WEBVTT - Author, Actor, Host & TV Writer Mo Rocca Talks 'Roctogenarians' 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:02.680 It is Bloomberg Business Week, and our next guest is 0:00:02.680 --> 0:00:05.760 a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning, a frequent a panelist 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:08.320 on NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me the host, and 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:13.600 of course of cooking channels My Grandmother's Ravioli spent years 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.200 earlier in his career as a correspondent on The Daily Show, 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:18.479 as well as on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.040 going There's More, There's more, Okay. New York Times bestselling 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:26.239 author of Mobituaries, Great Lives Worth Reliving, a companion to 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:28.280 his podcast of the same name. He's got a new book. 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.840 It's out last week. It's called Rock to Genarians, Late Life, 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.519 Late in Life, Debuts, Comebacks and Triumphs. We have Morocca 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:37.720 with us, but I'm afraid the interviews over. 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:39.000 We've run out of time. 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:40.680 We just did your whole. 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:42.919 Introduction and we didn't even get to my Broadway credits. 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:43.560 Not yet. 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:44.920 I've seen you dance. 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:47.800 How are you just saying? 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:52.640 Well, we'll talk about that offline. Welcome Malca. We've been 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:54.840 you know, Tim and I've had some fun over the 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:56.680 weekend going through the book. It's really fun. Becused you can. 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:58.320 I kind of started in the beginning, I went to 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:00.680 the back. You could just kind of open and read 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:02.720 some different stories. I want to ask them a little 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.800 bit about your career. You've had many chapters already as 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:07.520 we just kind of laid out. And I have to 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:09.240 say a producer of ours brought this to our attention. 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.440 Wishbone the Dog played by Soccer the Dog. Yes, you 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:16.080 did an obituary about soccer efforts. He was gone. It 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:19.080 was a show for kids, your first job in TV. 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.280 It was my first job, and it is the toolbox 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.280 I keep going back to all the time. Honestly, I 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.119 don't want to sound too grand about it talking about 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:32.000 being a storyteller, but really that job was storytelling boot 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.200 camp because we a very small writing staff had to 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.640 take classic novels and break them down into half hour 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:41.720 episodes as seen through the eyes of a Jack Russell 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.360 Terrier a dog for kids between the ages of six 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.680 and eleven. It was like a writing assignment devised by 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.560 an English professor on acid and it was just the 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:52.160 best way to learn how. 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:54.480 We're showing everybody the dog. For those who are watching 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.080 on YouTube and Bloomberg, he was averat dog. 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:02.360 This is like a commencement address really the idea that 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.480 your first job is the toolkit as you've had this 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.160 amazing career that you continue to go back to over 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.639 and over again. It's remarkable to hear because everybody says, 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:13.000 you know, your first job, it's not going to be 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.679 your last job, don't worry about it, but it will 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:18.239 have an effect on who you become. 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:21.720 Oh and you know my boss there, she gave me 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.520 some real tough love because I sort of thought, oh, 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:26.960 I don't really know what I'm doing, and so my 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.120 scripts were kind of half baked, and she said, you 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:32.560 just had to figure this out. And she took a 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.520 couple of books on really screenwriting and she just threw 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:37.360 them down on my desk. At one point she said, 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:39.920 figure it out because this is a great opportunity. And 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:42.359 it was a great opportunity in part peak of six 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.240 to eleven year olds. You can't fool them. And so 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.919 you can't just write a lazy script with characters just 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:50.920 kind of talking to each other. It has to be 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.679 really lean and dynamic, and the action has to keep 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.919 moving forward or they'll lose interest. So it was a 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:58.960 really great audience to have to write for What. 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:02.119 Is it about getting snapshot of you know, people's lives, 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:06.920 you know individuals, great works, as you did with you 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.280 did with Wishbone. What is it about? Kind of like 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:12.200 telling vignettes that you love doing because you do this, 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:13.480 it's obviously in this book. 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:17.280 Well, I mean, I mean, it's sort of the same 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.600 thing that drew me to obituaries, which were which was 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.359 the subject of my last book and podcast A good 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.919 obituaries about someone's life, not their death. And I love 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:28.519 a good life. 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.720 STU love reading obituaries especially, Yeah, but go ahead. 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.560 No, he's a good obituary sort of like the trailer 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:37.800 for an Oscar winning biopic. It has a sweep, a drama, romance, 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.280 the highs, the lows, the triumphs and tragedies. And my 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.360 father was a real romantic and a very optimistic person, 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:45.920 very boyant, and so he loved to read growing up 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:48.400 in the Washington, DC area when there were two daily papers, 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:50.360 he just he would say, oh boy, the oh it's 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:52.760 just my favorite section of the paper. So I just 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:54.800 love a person's story. 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:57.640 It's hard. I'm not sure how was to put it. 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.120 YEA, yeah, do they also though, teach us about how 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.480 we want to live our lives completely completely. 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:04.400 I mean, there are times that I've been a competitive 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:06.280 oh bit writer, Like you're sort of reading an oh 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:08.440 bit and then you go, oh my god, he did 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:10.160 all that by the time he was twenty five. 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.440 Right, not to make it all about the person who's 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:13.040 not dead, but. 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:15.200 Right, I know, but it's hard to not to sometimes 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:16.400 and then you're like, oh my god, he want a 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:17.160 prison at thirty five. 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.520 I'm doing fine, there's this metric going. 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:22.760 But I mean, in this case, I mean, my co 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.800 author and I wanted to tell stories of people who 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:30.480 accomplished great things late in life because obviously old age, 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.960 advanced age is very much in the news, a very 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:38.599 hot topic, not just in politics, but as the population ages. 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:40.520 Well, I think it's I would say for myself, like 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:42.800 I think as I've gotten older, history in general is interesting, 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:44.560 but also I think about the older folks that have 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:46.640 been in my lives, Like I love hearing about their 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.119 stories and kind of what they had to go through. 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.520 Having said that, sometimes having it's the folks that you 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:57.280 write about. Sometimes it's their first chapter, sometimes it's the 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.240 second chapter. Sometimes it's the third chapter. Kind of talk 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:00.640 to us a little bit about that, right, It's not 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:01.720 sometimes their first. 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:06.120 Act, right, or sometimes it is, well exactly, it's a variety. 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:08.800 It's I mean, it's debuts, comebacks, and sort of it's 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.880 capstones a lot of architects. It's one of these amazing 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.000 things that architects just keep getting better and better. And 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.920 I think there are a couple of practical reasons. If 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:20.599 you're doing a commission for a big, expensive building, you 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.320 want somebody with experience, right, You don't want necessary probably 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.720 don't want a young starter architect, and more Architects of 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.600 advanced age also are likely to have a staff doing 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:32.880 a lot of the grant work by that point. But 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:35.280 all of these people have in common that they don't 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:39.760 accept this very strange, pervasive and kind of insidious message 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:41.600 that your third act of life is a time to 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.240 kind of wind things down. I'm not sure where that 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.800 came from. And also, I mean, we're going to continue 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.040 living longer and longer, I mean, if we're fortunate and 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.960 have good health, decent healthcare. There are also people that 0:05:56.200 --> 0:06:01.480 don't look backwards. They're very in it, not doing victory laps. 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:05.280 They're not sitting at home playing highlight reels of their 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.080 you know, great achievements. And that's Okay, if you want 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.159 to do that, if you you know, if you want 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.920 to do that and hang out and just reminisce. 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:14.880 But that's not what these people in this book do. 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:16.279 I want to get to some of the stories in 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:18.040 just a few minutes, but before we do that, talk 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.039 a little bit about the organization of the book, because 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.039 it reads in a really interesting way. 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.720 I have learned from the best at CBS Sunday Morning, 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.800 which is a forty five year old arts and culture 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:35.680 show on on CBS. My executive producer, Rand Morrison believes 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.640 very much in mix show mix like you have to 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:45.039 and part of that is surprises. So you go from 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:48.960 I'm proud that the book includes Henri Matisse and Clara 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:51.560 Peller that whares the beef Lady and a tortoise. 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:53.680 Mister, you're going to get to miss Trafic. 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:55.200 You had to get to miss the first time fout 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:57.320 there at ninety take that al Pacino. But like, but, 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.800 but so, mix is very important. I think everything I 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.440 think when you turn the page, you want to be. 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.360 I mean, I'm big into delight like you know on 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:10.200 my open I would just wanted to be like Morocca, 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:12.480 who delighted audience has died today. He was one hundred 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:12.960 and sixteen. 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.800 But like, but but so that that's a big part 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.360 of it. So it's not chronological. 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.720 We just we just wanted it to have a decent 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.840 mix so that you know, it's I almost give it 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.720 in terms of protein and carbs. Like some stories have 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.200 import and kind of grandeur, like married church Terrelle the 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.720 civil rights leader at the age of eighty six, led 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:40.000 sittings segregated, watching DC lunch counters. But that's a good 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:44.640 like felling nutritious, I mean really story. And then you 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:47.240 want something just kind of busy and fund Carol Channing 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:48.600 Finding Love at eighty two. 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:50.880 You know, well, we've got about a minute and then 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:52.280 we'll come back and talk some more. You said you 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:54.280 want a surprise and delight, Like, is there one name 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:55.920 in particular that you think, like, I feel like you 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.520 just gave us some names that could surprise and delight, 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:00.240 But is there one name in particular that you think 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:02.120 people might be surprised to see. 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:02.520 In this book? 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:08.920 Oh, surprised to see beyond mister Pickles, beyond mister Yoda. 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:12.120 Oh well, John Henry the Thoroughbred. Maybe I mean I'm 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:13.400 going to non humans here. 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:15.520 I love that you did a bunch like horses. 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:17.560 Horses right, because we had to pick yeah because in 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:20.200 horse years, you know, or Snowman, the show jumper at 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:22.800 eleven might as well have been one hundred in human years. 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:26.920 I also think there has to be an element of warmth. 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:27.880 You need warmth. 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.080 And the story of Frank McCourt, I think is just 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:36.840 I mean, I become moved just even thinking about someone 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.240 who spent his life struggling with how to tell his story, 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.040 thinking that his story wasn't worth telling, being ashamed of 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.679 growing up poor in Ireland, and then finally getting this 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:47.120 story out of him because in his own wards, he 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:48.600 would have died howling if he hadn't. 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:51.240 It is fascinating. There's just so many different names. There 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:53.120 are names people will definitely know, there are names that 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.679 people might not. How did you go about figuring out 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:58.199 who you wanted to include? 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.160 Well, I didn't want to go I hate to start 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:02.960 with what I didn't want to do, but I didn't 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:05.840 want to go to entertainment heavy. There are actors Rita 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:07.960 Moreno whom I've interviewed before, and. 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:08.960 Who's a pistol? 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:12.240 Who is really a pistol? I mean she's amazing at 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.640 ninety two, Morgan Freeman, because I love the Electric Company 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:17.800 and they both were on it and they kind of 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:21.120 have intertwined lives. By law, we had to include at 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:22.960 least one golden girl. I think we would have been 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:25.360 arrested if we didn't. And Estelle Getty was a story 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.760 to tell because she had her television debut at sixty two, 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.920 really after a life of kind of raising her family 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:32.120 and doing every little. 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.400 Bit of off off Broadway theater she could. 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.520 So, I mean, it just seemed right that she should 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:41.000 have this amazing, iconic role at the end. But we 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.200 wanted to make sure that there was a real range 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:44.000 of people. 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:45.440 So one of the things. 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:49.400 I'm interested is sort of people who are obviously respected 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.480 but kind of famous in sort of worlds, if you will. 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.960 So I called my friend Scott Erlik, whose family worked 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.920 in winemaking for many years, and I said, who is 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:03.040 someone in the wine making world that's just remarkable for 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.000 his longevity and he's without skipping a bat, he said, 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:09.800 Mark Urgitic is the guy, a Croatian immigrant, an immigrant 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.880 promost in Yugoslavia, and he was alive at the time. 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.000 He only died last year. Right before our publication, So 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:18.760 he was active up until the age of one hundred. 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.280 And I love the fact that he was really the 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:29.000 reason this amazing immigrant story that American specifically California wines 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:32.880 when you know, became contenders the Judgment of Paris in 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.400 nineteen seventy six, when American wines and French wines were 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.679 competed against each other in a blind taste test in 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:43.520 Paris organized by kind of a wag of a British 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.600 promoter who expected it to be a runaway French victory, 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:51.160 and both the red and white Americans. The white from 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:56.400 Gurkic's winery won, shocked the world to change the world 0:10:56.640 --> 0:11:00.840 of wine. And I just loved his story. And and 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:04.240 he's somebody who had persevered throughout his life but enlightened 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.960 to his life bringing wine making in a very elevated 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:10.480 way back to his homeland of Croatia. So it had 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:12.760 a beautiful full circle. 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.160 Yeah, you also stumble on names when you're reading the 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:16.920 book and you say, wait a second, I've always seen 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.920 a Roget's thesaurus on a bookshelf or as a college student, 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:22.720 I had no idea. There was a guy named Rose 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.160 and he was old when he wrote it. 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.680 He was, he was, and I keyed into him because 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:33.880 I love making lists myself, and you know, I know 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:35.680 the capital of every country in the world, and I 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:37.160 used to do strange things. 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.120 Don't make us quizy, I know, I know. 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.040 Please where do I go? Where do we don't throw 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.400 out a random country name? Please don't do that. 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:51.840 Okay, she would, she's she's thinking Brunei and the capital's 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:53.560 bandar seri bega want so off? 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:53.880 Okay? 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:55.920 And Tim, Now you ask, what's the capital of Djibouti? 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:56.680 Jabooty? 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:01.480 The capital jibutis jawbooty. Trick question, That's okay, okay, but okay. 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.000 I used to do make crazy lists and like I say, 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:09.160 waterways near state capitals, that's one. But anyway, Peter Mark 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:11.640 Roge did the same thing as a child, I think 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:13.840 for different reasons. I did it because I was just 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.719 maybe sort of curious and strange, which are synonyms, right, 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.880 And he did. He had a lot of tragedy and 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.600 his like personal loss, and one of his biographers believe 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:27.160 it was a way of coping. But he returned to 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.080 these lists that he had been working on at the 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.280 age of seventy three and published the rog Stosaurus, and 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:35.520 until the age of ninety he kept refinding it and 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:40.000 working on it, and so that's sort of an unfinished business, 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.840 which is something I like. A lot of these stories 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.600 are people in a sense returning to childhood in more 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.720 obvious ways, with Frank McCord and lore Ingalls Wilder, who 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.079 brought us to the Little House books by writing about 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:55.160 their quite literal childhoods. But then people like the concert 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.840 pianist ruts Lynchinska. As a child, she was called the 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.520 Shirley Temple of classical music. And this is a woman 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.160 who at the age of nine she had subbed for 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.480 Rockman and Off Okay, and I interviewed her when she 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:08.880 was ninety seven pace she had an album come out. 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.480 I interviewed for CBS. But what I found was a 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:13.719 woman who had been really. 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:17.040 Tormented by her father as a child prodigy and had 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:19.400 the piano was a punishment, and she was just so 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:22.600 enormously talented, and he was brutal to her. She wasn't 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.679 She literally was not allowed to play with dolls or 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.320 go outside and play with other kids. And much later 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:30.440 in life she returned to the piano on her own 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:34.160 terms and learned to love it for the sake of itself. 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:35.960 And I found that so beautiful. 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:38.959 I don't even know that there's no easy segue here, 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.120 but the founding fathers of comedy. I mean, we have 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:45.240 some guys who have been making us laugh for decades. Yeah, 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.559 and I know some have passed away, and I think 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:52.800 about Norman Lear, but you dig into what they've been doing. 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.360 Well, Norman Lear, mel Brooks, and Carl Reiner, who were 0:13:56.400 --> 0:14:00.880 all good friends. And I got to know Norman moderately well. 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:03.720 I would say he was a friend by the end 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.560 of his life. And together, when you think of their 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:13.920 body of work, they are largely responsible for at least 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.080 a big part of what we actually laugh at. I mean, 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:19.720 Carl Reiner with the Dick Van Dyke Show, really did 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:24.600 help create the modern situation comedy. And you know, and 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.480 then Norman Lear made sure that it actually said something. 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:32.800 And this is an undeniably culturally Jewish thing and that 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:36.400 needs to be celebrated and acknowledged for what they did 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:38.560 and what they have given us. So much of what 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:42.440 we laugh at and think is funny comes from them. 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.840 I mean, it's pretty remarkable. And you know, mel Brooks 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.320 is still going mel Brooks is very different than the 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.800 other two because I think mel Brooks there was a 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:55.760 grumpiness about him. A lot of what drove him was 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:01.840 anger at injustice, the horrors of the Holocaust. I mean, 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:04.800 making fun of Hitler, knocking him off his pedestal was 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.560 a real driving force of what behind what Melbrooks. 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:09.760 Did for example. 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:12.360 Absolutely, yep, it's really remarkable. 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:14.280 Yeah, we have to ask you about those who misspent 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:14.960 their old age. 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.720 Yeah, there's a whole chapter here about folks that some 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.840 of whom are household names, some aren't, who misspent their 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.960 their old age. One of those, you argue, is Rudy Giuliani. 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:30.720 Rudy Giuliani. You know, this chapter is comprised of people 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:33.040 that you think all you had to do is do nothing. 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:34.840 Just enjoy the. 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:40.040 Laurels, take those victory laps, just you know, first second, 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:44.800 and finally, just do no harm. And Rudy Giuliani, there's 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:49.680 certainly his mayoralty can be addressed, but I don't think 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:54.560 it's debatable that the city was in key measures better 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.560 off once he finished his mayor than it was in 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.600 the beginning. You know, I think when he became Person 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.440 of the Year for Time, it wasn't just an acknowledgment 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.640 for how he handled the aftermath of nine to eleven. 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.520 I think it was also for how he had shown 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:13.600 that a city could be governed, which is something that 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:15.400 had been in some doubt. I think that a city 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.720 like New York could be governed. And then his behavior 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.040 since then, and with the twenty twenty election and the 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:30.560 Georgia election workers and there's a reason he is bankrupt. 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:32.520 I don't know if he's legally bankrupt. You can correct 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:34.600 me on that if he's declared bankruptcy. 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.000 But there's a lot of stuff still going on in 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:38.440 terms of it. 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:42.200 Yeah, he really could have just done nothing and been okay. 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:44.160 How about okay, we've just got about a minute or 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.360 so left here. I mean, going through this and all 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.640 the reporting you've done as a journalist and these stories, like, 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.480 does any of it make you think differently about how 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:54.160 you want to live? 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:55.200 Yes? 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.600 And I think this is happening anyway. One of the 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.760 unexpected things of getting older. I'm fifty five now is 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.560 that I'm actually and I'm happy to report, fretting less 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.520 about the future, which I think would I didn't expect 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:14.119 that to happen. I think I would think that the 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:16.760 less time you have on the other side had the 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:18.720 more you'd reread. I'm not, and I think that that's 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:21.239 a characteristic of a lot of these people. So I'm 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:22.480 a little freer to act. 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:28.439 I'm less, and I think in a way it's you 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:28.920 might as. 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.280 Well act now because people's memories are short, and when 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:35.920 you're gone, your children, your loved ones will remember you, 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.160 hopefully for at least a little bit of time, hopefully, 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:44.080 but you might as well act now, enjoy life, and 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.600 be in the present because it goes by quickly. 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.720 No, you're right being the present, and don't be afraid 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:52.600 to do new things right even as you get older. 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.200 And I'm also trying to speak more deliberately in sentences 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:58.199 that can be diagrammed instead of just run on crazy 0:17:58.320 --> 0:17:59.760 sentences where I'm just filling space. 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:04.520 Want to let you go, Capital of Slovenia, Lilub Diana. 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.359 Okay, just making sure that's it just sounded like a 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:08.280 made up aside. 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.360 Just keeping just keeping you on on us here. 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:11.040 We might be emailing. 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.720 It was I was actually just slurring, but okay. 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.160 Well, Raka, thank you so much. Inspiring and really thoughtful 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:21.080 and just fun to read. Roctagenarians with Jonathan Greenberg, Late 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.320 in life, debuts, comebacks, and tribes. Thank you so much.