Speaker 1: Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2: Summer in London has ripe strawberries, green grass in the
Speaker 2: parks and skies that are at last blue. The city
Speaker 2: fills up with visitors, many here for Wimbledon. Last July,
Speaker 2: I went to a dinner with people well known in
Speaker 2: the world of theater, politics, movies, art and television. At
Speaker 2: around ten thirty the doorbell rang and John McEnroe entered
Speaker 2: the room. Everyone stopped talking. Over the years, I've witnessed
Speaker 2: in the River Cafe the spell binding effect an athlete
Speaker 2: can have. None of us can do what they do,
Speaker 2: and we all know it. There are many many images
Speaker 2: of John McEnroe on the tennis court, but the one
Speaker 2: that I recall is not athletic, but artistic. It's a
Speaker 2: photograph of John carry in fact, almost cradling a painting
Speaker 2: by Philip Guston, who was a close friend of my
Speaker 2: father and mother. It was moving to see a strong,
Speaker 2: powerful athlete I admired carrying something so fragile. Today, in
Speaker 2: New York City, John has walked across Central Park from
Speaker 2: his home, and in the fading autumn light, we will
Speaker 2: talk about the food we eat, the art we love,
Speaker 2: and the friendship we a tennis player and a cook
Speaker 2: have begun.
Speaker 3: Really very nice intro.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for coming. It'd be nice if
Speaker 2: you begin to read a recipe.
Speaker 3: I do love Italian food, so I'm gonna try it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's my favorite food.
Speaker 4: Pantala amatrianae is the dish that I'm going to read
Speaker 4: to tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, two hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty grams nine ounces of pancetta, two dried red chilies,
Speaker 4: Get a little spice, one red onion, two tablespoons eight
Speaker 4: hundred grams of tin tomatoes, tin plum tomatoes, three hundred
Speaker 4: grams of penney, one hundred grams of freshly grated pecorino pecorino. Okay,
Speaker 4: heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, Add
Speaker 4: the pancetta and fry until it becomes crisp. Add the chilies, onion,
Speaker 4: and rosemary to the pan and sweat.
Speaker 3: It's as sweat. Okay, sweat, I know what that means.
Speaker 2: It is, yes, sweat well. It means that you don't
Speaker 2: want it to brown, you want it to soften.
Speaker 4: Add the tomato, stir well. Simmer for thirty minutes until
Speaker 4: the sauce is very thick. Bring a large saucepan of
Speaker 4: salted water to the boil. Cook the penne until cook
Speaker 4: but still firm, which is known in Italian as aldente.
Speaker 4: Drain the penney and add to the sauce. Mix well,
Speaker 4: and serve with the pecorino. You know, I don't remember
Speaker 4: that much about my childhood, mainly because what's happened to
Speaker 4: me from eighteen to now I'm sixty three years old
Speaker 4: has been so incredible in a lot of ways that
Speaker 4: I'm sort of like, you know, I had a nice,
Speaker 4: okay upbringing. I had a commuter now each way from Queens,
Speaker 4: New York into the city to go to high school.
Speaker 4: Sports kept me, helped me get friendships because I was
Speaker 4: a bit of an introvert, shy kid.
Speaker 3: I know I'm not really now, but I was then.
Speaker 4: I don't have a lot of great memories in my childhood,
Speaker 4: but that doesn't mean it was bad. It means that
Speaker 4: there was a loving family, a mom who took care
Speaker 4: of me. God wrest her soul. My dad as well,
Speaker 4: that always believed in me.
Speaker 2: Did your mother cook?
Speaker 3: My mother did cook.
Speaker 4: Here's the thing, She wouldn't allow us to leave the
Speaker 4: table till everything was eaten. She grew up during the Depression,
Speaker 4: so didn't have a whole lot, but she wasn't super poor,
Speaker 4: but she felt that we needed to finish what was
Speaker 4: on our plate. We had to have liver once a
Speaker 4: week our month because we were Catholic, and we had
Speaker 4: to have fish, which I hated, and liver, which was
Speaker 4: even worse. I felt like I was going to throw
Speaker 4: up two younger brothers. But the good news was is
Speaker 4: that I didn't know that dessert was an option until
Speaker 4: I went to college because my mom would always have
Speaker 4: a you know, chocolate cake with you.
Speaker 3: You have to finish this. You're a kid, You're like, really,
Speaker 3: I have to finish this.
Speaker 2: Do you think maybe it's because maybe she's you have
Speaker 2: to finish your to finish the dessert, you have to finish.
Speaker 4: So, you know, I was a bit. They used to
Speaker 4: have four sizes when I grew up. There was small, medium, husky,
Speaker 4: and large. I was husky. I was a bit husky.
Speaker 2: I remember husky.
Speaker 4: So it dawned on me when I went to college that, oh,
Speaker 4: I could sort of eat whenever I want and I
Speaker 4: don't have have to eat what I don't want.
Speaker 2: So were they miserable meals around the table? Did you've
Speaker 2: always dread?
Speaker 3: No, I didn't have miserable meals.
Speaker 2: Great meal, but the experience because just.
Speaker 4: Once once a month, you know, or once a week,
Speaker 4: it was it was tough. We didn't get the type
Speaker 4: of fish and chips that you got in England. Say
Speaker 4: that would have been more bearable, heavily fried with a
Speaker 4: lot of ketchup.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So did she work during the day?
Speaker 4: You know, she was a nurse, an operating room nurse
Speaker 4: when I became probably around twelve. I think she retired
Speaker 4: from that because she had she I had two younger brothers,
Speaker 4: we had three kids. My dad was a lawyer, so
Speaker 4: she sort of took care of us at home and
Speaker 4: we didn't have anyone cooking for us except her.
Speaker 2: It's hard work.
Speaker 3: It is hard work, you know.
Speaker 4: I wish I had been more appreciative at the times
Speaker 4: get fit food.
Speaker 2: Did you all do the dishes afterwards? Do you think
Speaker 2: did you all have to do?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: See, my mom was like the very clean house, so
Speaker 4: we didn't really have to do the dishes. I mean
Speaker 4: we probably just stuck him in the sink and we
Speaker 4: didn't have to make our bed, which is sort of
Speaker 4: maybe that's why I got spoiled so young.
Speaker 3: One of the reasons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Bill times at the macrone House. They were fun.
Speaker 4: Generally it was a loud dinner table. You know, my
Speaker 4: parents are very loud, so, you know, it was definitely
Speaker 4: a shock going to London when I was eighteen because
Speaker 4: people were very polite and you know, we had to
Speaker 4: be a certain way, and beer was very hot and
Speaker 4: it was in a you know, a wood barrel or
Speaker 4: something like what the hell is wrong.
Speaker 2: With this is that when you were playing when you when.
Speaker 4: You first time I went to London was I was eighteen,
Speaker 4: so it was sort of these in seventy seven, so
Speaker 4: that was like the punk sort of revolution, you know.
Speaker 4: So I was walking down the King's Road for the fro,
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh my god, these people are crazy. But
Speaker 4: then I started realizing that they were sort of like
Speaker 4: we were both. They started calling me a punk for tennis.
Speaker 4: I'm like, wait a minute, I'm you know, have you
Speaker 4: seen the ex Pistols? So I guess in tennis terms,
Speaker 4: I was sort of a punk, but compared to the
Speaker 4: real ones, I had a lot of.
Speaker 3: Work to do. But you know, some of what they
Speaker 3: were espousing was.
Speaker 4: Not all that different than what I was thinking, you know,
Speaker 4: sort of rebelling against that felt unfair.
Speaker 2: I thought, you know, can I raise my hand and say,
Speaker 2: you rebuild against what was unfair?
Speaker 3: That's what I believe, That's what I'll tell them. Yeah, but.
Speaker 4: I'll admit I went over the line on a couple
Speaker 4: of occasions, maybe a couple of hundred.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, it was.
Speaker 4: Because I believed that our sport should be viewed differently
Speaker 4: than it was and even is now. You know in
Speaker 4: this you know, upper class have to behave a certain way.
Speaker 4: I think that's a bunch of bologney. I never believed
Speaker 4: that I wanted to be thought of. It was the
Speaker 4: same way that they look at what you call football.
Speaker 4: Well you're American also, but you've been there since seventy
Speaker 4: in the seventies, I believe.
Speaker 3: But we call soccer, they call football.
Speaker 4: I thought, you know, in the rugby field, they're not
Speaker 4: saying hello, how are you out there? And our football
Speaker 4: field or whatever sport it is. So that's always been
Speaker 4: an uphill battle. So I take pride in trying to
Speaker 4: change the sport. What I believe was for the better,
Speaker 4: but some people may differ with that.
Speaker 2: And you refused to play in South Africa? Didn't you?
Speaker 3: Thank you for saying? That was my probably the proudest
Speaker 3: decision I ever made, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think I just remember being with our friends
Speaker 2: and saying, this kid, you know in Wimbledon is talking
Speaker 2: about what's not right, but his political values, his social
Speaker 2: values are so correct, and there weren't many players who
Speaker 2: were doing that. Did you ever play? Did you ever
Speaker 2: go to Soethwies you?
Speaker 4: No? I did, only when they ended on apartheid. And
Speaker 4: I believe that the reason that I ended up meeting
Speaker 4: Nelson Manll on my first trip, where he rudely he said,
Speaker 4: I wish I would have given a million dollars if
Speaker 4: we had a tape of this.
Speaker 3: But he said to.
Speaker 4: Me when I walked into his house that he lived in,
Speaker 4: it's an honor to meet you.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, he's not.
Speaker 4: Talking to me, because that's about what I was going
Speaker 4: to say to him. Yeah, and he was the most
Speaker 4: beautiful man I ever met. Well, just his hand it
Speaker 4: felt like I was shaking hands with an angel. There
Speaker 4: was this feeling that I can't explain and I brought
Speaker 4: a racket. I gave him the racket that I used
Speaker 4: it wimbled in the old wooden racket. I said, this
Speaker 4: is for you, and he held it and he said
Speaker 4: to me, I listened to your match when you played
Speaker 4: Born in nineteen eighty. And I realized that he was
Speaker 4: saying that he was listening to me while he was
Speaker 4: at Robin's Island, where he spent twenty seven years of
Speaker 4: his life. And I'm sitting there complaining about a goddamn
Speaker 4: line call like this is the world's coming and went
Speaker 4: in and this guy didn't have a bone of bitterness.
Speaker 4: It felt like in his body. How in God's name
Speaker 4: could anyone ever have that this? So, you know, I
Speaker 4: really felt like he was one of the most beautiful
Speaker 4: people in history.
Speaker 2: He said it was an honor to meet you, and
Speaker 2: then he said that he'd listened to you at Wimbledon.
Speaker 2: Maybe that that was the connection, you know that he
Speaker 2: was also saying, yeah.
Speaker 4: Well it was fair, yeah like that. I just you
Speaker 4: just could picture that and then me going.
Speaker 2: Homely you think he ever played tennis.
Speaker 3: From the way he was swinging the racket, I believe
Speaker 3: he did play. He did.
Speaker 2: He did.
Speaker 4: I thought he played. I can't swear to that. I
Speaker 4: look like he knew how to play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my brother told me that he was once in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: My father was in the movie, said that he was
Speaker 2: in Hollywood and Mandela was there, and there was this
Speaker 2: huge audience, and Spielberg was there, and Geffen was there,
Speaker 2: and Tom Hanks, every every movie starred, Harrison for there
Speaker 2: and then Nelson Dell was talking and he just looked
Speaker 2: out and he just stopped and he came down to
Speaker 2: the audience. He walked through to the one important person
Speaker 2: in the room, and it was Muhammad al A, you know.
Speaker 2: And that's going back again to the athlete, to the
Speaker 2: person who had dignity, the person who Yeah, and that's
Speaker 2: that's what we you know.
Speaker 4: Well, I met Ali a few times and he had
Speaker 4: a pretty profound effect too, but he was already suffering
Speaker 4: from from the effects of Parkinson's and it was tough
Speaker 4: to see this, you know, incredible human being.
Speaker 3: And you know how many athletes do you know?
Speaker 4: Or they would give up three years of their prime, Yeah,
Speaker 4: and refused to fight because they're on principal.
Speaker 3: So I think pretty much nobody, honestly.
Speaker 2: When did you start playing tennis.
Speaker 3: I was eight years old.
Speaker 2: Did your tennis coach think about what you should be eating?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: I ate cereal that had tons of sugar. I'd have
Speaker 4: a bacon sandwich for breakfast, cinnamon toast with butter and
Speaker 4: cinnamon on it. My mother never said a word. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it didn't matter. Just eat when you're a kid. I mean,
Speaker 4: I just totally disagree. I see these kids at my
Speaker 4: academy and they've got these portions.
Speaker 3: I'm like, you're twelve, go burn it, run around a little.
Speaker 2: What about when they when they're sitting there there drinking
Speaker 2: the water and sweat, you know, sweating and so would
Speaker 2: you ever think of having anything at all to eat? No,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't.
Speaker 3: You mean during the match, Yeah.
Speaker 2: You'd have some nuts or anything like that.
Speaker 3: Nothing, I mean bananas.
Speaker 2: That board match went on for how long?
Speaker 3: Four hours?
Speaker 2: Were you hungry at all? Yeah, you were hungry, but.
Speaker 3: I mean also yourself jacked up.
Speaker 4: I think if people ever saw me play, they could
Speaker 4: probably agree that they saw some a lot of energy
Speaker 4: being thrown out. You're actually running a lot, so it's
Speaker 4: not a good thing to have a big steak an
Speaker 4: hour or two before you play.
Speaker 3: I mean, I remember beorn Borg.
Speaker 4: My buddy would have a steak two hours before every
Speaker 4: match and it didn't affect him at all.
Speaker 3: He was fine.
Speaker 4: He was probably one of the greatest and not the
Speaker 4: greatest athletes they saw in a court. Murray, for example,
Speaker 4: Andy Murray, I saw him eating a turkey sandwich about
Speaker 4: a half hour before he played.
Speaker 3: He goes, that doesn't affect me at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, before he played, like you know, Wimbledon or something
Speaker 4: or usa U because you can eat that right. Oh no,
Speaker 4: it doesn't bother you know. So some people have different metabolisms.
Speaker 4: I couldn't do that. Some people are even worse. You know,
Speaker 4: they'll go the whole day and not eat at all.
Speaker 4: But you know then that's why it could be why
Speaker 4: they're a little more irritable. I felt like I didn't
Speaker 4: digest as quickly. Needed a little bit more time.
Speaker 2: So you wake up in the morning.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a big brad, not a big break. Depending
Speaker 3: to mending.
Speaker 4: When I played, I would have a bigger meal, probably
Speaker 4: three hours before I played. That would be something like chicken,
Speaker 4: some type of pasta, some type of blandish potato, some
Speaker 4: type of vegetable.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's possibly a soup. Not really too long.
Speaker 2: I eat three hours before they have a two hour
Speaker 2: break before you actually run the court.
Speaker 3: Two to three hours.
Speaker 4: Yeah, later matches was preferable because I don't really like
Speaker 4: breakfast that much and I don't like to have to
Speaker 4: eat early, but sometimes you have to do it, you know.
Speaker 4: So it's in my day there was more emphasis on carbs.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you, if it's changed changed
Speaker 2: quite a bit, what year did you start?
Speaker 3: I started in seventy seven, and so what.
Speaker 2: Was nutrition light? I asked this to Becam the other
Speaker 2: day about when did that feeling of you know, what
Speaker 2: we ate affect our health?
Speaker 4: I'd say the early to mid eighties there was more
Speaker 4: talk about what.
Speaker 3: Would be most beneficial.
Speaker 4: You know, when you're eighteen, I think you can pretty
Speaker 4: much run through anything, and the first couple of years
Speaker 4: after that you can burn. You're burning so many calories
Speaker 4: it almost doesn't matter, or so you thought, because it's
Speaker 4: sort of mind over matter, But it because I think
Speaker 4: it's people are more aware of it than ever.
Speaker 3: I think they've gone a little bit too far.
Speaker 4: The other way do you in my opinion, But I
Speaker 4: think they just you know, every little you know, they
Speaker 4: regulate everything and they've got to do what it's such
Speaker 4: a time and eat such an amount and I think
Speaker 4: it's such a bunch of bs personally.
Speaker 2: And now you're going to come back to onelon the summer,
Speaker 2: you will be that.
Speaker 4: You know, I've been there probably forty seventy seven I'd
Speaker 4: say forty three of the last forty five years. Yeah,
Speaker 4: when my first child was born, I miss one. The
Speaker 4: pandemic was canceled, but pretty much everyone I've been there,
Speaker 4: either as a player as a commentator.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it sort of come full circle because.
Speaker 4: When they wanted to get rid of me for a
Speaker 4: while and throw me out, and now all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm working for BBC of all places, and
Speaker 4: they're telling me to do exactly what I want, you know.
Speaker 4: So I find that to be very commendable, I must say,
Speaker 4: because you know, there's sort of we thought like, hey,
Speaker 4: they're a bunch of stuff shirts the way they talk
Speaker 4: and the way they deal with the event. But when
Speaker 4: they hired me, they were like, look, we want something different,
Speaker 4: you know, we want you to be you. And I
Speaker 4: think that's the key to hopefully my success, if you
Speaker 4: know people want to call it that is because I'd
Speaker 4: recognize that you need to be yourself.
Speaker 2: Obviously for you. And I can't imagine what it's like
Speaker 2: being booed out of court. I can't imagine who would do.
Speaker 3: That, well, you know, but people did.
Speaker 2: I know, and I think that.
Speaker 3: How did you feel when you got booed?
Speaker 4: When you walked on the court for the nineteen eighty
Speaker 4: and eighty one Wimbledon final against.
Speaker 3: Pork didn't feel that great?
Speaker 4: But I could always do what Trump did, which was,
Speaker 4: you know, I sat next to him once and we
Speaker 4: were at a hockey game. Coincidence that we were sitting
Speaker 4: next to each other, and they would introduce quote unquote
Speaker 4: celebrities and they you know, I'm hoping like they don't boom.
Speaker 4: You know, Ladies and gentlemen, John McEnroe, three time Wimbledon
Speaker 4: Jim you know, luckily I'm in New Yorker. I've been
Speaker 4: in New York in my whole nice applause. A half
Speaker 4: hour later, ladies and gentlemen, you know, entrepreneur, real estate
Speaker 4: icon and apprentice.
Speaker 3: This is two years before he ran ars, two years
Speaker 3: before he.
Speaker 4: Ran fifteen thousand of the seventeen thousand people boot him.
Speaker 4: He sat down and he looked at me, and he says, John,
Speaker 4: they still love me.
Speaker 3: And I thought, for the first time, I thought maybe
Speaker 3: he could be a politician. He is of all things.
Speaker 3: The guy became the president of the United.
Speaker 4: States, you know, and you would have thought he would
Speaker 4: have actually like said, oh my god, how in God's
Speaker 4: name did I do this. We've been around him about
Speaker 4: two hundred and fifty years. I would say that was
Speaker 4: probably the craziest thing that ever happened. And we've had
Speaker 4: civil wars. This guy, you know, never ran for anything
Speaker 4: in his life.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: See, you can't do something with Trump though, because he
Speaker 4: doesn't know.
Speaker 3: He eats terrible food, right, he.
Speaker 4: Doesn't sleep, and he never works out, and he's you
Speaker 4: know something, that guy's got more energy than I've ever
Speaker 4: seen anywhere in my entire life.
Speaker 3: It is crazy. I mean it's weird.
Speaker 2: Are you an emotional when you would lose a game?
Speaker 2: Would you not want?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 2: Nothing like that or.
Speaker 3: That would be alcohol, would or other things?
Speaker 2: But not food?
Speaker 4: I mean food might It's not like I, you know,
Speaker 4: go in and eat a bag of you know, potato
Speaker 4: chips because I.
Speaker 3: Was pasted it.
Speaker 2: What's your plan? You don't go out, you don't party,
Speaker 2: you don't go out in the evening.
Speaker 4: You I was not able to do much in the
Speaker 4: way of partying during Wimbledon, of all things.
Speaker 3: You'd hate to sort of blame it on that anybody,
Speaker 3: not that I'm aware of.
Speaker 4: No, I mean I think that in the older days
Speaker 4: a few of us tried to do it a little bit,
Speaker 4: but not you know, you'd be a fool to do
Speaker 4: it at Wimbledon. You could do it at a period
Speaker 4: of time where you're not you know, it's an exhibition
Speaker 4: or a smaller event, or it's not much on the line,
Speaker 4: but if you willing to do it Van and then
Speaker 4: to me is sort of like you're not taking it
Speaker 4: seriously enough. Sometimes, you know, you may not want to
Speaker 4: be particularly social if you're more wound up, maybe before
Speaker 4: close to a match, especially me.
Speaker 2: I'm sad I missed you in London because it was
Speaker 2: crazy the last time you were there and I was here.
Speaker 2: Do you remember you were just arriving.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I came over for a cup, an event called the
Speaker 4: Labor Cup, which is a team tennis event where Roger
Speaker 4: Feeder ended up retiring, so it was a big deal
Speaker 4: for the sport.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how did you feel we felt.
Speaker 4: I felt that it was a beautiful night and moment incredible.
Speaker 4: We also won as a team for the first time,
Speaker 4: which was even more incredible. No offense to Roger, and
Speaker 4: so the weekend of the week I was there turned
Speaker 4: out to be awesome.
Speaker 2: Did you ever go to your friends because it's very
Speaker 2: international tennis, you're talking about playing with Borg and playing Fetter.
Speaker 2: Do you go to their house? Have you been to Switzerland?
Speaker 2: Never get a fund?
Speaker 3: Do you think, damn guy won't invite me the Orange
Speaker 3: house I've been at?
Speaker 2: What was that like?
Speaker 4: You know, it's that you know the sweets, you know,
Speaker 4: they're great, spotty hat up in the on the water
Speaker 4: and loves to entertain.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: One of the best friends you could ever have. Never
Speaker 4: eats much.
Speaker 2: He doesn't eat, not a big eater.
Speaker 3: I don't know how the guy never has been tired
Speaker 3: in his life.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Uh, phenomenal athlete. I don't know. It's constitution, you know,
Speaker 3: whatever it is.
Speaker 4: It's him because he'll he eats because he has to eat.
Speaker 4: I eat because I like to eat. We do just
Speaker 4: a difference.
Speaker 2: What about your kids, So having six kids, that's a
Speaker 2: kind of food responsibility. Did you take that on in
Speaker 2: terms of I took it on.
Speaker 4: But sometimes I think, you know, we we we should
Speaker 4: have just let it go and let him do what
Speaker 4: they want pretty much, let him learn on their own.
Speaker 3: I mean, you could recommend.
Speaker 4: Stuff, but if you sort of no, that's not good,
Speaker 4: that desert because you're putting on You know, girls are
Speaker 4: four girls and two boys. Every human being is different.
Speaker 4: All my kids are different, so you got to sort
Speaker 4: of know how to treat them. My son, one of
Speaker 4: my sons, he would eat so slowly. Everyone would be
Speaker 4: finished at the table. He'd still be cutting the saladch
Speaker 4: saning to eat your goddamn salad, you know, and he'd
Speaker 4: sit there absolutely perfect body. Though I don't know why
Speaker 4: he you know, he chewed everything twenty times.
Speaker 3: So the way I never said that, if.
Speaker 2: You will sit down to dinner when you had the
Speaker 2: kids to the family, you had dinner every night together.
Speaker 4: Somebody they called me Larry the lecturer is what I
Speaker 4: became known as because I try to give him a
Speaker 4: little bit of life's lesson and then, oh god, here
Speaker 4: he goes again.
Speaker 2: About food, about life, about anything.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it was food, sometimes there's about tennis. Sometimes it
Speaker 4: was about life. Sometimes there's about cool work. Sometimes it
Speaker 4: was about nothing in particular, and then I started pontificating
Speaker 4: and that rubbed them the wrong way. And sometimes I
Speaker 4: overdid it, and then I dig in and they go Dad, everyone.
Speaker 3: Disagrees with the other table.
Speaker 4: There's seven seven to one, including Patty and I go
Speaker 4: I'm still right.
Speaker 3: I love Italian food.
Speaker 2: Have lived in Italy.
Speaker 3: I've never lived there.
Speaker 4: I've been there, you know, probably fifty to seventy five times. Yeah, playing,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: But yeah, where did you go?
Speaker 3: Oh? Every city you can imagine.
Speaker 4: The first rock and roll tour that I ever participated
Speaker 4: in as a band, allegedly I was the most traveled
Speaker 4: unsigned band in history.
Speaker 2: Oh is that a fact?
Speaker 3: I would bet money on that.
Speaker 4: But we did a two week tour of Italy in
Speaker 4: the summer of nineteen ninety four, ninety four. I was
Speaker 4: thirty five. Yeah, I had stopped.
Speaker 3: Playing from a well, I.
Speaker 4: Was more of a sort of a passion and I
Speaker 4: don't want to say hobby, but something that was trying
Speaker 4: to sort of find that find out where I was headed,
Speaker 4: because you know, when you stop playing, it's not always
Speaker 4: on the terms you want. I was going through a
Speaker 4: divorce at the time at the end of my career,
Speaker 4: which I didn't anticipate.
Speaker 3: I had three kids, so I.
Speaker 4: Was you know, then the next couple of years you're
Speaker 4: going through it.
Speaker 3: It's not fun.
Speaker 4: So I needed a little bit of levity and so
Speaker 4: I was able to start to do something that I
Speaker 4: love to do. It made me appreciate my friends who
Speaker 4: did it for a living more. But it was a
Speaker 4: fun trip, I must.
Speaker 2: Say, and vitally.
Speaker 4: My agent at the time was Italian and so he
Speaker 4: sort of set this whole thing up. We played with
Speaker 4: Frank Sinatra plant I forgot forte dem.
Speaker 3: But we played some.
Speaker 4: Nice locales, but we we didn't knock them dead. Now,
Speaker 4: we didn't get to eat the food that you know,
Speaker 4: you're normally able to get pretty easily just because of
Speaker 4: scheduling and stuff. But I mean, you can stop by
Speaker 4: a highway, which is a lot better than.
Speaker 2: The apostat those little sandwiches that they fought. When you
Speaker 2: segued from that that photograph that I describe, which I
Speaker 2: can imagine in my head of you carrying the painting,
Speaker 2: how we segued from from music to art from tis.
Speaker 4: Well, I always loved art because I relate to artists
Speaker 4: big time. Because there is close to tennis players as
Speaker 4: almost anyone else, because they're sort of on their own island.
Speaker 3: They've got to represent.
Speaker 4: They go to a gallery opening, people could be there
Speaker 4: and it sucks, you know, and the person could.
Speaker 3: Be right there and well, yeah, they couldn't. He couldn't
Speaker 3: give those paintings away.
Speaker 4: He got so frustrated with the art world that he
Speaker 4: sort of walked away from it.
Speaker 3: So it's like sort of like if I walked.
Speaker 4: Into the center court of Wimbledon and you know, I
Speaker 4: lose six to zero, you know, and I'm down to
Speaker 4: zero and people are booing, and you feel like, you know,
Speaker 4: you want to hide. It's the worst feeling in the world.
Speaker 4: So I think it takes guts to put yourself in
Speaker 4: a position there's a great reward if it goes well,
Speaker 4: but there's also a definite downside, So it takes I
Speaker 4: think it takes emotional strength to do that. And so
Speaker 4: I think it's the same as for an artist or
Speaker 4: like a comedian that does stand up. You know, I've
Speaker 4: seen many a comedian's bomb And I would never criticize
Speaker 4: a player on a court if I see them giving
Speaker 4: one hundred percent and they're laying an egg. That's not
Speaker 4: what I have a problem. I have a problem with
Speaker 4: the people that go out in the court and don't
Speaker 4: try and give their best. That's the part I have
Speaker 4: a problem. Because you've been put in this position where
Speaker 4: you could do something that would be truly memorable at
Speaker 4: a you know, a truly memorable site, say at Wimbledon
Speaker 4: in the US Open, you don't want to go out
Speaker 4: there in half asset. So that's why I've always related.
Speaker 4: I always loved Guston. He was one of my favorite artists.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure why that started. I loved, like, I
Speaker 4: think because they're so political. All through his career, you know,
Speaker 4: and even when he was in his twenties, not his twenties,
Speaker 4: in the twenties and thirties, he was painting hooded figures
Speaker 4: and you know, clan people railing against that.
Speaker 3: And then he went through different.
Speaker 4: Periods, which I love to see artists doing different things.
Speaker 3: And then he went almost you know, abstract express this.
Speaker 4: You know, you're like, that's a huge change, and then
Speaker 4: back to these like cartoonist figures, which I thought were incredible.
Speaker 4: So I just thought this guy just had a you
Speaker 4: know that would be like the type of artists that
Speaker 4: if I was an artist, I'd be trying to emulate,
Speaker 4: you know, so and he stuff.
Speaker 2: But he really was so And when you were talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, saying, somebody is just criticizing them in such
Speaker 2: a damaging way, you know, Hilton Kramer of the New
Speaker 2: York Times, when Gustin had his first show at Marlborough
Speaker 2: and he showed the hooded figures and he showed the
Speaker 2: clan just wrote on the front page of the New
Speaker 2: York Times Arts sets, you hit this guy should give
Speaker 2: up and go home. And you know, he got on
Speaker 2: a boat to Rome. He was I said, he was
Speaker 2: a friend of my father's who was also very political,
Speaker 2: and it was so damaging, you know, and it was
Speaker 2: so cruel and it was fearful.
Speaker 4: I find it, you know, difficult to respect these I mean,
Speaker 4: I respect someone who gives some destructive criticism or who
Speaker 4: would admit I don't get this and I'm not sure
Speaker 4: why this person did it, but I've got to sort
Speaker 4: of let this, let me digest this, or some half
Speaker 4: assed that goes on. You know, some tennis guy you
Speaker 4: know who writes tennis who did make it because he
Speaker 4: wasn't good enough and then he's going to sit there
Speaker 4: and criticize me. I go, you better know what you're
Speaker 4: talking about before you start laying it out. Some people
Speaker 4: that went around the tennis circuit for a handful of
Speaker 4: years I respected, I respected their opinion. I would, you know,
Speaker 4: take the heart what they would say. At least I'd
Speaker 4: give it, you know, the legitimacy deserved. A lot of
Speaker 4: other people would come in to show up one or
Speaker 4: two weeks a year because they were local beat writers
Speaker 4: for the hockey teams or basketball, and they'd roll in
Speaker 4: when we went to Philly or these other places and
Speaker 4: they'd start, you know, lambassing the tennis players.
Speaker 3: And then I was like, you don't know a damn thing.
Speaker 4: About what we're doing, and was frustrating, and it's hard
Speaker 4: to respect that. So I could certainly see where a
Speaker 4: guy who you know, put his heart into soul into something,
Speaker 4: you know, either way, like in my case, I was
Speaker 4: lucky because even I didn't like it. But sometimes negative
Speaker 4: attention can still people still want you. You know, they'll
Speaker 4: offer you money to come because they think that you know.
Speaker 3: The car crash.
Speaker 4: If you're an artist and someone completely shits on you
Speaker 4: and you know you don't sell anything. You're not making
Speaker 4: any money, so you could, you know, head down a
Speaker 4: really bad path, and I think a lot of artists
Speaker 4: have done that as well as comedians.
Speaker 3: The upside is.
Speaker 4: If you're able to stick with it and believe it that,
Speaker 4: you know, the turnaround could be all the more sweet. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: it doesn't seem to happen that often with artists that
Speaker 4: are alive and nowadays to me, a successful artist at
Speaker 4: least financially, they're like businessmen. They're not even like, you know,
Speaker 4: the best artists to me anymore, they're just the smart.
Speaker 4: They're extremely smart people, and they manipulate the system in
Speaker 4: a brilliant way. I mean, I must say, and that's
Speaker 4: part of what I like about sports ultimately, because you
Speaker 4: can't really do that in sports.
Speaker 3: I mean ultimately you got to go out there.
Speaker 4: You can talk all you want, but you know, you
Speaker 4: get out in the court or you got to step up.
Speaker 3: So that part I like that.
Speaker 4: Ultimately, the best will the cream will rise to the top.
Speaker 2: I think that you know your honesty and your you
Speaker 2: know what you say about whether it's you know the
Speaker 2: world or Trump or the booing or the art or
Speaker 2: the solitariness. It is a solitary thing, is it? Play?
Speaker 2: You know, being an artist in your.
Speaker 3: Studient very solitary, especially and your sport.
Speaker 2: That's why I love the musician Devils.
Speaker 4: And I also love playing for my country because you're
Speaker 4: with the team for that brief period of time.
Speaker 2: And I think you you know, as I said, from
Speaker 2: the very beginning, we were on your side. We thought
Speaker 2: you are. You know, your anger was fine, your unfairness
Speaker 2: was respected. Your politics, you know, your politics were amazing.
Speaker 2: Ow are And I think as a model that's what counts,
Speaker 2: you know, and as a player, And.
Speaker 3: I think you're I do.
Speaker 2: I think you're really nice. I think you're nice to
Speaker 2: walk across the park. I think you are. So if
Speaker 2: we think that food, you're gonna have food which makes
Speaker 2: you feel healthier, food which makes you feel better performance.
Speaker 2: You could have food that pleases your mother because you've
Speaker 2: eaten it. You could have food that you want your
Speaker 2: children to eat. Food can be all that, but can
Speaker 2: also be comfort. If you needed comfort, what food would
Speaker 2: you reach for?
Speaker 3: Big ball of ice cream?
Speaker 2: Ice cream? I'm sure I do too.
Speaker 4: I love ice cream, cookies and cream coffee, you know,
Speaker 4: mixture of things.
Speaker 2: Do you always keep it in the house if you Yeah,
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 4: But that's not you know, we shouldn't do that. I
Speaker 4: love you know. I love a beer and Pratzels late
Speaker 4: at night. It's comforting.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Is there a food that reminds you of your childhood?
Speaker 3: Pancakes? Are some? Did great?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: Thank you thanks for having me.
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