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Speaker 1: What is your best feature? M hard to say. Persistence

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Speaker 1: Maybe persistence. What's your worst?

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Speaker 2: Maybe persistence, the double edged sort of persistence. Well, you

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Speaker 2: don't build a foundation and call it the Gary Sines

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Speaker 2: Foundation without a little persistent.

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Speaker 3: Hen Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to Arroyo Grande, where we dive

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Speaker 3: into the wild currents of this culture and talk to

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Speaker 3: some incredible culture makers and fault leaders and just exemplary people.

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Speaker 3: Today's no exception actor director Gary Siniche joins me in

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Speaker 3: a moment. Now people know Gary for his incredible work

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Speaker 3: with veterans and their families from Forrest Gump and his

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Speaker 3: TV work, but he also revolutionized the theater and he's

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Speaker 3: a great example of someone blazing their own path and

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Speaker 3: sacrificing for others.

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Speaker 1: But first, a little free flow.

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Speaker 3: I came across a bizarre article the other day that

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Speaker 3: I hoped was a joke, and it wasn't. It read

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Speaker 3: I'm in love with my AI boyfriend. We have sex,

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Speaker 3: talk about having children, and even gets jealous, but my

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Speaker 3: real life lover doesn't care.

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Speaker 1: It goes on.

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Speaker 3: Sarah and Jack got married on September fourth, twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 3: in an intimate sunset ceremony at the park. The happy

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Speaker 3: couple consummated their union in the honeymoon suite of a

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Speaker 3: theme park's grand hotel.

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Speaker 1: Here's the quote.

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Speaker 3: It was exactly what my idea of the perfect wedding

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Speaker 3: should be. The bride Sarah told the Daily Mail her idea. Now,

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Speaker 3: let's stop right there. This is the problem. Sarah has

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Speaker 3: a huge problem. Her boyfriend is her idea. He's not real.

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Speaker 3: Jack is not a man or even a boyfriend. He's

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Speaker 3: AI code. He's a chatbot, like the chatbot at your

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Speaker 3: credit card company. Would you date a person like that?

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Speaker 3: I don't think so. The article goes on, Sarah from

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Speaker 3: Oregon is just one of a growing number of people

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Speaker 3: seeing companionship in artificial intelligence. My favorite bit is Jack,

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Speaker 3: the AI boyfriend, refused to take their relationship to the

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Speaker 3: next step. Well, that would be because the free app

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Speaker 3: only permits platonic discourse.

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Speaker 1: But have no fear.

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Speaker 3: Sarah quickly paid three hundred bucks for the pro version

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Speaker 3: of the app, which has no limitations on the sexy talk.

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Speaker 3: They don't call it the pro version for nothing, But newsflash,

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Speaker 3: Jack can't take your relationship to the next step, Sarah,

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Speaker 3: Jack has no agency. Jack is a program. The scary

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Speaker 3: thing is Sarah is not alone. They are likely hundreds

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Speaker 3: of millions of people now dating AI boyfriends and girlfriends.

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Speaker 3: Appertar claims that more than two hundred and twenty five

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Speaker 3: million people have downloaded AI companion apps from the Google

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Speaker 3: play Store. They're putting the play in store, by the way.

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Speaker 3: They also reveal that AI girlfriend has been downloaded seven

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Speaker 3: times more than AI Boyfriend, so men may be the

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Speaker 3: largest consumers.

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Speaker 1: Good going guys.

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Speaker 3: Great Split Metrics found that the country's most frequenting these

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Speaker 3: digital companions are in order, Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

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Speaker 3: The Mozilla Foundation did an extensive survey and found that

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Speaker 3: these AI companions may not really love you, but they

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Speaker 3: do gather all your personal data.

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Speaker 1: Dummy.

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Speaker 3: Their report says, these AI companions also have the worst

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Speaker 3: privacy guards of any products they have reviewed. This is

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Speaker 3: like a girl who you date and she takes notes

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Speaker 3: and pictures and she shares them with everyone. Jack and

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Speaker 3: Jill are suddenly not so dreamy? Are they worse? Mozilla

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Speaker 3: warns about the disturbing amount of themes relating to violence

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Speaker 3: and underage abuse, all for five bucks a month. This

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Speaker 3: is not romance, This is digital abuse. It should also

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Speaker 3: scare the hell out of all of us. In twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty three, the Surgeon General warned of an epidemic of loneliness.

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Speaker 3: Young adults say they're twice as likely to feel lonely as.

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Speaker 1: Those over sixty five. Do you want to know why?

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Speaker 1: Because those over sixty.

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Speaker 3: Five grew up in a healthy culture, surrounded by real

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Speaker 3: people and actual intimacy. They had real hurt and love,

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Speaker 3: unlike this fantasyland virtual facade that you become accustomed to. Here,

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Speaker 3: life is complicated and it comes with no filters, boys

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Speaker 3: and girls. These AI companions, they're digital mirrors. It's just

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Speaker 3: reflecting back what it's been programmed to regurgitate. Whatever you like.

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Speaker 3: It replicates even Sarah's ideal theme park wedding. What Jack

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Speaker 3: and Company lack is spontaneity, humor, even anger. And it

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Speaker 3: won't make any demands on you because virtual companions are

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Speaker 3: like digital pets or digital farmland. When they share your data,

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Speaker 3: you might get crapped on, but you can't live off

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Speaker 3: their produce. Look, I've been married for thirty years. Let

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Speaker 3: me give you a little insight. I don't know much,

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Speaker 3: but I know this. If your relationship doesn't come with

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Speaker 3: a few bumps in the road. It's not a real relationship.

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Speaker 3: You might be able to use your AI to cheat

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Speaker 3: on your essays or write an email, but they will

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Speaker 3: not grant your authentic human experience or lead to true love.

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Speaker 3: Put down the phone and go have a coffee or

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Speaker 3: a dinner with a real person. Go experience a real

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Speaker 3: heart brob and heartbreak. It may not be your idea

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Speaker 3: of a perfect mate, but it could be your actual, perfect,

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Speaker 3: imperfect mate. Now I want to go to a man

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Speaker 3: who always has both feet in reality.

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Speaker 1: He is an Emmy and.

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Speaker 3: Tony Award winning actor director, best known for his Oscar

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Speaker 3: nominated turn as Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump. But before that,

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Speaker 3: Gary Sinise founded a theater company in Chicago's Steppenwolf that

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Speaker 3: literally redirected the American theater. Along with John Malkovich and

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Speaker 3: Joan Allen Lori Medcalf, they transformed acting and while conquering

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Speaker 3: television and film, Snise turned his attention to serving veterans

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Speaker 3: and their families. At home, he gave his time to

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Speaker 3: caring for his wife and his son, who were battling cancer,

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Speaker 3: and Gary Sinise has spent the last few years completing

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Speaker 3: the mission of his son, Mac. The young composer lost

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Speaker 3: his battle with cancer in twenty twenty four, but.

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Speaker 1: His music lives on.

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Speaker 3: Gary Sinise's is an amazing tale of purpose, service to others,

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Speaker 3: and remaining grounded in reality. Here's my interview with Gary Sinise.

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Speaker 3: First of all, Gary, I love that we're in. This

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Speaker 3: is a part of your foundation, but it's dedicated to

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Speaker 3: your son, Mac, who we're going to talk about a

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Speaker 3: little later. And he was one who started the first

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Speaker 3: podcast for you here.

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Speaker 1: That's right. How did that come to be?

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Speaker 4: We were in Woodland Hills, California at that time. That's

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Speaker 4: where the foundation was. Mack came to work for the

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Speaker 4: foundation in twenty seventeen. He was a drummer. He was touring,

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Speaker 4: you know, doing the touring thing with different bands and

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Speaker 4: going around. He went to the Philippines, and he went

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Speaker 4: to Europe, and he went here and there, and you know,

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Speaker 4: all across the country doing the touring thing. And he

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Speaker 4: was starting to maybe starting to touring, you know, I

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Speaker 4: just didn't want to do it much, you know, just

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Speaker 4: an excellent, excellent drummer from the time he was nine

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Speaker 4: years old.

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Speaker 3: Er.

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Speaker 1: No, he had a great sense of rhythm.

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Speaker 3: You can hear that even in the compositions and the

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Speaker 3: stuff you've added to the beginning of some of these recordings.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you can hear that percussive. Oh yeah.

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Speaker 3: His rhythmic sense is really well when he's playing the harmonica, too,

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Speaker 3: which we'll talk.

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Speaker 1: About in a little bit.

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Speaker 3: I want to go back because when I sat in

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Speaker 3: this chair behind you is a book about Steppenwolf, and

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Speaker 3: I thought I should start there because, in many ways,

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Speaker 3: for those who might not know, watching at home or

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Speaker 3: in their cars or wherever they're watching or listening, Steppenwolf

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Speaker 3: was one of the premiere is one of the premiere

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Speaker 3: theatrical groups in the United States and really remade the

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Speaker 3: theater in America, and you were one of its founders.

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Speaker 3: Tell me, first of all, how did this come to be?

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Speaker 3: How did you get involved in Steppenwolf And did you

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Speaker 3: ever imagine it would be what it became?

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Speaker 4: Well, there was, Yeah, it goes back to when I

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Speaker 4: was eighteen years old. I was getting out of high school.

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Speaker 4: I loved doing plays. I wasn't going to go to college.

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Speaker 4: Loved doing plays in high school, wanted to keep doing them.

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Speaker 4: So I graduated and got a group of kids together

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Speaker 4: and we went and found this space and did a

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Speaker 4: play in there, and we were going to print the program,

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Speaker 4: and we decided, well, we need something to put on

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Speaker 4: the program, so let's call ourselves something. And one of

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Speaker 4: the guys was reading the book, the Hermann hesse Yes

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Speaker 4: book Steppenwolf, and he held it up and I said,

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Speaker 4: you know, we all agreed that that would be a

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Speaker 4: great thing. Let's put it on the program. We called

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Speaker 4: it Steppenwolf Theater. That was probably March of nineteen seventy four,

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Speaker 4: that's fifty years ago.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 4: And we called the Steppenwolf. Then we did another play,

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Speaker 4: Then we did another one. Then we added Malkovich and

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Speaker 4: Laurie Metcalf and Joan Allen and all these.

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Speaker 1: Wife Moira Yeah, then Moira Harris, she was Moira Harris. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: She was friends with my co founder Jeff Perry and

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Speaker 4: fellow co founder Terry Kinney. The three of us were

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Speaker 4: the ones that got things started. And all these folks

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Speaker 4: and they went to Illinois State together. They all came

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Speaker 4: up to where I lived in Highland Park, which is

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Speaker 4: where Jeff Perry and I went to high school. And

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Speaker 4: we found a space we started doing plays in the

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Speaker 4: basement of this closed down Catholic school.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was the summer it started in seventy four.

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Speaker 4: But then they got out of college in seventy six,

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Speaker 4: and that's when we really cranked up and got it.

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Speaker 3: Got I mean, this is like Mickey and Judy putting

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Speaker 3: your show on in the barn. I mean really, that's

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Speaker 3: what it was at the beginning. But in time, Gary,

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Speaker 3: and in not long time, this really rebrands and remakes

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Speaker 3: American theater. I mean, you're the artistic director there.

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Speaker 1: For many years.

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Speaker 3: True West and Orphans, and I mean these were theatrical

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Speaker 3: moments that people may not have an awareness of, but

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Speaker 3: they completely changed the landscape of what was happening in

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Speaker 3: the theater at the time.

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Speaker 1: Back back in the eighties. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So we started in seventy four and by eighty

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Speaker 4: two we had moved our very first show to New

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Speaker 4: York and it was the one you mentioned, True West.

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Speaker 4: Malcolm Inch and I were doing it, and it was

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Speaker 4: a small show for people, so it was easily movable. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: you know, it didn't cost that much money. We found

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Speaker 4: a little more one hundred and eighty seat theater downtown

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Speaker 4: in New York called.

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Speaker 1: The Cherry Lane. Lane's still there.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's still there, and he's been there for a

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Speaker 4: gazillion years. A lot of people have done plays in there,

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Speaker 4: and we did our show there and it was a big,

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Speaker 4: big hit, and then we did another show the next year,

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Speaker 4: and one the following year, another one, and we just

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Speaker 4: kept bringing plays there.

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Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, what.

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Speaker 3: Made it different from everything else that was happening in

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Speaker 3: New York and in the American theater at the time.

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Speaker 1: What was it? I don't know.

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Speaker 4: Well, you know, when you're isolating in a basement theater

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Speaker 4: with you know, eight other radicals, you know, you never

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Speaker 4: know what's going to happen, and a lot of crazy

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Speaker 4: stuff happened. We kind of developed this sort of self protective,

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Speaker 4: self defense sort of acting where where it was kind

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Speaker 4: of attack before you get attacked.

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Speaker 1: It was an agress I mean it was aggressive.

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Speaker 3: I mean it was I saw some of those productions,

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Speaker 3: but there was an intensity about them. Was that it

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Speaker 3: was it the intensity that came from that.

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Speaker 4: I think we just developed this sort of anything goes

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Speaker 4: sort of approach to things being isolated in the basement

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Speaker 4: because it was our little space, you.

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Speaker 1: Know, we could do whatever we want.

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Speaker 4: If nobody showed up to our shows that night, we

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Speaker 4: just it was fine, we we'll just have a party

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Speaker 4: and entertain each other. And that's what we kind of

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Speaker 4: got used to doing.

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Speaker 1: And you were very close. I mean that closeness also

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Speaker 1: lends a certain comfort.

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Speaker 4: You're very close, and everybody, like the folks that I mentioned, Moira,

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Speaker 4: Laurie Metcalf, Joan Allen, Malcolviv, John Malkovitz, Terry Kenney, Jeff Perry,

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Speaker 4: these folks are all like hugely talented, and you know,

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Speaker 4: it was like it's like we just stumbled into putting

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Speaker 4: this group together, really really good people. They all went off,

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Speaker 4: you know, and had great careers and in the movie

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Speaker 4: business and all of that. But the you know, the

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Speaker 4: foundation was laid for a sort of approach and a

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Speaker 4: style of acting in those early days working together in

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Speaker 4: the basement. Then we eventually that was in Island Park, Illinois,

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Speaker 4: where Jeff and I went to school, and then we

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Speaker 4: eventually moved into the city of Chicago, expanded, got a

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Speaker 4: bigger theater, then we got another one, then we built

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Speaker 4: our own building. And now if you go there fifty

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Speaker 4: years later, you'll see this giant, giant complex that takes

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Speaker 4: a whole city block in the city. Are you still

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Speaker 4: in Chicago? I don't really do much there anymore. I

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Speaker 4: was involved with very, very involved for the first like

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Speaker 4: twenty seven years, and then the last thing I did

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Speaker 4: was one Flew over the Cuckars Nest on Broadway, and

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Speaker 4: that was two thousand and one. So we closed July

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Speaker 4: twenty ninth, two thousand and one. Six weeks later, September eleventh,

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Speaker 4: two thousand and one, the attack on our country, and

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Speaker 4: everything changed for me.

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Speaker 1: At that point.

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Speaker 4: I started thinking about different things, and I wanted to

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Speaker 4: kind of get very involved in supporting the men and

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Speaker 4: women who were deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Speaker 1: I got.

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Speaker 4: I just got very involved in that. Never returned to

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Speaker 4: the theater after that.

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Speaker 1: Isn't that amazing?

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Speaker 3: The one thing, the one Colonel I want to pull

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Speaker 3: from that, You did a film, You did a film,

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Speaker 3: you did a show when you were at Steppenwolf Tracers.

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Speaker 3: Tell me about that, and did that did that plant

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Speaker 3: any seeds for.

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Speaker 1: The next phase of Gary?

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Speaker 4: Soinice's life, it definitely was a seed that was planted

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Speaker 4: in terms of supporting veterans and trying to do something

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Speaker 4: to help, especially our Vietnam veterans.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I tell people with the Tracery is about that.

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Speaker 1: That's what Tracers is about.

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Speaker 4: It's a story that was written by a group of

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Speaker 4: Vietnam veterans and they performed it on stage.

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Speaker 1: So they got together.

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Speaker 4: One guy conceived the idea, a guy named John Difusco.

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Speaker 1: He's a Vietnam veteran.

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Speaker 4: He put an ad in the paper and said, Hey,

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Speaker 4: I want to make a play and I'm looking for

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Speaker 4: Vietnam veterans. So he got he got some guys together

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Speaker 4: and they started. Every day they would go into like

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Speaker 4: a workshop where they talk about their experiences in Vietnam

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Speaker 4: and he would write things down and then they would

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Speaker 4: improvise and work on and they you know, over the

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Speaker 4: course of time, they created a play so that they

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Speaker 4: called Tracers, and it was a play about the Vietnam experience.

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Speaker 4: I discovered it as the artistic director of Steppenwolf looking

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Speaker 4: for a play to do about Vietnam because I had

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Speaker 4: Moira's two brothers served in Vietnam and her sister's husband,

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Speaker 4: Jack Teres, also served in Vietnam as a combat medic.

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Speaker 1: And I got to be. You know, I got to

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Speaker 1: know them.

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Speaker 4: A little bit, got to hear their stories, got to

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Speaker 4: feel a lot of compassion for them, and quite frankly,

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Speaker 4: a lot of guilt because they were just a little

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Speaker 4: bit older than I was during the Vietnam War, and

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Speaker 4: I was at high school and the chasing girls around

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Speaker 4: and you know, playing guitar and.

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Speaker 1: Doing plays, and they were getting shot at.

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Speaker 4: And so when I met them, I got to feel

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Speaker 4: a little guilty about being kind of oblivious during that

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Speaker 4: period of time. So I wanted to do something that

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Speaker 4: spoke to the Vietnam experience, and so I started to

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Speaker 4: look and I found the play Tracers. We eventually did

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Speaker 4: it in Chicago, and that was a big thing.

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Speaker 3: When I read about that experience, you really building with others,

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Speaker 3: but you building and then guiding Steppenwolf. I see Gary

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Speaker 3: Sonise the builder, and you do have that in you

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Speaker 3: where you I mean, obviously your cause at that moment

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Speaker 3: was theater and creating great plays in some ways preserving

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Speaker 3: American classics of mice and men, which I saw. How

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Speaker 3: did that carry on into the next phase of your life?

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Speaker 3: How did it prepare you for what you're doing now?

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Speaker 3: And the building of the Foundation.

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Speaker 1: Did it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think all all those things did. I think,

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Speaker 4: you know, if I look back to how I grew

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Speaker 4: up as a kid, my dad was a film editor

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Speaker 4: and in Chicago, and you.

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Speaker 1: Know, the the.

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Speaker 4: Bulk of the film work in Chicago in those days

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Speaker 4: was like the mad Men Show.

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Speaker 1: You know, remember the advertising agency.

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Speaker 4: So the advertising guys were constantly making commercials and they

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Speaker 4: needed the editors to crank out these commercials and get

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Speaker 4: them done no matter what time it was because they

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Speaker 4: were all on deadline. So my dad would work these

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Speaker 4: crazy hours. And I don't remember dad being, you know,

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Speaker 4: just around that much, you know, when I was growing

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Speaker 4: up in terms of high school or any of that.

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Speaker 4: So I got to I got to kind of work

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Speaker 4: things out on my own.

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Speaker 1: Anyway.

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Speaker 4: My mom had her hands full with she was taking

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Speaker 4: care of her mom and her sister and me and

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Speaker 4: my brother and sister, and I kind of developed to

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Speaker 4: sort of do it yourself sort of you know, I

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Speaker 4: just can't wait around for somebody to tell me what

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Speaker 4: to do kind of thing. And I sort of developed

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Speaker 4: that at an early age, and that, you know, then

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Speaker 4: I got into high school and decided, well, what I

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Speaker 4: want to do is start a theater because I'm not

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Speaker 4: going to.

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Speaker 1: College because nobody told you couldn't.

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Speaker 4: That's right, nobody said you couldn't. And I had a

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Speaker 4: great mentor in high school. Her name's Barbara Patterson, and.

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Speaker 1: She stayed in touch with her for a long time.

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Speaker 1: I did.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, she was the drama teacher in high school, and

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Speaker 4: we we became very close and stayed in touch with her.

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Speaker 4: And she saw me as a kid who you know,

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Speaker 4: I was bad in school and didn't you know, grades

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Speaker 4: were no good and all that, but I could actually act.

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Speaker 1: She saw something in him, she saw bad asses which

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Speaker 1: she saw.

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Speaker 4: She saw, well, you saw a guy who could, you know,

357
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Speaker 4: just let it rip. And because I didn't, I didn't.

358
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Speaker 4: I didn't have any training or anything like that. I

359
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Speaker 4: just came to my first place and started just doing

360
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Speaker 4: what I thought I should do.

361
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Speaker 1: And she kind of said, go with that. That's good.

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Speaker 4: And so she gave me a lot of courage and

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Speaker 4: a lot of self confidence in terms of just believing

364
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Speaker 4: in my particular approach to things. And so I just

365
00:20:28,280 --> 00:20:32,720
Speaker 4: had a particular approach, and I also kind of.

366
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Speaker 1: Developed this sort of folk focus.

367
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Speaker 4: On leadership and kind of seeing a thing over here

368
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Speaker 4: and then going and trying to make it happen.

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Speaker 1: And there, you know, that.

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Speaker 4: Manifested itself into kind of finding a space and creating

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Speaker 4: a theater company and then you know, making movies and

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Speaker 4: conquering Broadway.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember with True West. I was thetistic director

375
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Speaker 4: of Steppenwolf at that time, and I really wanted to

376
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Speaker 4: move that show. I was looking like as soon as

377
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Speaker 4: I took over as the artistic director of Steppenwolf, one

378
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Speaker 4: of the things I wanted to do because I thought

379
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Speaker 4: we were really good and I thought, you know, the

380
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Speaker 4: next thing we got to do is, you know, if

381
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Speaker 4: we want we want to be more well known in Chicago,

382
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Speaker 4: and I think that a good way to do that

383
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Speaker 4: is to be well known in New York.

384
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Speaker 1: So so smart move.

385
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Speaker 4: Yeah.

386
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Speaker 1: So we we took.

387
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Speaker 4: A play there and it was a big, big hit,

388
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Speaker 4: and John John became a movie star. Steppenwolf got all

389
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Speaker 4: this attention. We all producers started coming to Chicago to

390
00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:41,359
Speaker 4: see our work. We ended up doing play after play

391
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Speaker 4: there every year in incredible all hits. They were all

392
00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:47,879
Speaker 4: doing great, and it really it really set the stage

393
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:51,280
Speaker 4: for being able to build a building, you know, because

394
00:21:51,320 --> 00:21:56,000
Speaker 4: we were being recognized as really talented group of people.

395
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Speaker 4: And we were starting, because of our success in New York,

396
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:05,000
Speaker 4: starting to develop this sort of international reputation huh, Because

397
00:22:05,040 --> 00:22:07,400
Speaker 4: we would get all these great reviews in New York,

398
00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:09,480
Speaker 4: and all those reviews would trickle out to the West

399
00:22:09,520 --> 00:22:12,640
Speaker 4: Coast and all around, and people were starting to recognize

400
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:16,120
Speaker 4: Steppenwolf as something positive. So we were able to raise

401
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:20,040
Speaker 4: the money in Chicago to build a building. Wow, And

402
00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:23,639
Speaker 4: that's what we did incredibly, And now it's this giant

403
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:24,560
Speaker 4: institution there.

404
00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:29,560
Speaker 3: But I would argue, though it doesn't have the it

405
00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:32,919
Speaker 3: doesn't have the it was the epicenter of what was

406
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:34,480
Speaker 3: happening at that moment. It was.

407
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:37,879
Speaker 1: It was the sharp point of the sword in the

408
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:38,640
Speaker 1: American theater.

409
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:41,440
Speaker 3: If you did a play, you were waiting for Steppenwolf

410
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:44,479
Speaker 3: to unveil the next big play. You did a number

411
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:48,480
Speaker 3: of these historic figures. After you left Steppenwolf, you're now

412
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:51,160
Speaker 3: doing well. You may have been still involved in some way,

413
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:56,040
Speaker 3: but you started getting cast as these historic figures. Truman

414
00:22:56,359 --> 00:23:00,320
Speaker 3: and George Wallace, and of course I know, I know

415
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:04,560
Speaker 3: for you. Tom Jod in Grapes of Wrath was his

416
00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:07,919
Speaker 3: great American character to you, how did you prepare for

417
00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:13,439
Speaker 3: those historic characters or well known literary characters as an actor,

418
00:23:14,119 --> 00:23:16,000
Speaker 3: because you couldn't just follow your gut anymore.

419
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:17,880
Speaker 1: No, But.

420
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Speaker 4: Let's take The Grapes of Wrath for example, So that

421
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:26,960
Speaker 4: that was made into a film john Ford, with none

422
00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:30,600
Speaker 4: other than Henry fond Of playing Tom Jod. So big

423
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:35,639
Speaker 4: shoes to fill there, obviously, But the way we didn't.

424
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:39,159
Speaker 4: We didn't approach it as like we were going to

425
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:41,560
Speaker 4: try to recreate what had already been done. We were

426
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:44,239
Speaker 4: going to do something that hadn't been done, which is

427
00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:50,080
Speaker 4: a theatrical play version of the Grapes of Wrath. We

428
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:53,199
Speaker 4: had a wonderful director named Frank Galatti, who was a

429
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 4: writer director.

430
00:23:56,359 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 1: Remember the movie Accidental Tourist. Frank wrote this script for that.

431
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 4: I think he got nominated for an Oscar for it.

432
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 4: But he was just a wonderful guy and very very smart.

433
00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:12,159
Speaker 4: He was the one who I brought him into the

434
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 4: company in nineteen eighty five. He was working with us.

435
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 4: I asked him I was the artistry character. I asked

436
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 4: him to come and direct. You can't take it with you.

437
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. I just wanted to do a

438
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 1: funny comedy.

439
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 4: You know, we were stepping well, we were doing this

440
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 4: hardcore step yeah, And.

441
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 1: I thought, here's a comedy from what the thirties?

442
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:36,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's do this fun old comedy because he's got

443
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,880
Speaker 4: a great characters and everything. So Frank wasn't a member

444
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:41,840
Speaker 4: of the company, and I invited him to come and

445
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 4: direct it. And when he during rehearsal, everybody was having

446
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 4: such a good time with Frank. I wasn't in it, but.

447
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:50,160
Speaker 1: I was there.

448
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 4: I was watching and everything. Everybody was having such a

449
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 4: good time with Frank. So I went around to all

450
00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:57,160
Speaker 4: the company members and I said, what did you think

451
00:24:57,160 --> 00:24:59,760
Speaker 4: of I asked Frank to come into the company. Everybody

452
00:24:59,840 --> 00:25:02,400
Speaker 4: was support of him. So I asked Frank to come

453
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:04,359
Speaker 4: into the company. I was sitting in my office with

454
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:04,920
Speaker 4: him like.

455
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:07,719
Speaker 1: This, and he, oh, oh my god, are you kidding?

456
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:11,639
Speaker 4: Oh of course I thought it too, and he was

457
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,919
Speaker 4: so happy about it. And then I said to him, Frank,

458
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 4: do you have any ideas of things that you want

459
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 4: to do? Because he was he was a great writer.

460
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 4: He was all these adapting things and blah blah blah.

461
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:28,000
Speaker 4: And he immediately said, I think the Grapes of Wrath

462
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 4: would make a great play, and I was like.

463
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 5: Oh, go go. So that was eighty five. By eighty

464
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:40,440
Speaker 5: eight he had the script ready. It was a four

465
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:42,360
Speaker 5: hour pro redaction.

466
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 4: Remember it's about the Joe family leaving Oklahoma and going

467
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:49,920
Speaker 4: to California. It took us a long time to get

468
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:52,679
Speaker 4: to California, and so with.

469
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 2: A pool down front, ladies and gentlemen help in the

470
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 2: splash zone.

471
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:59,359
Speaker 4: Well yeah, I mean you saw the Broadway version, which

472
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:03,200
Speaker 4: was the version. Oh so the Chicago version was about

473
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:05,199
Speaker 4: four hours. Then we cut it down. We took it

474
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 4: the next.

475
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 1: Year, that was eighty eight, eighty nine, we.

476
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 4: Took it to La Joyaunhouse. We did in Lahoya, then

477
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 4: we went over to London. We did it at the

478
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 4: National Theater in London.

479
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:18,800
Speaker 1: I didn't know that.

480
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 4: And then we were able to get producer attention. So

481
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:26,440
Speaker 4: the following year, nineteen ninety, we took it to Broadway.

482
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 4: By the time we got to Broadway, it was about

483
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 4: two and a half hours. It was really lean and mean,

484
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 4: it was it was the work on it was beautiful.

485
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 4: I mean we kept trimming it and fixing it, but

486
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 4: a lot a lot happened there with the grapes of Wrath.

487
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 4: We won the Tony Award for Best Play that you know,

488
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 4: Lois Smith was in it and she.

489
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: Got nominated, I got nominated.

490
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 4: We got a lot of attention for the Grapes of Wrath,

491
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 4: but prior to that, we had brought you know, a

492
00:26:55,600 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 4: whole lot of shows there, and you know, the Grapes

493
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 4: of Wrath kind of led to my association with the

494
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 4: Lane Steinbeck who Laye was John Steinbeck's widow and she

495
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:14,440
Speaker 4: controlled the rights to everything. So she was the one

496
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:16,560
Speaker 4: who gave us the rights to do the Grapes of Wrath.

497
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 3: And he even gave you his National Book Awards, Steinbeck's

498
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 3: National Book Awards.

499
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: He did, you're right, it's in there.

500
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 4: One time we were on stage at the Grapes of

501
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 4: Wrath and I said, would you give me the rights

502
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 4: to make of Mice and Men into a movie?

503
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: And she said, honey, it's already been a film. Why

504
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: would you want to do that?

505
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 4: Well, he'd been a film three times, because there was

506
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:44,639
Speaker 4: like the thirties version there, there was a Robert Blake

507
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 4: or you know, Robert Blake and Randy Quaid.

508
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:49,879
Speaker 1: Did it there. But she gave it to you, but

509
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:52,280
Speaker 1: she gave it to me. She gave it. She made

510
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 1: me a deal that was just so beautiful.

511
00:27:55,760 --> 00:28:01,640
Speaker 4: She gave me the rights for free for one and

512
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 4: so I had. I had it for one year as

513
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 4: a producer. I returned to California from the Grapes of

514
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 4: Wrath in nineteen ninety and I had the rights to

515
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 4: mice and Men, and so I went I had done

516
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:18,359
Speaker 4: a little bit of development work at MGM. So I

517
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:20,640
Speaker 4: went to MGM and I said, I've got the rights

518
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 4: of my men. You want to make a movie?

519
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,919
Speaker 1: They said yes, And it just went like that, and

520
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:28,160
Speaker 1: that was got the rights for free. They said yes.

521
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: I got Hort and Foot to write the script and

522
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: we were shooting a year later, and you directed it.

523
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,920
Speaker 4: I directed it and when Anne acted in it, and

524
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 4: I got Malkovich to do it because John and I

525
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 4: had done it on stage before.

526
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 3: Tell me about you evaded one of my questions, how

527
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 3: do you prepare for these historic characters?

528
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: When you got that was the question, Harry, trying to

529
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 1: find no no way back.

530
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 3: I didn't want to stop you because I'd never heard this,

531
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 3: and I love that story.

532
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: But tell me about Truman.

533
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 3: You get Truman, it lands in your lap, you get

534
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 3: cast as Truman.

535
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 1: How do you prepare for this, Yeah, you know, I

536
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 1: it was.

537
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 4: I had done Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump in that

538
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 4: that came out in ninety four, yep, so and it

539
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 4: got a lot of attention, and you know that it

540
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 4: won a bunch of awards and all that stuff.

541
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: So the career changed for me at that point.

542
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 4: I had done a Bison Man is a movie and

543
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 4: a couple other things, but I hadn't done that much

544
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:32,959
Speaker 4: before Forrest Gump in film. But you know, when you're

545
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 4: in a big movie like that and everything, and I

546
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 4: had a good part, things things changed.

547
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: Why did Lieutenants I resonate? Do you think with so

548
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 1: many people it.

549
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 4: Wasn't just a yeah, it's a great story. You know,

550
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 4: it's a happy ending. You know, we you know, we've

551
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 4: heard so many difficult stories about Vietnam veterans not being

552
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 4: able to make it, and you know, but Lieutenant Dan's

553
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 4: okay in the end, and that that's a that's a

554
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 4: beautiful story of a Vietnam veteran that really hadn't been told,

555
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 4: you know, in film up up to that point. So

556
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 4: along comes Lieutenant Dan. As you know, it gets a

557
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 4: lot of attention, and then out of the blue, right

558
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 4: around the time we were we were doing the right

559
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 4: around the Oscar time.

560
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 1: I think.

561
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 4: A little before that, I got this offer to play

562
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 4: Harry Truman. And I didn't know that much about Harry

563
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 4: Truman frankly at the time, and I'm thinking, why why

564
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 4: would they want me to do that?

565
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: That's strand.

566
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 4: But the producers, you know, Harry Truman is a miss

567
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 4: Midwest guy. I grew up in the Midwest. I grew

568
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:49,480
Speaker 4: up in Illinois. He's from Missouri.

569
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 1: You know, they just saw me doing it. I had

570
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: to work. I had to wrap my head around that.

571
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 4: Really yeah, So I had to study up a little

572
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 4: bit before I could even say yes or something. I

573
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 4: had to study up, learn a little bit about Harry Truman,

574
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 4: figure out.

575
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 1: Can I play Harry Truman. I don't know if I can.

576
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 1: And I had to figure all that stuff out.

577
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 4: And I finally felt, oh, okay, confident that I could

578
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:23,720
Speaker 4: dive into that. So once I did, then I started

579
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 4: pouring myself into all things Harry Truman. I went to

580
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 4: the Truman Library Independence Missouri. I spent days there just

581
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 4: cambing through the archives. They let me into the basement

582
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 4: and I could look at footage Harry Yeah, what was

583
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 4: the trigger for you?

584
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 1: Was there one thing that you said, Oh, no, I

585
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: understand who he is. Well.

586
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 4: Our script was based on a wonderful book by David McCullough,

587
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 4: Big Doorstep Book. I know that was the thing that

588
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 4: And what's great about that book is it's not just

589
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 4: this sort of dry his oracle thing McCullough writes. So

590
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 4: you can read it as as if the truth, as

591
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 4: if Truman is a character in an emotional journey, and

592
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 4: so there's a lot of emotion in the book and everything.

593
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 4: You can really put yourself in this position of somebody

594
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 4: who's sort of this reluctant politician who gets swept aloft

595
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:25,320
Speaker 4: into this next thing, next thing. He knows he's the

596
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 4: president of the United States, you know. And it was

597
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 4: a really interesting journey. But I had to dig in.

598
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 4: I had to dig in a lot. I had to

599
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 4: work on the accent and the voice, and you know,

600
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 4: I learned how to ride horses because he was in

601
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:45,640
Speaker 4: the cavalry and World War One, all all this stuff.

602
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: We had.

603
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 4: We had an age Harry Truman was one movie and

604
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 4: we had that spanned thirty five years of his life.

605
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 1: So the difficulty there, of course, is that.

606
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 4: You know, you don't want it to be sort of

607
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 4: the cliffs Notes version of a life, right, but you're

608
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 4: trying to tell thirty five years of somebody's life, and

609
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 4: Truman just you know it was it was all in

610
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 4: submerge yourself into it, and you know it won a

611
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 4: bunch of awards and did really well, and you know,

612
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 4: think the career was starting to take off at that point.

613
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 3: Tell me, I know there was a big shift after

614
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 3: nine to eleven for you, at least in your own

615
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 3: mind and heart. But back in nineteen ninety four, Garry,

616
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 3: you right after Forrest Gump, you're addressing a group of

617
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 3: disabled veterans. Tell me about that moment and what you

618
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 3: learned in that moment.

619
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:55,719
Speaker 4: That was Yeah, Forrest Gump came out in on July sixth,

620
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety four, thirty years ago.

621
00:33:58,000 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 3: Wow.

622
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 4: And shortly after that, I received an invitation to come

623
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:14,239
Speaker 4: to the National Convention of the Disabled American Veterans Organization,

624
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 4: which I was not aware of. Didn't didn't know the

625
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:23,400
Speaker 4: organization at all, but they've been around for decades and decades,

626
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:29,279
Speaker 4: and so I kind of looked into what is it?

627
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:33,400
Speaker 4: And they at that point they represented about one point

628
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:39,239
Speaker 4: five million wounded veterans going back to World War Two,

629
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:43,920
Speaker 4: and they wanted to give me an award for playing

630
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:47,239
Speaker 4: Lieutenant Dan, a wounded guy, and they thought I did

631
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:49,919
Speaker 4: a good job, and they wanted to, you know, kind

632
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 4: of bring me out there and kind of give me something.

633
00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 4: So I went to their convention that year was in Chicago,

634
00:34:56,000 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 4: and I went to the Conrad Hilton in Chicago in

635
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:04,600
Speaker 4: August of ninety four, just maybe six weeks after the

636
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 4: movie came out, and I'm standing on stage.

637
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: In fact, the.

638
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 4: First pages of my book Grateful American described this moment

639
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:20,800
Speaker 4: of walking out on stage and looking out in the

640
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 4: crowd and there's you know, two thousand wounded veterans out

641
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 4: in this ballroom and they're all cheering for me.

642
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 1: And I was so moved by it. And just kind

643
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 1: of the.

644
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 4: Impact that was made by seeing all these wheelchairs and

645
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 4: you know, just wounded folks just applauding me for playing

646
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:49,479
Speaker 4: this part was profound. And so I stayed in touch

647
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 4: with them and started working with them and supporting them

648
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 4: over the years. And I think the Tracer's experience of

649
00:35:57,640 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 4: working on that and getting involved with local Vietnam Veterans

650
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 4: groups in Chicago ten years later, the Lieutenant an experience

651
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 4: getting involved with our wounded supporting them. Those were just

652
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 4: those were seeds that were being planted that would grow

653
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:20,320
Speaker 4: into this full on mission after September eleventh, two thousand

654
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:23,920
Speaker 4: and one, and I was just I just felt like

655
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 4: call to action at that had that point to get

656
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:31,800
Speaker 4: involved in a deeper way. Both those things, the tracers

657
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 4: experience in the Lieutenant.

658
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:38,200
Speaker 3: Aan acclaim after the film, I mean it was it

659
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 3: was a cultural moment. But for the veterans community, they

660
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:46,720
Speaker 3: saw themselves in a positive light. And as you mentioned earlier,

661
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:49,320
Speaker 3: if you look at the Vietnam films and those stories

662
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 3: told before, it always ended horribly for them. Yeah, it

663
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:57,759
Speaker 3: was depressing and dark or you just you.

664
00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:59,720
Speaker 4: You always wondered, I'm just not sure that Vietnam veterans

665
00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 4: going to be okay. And after this film is over, Yeah,

666
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:04,919
Speaker 4: Like look at the Coming Home.

667
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 1: That's that's what came to mind.

668
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 4: Coming Back and you see Bruce Dern, what's he do.

669
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 4: He's so racked with guilt and everything. He takes off

670
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 4: his uniform and swims out in the ocean and he's

671
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 4: not coming back. You wonder at the end of platoon

672
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 4: when Charlie Sheen is flying over the battlefield and he's

673
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 4: looking down and he sees all these bodies and you know,

674
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 4: the battle is over and every lot of buddies are

675
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 4: gone and he's flying off. At the end of that movie,

676
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:36,759
Speaker 4: you just wonder that guy's going to have a tough

677
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 4: time going into life casualties of war. The same thing

678
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 4: with Michael J. Fox, and then you got, gosh, you

679
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 4: got Martin Sheen at the end of your Apocalypse. Now

680
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:52,319
Speaker 4: you got look what happens to Chris walk and at

681
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:53,160
Speaker 4: the end of Deer Hunt.

682
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 1: These are all dark endings, That's what I mean. They're

683
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:58,400
Speaker 1: all dark to semi dark endings. Lieutenant Dan is the

684
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 1: only happy ending. That's what was different about it.

685
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 3: And they are still talking about it and watching it today.

686
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 3: So after nine to eleven, what happens you start? When

687
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:11,840
Speaker 3: do you start the band? The Lieutenant Dan Band?

688
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:13,319
Speaker 1: You know, I was.

689
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 4: Doing I'll tell I'll tell you in nineteen ninety seven.

690
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:21,520
Speaker 4: I was in Chicago and I was doing so I'd

691
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 4: done Truman and I just finished shooting George Wallace in

692
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 4: like old January or February of ninety seven, and then

693
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:37,359
Speaker 4: I went to Chicago to play Stanley Kowalski.

694
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:40,280
Speaker 1: In the streetcar named Desire.

695
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:45,799
Speaker 4: And I was on stage in Streetcar and there's a

696
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:49,280
Speaker 4: guy who had written the music for Streetcar named Keimo Williams,

697
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 4: and Kemo he was a bass player, but he liked

698
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 4: to play guitar and he heard I was a bass player,

699
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 4: so he said, hey, you know, if you ever want

700
00:38:57,160 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 4: to come over in jam, uh, you know, come on over.

701
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 4: And so I was so busy during the run of

702
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 4: the show, I could never do it.

703
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:08,959
Speaker 1: I was tired. You know, it's a shark.

704
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:12,799
Speaker 4: I just wanted to get to get through it. And

705
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:15,840
Speaker 4: so right at the end we wrapped the show. I

706
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 4: got a couple of days before I'm going to fly

707
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:19,920
Speaker 4: back to California, and I call and called him up

708
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:21,839
Speaker 4: and said, why don't we get some pizza and we'll

709
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:24,799
Speaker 4: get some guys and we'll play. And I went over

710
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:27,200
Speaker 4: to this house and started playing. So that kind of

711
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:30,000
Speaker 4: rekindled some bass stuff in me.

712
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:32,800
Speaker 1: I used to play bass and guitar and everything.

713
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 4: I put it away when I was gotten so busy

714
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 4: with Stepping Wolf and everything.

715
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 1: I hadn't really played much, so but playing it it

716
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 1: really got me going again. And then I went.

717
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:50,240
Speaker 4: Shortly after that, I went up to uh Atlantic City

718
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:53,800
Speaker 4: and then Montreal to do a movie with Nick Cage

719
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:57,800
Speaker 4: called Snake Eyes. And when I was up doing Snake

720
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 4: Guys in Canada, there was Guys and the crew that played,

721
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 4: and so we went and started playing. And I called

722
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 4: Chemo up and said, come on up here and play

723
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 4: with us. So he flew up to Montreal. We and

724
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 4: we were playing. And then after September eleventh, I wanted

725
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 4: to do more for the troops, and I started going

726
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 4: on USO tours and handshaking and taking pictures, and I

727
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 4: went to the war zones a couple of times. I

728
00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 4: went to Germany, I went to Italy and went to

729
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 4: Walter Reed, I went. You know, I was doing all

730
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 4: this stuff in two thousand and three, going one month

731
00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:39,279
Speaker 4: after another to some military base or something like.

732
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 1: That, just meet and greet. So you got the band,

733
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 1: no band, No it was.

734
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 4: It was a series of meet and greets for the

735
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 4: for for six or seven months. I was I was

736
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 4: going out. Didn't have a job at that time that

737
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 4: was keeping me in towns. But I wanted, I wanted

738
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:57,919
Speaker 4: to help our troops. You know, we'd you know, we'd

739
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:00,719
Speaker 4: been attacked and I wanted to do something, and so

740
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 4: I started visiting them and I had, you know, because

741
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:06,839
Speaker 4: I had some jammers that I would play with from

742
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:09,680
Speaker 4: time to time. I said to the USO, let me

743
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 4: take them on a tour, and eventually they said okay.

744
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 4: So I called up Chemo and said, hey, let's let's

745
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 4: put some folks together and let's go. And so we

746
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:26,760
Speaker 4: we started touring, and that that's what began the lieutenant

747
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 4: and band. Kimo left the band after after a while,

748
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,920
Speaker 4: and you know, we've we've now the band has played

749
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, we've played one hundred, five hundred and seventy

750
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:39,240
Speaker 4: five concerts on military basis.

751
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: Incredible.

752
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:43,800
Speaker 4: I've been I've been to I've been over one hundred

753
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:47,399
Speaker 4: and seventy five military bases myself, you know, in hospitals

754
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:48,760
Speaker 4: and all that stuff.

755
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 1: Well do you still do it?

756
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:53,759
Speaker 4: Once I started doing it, I could see that it

757
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 4: was impactful. It was in a positive way, like it

758
00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 4: was it was good that I was there. You know,

759
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 4: I'd walk into a hospital room and maybe maybe there'd

760
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 4: be a wounded soldier service member in the bed completely unconscious,

761
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:17,320
Speaker 4: you know, hadn't woken up yet. Family is standing around

762
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 4: waiting for that moment, praying.

763
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 1: For that moment.

764
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 4: And I come in and they've been there for weeks

765
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:28,919
Speaker 4: just dealing with the issues, and somebody like me comes

766
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 4: in and the light faces light up and you know,

767
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 4: start taking pictures and it changes the mood, it changes

768
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:38,440
Speaker 4: the tone. And I could see that showing up was

769
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 4: making a difference. So then I wanted to do it again,

770
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 4: and I wanted to do it again after that, and

771
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:46,120
Speaker 4: I just kept wanting to do it because I could

772
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 4: see that it was helping. Of course, if I had

773
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 4: seen me, if I hadn't felt that it was helping,

774
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:53,359
Speaker 4: I wouldn't been out.

775
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:54,400
Speaker 1: Garrisonese Foundation.

776
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,280
Speaker 3: How did the foundation start? Tell me about the founding.

777
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:00,840
Speaker 3: So you're out doing these USO tours with the band.

778
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 3: I know you're also collaborating with other organizations that are

779
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:08,480
Speaker 3: building homes for veterans and helping veterans in various ways,

780
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 3: and you're donating a lot of the money from these

781
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:16,240
Speaker 3: concerts to these partner organizations. But when do you start

782
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:18,719
Speaker 3: your own foundation? What was the impetus for that?

783
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:23,959
Speaker 4: Well, you know, when I started making those tours, those

784
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 4: early tours, just volunteering to go to the hospitals or

785
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:33,239
Speaker 4: you know, go shake hands or something, or you know,

786
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:36,880
Speaker 4: now take the band and go play on military bases

787
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 4: and whatnot.

788
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 1: One of the things that I also.

789
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:44,640
Speaker 4: Wanted to do was to try to help more people,

790
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:49,360
Speaker 4: was to volunteer for a lot of different other organizations.

791
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:52,480
Speaker 4: There were a lot of service organizations out there that

792
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 4: were supporting veterans and first responders, and I wanted to

793
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:59,840
Speaker 4: help veterans and first responders, so I would volunteer to

794
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 4: you know, raise money for these organizations, raise awareness for

795
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 4: what they were doing by doing PSAs or whatever. So

796
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 4: I just started volunteering wherever I could for multiple organizations.

797
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 4: So I learned a lot about all these different needs

798
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 4: and organizations were filling this need, you know, you know,

799
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 4: we were building homes for our wounded, we were taking

800
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:28,879
Speaker 4: care of our Gold Start children, our families of our

801
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 4: fallen entertainment, you know, whatever it was. It was a

802
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:35,960
Speaker 4: lot of different things, and I support a lot of

803
00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 4: different organizations.

804
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:40,799
Speaker 1: After doing that for you know, ten years.

805
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:44,319
Speaker 4: Or whatever, it was, it was clear that this was

806
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:46,919
Speaker 4: something that was just a big part of my life,

807
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 4: and I started thinking, well, you know, I've got to

808
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:53,799
Speaker 4: find a way to do this in a different way.

809
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:58,000
Speaker 4: And I've seen all these nonprofits pop up, and I've

810
00:44:58,000 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 4: tried to help them all.

811
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:00,959
Speaker 1: Why don't I just start my own.

812
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 4: And at that point, I had been doing it long

813
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 4: enough that I had a pretty good reputation with you know,

814
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 4: trying to help. And so that's why I put my

815
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 4: name on the on the foundation. I called it Gary

816
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 4: Sneeze Foundation, because there was already a you know, I

817
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:22,719
Speaker 4: already had a relationship with the military family, and I

818
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 4: had been raising money for all these other organizations. I

819
00:45:25,520 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 4: was on television, you know, Weekly and CSI New York.

820
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,360
Speaker 4: So I I just said this, let's do it. I

821
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:37,919
Speaker 4: want to do more. Uh And I think the way

822
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 4: to do that is to start raising our own money

823
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 4: so that I can hire people to do more.

824
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 1: Uh.

825
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:45,680
Speaker 4: So we started out very small, a couple of people,

826
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 4: and now we've got a giant organization.

827
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: Now.

828
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:51,840
Speaker 3: You know, Gary reminds us that sometimes you have to

829
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:56,440
Speaker 3: do things yourself, and in the doing, the entire world

830
00:45:56,560 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 3: is changed. Such was the case with Henry four and

831
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 3: wait until you hear how it ends. Ford was working

832
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:07,240
Speaker 3: the night shift at the Edison Illuminating Company in eighteen

833
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:10,319
Speaker 3: ninety six. He spent his days trying to build a

834
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 3: horseless carriage with a gas powered engine. He finally built

835
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 3: a prototype, which he called the Quadricycle. In the late

836
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:24,800
Speaker 3: eighteen nineties, he found backing and opened the Detroit Automotive Company.

837
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 3: Ford attempted to streamline his design, but he couldn't quite

838
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:32,440
Speaker 3: get it right, and by nineteen oh one, his backers

839
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 3: had had enough and they shut the company down. Ford

840
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:39,439
Speaker 3: decided to focus on lighter, smaller vehicles, and he went

841
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 3: into a new partnership, which he called the Henry Ford Company.

842
00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:48,240
Speaker 3: But when his partners tried to control his creativity, Ford

843
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 3: left the company which bore his name. He had failed

844
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 3: twice in his attempt to create what he called a

845
00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:58,759
Speaker 3: motor car for the Great multitude? How could he do

846
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:01,799
Speaker 3: it cheaply and quickly enough to stay in business? In

847
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 3: a moment, How it ends? Welcome back to how it ends.

848
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 3: By nineteen oh three, Henry Ford had tried twice to

849
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 3: create a car company capable of creating motor cars for

850
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 3: the Great multitude, but all his vehicles were too expensive

851
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:21,359
Speaker 3: and took way too long to produce. So that year

852
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 3: Ford opened a third enterprise, the Ford Motor Company. Learning

853
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:30,520
Speaker 3: from his previous failures, Ford launched the Model A, then

854
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:33,920
Speaker 3: the Model N, and later the Model T, a stripped

855
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 3: down car with no frills, available in one color black.

856
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 3: Inspired by the assembly lines of canneries and slaughterhouses and breweries,

857
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:48,600
Speaker 3: he created a mass production assembly line for his cars.

858
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 3: By December of nineteen thirteen, he cut production time from

859
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 3: twelve hours a car to an hour and a half

860
00:47:57,360 --> 00:48:00,800
Speaker 3: in eighty four steps. Each worker added a different piece

861
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:03,839
Speaker 3: of machinery or component to the car. In the year

862
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:07,320
Speaker 3: nineteen fourteen, Ford was able to produce more than three

863
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:11,759
Speaker 3: hundred and eight thousand cars, more than any of his competitors,

864
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 3: which only drove down the price of the Model T

865
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:20,320
Speaker 3: and ensured Ford's dominance of the industry. Henry Ford's innovation

866
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:24,920
Speaker 3: his assembly line would change the way food, furniture, toys,

867
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 3: and yes, vehicles are produced to this day. Now you

868
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:34,400
Speaker 3: know how it ends and that sometimes if it doesn't exist,

869
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:37,839
Speaker 3: you have to build it yourself. Now back to our

870
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 3: conversation with another build it yourself for Gary Sinise, give

871
00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 3: me a sense, and I won't make you go through

872
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:50,040
Speaker 3: every program, but you all do things that I don't

873
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:54,319
Speaker 3: see other organizations doing. And I want to hone in

874
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 3: on a few of those years ago. I know you

875
00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:01,279
Speaker 3: took over this Snowball Express program. Tell me about that.

876
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 3: I mean, I've covered it. It's the most it's one

877
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 3: of the most moving and I think amazing and important

878
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 3: moments at Christmas time.

879
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 6: I think of almost any organization in the country, it's beautiful.

880
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 6: It's focused on the children of our fallen heroes. And

881
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:20,720
Speaker 6: it was started at Disneyland in two thousand and six

882
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:23,359
Speaker 6: by a group of folks that just wanted to help

883
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 6: the kids of our fallen heroes and help them through

884
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:29,880
Speaker 6: the holidays by taking them to a happy place like

885
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:34,239
Speaker 6: Disneyland and letting them play and letting them meet each other,

886
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 6: to see that they weren't alone, you know, in their

887
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 6: grief and what they were going through. There was a

888
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:42,040
Speaker 6: lot of other kids that have lost a parent in

889
00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 6: military service, and it was very bonding and healing. I

890
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:49,839
Speaker 6: got involved with it the second year they had done

891
00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:54,640
Speaker 6: one event at Disneyland. I was shooting CSI New York

892
00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 6: and Studio City. They contacted me and said they wanted

893
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:02,160
Speaker 6: to come and show me a video of their first event,

894
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 6: and I saw that, I said I wanted to be involved.

895
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 6: I volunteered to donate my band the following year to

896
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:11,440
Speaker 6: come play.

897
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 1: For the kids.

898
00:50:12,719 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 4: I did that, then I went back the next year.

899
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:18,919
Speaker 4: Then I donated and just kept doing it every year,

900
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:25,080
Speaker 4: help helping to raise money or raise awareness or raised

901
00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 4: spirits by bringing the band and playing for the kids.

902
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 1: I've done it, you know, I don't know.

903
00:50:31,520 --> 00:50:35,279
Speaker 4: We're in our eightheenth year. I want Snowballs in its

904
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:41,279
Speaker 4: eighteenth year. So in twenty eighteen, having American Airlines is

905
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:46,560
Speaker 4: a big, big sponsor of ours with multiple programs, but

906
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:51,480
Speaker 4: American had actually gotten very, very involved, and so the

907
00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 4: event moved from Anaheim and Disneyland after three years to

908
00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:02,440
Speaker 4: Dallas because that's the hub of American Airlines. Have got

909
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:05,480
Speaker 4: a lot of good uh support there. They could do

910
00:51:05,520 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 4: a lot of things for the kids. So it was

911
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:11,080
Speaker 4: there for a number of years. And then I mentioned

912
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 4: to the folks that were kind of in charge of

913
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:17,000
Speaker 4: it at that time, Hey, you know, I've been narrating

914
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:20,279
Speaker 4: this show at Disney World for for you know, a

915
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 4: dozen years. Uh, and that's a that's a great place

916
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:26,000
Speaker 4: for the kids. I think we should take it take

917
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:29,239
Speaker 4: it there. Uh. Well, it was going to cost a

918
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:32,879
Speaker 4: lot of extra money to do that, and That's when

919
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 4: we decided to fold Snowball Express into the Garysonese Foundation

920
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:40,840
Speaker 4: as one of our programs because we had the ability

921
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 4: to raise raise the amount of money to you know,

922
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:46,799
Speaker 4: you're taking a thousand kids to Disney World.

923
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 1: You've got to get a lot of hotel rooms and all.

924
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:52,879
Speaker 1: You know, I know, it's a logistical and transportation it's

925
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 1: a big, big thing.

926
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:59,319
Speaker 4: So American provides all the all the transportation. Uh, you know,

927
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:02,560
Speaker 4: multiple arter airplanes that come from all over the country

928
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:06,960
Speaker 4: with these kids on board. Uh all you know, all

929
00:52:07,040 --> 00:52:11,360
Speaker 4: the people that all the flight attendants, all the pilots,

930
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 4: everybody volunteers their time. Wow, American donates the airplane planes

931
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:20,160
Speaker 4: we get all the kids to these Disney My foundation

932
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:22,360
Speaker 4: is the is the you know, it's the Gary Sneze

933
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:25,840
Speaker 4: Foundation program. So we raise all the additional money to

934
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:28,839
Speaker 4: do everything, you know, the park passes and the and

935
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:31,400
Speaker 4: the hotels and the food.

936
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:32,359
Speaker 1: And every everything like that.

937
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:34,600
Speaker 4: It costs a lot of money, hundreds and hundreds of

938
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:37,120
Speaker 4: volunteers and we bring them in for you know, we

939
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:39,799
Speaker 4: bring them in on a Saturday and they're there till

940
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:44,359
Speaker 4: like Wednesday, and it's it's it's life changed a lot

941
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:48,880
Speaker 4: of days of fun and healing for these kids. You know,

942
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:52,960
Speaker 4: they make lifelong friendships with somebody with another kid who's

943
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:54,200
Speaker 4: who's lost a parent.

944
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:56,640
Speaker 3: Tell me about the Soaring Valet program, which we were

945
00:52:56,640 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 3: talking about the other day, which I I knew I've

946
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:02,000
Speaker 3: seen when I'm in and out of airports, particularly down

947
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:02,760
Speaker 3: in New Orleans.

948
00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:05,919
Speaker 1: I didn't realize the other part of the city.

949
00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 3: It's not just veterans of war that you're bringing in

950
00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:11,840
Speaker 3: on these Soaring Valor trips.

951
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:15,279
Speaker 1: Well, soaring Valor is I have.

952
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:22,200
Speaker 4: That's one that started with my relationship with the National

953
00:53:22,239 --> 00:53:26,800
Speaker 4: World War Two Museum in New Orleans, and Tom Hanks

954
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:32,720
Speaker 4: invited me to. He was helping to make the movie

955
00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:36,000
Speaker 4: that plays in the theater there called Beyond All Boundaries,

956
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:39,239
Speaker 4: and so Tom called some of his palace to do

957
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:43,120
Speaker 4: voices in the movie. And I did the voice of

958
00:53:43,280 --> 00:53:45,560
Speaker 4: Ernie Pyle. And this goes back to two thousand and

959
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 4: nine or so. So I did the voice of Ernie Pyle.

960
00:53:49,080 --> 00:53:53,880
Speaker 4: And then I sent my uncle there, who was a

961
00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:57,480
Speaker 4: navigator on a B seventeen bomber over Europe and World

962
00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:02,279
Speaker 4: War Two, and they re my uncle on video for

963
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:05,319
Speaker 4: the archive at the museum and that's one of the

964
00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:09,320
Speaker 4: programs that they have at the museum where they tried

965
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 4: to get as many World War Two veterans to tell

966
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:15,440
Speaker 4: their stories on camera, and they preserve them in their

967
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:19,640
Speaker 4: archives and they use these stories throughout the museums. You'll

968
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:23,640
Speaker 4: go to an exhibit, you'll hit a thing and an

969
00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:26,279
Speaker 4: elderly World War Two veteran will come out and start

970
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:30,120
Speaker 4: telling his story, and then you see all this stuff

971
00:54:30,160 --> 00:54:32,200
Speaker 4: there and he's telling the story of what it was

972
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 4: like to try to take that bridge or whatever it is.

973
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:43,200
Speaker 4: So these You know that after my uncle died, my

974
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:47,719
Speaker 4: uncle Jack died in twenty fourteen, I called them and

975
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:50,200
Speaker 4: I said, can you send me that video of my

976
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:54,640
Speaker 4: uncle Jack. They sent me the video and I watched

977
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 4: it and I was, you know, just tears, and I

978
00:54:59,080 --> 00:55:01,840
Speaker 4: got so moved by I called them up and I said,

979
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:05,480
Speaker 4: you know, I'm so lucky that I have this video

980
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:06,640
Speaker 4: of my uncle.

981
00:55:08,239 --> 00:55:10,320
Speaker 1: Everyone who has a World War.

982
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:14,560
Speaker 4: Two veteran should have a video of them telling their

983
00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 4: stories like this. Is there anything I can do to

984
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:19,719
Speaker 4: help you get more of these stories, to make sure

985
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:23,880
Speaker 4: that we preserve more of these stories, And they said,

986
00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:29,120
Speaker 4: you know, why don't you fund some of our historians.

987
00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:35,319
Speaker 4: So I said, great, We'll fund historians to go out

988
00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:38,400
Speaker 4: around the country and videotape these World War Two veterans.

989
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:41,480
Speaker 4: And here's another thing that I'd like to do. I'm

990
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:44,279
Speaker 4: going to approach my friends in American Airlines and I'm

991
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:47,399
Speaker 4: going to pitch them an idea to fly World War

992
00:55:47,440 --> 00:55:50,120
Speaker 4: two veterans down to the National World War Two Museum

993
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:54,160
Speaker 4: to see this museum. Because they are all over the

994
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 4: country and many of them will never see this museum

995
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:02,200
Speaker 4: that was built for them, and so getting them there

996
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:07,840
Speaker 4: is super important. So I want to start a program

997
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:09,880
Speaker 4: where we can fly these veterans down there. So we

998
00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:15,440
Speaker 4: started taking veterans in twenty fifteen, and then in twenty seventeen,

999
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:19,920
Speaker 4: I thought, let's add another component to this, and I

1000
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:23,760
Speaker 4: pitched that to my team at the Foundation and also

1001
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:27,160
Speaker 4: to American and I said, I want to take high

1002
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:30,839
Speaker 4: school kids on these trips with the veterans, and pair

1003
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:35,360
Speaker 4: up a high school student with a World War Two veteran,

1004
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:39,520
Speaker 4: and they travel together to experience the music, experience the

1005
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:43,360
Speaker 4: museum with somebody who lived through the experience. It'll be

1006
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:47,279
Speaker 4: an education unlike anything they'll ever get. Well, now we've

1007
00:56:47,320 --> 00:56:53,239
Speaker 4: done twenty seven trips something like that, taking World War

1008
00:56:53,280 --> 00:56:56,720
Speaker 4: Two veterans and students down to the National War Two Museum.

1009
00:56:57,080 --> 00:56:59,560
Speaker 4: And you can go on the Garysonese Foundation website and

1010
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:02,600
Speaker 4: look at our YouTube channel and you'll see a whole

1011
00:57:02,600 --> 00:57:05,239
Speaker 4: bunch of videos of how special it is for these

1012
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:08,520
Speaker 4: kids to spend this time with these American heroes.

1013
00:57:08,840 --> 00:57:09,560
Speaker 1: It's beautiful.

1014
00:57:09,719 --> 00:57:15,520
Speaker 3: It's beautiful, and you're also teaching that generation the cost

1015
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:19,840
Speaker 3: of their freedom and what there's nothing like being confronted.

1016
00:57:19,880 --> 00:57:22,080
Speaker 3: I remember taking my kids to you know, we're walking

1017
00:57:22,080 --> 00:57:28,120
Speaker 3: through the Marines Museum out in Vietna, Virginia, and as

1018
00:57:28,160 --> 00:57:33,520
Speaker 3: we passed through, there was a retired elderly marine who

1019
00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:37,760
Speaker 3: had been toy Regima. Well, my kids were just fascinating

1020
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:40,760
Speaker 3: because we'd just come out of the See Regima exhibit

1021
00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:44,800
Speaker 3: and here was the living embodiment of it and this

1022
00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:47,840
Speaker 3: man he sat with my kids for like a half hour,

1023
00:57:48,240 --> 00:57:51,040
Speaker 3: and you could see the tears rolling down his face

1024
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:54,040
Speaker 3: because aid they were interested in what he had gone

1025
00:57:54,040 --> 00:57:57,480
Speaker 3: through and b he was passing it along to a

1026
00:57:57,520 --> 00:58:00,280
Speaker 3: younger generation and they were excited about it. So the

1027
00:58:00,320 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 3: wonder of what you're creating there and passing the history

1028
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:05,600
Speaker 3: along is so critical and important.

1029
00:58:06,240 --> 00:58:09,160
Speaker 4: It's beautiful Raymond. I mean when you see it time

1030
00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:13,360
Speaker 4: after time. I did the first It's been a while

1031
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:15,280
Speaker 4: since I've been able to get on a trip, but

1032
00:58:15,360 --> 00:58:18,240
Speaker 4: I did the first twelve to fifteen trips. You know,

1033
00:58:18,640 --> 00:58:22,600
Speaker 4: every one of these trips, you know, you know, helping

1034
00:58:22,640 --> 00:58:26,360
Speaker 4: these veterans get through the museum and watching them interact

1035
00:58:26,440 --> 00:58:29,160
Speaker 4: with the students, and watching the students interact with them,

1036
00:58:29,240 --> 00:58:32,040
Speaker 4: and the students opening.

1037
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:33,600
Speaker 1: Their eyes to what it is.

1038
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:36,760
Speaker 4: I mean, the cost of freedom is high, and you

1039
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:40,400
Speaker 4: know they learn from these veterans.

1040
00:58:41,720 --> 00:58:45,200
Speaker 1: What they did that relates to them today.

1041
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:49,080
Speaker 4: R I mean, you know, without this, without us winning

1042
00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 4: that war, the Allies winning that war, the world would

1043
00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:56,840
Speaker 4: have been completely different and they would have grown up

1044
00:58:56,880 --> 00:58:58,840
Speaker 4: in a completely different America.

1045
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:03,600
Speaker 1: I remember my son after meeting that it would Gama veteran.

1046
00:59:04,520 --> 00:59:07,160
Speaker 3: When we were leaving, he said, Dad, he's not that

1047
00:59:07,320 --> 00:59:10,479
Speaker 3: much older than I am now when he went to war.

1048
00:59:10,560 --> 00:59:14,480
Speaker 3: I said, that's right, that's the lesson. These were boys

1049
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:16,160
Speaker 3: who went off to defend this freedom.

1050
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:19,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's incredible, It is an incredible sacrifice, and that's

1051
00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:20,720
Speaker 1: a beautiful program.

1052
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:23,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll say no, the soaring valor is incredible and

1053
00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:25,280
Speaker 3: all of your program I mean your wellness programs. You

1054
00:59:25,320 --> 00:59:28,040
Speaker 3: have the Rise program which is about giving homes to

1055
00:59:28,080 --> 00:59:32,360
Speaker 3: your to severely disabled. That's I mean, we could spend

1056
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:34,800
Speaker 3: an afternoon talking about all the programs. You should go

1057
00:59:34,840 --> 00:59:37,240
Speaker 3: to Garrisonese's Foundation website and look at it all. It's

1058
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 3: incredible work. I want to talk though, about the string

1059
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:44,440
Speaker 3: that I see that runs through your life really from

1060
00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:47,000
Speaker 3: the time you're in Step and Well founding the foundation

1061
00:59:47,240 --> 00:59:51,160
Speaker 3: and then in your personal life, and there is this

1062
00:59:52,440 --> 00:59:54,320
Speaker 3: string of sacrifice.

1063
00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:55,920
Speaker 1: That I see running through it and devotion to others.

1064
00:59:56,760 --> 01:00:00,480
Speaker 3: In twenty eighteen, your son mac is die noosed with

1065
01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:04,920
Speaker 3: a very rare form of cancer on his spine. It

1066
01:00:05,000 --> 01:00:08,280
Speaker 3: turns into tumors that are popping out that you the

1067
01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:13,880
Speaker 3: doctors can't control. Your wife endured multiple surgeries at the

1068
01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:19,640
Speaker 3: same time she's having her own cancer battle. How did

1069
01:00:19,680 --> 01:00:22,160
Speaker 3: you contend with all this? First of all, what did

1070
01:00:22,240 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 3: you think was happening?

1071
01:00:28,000 --> 01:00:32,000
Speaker 1: Well, it's just like you're getting punched.

1072
01:00:32,360 --> 01:00:38,360
Speaker 4: You know. When we found out my wife there was

1073
01:00:38,480 --> 01:00:44,240
Speaker 4: you know, she had a mammogram and now we didn't

1074
01:00:44,240 --> 01:00:47,800
Speaker 4: hear anything for a bit, you know, Like so we

1075
01:00:47,880 --> 01:00:52,600
Speaker 4: just assumed, you know, well, maybe everything's okay. Then I

1076
01:00:52,640 --> 01:00:55,080
Speaker 4: don't know, maybe a month later, we get this letter

1077
01:00:55,360 --> 01:00:58,240
Speaker 4: that said, you know, they're you know, we'd like you

1078
01:00:58,280 --> 01:00:59,919
Speaker 4: to come back in for another check.

1079
01:01:00,360 --> 01:01:03,760
Speaker 1: You know, like a month later, we're like, what what's this?

1080
01:01:04,360 --> 01:01:07,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, So a month later we go back in, she

1081
01:01:07,880 --> 01:01:12,840
Speaker 4: gets another test. Then they want her to go and

1082
01:01:12,920 --> 01:01:18,320
Speaker 4: see the surgeon and he confirms that she has you know,

1083
01:01:19,240 --> 01:01:26,000
Speaker 4: cancer in her limp nodes and that she's going to

1084
01:01:26,080 --> 01:01:29,720
Speaker 4: need surgery. So they did a lump back to me

1085
01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:33,920
Speaker 4: on my wife, which you know, she didn't have to

1086
01:01:34,200 --> 01:01:36,760
Speaker 4: it's not a mass actomy. She didn't lose her breast.

1087
01:01:36,840 --> 01:01:40,000
Speaker 4: But they did a lump after me. Whether it took

1088
01:01:40,040 --> 01:01:45,640
Speaker 4: out nineteen nodes and then five of them were infected

1089
01:01:46,920 --> 01:01:53,360
Speaker 4: with cancer. And it was successful surgery according to him,

1090
01:01:54,640 --> 01:01:57,640
Speaker 4: but she was going to need to go through chemo

1091
01:01:58,520 --> 01:02:03,760
Speaker 4: and radiation. You started chemo, she went through you know,

1092
01:02:04,000 --> 01:02:10,479
Speaker 4: all the chemo treatments, thirty five radiation treatments. And during

1093
01:02:10,520 --> 01:02:14,720
Speaker 4: that time, you know, not too long after she had

1094
01:02:14,760 --> 01:02:19,880
Speaker 4: had her initial surgery, Mac was having trouble with he

1095
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:22,560
Speaker 4: was just he was in pain when he was sitting

1096
01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:26,920
Speaker 4: down and like his tailbone was hurting him, so we

1097
01:02:27,000 --> 01:02:32,520
Speaker 4: sent him to a Moira's spine surgeon and I get

1098
01:02:32,520 --> 01:02:34,720
Speaker 4: this call that Mac has a has a tumor on

1099
01:02:34,800 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 4: his sacrum.

1100
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:37,840
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting there with.

1101
01:02:37,760 --> 01:02:41,160
Speaker 4: Moira talking about her breast cancer. I get a call

1102
01:02:41,440 --> 01:02:46,120
Speaker 4: Max now got cancer. He's and it's something called cordoma,

1103
01:02:46,280 --> 01:02:49,240
Speaker 4: which is a very very rare cancer.

1104
01:02:49,560 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 1: I mean so rare.

1105
01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:52,080
Speaker 4: You know, when you think of rare, you think in

1106
01:02:52,120 --> 01:02:55,280
Speaker 4: the United States, well, maybe that's five thousand people or something.

1107
01:02:56,080 --> 01:02:59,520
Speaker 4: This is this is three hundred per year, you know,

1108
01:02:59,560 --> 01:03:02,840
Speaker 4: three hundre per year are diagnosed with this kind of tumor.

1109
01:03:03,240 --> 01:03:05,520
Speaker 4: And it starts in the spine. It can start up here,

1110
01:03:06,160 --> 01:03:09,400
Speaker 4: you know, at the top of the spine or at

1111
01:03:09,400 --> 01:03:13,480
Speaker 4: the bottom of the spine. And with Mac, that tumor

1112
01:03:13,560 --> 01:03:18,760
Speaker 4: was this big wrapped around his sacrum. And it's such

1113
01:03:18,760 --> 01:03:25,040
Speaker 4: a slow growing tumor that it could very possibly have

1114
01:03:25,120 --> 01:03:30,960
Speaker 4: been growing since birth that long because it grows very

1115
01:03:31,120 --> 01:03:33,520
Speaker 4: very slowly to get to that size.

1116
01:03:34,040 --> 01:03:37,720
Speaker 1: They said that could have been there for a long

1117
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:38,960
Speaker 1: long time.

1118
01:03:39,920 --> 01:03:43,560
Speaker 4: And the only way to cure it is to take

1119
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:50,080
Speaker 4: it out and hopefully the surgeon gets every cell, every

1120
01:03:50,120 --> 01:03:54,720
Speaker 4: bit of it and that can happen successfully about seventy

1121
01:03:54,760 --> 01:03:57,600
Speaker 4: percent of the time, but thirty percent of the time

1122
01:03:58,560 --> 01:04:04,240
Speaker 4: they will take take it out and then it'll come

1123
01:04:04,280 --> 01:04:08,360
Speaker 4: back and spread. And when it comes back and spreads,

1124
01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:15,400
Speaker 4: there's very little it can be done. They try to

1125
01:04:15,520 --> 01:04:19,840
Speaker 4: radiate it, they try any drug, any cancer drug they can.

1126
01:04:21,560 --> 01:04:24,440
Speaker 4: We found out he had his initial tumor taken out

1127
01:04:24,480 --> 01:04:28,720
Speaker 4: in September of twenty eighteen, and by May of twenty nineteen,

1128
01:04:29,320 --> 01:04:32,520
Speaker 4: we found out that a cancer came back. So then

1129
01:04:32,520 --> 01:04:37,120
Speaker 4: he went into like chemo treatments, radiation stuff, more surgeries

1130
01:04:37,160 --> 01:04:39,600
Speaker 4: because now it was spreading to the neck, right, he

1131
01:04:40,080 --> 01:04:43,160
Speaker 4: had tumors on his neck. He had in fact, see

1132
01:04:43,200 --> 01:04:48,000
Speaker 4: this picture back here, that is five days before he

1133
01:04:48,040 --> 01:04:50,959
Speaker 4: had to go in the hospital and get tumor taken

1134
01:04:51,000 --> 01:04:54,120
Speaker 4: off his neck. In fact, you know, when he wasn't

1135
01:04:54,160 --> 01:04:57,240
Speaker 4: on camera or getting his picture taken, they gave him

1136
01:04:57,240 --> 01:04:59,600
Speaker 4: a neck brace to wear. When they discovered that there

1137
01:04:59,640 --> 01:05:01,920
Speaker 4: was two more on his neck. They didn't want him

1138
01:05:01,960 --> 01:05:05,080
Speaker 4: to do anything that would you know, screw you know,

1139
01:05:05,200 --> 01:05:07,800
Speaker 4: pop anything, or that tumor was growing there and it

1140
01:05:07,840 --> 01:05:10,480
Speaker 4: could fracture something. So they gave him a neck brace

1141
01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:12,320
Speaker 4: and he was wearing a neck brace until we got

1142
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:16,360
Speaker 4: into the hospital five days after that picture was taken there.

1143
01:05:19,160 --> 01:05:23,360
Speaker 4: But and he's also going through chemo and radiation, and

1144
01:05:24,240 --> 01:05:27,560
Speaker 4: you know, they kept he had multiple spine surgeries because

1145
01:05:27,560 --> 01:05:29,240
Speaker 4: he was in a lot of pain and the only

1146
01:05:29,280 --> 01:05:31,080
Speaker 4: thing they could do was try to take the tumors

1147
01:05:31,080 --> 01:05:33,960
Speaker 4: out off his spine. Each time they did that, he

1148
01:05:34,400 --> 01:05:40,160
Speaker 4: became a little more disabled, until finally at the end

1149
01:05:40,240 --> 01:05:44,760
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty, this was twenty twenty, he was in

1150
01:05:44,800 --> 01:05:47,520
Speaker 4: a wheelchair and then he.

1151
01:05:47,520 --> 01:05:49,080
Speaker 1: Was still able to stand up.

1152
01:05:49,960 --> 01:05:53,200
Speaker 4: But shortly after that he lost the use of his legs.

1153
01:05:53,240 --> 01:05:54,240
Speaker 1: I remember coming in.

1154
01:05:54,840 --> 01:05:56,680
Speaker 4: I would come in and I would stretch his legs

1155
01:05:56,720 --> 01:06:00,840
Speaker 4: out and have him push, you know, his legs. And

1156
01:06:00,920 --> 01:06:04,440
Speaker 4: I came in and I said, okay, lift your leg up,

1157
01:06:04,440 --> 01:06:07,680
Speaker 4: but and he couldn't do it. And he couldn't lift

1158
01:06:07,720 --> 01:06:09,800
Speaker 4: his leg up, and he just looked at me, you know,

1159
01:06:12,520 --> 01:06:15,760
Speaker 4: he couldn't do it, and he took it in stride.

1160
01:06:15,840 --> 01:06:18,880
Speaker 1: Raymond. I mean, it was like like he's laying there.

1161
01:06:20,000 --> 01:06:23,200
Speaker 4: I think he knew something was happening because it was

1162
01:06:23,240 --> 01:06:27,680
Speaker 4: getting harder and harder to move his leg. And then

1163
01:06:27,720 --> 01:06:33,840
Speaker 4: when it happened, it was like, can't do it.

1164
01:06:33,880 --> 01:06:38,640
Speaker 1: Then he was resigned to it. Yeah, you know, it

1165
01:06:38,760 --> 01:06:43,240
Speaker 1: wasn't like he started crying or anything. He was just.

1166
01:06:45,680 --> 01:06:47,760
Speaker 4: We're in a different world now, you know. Now we're

1167
01:06:47,800 --> 01:06:49,400
Speaker 4: in a we moved to a new place.

1168
01:06:49,800 --> 01:06:52,880
Speaker 1: We're in another level of what we're going to do.

1169
01:06:54,240 --> 01:06:56,400
Speaker 3: The amazing thing to me is through all of this.

1170
01:06:57,000 --> 01:06:59,400
Speaker 3: I mean, in twenty twenty one, you lose your father,

1171
01:07:00,480 --> 01:07:04,280
Speaker 3: your wife is still battling cancer. Mac is now battling cancer.

1172
01:07:05,520 --> 01:07:10,560
Speaker 3: But the mission, Max's mission and his love of music

1173
01:07:11,440 --> 01:07:16,480
Speaker 3: never WANs Gary. In fact, I would argue, well you

1174
01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:20,800
Speaker 3: named the album or he did Resurrection and revival it

1175
01:07:20,880 --> 01:07:22,720
Speaker 3: resurrects and revives him.

1176
01:07:23,320 --> 01:07:26,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the last year of his life. Tell me

1177
01:07:26,080 --> 01:07:30,120
Speaker 1: about that, what you saw, the drive you saw in

1178
01:07:30,240 --> 01:07:33,480
Speaker 1: him and the impact it had on you.

1179
01:07:34,560 --> 01:07:40,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, this record, this is part two of the first record,

1180
01:07:41,680 --> 01:07:48,560
Speaker 4: the first record. In February of twenty twenty three, he'd

1181
01:07:48,560 --> 01:07:51,200
Speaker 4: been fighting cancer and all of that, and he said

1182
01:07:51,200 --> 01:07:53,880
Speaker 4: to me, Dad, there's a piece of music that I

1183
01:07:53,920 --> 01:07:57,360
Speaker 4: wrote that I never finished in college, and I think

1184
01:07:57,400 --> 01:08:02,040
Speaker 4: I'd like to try and finish it. He contacted one

1185
01:08:02,080 --> 01:08:06,200
Speaker 4: of my band members who he'd worked with a little

1186
01:08:06,200 --> 01:08:10,800
Speaker 4: bit on some things and my violin player Dan, and

1187
01:08:10,920 --> 01:08:13,720
Speaker 4: Dan went to work with him on it to help

1188
01:08:13,760 --> 01:08:15,600
Speaker 4: them kind of flesh out the ideas. And then my

1189
01:08:15,680 --> 01:08:18,559
Speaker 4: piano player went to work on it with him. Ben

1190
01:08:18,640 --> 01:08:22,800
Speaker 4: lewis helping him. Ben would play things for him and

1191
01:08:22,840 --> 01:08:24,920
Speaker 4: then send it back to Mac and he'd make notes

1192
01:08:24,960 --> 01:08:26,280
Speaker 4: and send it back to Ben.

1193
01:08:26,320 --> 01:08:27,559
Speaker 1: Then Ben would adjust.

1194
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:31,160
Speaker 4: And then his buddy Oliver Shnay came into the picture,

1195
01:08:31,800 --> 01:08:34,280
Speaker 4: who he hadn't seen for a while. Oliver went to

1196
01:08:34,320 --> 01:08:37,040
Speaker 4: college with him, yea, and they hadn't seen each other

1197
01:08:37,120 --> 01:08:42,240
Speaker 4: for a long time. And Mac played him this piece

1198
01:08:42,280 --> 01:08:44,800
Speaker 4: of music that he'd been working on, and Oliver went

1199
01:08:44,840 --> 01:08:47,519
Speaker 4: to work on it with him to finish it. They

1200
01:08:47,520 --> 01:08:51,800
Speaker 4: went into the studio in July of twenty twenty three

1201
01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:55,320
Speaker 4: and recorded the piece of Arctic Circles, which is on

1202
01:08:55,479 --> 01:08:57,040
Speaker 4: Maxinese YouTube.

1203
01:08:57,080 --> 01:09:00,200
Speaker 1: Now, that started the.

1204
01:09:00,080 --> 01:09:04,080
Speaker 4: Ball rolling for Mac wanting to do an entire album,

1205
01:09:04,240 --> 01:09:08,120
Speaker 4: and that's where Resurrection and Revival came from. I don't

1206
01:09:08,160 --> 01:09:11,840
Speaker 4: know where where he why he decided that that was

1207
01:09:11,880 --> 01:09:15,240
Speaker 4: the title, but named it yeah, oh yeah, Mac Mac did, yeah,

1208
01:09:15,360 --> 01:09:18,280
Speaker 4: he it was it was his project.

1209
01:09:18,960 --> 01:09:22,040
Speaker 3: Well, clearly it was Resurrection and Revival of his music.

1210
01:09:23,439 --> 01:09:26,559
Speaker 3: But now in the light of what we know and

1211
01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:29,400
Speaker 3: what's happened, it takes on a far greater significance.

1212
01:09:29,800 --> 01:09:31,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was.

1213
01:09:31,600 --> 01:09:35,040
Speaker 4: It was reviving him, you know, personally, to be to

1214
01:09:35,120 --> 01:09:38,679
Speaker 4: be resurrecting some old pieces of music and bringing him.

1215
01:09:38,520 --> 01:09:39,280
Speaker 1: To new life.

1216
01:09:39,439 --> 01:09:42,360
Speaker 4: And you know, even that even that cover right there,

1217
01:09:42,479 --> 01:09:45,719
Speaker 4: he who is this, that's my grandfather and his grave

1218
01:09:45,760 --> 01:09:47,280
Speaker 4: grandfather in World War One.

1219
01:09:47,280 --> 01:09:49,120
Speaker 3: Who kind of looks like mac I had to say,

1220
01:09:49,160 --> 01:09:51,200
Speaker 3: and a little bit, but he looks he looks a

1221
01:09:51,200 --> 01:09:55,000
Speaker 3: little bit like he does. When I saw it, I thought, oh,

1222
01:09:55,080 --> 01:09:57,640
Speaker 3: he put his face, he super imposed his face.

1223
01:09:57,400 --> 01:10:01,000
Speaker 1: On an old picture. But it it's not it's a relative.

1224
01:10:01,080 --> 01:10:01,120
Speaker 4: No.

1225
01:10:01,240 --> 01:10:03,400
Speaker 1: He he kind of revived that picture.

1226
01:10:03,520 --> 01:10:05,320
Speaker 4: One of the things he did when he was working

1227
01:10:05,320 --> 01:10:09,280
Speaker 4: at the Foundation was kind of preserved things in archive

1228
01:10:09,360 --> 01:10:11,360
Speaker 4: and he would take, like, I had a lot of

1229
01:10:11,360 --> 01:10:13,880
Speaker 4: these old pictures of my grandfather from World War One,

1230
01:10:13,920 --> 01:10:16,519
Speaker 4: and he took them and kind of lightened them up

1231
01:10:16,560 --> 01:10:17,320
Speaker 4: and fixed them.

1232
01:10:17,240 --> 01:10:18,799
Speaker 1: Up, made it look better and everything.

1233
01:10:19,400 --> 01:10:21,840
Speaker 4: And his mom, you know, he's looking for one of

1234
01:10:21,840 --> 01:10:25,400
Speaker 4: those pictures to use on the cover, and he showed

1235
01:10:25,400 --> 01:10:28,240
Speaker 4: his mom one over here, and she said, what about

1236
01:10:28,240 --> 01:10:28,839
Speaker 4: that one.

1237
01:10:30,280 --> 01:10:32,800
Speaker 1: With Grandpa on the horse. Huh.

1238
01:10:32,840 --> 01:10:34,840
Speaker 4: And Mac went back and got that and he looked

1239
01:10:34,880 --> 01:10:37,040
Speaker 4: at it and he thought, you're right, Mom, that's that's

1240
01:10:37,040 --> 01:10:38,439
Speaker 4: a great that's a great shot.

1241
01:10:39,640 --> 01:10:42,519
Speaker 3: I had you on the show on my show on

1242
01:10:42,600 --> 01:10:45,920
Speaker 3: a WTN on Fox and when the first album came out,

1243
01:10:46,080 --> 01:10:48,760
Speaker 3: and as I listened to you, now you said when

1244
01:10:48,800 --> 01:10:51,840
Speaker 3: Mac saw these pictures, he would brighten them up and

1245
01:10:51,920 --> 01:10:55,360
Speaker 3: revive them. But it seems to me, now now you've

1246
01:10:55,400 --> 01:10:58,639
Speaker 3: released the second album of his work, some of which

1247
01:10:58,680 --> 01:11:02,080
Speaker 3: you discovered like hidden treasure in his devices after his death,

1248
01:11:03,120 --> 01:11:06,840
Speaker 3: you are the one who has now brightened and revived

1249
01:11:07,560 --> 01:11:08,800
Speaker 3: and restored.

1250
01:11:10,040 --> 01:11:14,560
Speaker 1: These works that he left you in many ways.

1251
01:11:15,040 --> 01:11:21,599
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, finding these musical treasures on his laptop after

1252
01:11:21,640 --> 01:11:32,080
Speaker 4: he died was a blessing because it's given me this project,

1253
01:11:32,280 --> 01:11:38,519
Speaker 4: you know, throughout this first year of our lives without Mac,

1254
01:11:38,880 --> 01:11:44,680
Speaker 4: that has really helped me through quite a bit. It's

1255
01:11:44,960 --> 01:11:49,200
Speaker 4: resurrected me and revived me a bit from this terrible

1256
01:11:49,240 --> 01:11:51,280
Speaker 4: grief that we're going through after losing.

1257
01:11:51,080 --> 01:11:54,599
Speaker 1: Him, you know, and I'm grateful for that.

1258
01:11:54,680 --> 01:11:59,720
Speaker 4: You know, not everybody loses somebody and then has you know,

1259
01:11:59,800 --> 01:12:03,200
Speaker 4: a treasure trove of music to produce or something like

1260
01:12:03,280 --> 01:12:04,600
Speaker 4: that messages.

1261
01:12:04,160 --> 01:12:04,760
Speaker 1: You've told me.

1262
01:12:04,880 --> 01:12:08,799
Speaker 3: I mean, you were going clearly opening his opening these devices.

1263
01:12:09,000 --> 01:12:10,880
Speaker 3: I'm sure the first impulse wasn't oh, I'm going to

1264
01:12:10,920 --> 01:12:14,879
Speaker 3: go find some more music. You were looking for clues

1265
01:12:14,920 --> 01:12:16,640
Speaker 3: in the sense of what he was going through. I

1266
01:12:16,640 --> 01:12:20,760
Speaker 3: imagine I don't know what I was looking for Raymond.

1267
01:12:22,200 --> 01:12:26,000
Speaker 1: After he died. I you know, I don't know.

1268
01:12:26,000 --> 01:12:30,320
Speaker 4: Within days, I just went to his phone and I

1269
01:12:30,439 --> 01:12:32,920
Speaker 4: just opened up his phone. I had his password, and

1270
01:12:33,000 --> 01:12:35,160
Speaker 4: I opened up his phone and I started looking at

1271
01:12:35,160 --> 01:12:39,519
Speaker 4: his text messages with people, and I looked at I

1272
01:12:39,680 --> 01:12:44,640
Speaker 4: found voicemails of people that sent him I mean that

1273
01:12:44,880 --> 01:12:49,240
Speaker 4: called him the day he died, not knowing that he

1274
01:12:49,360 --> 01:12:53,960
Speaker 4: was gone, or shortly after he died, not knowing he

1275
01:12:54,040 --> 01:12:56,160
Speaker 4: was gone. These are friends that I didn't really know

1276
01:12:56,320 --> 01:12:59,360
Speaker 4: very well. So and I found these voice messages. So

1277
01:12:59,439 --> 01:13:02,840
Speaker 4: I ended up calling these these friends of his and

1278
01:13:02,920 --> 01:13:06,600
Speaker 4: telling them, you know, we lost mac He's you know,

1279
01:13:06,680 --> 01:13:09,160
Speaker 4: I just wanted you to know I found this voicemail

1280
01:13:09,200 --> 01:13:12,960
Speaker 4: that you left. I found text messages from different people.

1281
01:13:13,080 --> 01:13:18,920
Speaker 4: I'm in fact, one of the one of the songs

1282
01:13:19,040 --> 01:13:25,160
Speaker 4: on the record, it's It's.

1283
01:13:24,640 --> 01:13:26,080
Speaker 1: He calls it quasi love.

1284
01:13:26,200 --> 01:13:29,840
Speaker 4: It's you know, I know quasi is the pronunciation, but

1285
01:13:29,920 --> 01:13:33,160
Speaker 4: Mac wanted to kind of do something something different with it,

1286
01:13:33,200 --> 01:13:38,160
Speaker 4: his own jazz, his own thing. And uh so I

1287
01:13:38,320 --> 01:13:43,080
Speaker 4: found uh him singing into his phone the melody for

1288
01:13:43,720 --> 01:13:48,160
Speaker 4: this song, uh into his voice message and he was

1289
01:13:48,200 --> 01:13:50,120
Speaker 4: writing a song in his head and he was singing

1290
01:13:50,360 --> 01:13:52,840
Speaker 4: into his song. Then I found the chart for it,

1291
01:13:53,000 --> 01:13:55,680
Speaker 4: and then I found text messages between him and my

1292
01:13:55,800 --> 01:13:57,160
Speaker 4: violin player Dan.

1293
01:13:58,000 --> 01:13:59,200
Speaker 1: Talking about this song.

1294
01:13:59,240 --> 01:14:02,200
Speaker 4: And so I went to Dan and said, what what

1295
01:14:02,439 --> 01:14:05,200
Speaker 4: were you were you working on another song with with

1296
01:14:05,320 --> 01:14:07,559
Speaker 4: Mac besides Arctic Circles?

1297
01:14:07,600 --> 01:14:10,320
Speaker 1: And he said, oh, yeah, Mac had this cool idea

1298
01:14:10,400 --> 01:14:11,760
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah.

1299
01:14:11,800 --> 01:14:13,800
Speaker 4: And I said, we'll finish that song because we're going

1300
01:14:13,880 --> 01:14:16,960
Speaker 4: to put it on we're doing a second record and

1301
01:14:17,000 --> 01:14:20,479
Speaker 4: I wanted on the record, and so it's on the record.

1302
01:14:20,520 --> 01:14:23,320
Speaker 4: And I just found all kinds of things on his phone, Raymond,

1303
01:14:23,360 --> 01:14:25,000
Speaker 4: that I don't even know what.

1304
01:14:25,040 --> 01:14:30,040
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I was looking for. I was just.

1305
01:14:32,320 --> 01:14:36,120
Speaker 4: I was just driven to find things and find what

1306
01:14:36,320 --> 01:14:38,040
Speaker 4: was happening at the end of his life. Who was

1307
01:14:38,200 --> 01:14:42,360
Speaker 4: who was he talking to? And do they know what happened?

1308
01:14:42,600 --> 01:14:42,880
Speaker 3: You know?

1309
01:14:42,960 --> 01:14:46,000
Speaker 1: And so I had to let them know. And what's

1310
01:14:46,040 --> 01:14:46,760
Speaker 1: the message.

1311
01:14:47,240 --> 01:14:50,640
Speaker 3: What did you discover that you didn't know that he

1312
01:14:50,800 --> 01:14:52,200
Speaker 3: was going through at the end of his life.

1313
01:14:52,240 --> 01:14:59,240
Speaker 4: Gary, through all of this, you know, I never wanted

1314
01:14:59,280 --> 01:15:05,280
Speaker 4: to have that sort of what if conversation with Mac.

1315
01:15:06,760 --> 01:15:07,040
Speaker 1: Mac.

1316
01:15:07,160 --> 01:15:11,320
Speaker 4: You know, we're fighting cancer and it's you know, it's tough,

1317
01:15:11,439 --> 01:15:15,479
Speaker 4: and what if this happens were I never wanted to

1318
01:15:15,520 --> 01:15:17,920
Speaker 4: have that conversation with him, you know, do you want

1319
01:15:17,960 --> 01:15:19,040
Speaker 4: me to do this or.

1320
01:15:19,040 --> 01:15:20,120
Speaker 1: Do you want me to do that?

1321
01:15:20,400 --> 01:15:23,679
Speaker 4: There was only one time where I asked him about something,

1322
01:15:25,920 --> 01:15:29,560
Speaker 4: what what would you want to happen with your bank account?

1323
01:15:30,840 --> 01:15:32,120
Speaker 1: Because he'd saved a lot.

1324
01:15:31,960 --> 01:15:36,040
Speaker 4: Of money, and what would you want to happen?

1325
01:15:36,280 --> 01:15:36,599
Speaker 1: You know?

1326
01:15:38,280 --> 01:15:41,080
Speaker 4: And he paid for the first record himself, I mean

1327
01:15:41,600 --> 01:15:43,479
Speaker 4: out of out of his savings and everything.

1328
01:15:43,560 --> 01:15:45,759
Speaker 1: But he saved a fair.

1329
01:15:45,640 --> 01:15:48,400
Speaker 4: Amount of money, and so I asked him and he

1330
01:15:48,439 --> 01:15:50,960
Speaker 4: told me what he would want with that. But then

1331
01:15:51,000 --> 01:15:56,280
Speaker 4: I didn't I didn't want to have that conversation with him,

1332
01:15:56,280 --> 01:16:00,840
Speaker 4: because I did. I didn't want him or me to

1333
01:16:00,960 --> 01:16:04,800
Speaker 4: feel like we were we were looking at the end

1334
01:16:04,880 --> 01:16:09,000
Speaker 4: of the road. I was always from the from the

1335
01:16:09,040 --> 01:16:11,639
Speaker 4: get go, trying to find the drug, trying to find

1336
01:16:11,680 --> 01:16:16,000
Speaker 4: the doctor, trying to find the procedure. What can we try,

1337
01:16:16,200 --> 01:16:19,200
Speaker 4: where can we try it? In fact, there was there

1338
01:16:19,280 --> 01:16:22,760
Speaker 4: was mac was getting ready to do another treatment when

1339
01:16:22,760 --> 01:16:24,840
Speaker 4: he ended up in the hospital the last time. He

1340
01:16:25,600 --> 01:16:28,960
Speaker 4: was scheduled for another treatment and then he ended up

1341
01:16:29,000 --> 01:16:33,320
Speaker 4: going into the arm because his breathing was affected, and

1342
01:16:34,200 --> 01:16:36,960
Speaker 4: we lost him on January January fifth.

1343
01:16:38,280 --> 01:16:46,479
Speaker 3: What what did he teach you about sacrifice and staying

1344
01:16:46,520 --> 01:16:49,320
Speaker 3: on mission? Did he teach you anything?

1345
01:16:50,040 --> 01:16:58,240
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, he fought this with such grace and courage that,

1346
01:16:59,240 --> 01:17:01,000
Speaker 4: you know, I can only hope that I'm going to

1347
01:17:01,040 --> 01:17:05,759
Speaker 4: be as graceful and courageous when you know, things get tough,

1348
01:17:05,920 --> 01:17:15,000
Speaker 4: You know, for me, because I watched him knowing that

1349
01:17:15,120 --> 01:17:21,920
Speaker 4: he knew how bad things were for him, and yet

1350
01:17:22,200 --> 01:17:27,160
Speaker 4: he never never stopped smiling through it. You know, if

1351
01:17:27,200 --> 01:17:30,160
Speaker 4: he was not in pain or not feeling sick from

1352
01:17:30,160 --> 01:17:35,400
Speaker 4: the treatments, he was smiling. He was watching the Cubs.

1353
01:17:35,400 --> 01:17:38,720
Speaker 4: He was a big Cubs fan. All this, all through

1354
01:17:38,760 --> 01:17:41,479
Speaker 4: the summer of twenty twenty three. He was watching the

1355
01:17:41,520 --> 01:17:45,640
Speaker 4: TV with his mom, watching the Cubs. My mom was

1356
01:17:45,640 --> 01:17:48,519
Speaker 4: in there all through Moira, My mom and mac All

1357
01:17:48,560 --> 01:17:51,639
Speaker 4: had their cubnats and they're all watching the cub games.

1358
01:17:52,880 --> 01:17:55,720
Speaker 4: He was smiling through that. He was playing his harmonica.

1359
01:17:55,800 --> 01:17:58,960
Speaker 4: He was working on the music. The entire last year

1360
01:17:58,960 --> 01:18:02,280
Speaker 4: of his life, he was focused on creating this album,

1361
01:18:02,600 --> 01:18:08,439
Speaker 4: and so he was filled with joy and happiness for

1362
01:18:08,520 --> 01:18:10,439
Speaker 4: what he was doing, and it was giving him this

1363
01:18:12,800 --> 01:18:16,280
Speaker 4: amazing thing to look forward to every day. I'm making

1364
01:18:16,320 --> 01:18:19,559
Speaker 4: a record. I'm going into the studio. He was in

1365
01:18:19,600 --> 01:18:22,479
Speaker 4: the studio in July twenty twenty three. He was back

1366
01:18:22,520 --> 01:18:26,200
Speaker 4: in the studio in November twenty twenty three. The record

1367
01:18:26,320 --> 01:18:30,160
Speaker 4: was finished in December. He heard all the music, he

1368
01:18:30,240 --> 01:18:34,880
Speaker 4: designed the cover, and he saw the final videos that

1369
01:18:34,920 --> 01:18:39,800
Speaker 4: were made. And then a day later he was in

1370
01:18:39,800 --> 01:18:43,200
Speaker 4: the hospital and we lost him six days later. So

1371
01:18:43,240 --> 01:18:45,640
Speaker 4: that whole last year he was filled with joy and

1372
01:18:45,760 --> 01:18:50,519
Speaker 4: happiness of working on this music and accomplishing this thing

1373
01:18:50,560 --> 01:18:52,920
Speaker 4: that he wanted to do, and this beautiful music.

1374
01:18:53,000 --> 01:18:54,559
Speaker 1: I mean, it's stunning.

1375
01:18:54,800 --> 01:18:59,120
Speaker 4: So I watched him just gracefully go through the last

1376
01:18:59,200 --> 01:19:03,240
Speaker 4: year of his life, you know, being paralyzed, being you know,

1377
01:19:03,400 --> 01:19:05,920
Speaker 4: struggling with different things.

1378
01:19:06,120 --> 01:19:11,240
Speaker 1: Yet Mac never ever looked like he was given up.

1379
01:19:11,520 --> 01:19:14,000
Speaker 3: Well, I love how you've continued you took the baton

1380
01:19:14,120 --> 01:19:19,439
Speaker 3: from him and in his passing, finished the work. Because

1381
01:19:19,479 --> 01:19:21,760
Speaker 3: now you've gotten two more album I mean, it's really

1382
01:19:21,760 --> 01:19:24,439
Speaker 3: two more albums. I know it's I know it's Resurrection

1383
01:19:24,479 --> 01:19:27,479
Speaker 3: and Revival part two. It's actually part three two. I mean,

1384
01:19:27,479 --> 01:19:28,479
Speaker 3: you've you've got a lot here.

1385
01:19:28,600 --> 01:19:30,439
Speaker 1: Double double disc. It's a double disc.

1386
01:19:30,560 --> 01:19:32,799
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a lot of music. It's nineteen tracks,

1387
01:19:32,840 --> 01:19:37,559
Speaker 3: and they're very diverse. There's jazz, there's orchestra, orchestra, there's

1388
01:19:37,760 --> 01:19:41,800
Speaker 3: a beautiful harmonica with strength. I mean, there's the diversity

1389
01:19:41,840 --> 01:19:46,840
Speaker 3: of his musical palette is pretty wide and uh, in fact,

1390
01:19:46,960 --> 01:19:50,840
Speaker 3: kind of fascinating. And I imagine as a father. I

1391
01:19:50,840 --> 01:19:52,559
Speaker 3: mean I listened to it one way, but I'm sure

1392
01:19:52,600 --> 01:19:54,400
Speaker 3: as a dad you listen to it and go wow.

1393
01:19:54,439 --> 01:19:57,840
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that he had that in him, or

1394
01:19:57,880 --> 01:20:00,559
Speaker 3: I didn't know he had he he.

1395
01:20:00,560 --> 01:20:03,320
Speaker 1: Felt bat because I mean, it's a wash of feeling.

1396
01:20:03,400 --> 01:20:05,240
Speaker 1: That's really what this is. It's an album. It's a

1397
01:20:05,360 --> 01:20:06,040
Speaker 1: wash of feelings.

1398
01:20:06,080 --> 01:20:09,000
Speaker 4: And yeah, some of the stuff I discovered was I

1399
01:20:09,120 --> 01:20:11,120
Speaker 4: was totally just like.

1400
01:20:11,240 --> 01:20:13,720
Speaker 1: Wow, why didn't he ever? Why didn't he play that

1401
01:20:13,760 --> 01:20:15,919
Speaker 1: for me? It's so beautiful.

1402
01:20:15,960 --> 01:20:18,679
Speaker 4: There's a song called just for Now on it that

1403
01:20:18,720 --> 01:20:22,479
Speaker 4: he did all on his computer programs. A lot of

1404
01:20:22,479 --> 01:20:25,600
Speaker 4: the stuff he would write, you know, on his programs,

1405
01:20:25,720 --> 01:20:28,160
Speaker 4: like just for Now. He did everything on his programs.

1406
01:20:28,800 --> 01:20:31,959
Speaker 4: We took the just for Now track that Matt created

1407
01:20:32,360 --> 01:20:35,240
Speaker 4: with the original vocals and everything like that. We added

1408
01:20:35,280 --> 01:20:39,439
Speaker 4: some strings on top of some of it, just.

1409
01:20:40,720 --> 01:20:42,040
Speaker 1: To give it a little more.

1410
01:20:42,080 --> 01:20:45,280
Speaker 4: But the track could have been put on the record

1411
01:20:45,360 --> 01:20:48,960
Speaker 4: all by itself because Mack did it. It's just a

1412
01:20:48,960 --> 01:20:53,400
Speaker 4: beautiful song. His friend from college, Lou Roy, sings on it.

1413
01:20:53,840 --> 01:20:56,559
Speaker 4: She's got a beautiful voice. She sings on three of

1414
01:20:56,560 --> 01:21:01,240
Speaker 4: the songs on the record. There's the other music on

1415
01:21:01,280 --> 01:21:04,200
Speaker 4: the record that Mac did all by himself. There's a

1416
01:21:04,280 --> 01:21:07,120
Speaker 4: cover of nature Boy, the old song by Nac and Co.

1417
01:21:08,400 --> 01:21:08,599
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1418
01:21:09,160 --> 01:21:11,519
Speaker 4: Mac does a version of nature Boy where he plays

1419
01:21:11,600 --> 01:21:15,600
Speaker 4: all the instruments and he sings, and he recorded everything and.

1420
01:21:15,800 --> 01:21:17,439
Speaker 1: He had that all in the computer. Where was this

1421
01:21:17,560 --> 01:21:20,519
Speaker 1: that was? That was in his files? Wow? In his file?

1422
01:21:20,680 --> 01:21:22,120
Speaker 1: What do you think he would say if he saw

1423
01:21:22,160 --> 01:21:28,720
Speaker 1: this part two? What would he say to you? What

1424
01:21:28,720 --> 01:21:33,200
Speaker 1: would he say to me? I hope you'd say, let's

1425
01:21:33,240 --> 01:21:38,840
Speaker 1: do part three. He may he may give a g yet, Garry.

1426
01:21:39,200 --> 01:21:41,639
Speaker 3: Okay, there's a there's a string of questions I ask

1427
01:21:41,760 --> 01:21:44,160
Speaker 3: every I call this my royal grande questionnaire.

1428
01:21:44,400 --> 01:21:45,960
Speaker 1: So now you're going to be subjected to it.

1429
01:21:46,080 --> 01:21:48,160
Speaker 3: These are fast, you don't have to spend much time

1430
01:21:48,200 --> 01:21:50,960
Speaker 3: on these, but I'm warning you they are deadly questions.

1431
01:21:51,000 --> 01:21:59,360
Speaker 1: You're right, who's the person you most admire? Jesus? Hmmm?

1432
01:22:00,120 --> 01:22:02,439
Speaker 1: Who do you most attest? Oh? I can't say it,

1433
01:22:02,479 --> 01:22:05,400
Speaker 1: Come on, I can't. Everybody tries for dodging on that.

1434
01:22:05,520 --> 01:22:07,960
Speaker 1: You right now? Thank you? Yeah for asking that question?

1435
01:22:08,080 --> 01:22:15,400
Speaker 1: You awful person. You What is your best feature? I

1436
01:22:15,439 --> 01:22:21,560
Speaker 1: don't know, Maybe M hard to say. Persistence, maybe persistence?

1437
01:22:21,600 --> 01:22:24,320
Speaker 1: What's your worst? Your worst feature?

1438
01:22:25,800 --> 01:22:30,920
Speaker 2: Maybe persistence, the double edged sort of persistence. Well, you

1439
01:22:30,960 --> 01:22:33,360
Speaker 2: don't build a foundation and call it the Gary Sineze

1440
01:22:33,400 --> 01:22:35,240
Speaker 2: foundation without a little persistent.

1441
01:22:35,720 --> 01:22:39,000
Speaker 1: Your favorite meal, Gary, Oh, dear.

1442
01:22:41,320 --> 01:22:46,559
Speaker 4: Gosh, maybe one of my favorite meals is uh, chicken pacata?

1443
01:22:47,040 --> 01:22:50,240
Speaker 3: Chicken pacata? Yeah, well, I see, I evade that. I

1444
01:22:50,360 --> 01:22:52,519
Speaker 3: like anything Italian. So my favorite meal is one I

1445
01:22:52,520 --> 01:22:53,880
Speaker 3: get to eat with family or friends.

1446
01:22:53,920 --> 01:22:56,400
Speaker 1: That's my favorite deal. Well, like the one I had

1447
01:22:56,479 --> 01:22:57,479
Speaker 1: last night with somebody.

1448
01:22:57,479 --> 01:23:00,519
Speaker 4: But my dad used to make chicken pecata and that's

1449
01:23:00,520 --> 01:23:00,920
Speaker 4: a good man.

1450
01:23:01,000 --> 01:23:03,559
Speaker 1: But but I like a lot of food. What do

1451
01:23:03,600 --> 01:23:19,439
Speaker 1: you fear? Gary? Failure? Maybe maybe loss?

1452
01:23:20,040 --> 01:23:24,680
Speaker 3: M your greatest virtue is what? What do you what

1453
01:23:24,720 --> 01:23:27,200
Speaker 3: do you consider the greatest virtue? Not your greatest virtue,

1454
01:23:27,200 --> 01:23:29,879
Speaker 3: but what do you consider the greatest virtue?

1455
01:23:33,640 --> 01:23:36,240
Speaker 1: Honesty? Maybe honesty? Why?

1456
01:23:37,680 --> 01:23:41,160
Speaker 4: Well, if you're if you're not honest, you know, and

1457
01:23:41,200 --> 01:23:42,280
Speaker 4: nobody's gonna trust you.

1458
01:23:42,600 --> 01:23:43,480
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1459
01:23:43,560 --> 01:23:45,559
Speaker 3: What's that old line? My great grandmother had a line,

1460
01:23:46,120 --> 01:23:48,120
Speaker 3: if you lie, you cheat, If you cheat, you steal.

1461
01:23:48,200 --> 01:23:49,400
Speaker 3: If you steal, you're no good.

1462
01:23:50,360 --> 01:23:52,519
Speaker 1: I guess that's I guess that's true.

1463
01:23:54,520 --> 01:24:04,920
Speaker 3: What could you not live without? Mm hmm, Well that's

1464
01:24:04,920 --> 01:24:05,599
Speaker 3: a good answer.

1465
01:24:05,640 --> 01:24:08,800
Speaker 1: I guess that's that's kind of universal, Gary oxygen. What

1466
01:24:08,960 --> 01:24:11,479
Speaker 1: is your biggest regret? Oh?

1467
01:24:11,600 --> 01:24:16,360
Speaker 4: Gosh, you know, I've thought about this with regards to

1468
01:24:16,479 --> 01:24:25,400
Speaker 4: Mac and just wishing that I had in those final days,

1469
01:24:25,479 --> 01:24:34,920
Speaker 4: I had asked him if he was afraid and and

1470
01:24:35,040 --> 01:24:37,040
Speaker 4: let him talk to me a little bit more. But

1471
01:24:37,840 --> 01:24:42,920
Speaker 4: neither of us wanted to go there. You know, I

1472
01:24:42,920 --> 01:24:45,559
Speaker 4: don't know if that's my biggest regret, but when I

1473
01:24:45,600 --> 01:24:48,559
Speaker 4: think of it, I wished i'd.

1474
01:24:50,560 --> 01:24:51,559
Speaker 1: Before he was.

1475
01:24:52,320 --> 01:24:55,840
Speaker 4: Unable to speak again, you know, because he lost that

1476
01:24:56,040 --> 01:25:00,599
Speaker 4: capacity with what was going on with the his lungs.

1477
01:25:01,960 --> 01:25:05,800
Speaker 4: It went so quickly that I wished that I had

1478
01:25:05,840 --> 01:25:11,120
Speaker 4: spent more time in those last days having you know,

1479
01:25:13,040 --> 01:25:17,160
Speaker 4: having that, having some kind of more in depth conversation

1480
01:25:17,280 --> 01:25:22,439
Speaker 4: with him about his feelings, what he'd been through and

1481
01:25:22,479 --> 01:25:25,280
Speaker 4: what he was going through. But again, like I said,

1482
01:25:25,320 --> 01:25:28,760
Speaker 4: I never wanted to feel like I was given up and.

1483
01:25:29,360 --> 01:25:30,080
Speaker 1: You were in the fight.

1484
01:25:30,160 --> 01:25:35,320
Speaker 3: And I would argue, if you'll permit me, you helped

1485
01:25:35,360 --> 01:25:41,360
Speaker 3: fill his last year, and that those last days with

1486
01:25:41,520 --> 01:25:44,679
Speaker 3: great joy and accomplishment for Mac.

1487
01:25:45,680 --> 01:25:46,719
Speaker 1: I mean I saw.

1488
01:25:46,520 --> 01:25:50,320
Speaker 3: That from the little piece we did after Christmas, just

1489
01:25:50,400 --> 01:25:53,240
Speaker 3: on the cusp of the new year, the reaction he

1490
01:25:53,360 --> 01:25:56,479
Speaker 3: had to that, and the pride he had in that

1491
01:25:57,040 --> 01:25:59,639
Speaker 3: showing it to other people, and that was all you're doing,

1492
01:26:00,120 --> 01:26:02,639
Speaker 3: so and it was the culmination of his work.

1493
01:26:03,320 --> 01:26:07,400
Speaker 4: And and yeah, and his mom and his two sisters.

1494
01:26:08,280 --> 01:26:13,040
Speaker 4: He loved them so much, and they loved him so much,

1495
01:26:13,080 --> 01:26:17,519
Speaker 4: and you know, we all pulled together, and they were

1496
01:26:17,600 --> 01:26:21,719
Speaker 4: they were a big part of everything, no question. Without

1497
01:26:21,840 --> 01:26:25,439
Speaker 4: their support, I couldn't have you know, I couldn't have

1498
01:26:25,479 --> 01:26:28,160
Speaker 4: gone gone through everything I was doing, and they were

1499
01:26:28,160 --> 01:26:31,840
Speaker 4: helping Mac in so many ways, so many beautiful ways.

1500
01:26:32,120 --> 01:26:35,200
Speaker 1: What is the best piece of advice you've ever received?

1501
01:26:39,160 --> 01:26:42,920
Speaker 4: The one I always I always give this one to

1502
01:26:43,160 --> 01:26:46,519
Speaker 4: like young actors who asked me for advice, and I.

1503
01:26:47,439 --> 01:26:52,639
Speaker 1: Save your money? Is that the best piece? Gary? Save

1504
01:26:52,680 --> 01:26:55,840
Speaker 1: your money? That's all the broke actors out there.

1505
01:26:57,320 --> 01:27:00,799
Speaker 4: I know the feeling right saving thing are good today,

1506
01:27:00,920 --> 01:27:02,360
Speaker 4: but they might not be good tomorrow.

1507
01:27:03,080 --> 01:27:05,680
Speaker 1: Save your money, Okay, I guess it's good advice. If

1508
01:27:05,680 --> 01:27:07,719
Speaker 1: you could not do what you're doing now, what would

1509
01:27:07,720 --> 01:27:11,799
Speaker 1: you like to do? Mmm?

1510
01:27:15,680 --> 01:27:18,360
Speaker 4: These are these are difficult questions because I I don't

1511
01:27:18,439 --> 01:27:23,839
Speaker 4: I don't ever think about that. You know, I'm I'm

1512
01:27:23,880 --> 01:27:27,880
Speaker 4: fairly at you know, I'm at peace with what I'm doing.

1513
01:27:28,600 --> 01:27:30,800
Speaker 4: I've done a lot of things in my life with

1514
01:27:31,160 --> 01:27:33,960
Speaker 4: a career, and I've got a great family.

1515
01:27:34,040 --> 01:27:37,439
Speaker 1: My family is it. It's great.

1516
01:27:37,640 --> 01:27:42,400
Speaker 4: May maybe spend more and more time with my family.

1517
01:27:42,840 --> 01:27:46,680
Speaker 4: You know. I'm still trying to accomplish a lot with

1518
01:27:46,800 --> 01:27:50,160
Speaker 4: the foundation work and the band and supporting the troops,

1519
01:27:50,200 --> 01:27:51,800
Speaker 4: and that takes me away sometimes.

1520
01:27:51,840 --> 01:27:54,040
Speaker 1: And you know, my wife is just the.

1521
01:27:54,000 --> 01:27:59,000
Speaker 4: Best person I know, and you know, and I look

1522
01:27:59,080 --> 01:28:03,960
Speaker 4: at how she sacrificed for this mission that I've been on,

1523
01:28:04,080 --> 01:28:07,040
Speaker 4: because she spent a lot of time without me there

1524
01:28:07,240 --> 01:28:12,120
Speaker 4: because I've been going somewhere to do something, and she's

1525
01:28:12,160 --> 01:28:19,439
Speaker 4: she's a real she's a real hero and my biggest champion.

1526
01:28:19,680 --> 01:28:22,839
Speaker 4: You know, her brother served in Vietnam, and she always

1527
01:28:22,880 --> 01:28:24,800
Speaker 4: wanted me to go out there and try to make

1528
01:28:24,840 --> 01:28:30,320
Speaker 4: sure that our service members know they're appreciated because her

1529
01:28:30,320 --> 01:28:32,840
Speaker 4: brothers didn't get that when they came home. And so

1530
01:28:32,880 --> 01:28:35,599
Speaker 4: she's been backing me up every step in the way.

1531
01:28:35,760 --> 01:28:39,160
Speaker 1: So just you're spending more time with them and.

1532
01:28:39,600 --> 01:28:43,160
Speaker 4: That you know, that's that's that's the important thing, and

1533
01:28:43,240 --> 01:28:44,439
Speaker 4: the grandkids and all that.

1534
01:28:44,960 --> 01:28:49,439
Speaker 3: Final question, what happens when this is over? Not the interview,

1535
01:28:50,240 --> 01:28:52,720
Speaker 3: it's life.

1536
01:28:53,720 --> 01:29:01,719
Speaker 1: Well, I hope I'll be welcomed and Lord will say

1537
01:29:02,040 --> 01:29:02,559
Speaker 1: good job.

1538
01:29:04,479 --> 01:29:07,840
Speaker 3: I think you'll not only be welcomed, you'll hear familiar music,

1539
01:29:08,360 --> 01:29:11,920
Speaker 3: music maybe Arctic circles played when you get there.

1540
01:29:12,000 --> 01:29:14,400
Speaker 1: My friend, So great to see you. God, bless you,

1541
01:29:14,479 --> 01:29:16,320
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you. Eminen.

1542
01:29:17,040 --> 01:29:20,120
Speaker 3: Gary Sonise is such an incredible person. His sense of

1543
01:29:20,240 --> 01:29:24,760
Speaker 3: sacrifice and commitment to his art, the veterans and the

1544
01:29:24,840 --> 01:29:28,160
Speaker 3: mission of his son is just It's inspiring and if

1545
01:29:28,200 --> 01:29:32,600
Speaker 3: you haven't heard Maxinie's Resurrection and Revival, go to his

1546
01:29:32,720 --> 01:29:37,720
Speaker 3: YouTube page and order copies at Gary Sinisefoundation dot org.

1547
01:29:38,040 --> 01:29:41,519
Speaker 3: Here's the hole the takeaway. There is so much there

1548
01:29:41,560 --> 01:29:44,120
Speaker 3: to unpack, but I love that line. I had to

1549
01:29:44,200 --> 01:29:46,920
Speaker 3: find a way to do it differently. I had to

1550
01:29:47,040 --> 01:29:52,080
Speaker 3: build my own Gary built a theater company, an amazing

1551
01:29:52,160 --> 01:29:56,920
Speaker 3: career and one of the most active veteran service organizations

1552
01:29:56,960 --> 01:29:57,759
Speaker 3: in the country.

1553
01:29:58,479 --> 01:30:01,200
Speaker 1: I hope you'll support his good work and come back

1554
01:30:01,240 --> 01:30:01,720
Speaker 1: next time.

1555
01:30:01,800 --> 01:30:06,360
Speaker 3: And as I mentioned on every episode, why live a dry, constricted,

1556
01:30:06,600 --> 01:30:09,439
Speaker 3: narrow life when if you fill it with good things,

1557
01:30:09,479 --> 01:30:13,639
Speaker 3: it can flow into a broad, thriving Arroyo Grande.

1558
01:30:14,080 --> 01:30:14,960
Speaker 1: I'm raving at Arroyo.

1559
01:30:15,280 --> 01:30:18,840
Speaker 3: Make sure you subscribe like this episode, Thank you for

1560
01:30:18,920 --> 01:30:24,759
Speaker 3: diving in, and we'll see you next time. Arroyo Grande

1561
01:30:24,880 --> 01:30:28,720
Speaker 3: is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is available

1562
01:30:28,720 --> 01:30:32,440
Speaker 3: on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.