came up and read it. It wasn't 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:46.760 some schmuck off the street, you know what I mean. 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:51.200 So it was really a big deal. So I sent 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:56.480 it off to the the Mademoiselle contest and I didn't win, 0:23:56.920 --> 0:23:59.320 so I just gave it up as an idea. 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:04.880 Interesting. Okay, you've had these high points in your career. 0:24:05.760 --> 0:24:09.800 Did Brown ever track you down after the fact to speak, 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:12.880 to give money, to give an award or anything like that. 0:24:13.640 --> 0:24:17.320 Yes, I can't remember the award, but I did go 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:20.760 up there. Mitch was with me. I just remember it 0:24:20.760 --> 0:24:23.240 because of the traffic jam was terrible. But I, you know, 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:25.840 I gave some kind of seminar and then the minute 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:28.640 I had any money at all, I gave them ten 0:24:28.720 --> 0:24:32.320 thousand dollars. And that to me was just a lot 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:37.040 of money because I come, you know, my family, my father, 0:24:38.160 --> 0:24:40.720 he lived in the future. There was debt, it was 0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:45.959 credit card debt. There was no money at all. But 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:50.960 we lived very well somehow, you know, in the nice 0:24:51.000 --> 0:24:53.840 house with beautiful furniture, nice friends and all that kind 0:24:53.880 --> 0:24:57.919 of thing. And everyone knew, you know, we had no money. 0:24:57.960 --> 0:25:01.639 But I don't know. So ten thousand dollars was you know, 0:25:01.680 --> 0:25:04.200 that's what he made a year. My father made ten 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:08.200 dollars a year in the fifties, Sure he did, And 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:10.919 so I gave them. And then we went mentioned and 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:15.479 I went to some event at the Goggenheim. And you know, 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:17.879 now when we go to events at Iowa, we're a 0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:20.280 big deal because we give them. I don't even want 0:25:20.320 --> 0:25:22.160 to say how much, you know what. 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:24.920 I mean, everything the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the. 0:25:24.920 --> 0:25:28.080 Iowa Writers Worship, but also the University of Iowa Public 0:25:28.119 --> 0:25:32.439 Institution because and a lot of it is because Brown 0:25:32.680 --> 0:25:36.400 was like, you know, fa fong gul. You know, I'll 0:25:36.440 --> 0:25:41.840 show you. And also they have a huge endowment. They 0:25:41.840 --> 0:25:45.840 didn't really need my ten thousand dollars, and they certainly don't. 0:25:45.920 --> 0:25:49.200 They don't need my money now either. But Iowa does 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:52.240 you know, Irack can use it? 0:25:53.160 --> 0:25:56.320 Okay? When you went to Brown, did your father pay 0:25:56.400 --> 0:25:57.800 or did you get any help from Brown? 0:25:58.880 --> 0:26:03.600 I got a scholar ship from the state of one 0:26:03.600 --> 0:26:06.520 thousand dollars a year. The tuition was that it covered 0:26:06.560 --> 0:26:12.760 a intuition, and I think my father paid for the dorm. 0:26:13.280 --> 0:26:16.520 He did, he paid for the dorm I worked. Also, 0:26:16.720 --> 0:26:19.360 I worked in a factory in the summer. I worked 0:26:19.000 --> 0:26:23.000 at you know, I wasn't an intern somewhere with no pay. 0:26:23.359 --> 0:26:26.240 I was a waitress or I was working. I like 0:26:26.320 --> 0:26:29.280 to work. I like them. I like them. I like 0:26:29.359 --> 0:26:32.000 waitressing because you pick up the money off the table. 0:26:32.320 --> 0:26:35.439 Maybe you don't anymore, but I just like the cash 0:26:35.480 --> 0:26:36.480 aspect to it. 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:42.919 Okay, you graduate from college, although you ultimately go to 0:26:42.960 --> 0:26:46.480 the vineyard. I think you said, what was your intention? 0:26:46.760 --> 0:26:49.879 What was your plan after graduating from college? 0:26:51.240 --> 0:26:55.119 Well, I don't know. We stayed on a vineyard till November. 0:26:54.960 --> 0:26:58.200 So, well that's way past the season. 0:26:58.440 --> 0:27:01.159 Yeah, it is kind of past the season. And he 0:27:01.240 --> 0:27:04.040 became a cook, so we lived upstairs in the restaurant 0:27:04.119 --> 0:27:07.199 Louise Tate King. This kind of it was fun. And 0:27:07.240 --> 0:27:09.280 then we moved to Boston. I thought I would go 0:27:09.320 --> 0:27:12.600 into publishing, you know, so I did. I got a 0:27:12.720 --> 0:27:18.360 job at Houghton Mifflin. That's a big house in Boston, 0:27:18.480 --> 0:27:23.160 publishing house. And I got a job in the production department, 0:27:23.480 --> 0:27:27.280 like with like figures and spreadsheets and stuff. I don't 0:27:27.320 --> 0:27:29.320 even know what I was doing, but I took a 0:27:29.400 --> 0:27:31.919 detour and I went and I checked out the editorial 0:27:32.000 --> 0:27:34.879 department because that's sort of what I was aiming for. 0:27:35.240 --> 0:27:38.080 This was an entry level job, and it just looked 0:27:38.080 --> 0:27:41.240 like a drag. It looked like a drag, you know, 0:27:41.280 --> 0:27:44.600 I was it was. It was you know, sixty seven. 0:27:45.240 --> 0:27:49.120 It was you know, something was in the air, you know, 0:27:50.000 --> 0:27:52.679 and it was too like straight. The men didn't appeal 0:27:52.720 --> 0:27:55.280 to me. Nobody looked at me. Actually that was part 0:27:55.320 --> 0:27:57.880 of it. Those men, they didn't even look up from 0:27:57.880 --> 0:28:01.400 their desks, and they were all men behind those desks. 0:28:02.040 --> 0:28:06.560 So I think I left my boyfriend. He worked at 0:28:06.560 --> 0:28:09.119 a restaurant, managing a restaurant. I think I can't remember 0:28:09.119 --> 0:28:11.400 if I waited. No, I was at my hoton Mifflin. 0:28:11.480 --> 0:28:14.080 So he was working at the restaurant where I used 0:28:14.080 --> 0:28:18.000 to waitress years ago before that. But he cheated on me. 0:28:18.119 --> 0:28:20.919 He didn't come home one night, and he married that 0:28:21.040 --> 0:28:25.679 girl and had four children with her. So it was 0:28:25.720 --> 0:28:28.720 good for him because I didn't have good, pure intentions 0:28:28.760 --> 0:28:32.600 towards him. Men functioned in my life as kind of 0:28:32.640 --> 0:28:37.199 tickets out. I mean, I'm burying my soul to you 0:28:37.200 --> 0:28:40.400 a little bit. But that's how I went to Cali. 0:28:40.480 --> 0:28:43.640 I didn't go to California on my own. You know, 0:28:44.080 --> 0:28:49.000 A man took me to New Poor Jazz Festival. You know, 0:28:49.080 --> 0:28:52.080 a man put the headphones on my head and played 0:28:52.080 --> 0:28:56.120 the records and chose the records. And so I had 0:28:56.240 --> 0:29:00.400 music through men, and I had transportation through men. Or 0:29:00.440 --> 0:29:05.200 I wouldn't go to cities alone, you know, I would go. 0:29:05.280 --> 0:29:08.680 Well, was it more that you saw the opportunity or 0:29:08.720 --> 0:29:09.800 that you were fearful? 0:29:14.640 --> 0:29:20.760 Both? Although I did go to New York by myself, 0:29:20.800 --> 0:29:22.840 I did, No, that's bullshit. I went to New York 0:29:22.880 --> 0:29:23.560 by myself. 0:29:23.600 --> 0:29:26.440 I did, Okay, your boyfriend cheats on you. You're working 0:29:26.480 --> 0:29:27.720 it out, love Beflynn. 0:29:27.840 --> 0:29:29.480 Oh well, first I had an affair with a guy 0:29:29.520 --> 0:29:32.320 across the hall, and then I went home to Providence, 0:29:32.920 --> 0:29:35.800 and it was December. This all took place like a month, 0:29:35.920 --> 0:29:40.120 because then when you're young, time is very slow, you 0:29:40.200 --> 0:29:42.840 know what I mean. A lot happens, like so much 0:29:42.920 --> 0:29:46.840 happened in just nineteen sixty seven. In nineteen sixty eight, 0:29:47.600 --> 0:29:50.760 you probably experienced that. You're vaguely my general. I think 0:29:50.800 --> 0:29:55.960 you're my husband's generation. Actually, so you know, I don't 0:29:56.000 --> 0:29:58.440 think it was that much different. It's still Vietnam, and 0:29:58.600 --> 0:30:02.480 of Vietnam when you were coming up he wasted. Yeah, 0:30:03.120 --> 0:30:07.520 so time was slow, and so I went back to Providence. 0:30:07.560 --> 0:30:11.640 I played mel Brooks's two thousand year Old Man continually 0:30:11.760 --> 0:30:16.240 on my Hi Fi on my turntable for like a week, 0:30:17.080 --> 0:30:19.880 maybe more. You know, I just played that record over 0:30:19.920 --> 0:30:22.720 and over again. I can't tell you why. I don't 0:30:22.760 --> 0:30:26.840 have any idea, but then I was ready. I felt better. Oh, 0:30:26.880 --> 0:30:30.400 my parents had given me luggage as a graduation president. 0:30:32.440 --> 0:30:34.360 I guess that was their sense of humor. But it 0:30:34.400 --> 0:30:38.080 was also very useful, you know, this blue American tourist set. 0:30:38.760 --> 0:30:40.800 So I packed that up and I went down to 0:30:40.880 --> 0:30:44.360 the Martha Washington Hotel for Women because I had read 0:30:44.400 --> 0:30:47.920 about it in a book in Marjorie Morning Star. I mean, 0:30:48.240 --> 0:30:51.000 this is this That's what got me. You know, that's 0:30:51.040 --> 0:30:58.040 how sort of in cohateed and goalless. I was, oh, yeah, 0:30:58.040 --> 0:30:59.880 i'll be like that, you know, I'll go to live 0:30:59.880 --> 0:31:02.040 in in New York. And I forgot the part about 0:31:02.040 --> 0:31:04.920 where she moves to Scarsdale and Mary's a doctor, you know, 0:31:05.440 --> 0:31:07.040 I just got to the New York part. And I 0:31:07.040 --> 0:31:09.960 went to New York and I rented one apartment and 0:31:10.000 --> 0:31:12.720 then another apartment. I was there again. It was just 0:31:12.800 --> 0:31:16.959 nine months, but it was a lifetime, you know. And 0:31:17.200 --> 0:31:19.160 I got a job. I went to a temp agency. 0:31:20.480 --> 0:31:22.480 I knew one person in New York, a girl that 0:31:22.560 --> 0:31:27.280 I did know at Brown Pembroke. She lived in the 0:31:27.800 --> 0:31:29.920 singles dorm next door to me, and she was the 0:31:29.960 --> 0:31:33.680 one that liked Dylan and she remained a figure in 0:31:33.720 --> 0:31:36.280 my life for a long time. But we don't, for 0:31:36.320 --> 0:31:40.160 one reason or another, speak anymore. I'll speak to her, 0:31:40.240 --> 0:31:45.400 but I think she's mad at me. But I knew 0:31:45.440 --> 0:31:48.640 her in New York. But I also, oh, I just 0:31:49.000 --> 0:31:51.720 remember some people came to a party that she gave 0:31:51.800 --> 0:31:57.200 me and I went home with them to Brooklyn. I 0:31:57.280 --> 0:31:59.680 knew this person later in life too, Vicky Robin and 0:31:59.720 --> 0:32:02.000 Mark Ledgerd. I think they were married at that point. 0:32:02.040 --> 0:32:04.200 Maybe anyway, I was at their house and they put 0:32:04.240 --> 0:32:10.360 on my head earphones and it was Frank Zappa right 0:32:11.080 --> 0:32:14.200 ime for that first record, and they said, you just 0:32:14.240 --> 0:32:16.000 got to listen to this, you know. I think they 0:32:16.040 --> 0:32:18.640 got me stoned, you know, and they made me listen 0:32:18.680 --> 0:32:22.680 to this thing, and that was life changing. You know 0:32:23.520 --> 0:32:25.360 what's this now? You know? 0:32:26.040 --> 0:32:28.320 Well, I mean that first double album for weak out. 0:32:28.520 --> 0:32:31.640 You didn't try to call me in trouble coming every day. 0:32:31.680 --> 0:32:34.480 There was a subversiveness, a sense of humor, and an 0:32:34.520 --> 0:32:39.360 attitude that we rarely see, certainly in music or any 0:32:39.440 --> 0:32:43.800 mainstream movies. But okay, you're in New York. No was 0:32:43.960 --> 0:32:46.160 Susie Susie cream cheese shirt shirt? 0:32:46.240 --> 0:32:50.440 That was I remember. I can't remember what I ate 0:32:50.480 --> 0:32:54.800 for dinner, not any any dinner for for like five years. 0:32:55.000 --> 0:32:56.960 I was talking to my husband about that. Today. I 0:32:57.040 --> 0:33:00.480 can't remember what David and I ate, you know, oh 0:33:00.680 --> 0:33:03.920 we never cooked. We must have eaten something. But I 0:33:04.000 --> 0:33:07.920 remember Susie Kuzzy cream Cheese and all the words to 0:33:08.080 --> 0:33:10.920 all the songs because the music was so you know, 0:33:11.040 --> 0:33:13.720 David would come through town, he'd come through New York 0:33:14.480 --> 0:33:17.959 and take me to stuff. We went to the Fillmore East, 0:33:18.800 --> 0:33:23.040 so Janice Joplin, you know that was my girl music. 0:33:23.240 --> 0:33:24.200 That's what I liked. 0:33:24.960 --> 0:33:26.840 So you're in New York City and you get a job. 0:33:27.440 --> 0:33:31.360 Yeah, I got a job for work. I was well, 0:33:31.400 --> 0:33:33.239 I was sent on three. I wanted to be an 0:33:33.440 --> 0:33:37.680 editorial assistant because I had a liberal arts education and 0:33:37.760 --> 0:33:41.360 so and you know, writing was like I wouldn't even 0:33:41.400 --> 0:33:48.400 think about that. But they sent me to two advertising agencies, 0:33:49.040 --> 0:33:52.400 and they sent me to Marvel Comics. You know, I 0:33:52.480 --> 0:33:55.800 was the closest they came to a book and I 0:33:55.840 --> 0:33:59.200 was hired. I didn't like the advertising agency and one 0:33:59.240 --> 0:34:03.640 of them didn't like me, but they but Stanley hired me, 0:34:05.840 --> 0:34:10.359 and phlo Steinberg was leaving. She she liked me, and 0:34:10.400 --> 0:34:13.000 she introduced me to Stand and he took me on. 0:34:13.600 --> 0:34:15.759 So I was with him. I was his you know, 0:34:16.160 --> 0:34:18.960 his office was across the hall, like five feet away, 0:34:19.480 --> 0:34:22.360 and I would answer the phone, you know. And I 0:34:22.400 --> 0:34:26.760 was supposed to also communicate with fans, the fan club. 0:34:27.840 --> 0:34:30.360 You know. I didn't like comics, so I didn't really 0:34:30.520 --> 0:34:33.080 care what they said or but I suppose I did 0:34:33.120 --> 0:34:36.440 my job. I don't remember. Really. It was kind of stupid. 0:34:36.440 --> 0:34:39.680 But the people were nice, you know, they were square, 0:34:40.000 --> 0:34:42.799 they were really square, and New York was square, and 0:34:42.920 --> 0:34:45.640 I felt, again I didn't belong there. It was like 0:34:45.680 --> 0:34:49.200 at Pembroke. I just you know, felt alienated, I guess, 0:34:49.400 --> 0:34:53.040 but I wasn't unhappy. I just didn't It wasn't going 0:34:53.120 --> 0:34:54.839 to work for me. It wasn't what I wanted. 0:34:54.880 --> 0:34:58.040 Oh, okay, is that a theme throughout your life that 0:34:58.080 --> 0:35:00.520 you're alienated or you still alien today. 0:35:01.520 --> 0:35:08.239 I think alienated's probably the wrong word. Just gosh, here 0:35:08.280 --> 0:35:14.959 I am supposed to be good with words. Just trying 0:35:15.000 --> 0:35:17.520 to find myself. My parents were right, you know, where 0:35:17.520 --> 0:35:21.399 did I fit in? Where do I belong? I saw 0:35:21.520 --> 0:35:25.239 Rolling Stone magazine and I thought, well, that looks like 0:35:25.400 --> 0:35:29.200 fun Boy. They're having fun out there on the Bay Area. 0:35:30.960 --> 0:35:33.879 Well before we get there, you're working for stan Lee. 0:35:34.680 --> 0:35:36.600 You go to Canada with your boyfriend and then you 0:35:36.719 --> 0:35:37.520 just never go back. 0:35:38.960 --> 0:35:44.600 Yeah, yeah, that was bad. And this nice little apartment 0:35:44.600 --> 0:35:47.680 on Bleeker Street, one room with like wal to well 0:35:47.719 --> 0:35:50.840 cockroaches but beams in the ceilings. I hung a swing, 0:35:50.920 --> 0:35:55.839 I had a fireplace. It was kind of cool. And 0:35:56.080 --> 0:35:58.680 my parents helped me furniture. We got a trundle bed 0:35:58.760 --> 0:36:03.840 and that was about it for furniture. But and I 0:36:03.880 --> 0:36:06.960 got a cat, and David came through and he wanted 0:36:07.000 --> 0:36:08.760 to go to Canada. And we went up to Canada 0:36:09.280 --> 0:36:11.239 and we had a weekend there was I had never 0:36:11.280 --> 0:36:14.840 been to a foreign country and they were like talking 0:36:14.960 --> 0:36:18.000 French and stuff in Montreal. It blew my mind. And 0:36:18.239 --> 0:36:19.960 you know that we stayed in a place that had 0:36:19.960 --> 0:36:22.319 a sink in the room, in the bedroom that was 0:36:22.360 --> 0:36:26.959 so exotic. And then it was time to go home. 0:36:27.080 --> 0:36:29.400 He had to go back to Chicago, to the University 0:36:29.400 --> 0:36:32.520 of Chicago where he was a student, and I had 0:36:32.560 --> 0:36:34.920 to go back to my job in New York. We 0:36:34.960 --> 0:36:39.439 went to the airport and they wouldn't take my check. 0:36:39.800 --> 0:36:42.279 Hit my check, they wouldn't take his check. He didn't 0:36:42.320 --> 0:36:44.600 want to use his father's credit card because his father 0:36:45.520 --> 0:36:49.040 would know that he had bought me a plane ticket somewhere, 0:36:49.440 --> 0:36:53.759 you know. So he said, well, you want to come 0:36:53.800 --> 0:36:56.480 with me? And so I said, yeah, I do want 0:36:56.520 --> 0:36:58.560 to go. So I went, I went. I guess. I 0:36:58.600 --> 0:37:01.000 called Stan on Monday. This was a Sunday, and I 0:37:01.040 --> 0:37:05.080 called on Monday from Chicago because I think it's very 0:37:05.080 --> 0:37:07.840 close to Montreal, Chicago, right and. 0:37:08.920 --> 0:37:12.160 Not really no, pretty far, but okay, like what. 0:37:12.360 --> 0:37:15.560 Like twelve hours Yeah, yeah, okay, So I called it, 0:37:15.640 --> 0:37:19.640 you know. So we drove and on Monday, when I 0:37:19.680 --> 0:37:22.440 was supposed to go to work, I called Stan and 0:37:22.520 --> 0:37:25.759 I told him I got hung up and I wasn't 0:37:25.760 --> 0:37:30.160 going to come to work. And he he just he said, 0:37:30.640 --> 0:37:35.000 because usually he just was very everything had an explanation point. 0:37:35.040 --> 0:37:38.520 He was very effusive, but he was like, you got 0:37:38.600 --> 0:37:40.520 hung up. What does that even mean? 0:37:40.680 --> 0:37:40.880 You know? 0:37:41.560 --> 0:37:45.120 And I just said, he said, you're not coming back 0:37:45.160 --> 0:37:49.440 at all? I said no. I called my parents and 0:37:49.480 --> 0:37:53.239 I told him I wasn't going back. And the cat was, Oh, 0:37:53.400 --> 0:37:55.760 the cat was with somebody else by the one friend 0:37:55.800 --> 0:37:59.520 I had, Tory, And would they pick up the cat 0:37:59.600 --> 0:38:02.880 and the bundle bed and take them back to Providence? 0:38:03.160 --> 0:38:06.600 And they did. That's the kind of parents they were. 0:38:06.239 --> 0:38:11.040 They I don't know, I don't know. They were very 0:38:11.120 --> 0:38:14.000 upset that I was living with David. What am I 0:38:14.000 --> 0:38:16.399 going to tell my friends? You know? That kind of thing. 0:38:16.480 --> 0:38:20.879 My mother said, because people didn't do that then at all. 0:38:21.200 --> 0:38:26.239 It was just starting I expose. But they did that. 0:38:26.320 --> 0:38:28.680 They were they were amused. I think I think it 0:38:28.880 --> 0:38:32.880 just they loved that I was living. That's the feeling. Listen. 0:38:33.280 --> 0:38:35.160 I don't know. I can't go into their heads. 0:38:35.200 --> 0:38:35.520 I don't. 0:38:36.040 --> 0:38:39.120 They never chastised me for they just went down. They 0:38:39.160 --> 0:38:42.600 borrowed a friend's car of station wagon, drove it three 0:38:42.600 --> 0:38:44.279 and a half hours to New York, picked up the 0:38:44.320 --> 0:38:47.080 trundle bed and the cat. These are Jews who now 0:38:47.080 --> 0:38:50.080 own a cat which was not done, and a black 0:38:50.080 --> 0:38:52.839 and white cat. They knew some tuty and they kept 0:38:52.840 --> 0:38:54.960 that cat and loved that cat. 0:39:02.160 --> 0:39:04.040 Did you go to Chicago? How do you end up 0:39:04.080 --> 0:39:05.200 in California? 0:39:05.280 --> 0:39:09.239 Well? I was there. David, my boyfriend from Providence, was 0:39:09.280 --> 0:39:12.320 a rich man's son, and he had just enough money 0:39:12.320 --> 0:39:15.560 to live. He had enough money to buy lapsing sou 0:39:15.640 --> 0:39:20.520 jong tea and pot and had a great car, you know, 0:39:20.640 --> 0:39:24.839 a Firebird convertible remember those. Of course, first cart had 0:39:24.960 --> 0:39:27.680 was even better. It was like a Chevy and pallet 0:39:27.800 --> 0:39:30.480 was red with you know, the back wings and things. 0:39:30.480 --> 0:39:33.600 A convertible just a tool around of that thing. But 0:39:33.680 --> 0:39:36.040 when we went out to California in the Firebird, but 0:39:36.320 --> 0:39:39.080 it was in Chicago the Firebird, I guess. We took 0:39:39.120 --> 0:39:45.040 the Firebird from Montreal down to Chicago. And that's a 0:39:45.040 --> 0:39:48.200 whole other story. Why he had to stay in school 0:39:48.239 --> 0:39:51.000 that winter because he was just pretending to go to 0:39:51.080 --> 0:39:53.920 graduate school. He used the money from graduate school to 0:39:53.960 --> 0:40:00.160 pay lawyers because putting some pot in my mailbox in 0:40:00.200 --> 0:40:07.480 New York City, he got arrested, was discovered, got arrested anyway, 0:40:07.520 --> 0:40:10.080 So he had to go back to Chicago and pretend 0:40:10.120 --> 0:40:13.359 to be going to graduate school, and I went with 0:40:13.440 --> 0:40:17.799 him and I got a job. I was George Schultz's secretary, 0:40:18.360 --> 0:40:24.120 you know who that is. I know, and David as 0:40:24.160 --> 0:40:26.479 a rich man's son who didn't work at all. Ever, 0:40:26.880 --> 0:40:28.600 he couldn't believe that I could go out in the 0:40:28.640 --> 0:40:30.880 morning and come home and have a job, you know, 0:40:30.960 --> 0:40:33.319 but I couldn't. I couldn't lead his life. It drove 0:40:33.360 --> 0:40:37.200 me nuts, you know, to do nothing. And I wanted 0:40:37.200 --> 0:40:40.080 to have my own money. I didn't have anything I had. 0:40:40.160 --> 0:40:42.359 He used to joke about me that all I had 0:40:42.440 --> 0:40:45.600 was a toothbrush and a pair of underpants, and that 0:40:45.840 --> 0:40:48.520 was true, you know, I had like two skirts. I 0:40:48.520 --> 0:40:53.360 didn't care. I just didn't care. I was just was 0:40:53.360 --> 0:40:56.600 I an alienator, a loner? I don't know. Oh, I 0:40:56.640 --> 0:40:59.759 won't tell my mother. I would tell my mother I'm 0:40:59.800 --> 0:41:04.520 not like the other girls, and she would say, what 0:41:04.560 --> 0:41:08.320 do you mean? Are you a lesbian? You know, because 0:41:08.600 --> 0:41:10.400 you know that was her I guess that was what 0:41:10.520 --> 0:41:13.440 she was afraid of, and maybe today I would have been, 0:41:13.520 --> 0:41:16.799 but I said, no, it's not that they're all. All 0:41:16.800 --> 0:41:21.359 they want is to get married. And I didn't want 0:41:21.400 --> 0:41:23.760 my mother's life. I didn't want to spend my life 0:41:23.920 --> 0:41:29.759 cooking dinner. I just didn't want to do it. So 0:41:29.840 --> 0:41:33.399 what is that is that alienation? Is that because there's 0:41:33.400 --> 0:41:33.799 a lot of. 0:41:33.719 --> 0:41:37.880 Things going on, it's the era alienation really could be separate. 0:41:38.000 --> 0:41:39.960 But how long are you in Chicago before you get to. 0:41:40.400 --> 0:41:41.360 Northern nine months? 0:41:42.719 --> 0:41:44.840 And then how do you end? What's the motivation for 0:41:44.920 --> 0:41:46.400 the two of you to move to California? 0:41:46.680 --> 0:41:51.839 Well, we didn't move to California. We got in the car. Well, 0:41:51.840 --> 0:41:54.640 we did move. We didn't have any He had stuff, 0:41:54.719 --> 0:41:58.520 actually had some things shipped out. I believe, yes, he 0:41:58.600 --> 0:42:01.880 did furniture did of anything. We got in the car. 0:42:02.280 --> 0:42:04.200 I think it took us six weeks to drive out 0:42:04.239 --> 0:42:08.360 to California. It was a six week drive, you know, 0:42:08.400 --> 0:42:10.960 it could take two days, but we went. That was 0:42:11.000 --> 0:42:14.120 the thing about David and about being with them, is 0:42:14.160 --> 0:42:18.040 that we went through Carbondale and grooved on the you know, 0:42:18.320 --> 0:42:21.120 waterfalls there, and then we went to New Mexico and 0:42:21.160 --> 0:42:24.200 stayed there for a week. And I had never camped, 0:42:25.200 --> 0:42:28.719 you know, out We camped in the Hemez Mountains. We 0:42:29.200 --> 0:42:34.279 grazed naked by a hot spring. There was a watercrest 0:42:34.360 --> 0:42:37.600 growing and we grazed, stoned out of her mind. So 0:42:37.719 --> 0:42:41.080 there was with another couple. There was no there was 0:42:41.120 --> 0:42:43.879 no sex with the other couple or anything like that. 0:42:43.960 --> 0:42:46.839 But we were just free. We were hippies. You know, 0:42:47.120 --> 0:42:49.400 I had never shot in the woods. I didn't know 0:42:49.440 --> 0:43:00.160 that was possible. It just you know, David was he's 0:43:00.200 --> 0:43:02.560 gone now. He died, you know, he died of a 0:43:02.600 --> 0:43:07.640 heart attack. But he he he was a philosopher, you know. 0:43:08.080 --> 0:43:13.880 It was a sad, unrealized human being who was nonetheless 0:43:14.000 --> 0:43:20.520 very interesting and fun and imaginative in terms of like 0:43:20.640 --> 0:43:23.360 he took the back roads. He took the back roads. 0:43:23.560 --> 0:43:26.279 And I went with him on the back roads in 0:43:26.360 --> 0:43:29.160 the car, in the in the in the Firebird convertible, 0:43:29.520 --> 0:43:34.000 and we stopped in New Mexico and and camped in 0:43:34.040 --> 0:43:37.040 the mountains and met, you know, people who had been drunk, 0:43:37.080 --> 0:43:40.040 you know, been heroin addicts actually, who had an opera 0:43:40.680 --> 0:43:44.520 house in Cirios outside of Santa Fe. It was just 0:43:44.560 --> 0:43:47.120 it was so exciting, all that shit, you know, because 0:43:47.320 --> 0:43:51.200 communes were happening, it was starting, you know. And then 0:43:52.160 --> 0:43:54.560 so we went to l A first because he because 0:43:54.680 --> 0:43:56.799 he knew some people in la We stayed at their 0:43:56.840 --> 0:44:01.360 house older people, you know, grown ups got I you know, 0:44:01.560 --> 0:44:06.440 was what was his name, Murray Golden. He directed television shows. 0:44:06.880 --> 0:44:08.440 And he said to me, what do you want in 0:44:08.480 --> 0:44:10.720 your life? And I told him, and it was exactly 0:44:10.760 --> 0:44:15.239 what happened. You know, I became a writer. I told 0:44:15.320 --> 0:44:17.879 him I wanted to be a writer. So I must 0:44:17.960 --> 0:44:20.080 have had it in my head, you know, I wrote 0:44:20.239 --> 0:44:26.040 my short stories were really good at Brown, So you know, 0:44:26.080 --> 0:44:28.480 I did have an idea that I would do that. 0:44:28.800 --> 0:44:31.880 And I told Murray, who no one had really asked me, 0:44:32.200 --> 0:44:35.839 I don't think, but you know he was. He was 0:44:35.880 --> 0:44:38.280 directing television shows, so that was you know, I didn't 0:44:38.280 --> 0:44:39.880 know you could do that, and I didn't know you 0:44:39.880 --> 0:44:42.200 could get a house like that, you know on mulhulland 0:44:42.280 --> 0:44:45.319 Drive and everything. That appealed to me a great deal. 0:44:45.360 --> 0:44:48.000 And I returned to it later at life. But meanwhile, 0:44:48.080 --> 0:44:49.920 David and I went up the coast, you know that 0:44:50.040 --> 0:44:53.600 Route one in California, which I'm sure you know right 0:44:53.680 --> 0:44:58.200 of course, of course, yeah, And we stopped in the 0:44:58.239 --> 0:45:02.560 woods right outside of Big Her and we pulled the 0:45:02.640 --> 0:45:06.879 car in to smoke a joint. You know, David was 0:45:06.920 --> 0:45:12.640 always smoking a joint, and it was beautiful, you know, 0:45:12.960 --> 0:45:16.319 was below with the redwoods in this little grove. And 0:45:16.600 --> 0:45:22.880 I found a four leaf clover and I'm here. I 0:45:22.920 --> 0:45:25.919 am moving to California and to find a four leaf 0:45:25.960 --> 0:45:28.600 clover and to be stoned at the same time. You know, 0:45:28.960 --> 0:45:31.600 what more could a girl want? You know, I was 0:45:31.719 --> 0:45:36.160 still alienated is the wrong word. But I was lost 0:45:36.360 --> 0:45:41.160 or shy or I could hardly speak. I didn't speak. 0:45:41.480 --> 0:45:44.200 I didn't speak. Now I don't shut up, But then 0:45:44.239 --> 0:45:49.360 I didn't talk. You know, David talked and he didn't 0:45:49.400 --> 0:45:52.960 talk much. He didn't really I want to talk. He 0:45:53.000 --> 0:45:57.680 wanted to groove. He wanted to eat Sarah leave palm 0:45:57.719 --> 0:46:02.000 cake and drink laugh saying sudjong tea and smoke pot 0:46:02.440 --> 0:46:08.120 and later cocaine. That's what happened to him. I'm digressing 0:46:08.360 --> 0:46:09.200 wildly here. 0:46:09.600 --> 0:46:11.040 You end up in the Bay Area. 0:46:11.520 --> 0:46:13.560 We drove, but he knew people in the Bay Area. 0:46:13.920 --> 0:46:21.080 He knew people. He did so and those and people 0:46:21.120 --> 0:46:25.400 came and stayed with us in a little apartment on 0:46:26.280 --> 0:46:30.960 University Avenue in Fox Court. Is really wonderful place, beautiful place. 0:46:31.880 --> 0:46:34.120 But you know it's just one room in a kitchen, 0:46:34.680 --> 0:46:37.040 but high enough to put a loft bed in, so 0:46:37.560 --> 0:46:40.040 David had a friend build it. You know, he didn't 0:46:40.040 --> 0:46:43.360 build it. He had a friend built the loft that 0:46:43.440 --> 0:46:47.239 we slept in. But I got a job down at 0:46:47.480 --> 0:46:51.279 his lordships in the Marena wearing a little tu two 0:46:51.640 --> 0:46:54.439 you know, waitressing, but wearing a tutu in a little 0:46:54.440 --> 0:46:57.359 push up bra and a little cap, you know, an 0:46:57.400 --> 0:47:00.920 apron like a servant. And I did that for a 0:47:00.920 --> 0:47:04.680 long time. You know. I learned how to make jewelry 0:47:05.120 --> 0:47:12.000 and belly dance. I took belly dance lesson. Sorry, what 0:47:12.080 --> 0:47:15.080 was the sixties? You know it was nineteen sixty nine. 0:47:15.200 --> 0:47:16.960 How'd you end up at Rolling Stone? 0:47:17.080 --> 0:47:22.799 Well, my friend Tory, the one friend I had that 0:47:23.040 --> 0:47:26.160 loved Dylan and lived in the next room at a 0:47:26.480 --> 0:47:31.800 single weird girl's dorm, said what are you doing with 0:47:31.960 --> 0:47:34.239 your life? From? And you know, what are you doing? 0:47:34.320 --> 0:47:37.719 She was getting married, So, you know, she initiated a 0:47:37.760 --> 0:47:43.080 flurry of communication. She was on the ladder up in 0:47:43.160 --> 0:47:46.080 the publishing world, and she later became, you know, she 0:47:46.160 --> 0:47:49.200 was an agent in that segment of it, and she 0:47:49.239 --> 0:47:53.360 became she had her own agency at the end of things. 0:47:54.040 --> 0:47:56.800 But then she was working for a fellow named Alan Rinsler, 0:47:56.920 --> 0:48:01.000 and he had just come to found Straight Arrow Books, 0:48:01.040 --> 0:48:03.959 which was the book division of rolling Stone, and she said, 0:48:03.960 --> 0:48:06.640 at least go be around it. You know, you wanted 0:48:06.680 --> 0:48:08.920 to be in that world. Just go and talk to 0:48:08.960 --> 0:48:11.000 Alan and see if he's got anything for you to 0:48:11.040 --> 0:48:15.760 do in the office. So I did. I borrowed David's car, 0:48:16.000 --> 0:48:19.880 and I went across the water, you know, across the 0:48:19.920 --> 0:48:23.280 Bay Bridge, and parked the car on Third Street. Because 0:48:23.360 --> 0:48:26.680 rolling Stone was in this industrial area. I don't know 0:48:26.719 --> 0:48:28.480 what it is now, but it was in this brick 0:48:28.600 --> 0:48:31.160 you know, it had been some kind of factory or something. 0:48:31.920 --> 0:48:35.200 It was so cool. And I went up there and 0:48:35.719 --> 0:48:40.319 I walked out. Oh no, Alan said, I'll set up 0:48:40.360 --> 0:48:43.240 a meeting with Yawn Winner. Why don't you try writing? 0:48:43.320 --> 0:48:44.960 Have you ever thought of that? Tory said, you were 0:48:44.960 --> 0:48:48.640 a good writer. So that's how it happened. I mean 0:48:48.640 --> 0:48:51.200 that happens in life, right, It's not how it goes. 0:48:51.400 --> 0:48:53.600 But then when you get the chance, you have to 0:48:53.600 --> 0:48:56.520 be able to produce. That's what happened in time. You 0:48:56.560 --> 0:48:59.319 have to be half the goods as it were, you know, 0:48:59.840 --> 0:49:01.920 or have somebody at least put up with you until 0:49:01.920 --> 0:49:07.239 you proved you had the goods. So I went back 0:49:07.280 --> 0:49:14.320 to Berkeley, and you know, and I made a box 0:49:14.520 --> 0:49:17.759 to go into this. I made a box with all 0:49:17.800 --> 0:49:21.240 my life in it, you know, my my Marvel comic books, 0:49:21.320 --> 0:49:26.840 my magazine that I edited, the literary magazine from Brown 0:49:26.880 --> 0:49:29.680 that I had a story and all that kind of thing, 0:49:30.400 --> 0:49:34.080 and some cookies, and I sent it to Yan. Did 0:49:34.080 --> 0:49:36.680 I send it or drop it off or something? Anyway, 0:49:37.280 --> 0:49:39.640 I went in there to talk to y on winter 0:49:40.360 --> 0:49:46.319 and I left with an assignment. You know, I left 0:49:46.360 --> 0:49:47.239 with an assignment. 0:49:47.560 --> 0:49:50.560 Well, you know it's in the book. Did he just 0:49:50.600 --> 0:49:54.440 spontaneously say write something? Or did you have to convince them? 0:49:54.800 --> 0:50:00.680 No? No, no, he said he. I don't know. I 0:50:00.719 --> 0:50:03.239 think he was very impressed with the Brown thing. See, 0:50:03.280 --> 0:50:08.680 my parents were right. He was impressed. You know, he 0:50:08.800 --> 0:50:13.759 sort of got this prep school lockjaw tone when he 0:50:13.920 --> 0:50:17.400 spoke about it, very eastern sort of thing that you 0:50:17.440 --> 0:50:22.440 could see that he was impressed by that. So I 0:50:22.440 --> 0:50:25.080 think that got his attention. I don't think he cared 0:50:25.080 --> 0:50:27.239 about the box very much. And I don't think he 0:50:27.320 --> 0:50:30.200 cared about my long legs very much either. I mean, 0:50:30.239 --> 0:50:34.480 he came out later as gay, and so he just didn't. 0:50:35.480 --> 0:50:39.440 You know, he didn't approach me that way. You know, 0:50:39.560 --> 0:50:42.680 he didn't have any I didn't get a feeling that 0:50:42.760 --> 0:50:47.880 he looked at me as a female, which was fine. 0:50:48.040 --> 0:50:50.680 I wasn't that super aware of that sort of thing anyway. 0:50:51.280 --> 0:50:54.360 But anyway, I left. I left with an assignment because 0:50:54.360 --> 0:50:58.719 he said, you should write. Can you write something about 0:50:58.719 --> 0:51:02.000 Marvel Comics? I always said, what was it like to 0:51:02.040 --> 0:51:06.120 work at Marvel Comics? That's what he said, because that 0:51:06.200 --> 0:51:08.760 was in the box. That's how it started. He said, 0:51:09.880 --> 0:51:11.520 what was it like to work at Marvel Comics? So 0:51:11.520 --> 0:51:13.880 I said, I don't know. They were kind of square, 0:51:14.160 --> 0:51:18.520 you know. Whatever I said was interesting enough to him 0:51:18.920 --> 0:51:22.360 or funny enough that he thought, okay, you know, because 0:51:22.400 --> 0:51:24.400 he could see that I had been a writer and 0:51:24.440 --> 0:51:26.319 that I had been an editor and all this sort 0:51:26.360 --> 0:51:28.399 of thing. And I guess Alan and Rinsler told him 0:51:28.400 --> 0:51:32.360 that I was a good writer at Brown and so 0:51:32.400 --> 0:51:35.120 I left with an assignment, and I was just I 0:51:35.120 --> 0:51:38.240 couldn't believe it. You know. I drove home. I get home, 0:51:39.200 --> 0:51:42.400 David's there with this friend of his that's legally blind 0:51:42.800 --> 0:51:45.359 was his name. He's dead now too. But and this 0:51:45.480 --> 0:51:48.240 girl who didn't speak she was so stoned. The whole 0:51:48.320 --> 0:51:51.319 room was like full of you know, pot smoke. It 0:51:51.400 --> 0:51:54.879 was just like this cloud of pot smoke walking into 0:51:54.920 --> 0:51:58.640 the room. I was so excited to have this assignment. 0:51:58.880 --> 0:52:01.680 It was just like a amazing to me. But it 0:52:01.800 --> 0:52:09.000 was uncool to show any evidence of excitement. Do you understand? 0:52:09.440 --> 0:52:15.360 Absolutely it was not done to get to get an assignment. 0:52:16.320 --> 0:52:20.000 These people were just cooler than that or something. You know, 0:52:20.280 --> 0:52:22.360 work was not valued. 0:52:23.880 --> 0:52:26.400 You write this piece, it takes a long time to 0:52:26.440 --> 0:52:29.720 come out. Then you go to New Mexico to talk 0:52:29.760 --> 0:52:36.920 to David Hopper about the last David. Of course it's Dennis. 0:52:37.880 --> 0:52:42.799 That's the first thing that I remember reading that you wrote. 0:52:43.120 --> 0:52:47.479 So Hopper had just come off Easy Rider, he had 0:52:47.600 --> 0:52:51.359 Free Reign. Ultimately, the last movie was a disaster. No 0:52:51.400 --> 0:52:54.040 one knew what he was doing. Now there you go 0:52:54.160 --> 0:52:56.799 down to New Mexico and have an adventure, tell us 0:52:56.800 --> 0:53:00.719 about that, and you. 0:53:00.719 --> 0:53:03.759 Know it's a cult. It's a big cult movie. Now 0:53:03.960 --> 0:53:07.080 the last pictures I've ever seen a movie? No, I 0:53:07.080 --> 0:53:10.040 haven't either, No, and I didn't dig at me. You know, 0:53:10.120 --> 0:53:12.280 it was just well, if I had done another piece 0:53:12.360 --> 0:53:16.160 before that, I went and did a piece about the 0:53:16.200 --> 0:53:18.719 bee gees of just a little tiny piece. But this 0:53:18.880 --> 0:53:21.279 was my first assignment to get on a plane with 0:53:21.360 --> 0:53:24.399 Annie Leebervit. She was just starting off there the same 0:53:24.440 --> 0:53:31.640 as me, but a different type than me, well. 0:53:31.640 --> 0:53:33.560 Just a little bit slower because you go into the 0:53:34.239 --> 0:53:36.600 How would you describe her type? 0:53:36.880 --> 0:53:40.600 Oh, well, you know, she was an army brat. She 0:53:40.680 --> 0:53:45.760 was six feet tall. She wore like size eleven boots. 0:53:46.160 --> 0:53:53.839 She sort of strode through life very singular. But as 0:53:53.880 --> 0:53:56.520 an army brat, I think she was used to being 0:53:56.600 --> 0:54:01.920 in different situations. She didn't need to please anyone. She 0:54:02.120 --> 0:54:07.680 was just very unto herself, very contained. That was my 0:54:07.840 --> 0:54:11.360 experience of her. And I was just like probably needy, 0:54:12.000 --> 0:54:18.480 you know, emotional or just not not even emotional, just unexpressive, uptight, scared, 0:54:19.480 --> 0:54:25.680 But she was much more at ease. But I endured 0:54:26.360 --> 0:54:32.400 this very uncomfortable scene at Hopper's house. I was and 0:54:32.440 --> 0:54:35.680 I'd been in that sort of scene before where I 0:54:35.760 --> 0:54:39.040 was with a lot of really hip people and scared, 0:54:40.880 --> 0:54:46.400 mute practically, but bearing it just curious, and in this 0:54:46.560 --> 0:54:48.959 instance I was going to gain something from it because 0:54:48.960 --> 0:54:52.080 I was going to write about it. So I had 0:54:52.120 --> 0:54:54.720 my tape recorder Oh, it's one of those, he said, 0:54:55.200 --> 0:54:57.680 you know, and then he started really he was so stoned. 0:54:58.000 --> 0:54:59.960 I don't know what he was taking. They were passing 0:55:00.080 --> 0:55:05.160 run some sort of bag full of ground up mushrooms. 0:55:05.320 --> 0:55:08.799 You know. Everybody was just completely stoned. It was it 0:55:08.840 --> 0:55:14.560 was Kit Carson's movie and Larry Schiller. You know those guys, right, 0:55:15.960 --> 0:55:19.160 So that's who They were doing a documentary about Dennis 0:55:19.160 --> 0:55:24.080 Hopper's making of the Last movie. And Dennis Hopper was 0:55:24.120 --> 0:55:29.279 just really boring and boorish and and I've never really 0:55:29.280 --> 0:55:35.280 been around a Hollywood scene, and it was ugly and scary, 0:55:37.680 --> 0:55:40.560 and it was actually got so uncomfortable. What was it? 0:55:42.040 --> 0:55:45.400 I got so uncomfortable with it? Oh, I know that 0:55:45.520 --> 0:55:50.160 Dennis Hopper. And and immensuacious is that the word? You know, 0:55:50.320 --> 0:55:53.480 the guy that kind of looked after him. They were 0:55:53.520 --> 0:55:55.759 just so cruel to this one guy who was down 0:55:55.800 --> 0:55:57.760 there was a junket, so there was all the cream 0:55:57.800 --> 0:56:01.360 of the underground press, but its representative Rolling Stone. I 0:56:01.400 --> 0:56:05.000 was like the cream de la creme, you know, And 0:56:06.400 --> 0:56:09.799 I just wished to witness an act of cruelty that 0:56:10.880 --> 0:56:13.400 they just were mean to this. I guess it was 0:56:13.440 --> 0:56:18.520 a pr guy about his girlfriend, and they did this 0:56:18.680 --> 0:56:21.480 joke in front of all the journalists, you know, like, 0:56:21.560 --> 0:56:25.160 can I ask you a favor? I just was wondering, 0:56:25.480 --> 0:56:28.240 Bill or whatever the kid's name was, if you would 0:56:28.239 --> 0:56:31.839 mind leaving your secretary girlfriend with me for the night. 0:56:33.280 --> 0:56:35.920 And he didn't know what to say, and he said, 0:56:38.040 --> 0:56:41.320 I don't know where is she? And he and Dennis 0:56:41.320 --> 0:56:45.200 Hopper said she's out there in her car getting her things. 0:56:45.719 --> 0:56:48.160 It was a done deal, you see, And so everyone 0:56:48.360 --> 0:56:51.759 laughed and I freaked out and I went out into 0:56:51.800 --> 0:56:54.080 the desert. I don't know how I thought I was 0:56:54.120 --> 0:56:57.279 going to get home, because he had he lived in 0:56:57.360 --> 0:57:00.640 free To Dodge's house. Isn't it the person and Mabel 0:57:00.719 --> 0:57:07.279 Dodge Freedom, Well, it was d H. Lawrence's house. That's 0:57:07.280 --> 0:57:09.680 where he lived when he lived in New Mexico with 0:57:10.440 --> 0:57:14.960 free To Dodge, Mabel Dodge something and so, you know, 0:57:15.000 --> 0:57:17.840 and as a literature major, I was just like really 0:57:17.880 --> 0:57:20.040 taken with that. But it was the opposite of that, 0:57:20.200 --> 0:57:22.240 or maybe it was like that. I don't know, But anyway, 0:57:22.240 --> 0:57:24.880 I was in the middle of nowhere and I went 0:57:25.080 --> 0:57:30.560 out into the desert at night, and Kit Carson followed 0:57:30.560 --> 0:57:33.040 me and he gave me a ride back to the motel. 0:57:33.160 --> 0:57:36.320 Annie had already left because she was smart. She could 0:57:36.400 --> 0:57:39.200 see she didn't have to do anything else. She'd already 0:57:39.360 --> 0:57:42.919 got her pictures. Although Larry Shuley was critical of her 0:57:43.880 --> 0:57:46.680 picture taking in that instance, she was just starting off 0:57:47.480 --> 0:57:51.800 in her career. But so she shared a motel room. 0:57:51.960 --> 0:57:54.520 She was back to the motel room. So he gave 0:57:54.640 --> 0:57:57.040 me a ride, and I just wrote about it. I 0:57:57.080 --> 0:57:59.960 wrote exactly what happened all of that that I've just 0:58:00.080 --> 0:58:03.960 told you and more, because you know, the pieces were 0:58:04.000 --> 0:58:06.400 you paid by the word, and they were from five 0:58:06.440 --> 0:58:09.760 thousand to ten thousand words, so you could get some money, 0:58:09.840 --> 0:58:12.080 you know, because it was ten cents a word. My 0:58:12.160 --> 0:58:14.760 price went up from five cents to ten cents a word. 0:58:14.800 --> 0:58:18.560 At that point, maybe you'd have a thousand dollars. But 0:58:18.600 --> 0:58:21.320 I never had that much money at once, so that 0:58:21.440 --> 0:58:22.360 was really something. 0:58:23.280 --> 0:58:25.120 Okay, a couple of things. Did you live off the 0:58:25.160 --> 0:58:27.439 money you were making from Rolling Stone? Was it enough? 0:58:28.480 --> 0:58:33.120 Oh? Yeah, you didn't need anything? Then? Remember and I 0:58:33.160 --> 0:58:39.560 broke up with my boyfriend David. I left, and it 0:58:39.640 --> 0:58:41.960 got a little room up in the hills in somebody's 0:58:42.000 --> 0:58:46.920 house to other people, you know, it wasn't hippie commune 0:58:47.000 --> 0:58:50.480 or anything. We just shared this really nice house, a funky, funky, 0:58:50.520 --> 0:58:54.200 funky house on a stream above the campus on tamil 0:58:54.240 --> 0:58:58.400 Pias Road. Really beautiful, I mean, in my room was beautiful. 0:58:58.840 --> 0:59:02.280 And up in that room, Kit Carson, who took me 0:59:02.360 --> 0:59:04.200 home that night, you know who took me back to 0:59:04.240 --> 0:59:07.120 the motel that night and dropped me off. He became 0:59:07.160 --> 0:59:10.680 a friend, and he was at Joan Didion's house in 0:59:11.000 --> 0:59:14.880 Malibu and he called me. He said, I have someone 0:59:14.920 --> 0:59:20.320 here who read your piece on Dennis Hopper and she 0:59:20.400 --> 0:59:24.160 wanted you to know how much she liked it. And 0:59:24.280 --> 0:59:26.400 you know, I had June Didions all, you know, I 0:59:26.400 --> 0:59:28.720 had her books, and it was just that was the 0:59:28.760 --> 0:59:33.440 most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. Really, that 0:59:33.600 --> 0:59:37.120 and that in the sopranos, right at the highlights. 0:59:37.960 --> 0:59:42.160 But your pieces were a little different from the standard 0:59:42.240 --> 0:59:45.080 fear and that you weren't sick a fantic, You were 0:59:45.160 --> 0:59:49.680 somewhat from a distance. You weren't buying into the bs. 0:59:50.040 --> 0:59:52.120 Would that be an accurate description. 0:59:54.200 --> 0:59:58.360 Yeah, Irony, you know, to be an ironist, I called 0:59:58.400 --> 1:00:03.480 it alienating. But isn't the writer always outside of things? 1:00:03.520 --> 1:00:08.040 Looking in always, you know, an observer. And so it's 1:00:08.120 --> 1:00:11.360 more that I was that kind of person. I was 1:00:11.480 --> 1:00:15.400 raised that way. You know. We didn't we didn't speak. 1:00:15.440 --> 1:00:18.560 We watched, we watched it, We took it all in. 1:00:19.280 --> 1:00:22.480 You know. I was an observer. I was an observer 1:00:22.560 --> 1:00:26.120 and so and it's not pleasant to be that person. 1:00:26.240 --> 1:00:28.120 You want to be part of things. I mean, that's 1:00:28.120 --> 1:00:30.160 the thing is Annie could really be part of things 1:00:30.400 --> 1:00:33.760 much later, to her detriment, because she became she went 1:00:33.800 --> 1:00:36.320 on the bus, if you know what I mean, And 1:00:36.920 --> 1:00:40.280 she came out of it okay, but for a while 1:00:40.320 --> 1:00:44.880 there she was lost in it. I could. I always 1:00:44.920 --> 1:00:48.120 had to be apart from it, and that was my thing. 1:00:48.400 --> 1:00:51.280 You know. Leon Winner and his book, you know, he 1:00:51.320 --> 1:00:54.680 had that book come out a while ago. Was it 1:00:54.720 --> 1:00:59.520 a memoir? I think it was, yeah, And I wasn't 1:00:59.520 --> 1:01:01.880 going to buy it, but I looked in the index. 1:01:02.160 --> 1:01:04.600 I wasn't, but he mentioned me twice, so I bought it, 1:01:04.720 --> 1:01:10.560 you know, and he called me relentless. So I guess 1:01:10.600 --> 1:01:12.760 that's what I was. You know. 1:01:19.960 --> 1:01:22.000 So, what are a couple of other things you wrote 1:01:22.040 --> 1:01:22.840 for Rolling Stone? 1:01:24.520 --> 1:01:28.440 Well, the Marvel piece became a cover that was a 1:01:28.480 --> 1:01:33.000 good piece, and I wrote, Uh, I just flew out 1:01:33.040 --> 1:01:36.560 of my head. Oh, I wrote, you know, I was 1:01:36.560 --> 1:01:38.760 in a book called the Mind Fuckers, along with the 1:01:38.880 --> 1:01:43.000 piece of David Felton and David Dalton's they wrote pieces 1:01:43.040 --> 1:01:48.400 on mel Lyman, uh and these gurus, you know, mel 1:01:48.480 --> 1:01:52.760 Lyman and Manson. But I wrote the you know, comic relief, 1:01:52.840 --> 1:01:56.720 ironic funny stuff, you know about Victor Bronco, who's like 1:01:56.800 --> 1:02:00.800 the Colonel Sanders of the Commune me I think that's 1:02:00.800 --> 1:02:03.960 what we called him. And so that was collected in 1:02:04.000 --> 1:02:07.200 a book called mind Fuckers, published by Straight or Oppress. 1:02:07.400 --> 1:02:10.760 But of course nobody could buy a book called mind Fuckers, 1:02:11.800 --> 1:02:13.840 and they disguised it on the cover with this kind 1:02:13.880 --> 1:02:16.440 of German type, so you couldn't even read it. You know. 1:02:16.480 --> 1:02:18.320 It's just like I know this guy out here now 1:02:18.400 --> 1:02:22.000 called Bob Lipsite. I get his name confused with yours. 1:02:22.080 --> 1:02:24.280 Do you know who he is. He's a sports the 1:02:24.280 --> 1:02:26.880 sports guy. Yeah, yeah, the sports writer. He's out here. 1:02:27.160 --> 1:02:30.680 It's Shelter Island, that's where I live now, and you know, 1:02:31.040 --> 1:02:36.439 among other places. But he wrote a book with Dick 1:02:36.480 --> 1:02:42.800 Gregory years ago called Nigger And yeah, now you know 1:02:43.120 --> 1:02:45.000 I can't even I have to hide it when the 1:02:45.040 --> 1:02:46.960 cleaning crew comes, you know what I mean, because I 1:02:46.960 --> 1:02:50.040 don't want to like of Knox anyone. Actually, it's just 1:02:50.120 --> 1:02:52.480 on the shelf. I don't think anyone notices it. I 1:02:52.520 --> 1:02:54.480 finally took it out and said, fuck it. You know 1:02:54.640 --> 1:02:57.400 that's what it's called them. But it's just you're not 1:02:57.480 --> 1:02:59.560 even supposed to say that word. It pains me to 1:02:59.600 --> 1:03:03.200 say it, so mind fuckers. Was that kind of bad mistake? 1:03:03.520 --> 1:03:03.760 You know? 1:03:03.880 --> 1:03:06.800 But I got a call from England just the other 1:03:06.880 --> 1:03:10.960 day wanting to interview with me about that book. You know, 1:03:11.080 --> 1:03:14.080 it still has a life because then after we came 1:03:14.120 --> 1:03:20.080 out with that book, Jim Jones happened, and these these 1:03:20.080 --> 1:03:24.080 scors were a precursor to that. So it didn't surprise 1:03:24.160 --> 1:03:28.880 me at all. You know that Manson was pretty horrible, 1:03:28.920 --> 1:03:32.160 but you know, the others were not nearly as odious. 1:03:32.800 --> 1:03:35.560 And I did some other stuff too, but nothing. Oh, 1:03:35.760 --> 1:03:38.160 I did Black Sabbath. You know, they just sick me 1:03:38.240 --> 1:03:44.080 on things to be funny, and finally I did the 1:03:44.160 --> 1:03:45.000 Kennedy story. 1:03:45.080 --> 1:03:48.280 Well, before you get there, were you part of the 1:03:48.400 --> 1:03:51.080 roving club? Did you go into the office or were 1:03:51.120 --> 1:03:51.800 you separate? 1:03:52.680 --> 1:03:56.680 M you know, at one point, no, it was separate. 1:03:56.720 --> 1:03:59.640 But at one point Johan and that's why, you know, 1:03:59.680 --> 1:04:03.160 he he just wasn't sexist at all. He wanted me 1:04:03.280 --> 1:04:06.560 there and he he invited me to come to the 1:04:06.680 --> 1:04:13.680 editorial meeting, which was all those men, and he set 1:04:13.760 --> 1:04:16.640 up a desk and he brought the lamp himself, right, 1:04:16.760 --> 1:04:19.280 you know, outside of this, you know, in the in 1:04:19.320 --> 1:04:22.040 the bullpen with the secretary and stuff. But you know, 1:04:22.080 --> 1:04:24.680 I didn't have my own cubicle. And I mean David 1:04:24.680 --> 1:04:27.320 Felton was, you know, an editor there, and he only 1:04:27.360 --> 1:04:30.360 had a tiny cubicle. Nobody had these offices. Only Yahn 1:04:30.480 --> 1:04:35.200 had and it wasn't even that fancy either. But so 1:04:35.240 --> 1:04:37.320 I was there, but I didn't like it at the 1:04:37.440 --> 1:04:40.640 editorial meeting. I didn't like it. I don't like the 1:04:40.680 --> 1:04:45.480 table that exists in comedy in television. I just don't 1:04:45.560 --> 1:04:50.880 like that jockeying for attention and haha stuff. I just 1:04:51.000 --> 1:04:53.480 I wasn't going to make it in that context. 1:04:53.760 --> 1:04:56.920 Well, one of the other things you talk about was 1:04:57.960 --> 1:05:01.120 the sexual element. There were people were married but sleeping 1:05:01.160 --> 1:05:04.960 with other people. Was that the nature of Rolling Stone 1:05:05.040 --> 1:05:06.280 or was it just the times? 1:05:06.720 --> 1:05:09.640 I think it was the Times, don't you Yeah, but 1:05:09.720 --> 1:05:16.760 I'm talking to you. I don't know what were you doing. Look, 1:05:16.880 --> 1:05:21.479 you know, Jan gave me from I thought he would 1:05:21.520 --> 1:05:23.920 be my editor. You know, I don't know why I 1:05:23.960 --> 1:05:26.000 thought that, because he had because he was the one 1:05:26.040 --> 1:05:28.040 I talked to. But he gave me to David Felton 1:05:28.600 --> 1:05:32.000 across the way. He introduced me, and that was pretty 1:05:32.040 --> 1:05:35.240 much it. You know. But David Felton's family, his wife 1:05:35.360 --> 1:05:40.480 was down in Los Angeles, and so I, you know, 1:05:40.960 --> 1:05:45.000 I began to have a relationship, shall we say, with 1:05:45.120 --> 1:05:48.320 David Felton. I was a single myself, and he didn't 1:05:48.320 --> 1:05:54.800 seem to uh mind that he was cheating on this 1:05:55.000 --> 1:05:58.080 family or he just they were very separate. It was 1:05:58.120 --> 1:06:00.360 a very separate deal and I didn't really know than 1:06:00.440 --> 1:06:08.760 how sort of you know, he had substance problems with 1:06:08.840 --> 1:06:12.400 alcohol and stuff. I wasn't aware of that. I just 1:06:12.520 --> 1:06:16.520 wasn't aware of it. So you know that that got 1:06:16.520 --> 1:06:18.200 worse as time went on, and it did for a 1:06:18.240 --> 1:06:21.440 lot of people that I knew at that point. I 1:06:21.520 --> 1:06:24.080 was never for some reason, I'm just not that kind 1:06:24.160 --> 1:06:27.840 of an addict. Drugs were just not you know. I 1:06:27.880 --> 1:06:31.240 remember at one point in Mexico, I got a hold 1:06:31.280 --> 1:06:33.680 of a hundred vallium and I took them, you know, 1:06:35.280 --> 1:06:38.640 week after week. You know, so I did. I like Valium. 1:06:39.040 --> 1:06:41.640 Thank goodness, nobody offered me heroin. I probably would have 1:06:41.680 --> 1:06:45.080 loved it. But I just wasn't that cool. I just wasn't. 1:06:45.240 --> 1:06:48.960 I wasn't really that. I wasn't that cool. I was 1:06:49.240 --> 1:06:51.120 I was, you know, valium cool. 1:06:52.600 --> 1:06:56.160 Okay, it ends Rolling Stone with the Kennedy story. Tell 1:06:56.280 --> 1:06:57.000 us that story. 1:06:58.760 --> 1:07:01.160 I guess it was Yon's idea that I should go 1:07:01.200 --> 1:07:04.880 and interview the children of Robert Kennedy. I don't think 1:07:04.920 --> 1:07:07.680 he said much more than that, but he wanted the Kennedys, 1:07:08.440 --> 1:07:10.000 you know, And if I had written this story, he 1:07:10.000 --> 1:07:12.000 wouldn't have been able to be friends with Jackie. So 1:07:12.720 --> 1:07:14.960 but it wasn't her kids. It was the other kids. 1:07:15.000 --> 1:07:18.320 But even still, you know, so I left the younger 1:07:18.360 --> 1:07:20.760 ones alone. I figured, you know, you can't be going 1:07:20.800 --> 1:07:26.160 after you know, elementary school children, but the ones in college, 1:07:26.440 --> 1:07:29.640 in the ones of college age, I did pursue. I 1:07:29.680 --> 1:07:31.920 don't even know what the idea was. I guess you wren't. 1:07:32.720 --> 1:07:35.400 And why he would send me, of all people, because 1:07:35.440 --> 1:07:37.600 of course I was going to find out like if 1:07:37.600 --> 1:07:39.880 they were you know, drugiaes or you know, I was 1:07:39.920 --> 1:07:44.080 going to get the dirt on them. They didn't particularly well. 1:07:44.160 --> 1:07:47.400 Joe actually Joe was a kid, Joe, right, the one 1:07:47.440 --> 1:07:51.960 who was in the accident that killed the girl. He 1:07:52.040 --> 1:07:55.320 was willing to be interviewed. And we met in San Francisco, 1:07:55.920 --> 1:07:59.320 and I knew it would be nervous, so I would. 1:07:59.400 --> 1:08:02.360 I had a tape recorder in my pocket book, and 1:08:02.560 --> 1:08:05.600 we went for a long walk all over in the 1:08:05.680 --> 1:08:10.680 hills of San Francisco, and we got to the marina 1:08:11.480 --> 1:08:13.800 and he turned to me and he said, do you sail? 1:08:14.720 --> 1:08:18.000 It was just it was perfect, you know, do I sail? 1:08:18.200 --> 1:08:22.040 You know, I have like fifty dollars you know, out sale. 1:08:22.800 --> 1:08:26.080 But that's who they were. They were, you know, very 1:08:26.240 --> 1:08:31.240 privileged kids ran amok in that place that they have 1:08:31.320 --> 1:08:32.719 on the is it the vineyard? 1:08:32.800 --> 1:08:33.040 Yeah? 1:08:33.479 --> 1:08:34.360 No, in the cape. 1:08:34.840 --> 1:08:36.440 Hyanna's port was where. 1:08:36.360 --> 1:08:40.160 Uh, Hyena's port, right, that's where the house was. You know. 1:08:40.240 --> 1:08:46.560 They kind of ran wild around there. And then I 1:08:46.600 --> 1:08:48.520 got home, of course, and I was going to transcribe 1:08:48.520 --> 1:08:50.600 the tape, because that's what I did. I transcribed the 1:08:50.680 --> 1:08:54.439 tapes and I used things pretty much verbatim that I 1:08:54.479 --> 1:08:57.080 got from those tapes. But the tape was all traffic 1:08:57.160 --> 1:09:00.320 noise in the pounding against my leg of so I 1:09:00.320 --> 1:09:02.599 don't have it. All I remember is that he said, 1:09:02.600 --> 1:09:05.880 do you sail? And it was kind of opaque as 1:09:05.920 --> 1:09:08.880 a human being. And then I went to Harvard where 1:09:09.960 --> 1:09:17.800 the girl was what's her name, Catherine, Catherine, I guess, yeah, 1:09:18.120 --> 1:09:21.439 and yeah, Catherine Kennedy. And I waited her, you know, 1:09:21.479 --> 1:09:24.360 I accosted her in her dorm room hallway. It was 1:09:24.400 --> 1:09:27.760 so obnoxious. Oh god, I just cringe. And she was 1:09:27.760 --> 1:09:29.920 this patient she could be, and she finally said, look, 1:09:29.960 --> 1:09:32.200 I just can't do this, and she took me into 1:09:32.240 --> 1:09:34.840 her room. I forget. I just it was never really 1:09:34.840 --> 1:09:38.040 prepared very much for interviews. I just wanted to, you know, 1:09:38.080 --> 1:09:40.600 see what happened. I was kind of a slob, and so, 1:09:41.760 --> 1:09:44.200 you know, I just that was my m O. I 1:09:44.320 --> 1:09:47.080 just experienced, had the experience, and then I wrote about it. 1:09:47.240 --> 1:09:50.559 I wasn't a slab, that was what I did. And 1:09:50.800 --> 1:09:52.840 you know, I was kind of disarming, so people would 1:09:52.880 --> 1:09:56.280 just blab and that's that would be my modus OPERENDI 1:09:56.360 --> 1:10:00.320 but that it just seemed so kind of harm lesson 1:10:01.439 --> 1:10:06.400 at shy or something. So anyway, she got rid of me, 1:10:06.479 --> 1:10:09.280 and then I I cost it. I waited for Robert 1:10:09.360 --> 1:10:14.000 Kennedy Jr. Outside his dorm room. Now Robert Kennedy Junr. 1:10:14.680 --> 1:10:16.360 Is the one who's running for president. 1:10:16.479 --> 1:10:18.160 I know we're going to get to that. 1:10:18.640 --> 1:10:23.639 I cannot believe it. It's just who he became is so bizarre. 1:10:24.320 --> 1:10:28.080 That skin and that stutter or something. I don't know 1:10:28.120 --> 1:10:31.160 what happened to him. He just is like calcified in 1:10:31.240 --> 1:10:35.880 some way. He was just this like really handsome, tall 1:10:36.439 --> 1:10:43.120 hippie kid with long hair and jeans. And it was 1:10:43.200 --> 1:10:45.720 and here I was a writer for Rolling Stone, like 1:10:45.800 --> 1:10:48.080 you saw in Almost Famous, you know, kind of this 1:10:48.200 --> 1:10:50.960 loose girl with a short skirt. I don't remember what 1:10:51.080 --> 1:10:54.760 I was wearing, but probably something like that. I mean, 1:10:54.760 --> 1:10:57.960 my nickname it Marvel Comics was Legs, So you can 1:10:58.040 --> 1:11:01.360 kind of imagine what my feature, best feature was in 1:11:01.400 --> 1:11:05.920 those days. But we went down. He said, I have 1:11:06.000 --> 1:11:09.800 to meet a guy for you know, then we can talk. 1:11:10.120 --> 1:11:13.320 And so we went down to right off Harvard Square 1:11:13.360 --> 1:11:16.080 in front of the Hazen's Diner, to that corner there, 1:11:16.400 --> 1:11:24.479 and he scored some die lauded, which is you know, 1:11:24.880 --> 1:11:28.160 I had an operation recently and it gave me some 1:11:28.200 --> 1:11:31.479 of that stuff. It's very heavy. I don't know why 1:11:31.479 --> 1:11:34.719 anyone would take it recreationally, but people like that stuff. 1:11:36.800 --> 1:11:42.680 So we went back to his dorm room and he 1:11:42.720 --> 1:11:46.280 had this waterbed on the floor, and he had the 1:11:46.320 --> 1:11:50.000 bust of his father on the credenza, and he had 1:11:51.120 --> 1:11:58.080 falconry equipment on the wall. That's falconry equipment. What's that 1:11:58.640 --> 1:12:04.519 falconry equipment? You know what? Who? And so naturally I 1:12:04.600 --> 1:12:09.960 ended up spending the night and and this is really 1:12:10.160 --> 1:12:13.200 my I mean, my husband doesn't like any of the 1:12:13.320 --> 1:12:16.160 stuff about what happened when I was on the loose 1:12:17.920 --> 1:12:22.040 because I spent like five days with David Cassidy touring 1:12:22.640 --> 1:12:27.880 in New York and in Wayne and Maine, Lewiston, Maine, 1:12:27.920 --> 1:12:31.800 was at someplace in Maine. You know, it was just 1:12:31.840 --> 1:12:35.080 on my own. Nothing happened with David Cassidy. But maybe 1:12:35.200 --> 1:12:39.200 it happened with somebody else there, but maybe a roadie 1:12:39.240 --> 1:12:45.559 or something. But my husband really doesn't like this part 1:12:45.600 --> 1:12:49.519 of the book. It doesn't want to know about this stuff. 1:12:49.720 --> 1:12:53.920 Okay, but let's let's let's zero what you did have 1:12:54.000 --> 1:12:58.280 sex with RFK Junior. I did, Okay, what was going 1:12:58.439 --> 1:12:59.840 through your mind? 1:13:07.720 --> 1:13:08.320 What do you mean? 1:13:08.360 --> 1:13:13.400 I mean you're in a situation. Okay, yeah, and you 1:13:13.640 --> 1:13:17.719 know that on one hand, you're in this situation, haven't urged, 1:13:17.760 --> 1:13:20.920 but you also established you're an observer and you know 1:13:21.040 --> 1:13:24.880 this is compromising, So there's a choice involved. You're an 1:13:24.920 --> 1:13:27.479 intelligent person. You can't see so well, I don't know. 1:13:27.800 --> 1:13:31.920 It just happened, yeah, kind of happened. But you were thinking. 1:13:32.200 --> 1:13:36.000 Now, I think that it was I frankly think in 1:13:36.160 --> 1:13:39.560 hindsight and even maybe at the time it was journalistic 1:13:39.680 --> 1:13:45.960 instinct that I would learn something about this clan and 1:13:46.040 --> 1:13:46.400 I did. 1:13:47.720 --> 1:13:51.639 Okay, But you did something, Okay, so then it's over. 1:13:53.040 --> 1:13:56.200 Do you I learned the source? I think of their 1:13:56.240 --> 1:14:02.120 of their general uh self, you know, confidence and cockiness, 1:14:02.320 --> 1:14:08.000 So what is it? Giant? You know? Remember this one 1:14:08.040 --> 1:14:10.720 person anyway? Just you know, you know what they say 1:14:10.760 --> 1:14:17.240 about Pete Davidson. I can't say it, you know, okay, okay, 1:14:17.240 --> 1:14:20.559 but I did the article, but maybe I don't even 1:14:20.680 --> 1:14:21.320 know if I did. 1:14:21.439 --> 1:14:25.799 You know, But did you see this as all? Because 1:14:25.920 --> 1:14:28.280 ultimately it does become an issue? You see this as 1:14:28.360 --> 1:14:30.640 all is a great story, but this is going to 1:14:30.640 --> 1:14:31.599 fuck up the article. 1:14:32.000 --> 1:14:34.880 You know. It wasn't just that. It wasn't just that 1:14:35.120 --> 1:14:37.719 it was everything that I had to say about those children, 1:14:38.600 --> 1:14:46.559 about the drug taking. It was assassin job. I didn't 1:14:46.600 --> 1:14:52.639 want to expose the that tragic family and these young people, 1:14:52.720 --> 1:14:59.040 these college aged people, to that kind of notice. It 1:14:59.080 --> 1:15:00.840 was really because I couldn't I have written about that. 1:15:02.240 --> 1:15:04.400 Maybe I did it so that I couldn't write about it. 1:15:04.520 --> 1:15:07.439 Maybe I did subconsciously. It's possible, but I don't think 1:15:07.479 --> 1:15:08.880 I was thinking that far ahead. 1:15:09.439 --> 1:15:13.040 But whatever happens there that ends up ending your tenure 1:15:13.200 --> 1:15:15.160 Rolling Stone. So why don't you tell us that? 1:15:17.560 --> 1:15:22.000 Well, I didn't write the story because I couldn't write 1:15:22.000 --> 1:15:27.400 the story without telling that. Right, Well, if I'm so honest, 1:15:27.560 --> 1:15:30.360 you know, if i'm you know, and that's what I think. 1:15:30.439 --> 1:15:32.680 I wanted the book to be honest, and it was 1:15:32.720 --> 1:15:34.880 for the most part. And there were things that I 1:15:34.960 --> 1:15:39.960 left out to protect myself, but not much, not much, 1:15:40.000 --> 1:15:44.680 but something some persons, just one big thing about me 1:15:44.920 --> 1:15:49.720 that I didn't want to talk is no, it is, 1:15:49.880 --> 1:15:52.160 It isn't it was. It was just because it was 1:15:52.200 --> 1:15:58.600 the reason that Annie. Annie didn't like it didn't like 1:15:58.680 --> 1:16:03.800 me because of it. But it just really that I 1:16:03.840 --> 1:16:09.200 had nose job when I was sixteen, And you know, 1:16:09.200 --> 1:16:11.760 I always thought I would write about it, because I 1:16:11.760 --> 1:16:13.960 didn't put it in the book because I didn't want 1:16:14.600 --> 1:16:18.320 because I was ashamed. I mean, now I'm telling you said, 1:16:18.360 --> 1:16:20.720 you go deep, this is it. Okay, that's it. 1:16:20.800 --> 1:16:23.439 Okay, As I say, I'm glad you told me, because 1:16:23.479 --> 1:16:27.600 one's imagined it should much wilder than that. 1:16:28.320 --> 1:16:31.000 No, No, it's really just it really is just that 1:16:31.040 --> 1:16:37.120 I was ashamed that. You know, my parents, they just 1:16:37.280 --> 1:16:40.240 was afraid that I looked like my father, do you 1:16:40.280 --> 1:16:42.360 know what I mean? My mother had this little nose. 1:16:43.000 --> 1:16:46.479 She was a model, you know, a fashion model and 1:16:46.720 --> 1:16:51.240 beautiful and beautiful, hungarian, little nose, straight nose, and I 1:16:51.280 --> 1:16:52.679 had my father's nose. 1:16:52.760 --> 1:16:52.880 You know. 1:16:52.920 --> 1:16:57.519 It wasn't like Lilian's Hellman's nose anything, or Annie's nose, 1:16:57.680 --> 1:17:01.320 you know. But when Annie heard that, maybe she even 1:17:01.400 --> 1:17:05.280 asked me, she just lost respect for me, and it 1:17:05.360 --> 1:17:08.599 was fairly painful, and I didn't want to. I didn't 1:17:08.600 --> 1:17:10.920 put that in the book, and I felt. 1:17:11.040 --> 1:17:13.320 How old were you when you had your nose jobs? 1:17:13.439 --> 1:17:15.480 Sixteen? I just turned seventeen. 1:17:16.080 --> 1:17:18.400 Did it change your life at all? 1:17:18.439 --> 1:17:21.839 Probably? I think that who knows what would have happened 1:17:21.840 --> 1:17:24.240 if I had to suffer that note. Maybe I would 1:17:24.280 --> 1:17:27.800 have stayed in Providence and been a real writer, a 1:17:27.840 --> 1:17:32.040 fiction writer. Maybe I would have been really great. Do 1:17:32.040 --> 1:17:33.360 you know what I mean? Maybe? 1:17:33.640 --> 1:17:35.519 Yeah, I know what you mean. But at this point, 1:17:35.720 --> 1:17:38.200 you know, I guess that you know. Now we live 1:17:38.240 --> 1:17:41.920 in the era of ozembic and you see these women 1:17:42.000 --> 1:17:45.200 who've lost a very significant amount of weight on TikTok 1:17:45.880 --> 1:17:48.960 and they say, you know, some express all this confidence, 1:17:49.000 --> 1:17:52.719 and people say they get plastic surgery for self confidence whatever. Well, 1:17:52.800 --> 1:17:56.040 people treat them differently. Did you find that people treat them? 1:17:56.200 --> 1:17:59.840 Yes? Absolutely, yes, I wanted you know, the doctor of 1:18:00.479 --> 1:18:02.600 my parents, who had no money, took me down to 1:18:02.680 --> 1:18:05.679 New York City and I had the most expensive nose 1:18:05.760 --> 1:18:07.760 job you could possibly buy, because they wanted it to 1:18:07.800 --> 1:18:11.080 be really good. And so was doctor ALFREDX, who invented 1:18:11.120 --> 1:18:13.479 the Afch method, and he had an office on Park 1:18:13.520 --> 1:18:17.160 Avenue and Australia Austrian accent, I guess our German as angels, 1:18:17.240 --> 1:18:20.720 tell me, why do you want to have this operation? 1:18:21.560 --> 1:18:24.680 He said? A sixteen year old girl, and I said 1:18:26.000 --> 1:18:30.320 I want to be pretty, you know. I mean if 1:18:30.360 --> 1:18:31.960 I had said I want to be an axe morder, 1:18:31.960 --> 1:18:34.000 he probably would have also done it. You know, I 1:18:34.160 --> 1:18:36.160 just looked kind of a thing is that It's like, well, 1:18:36.200 --> 1:18:38.639 don't you think you're pretty? You're perfectly I mean, any 1:18:38.840 --> 1:18:45.519 any mother or anybody, you know, anybody would say, well, 1:18:45.520 --> 1:18:48.080 you're beautiful the way you are. Isn't that what people 1:18:48.120 --> 1:18:52.000 say now, you know? And so I'll never know what 1:18:52.040 --> 1:18:55.519 I would have looked like, this is not my face. 1:18:55.560 --> 1:18:59.960 And you're like Marlo Thomas, you know, God bless her whatever, 1:19:00.120 --> 1:19:03.880 or you know that little nose doesn't change over time. 1:19:04.280 --> 1:19:06.559 I mean, I'll go on about this for an hour. 1:19:06.880 --> 1:19:09.440 You don't want me to, but it's a huge subject 1:19:09.439 --> 1:19:11.680 for me, and I always thought I would write about it, 1:19:11.720 --> 1:19:12.320 but I haven't. 1:19:12.600 --> 1:19:16.160 Wait. Wait, the huge subject is the nose job or 1:19:16.240 --> 1:19:17.440 cosmetic surgery. 1:19:17.840 --> 1:19:21.880 No, the nose job, cosmetic surgery. Who gives a ship? 1:19:22.400 --> 1:19:24.960 I mean, you have a facelift, God bless you know. 1:19:25.320 --> 1:19:27.400 It's just that when you go around fucking around with 1:19:27.479 --> 1:19:31.680 something like your nose, you change your face to the 1:19:31.760 --> 1:19:35.560 world and it's a damage that you can't undo. You 1:19:36.160 --> 1:19:40.520 and you don't. You don't. I didn't grow into myself. 1:19:40.920 --> 1:19:44.120 It was a way of escaping myself and my parents 1:19:44.720 --> 1:19:48.680 and my father colluded, he didn't, you know. And they 1:19:48.680 --> 1:19:50.640 did this in the advice of a friend of his, 1:19:50.920 --> 1:19:56.240 theirs from New York City, you know who. He said, 1:19:56.479 --> 1:20:00.639 Robin's so bright, but with that nose on her face, 1:20:00.760 --> 1:20:03.559 you know, she, you know, that will really be a 1:20:03.640 --> 1:20:07.400 hindrance for her. This radiologist, he was a doctor, you know, 1:20:08.240 --> 1:20:10.479 from New York City, a friend of theirs that moved 1:20:10.520 --> 1:20:13.839 to Providence, whose wife later committed suicide in the attic, 1:20:13.960 --> 1:20:16.360 you know, And because he was having an affair with 1:20:17.320 --> 1:20:19.600 you know. I mean, this is the person that my 1:20:19.720 --> 1:20:23.080 parents listened to. I didn't have like Annie had a 1:20:23.240 --> 1:20:26.360 spine enough, because I did. I wanted to be pretty. 1:20:26.479 --> 1:20:28.880 I wanted to look like Natalie, would you know? 1:20:29.280 --> 1:20:32.320 Okay, So just to be clear, the motivation for the 1:20:32.400 --> 1:20:36.920 nose job came from you or came from your parents. 1:20:38.040 --> 1:20:41.120 And if you could snap your fingers now, would you 1:20:41.240 --> 1:20:43.080 or would you have not gotten a nose job? 1:20:44.000 --> 1:20:47.880 I think that's an impossible question to answer, really, but no, 1:20:48.040 --> 1:20:52.040 I wouldn't have if I had it to do over again. No, 1:20:52.280 --> 1:20:54.760 because I don't. I see pictures of myself and I 1:20:54.800 --> 1:20:57.679 feel like tender towards that person. She I don't look 1:20:57.720 --> 1:20:59.920 that bad. I don't think. I don't know I should. 1:21:00.080 --> 1:21:03.080 I have the pictures, I have my medical pictures. I 1:21:03.080 --> 1:21:06.799 don't have any straight ant on. I don't have frontal pictures, 1:21:06.800 --> 1:21:09.479 so I can't age them, which I would love to do. 1:21:10.800 --> 1:21:14.920 It probably look like you, you know, I would look 1:21:15.000 --> 1:21:18.439 more like what I was supposed to look like or something. 1:21:19.160 --> 1:21:21.960 I just think I did that girl a disservice. 1:21:23.439 --> 1:21:26.360 Okay, just staying on something you said with your husband 1:21:26.680 --> 1:21:31.640 disapproving of you commenting about your prior life, especially involving 1:21:32.439 --> 1:21:37.200 sexual activity. Yeah, this is not the nineteen fifties. Never 1:21:37.240 --> 1:21:41.479 mind the nineteen forties. We all have a sexual past. 1:21:42.120 --> 1:21:47.280 Everybody we've been involved with has had multiple partners. Except 1:21:47.280 --> 1:21:50.080 for one person. Everybody who I've had a relationship with 1:21:50.200 --> 1:21:53.480 had an abortion. I mean, this is in all our histories. 1:21:53.800 --> 1:21:56.400 Why do you think he is anxious about it? 1:22:05.280 --> 1:22:09.280 I just don't think he finds it very admirable that 1:22:09.360 --> 1:22:13.719 I that I was so loose, or he just doesn't 1:22:13.840 --> 1:22:17.519 like to hear about it, and he didn't like it 1:22:17.560 --> 1:22:23.360 to be so public and he he had. He aside 1:22:23.360 --> 1:22:32.800 from that, is not that engaged in the book, has 1:22:32.840 --> 1:22:36.200 never said about the writing or anything like that. Nothing. 1:22:37.800 --> 1:22:44.280 You've expressed numerous times your Jewish background. Your husband is 1:22:44.479 --> 1:22:47.599 not Jewish. Do you think a Jewish guy would react differently. 1:22:48.840 --> 1:22:53.559 I have no idea. I don't know. That's you know, 1:22:53.760 --> 1:23:00.200 this is yeah maybe maybe, I don't know. I don't know. 1:23:00.720 --> 1:23:03.200 David was my Jewish guy, and he was really only 1:23:03.280 --> 1:23:06.040 half Jewish, the other half was Portuguese. 1:23:07.320 --> 1:23:12.600 So you had you know, you're someone who has had boyfriends, 1:23:13.040 --> 1:23:16.320 so all of your boyfriends were not Jewish, or just 1:23:16.400 --> 1:23:18.560 certain ones were and certain ones weren't. 1:23:19.560 --> 1:23:24.040 Well, David was my Jewish boyfriend. There was a pharmacist's son, 1:23:24.479 --> 1:23:27.840 Albert Toadman, who liked me at high school, who I 1:23:27.880 --> 1:23:30.840 could have had a future with as a pharmacist wife. 1:23:30.960 --> 1:23:35.960 He was Jewish, Albert Toba. But I didn't have that 1:23:36.040 --> 1:23:37.160 many boyfriends. 1:23:37.920 --> 1:23:41.240 I'm just talking. I'm not quantifying. It's just you referenced 1:23:41.320 --> 1:23:44.400 certain people. But didn't you get the message from the 1:23:44.400 --> 1:23:46.360 moment you grew up the how to marry a Jewish boy? 1:23:47.160 --> 1:23:50.719 Oh? Sure, well, you're not supposed to go outside the tribe. 1:23:52.360 --> 1:23:54.639 Okay, but let's put a bow on it. How does it? 1:23:55.080 --> 1:23:59.680 You know, I mean, Mitch is very who was an 1:23:59.720 --> 1:24:04.400 odd choice for me off the you know, just off 1:24:04.439 --> 1:24:08.800 from left field, you know, a Catholic working you know, 1:24:08.880 --> 1:24:13.840 the father was a factory worker. But with whole backstory. 1:24:14.960 --> 1:24:21.360 But you know what was I going to say? Just oh, 1:24:21.520 --> 1:24:25.519 I know, and it's just a stupid story. My mother 1:24:25.600 --> 1:24:29.120 and I was telling you before about how we were 1:24:29.120 --> 1:24:31.479 all in like the ponds in their game and this 1:24:31.600 --> 1:24:34.360 kind of race to succeed. My mother was walking in 1:24:34.479 --> 1:24:38.479 Providence down to Wayland Square and she ran into the 1:24:38.800 --> 1:24:44.240 woman who said, and this was like in the nineties, 1:24:44.680 --> 1:24:47.240 maybe it was in the thousands, actually in the early 1:24:47.280 --> 1:24:51.759 two thousands, and Robin never married, did she? The woman said, 1:24:52.439 --> 1:24:55.040 And my mother said, well, actually she just got married 1:24:55.120 --> 1:25:01.280 last week, because I'm married. I married Mitch much much later, 1:25:01.439 --> 1:25:03.080 you know, I married I knew I met him in 1:25:03.120 --> 1:25:08.160 seventy seven or seventy six, I think maybe seventy six, 1:25:08.760 --> 1:25:13.240 and we married in two thousand and two or three. 1:25:13.560 --> 1:25:15.080 Okay, there's a lot of stuff going there, but we 1:25:15.160 --> 1:25:18.320 got a time. Sorry, we'll get back to it. But 1:25:19.280 --> 1:25:21.599 how does it end with Yan and rolling stone. 1:25:22.600 --> 1:25:26.200 Oh, well, he was pissed off. You know. I didn't 1:25:26.240 --> 1:25:29.400 whack up much expenses, but there were some expenses, but 1:25:29.439 --> 1:25:33.280 nothing like one Hunter was or anything like that. But 1:25:35.520 --> 1:25:41.320 he wanted the piece. He wanted a piece. And we 1:25:41.320 --> 1:25:44.720 were in Israel. Jan was there with Max Polewski, who 1:25:44.800 --> 1:25:48.000 was dedicating a wing of the museum to his parents. 1:25:49.320 --> 1:25:52.360 Max was one of the people who funded the magazine 1:25:52.400 --> 1:25:55.960 at some point, wealthy and made money in computers early on. 1:25:56.800 --> 1:26:02.600 And we were at this nightclub. I slip with you 1:26:02.640 --> 1:26:03.880 on too, you know, so. 1:26:05.439 --> 1:26:05.800 But so. 1:26:07.920 --> 1:26:10.080 Or at this nightclub we went outside for a smoke 1:26:10.800 --> 1:26:13.000 and he said, are you going to give me the 1:26:13.080 --> 1:26:16.320 piece on the Kennedy's And I said, no, I guess not. 1:26:16.760 --> 1:26:19.960 I guess I'm not going to, you know. And he said, well, 1:26:19.960 --> 1:26:23.120 I'm going to have to take you off the masthead And 1:26:23.200 --> 1:26:26.519 I said, okay, I mean I was ready to move on. 1:26:26.760 --> 1:26:29.360 You know, that's how I move on. I've noticed that 1:26:29.439 --> 1:26:32.639 pattern in my life. I don't I usually get fired. 1:26:32.640 --> 1:26:36.639 I've been fired most time, you know, like three or four, 1:26:36.840 --> 1:26:39.640 three times that I can remember at the moment I 1:26:39.680 --> 1:26:40.200 get fired. 1:26:40.240 --> 1:26:43.080 Okay, So then you go to the Iowa Writers'. 1:26:42.600 --> 1:26:46.479 Workshop, well, I devolved a little, you know, I wrote 1:26:46.520 --> 1:26:49.080 for different magazines. I hung around Berkeley for a couple 1:26:49.160 --> 1:26:51.280 of years after that, and I wrote an article for 1:26:51.720 --> 1:26:54.400 Rolling Stone after that. He you know, he would let 1:26:54.479 --> 1:26:56.120 me write for them. He just took me off the 1:26:56.160 --> 1:26:59.280 mast head. It was like the sergeant losing his stripes 1:26:59.360 --> 1:27:01.280 or something. But I wrote, you know, a piece on 1:27:03.240 --> 1:27:07.720 nitrous oxide that I just loved doing, and some other things. 1:27:07.760 --> 1:27:09.960 And I wrote for other magazines too, you know, and 1:27:10.040 --> 1:27:12.800 all that. But my personal life, you know, I was 1:27:12.880 --> 1:27:17.960 alone in the world. David had married, and David felt 1:27:17.960 --> 1:27:25.000 in my married lover, you know, that ended, and so 1:27:25.080 --> 1:27:27.479 I went to Ioway. It sounded cushy, you know, and 1:27:27.520 --> 1:27:30.599 it was also where I felt safe last. I felt 1:27:30.600 --> 1:27:33.120 good in college in a way work wise, do you 1:27:33.120 --> 1:27:35.360 know what I mean. It's a you know, just to 1:27:35.400 --> 1:27:37.960 go and read books. It's a good thing to do. 1:27:38.040 --> 1:27:41.240 So I started my life again. And when I met Mitch, 1:27:41.439 --> 1:27:44.000 I was his teacher. He was just out of the 1:27:44.080 --> 1:27:47.240 Vietnam War, and you know, he didn't go to the war, 1:27:47.280 --> 1:27:49.720 but he was in the army and the gi Bill 1:27:49.760 --> 1:27:52.680 and he came to my class and that's how I 1:27:52.720 --> 1:27:55.080 met him. In nineteen I think seventy six. 1:27:56.240 --> 1:28:01.120 Okay, But going to the Iowa Writer's Workshop good or bad? 1:28:02.520 --> 1:28:09.120 Oh? Good? Because because because I could start my life 1:28:09.160 --> 1:28:16.439 there again. I could start my life there again. That's 1:28:16.439 --> 1:28:20.280 all I mean. It was just a wonderful place to be. 1:28:20.960 --> 1:28:24.880 And you know, you know that there once was an 1:28:24.960 --> 1:28:29.080 ugly duckling with feathers all something in brown blah blah blah, 1:28:29.120 --> 1:28:33.080 and it's a swan. You know. I loved that movie. 1:28:33.240 --> 1:28:37.639 And I loved being around writers because then I did belong. 1:28:37.880 --> 1:28:38.000 You know. 1:28:38.040 --> 1:28:40.960 It wasn't like being at Pembroke, where I didn't belong 1:28:41.000 --> 1:28:44.839 with all those blonde girls. At Iowa, everyone was fucked 1:28:44.920 --> 1:28:48.519 up or everyone was a writer. Everyone wanted to be 1:28:48.560 --> 1:28:52.520 a writer, so there was a commonality and a basis 1:28:52.560 --> 1:28:57.400 for conversation and hanging out and having you know, deep, 1:28:57.800 --> 1:28:59.559 deep kind of fun. 1:29:00.760 --> 1:29:07.080 You know, did you see The Girls arc about Can 1:29:07.120 --> 1:29:09.719 I guess the character's name was going to the Iowa 1:29:09.800 --> 1:29:10.719 Writer's Workshop? 1:29:13.200 --> 1:29:16.559 Oh? In The Girls? I guess, so yeah, I don't 1:29:16.600 --> 1:29:17.479 know if I don't remember. 1:29:17.560 --> 1:29:22.280 I mean, you go to the Iowa Writer's Workshop. It 1:29:22.400 --> 1:29:25.400 is probably the most difficult writing program to get into. 1:29:26.280 --> 1:29:29.160 And there's a lot of the tearing a part of 1:29:29.280 --> 1:29:32.479 one's writing, and you end up with a certain style 1:29:32.600 --> 1:29:36.000 in many cases, which is not my favorite, where it's 1:29:36.040 --> 1:29:39.360 all about rewriting in the sense become very dense as 1:29:39.400 --> 1:29:42.240 to the paragraph. You know, you'd already had a history writing. 1:29:42.840 --> 1:29:47.320 Did you feel any constriction, feeling like you were shoehorned 1:29:47.360 --> 1:29:49.240 into a style you may not have liked? 1:29:49.760 --> 1:29:55.200 No, not at all. No I I no I. 1:29:55.320 --> 1:29:55.519 You know. 1:29:58.120 --> 1:30:01.320 John Hawks was my teacher, and he actually had to 1:30:01.360 --> 1:30:04.800 pull a string to get me into Iowa because Alan 1:30:04.840 --> 1:30:09.040 Ganis thought my writing was thin. I heard later, But 1:30:09.479 --> 1:30:11.799 you know I rose there too. I became a teaching 1:30:11.800 --> 1:30:18.599 writing fellow. No. I wrote very conventional short stories, and 1:30:18.640 --> 1:30:23.759 I wrote just enough to get my MFA. I wasn't 1:30:23.880 --> 1:30:25.800 going to be a writer. I wasn't going to be 1:30:25.840 --> 1:30:30.080 that kind of writer. No, But you know, and there 1:30:30.080 --> 1:30:34.040 were teachers who were much more avant garde, like Riiseland Drexler, 1:30:34.320 --> 1:30:38.360 and they made fun of more conventional things. Not my stuff, 1:30:38.400 --> 1:30:43.080 but this guy, John Folsey's stuff. He wrote a conventional 1:30:43.160 --> 1:30:46.559 short story, which was the only thing. And now they 1:30:46.600 --> 1:30:49.960 published constantly in The New Yorker and everywhere else in books. 1:30:50.280 --> 1:30:52.519 But then to get something in the New York was huge, 1:30:52.560 --> 1:30:55.479 and John Falsey got something in the New Yorker and 1:30:55.520 --> 1:30:58.080 that's what brought him out to Hollywood. And he's the 1:30:58.080 --> 1:31:01.519 one who hired me in television years later. So I 1:31:01.600 --> 1:31:04.800 defended his short story in class against that kind of 1:31:04.840 --> 1:31:08.200 intrusion because I thought it was a really good short story. 1:31:08.479 --> 1:31:11.320 It wasn't really good short story, good enough to get 1:31:11.360 --> 1:31:14.679 into New Yorker and good enough to get him a 1:31:14.800 --> 1:31:17.759 life in the Hollywood, you know, career. 1:31:25.120 --> 1:31:29.519 So you ultimately leave Iowa, you come to la and 1:31:29.600 --> 1:31:33.920 once again you're doing the equivalent of like minimum wage jobs. 1:31:34.160 --> 1:31:37.000 Yeah, what else was going to do? I didn't have 1:31:37.000 --> 1:31:40.120 any money. I went with Mitch again with a man. 1:31:40.240 --> 1:31:48.160 Didn't want to go by myself, you know, And yeah 1:31:48.240 --> 1:31:50.160 we got we didn't have any money. We had thirteen 1:31:50.240 --> 1:31:53.160 hundred dollars, I said, saved my money. I worked in 1:31:53.200 --> 1:31:57.759 a hospital in Iowa. I mean, even after Rolling Stone, 1:31:57.800 --> 1:32:01.840 I was waitressing mid you know, graveyard shift at the 1:32:01.840 --> 1:32:08.559 Copper Penny on University Avenue. But I didn't mind. I 1:32:08.600 --> 1:32:09.200 didn't mind. 1:32:09.479 --> 1:32:12.080 Well, I mean, men, you know, if you listen to 1:32:12.120 --> 1:32:15.840 Deborah tan And, who wrote a definitive book about all this. 1:32:16.120 --> 1:32:18.960 You know, you just don't understand. Men tend to be 1:32:19.000 --> 1:32:22.519 more linear ascensions. So if a man has a big 1:32:22.640 --> 1:32:24.799 job and then, as you know, goes to a minimum 1:32:24.800 --> 1:32:28.040 wage job, their ego is crushed. But that was not 1:32:28.120 --> 1:32:28.960 your experience. 1:32:29.439 --> 1:32:33.720 No, because women aren't you know, especially my generation, we 1:32:33.720 --> 1:32:38.599 weren't expected. Nothing was expected of us, nothing to shut up, 1:32:38.640 --> 1:32:41.240 you know. But men were trained to They had to 1:32:41.320 --> 1:32:43.400 have the job and they had to support the family. 1:32:43.880 --> 1:32:46.639 And that's what a man did. So sure, you can't 1:32:46.800 --> 1:32:50.439 be fucking around. You got to go get a career. 1:32:52.240 --> 1:32:56.360 Okay, how do you ultimately get a job in television? 1:32:58.000 --> 1:33:01.960 Well, there were people that really sue it directly and 1:33:02.040 --> 1:33:05.360 this is their passion, and they write tempt they write 1:33:05.400 --> 1:33:08.559 spec scripts, and they go after it and they trust, 1:33:08.840 --> 1:33:11.360 you know, they work, and they get a job working 1:33:11.720 --> 1:33:14.120 on a show as a secretary or something like that, 1:33:14.280 --> 1:33:17.200 an assistant, and they worked their way. I just fell 1:33:17.240 --> 1:33:20.040 into it the same way I fell into Rolling Stone. 1:33:21.080 --> 1:33:24.720 John Folsey from Iowa had just created a show. I 1:33:24.760 --> 1:33:28.960 was writing. I was made this friend in la I 1:33:29.040 --> 1:33:32.320 was writing. You know, I had a job as a 1:33:32.439 --> 1:33:35.640 I finally got a job working for Harold Hayes, the 1:33:35.720 --> 1:33:42.200 great Esquire editor, a brilliant, wonderful, fantastic man, and he 1:33:42.320 --> 1:33:44.680 gave me. He took me in. You know, he liked 1:33:44.680 --> 1:33:47.280 something I wrote. I wrote him something as a kind 1:33:47.320 --> 1:33:49.439 of calling card, and they put it in the magazine 1:33:49.439 --> 1:33:51.920 and he hired me. It gave me a column. So 1:33:51.920 --> 1:33:54.680 I was working there as an editor at California Magazine 1:33:54.680 --> 1:33:57.760 and my friend Ruth Reischel took me in and she 1:33:57.920 --> 1:34:01.120 was the restaurant reviewer at the La Times, and she 1:34:03.160 --> 1:34:05.280 knew that I was a good writer because a friend 1:34:05.280 --> 1:34:08.280 of mine told her that, and she hired me to 1:34:08.280 --> 1:34:11.720 be a second string restaurant reviewer. So John Folsey, that 1:34:11.800 --> 1:34:14.000 I had known at Iowa, this is like seven or 1:34:14.000 --> 1:34:19.320 eight years after Mitch and I went to La he 1:34:20.960 --> 1:34:24.799 read one of my restaurant reviews told his partner in writing, 1:34:26.000 --> 1:34:29.000 Joshua Brand, she'd be good to write for our show. 1:34:29.040 --> 1:34:31.479 She's a really good writer because it was a show 1:34:32.200 --> 1:34:34.960 that was well, it was a show about a family 1:34:35.400 --> 1:34:40.400 who was that kind of conventional family story writing that 1:34:40.479 --> 1:34:44.639 I like to do. And so so it was because 1:34:44.680 --> 1:34:47.559 of that restaurant review that he brought me in and 1:34:47.600 --> 1:34:49.840 had josh meet me and They gave me a chance 1:34:49.880 --> 1:34:52.040 to write episode one of a show called Year in 1:34:52.080 --> 1:34:56.320 the Life with Richard Kylie and Sarah Jessica Parker at 1:34:56.360 --> 1:35:00.479 sixty years old, and you know, even Mary's sat was 1:35:00.520 --> 1:35:03.880 in the she was in the miniseries that won an Emmy. 1:35:03.920 --> 1:35:06.639 It was really, you know, the beginning of a kind 1:35:06.680 --> 1:35:10.880 of quality television. And so I got to I got 1:35:10.880 --> 1:35:14.000 to write the first episode of when it went to series, 1:35:15.600 --> 1:35:20.160 and it was terrible, and uh, John said, I know 1:35:21.360 --> 1:35:25.240 to Josh, I know she can do it. And they 1:35:25.280 --> 1:35:29.599 had me in and they said, we want updike. That's 1:35:29.600 --> 1:35:32.120 what we want the tone. And because I had a 1:35:32.160 --> 1:35:34.960 literature background, I knew what updyke was. Do you know 1:35:35.000 --> 1:35:37.280 what I mean? I knew, I understand what they were 1:35:37.320 --> 1:35:40.559 asking of me. And so I was able to deliver 1:35:40.800 --> 1:35:44.160 an updike in with with that kind of humor. I 1:35:44.240 --> 1:35:47.840 gave them some dyke and ship and it was episode 1:35:47.840 --> 1:35:51.000 one a Year in the Life. And then I worked 1:35:51.000 --> 1:35:55.679 from then on. I went from you know Josh and John. 1:35:55.960 --> 1:35:56.280 Josh. 1:35:56.439 --> 1:35:59.800 John particularly was like, do you believe how much money? 1:35:59.840 --> 1:36:02.519 Or he was very I mean, I had a nice 1:36:02.600 --> 1:36:05.639 life without the money, you know, I had a nice 1:36:05.680 --> 1:36:07.799 little apartment and I had split up at that point 1:36:07.840 --> 1:36:10.600 for a while, but for years, but I had a 1:36:10.680 --> 1:36:14.599 nice little apartment. I loved my job with Harold Hayes, 1:36:14.920 --> 1:36:19.200 although he died and so then it became problematic. But 1:36:20.479 --> 1:36:23.920 the magazine became an unhappy place to be, or maybe 1:36:23.960 --> 1:36:29.080 he was fired before he died. But but I was 1:36:29.120 --> 1:36:31.559 happy in my life, you know, at forty thousand dollars 1:36:31.560 --> 1:36:33.960 a year. But going from that to the kind of 1:36:34.000 --> 1:36:37.160 television money was a big, you know, big leap. I 1:36:37.240 --> 1:36:41.639 was forty forty years old by that, you know, and 1:36:41.720 --> 1:36:46.920 so you know, that was the beginning of the life 1:36:47.000 --> 1:36:47.800 that I have now. 1:36:49.240 --> 1:36:50.920 So where did it go? From that show? 1:36:53.760 --> 1:36:55.559 I was a year in the life was canceled after 1:36:55.600 --> 1:36:59.280 a year because the Networks was so stupid. They had 1:36:59.600 --> 1:37:01.360 they had a that was a winner, but it only 1:37:01.439 --> 1:37:08.560 lasted a year to replace it. I went from there to, oh, 1:37:08.920 --> 1:37:16.400 David Chase had a show called Almost Grown about music, 1:37:17.360 --> 1:37:24.479 and so I went and interviewed with David. And it 1:37:24.520 --> 1:37:27.800 was during the strike, and we had lunch and a 1:37:27.920 --> 1:37:30.600 Ventura Boulevard, you know, I was at this restaurant of 1:37:30.680 --> 1:37:35.880 Ventura Boulevard and David walks in and I think, oh fuck, 1:37:36.120 --> 1:37:38.639 he's like the most miserable looking person I've ever seen 1:37:38.680 --> 1:37:42.080 in my life, just so dour and oh Jesus. And 1:37:42.120 --> 1:37:44.320 I'm sitting there and there's no place to run, and 1:37:44.360 --> 1:37:47.160 he comes and he sits with me, and within ten 1:37:47.200 --> 1:37:49.519 minutes we were laughing so hard we had tears streaming 1:37:49.560 --> 1:37:53.240 down our cheeks. He was just like, so funny and 1:37:53.360 --> 1:37:56.320 so smart. It's just wonderful. So I went to work 1:37:56.360 --> 1:38:00.680 for him, and that show was canceled after fourteen episodes, 1:38:00.680 --> 1:38:02.639 but god, it was fun. You know, It's with Tim 1:38:02.760 --> 1:38:06.880 Daly and Eve Gordon, and it had musical cues. David 1:38:06.960 --> 1:38:13.439 was really into music. I mean, have you talked to 1:38:13.520 --> 1:38:16.360 him at all, He's not so into music. Music is 1:38:16.400 --> 1:38:19.160 such a big part of what he does all of 1:38:19.200 --> 1:38:22.880 the show, well sopranos, especially practical music. He likes to 1:38:22.880 --> 1:38:26.600 put practical music. It isn't like scores. So this was 1:38:26.600 --> 1:38:30.120 a show where musical cues brought this couple who was 1:38:30.400 --> 1:38:33.840 divorcing back to certain periods in their lives, and so 1:38:33.880 --> 1:38:37.320 you would go back into that period in the film, 1:38:37.840 --> 1:38:41.720 you know, flashbacks cued by music that was playing on 1:38:41.720 --> 1:38:45.360 the radio or wherever the music was playing. The character 1:38:45.479 --> 1:38:49.599 would start thinking about that time, and so you would 1:38:49.640 --> 1:38:53.720 have a whole plot at that time when they were 1:38:53.760 --> 1:38:56.760 happy maybe or stuff that happened back then with Eve 1:38:56.800 --> 1:38:59.840 and I can't remember the character's names, but Tim, Daly 1:39:00.080 --> 1:39:03.519 and Gordon, and then you would be back at the present, 1:39:03.960 --> 1:39:06.640 and that experience of going back with somehow inform on 1:39:06.680 --> 1:39:09.240 the present. It was a really good show. It's such 1:39:09.240 --> 1:39:12.400 a wonderful experience to work with him, to work with 1:39:12.479 --> 1:39:16.679 David and you know, and in his interviews he does 1:39:16.720 --> 1:39:18.760 say that it was a conversation we had that had 1:39:18.760 --> 1:39:23.000 a lot to do with his writing the Sopranos when 1:39:23.080 --> 1:39:26.200 we when I worked on that show, we became friends. 1:39:27.080 --> 1:39:30.160 Be a specific conversation, Yeah. 1:39:30.400 --> 1:39:34.600 You know, his mother had come to visit him and 1:39:35.280 --> 1:39:38.160 he and also in interviews he also says that his 1:39:38.200 --> 1:39:40.559 wife has always told him he should write about his mother. 1:39:41.520 --> 1:39:45.000 So but he told them just recently, they're doing a documentary. 1:39:45.040 --> 1:39:48.519 Alex Gibney's doing a documentary for HBO, and he talked 1:39:48.520 --> 1:39:52.200 to me and Mitch and he told me that David 1:39:52.240 --> 1:39:54.880 had said that he referred to that conversation that we 1:39:54.920 --> 1:39:57.760 had in the office. We had this great office and 1:39:57.800 --> 1:40:00.479 a lot at universal, just me and this other guy 1:40:00.520 --> 1:40:03.280 and David would come over and hang out and I 1:40:03.920 --> 1:40:07.080 and his mother. He was complaining about his mother and 1:40:07.120 --> 1:40:08.960 I said, it's just so amazing to me. I see 1:40:08.960 --> 1:40:12.680 you take on these powerful men, these suits over in 1:40:12.760 --> 1:40:15.559 the Black Tower over there, and you just reduce them 1:40:15.600 --> 1:40:19.440 to you know, Gerbils and your mother. It just reduces 1:40:19.479 --> 1:40:22.720 you to to like a little Gerbil. And it's just 1:40:22.880 --> 1:40:26.760 it's such a dichotomy to me, just like it's you know. 1:40:26.840 --> 1:40:30.040 And so that is a germ of what Tony Soprano is. 1:40:30.040 --> 1:40:34.400 He had this gangster thing in the drawer, but it 1:40:34.520 --> 1:40:38.800 was about a powerful man who had mother issues. I suppose, 1:40:39.040 --> 1:40:41.960 you know, not mother issues so much just as a 1:40:42.000 --> 1:40:45.080 looney mother, you know, difficult mother. 1:40:45.720 --> 1:40:49.120 Okay, so that show only last year? Then what next? 1:40:49.520 --> 1:40:53.280 Well then, because in their wisdom, CBS gave me my 1:40:53.360 --> 1:40:57.080 own show. Here I am three years in the business, 1:40:57.760 --> 1:41:00.599 so they paired me with and my agent was Elliot Webb. 1:41:00.760 --> 1:41:03.760 You know who's the agent of Gary Trudeau. He was 1:41:03.880 --> 1:41:07.960 like Sid Kibbets in the cartoon script. That's that's was Elliott. 1:41:08.400 --> 1:41:13.040 He's still around somewhere, but Elliott. But I think, but 1:41:13.920 --> 1:41:16.880 they paired me with Doug Kramer, who had you know, 1:41:16.920 --> 1:41:20.400 he and Aaron Spelling did the Love Boat, and I'm like, 1:41:20.479 --> 1:41:22.400 what am I doing with this guy? This is wrong, 1:41:22.439 --> 1:41:24.960 this is bad. He's like, come on, it's your own show. 1:41:25.040 --> 1:41:28.280 It's six in the summertime, it's a great opportunity, blah 1:41:28.280 --> 1:41:31.440 blah blah. And it was just it was a disaster. 1:41:32.840 --> 1:41:36.760 You know, Doug Kramer had a much different sensibility than 1:41:36.800 --> 1:41:40.040 I did, and it just wasn't going to work. We did, 1:41:40.080 --> 1:41:42.680 We made six of these things. I think it was 1:41:42.720 --> 1:41:46.240 a short order like that for the summer and it 1:41:46.439 --> 1:41:49.639 just was a disaster for various reasons. 1:41:50.200 --> 1:41:52.080 Did it every hear? Yeah? 1:41:52.120 --> 1:41:56.320 I did. My mother was like, what is this? What 1:41:56.560 --> 1:41:59.280 happened here? This isn't You're not here anywhere in This 1:42:00.120 --> 1:42:03.280 was awful, But there was one It just didn't work. 1:42:03.320 --> 1:42:09.200 And so the good news was that at the same time, 1:42:09.320 --> 1:42:13.320 Josh and John Folsey and Brand had created Northern Exposure 1:42:13.360 --> 1:42:16.920 as a summer show for CBS another and that show 1:42:17.040 --> 1:42:20.360 was going and because my show failed, I got to 1:42:20.439 --> 1:42:23.559 go on that show with them to see what I mean, 1:42:24.840 --> 1:42:27.120 you know, I had the six in the Summer that 1:42:27.280 --> 1:42:30.840 was gone. They had a fall an order for you know, 1:42:30.880 --> 1:42:33.479 the coming season, and so they hired me to go 1:42:33.560 --> 1:42:37.360 on Northern Exposure and then I was there five years. 1:42:37.400 --> 1:42:40.040 I was there longer than Josh and John. You know. 1:42:40.120 --> 1:42:42.559 David Chase came on at one point when Josh and 1:42:42.640 --> 1:42:45.280 John went off to do commercials and movies and stuff. 1:42:47.240 --> 1:42:49.880 So that's really what happened to me. I mean, Northern 1:42:49.920 --> 1:42:53.800 Exposure was real. It was wonderful. And then I was 1:42:53.840 --> 1:42:56.639 having trouble at work and Mitch started we started seeing 1:42:56.680 --> 1:42:59.479 each other again, or really we started working together a 1:42:59.520 --> 1:43:04.000 little bit. I was having trouble and Mitch, you know, 1:43:04.160 --> 1:43:07.120 was a really good writer, and I remembered that from 1:43:07.120 --> 1:43:11.840 my days. He was my student. But I needed ideas. 1:43:11.960 --> 1:43:14.920 I needed to come in with ideas, and Mitch had 1:43:14.920 --> 1:43:17.320 three or I had two and I had one, but 1:43:17.840 --> 1:43:19.599 they all want Emmy's, do you know what I mean? 1:43:19.640 --> 1:43:22.280 They were really good ideas. It kind of saved my ass. 1:43:22.360 --> 1:43:25.519 At Northern Exposure. We started writing together, me and Mitch, 1:43:25.560 --> 1:43:28.840 and then of course one thing led to another. So 1:43:28.880 --> 1:43:30.560 we did that for five years. 1:43:31.040 --> 1:43:37.480 Okay, that show, David Chase took over the lead character changed. 1:43:37.960 --> 1:43:41.559 You were there in both halves. Yeah, it was very 1:43:41.600 --> 1:43:44.080 different as if you were. What was it like working 1:43:44.120 --> 1:43:45.160 for the show David? 1:43:45.160 --> 1:43:48.000 Well, David hated the show. He had been in another 1:43:48.080 --> 1:43:51.439 Josh and John show called I'll Fly Away, you know, 1:43:51.640 --> 1:43:57.400 very earnest civil rights drama with Sam Waterston, and he 1:43:57.479 --> 1:44:01.920 thought that nor the exposure was just awful. What are 1:44:01.960 --> 1:44:04.120 you saying that the characters parcticularly come out of the 1:44:04.200 --> 1:44:06.960 TV said it lick your face? You know? How was 1:44:07.040 --> 1:44:11.439 David's humor? But he came on the show anyway because 1:44:11.439 --> 1:44:15.439 it was his first really big payday. Frankly, I think 1:44:15.960 --> 1:44:19.200 I think that's my sense of it, and I think 1:44:19.240 --> 1:44:22.920 that's true. But you know, it's not unusual either. So 1:44:22.960 --> 1:44:25.000 it came on the show and that's what happened, and 1:44:25.080 --> 1:44:28.200 he wrecked as far as I was concerned. But I 1:44:28.240 --> 1:44:30.920 don't know. We did some fun stuff even in the 1:44:31.400 --> 1:44:33.840 last couple of years, so I didn't like it much. 1:44:34.479 --> 1:44:36.559 That's kind of what happened in the Sopranos too. It 1:44:36.640 --> 1:44:40.880 kind of ran out for me. I didn't really like 1:44:40.960 --> 1:44:41.639 what it became. 1:44:42.680 --> 1:44:44.680 How did it change? And what didn't you like? 1:44:45.320 --> 1:44:49.879 What the Sopranos are? Yeah, well, you know, when I started, 1:44:50.880 --> 1:44:53.040 Mitch and I were the first people brought on after 1:44:53.080 --> 1:44:58.519 the pilot. You know, David call. We had been working 1:44:58.560 --> 1:45:01.439 with him. He didn't know whether the show was going 1:45:01.520 --> 1:45:03.280 to go, and we had been working with him at 1:45:03.280 --> 1:45:05.680 his office, which was a garage of his house in 1:45:05.720 --> 1:45:09.000 Santa Monica, and developing some other shows and talking. We 1:45:09.080 --> 1:45:14.479 had read Sopranos. He had several drafts, one for the 1:45:14.520 --> 1:45:16.479 one for the networks, and one for you know, the 1:45:16.520 --> 1:45:19.000 not networks, and they were all they were all really 1:45:19.000 --> 1:45:23.719 good and really wonderful. And so David made the pilot 1:45:23.800 --> 1:45:28.200 for Sopranos, and and he aired the pilot. He paid 1:45:28.240 --> 1:45:30.880 for the you know, the show. I think it was 1:45:30.920 --> 1:45:35.280 on a Sony lot in Culver City, maybe, yeah, And 1:45:35.320 --> 1:45:39.400 so he you know, he had food and the lobby 1:45:39.439 --> 1:45:42.120 for you know, the Italian food, and every we all 1:45:42.600 --> 1:45:45.360 went to the show and it was the pilot was wonderful, 1:45:45.479 --> 1:45:49.439 it was great. Mitch and I were working at uh 1:45:49.960 --> 1:45:52.479 Party of five, which was not a good match for us, 1:45:53.120 --> 1:45:57.479 and David called one night and asked me and Mitch, 1:45:58.240 --> 1:46:00.439 if the show went, if we'd come and work on it. 1:46:01.400 --> 1:46:03.640 Because he knew us from Northern Exposure. He knew our 1:46:03.680 --> 1:46:06.000 writing and work, and he knew me from his own show, 1:46:06.600 --> 1:46:11.520 and so nothing happened. This was I think in the summertime, 1:46:12.040 --> 1:46:16.599 and then in December, was right before Christmas vacation. We 1:46:16.600 --> 1:46:19.840 were at work and we were getting notes from the 1:46:19.880 --> 1:46:23.840 bosses at Party of Five, notes on a script that 1:46:23.840 --> 1:46:27.280 we had written, and the secretary, which was which it 1:46:27.360 --> 1:46:30.519 was called an assistant, opened the door and said, there's 1:46:30.560 --> 1:46:34.519 a Tommy Soprano on the phone for you. That was 1:46:34.840 --> 1:46:40.160 Tony's name before the network made him change it, or 1:46:40.160 --> 1:46:44.760 maybe he anyway, he and the Amy and Chris, the 1:46:44.800 --> 1:46:47.599 bosses said you know somebody like that, and they knew 1:46:47.600 --> 1:46:50.599 from the name it was, and Mitch and I knew. 1:46:50.640 --> 1:46:52.479 At that point we were saved that we were going 1:46:52.479 --> 1:46:53.840 to get to go to New York and we're going 1:46:53.880 --> 1:46:57.439 to do this show. And they let us go from 1:46:57.479 --> 1:47:01.120 Party of Five because it was like we were going 1:47:01.240 --> 1:47:03.920 into nowhere. We took a half pay cut to go 1:47:04.000 --> 1:47:06.880 on the show. We did it for fun. We just 1:47:06.920 --> 1:47:09.439 did it for fun. We just loved it, and we 1:47:09.479 --> 1:47:12.120 went there. We made them. We wrote them all and 1:47:12.320 --> 1:47:16.320 filled them all and cast them all, and David edited 1:47:16.320 --> 1:47:20.479 them all and did the post before they aired. So 1:47:20.520 --> 1:47:25.440 we had this like pure experience of just this experience 1:47:25.520 --> 1:47:31.240 of doing something for fun. You know, it wasn't about 1:47:31.240 --> 1:47:34.160 the money. It was just about the show, and everyone 1:47:34.240 --> 1:47:36.880 felt that way. The crew used to wait for the 1:47:36.920 --> 1:47:39.280 scripts to come out to read the scripts. This is 1:47:39.400 --> 1:47:44.080 very unusual because they were so funny and so compelling 1:47:44.200 --> 1:47:47.599 and so interesting. Something was happening, but we didn't. So 1:47:47.640 --> 1:47:49.760 we get back and Elliott says to us, we get 1:47:49.760 --> 1:47:51.680 back to LA because this is all in New York 1:47:51.720 --> 1:47:55.320 and New Jersey. Elliott says, so, now you've had your 1:47:55.320 --> 1:47:58.519 little artistic experience, you have to have to get a 1:47:58.560 --> 1:48:03.120 real job. And so we did. We tried to get 1:48:03.160 --> 1:48:08.200 a job, you know, all these soulless, miserable interviews, and 1:48:08.240 --> 1:48:10.759 I don't think we took a job. I can't remember. 1:48:10.760 --> 1:48:17.400 But the the thing aired in a basement, a sub basement. 1:48:17.600 --> 1:48:20.840 There was our premiere in January, after the year that 1:48:20.880 --> 1:48:24.559 we spent making it. It was just really June to January. 1:48:24.600 --> 1:48:30.760 I guess it happens pretty fast television. In January, we 1:48:30.800 --> 1:48:33.479 had the premiere in the sub basement of Tower Records 1:48:33.520 --> 1:48:36.479 and Times Square. But you know, because Stevie van Zant 1:48:36.640 --> 1:48:39.400 was there, Bruce Springsteen was there, so it had a 1:48:39.439 --> 1:48:42.240 little Jewish going on a little buzz. It was exciting 1:48:42.880 --> 1:48:45.800 to have a premier in New York and so we 1:48:45.880 --> 1:48:49.880 watch it with people and they're coming out. We're in 1:48:49.920 --> 1:48:53.160 the lobby, like you know, you see this about Broadway shows. 1:48:53.520 --> 1:48:55.920 The people that are coming out. We invited friends to this. 1:48:56.080 --> 1:49:00.439 We liked it so much, and they were beaming friends. 1:49:01.520 --> 1:49:03.320 Ruth is one of them, My friend that gave me 1:49:03.360 --> 1:49:05.519 the job in LA She was then working in New 1:49:05.600 --> 1:49:09.080 York as the New York Times restaurant critic, editor of 1:49:09.120 --> 1:49:12.639 Gourmet or something, but she did all that. But anyway, 1:49:12.640 --> 1:49:16.000 they were beaming her and Michael and everyone was just like, 1:49:17.520 --> 1:49:21.160 loved this show, you know, and we knew from that moment. 1:49:21.760 --> 1:49:25.040 You know, we had our after party and John's pizza 1:49:25.120 --> 1:49:27.600 around the corner. It was like freezy coal that we 1:49:27.720 --> 1:49:30.639 slept around the corner and had pizza. It was very 1:49:30.960 --> 1:49:33.320 it was very nothing, you know, it was just a 1:49:33.360 --> 1:49:37.320 little little camp of us. You know, it was really something. 1:49:38.360 --> 1:49:40.679 And then that was that after that, right. 1:49:40.640 --> 1:49:46.200 Okay, many series. The pilot is the first episode. What 1:49:46.400 --> 1:49:48.840 happened with the pilot of the Sopranos, Well. 1:49:48.720 --> 1:49:50.799 That was the pilot that everyone saw on the Cellar. 1:49:52.160 --> 1:49:54.120 No one had seen it at that point. 1:49:54.360 --> 1:49:57.520 Okay, so the pilot was the first episode. 1:49:57.720 --> 1:50:00.240 Oh yeah, and then Liz and I came on the 1:50:00.280 --> 1:50:04.040 second episode and you know, stayed for six years. 1:50:04.520 --> 1:50:08.200 Okay, so at this point in time, Sex and the 1:50:08.240 --> 1:50:11.360 City had launched, but that had it really blew up 1:50:11.400 --> 1:50:16.439 after being after the Sopranos. Ultimately they'd had dream on 1:50:17.320 --> 1:50:21.599 new series on cable, premium cable. We're in not really 1:50:21.600 --> 1:50:24.400 a big deal. I remember getting an email from somebody saying, 1:50:24.400 --> 1:50:28.560 you got to watch this show, and this is it 1:50:28.720 --> 1:50:31.160 A and R guy in the music business, you know. 1:50:31.800 --> 1:50:35.240 And I recorded it back in the VHS did when 1:50:35.280 --> 1:50:38.400 I watched it when I woke up on a Saturday 1:50:38.400 --> 1:50:41.240 at like eleven o'clock, and as soon as it started 1:50:41.240 --> 1:50:44.200 off with the Alabama three track, It's like, wow, I'm 1:50:44.280 --> 1:50:48.240 hooked here, right And then, you know, the first year 1:50:48.439 --> 1:50:50.840 it was a big cult thing. You know, it grew 1:50:50.880 --> 1:50:52.720 over time, so everywhere you went said, don't go to 1:50:52.760 --> 1:50:56.680 the movies, watch the Sopranos. So what was the experience 1:50:56.840 --> 1:50:59.320 like from the inside once it aired. 1:51:05.720 --> 1:51:08.160 Well, I mean it started at night in the basement. 1:51:09.160 --> 1:51:17.720 You know, it was wonderful. What's happened the reviews were spectacular. 1:51:17.800 --> 1:51:19.839 The one guy down in Florida, of course, I remember 1:51:19.880 --> 1:51:22.840 that one. They didn't like it, but everyone else just 1:51:22.880 --> 1:51:26.200 went nuts, you know that they called it. You know, 1:51:27.960 --> 1:51:34.840 I can't I'm tired. I guess Ballzakian something compared it 1:51:34.880 --> 1:51:39.600 to Ballsack or some shit. But it was wonderful. It 1:51:39.680 --> 1:51:42.920 was just, you know, it was wonderful to love something 1:51:43.000 --> 1:51:46.080 so much and have it responded to that way. We 1:51:46.160 --> 1:51:50.040 were all having so much fun. And David said at dinner, 1:51:50.080 --> 1:51:51.800 you know, we were out of dinner before it air, 1:51:51.840 --> 1:51:53.640 and he said, if this doesn't work, that's it for me. 1:51:53.680 --> 1:51:55.920 I'm out of television. He hated television. He wanted to 1:51:55.920 --> 1:52:01.679 be a movie writer. So and we just we really 1:52:01.720 --> 1:52:05.120 didn't know what was going to happen. And then that happened. 1:52:05.320 --> 1:52:09.720 But I always say, if Colin Bine had happened or 1:52:09.800 --> 1:52:13.000 shootings and that show had come out after that, people 1:52:13.000 --> 1:52:15.760 would have been disgusted by the show. That it's so 1:52:15.880 --> 1:52:18.599 much the Veltin Shop and it's so much what's going 1:52:18.680 --> 1:52:23.200 on that people had that it came at a time 1:52:23.280 --> 1:52:26.640 when it could be loved. I do believe that, I 1:52:26.680 --> 1:52:29.200 do believe that if there had been that kind of 1:52:29.240 --> 1:52:34.479 gun violence, you know, in January instead of April. It 1:52:34.520 --> 1:52:37.160 would have been a much different experience for people. 1:52:37.680 --> 1:52:40.880 Now you and Mitch are listed as executive producers. Is 1:52:40.880 --> 1:52:43.200 that from episode one? 1:52:43.560 --> 1:52:48.320 No, we started as I guess co executive producers. Yeah, 1:52:48.560 --> 1:52:52.320 and then we we were in a situation where we 1:52:52.360 --> 1:52:57.240 had to renew our contract I think every year, so 1:52:58.400 --> 1:53:02.639 you know, part of that negotiat would be beside the money, 1:53:02.680 --> 1:53:07.479 the title, you know, And then the negotiation wasn't going 1:53:07.479 --> 1:53:10.200 well I guess in the third year, maybe the second year, 1:53:10.280 --> 1:53:13.720 and we got a great offer NBC for a lot 1:53:13.760 --> 1:53:18.880 of money, and so HBO had to match that price 1:53:18.960 --> 1:53:24.520 and they did. You know, It's like a miracle. So 1:53:24.520 --> 1:53:26.720 so it was like that, you know, it was just 1:53:26.840 --> 1:53:28.920 was lucky and great. But mostly I have to tell 1:53:28.960 --> 1:53:31.160 you that it was so much fun in that writing room. 1:53:31.200 --> 1:53:33.160 It was fun when we read around the table, when 1:53:33.200 --> 1:53:36.240 the actors would come in for every episode and sit 1:53:36.280 --> 1:53:39.640 around the table. And the first episode, I guess it 1:53:39.680 --> 1:53:43.960 was the second episode, you know, after the pilot, Lorraine 1:53:44.000 --> 1:53:47.960 brack I said, look at us, We're all Italians. Because 1:53:47.960 --> 1:53:50.960 everybody was Italian except for Nancy Marshawan and me and 1:53:51.040 --> 1:53:55.080 Mitch you know, everyone was Italian. It was just it 1:53:55.120 --> 1:53:56.160 was great fun. 1:53:57.120 --> 1:54:01.519 Okay, if David Chase came up with the idea, he 1:54:01.680 --> 1:54:06.800 does the pilot, he brings you on board. Who comes 1:54:06.880 --> 1:54:10.720 up with the ideas for every episode? How do you 1:54:10.800 --> 1:54:13.680 decide who's going to write it? How involved are you 1:54:13.800 --> 1:54:17.640 in the overall direction of the show or are you 1:54:17.800 --> 1:54:19.360 just writing certain episodes. 1:54:20.479 --> 1:54:23.920 Well, it began with a bunch of There was me 1:54:24.000 --> 1:54:28.040 and Mitch and a bunch of people in la We met, well, 1:54:28.200 --> 1:54:31.960 Mitch and David and I met in a restaurant in 1:54:32.000 --> 1:54:35.040 the beginning before the offices opened up that we could 1:54:35.080 --> 1:54:38.360 all meet and and David was hiring writers, and he 1:54:38.480 --> 1:54:42.400 hired you know, television writers and people who were around 1:54:42.560 --> 1:54:45.520 to be at that table to see who could you know, 1:54:45.560 --> 1:54:47.760 who could work in the room the whole thing. It 1:54:47.840 --> 1:54:54.920 was in the editing suite of Oliver Stone's office in 1:54:54.960 --> 1:54:57.560 Santa Monica. I forget he had just an Nixon or something. 1:54:58.240 --> 1:55:00.760 And so we're back there and there's a lot of 1:55:00.800 --> 1:55:03.920 us around the table. Frank runs Zuli, who Mitch calls 1:55:04.000 --> 1:55:06.920 the mariner of the show because Frank had been you know, 1:55:07.480 --> 1:55:10.560 I think is it Whitey Bulger was he the Boston guy. 1:55:10.760 --> 1:55:14.560 But you know, Frank had been Spider, he had been 1:55:14.640 --> 1:55:17.800 that person in the Social Club in Boston, so he 1:55:17.880 --> 1:55:22.200 knew this world. And he's a crazy, fantastic writer. So 1:55:22.280 --> 1:55:25.480 he was around the table and there were a bunch 1:55:25.560 --> 1:55:28.840 of other writers, but it was me. It was just 1:55:28.880 --> 1:55:30.920 a few of us that went to New York with David. 1:55:31.120 --> 1:55:34.080 Frank couldn't go because he had four children in la 1:55:34.160 --> 1:55:36.440 and he didn't want to leave. But it was me 1:55:36.480 --> 1:55:39.520 and Mitch and a couple other writers. Not Terry Winter 1:55:39.600 --> 1:55:42.720 didn't come on until later. I think Jason Cahill was 1:55:42.760 --> 1:55:46.000 one of those original ones, and maybe there was another one. 1:55:46.480 --> 1:55:48.800 But you sit in a room, you start at ten 1:55:48.880 --> 1:55:51.920 in the morning. Lunch is brought in, really good lunches 1:55:51.920 --> 1:55:53.800 because David really likes to eat. So it would be 1:55:53.840 --> 1:55:57.720 like Viila Pacatta, you know, from the real Italian restaurant. 1:55:57.720 --> 1:56:01.640 And in Queens there was nobody out there and Queen's 1:56:01.640 --> 1:56:04.840 at that point, no buildings, nothing. The Silver Cup was 1:56:04.880 --> 1:56:07.360 a bread factory and that's where we had our offices, 1:56:08.000 --> 1:56:11.200 very modest to begin with and they became huge, but 1:56:12.600 --> 1:56:15.040 we just you're in the writing room, you're on the 1:56:15.080 --> 1:56:19.600 table and you're just David would have the arc of 1:56:19.760 --> 1:56:23.560 the season on the board, you know, he had he 1:56:23.640 --> 1:56:26.680 knew what the arc of that season was. That the 1:56:26.720 --> 1:56:31.080 first season would concern the mother and the plot against him, 1:56:32.080 --> 1:56:37.200 so we had that vague arc. But also each episode 1:56:37.200 --> 1:56:40.240 had to stand alone, David would say, like a little movie. 1:56:40.800 --> 1:56:44.160 So even though while you were serving the larger story 1:56:44.640 --> 1:56:48.160 and put pushing things in that direction, you'd still have 1:56:48.280 --> 1:56:53.000 to have a different episode every week, and you'd all 1:56:53.760 --> 1:56:58.600 you'd all work to develop ideas, you know, from your 1:56:58.680 --> 1:57:03.320 own experience, or you'd come up with ideas and pitch them. 1:57:03.600 --> 1:57:06.960 But not like in a comedy room where you're talking 1:57:07.000 --> 1:57:09.800 all the time and making jokes and jocking for attention. 1:57:10.360 --> 1:57:13.920 This was more a lot of sitting or a lot 1:57:14.320 --> 1:57:17.600 a lot of sitting around not talking. So when we 1:57:17.640 --> 1:57:20.160 had somebody finally Matt Weiner came in and I think 1:57:20.160 --> 1:57:22.840 the fourth or fifth year from comedy, he wouldn't shut 1:57:22.920 --> 1:57:25.160 up because he was used to that kind of atmosphere. 1:57:25.160 --> 1:57:29.640 But in our room, it was mostly sitting around until 1:57:29.680 --> 1:57:33.160 somebody said something that triggered some other thought from some 1:57:33.320 --> 1:57:37.720 other person. So it was a kind of organic creative process, 1:57:38.000 --> 1:57:40.839 and this would be every day from ten until seven 1:57:41.720 --> 1:57:43.960 in the room. You could go take a phone call 1:57:44.120 --> 1:57:46.600 or something, but that was it, you know, you had 1:57:46.680 --> 1:57:53.600 lunch at that table, and then at some point in 1:57:54.040 --> 1:57:56.720 talking about an episode, you'd have your three stories. That 1:57:57.360 --> 1:58:01.280 television is pretty much structured of A, B and C stories, 1:58:01.320 --> 1:58:05.200 and each story has like a certain number of beats 1:58:06.160 --> 1:58:08.720 in a more for HBO because there was no commercial, 1:58:08.800 --> 1:58:13.480 so we had actually fifty three or sixty pages, so 1:58:13.920 --> 1:58:16.880 say the A story would have twenty beats, beats meaning 1:58:17.000 --> 1:58:20.480 scenes that would tell the story. And so you'd have 1:58:20.560 --> 1:58:23.200 your story and you'd go to the board. David would 1:58:23.240 --> 1:58:25.440 usually go to the board with a piece of chalk. 1:58:27.200 --> 1:58:29.520 Is this what you're asking? Yes, yes, keep going this 1:58:29.680 --> 1:58:32.920 is this is the creative process. And so David would 1:58:32.960 --> 1:58:35.080 go to the board and he'd write down the beats 1:58:35.080 --> 1:58:38.360 of the story. He was really good at especially once 1:58:38.400 --> 1:58:43.400 you knew once like I could be specific about the 1:58:43.400 --> 1:58:47.880 college story because that was just such a I just 1:58:47.920 --> 1:58:50.720 remember that how that process when we came up with 1:58:50.800 --> 1:58:54.880 the college and I think that that happened in La 1:58:55.160 --> 1:58:58.440 who hadn't gone to New York yet when we did college. Yeah, 1:58:58.760 --> 1:59:02.120 I think that's true. David had this idea that he 1:59:02.600 --> 1:59:05.440 wanted to send Tony on a college tour because that's 1:59:05.440 --> 1:59:11.040 a funny situation. Yeah, it was in LA. It's a 1:59:11.080 --> 1:59:13.800 funny situation to begin with, to have a gangster going 1:59:13.840 --> 1:59:17.000 to these you know, institutions of hire learning and all 1:59:17.080 --> 1:59:21.480 that with his daughter. So, but you needed something to happen, 1:59:22.720 --> 1:59:25.120 and you know, it couldn't just be that. There had 1:59:25.120 --> 1:59:27.480 to be something had to happen. You know, it couldn't 1:59:27.520 --> 1:59:30.920 just be driving around. I mean, you could get plenty 1:59:30.920 --> 1:59:33.280 of humor out of that, but you don't have a story. 1:59:33.920 --> 1:59:40.839 So Frank win Zouli said, Tony sees somebody that turned 1:59:41.120 --> 1:59:45.720 a rat, who's you know, who's in the witness protection 1:59:45.840 --> 1:59:49.760 program in New Hampshire. Boom, there's your story. Now you 1:59:49.840 --> 1:59:54.040 have your story. That's it. See you get it. And 1:59:54.080 --> 1:59:58.760 so once David knew and David said, you know, I yes, 1:59:58.960 --> 2:00:01.840 I was, Yes, that's what I was thinking. But you know, 2:00:02.440 --> 2:00:06.520 Frank is the one who said, because once somebody tells 2:00:06.520 --> 2:00:08.640 you something like that, it may may have been in 2:00:08.760 --> 2:00:12.080 your in the cloud up there, but that was it. 2:00:12.160 --> 2:00:14.320 That was the story, that was like what was going 2:00:14.400 --> 2:00:17.400 to happen, And the whole thing just fell in from there, 2:00:17.440 --> 2:00:20.080 and David went to the board like I think right 2:00:20.160 --> 2:00:25.880 then boom boo boom. He did all the beats of 2:00:25.920 --> 2:00:29.680 the story. And then there was another story. There was 2:00:29.760 --> 2:00:33.280 you know, what's her name? Carmela is at home with 2:00:32.840 --> 2:00:36.480 a little boy and she has that flirtation with the priest. 2:00:36.680 --> 2:00:38.960 So Mitch and I went home, and at home we 2:00:39.240 --> 2:00:41.760 wrote the beats to that story separate, you know, because 2:00:41.800 --> 2:00:44.640 we were going to do that. We did that story. 2:00:45.200 --> 2:00:48.120 It was David and I forget the name of another 2:00:48.160 --> 2:00:50.960 writer who didn't stay with the show, but he wrote 2:00:51.000 --> 2:00:55.600 the show with that person, and it's decided just like 2:00:55.640 --> 2:00:58.920 who's who's up, you know, it's like who's kind of 2:00:58.960 --> 2:01:02.720 turned it is? Who suited to the story? I think 2:01:02.800 --> 2:01:05.960 David would probably decide. He ran the show. It was 2:01:06.160 --> 2:01:08.840 very hands on kind of guy. He worked so hard, 2:01:09.560 --> 2:01:15.320 he was so good at it, and so Jim McManus, 2:01:15.320 --> 2:01:17.680 that's who it was. So he and David wrote College 2:01:18.400 --> 2:01:20.920 and that was the only show that HBO ever gave 2:01:21.000 --> 2:01:23.440 us a note on. That's how great it was to 2:01:23.520 --> 2:01:27.560 work with them, because you know, in the network somebody said, 2:01:27.600 --> 2:01:30.560 it's like being pecked to death by ducks, you know, 2:01:30.760 --> 2:01:32.800 they just pick it. Why does he do that? 2:01:32.800 --> 2:01:33.280 Why did they? 2:01:33.320 --> 2:01:36.960 Why does that nothing from HBO? They just they gave 2:01:37.080 --> 2:01:40.040 all the money you wanted, and they gave permission. But 2:01:40.120 --> 2:01:45.280 they didn't want Tony to kill this guy because that 2:01:45.400 --> 2:01:48.680 was a big step for the star of the show 2:01:48.720 --> 2:01:52.600 to go to commit murder. So David did it was 2:01:52.640 --> 2:01:56.320 the only time, you know, it was the only note. 2:01:56.360 --> 2:02:00.360 But David heard it, and he made a scene where 2:02:01.040 --> 2:02:06.640 that the rat that Tony's going to kill almost gets 2:02:06.680 --> 2:02:08.760 a beat on Tony to kill him. Do you know 2:02:08.800 --> 2:02:10.800 what I mean, So that you know that this is 2:02:10.840 --> 2:02:14.800 a dangerous guy who spotted Tony. So now Tony kind 2:02:14.800 --> 2:02:17.480 of has no choice or something. You know. I can't 2:02:17.520 --> 2:02:19.720 remember if Tony knew the guy was trying to kill him, 2:02:19.760 --> 2:02:23.000 but the audience did. I can't remember that part. But 2:02:23.440 --> 2:02:27.360 that's the process, you know. And and you know the 2:02:27.440 --> 2:02:30.000 show where it wasn't the first year, but the show 2:02:30.040 --> 2:02:38.240 where where Paulie and and as Michael Imperial is Christopher Peons. Yeah, 2:02:38.400 --> 2:02:42.160 Pine Barrens there in the woods. You know, we held 2:02:42.200 --> 2:02:46.480 that that episode for a year because it didn't find 2:02:46.480 --> 2:02:50.080 the place in the season somehow. What was I going 2:02:50.160 --> 2:02:53.880 to say about it. Oh, you know, we all broke 2:02:53.960 --> 2:02:56.480 that story in the room, you know, so you could 2:02:56.480 --> 2:02:59.760 sit there and now you know, you're sitting there with 2:02:59.800 --> 2:03:03.960 these really funny people, really funny smart people, what fun 2:03:04.640 --> 2:03:06.880 and you're trying to think what could happen out there 2:03:06.880 --> 2:03:10.600 in the woods, you know, and you know, you know 2:03:10.840 --> 2:03:14.000 Christopher loses a shoe and then he makes a sho 2:03:14.080 --> 2:03:15.919 He's going to make a shoe out of a carpet. 2:03:16.040 --> 2:03:18.520 But it's that kind of creative stuff where you go 2:03:19.000 --> 2:03:21.960 like fiction writing, where you actually go into the scene, 2:03:22.600 --> 2:03:26.680 you know, and you're there playing really seeing what's there, 2:03:26.800 --> 2:03:29.680 what you can fuck around with, you know, and you 2:03:29.680 --> 2:03:32.440 could do anything on that show. You know. I remember 2:03:32.480 --> 2:03:36.960 when you know, when Ralphie killed the stripper. I remember 2:03:37.000 --> 2:03:40.160 that process, you know, and that was like, we needed 2:03:40.200 --> 2:03:43.440 a story where Ralphie has to do you know, we 2:03:43.520 --> 2:03:45.640 had to get rid of you know, Ralfie was going 2:03:45.720 --> 2:03:48.920 to die one way or the other, so he has 2:03:49.000 --> 2:03:52.000 to do something just oh, I know, David didn't want 2:03:52.000 --> 2:03:55.160 any like cuddly gangsters. He wanted these people to be shits, 2:03:55.200 --> 2:03:58.880 you know. So so then you know, so somebody says, well, 2:04:00.720 --> 2:04:06.920 Ralphie kills a dog, kills a stripper's dog, and we're like, no, 2:04:06.960 --> 2:04:09.760 you can't. You can't be killing a dog on television, 2:04:09.920 --> 2:04:13.160 just so you lose the audience with that. So Mick says, well, 2:04:13.200 --> 2:04:15.400 what about if he kills the stripper. Oh, that's fine, 2:04:15.440 --> 2:04:19.200 you know, you can kill the stripper. I mean, frankly, 2:04:20.080 --> 2:04:23.160 I don't think in today's PC atmosphere, I don't know 2:04:23.400 --> 2:04:28.360 if anything ever got out about the conversations in that room. 2:04:28.560 --> 2:04:31.480 You know, there were no governors on any of our motors, 2:04:31.840 --> 2:04:34.920 you know what I mean. Everyone got to play and 2:04:35.240 --> 2:04:41.200 and and just be their worst. It's fun, you know. 2:04:41.240 --> 2:04:46.640 It was funny because you could say anything, and but 2:04:46.720 --> 2:04:49.080 you did edit yourself. You know, you didn't kill a dog, 2:04:49.120 --> 2:04:51.240 although later we did kill a dog. And then House 2:04:51.280 --> 2:04:53.480 of Cards or whatever that show was, they really killed 2:04:53.480 --> 2:04:56.160 a dog. So I guess that tampoo went too. 2:04:58.120 --> 2:05:00.200 It's still a rough one. But let's stay with the 2:05:00.240 --> 2:05:05.320 Pine Bearings, which was a phenomenal episode. Always bothered me 2:05:05.480 --> 2:05:07.320 that the Russian never reappeared. 2:05:09.040 --> 2:05:12.800 The worst part about that episode was that at one 2:05:12.840 --> 2:05:15.960 point the director, and I think it was Colder who 2:05:16.000 --> 2:05:19.040 directed it, maybe not, I can't remember who directed it, 2:05:19.440 --> 2:05:23.120 but he did a shot that was a point of 2:05:23.200 --> 2:05:27.920 view from a tree looking down. Do you understand he 2:05:27.960 --> 2:05:32.280 put a camera up looking down that gave the impression 2:05:32.680 --> 2:05:34.240 that it was from the point of view of the 2:05:34.320 --> 2:05:38.480 Russian and that the Russian had lived, which was just wrong. 2:05:38.920 --> 2:05:42.160 It was just a really wrong. It really bumped. You know, 2:05:42.200 --> 2:05:44.800 I'm not critical about much, but I remember thinking, this 2:05:44.840 --> 2:05:47.200 is a mistake. He should not have stayed in the picture, 2:05:47.960 --> 2:05:50.840 because it's kind of absurd to think that the guy 2:05:51.600 --> 2:05:54.520 would reappear. You know, he was shot in the head. 2:05:56.440 --> 2:05:59.040 I say, that's what I think. 2:05:59.080 --> 2:06:00.520 It's hilarious show. 2:06:01.880 --> 2:06:06.960 Okay, So the episodes were pretty fleshed out before someone 2:06:07.000 --> 2:06:08.000 went away and wrote them. 2:06:08.160 --> 2:06:11.840 Oh god, yes, you break them. You have okay, you 2:06:11.880 --> 2:06:14.760 want to know what really happens. So there's like an 2:06:14.800 --> 2:06:17.520 A story of B story, C story, sometimes a D story. 2:06:17.960 --> 2:06:21.200 You take the beats, you type them up. Somebody types 2:06:21.240 --> 2:06:24.680 them up right. Then she or he brings the type 2:06:24.760 --> 2:06:30.200 of beats into the into the conference room where we 2:06:30.320 --> 2:06:34.680 sit our entire lives away, and I take a scissor 2:06:35.880 --> 2:06:38.720 me because I like to do this, I cut each 2:06:39.040 --> 2:06:41.680 piece of paper so that now there are strips which 2:06:41.720 --> 2:06:44.960 each other beats. So now I have to marry like 2:06:45.880 --> 2:06:49.160 forty pieces of paper together in order, you know, to 2:06:49.200 --> 2:06:52.200 make an arc, to make a shape of a story. 2:06:52.440 --> 2:06:54.520 But I was good at that. I like to I'm 2:06:54.560 --> 2:06:56.560 good at structure, do you know what I mean? And 2:06:56.840 --> 2:07:00.880 everything was already done so, and then you have all 2:07:00.920 --> 2:07:03.520 the little strips of paper arranged in the proper order, 2:07:03.600 --> 2:07:06.640 you know, one, two, three, four by sixt seventy eight, 2:07:06.680 --> 2:07:09.680 you know, like that, You take some scotch tape. This 2:07:09.800 --> 2:07:12.640 is very technical, and you lay it over the pieces 2:07:12.720 --> 2:07:16.640 of paper so that they're all, you know, together, and 2:07:16.680 --> 2:07:19.560 then you can give them back to the assistant so 2:07:19.600 --> 2:07:24.000 that he can type them up. And that's your outline, right, 2:07:24.400 --> 2:07:26.120 very very it's. 2:07:26.040 --> 2:07:28.480 Pretty fleshed out before you write it. 2:07:28.920 --> 2:07:34.440 Oh completely, yes, But that's that's only half the story. 2:07:34.480 --> 2:07:37.160 It still takes three weeks to do the script because 2:07:37.280 --> 2:07:41.280 you have to think about how to serve the scene 2:07:42.280 --> 2:07:46.360 that you've said is going to happen. In other words, 2:07:46.360 --> 2:07:50.280 you know, you know what's you know what the point 2:07:50.800 --> 2:07:53.120 of the scene is, but you don't know the dialogue. 2:07:53.200 --> 2:07:56.240 You don't know what I mean, you know lots of 2:07:56.320 --> 2:07:59.200 things about it, but you still have to write it. 2:08:00.200 --> 2:08:03.120 Not being very articulate, but no, I get it. 2:08:03.160 --> 2:08:06.800 Okay, the writer's room are you are the people writing 2:08:06.960 --> 2:08:10.160 scripts while the writer's room still takes place? 2:08:10.320 --> 2:08:13.840 Or yes, you take your outline and you go home, 2:08:15.760 --> 2:08:21.040 and then after you finish the script, you go with 2:08:21.080 --> 2:08:23.960 your script. Well, Mitch and I would split up and 2:08:24.000 --> 2:08:26.560 he would one of us would stay in the room, 2:08:26.640 --> 2:08:30.760 but one of us would would participate in costume in 2:08:30.840 --> 2:08:35.120 all of the meetings that go with each episode. You 2:08:35.160 --> 2:08:38.800 meet with costumes, you meet with, set design, you meet with. 2:08:39.280 --> 2:08:42.120 Casting is like huge. It takes a lot of time 2:08:42.120 --> 2:08:44.880 and it's the most fun probably of anything on earth. 2:08:46.600 --> 2:08:50.040 So you cast your show and David is there through 2:08:50.080 --> 2:08:53.480 it all. So when something important is going on, like 2:08:53.560 --> 2:08:56.280 those meetings, he will leave the story room and go 2:08:56.400 --> 2:09:00.360 and participate in the meeting with the writer and you know, 2:09:00.400 --> 2:09:04.360 the chief of that department, whatever the department is, like costumes, 2:09:04.400 --> 2:09:04.920 et cetera. 2:09:05.440 --> 2:09:08.560 Let me be very specific. If there are ten episodes, 2:09:08.640 --> 2:09:12.800 let's say, are all ten episodes laid out, and then 2:09:12.840 --> 2:09:17.000 everybody retweets and writes in this process, So people are 2:09:17.080 --> 2:09:21.040 still working out episodes while somebody's back home right in it? 2:09:21.400 --> 2:09:24.960 Oh yeah, yeah, I mean you're up against it all 2:09:25.000 --> 2:09:30.360 the time. You know, it takes like probably I can't remember, 2:09:30.440 --> 2:09:33.880 it's like five weeks to go from the story room 2:09:34.240 --> 2:09:41.080 to filming. But it's a you know, it's a demanding situation. 2:09:41.480 --> 2:09:43.800 That's one of the reasons David would take so long 2:09:43.880 --> 2:09:46.400 between seasons. You know, you go off to France and 2:09:47.240 --> 2:09:50.920 rest because because you're up against it all the time, 2:09:51.520 --> 2:09:55.560 you know, and also sopranos. You know, we were in 2:09:55.720 --> 2:09:58.320 Silver Cup, we were in Queen's We had to load 2:09:58.520 --> 2:10:00.920 you know, we filmed half the time. I'm in New Jersey. 2:10:00.920 --> 2:10:04.600 You had to load the trucks up, take them through Manhattan, 2:10:04.800 --> 2:10:07.000 then go through a tunnel over a bridge into New 2:10:07.080 --> 2:10:10.040 Jersey and be set up to film at six in 2:10:10.080 --> 2:10:14.720 the morning. So you're filming till midnight. You're lucky if 2:10:14.760 --> 2:10:18.040 you get six hours. It goes like that. You know, 2:10:18.400 --> 2:10:21.560 it was just your life. It's your life for those months. 2:10:22.480 --> 2:10:27.320 But you're not always on the set, meaning me, you're 2:10:27.360 --> 2:10:29.600 in the story room a lot, and you get really 2:10:29.640 --> 2:10:31.320 sick of that. You're glad to go on the set, 2:10:31.320 --> 2:10:33.240 and you get really sick of that, You're glad to 2:10:33.240 --> 2:10:36.960 go back in this story room and. 2:10:36.720 --> 2:10:40.520 Being an executive producer is that just the title and 2:10:40.800 --> 2:10:43.280 compensation or did it actually mean anything? 2:10:46.440 --> 2:10:52.720 Well, being a title and compensation is very meaningful, But it. 2:10:52.680 --> 2:10:57.320 Didn't change your responsibilities, is my point. 2:10:59.600 --> 2:11:05.760 Well, I don't know everybody in that room pretty much 2:11:05.800 --> 2:11:09.480 at the end, wasn't exactly because you know, I think 2:11:09.560 --> 2:11:12.480 Terry became one and Matt probably two. You know, there 2:11:12.480 --> 2:11:16.280 were only few people in the room, you know, the 2:11:16.320 --> 2:11:18.640 people that came with us from LA, they didn't stay. 2:11:18.960 --> 2:11:21.040 It was me and then Terry came. It was me 2:11:21.120 --> 2:11:26.280 and Mitch and David. Me and mentioned David and Terry. 2:11:26.960 --> 2:11:30.880 And maybe sometimes there would be freelance writers who'd come, 2:11:31.400 --> 2:11:33.440 and sometimes there would be writers, and maybe there were 2:11:33.440 --> 2:11:35.840 writers who were more there. I can't remember, you know, 2:11:35.840 --> 2:11:38.160 it's a long time ago. But you know, I don't 2:11:38.200 --> 2:11:40.880 want to hurt anyone's feelings. You know, when Frank would 2:11:40.920 --> 2:11:43.840 weigh in from LA, but he was only there for 2:11:43.880 --> 2:11:47.240 the first two or three years. But there weren't many 2:11:47.240 --> 2:11:50.160 people in the room. No, you know. 2:11:50.840 --> 2:11:53.120 Okay, So how does it end for you and Mitch 2:11:53.280 --> 2:11:56.120 with the sopranos. 2:11:56.200 --> 2:12:01.080 As per usual? I guess it's my charming, massive aggressive way. 2:12:01.160 --> 2:12:06.240 I just became disaffected. I didn't like what was happening 2:12:06.240 --> 2:12:09.680 in the room anymore. I didn't like all the gangster stuff. 2:12:10.040 --> 2:12:12.720 The thing became so much about gangsters and so much 2:12:12.720 --> 2:12:19.760 about silly guide jokes, and and Matt and David would 2:12:19.800 --> 2:12:22.720 talk about French foreign films until I just wanted to 2:12:22.720 --> 2:12:27.120 just scream, and I just wasn't enjoying myself. But rather 2:12:27.200 --> 2:12:32.400 than you know, David had this meeting after after season 2:12:32.480 --> 2:12:34.800 five where he called us all out on a Sunday. 2:12:35.120 --> 2:12:38.560 We went, we went of to uh it wasn't Matt 2:12:38.800 --> 2:12:41.000 wasn't there, but it was Terry Winter and Me and Mitch, 2:12:42.000 --> 2:12:44.720 David and his wife was there with him. He called 2:12:44.800 --> 2:12:47.760 us there on Sunday to have a meeting and he said, 2:12:48.400 --> 2:12:51.760 does anyone have it? Because does anyone have it in 2:12:52.360 --> 2:12:56.520 them to continue? Or have we done it? Because of 2:12:56.680 --> 2:12:59.880 HBO is backed up to the money truck to David's house. 2:13:00.080 --> 2:13:01.920 You know what I mean. They're just good to do anything, 2:13:02.240 --> 2:13:06.680 and so do you how do you all feel? And 2:13:06.800 --> 2:13:09.600 Terry Winter's arm shoots up and it's like, yeah, I 2:13:09.600 --> 2:13:12.280 can do it. And once that happens, you know, and 2:13:12.960 --> 2:13:15.120 you're sitting there and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, 2:13:15.160 --> 2:13:18.600 I really don't want to do this anymore. But how 2:13:18.600 --> 2:13:20.840 can I leave this? You know, how can I leave 2:13:21.280 --> 2:13:23.440 this show that I love, the money that I love. 2:13:26.280 --> 2:13:30.480 I just didn't. I didn't have the I didn't say, 2:13:30.960 --> 2:13:34.680 you know what, I'm done. I didn't. I stayed, but 2:13:34.800 --> 2:13:39.760 I was done. And you know, that's a lesson that 2:13:40.360 --> 2:13:43.080 I probably won't pay attention to if it ever happens again, 2:13:43.120 --> 2:13:46.000 I'll do the same thing because I wanted to stay, 2:13:47.400 --> 2:13:51.040 but I but I really I don't think my heart 2:13:51.080 --> 2:13:54.320 was in it. And I just was not part of 2:13:54.360 --> 2:13:59.640 it anymore. The David had it started to kind of 2:13:59.680 --> 2:14:03.040 hate on me. I'd seen it happen with other people, 2:14:03.120 --> 2:14:05.320 but I think I brought a lot of it on myself. 2:14:05.600 --> 2:14:08.360 So that's what happened. It was just personal and it 2:14:08.400 --> 2:14:10.960 was just icky, and oh he brought these other people 2:14:11.000 --> 2:14:14.840 on that we'd worked with before. It just felt the 2:14:14.880 --> 2:14:17.760 tenor of the thing was changing. It wasn't very happy, 2:14:18.280 --> 2:14:20.440 and that is one thing that you don't want in 2:14:20.480 --> 2:14:24.000 your life. And it's me when I'm not happy. And 2:14:24.040 --> 2:14:27.000 so he fired me. He didn't fire Mitch, but he 2:14:27.080 --> 2:14:27.480 fired me. 2:14:28.560 --> 2:14:29.560 But Mitch left with you. 2:14:30.320 --> 2:14:32.480 Oh yeah, Mitch wasn't gonna State without me. 2:14:33.040 --> 2:14:35.800 But this was the final season, correct. 2:14:35.800 --> 2:14:38.560 Well, the season was split up in a couple of 2:14:38.600 --> 2:14:41.160 pieces because it was six it was season six. There 2:14:41.200 --> 2:14:46.640 were six seasons. But you know, I think the last 2:14:46.680 --> 2:14:50.240 part of the sixth season is what I missed, you know, 2:14:50.360 --> 2:14:54.839 the last six episodes or something. Yeah, David was afraid 2:14:54.840 --> 2:14:58.040 that I was going to sue him or something, you 2:14:58.040 --> 2:14:59.960 were going to You're going to hit him because you know, 2:15:00.040 --> 2:15:02.200 I said to him, I've seen you have this problem, 2:15:02.600 --> 2:15:05.000 you know, with a couple of women on the show, 2:15:05.160 --> 2:15:08.600 and he slammed the table so hard. I jumped and said, 2:15:08.600 --> 2:15:10.600 this has nothing to do with your being a woman. 2:15:11.920 --> 2:15:15.120 And I think it just occurred to me at that 2:15:15.200 --> 2:15:18.880 moment that he had probably talked to his HBO about 2:15:18.880 --> 2:15:22.920 this and they wanted to not be sued, you know, 2:15:23.240 --> 2:15:25.520 for you know, and I had said something about him 2:15:25.560 --> 2:15:28.680 and women. But I you know, I wasn't going to sue. 2:15:29.200 --> 2:15:30.840 I was just wanted to get out of there. I 2:15:30.960 --> 2:15:36.840 was devastating. Mitch and I it was awful to take 2:15:36.880 --> 2:15:40.920 our box and leave, you know, a few meager belongings 2:15:40.960 --> 2:15:45.120 and leave. I mean, what David said was that I 2:15:45.200 --> 2:15:48.400 couldn't didn't get the show that our writing was no 2:15:48.560 --> 2:15:53.240 good and forward anymore, and he didn't like it. That's 2:15:53.360 --> 2:15:56.520 that was the basis on which he fired me. And 2:15:56.600 --> 2:16:00.280 so we left and we went We felt really bad, 2:16:00.360 --> 2:16:04.600 you know, relieved bad, and we went to Gettysburg because 2:16:04.640 --> 2:16:07.480 Mitch is like a history major and he's been to 2:16:07.560 --> 2:16:10.080 all of the president's houses and stuff, and we knew 2:16:10.080 --> 2:16:13.720 if we went to Gettysburg that they would have had 2:16:13.760 --> 2:16:19.560 it worse than us Gettysburg. So that's I love Mitch 2:16:19.600 --> 2:16:22.000 for that. You know, He's taken me all kinds of 2:16:22.040 --> 2:16:26.360 places where I would never have gone for good reasons 2:16:27.200 --> 2:16:30.320 that he took me there. But anyway, that's what we 2:16:30.360 --> 2:16:33.720 did the weekend that we were fired. And you know, David, 2:16:33.720 --> 2:16:36.039 I didn't I would see him on the picket line 2:16:36.120 --> 2:16:39.160 or something and turned my back on him and just 2:16:39.280 --> 2:16:43.640 you know, act like drama queen. But fourteen years later 2:16:43.680 --> 2:16:47.959 he called me on the phone. Do you know who 2:16:48.000 --> 2:16:51.720 this is? Yes, I know who it is, And he 2:16:51.800 --> 2:16:54.200 wanted to tell me that he'd been reading some of 2:16:54.240 --> 2:17:00.360 the almost grown scripts and he just wanted to tell me, 2:17:00.480 --> 2:17:02.840 you know that I'd written fourteen years before or whatever 2:17:02.879 --> 2:17:05.080 it was, and he just wanted to tell me what 2:17:05.160 --> 2:17:08.360 a good writer he thought I was. So it was 2:17:08.400 --> 2:17:12.480 his way of making them you know, Amend's or something. 2:17:12.520 --> 2:17:14.200 I don't know what it was. I haven't talked to 2:17:14.280 --> 2:17:19.200 him since, but that's how that's how it ended. And 2:17:19.280 --> 2:17:23.800 Mitch said, you know, it's really remarkable that he called you. 2:17:25.600 --> 2:17:28.240 It's actually kind of a victory for you in a way. 2:17:28.920 --> 2:17:30.879 He said, just don't be a jerk about it. 2:17:32.520 --> 2:17:37.800 Okay, so the final season, you work on the first half, 2:17:37.800 --> 2:17:40.800 you don't work on the second half. Do you watch 2:17:40.879 --> 2:17:43.720 the second half? It is too painful to watch? 2:17:43.879 --> 2:17:46.000 It isn't painful. I just I was sick of it. 2:17:46.200 --> 2:17:49.879 I was sick of the gangsters running over heads, popping 2:17:50.080 --> 2:17:53.280 like melons. I just didn't like that part of it. 2:17:53.320 --> 2:17:56.119 I like the family part, and that had part had 2:17:56.120 --> 2:17:59.280 pretty much played out. By then, We've done everything we could. 2:17:59.600 --> 2:18:03.400 You know that great episode where they get the house 2:18:03.400 --> 2:18:06.879 in New Jersey, This happens Lee's house. We don't all 2:18:06.879 --> 2:18:08.879 the family stuff. It was over for me. 2:18:09.040 --> 2:18:10.920 Okay, then I have to ask. One of my favorite 2:18:10.959 --> 2:18:18.959 things is when Meadows being punished and Tony says, well, 2:18:18.959 --> 2:18:20.520 you know, why don't you come up with the idea 2:18:20.720 --> 2:18:24.320 just take away my gas credit card, and then she 2:18:24.360 --> 2:18:27.160 gets on the phone and tells her friend, Oh, man, 2:18:27.200 --> 2:18:29.320 I got them. So I got my parents so snowed. 2:18:29.720 --> 2:18:30.480 I just love that. 2:18:31.400 --> 2:18:33.280 I don't remember that. That's so funny. 2:18:34.400 --> 2:18:36.520 So it was the family stuff that made it great. 2:18:36.720 --> 2:18:39.760 But you did eventually watch the final episodes. 2:18:40.480 --> 2:18:42.920 I did. I watched the end of it. I just 2:18:42.959 --> 2:18:44.080 watched that last scene. 2:18:45.440 --> 2:18:47.920 I think, I don't really care, but I got to ask, 2:18:48.640 --> 2:18:51.560 what did you think the last scene represented. 2:18:51.959 --> 2:18:58.200 About Tony's future? Yeah, it was my idea that we 2:18:58.200 --> 2:19:04.360 should always live with anxiety in Tony's stomach. That's that 2:19:04.520 --> 2:19:08.640 was my feeling, and I would have maybe represented it differently, 2:19:09.640 --> 2:19:12.920 but I think that I think the effect that it 2:19:13.000 --> 2:19:15.080 had on me when I watched that last scene is 2:19:15.120 --> 2:19:20.360 that you just feel that anxiety, that constant terror that 2:19:20.440 --> 2:19:26.040 he felt the character. And you know, when I describe 2:19:26.040 --> 2:19:30.199 what happened to me there, the atmosphere had become toxic 2:19:30.280 --> 2:19:34.280 in some way. You know that the show, I don't 2:19:34.280 --> 2:19:37.640 think it did Jim that many favors either the character. 2:19:38.760 --> 2:19:43.280 Okay, you're done. How long are you depressed and licking 2:19:43.320 --> 2:19:44.840 your wounds till you do whatever? 2:19:48.760 --> 2:19:54.400 Well? Ah, I know we have a couple houses now three. 2:19:54.560 --> 2:20:00.440 Actually we created a show called Blue Bloods, and we 2:20:00.480 --> 2:20:03.080 had been pitched many things in many shows, because when 2:20:03.080 --> 2:20:05.760 you call off a show like Sopranos, I'm sorry if 2:20:05.760 --> 2:20:09.920 the sound is weird, my voice is so from all right, 2:20:11.760 --> 2:20:14.640 everybody wants you, you know, even though you've been fired. 2:20:16.959 --> 2:20:19.680 People got over that very quickly. But so we had 2:20:19.720 --> 2:20:21.400 lots of things that we could have done. We could 2:20:21.440 --> 2:20:24.199 have done the Americans, we could have run that show, 2:20:24.480 --> 2:20:26.840 or maybe we could have We were kind of offered 2:20:27.120 --> 2:20:29.879 to look at it. It looked too hard to me, 2:20:30.160 --> 2:20:32.800 you know, it looked like I couldn't be so hard. 2:20:32.800 --> 2:20:35.280 I couldn't wrap my hand around it. But friends went 2:20:35.320 --> 2:20:41.200 to work on it was a wonderful show. But we 2:20:41.200 --> 2:20:43.920 were pitched the show. Elliott called and he said, just 2:20:43.959 --> 2:20:45.959 listen to this pitch. You'll hate it. Just do me 2:20:45.959 --> 2:20:48.520 a favor. I owe this person a favor. Just listen. 2:20:48.840 --> 2:20:51.200 And it was Leonard Goldberg, who was also part of 2:20:51.200 --> 2:20:55.400 that like you know our in spelling world. But Leonard 2:20:55.400 --> 2:20:58.640 gets on the phone and we were in our living 2:20:58.760 --> 2:21:01.440 room in New York City, me and Mitch because we 2:21:01.560 --> 2:21:03.920 moved to New York by then. Do the Sopranos, and 2:21:03.959 --> 2:21:08.360 we lived there. We stayed and he pictures us this 2:21:08.600 --> 2:21:13.200 family drama that's a cop show, and he kind of 2:21:13.240 --> 2:21:17.440 had it. It was like a thirty second pitch and 2:21:18.280 --> 2:21:20.160 Mitch and I just looked at each other and said 2:21:20.640 --> 2:21:22.840 and called Elliott and said tell him we'll do it, 2:21:23.400 --> 2:21:25.119 because we knew we could do it. We knew how 2:21:25.120 --> 2:21:27.800 to do it, we saw it, we knew it was 2:21:27.840 --> 2:21:29.800 a good idea. I don't know why nobody thought of 2:21:29.800 --> 2:21:32.840 that it sooner, because it's a great idea and we 2:21:32.920 --> 2:21:35.720 knew we could do it. I went on, you know, 2:21:36.040 --> 2:21:38.840 I would the press tours. I would say things like 2:21:38.959 --> 2:21:42.760 to just infuriate David. Probably. I got tired of writing 2:21:42.760 --> 2:21:45.160 the anti hero and I wanted to see what it 2:21:45.240 --> 2:21:47.760 was to be a hero. And that was kind of true. 2:21:48.840 --> 2:21:50.959 I mean, my problem was that the hero turned out 2:21:51.000 --> 2:21:54.200 to be Tom Sellick, and then when we got him 2:21:54.240 --> 2:21:56.720 to come back to television to be on the show, 2:21:57.280 --> 2:22:00.120 it very quickly became his show, not my show, ye, 2:22:01.120 --> 2:22:03.320 and that that was untenable for me. 2:22:05.640 --> 2:22:07.440 And when you move on from there, so. 2:22:07.480 --> 2:22:10.119 We were fired from there too. So we were fired 2:22:10.160 --> 2:22:12.360 after a year because I couldn't get along with Tom 2:22:12.840 --> 2:22:14.920 But by then we owned a piece of the show 2:22:15.200 --> 2:22:18.400 because by then, you know, writer could do that, right. 2:22:18.560 --> 2:22:21.480 So that's so the show is in its fourteenth year. 2:22:21.720 --> 2:22:24.760 We have created by credit. God bless Leonard Goldberg, who's 2:22:24.800 --> 2:22:29.560 now you know, he's dead. What's a nice way to 2:22:29.600 --> 2:22:33.680 saying it. He's passed on, right, He's dead, he's gone. 2:22:33.840 --> 2:22:34.200 But so. 2:22:36.480 --> 2:22:39.080 He gave us created by credit because we did create it. 2:22:39.120 --> 2:22:41.959 You know, it wasn't that nailed down in terms of 2:22:42.000 --> 2:22:44.640 what city or any of that stuff, but it was 2:22:44.640 --> 2:22:48.640 his idea. But we so we and we owned a 2:22:48.640 --> 2:22:53.000 piece of it. Still we enjoy the benefits of having started, 2:22:53.120 --> 2:22:56.360 having created the show. And you know, we sold our 2:22:56.400 --> 2:22:59.840 ownership position and bought this house and the one in 2:23:00.080 --> 2:23:00.920 Saint John. 2:23:01.680 --> 2:23:03.119 And where's the third house? 2:23:04.080 --> 2:23:05.640 I have a little apartment in the city. 2:23:06.760 --> 2:23:11.040 And then you're off of that show? Do you say 2:23:11.760 --> 2:23:12.920 you're done? What do you do? 2:23:16.560 --> 2:23:21.720 Oh? I wrote my book? Okay, oh no, Because a 2:23:21.760 --> 2:23:24.520 girl that I knew back then had become a literary agent. 2:23:24.560 --> 2:23:26.200 I had lunch with her and she said, you're not 2:23:26.280 --> 2:23:29.680 doing anything. This is what you should do. She worked 2:23:29.680 --> 2:23:32.400 at Rolling Stone in the office then in the old days. 2:23:32.920 --> 2:23:36.240 So she said you know, and so that's what happened. 2:23:36.280 --> 2:23:39.240 I wrote the book, and I loved the book, and 2:23:39.320 --> 2:23:43.039 I felt just about it what you felt about So 2:23:43.120 --> 2:23:45.640 it was so wonderful to read what you had written. 2:23:46.080 --> 2:23:47.360 It meant everything to me. 2:23:48.040 --> 2:23:51.279 Well, the funny thing about it is I get anxious 2:23:51.320 --> 2:23:56.440 before doing these, and occasionally it involves a book that 2:23:56.520 --> 2:24:00.360 I've read month, two months, three months before, and I 2:24:00.480 --> 2:24:02.560 have to ski, you know, I skim the book just 2:24:02.600 --> 2:24:05.360 out of anxiety. And I was thinking about it with 2:24:05.440 --> 2:24:08.120 your book, and I said, I don't I remember everything 2:24:08.120 --> 2:24:10.720 in the book like it really had that much impact 2:24:10.800 --> 2:24:16.320 upon me. And there was similar sensibility, similar alienation. I 2:24:16.360 --> 2:24:19.280 don't have children this week go on and on forever. 2:24:20.000 --> 2:24:23.279 But okay, let's stay with the Sopranos for a minute. 2:24:23.440 --> 2:24:26.360 You know, we've just had the strike, et cetera. When 2:24:26.360 --> 2:24:30.080 you do something that's network television, there's all kinds of 2:24:30.160 --> 2:24:34.920 residuals involved. At this point with something like HBO and 2:24:34.920 --> 2:24:38.240 the Sopranos, is there any ongoing compensation? 2:24:39.000 --> 2:24:44.640 Oh sure, yeah, yeah, just those green envelopes come and 2:24:44.879 --> 2:24:51.039 just cheers you right up. You know, sure, you know, 2:24:51.120 --> 2:24:56.080 we get residuals, We got foreign sales, We've got royalties. Royalty, 2:24:56.240 --> 2:24:58.879 oh you know, royalties. You know, we make a living 2:24:58.959 --> 2:25:03.560 this way. You know, it keeps it keeps this thing going. 2:25:04.760 --> 2:25:07.560 As much says, it costs a lot of money to 2:25:07.600 --> 2:25:11.240 have money, you know. So yeah, we have these houses. 2:25:11.320 --> 2:25:17.200 They're not you know, they're they're just they're they're wonderful 2:25:17.280 --> 2:25:21.200 each they're wonderful places. All three of them were wonderful. 2:25:22.080 --> 2:25:25.000 So yeah, but now you know, I'm miserable because I'm 2:25:25.040 --> 2:25:25.640 not working. 2:25:25.720 --> 2:25:30.000 So there you go, and there's any plans. 2:25:29.560 --> 2:25:32.680 To work, Well, you got me thinking about it again. 2:25:35.640 --> 2:25:39.520 You know, I got to you know, people have wanted 2:25:39.560 --> 2:25:42.039 to adapt the book into some kind of TV or 2:25:42.560 --> 2:25:46.000 dramatic form. And somebody gave me a call about it 2:25:46.000 --> 2:25:48.600 from your what you wrote, but I don't see it. 2:25:49.760 --> 2:25:50.600 I don't see it either. 2:25:51.280 --> 2:25:54.320 Oh good, oh good, thank you, because I you know, 2:25:54.400 --> 2:25:58.240 if somebody tried and it was so stupid, it was this. 2:25:58.400 --> 2:26:00.720 I mean, she's she's a wonderful girl. Who who tried? 2:26:01.000 --> 2:26:04.879 But you know she'd have this writer and basically writers 2:26:04.959 --> 2:26:09.120 like running around with a notepad or recording device. There's 2:26:09.160 --> 2:26:12.199 nothing dramatic there. It's not like you know, this person 2:26:12.240 --> 2:26:17.959 wanted me to watch Daisy Jones and the six do 2:26:18.080 --> 2:26:21.720 something like that. Well, that'd be fine, but that's you know, 2:26:21.800 --> 2:26:25.920 that's got the advantage of having performance, you know, music 2:26:26.040 --> 2:26:28.360 in it. So no matter what you think of it, 2:26:28.440 --> 2:26:29.800 at least it had something. 2:26:31.240 --> 2:26:35.879 Okay, this is a tough question because it veers on sexism, 2:26:35.879 --> 2:26:39.880 and I will be criticized. But what about thinking about 2:26:39.959 --> 2:26:43.480 having children something you ever wanted, something you missed, something 2:26:43.520 --> 2:26:44.400 you never wanted. 2:26:45.720 --> 2:26:48.680 My strength tried to get me to confront this when 2:26:48.720 --> 2:26:51.320 I was forty, and I just couldn't do it. I 2:26:51.360 --> 2:26:56.160 just couldn't confront it. Even I'm sorry, I don't have children. 2:26:56.200 --> 2:26:59.520 I have a niece and nephew who fulfilled that for 2:26:59.680 --> 2:27:02.320 me and have children of their own, so I get 2:27:02.360 --> 2:27:05.959 all the pleasure of that. I don't know who. Somebody 2:27:06.040 --> 2:27:07.800 was saying they don't know who's going to take care 2:27:07.840 --> 2:27:10.800 of them when they're old. I don't really care, you 2:27:10.840 --> 2:27:15.640 know about that. So it's just I'm sorry I didn't. 2:27:15.920 --> 2:27:18.560 You know, people really seem to go nuts over it 2:27:18.600 --> 2:27:19.080 and love it. 2:27:19.720 --> 2:27:19.920 You know. 2:27:20.440 --> 2:27:24.000 I saw John Legend on Voice last night, and you 2:27:24.040 --> 2:27:27.600 know he said he never cried much until he had children, 2:27:28.160 --> 2:27:31.080 you know, because there's so much love there, and I'm 2:27:31.120 --> 2:27:34.120 sorry I missed that. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I 2:27:34.160 --> 2:27:35.480 wish Yeah, I regret. 2:27:36.640 --> 2:27:40.720 Are you a big consumer of films or television at 2:27:40.720 --> 2:27:41.480 this point? 2:27:43.440 --> 2:27:49.240 I watched The Voice. I've watched The Voice. I like 2:27:49.320 --> 2:27:52.480 the I like to see those singers. I just don't, 2:27:53.040 --> 2:27:55.000 you know. And you'd think I'd get sick of it, 2:27:55.080 --> 2:27:57.840 but I just don't. I love the I love the coaches. 2:27:58.120 --> 2:28:01.000 I love how they coach. It's like really watching a 2:28:01.040 --> 2:28:03.840 creative process. I really enjoyed. There was this other show 2:28:03.879 --> 2:28:07.320 about people would come and pitch their songs. I loved 2:28:07.360 --> 2:28:09.560 that show. I wish they would come and do it again. 2:28:09.879 --> 2:28:13.680 It was another reality show. I forget the name of it. 2:28:14.920 --> 2:28:20.000 But that's kind of funny because that's not a show 2:28:20.080 --> 2:28:20.520 you made. 2:28:22.560 --> 2:28:26.320 Oh, I don't watch Blue Blood's either, you know, I just. 2:28:27.879 --> 2:28:30.720 You know it's funny. Mary kay Place told me the 2:28:30.760 --> 2:28:33.520 same thing. She watches The Voice, too, So maybe there's 2:28:33.560 --> 2:28:34.840 some element there. 2:28:35.200 --> 2:28:39.520 Oh I knew I liked that woman. Yeah, I do 2:28:39.560 --> 2:28:43.120 love it. But I don't think I want to write 2:28:43.120 --> 2:28:46.160 another television show. I don't know what to do. Frankly, 2:28:46.360 --> 2:28:49.800 I don't. It's horrible. Actually, these periods in my life. 2:28:50.120 --> 2:28:53.680 I mean I've had follow periods, but this one takes long, 2:28:54.320 --> 2:28:54.879 long one. 2:28:55.040 --> 2:28:56.560 So what eats up your time? 2:29:00.160 --> 2:29:03.200 Well, we have a country house now, so I've become 2:29:04.280 --> 2:29:07.800 you know, in the summertime, I did a lot of weading. 2:29:08.080 --> 2:29:11.680 That's w E E D I en G. The rest 2:29:11.760 --> 2:29:17.840 is reading, watching shitty television and no just reading weading, 2:29:20.320 --> 2:29:22.720 just nothing. 2:29:24.000 --> 2:29:26.160 What do you read right now? 2:29:26.200 --> 2:29:32.039 I'm into David Sedaris, who's a great companion, and I 2:29:32.080 --> 2:29:35.640 read a wonderful novel recently. I don't read fiction anymore much. 2:29:36.640 --> 2:29:42.480 I just don't care about it. So it depends. I 2:29:42.520 --> 2:29:47.360 was reading the Bokov's memoir, you know, I picked that up. 2:29:47.440 --> 2:29:51.400 I had a library library full of books here that 2:29:51.440 --> 2:29:53.800 I haven't read, so I'll just pick one up and 2:29:53.879 --> 2:29:55.080 read it. Whatever it is. 2:29:55.920 --> 2:29:59.320 Now, you have the three houses, you have a husband, 2:30:00.200 --> 2:30:03.720 We had you know, COVID, which made everything different. But 2:30:03.840 --> 2:30:10.760 how social are you at this point in your life. 2:30:11.800 --> 2:30:14.760 Compared to watch? Compared to you, I don't know. 2:30:15.200 --> 2:30:17.320 I mean, are you the type of person who's emailing 2:30:17.360 --> 2:30:19.600 and calling friends all the time going out? 2:30:19.879 --> 2:30:23.280 Are you more of a homebody? And it's like I'm 2:30:23.280 --> 2:30:27.680 a homebody. We have a lot of friends when we 2:30:27.720 --> 2:30:29.320 go to the city. We can't go to the city 2:30:29.400 --> 2:30:32.080 much because our dog is seventeen and a half plus, 2:30:32.520 --> 2:30:34.800 so we really are stuck here in the country with him, 2:30:34.959 --> 2:30:38.000 cleaning up after him and taking care of him, and 2:30:38.040 --> 2:30:40.160 we can't travel. We can't go to Paris, we can't 2:30:40.160 --> 2:30:42.320 do any of that stuff. So we're just basically here 2:30:42.320 --> 2:30:45.640 on Shelter Island. We have really good friends here that 2:30:45.680 --> 2:30:48.680 we've made. We bought the house right before COVID, and 2:30:48.760 --> 2:30:52.040 right we bought the house in Saint John right before COVID. 2:30:52.040 --> 2:30:55.240 It's just lucked out that way, so we spent COVID 2:30:55.360 --> 2:30:59.360 in both places, which was perfect because and you know, yeah, 2:30:59.400 --> 2:31:03.440 so we've just been out here in the country and 2:31:03.520 --> 2:31:05.320 I sold the place in the city and got a 2:31:05.360 --> 2:31:07.600 smaller place in the city. But we can't go there 2:31:07.640 --> 2:31:11.080 because it's the dog. Can't be there. It's too hard 2:31:11.080 --> 2:31:12.039 to have him there. 2:31:12.240 --> 2:31:14.560 One point of cleanup. And it's funny we're talking about 2:31:14.560 --> 2:31:18.920 the dog. You sold your interest in Blue Bloods. Yeah, 2:31:18.959 --> 2:31:21.840 this is a big thing in the music business. You 2:31:21.959 --> 2:31:25.640 sold your interest. Did you sell it back to the 2:31:25.800 --> 2:31:27.400 owners or to a party? 2:31:28.000 --> 2:31:29.280 No owners? 2:31:30.080 --> 2:31:30.360 Was it? 2:31:31.080 --> 2:31:36.200 God? Yeah, I think with CBS, right. I think they 2:31:36.240 --> 2:31:40.840 came to somebody at ICM with an offer. We don't 2:31:40.879 --> 2:31:44.320 have children, and so you know, it would have been 2:31:44.360 --> 2:31:47.880 a very valuable thing to you know, it's a lot 2:31:47.879 --> 2:31:51.959 of points less because I got fired after the first year. 2:31:52.320 --> 2:31:54.879 We would have a few more if I hadn't, but 2:31:55.680 --> 2:31:59.000 a significant amount and if it would have been a 2:31:59.000 --> 2:32:04.440 great thing to leave. But we just decided to take 2:32:04.480 --> 2:32:06.760 the money. And it's good we did because of COVID, 2:32:07.360 --> 2:32:10.440 because if COVID had happened, the networks, you know, they 2:32:10.480 --> 2:32:14.120 would have said, like they would have said, oh, we're 2:32:14.160 --> 2:32:16.240 not making any money now, there's no money. They wouldn't 2:32:16.280 --> 2:32:18.880 even give you the dribs and drags that they had 2:32:18.920 --> 2:32:22.039 to start giving us. So this was enough money so 2:32:22.120 --> 2:32:25.360 that we could change that would be meaningful. In other words, 2:32:25.440 --> 2:32:27.800 we could buy a summer house, which was meant to be, 2:32:28.480 --> 2:32:30.960 and we could buy the place we'd been renting for years, 2:32:30.959 --> 2:32:34.879 a very modest house in Saint John, but beautiful. You know, 2:32:34.920 --> 2:32:37.959 we're renting it. And so it just happened that people 2:32:38.040 --> 2:32:41.200 who were we rented it from, we're selling it. So 2:32:41.240 --> 2:32:43.959 we bought it. You know, it's nothing, it's you know, 2:32:44.000 --> 2:32:47.840 it's not like a manner in Scotland or something. You know, 2:32:48.400 --> 2:32:51.240 none of it is very grand, but it's just pretty great, 2:32:51.520 --> 2:32:54.480 you know. But still you have I've been painting, you know, 2:32:54.560 --> 2:33:00.359 I started life as a kind of artist. So I've 2:33:00.400 --> 2:33:03.560 been painting. So I have a painting studio. But this 2:33:03.640 --> 2:33:07.360 summer I came down with a case of cancer. So 2:33:07.440 --> 2:33:15.959 I really spent August and September dealing with that. So 2:33:16.360 --> 2:33:18.800 that was a surprise. You know, I'm seventy eight years old, 2:33:19.240 --> 2:33:21.400 so there was no reason that I would for me 2:33:21.520 --> 2:33:23.680 to think that I would escape this kind of thing. 2:33:24.600 --> 2:33:27.560 But they found, quite by accident, a small leision on 2:33:27.600 --> 2:33:31.720 my lung, in my lung which turned out after a 2:33:31.760 --> 2:33:36.080 biopsy to be cancer. I have a wonderful doctor at 2:33:36.879 --> 2:33:41.920 Mount Sinai, and he went in there and took it out. 2:33:42.160 --> 2:33:45.160 But still it was major surgery. And I had never 2:33:45.400 --> 2:33:49.039 had an experience like this, and so I look at myself. 2:33:49.080 --> 2:33:51.960 I'm so pale. I couldn't swim or anything, do you 2:33:51.959 --> 2:33:54.520 know what I mean. It really wiped me out. So 2:33:54.560 --> 2:34:00.400 I did paint. I'm not quite back, so I may 2:34:00.440 --> 2:34:03.240 paint again. I may. I have a studio here with 2:34:03.480 --> 2:34:05.440 you know, the paints and the easel in it. I 2:34:05.520 --> 2:34:09.240 might put right, I moved some of the furniture from 2:34:09.240 --> 2:34:12.440 New York City, and I might get a couch and 2:34:12.760 --> 2:34:15.720 go up there with my computer, you know, write something. 2:34:15.760 --> 2:34:16.959 But I just don't know what to write. 2:34:17.000 --> 2:34:17.200 Get. 2:34:17.360 --> 2:34:19.160 I was going to write about my nose job, but 2:34:20.120 --> 2:34:23.199 just said so dreadful. I just. 2:34:24.879 --> 2:34:28.200 You know, I can't talk about what you feel internally. 2:34:29.200 --> 2:34:31.279 But I have not read that book. 2:34:31.920 --> 2:34:35.280 Which book, the nose job book. You know, a friend 2:34:35.320 --> 2:34:39.320 out here is a psychoanalyst and he, you know, he 2:34:39.400 --> 2:34:42.840 has these patients, women you know, have had, has a 2:34:42.840 --> 2:34:45.720 couple of them, and they come to him and obviously 2:34:45.840 --> 2:34:49.280 they have nose jobs. But he can't b broach the subject. 2:34:49.560 --> 2:34:52.160 But they don't bring it up. So it is like 2:34:52.240 --> 2:34:58.360 this weird subject. And I wrote my thesis actually at 2:34:58.400 --> 2:35:03.000 IOWA is titled straight Nose, and it was a story 2:35:03.040 --> 2:35:07.680 about my nose job. But it's so self pitying and yucky. 2:35:08.320 --> 2:35:09.920 I just don't know how to do it. 2:35:10.000 --> 2:35:11.680 You know, I'm not telling you what to do, and 2:35:11.760 --> 2:35:12.840 I can't read about. 2:35:12.600 --> 2:35:15.480 But I wish you would, would you could. 2:35:15.280 --> 2:35:17.520 You well believe me, I got that instinct. I can 2:35:17.520 --> 2:35:20.680 tell you what to do all day long. But the 2:35:20.879 --> 2:35:25.440 point is, people have plastics. You know, it's one thing 2:35:25.480 --> 2:35:27.760 if you're in an accident or something. People who have 2:35:27.800 --> 2:35:34.080 elective surgery, cosmetic surgery, they are always hourly positive about it. 2:35:34.400 --> 2:35:38.600 Always they say they gave them confidence, the results were good. 2:35:39.120 --> 2:35:41.720 You never you might hear someone say I got a 2:35:41.760 --> 2:35:44.800 bad nose job, bad boob job, whatever, you do. Hear 2:35:44.840 --> 2:35:48.800 those stories, but everyone says how great it is. Not 2:35:48.920 --> 2:35:51.040 to mention the fact that people get older and then 2:35:51.120 --> 2:35:53.280 they go on a run of plastic surgery, just like 2:35:53.320 --> 2:35:57.760 people go on a run of tattoos. So the questions 2:35:57.800 --> 2:36:02.320 you raise have never been raised in public, you know. 2:36:02.520 --> 2:36:07.000 So for me, that's a fascinating subject. Having had family 2:36:07.080 --> 2:36:10.879 members who got those jobs. Believe me, I've heard their story. 2:36:11.200 --> 2:36:15.480 They have never expressed any regret. If anything, they tell 2:36:15.520 --> 2:36:16.480 other people to get one. 2:36:16.680 --> 2:36:18.879 Maybe they're mentally healthy human beings. 2:36:19.280 --> 2:36:20.760 Nobody's mentally healthy. 2:36:20.800 --> 2:36:22.400 Do you have to think of that? No, I don't know. 2:36:23.080 --> 2:36:27.840 If I had a daughter and I have counsels, one 2:36:28.000 --> 2:36:31.840 person specifically, do not want she got a nose job, 2:36:31.879 --> 2:36:35.480 and now she's so ordinary, you know, and she was 2:36:35.520 --> 2:36:38.040 so young when she got it. She's going off to college. 2:36:38.160 --> 2:36:41.600 You know, she wanted to be pretty. And you know 2:36:43.280 --> 2:36:46.360 you look at like Piedro Amaldebobar. However, you say it 2:36:46.400 --> 2:36:50.520 that woman in the Spanish movies with this sernazola, you 2:36:50.600 --> 2:36:52.160 know that's your face. 2:36:53.000 --> 2:36:57.280 How about the woman in Fouda. First season of Fouda? 2:36:57.920 --> 2:36:58.600 Can I watch that? 2:37:00.080 --> 2:37:02.160 You know, I don't know what kind of show you like? 2:37:02.720 --> 2:37:02.879 Good? 2:37:03.200 --> 2:37:06.560 Just Fauta is great. It's an action show, very visceral, 2:37:06.920 --> 2:37:10.600 and every season is good. If I'm talking about the 2:37:10.640 --> 2:37:16.960 best shows on streaming television, you know you're talking about 2:37:17.000 --> 2:37:19.920 Happy Valley, but the latest season wasn't as good as 2:37:19.920 --> 2:37:22.840 the early stuff. You're talking about the French show The 2:37:23.000 --> 2:37:28.280 Bureau the Fota is great, but later than that. And 2:37:28.879 --> 2:37:31.560 you know, the conventional wisdom is the Danes in these 2:37:31.640 --> 2:37:34.080 relas make the best television, and I would pretty much 2:37:34.080 --> 2:37:34.720 agree with that. 2:37:35.120 --> 2:37:37.600 Yeah. No, we went to Copenhagen and did a show 2:37:39.320 --> 2:37:41.720 with somebody there. You know, we tried to do the 2:37:41.720 --> 2:37:44.480 American version, so we had that deal. We did do that, 2:37:45.080 --> 2:37:47.840 and you know, they support their artists over there. All 2:37:47.920 --> 2:37:52.920 of the artists over there want to come to La experience. 2:37:53.720 --> 2:37:57.680 You know, there's this phenomenal show on Netflix. They just 2:37:57.680 --> 2:38:01.040 put out a prequel. Did you watch under Cover on Netflix? 2:38:01.320 --> 2:38:03.320 Now? Should I see? You know? 2:38:03.440 --> 2:38:06.400 As I say, this is a little difficult because it 2:38:06.560 --> 2:38:11.280 veers on your past history in that it is a 2:38:11.400 --> 2:38:19.080 dope dealer. It's a Belgian show, Belgian Dutch collaboration. But 2:38:19.400 --> 2:38:26.160 the lead actor is unique. I mean Tony Soprano evidenced 2:38:26.520 --> 2:38:29.920 and intelligence. This guy does not. This guy streetsmart It's 2:38:30.000 --> 2:38:34.039 far from dumb, and it's slow and it's tense, whereas 2:38:34.040 --> 2:38:37.959 the Soprano's more action. So you start by watching Undercover. 2:38:38.400 --> 2:38:42.280 There are three seasons of Undercover, Okay, Then there is 2:38:42.360 --> 2:38:48.119 a prequel movie called Ferry fe r r y, then 2:38:48.680 --> 2:38:51.680 two weeks ago or you know, whenever it's people listen 2:38:51.720 --> 2:38:54.920 to this. At the beginning of November, they launched a 2:38:54.959 --> 2:38:58.959 prequel series called Ferry The Series. But it turns me 2:38:59.120 --> 2:39:03.640 on is in Hens City anxiety. You rarely get that 2:39:04.640 --> 2:39:09.840 in television. Have you seen the Bureau? No, the Bureau, 2:39:10.480 --> 2:39:13.119 the Bureau. I mean you got to pay for some channel, 2:39:13.160 --> 2:39:15.720 I forget. No, we got a lot of stuff, but 2:39:15.840 --> 2:39:17.720 this is one of those unique channels. I don't know 2:39:17.760 --> 2:39:21.440 whether it's Mega Hurtz or Sundance now or something. But 2:39:22.160 --> 2:39:27.120 and this is a legendary show. But at times it's quiet. 2:39:27.240 --> 2:39:31.400 It's so intense. And in this latest series of Ferry, 2:39:31.480 --> 2:39:34.480 there are a couple of episodes that are so intense 2:39:35.560 --> 2:39:38.920 and they don't do the obvious thing. It's it's really good. 2:39:39.400 --> 2:39:42.160 Okay, I've written all this down. 2:39:42.840 --> 2:39:45.039 You know, I could go on and on streaming television. 2:39:45.080 --> 2:39:49.879 I do not find film satisfying anymore. It's, you know, forget. 2:39:50.040 --> 2:39:52.640 The do what do you watch? I just watching my 2:39:52.720 --> 2:39:56.440 gizmo in bed. Mitch. Mitch has a big TV down here, 2:39:56.480 --> 2:39:57.360 but I do it. 2:39:57.560 --> 2:40:02.760 Okay, you know, just you know, we got a Samsung 2:40:02.879 --> 2:40:06.240 television in two thousand and seven that was astoundingly good. 2:40:07.200 --> 2:40:09.760 And four years ago my girlfriend, who watches a lot 2:40:09.760 --> 2:40:12.680 of televisions, I want to get a new TV, said no, 2:40:12.840 --> 2:40:15.879 this TV is so good. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. 2:40:16.760 --> 2:40:20.119 We got this TV that is the standard, the one 2:40:20.120 --> 2:40:27.119 that everybody has at Hollywood. This lgo led mind blowing, wow, 2:40:27.200 --> 2:40:27.879 mind blowing. 2:40:28.480 --> 2:40:31.880 It's like not in a week goes by. When Mitch 2:40:32.040 --> 2:40:35.280 just says it wants a new TV, It's like, get it. 2:40:35.640 --> 2:40:39.840 Quest Now there's a Sony. You know, now there's a 2:40:40.840 --> 2:40:42.920 it used to be forever that was the standard and 2:40:42.920 --> 2:40:45.560 that's what everybody has. There's a competitive Sony now. But 2:40:45.600 --> 2:40:49.440 the differences are you know, when you watch in four K, 2:40:50.480 --> 2:40:53.240 which is only you know, a six percent difference, it's 2:40:53.280 --> 2:40:55.920 just mind blowing. I mean, as I say, I didn't 2:40:55.920 --> 2:40:59.359 want a new TV. You know, it's under two thousand 2:40:59.360 --> 2:41:01.640 dollars if you want sixty five or less if you 2:41:01.640 --> 2:41:03.120 want to. It's like anything. When you go to like 2:41:03.160 --> 2:41:05.720 seventy five, you pay an extra grand, but of course 2:41:05.800 --> 2:41:08.240 get the biggest size you can. I watch a certain 2:41:08.240 --> 2:41:10.400 amount of stuff on the iPad too. I find it 2:41:10.600 --> 2:41:16.600 very intimate. But then you know, these screens are big 2:41:16.680 --> 2:41:19.680 enough that it's like watching the movie. That's all it is. 2:41:20.440 --> 2:41:22.879 But I'm hearing from people all day long. There's so 2:41:23.000 --> 2:41:25.760 many opportunities. But to sit in front of the flat 2:41:25.800 --> 2:41:28.360 screen and get this is another thing makes me crazy. 2:41:28.360 --> 2:41:31.400 The week by week stuff. It's just fucking insane to 2:41:31.680 --> 2:41:34.640 marinate in a series. I just probably the thing I 2:41:34.720 --> 2:41:36.360 like to do most other than go skiing. 2:41:39.400 --> 2:41:41.560 Skiing. 2:41:41.560 --> 2:41:44.440 It is a separate conversation, Robin, I think it is. 2:41:45.800 --> 2:41:47.600 You're not gonna get very far talking. 2:41:48.640 --> 2:41:52.520 Okay, I'm gonna let the audience off. The look so 2:41:52.840 --> 2:41:54.480 Rob and I want to thank you so much for 2:41:54.520 --> 2:41:56.760 taking your time to talk to me and my audience. 2:41:57.160 --> 2:41:59.480 Well, it's been really fun. 2:42:01.280 --> 2:42:26.560 Until next time. This is Bob left sids