Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum - ED BEGLEY JR.: Hollywood Resilience, Carrie Fisher Memories & Life With Parkinson’s

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Ed Begley Jr. (St. Elsewhere, This Is Spinal Tap) takes us on a journey through one of the most unbelievable lives in Hollywood. From unknowingly hanging out with Charles Manson to forming a lifelong friendship with Carrie Fisher, Ed opens up about his wild past, near-death experiences, and the lessons he’s learned through sobriety and Parkinson’s. With humor, honesty, and grace, he reflects on the legacy he hopes to leave behind in both film and environmental activism. Thank you to our sponsors: ❤️ This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/inside and get on your way to being your best self __________________________________________________ 💖 Patreon: ⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/insideofyou⁠⁠ 👕 Inside Of You Merch: ⁠⁠https://store.insideofyoupodcast.com/⁠⁠ __________________________________________________ Watch or listen to more episodes! 📺 ⁠⁠https://www.insideofyoupodcast.com/show⁠⁠ __________________________________________________ Follow us online! 📸 Instagram: ⁠⁠https://instagram.com/insideofyoupodcast/⁠⁠ 🤣 TikTok: ⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@insideofyou_podcast⁠⁠ 📘 Facebook: ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/insideofyoupodcast/⁠⁠ 🐦 Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/insideofyoupod⁠⁠ 🌐 Website: ⁠⁠https://www.insideofyoupodcast.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I did not know I had it for a dozen years. Didn't know I had it. My balance was weird. I had lost some of my sense of taste and smell and said, wow, I'm getting old a little quicker than I thought. I took off for about 5,000 feet off the ground. Suddenly the plane, Michael, the plane plummets from the sky. It's like it went from being an aeronautic device to being a feathered brick. Suddenly we just got mowed down by this crowd of kids, just mowed down and on the ground and being kicked and beaten.

Within seconds, it just happened. And that's the thing about being that young and naive. There's a crowd of like a dozen young man or young anybody coming towards you with purpose with a bad look in their eyes. You should probably bust the move in case of fire break glass. Pull the lever hard and the alarm will sound. There's a fire blazing called alcoholism and I needed to pull that alarm, which I did, went into recovery and here we are many years later. I could see the darkness in you. You're not, I mean, you're kind and all that, but you also have a dark sense of humor.

I guess I do. I can't deny the truth when it's presented to me. Do you smoke pot with Charles Manson? Is this true? Are you completely shocked when she passed? You were diagnosed in 2016 with Parkinson's. He found a body in your trash. You're listening to Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum.

Ryan Teos is here. And I just want to say thanks for listening again. And just know that, you know, this is a fun conversation. These conversations I have with these guests, I like to dig a little bit. I like to get to know them. I like to see what makes them tick. I like to humanize, right? Because people think of them as these just celebrities

and they don't feel and they don't. It's, I think I find it interesting to kind of break it down a little bit and see that everyone's human. Yeah. And that we all have our issues. We all face adversity. And I hope you're enjoying it. If you want to follow me at the Michael Rosenbaum on Instagram,

the link tree is there for cameos and Rosie's puppy fresh breath for your dog's breath and the talented farter all on the link tree follow me at the michael rosenbaum and also the inside of you online store if you want to get tons of merch smallville scripts signed uh inside of you tumblers hats everything is there there's so many goodies there check it out what else can i say the reason why we're here patron if you'd like to join patron and if you'd like to become a patron go to patreon.com slash inside of you uh it's really a wonderful net networking of friends and people with similar interests. So many people have bonded over this.

And I really love it. And it's helped a lot of people with their mental health and help me. Maybe you too, Ryan. Yeah. I think so. Yeah, I think it's good. What else can I say about Patreon? There's different tiers.

If you want to get a box from me every couple of months with a personalized note, if you want to be on the show, if you want to ask questions, if you want to get your name shatted out, YouTube, there's so much. So that's about it. Ed Begley is a wonderful human being. He was a wonderful guest. I was so surprised by this. Not because I didn't think he was great, but like he just had so much history.

We talk about him doing drugs and all this crazy stuff. It was just, he's a beautiful human being. So let's get inside of Ed Begley Jr. It's my point of you. You're listening to Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum. Inside of You. Rosenbaum was not recorded in front of a live studio audience. Wow, there's so much to talk about.

First of all, the memoir, to the Temple of Tranquility and step on it. I love that. It's like, where are we going? To the Temple of Tranquility and step on it. Right. The irony of that did not escape me. A guy actually said that in real life, wonderful actor by the name of Richard Stahl, Dick Stahl. Yeah.

He was an improv actor. He was on stage with a committee, the Second City group, lots of different people. And he actually, after the Beatles discovered the Maharishi, he wanted to find some sort of light himself and Taipei personality like me. He had it all planned out. A flight to Hawaii, a flight from there to the Philippines. You got a merchant marine vessel to rent him a berth on that ship, and then a smaller vessel, and then onto the island where the Temple of Tranquility

sat. But the first flight was late, and everything fell apart. And he was late getting the merchant marine vessel. Then it was a monsoon season. And he had to wait a week or two. And he finally got, not the boat he had in mine, but another one that was quite unsafe. And he raced up the docked into a taxi and said to the driver, The Temple of Tranquility and step on it.

And he was not kidding. And the driver started to shake with laughter so this fair didn't hear it, you know, or see it. But he couldn't stop laughing. And that irony didn't escape me either when I heard the story. Oh, my God. Can you tell us about this book that what's inside? Is it kind of your life in a nutshell and more? It's a memoir.

It's my life in a nutshell. That's what a memoir is, yes. Yeah. But hopefully just the funny stuff. a few tragic things, but a lot of laughs. I wanted to have some laughs that I had originally when the things occurred. Yeah. And so that's what I was aiming for.

And a lot of people have enjoyed and found some mirth in it. Yeah, I mean, you're like the, I mean, there's a few people that I could say this. There's Henry Winkler, who's one of the most likable. I love that man, by the way. Who doesn't? Right. And that's how I feel about you, Ed. I think people feel that way about you.

Your peers, fans, family. It's just, you genuinely are a kind person. Now, were you always, was it how you were raised? I know your dad was a big actor, Ed Bigley Senior. He won an Oscar. What was family life growing up? Were you, I just want to know about that. Were they kind people?

Usually you're a product of an environment. Some were kind. I had some good influences and some very bad influences both. But I was well-mannered. I was taught to be well-mannered by the nuns and others. And you had to be well-mannered in the 50s and the early 60s. you'd get whacked. They'd, you know, hit you.

You got hit. Oh, yeah, not just me. Everybody in the class, there was a group of us that got together a couple of decades ago. And I said the first guy I saw at the kind of grade school reunion where all the nuns were. I said, did somebody get hit like once a week? Somebody was like bleeding kind of hit? He said, absolutely. Lip, knuckles or nose.

Somebody was bleeding once a week in the classroom for being whacked. So it was kind of a little bit sick. It was the time, like corporal punishment. Corporal punishment was. way to go. Yeah, I got paddled once. And I didn't even do it. That's, I remember the teacher left the room and I got up and I, it was, we were doing a test. And I didn't know any of the answers. And I go, G, E, F, B, C, D, E, Kitting around, just throwing out the, the answers. Right. And I put, they weren't the real answers. And she comes in the room and she goes, Mrs. Ebly. And so she says, who is talking in here? And Jason Carroll raised this hand and said, Michael Rose. He was giving the answers to the test. What a last. And she goes, Michael out in the hall now.

And she goes, I want you to go get Mr. Figgly's paddle. And I go, what? Mr. Figley, tall guy, tall teacher, six foot five basketball coach. And I interrupted his class. And he says, why would you be interrupting my class, Mr. Rosenbaum? He knew. And I go, and I was just shaking. And I was like, Mrs. Ebly wants me to get your pass.

And he goes, oh, and the whole crowd went, oh, the whole, all the other students. And he came out there. And he says, were you cheating on the test? I go, no. Did you get the answers? No, they weren't. If you don't tell me right now, I'm going to paddle you. And Mrs.

Elley is going to paddle you. And I said, yes, I did. Because I didn't want to get paddled by him because he was so big and strong. She whacked me. And I remember it was just embarrassing. I remember the, the door was open in the classroom. And I was bent over. And I could.

I was staring at this person, this kid, as a whack, and it was so humiliating. Do you remember that? Do you remember feeling humiliated when you were hit? Yeah, the humiliation was much worse than the pain. Yeah. You know, I remember one time besides the getting whacked, she put me in a playpen and you want to act like a baby. She got a playpen for the kindergarten or something, the preschool area of the church.

And she put me in the playpen for the day. I got sent home from school. I was banned from school. What do you call it when you're expelled? Expelled. I was expelled for the following. I was not paying attention. I just wasn't hearing what you were saying.

I had a pencil eraser on the top part of the pencil, the pointy end, and I was kind of spinning it a little bit. Most kids who get expelled these days, you have a weapon on you or something. Yeah. Or you physically harmed somebody in a bad way. I had a pencil eraser on the top and I was twirling it. What did your parents do when you got expelled? My dad was gone.

My mother was not in my life until I was about 16. I met her occasionally. I didn't know she was my mother. Right. He had gifts from her and stuff. But Jeanette Pierre, this wonderful woman that was hired to watch us, was there for a paycheck, but much more. She was a wonderful influence. And things were going astray with my sister and I in a big way.

And she got us back on track. She was like a mother, and she was a very powerful, positive figure in my life. Wow. dealt with it appropriately, and I went back to school quickly, of course, because I'm just twirling a pencil, ultimately the nuns aren't going to hold that line too hard. Right. You know, but it was crazy. There was a lot of bad influences, and unfortunately, the more eloquent ones were good.

What was the woman's name again who took care of? Jeanette Pierre. What year did she pass? She did pass in the 80s. No, the 90s. She passed in the 90s. She came to visit me in the 80s. I saw her many times over the years because she was such a good influence, such a good person.

And she grew up in Alsace-Lorraine, the French-German border, and she was part of the resistance in France. And she was just an incredible person. She meant she meant a lot to you. She did, a great deal. And is that in your book? It is. There's a chapter about her called Mother Superior.

She was a Superior mother, though we were not related by DNA or anything like that. Did you call her mom? No, I called her. We called her Jeanette. Called her Jeanette. We told, we didn't say, you know, Ms. P. We didn't have to do that. She said, call me Jeanette.

And she was great. You know, we had a mutual friend who passed away almost 10 years ago, Carrie Fisher. And I would always see you at her parties or gatherings or plays or one woman show. Just an amazing human being. How did you two become friends? I met her first when she was quite young. She was 10 or 11. I was 16, 17, something like that.

And my dad, first of all, we lived in the Valley. We did not live in Beverly Hills or Hollywood. So my dad had a couple of friends who were in show business, but a lot of them were not. Just people who knew from factory work in Hartford before he became an actor. At some point, he did a movie. At some point, it was like 1962, maybe 60, no, 63. It doesn't matter. He did a movie called Unsinkable Molly Brown with Debbie Reynolds.

Suddenly we're leaving the Valley, leaving the 818, Like there was a separate area code then. There was not. But we left that area and went over into Beverly Hills. And I didn't have, I knew nobody in Beverly Hills. And certainly we had Harry Carl's house, a house shared with him and Debbie Reynolds. They were married. We were swimming in the pool and these two kids jump in.

They could care less about my sister and I. We were about the same age as Harry Carl, who was in his 60s as far as they, Carrie was concerned because we were like 16 or 17. She was, I think, 11 then. Oh, yeah, you're old compared to an 11 year old. Yeah. Right. But we met then, and she tolerated me for a Christmas or two.

But the other thing I remembered at Christmas, you go to Debbie Reynolds' house, she'd go, wait a second. Eddie's here and his sister Bunny's here. Go into the kitchen, get a couple. She'd come back. They bought a case, a case of transistor radios. Now, transistor radio in 1963 was a gift beyond description. It was like buying a whole big hi-fi set or something now.

Wow. Yeah. They had a whole case of them. A case of them. And they gave you one? It gave me and my sister both. We didn't have to share it. We could each take one, you know, for Christmas from Debbie Reynolds.

So you were forever indebted. I couldn't believe there are people like that on the planet. Wow. And as it turns out on other planets, when Kerry finally got Star Wars. So you remained friends with her over the years? I didn't see her much where we remained friendly. I'd see her occasionally. She was always nice to me, you know.

And then we became good friends in the mid, yeah, the mid-70s. We became good friends and very good friends in the late 70s when she went into rehab. And she, I was the person she decided to call from rehab among her friends. And I was quite flattered by that and honored by that. And what did you do when she called you? Did you, did you help her? Did you talk to her? Did you? I did. I guess it must have been the early 80s now that I think about it because I got sober in 79. So I think it was early 80s and she called me from a pay phone. I was like her dial a friend or dial a sober friend or something. and I talked to her on the phone more than once and we became close.

Were you surprised she called you? I was a little surprised from that original meeting. I didn't think she cared about me at all. And she seemed nice in the years that followed. But I didn't think I'd get a phone call from rehab. It was kind of great. We became very close. You know, after that, yeah, you guys became so tight.

She confided in you. She did. And, yeah, you just, like I said, coming back to that about you and you're kind of innate kindness or personality, I think people gravitate towards that because it's rare to see in Hollywood just somebody who's just humble and, you know, you've been through a lot, you've seen it, you've worked with the best, the biggest, but there's something really calming about you. Well, thank you for that, Michael. That's nice. But I learned that really from others. Again, I was taught to be polite because of the stick and cutting my own switch and being hit by that and other forms of discipline. I was taught to be polite. But I wasn't really that nice for a while. while and I learned nice. Nice is the wrong way to put it. I learned loyalty. Loyalty. Loyalty. And ethics and things like that from Bruno Kirby. He was a wonderful actor and he was a dear friend of mine. He was of course in Godfather too and Donnie Brasco and Sidney Slickers. But when we

started out, when we got to know each other in the early early 70s, he hadn't done any of that. We did a movie at Disney called Superdad with Kurt Russell and others. And we had a great time doing that. We became very close. And I remember things that Bruno would do. And it's in the book in the chapter called Guida Cholo, which is his real name, not Kirby. He changed it. Because he doesn't seem like someone who would just divulge a lot of information and sort of, you know, again, confide in you. And he'd become friends. It was a slow process for him to sort of trust you. And it happened fairly quickly for both of us. We both became close quickly because I was like, why is this guy giving me a ride to the valley? That's a long way for him. He lives.

in Hollywood. I was hitchhiking. He told me hitchhiking after the interview. Both of us did not get this interview for a commercial or for some sort of detergent or something. We didn't get it. And I'm hitchhiking home to the valley. And he spots me and gives me ride home. I'm thinking, what's the angle? What's this guy want for me? Why is he giving me right in the valley? He doesn't even know me. He's fine if one of my friends stopped by, but I don't know this guy. And I soon learned that he was a junior, you know, and all that stuff. I soon learned his dad was an actor and a wonderful one. So we had much in common. We became friends, really good friends on this movie, Super Dad,

remained friends for the rest of his days. What was a young Kurt Russell like? Because how old was he in Super Dad? He probably was... Yeah, he was... 20s, 30s? Yeah, in his... Oh, Super Dad, he was in his 20s, early 20s like me.

We were about the same... I think we are the same age. I'm 76. I think he's exactly 76 or something very close to it. And he's a great guy. I've loved him for years. Remember a funny thing that happens? kind of a show business, you know, elite meet a different fate story. I was, no, myself not working

as an actor, though I wanted to work as an actor. Things were slow for me. So I was, my kind of, you know, come down a peg or day of reckoning was I was working a lot as an assistant cameraman, which is good work and I shouldn't diminish it and I don't. But it wasn't acting. It wasn't what I wanted to do. But I went, you know, I could do this the rest of my life. I could be an assistant, then maybe one day an operator, then one day a DP. So I'll go on that path. And I was doing that one day out at the Van Nuys Airport, which is also a National Guard base.

There's some poor schlub that was there painting the latrine. I thought, well, it's bad enough to come in this stinky latrine for enough time to piss. He's got to do a three, four hour job in this malodorous area. And suddenly the guy turned around to see me. I didn't see him because I was taking leak. He went, Begley. One second, please.

Let me finish up here. finish off by the attorney and said, it's Kurt, Kurt Russell. I said, you can see I was trying to contain my, my reaction and my laughter. Kurt? Kurt Russell was painting the latrine at the Van Nuys Airport at the National Guard base there because he was in the National Guard. And so he was, his job for the day, he was given him by the sergeant or whatever, was paint the latrine.

And he was painting it, and there I was a fellow actor. And I had a little assistant cameraman bag on me. I said, well, I've come down a peg myself. Is that, but yeah, yeah, but you're not painting a latrine bagley. Look at the indignity of it. But he was actually, the truth of him is happy to do it. He always had the best attitude. He's still like that.

He's a great guy and a dear friend. And I love Goldie and I love him. They're good people. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp has been with me for a long time as my sponsor. I want to give a shout out to them. They're awesome. But they're really awesome because they're helping so many people, my friends, patrons, uh,

listeners alike. Uh, you know, I think in this world, everybody feels like they've got it together. Like other people have got it together. Oh, look at their social media pictures. Oh, they're so happy. Everybody has their issues, their problems. And the thing is, how do we figure them out?

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six million people globally. These guys are for real. If you want to change your life, if you want to get better, if you want to improve BetterHelp online therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash inside. That's BetterH-E-L-P.com slash inside. Betmoot activated. The ScoreBet app here with trusted stats and real-time sports news. Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well, statistically speaking.

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19 plus, Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to conicsonterio.ca. You know, back to Carrie for a second. What's something about her that people might not know that you just can remember the feeling you get when you're around her? Well, first of all, there are people that did not get to know her

and are not readers that don't read a lot of books, don't read memoirs or literature. You know, she wrote several books which were fiction. Yeah, they were fiction, but they weren't entirely fictional. So a lot of people that love Princess Leia and Star Wars don't know that. So they should know that she was a great writer, I think. Yes. Really, really wonderful writer.

She would buy things for people she loved just beyond generous. This beautiful, high-end Italian buggy. I can't imagine how much it cost back in 1999 when she bought it for my daughter Hayden. She was like that. She would buy these great, incredible, pricey gifts for me, for my kids. She's just beyond generous. I never knew anyone that generous.

Yeah, that's how I felt. And with her time, too, she would do anything with you? Her house was always open. Always open. Come and stay. You stay. I stayed with her for four months. She knew that I was staying in a hotel and I was getting into some trouble.

I was doing a new TV show. And I was... What was the show? I'm curious. It was smallville. Oh, sure. Of course. Yeah, I was Lex Luther.

Yeah, that guy. the bad guy but she uh you were great in that by the way thank you thank you very much i mean from you and that our tool too she was wonderful it's wonderful but i was staying at this hotel she goes why are you staying there i was like i don't know it's a cool hip hotel you know hotel and uh you know i was this young kid trying and how i met her was uh her assistant had called such hollywood but her assistant called and said um carrie wants a picture uh you know for billy her daughter of you was like you was Lex Luther. And I go, well, I want a picture of Return of the Jedi, Princess Leia.

So I have it in my office says, blow me, Carrie. Yeah, that's it. I got a few of those too. Blow me, carry. Blow me, carry. And you know, we just became friends. She'd invite me over for parties. We had parties together. It was just, and then one day, she's like, stop staying, stay at the, stay here at the house. I have bungalows. Merrill Streep stays here, blah, blah, blah. Stay here for a couple of months and get your

shit together. And I go, okay. And I go, I go, I go, what do you want? She goes, nothing. Just if you want to get me something at the end, great. You know what I go? Okay. So I bought her a skylight, the one that's in her living room. I got her.

That's a good gift, my friend. It was good for you. I wanted it. She kept talking about the skylight. And I was like, I'm getting you a skylight. But I learned a lot from her, from reading her books. And then I started writing. And that's how I started writing is writing what I know and then giving her these pages.

And she said, did this happen to you for real? And I go, yes. This is your family? I go, yeah, she goes, this is fucking brilliant. Write this, write more of this. Wow. And, you know, she just, a lot of people didn't know, but she would like, what is it when you take other people's scripts and you, you know, you edit them or you do rewrites on.

Like a punchup? Punch up. Punch up. She would do punch ups on big scripts. I think she did the wedding singer. Yeah, definitely. Adam Sailing. A lot of people don't know that.

And apropos of what you said about being impressed if you extend to that same courtesy to her. She was very generous with me. At some point she was having a party when she was up on Oak Pass at home, not the one that was on Cold Water, but the one off Oak Pass. And she said, can you help me? You're a strong guy. Can you go pick up where you need some champagne for the party? So if you could go pick it up, you know, I'll leave the information such and such.

And so I went to get the champagne. Not only did I pick it up, of course, I paid for it. You know, she found out about that. And she was like, I can't believe you did that. I was her friend. She loved me before that. But after I did that kind of courtesy for her, wasn't like a fortune.

It wasn't about the skylight or something. The act of kindness. The act of doing something like that for her. Yeah, she never wanted anything in return. She never expected anybody to pay for her or do things for her. But when someone did, insisted on and kind of sneakily, because the credit card was, it was all paid for at the wine shop that I picked it up. I said, no, tear that up.

I'm going to pay for it and what have you. So I kind of tricked her in that way. But she found out about it. And she was very grateful. Were you completely shocked when she passed? Yes and no. I knew it was a hard time for her in recovery. Yeah.

She would be in recovery for a while, then she would not be in recovery. And that went on, that cycle went on for a while. As it did for me, it took me many times to go in and out at the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous and to finally put some time together. Yeah. Let me not for one second pretend it wasn't shocking. It was still shocking and hurtful and painful.

It caused a great deal of tears. Yeah. You know, but it was, many of us were afraid something like that would happen. And then when it did, it was still horrible. Yeah, I still can't believe it. Every time I pass cold water that house, I just feel like I want to stop by. I want to see how she's doing. Carrie, I'm in the back.

You know. I'd stop by totally unannounced on. I just press the buzzer on the thing. Say, it said Bagley, I'm riding my bike up cold water. Can I come in and take a shower? Joking or maybe not joking. Come on up here. I got a change of clothes for here. Come on in. The gate would open. I'd bike up.

Yeah. And Debbie's house was right on the left. And then you'd go up and then the bungalows and then her house up on the right. How about that with Debbie and her going within like 48 hours of each other? That's crazy. She just couldn't live without Carrie. No, she couldn't. No, Carrie was her everything. And it was tragic. I just felt the worst for Billy, you know. Me too.

losing your two best friends and it was just um you smoked pot on to funny things you smoked pot with charles manson is this true yeah i didn't know it at the time i didn't even know his name it was just it was a funny turn of events my dear friend james jeremiah so i went to college with at valley college we learned camera work and that's how i became an assistant cameraman for a while and i learned acting there too for like twelve dollars a semester it was cheap and very good training. But we had a day off and when we had a day off, or maybe we had already done our classes, it was later in the day. He said, let's go see my friend, blah, blah, blah. I can't remember the guy's name. And I said, sure. He lived up somewhere, you know, up on the way of the Seamy Valley

of some weird little winding road. We went up there and we met his friend who lived in a tree house. He was a artist and he did these beautiful things, well, high on methamphetamines. Then he had another area that he'd done when he was sober, which he was at that time. And that was even more impressive. Wow, and he lived next to it. He lived next to it as a saloon, and he lived in a tree house. It was all very odd. But we only brought one joint with this, and this guy didn't have any himself. He said, well, we'll go up to the house. They got some good pot up there a lot of the time. So we went up to the house, smoked a joint with these hippie people, like three or four guys, three or four women. You didn't think anything of it.

They're just a bunch of hippies that live in a house. We went back to the car, and I probably should have mentioned the saloon where he parked next to was not a real saloon. It was part of a movie set. Yeah. And the house that we went to visit with just a bunch of hippies, it was a Manson gang, which we discovered a year later when their pictures were in the paper for having killed people. Because they were nobody. They were kind of... Yeah, they hadn't killed anybody at that point. They were just a bunch of hippies with a joint that we smoked with them. And so I guess I had physical contact with people that deranged and evil. And there's some bad karma to be in contact with there. I had some rough years following that.

So if you believe in that energy, I certainly was surrounded by it for a while. You were just like I was around those people. I was around those people. I found a body in my trash unrelated to the mansions or any of that years later. I had a lot of... You found a body in your trash? Yeah.

You just went out one day to your trash and there was a body? I went out. The neighbor was knocking on my back gate across the alley. She said, I think one of your cat, I think not one of your cats. I had one cat. She said, I think your cat crawl on. to the house and died because it smells real, it smells like that.

I said, no, my cat, I saw my cat this morning. Then my cat was right there at my leg. I said, it's not a cat. Oh, boy, it is something. You know what, I think it is? I could smell it. I said, I was just back east, staying at my friend Herb Guard's house. And I think it's a rat.

That smells just like the rat. I smelled in the attic when I was at his house. So I got to go, you know. Oh, no, then we opened up at one of the trash cans to see what it was. I said, it's not under the house. It's in, whoa, put the lid back down. something's in the trash can, but there's something bigger than a cat. Maybe a dog got hit by a car.

A big dog, somebody put in the trash can. I said, I got to go, though. Call animal control, and I'll help you, you know, whatever forms you need to fill out. I got to go run an errand. I came back and there's like 10 detectives, guys with cameras, there's, you know, patrolmen, there's all these different people. Cop cars, detective cars, all in the alley and adjacent to the alley, and I'm riding my bike up.

A cop who says, Mr. Young man, can I talk to you? Yeah, sure. And I'm walking over the fence to see what's going to say. Stay away from the fence. Would you please stay away from the alley, sir?

Just stay right there. I need to ask you a few questions. Ask me my name if I'd seen anything unusual. It was my trash can, by the way, that was in. Have you dumped anything unusual in your trash can? No. I haven't put trash out there in a week. It was all recycling, I said.

He said, okay. And I clearly would have been pretty stupid to kill somebody and dump it in your own trash. I wasn't that stupid. Somebody was stupid to do that kind of an evil act and then to put it in a trash can. I don't know. What do you do when you have a body?

Oh, God. They wouldn't let me near the alley. I didn't know what it was that smell like that. I got up in the roof just to see what was going on. I went, what is that? It looks like some leather work or a hasso or a footstool. And oh my God, that's a torso and that's a head and there's two arms and two legs.

It was like an exploded diagram of a person that they had laid out there to take pictures of it to try to identify, which they later did. A month later, or more, through dental records or something, they discovered that it was a young lady, a 15-year-old or something that was a runaway. God help us. Was that devastating to you?

Devastating. What chain of events happened in this poor young girl's life to take her from her mother's arms and put her in that trash can in somebody's alley? What the hell happened? And I never got an answer to that question. It was never followed up that I saw in the LA Times. No answers.

You didn't get an answer from that. No, they never got an answer. I think they identified where she was originally from from a very bad thing. They noticed she had a lot of scarring in her lungs. So that meant she was certainly from Los Angeles or the San Fernando Valley or the L.A. Basin in some way. They knew she wasn't from Colorado or something because she had a lot of smog scarring in her lungs. Oh, my God. Is this all in the book?

It's all in the book. Is it in the book where in 72, you almost died? and got stabbed? I did. I was waiting for a bus with my friend Paul Appleby, my roommate. We were going to Gardena

to play cards. So my friend, Paul Appleby, was going to drive us. I did not have a car at the time. I said, no, no,

you can take your polluting car and leave it parked. We can get there by bus. It'll be very quick and easy. And I'll show you,

I take the bus all the time. It's safe. It's quick. It's easy. Let's go by bus. So we hop on the bus at Vineland and Ventura

where there's still an important stop. Got on the bus. right on time. The bus came on time. I had a little paper bus schedule. I said, see, so far so good. Got to Santa Monica and Western. The connecting bus, it goes down Western Avenue and got on that. That arrived on time. We were waiting three minutes for that.

See, you don't need to drive a car. We're fine. We're going to get there in like 24 minutes now. 24 minutes happened. Suddenly the driver says something we did not expect. End of the line. No, no, we're going further down. We're going to the Horseshoe Club. This is the end of the line for the RTD, the Rapid Transit District, the L.A.

bus. You got to get the Gardina bus system. It was in Gardena. Okay, we'll just wait for the stop there. We got out of the stop at Western and Imperial. It was broad daylight. You know, I had money on me, but nobody took any money. Suddenly we just got mowed down by this crowd of kids, just mowed down, and on the ground being kicked and beaten. Within seconds, it just happened. Within about, we were there maybe five minutes. Suddenly, and that's the thing about being that young and naive. There was a crowd of like a dozen young men or or young, anybody coming towards you with purpose, with a bad look in their eyes, you should probably bust a move and try to run away.

Yeah. We just stood there because it's sad why we stood there and waited for them to come closer to us. We didn't want to seem uncool. Right. And they just jumped you? Just jumped me. And you were stabbed how many times?

I was stabbed. I was stabbed multiple times, I think, five times, but only one really did any harm. I had a collapsed lung. That could have been from the knife or it could have been from the, uh, being kicked, you know, in the... Were you in shock? Because I always feel like if you get stabbed, do you feel it? Didn't feel it at all.

Didn't feel I felt like it was just being punched. So I thought of those knives, you know, going in, I thought it was just being punched again. And you almost died. You would rush to the hospital. Yeah, you can certainly die from that, but I did not. They did what they call a pneumothorax. They reinflate your lung by inflating the cavity around the, the inflate the, the, inflating, no, deflating the cavity around your lung.

They suck the air out of it. Back then they do it in a very unfortunate way. Back then they did it by using what looked to be a number seven wood carving tool, like a giant exacto knife while you're awake. You can't be asleep for some reason. Did you feel that? Oh boy, could you. They gave me a local, but it did not work.

Oh, Christ. I'm screaming like, you know, gone with a wind where they take the guy's leg off. They're fighting me people holding me down. They're carving a hole of the size you could. fit a pencil in, that's big a hole. Now, for many years, they've done it what's called a needle aspiration. They do it with a needle. They can get it out nearly as good, nearly as quickly, but they did it with a big hole they put in your chest back then. And it was, that was more painful than the stabbing because you're very aware of what's going on and it takes longer.

You have seen it all, haven't you? Almost all. I think there's a few chapters yet to go. Oh, man. What are they going to be? Hopefully no more stuff. Stabbings or trauma. No more mass murderers, please. No someone in your trash. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time.

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19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concern by your gambling or that if someone close to you call 1866531-6-0 or visit comexonterio.ca. Before we jump back in, I just want to say thanks for listening and hanging out with us today. We've had the chance to sit down with over 300 guests. It's actually closer to 400 from people like Alan Richon, Canter Reeves, Kiefer Sutherland, Carrie Ann Moss, Kristen Ritter, and a lot of others along the way.

So if you're newer here, or if you've missed some episodes, there's honestly a ton of great conversations in the archives worth checking out. And if you're enjoying the show, make sure you're subscribed wherever you're listening. It really helps support the podcast and make sure these episodes show up for you every week. And before we get back into it, here's a quick preview of what we've got coming up next week with Jamila Jamil. I said, I love looking my age and I want to always look the age that I am. And I don't want to do anything to stop myself from looking the age that I am because that feels like a kick in the vagina of life. It's such a privilege to grow older.

A lot of my friends haven't been able to because they died. And so I don't want to treat my old lady's self. I don't want her to feel like I was dreading her. All right. Let's get back to it. You were diagnosed in 2016 with Parkinson's? Yes, I was. I didn't know that.

That's very good to hear that you didn't know. I would never, I would never see that. First of all, what is Parkinson's? It's a neurological disorder. holding my hands out so you can see the way Parkinson's can be in 2025. I don't see any shaking. There is no shaking because the medicines that they give you, they give you something called Riteri or Ritory, and it's basically carbidopa, levitopa, and it tricks your body into accepting or manufacturing a little bit of dopamine enough to keep you

from shaking. So I do that, but here's the important thing I want to say, do what the neurologist tells you, get plenty of exercise, eat right, Then in addition, you might want to try some things that my wife found that are for extra credit, they help you a lot. Go into hyperbaric chamber. They may not work for everybody, but try it. It works for you. It sure work for me. Hyperbaric chamber puts you in an oxygen-rich environment for a sustained period of time, not for a day or a week or, you know, you don't do it for long.

You do it for about an hour. And it's very good for your neurological system. Something called N-A-D, as in Nancy Alpha, Denver. Well, N-A-D is that the same thing you can inject? NADs? Yes. Yeah, I do that. Oh, you're doing a good thing for your body and your neurological system, whatever, whether or not you have Parkinson's. The other thing is glutathione. Yeah. Glutothion is very good. And again, I repeat the others I said, take the right kind of medication with a good neurologist and hyperbaric chamber, good exercise, and a good diet. And I did that. Guess what? I didn't know. I had it definitely had it in 2004, now looking in retrospect. I knew I know I had it. now, I did not know I had it for a dozen years. Didn't know I had it. I know my balance was weird.

I had lost some of my sense of taste and smell and then, wow, I'm getting old a little quicker than I thought at age 60. So you had no idea for 12 years? For 12 years. And finally, I realized it was like the sixth sense, you know, that movie. Oh, God, Bruce Willis was dead all along. I get it now. I realized all these injuries that I was having, my shoulder, my leg, I had to wear a boot

for a problem I was having with my feet. foot, my ankle. I had all this stuff that was happening with my arm. It was all on the left side. Parkinson starts either right or left. It doesn't always go left. It picks the side and that side is affected first. So you have some weird injuries that are all happening on one side of your body. You might want to look into it. So the first symptom that you noticed that you actually said, I should go see someone about this, was there any shaking or anything like that? I was shaking, but so rarely when I went in and we thought it was a brain lesion in 2004, and I tested for that. That's just, I didn't tell my doctor that I was shaking because it happened so rarely,

I didn't think it was, I didn't remember it. Right. You know, but I was shaking a bit back in 2004, but I'd lost half my sense of taste and smell. I could still taste and smell, but I lost a fair amount, I don't know, maybe 30%, I don't know the amount, really, but I lost some of it. And I had trouble with balance. I knew I had trouble with balance and bad because I was going to Vancouver to shoot one day, and I got on the plane.

And it took off we're about 5,000 feet off the ground, suddenly the plane, Michael, the plane plummets from the sky. It's like it went from being an aeronautic device, you know, to being a feathered brick. And it's plummeting to the port side. It's falling from the sky. So I go, oh boy! And yell out like that.

And everybody in the plane tries not to look at me. And a few of this flight attendants do to see, are we going to have trouble on this plane today? Because nobody's plummeting from the sky. The plane's not doing anything. It's flying and still continuing to gain. altitude. But I literally thought, I didn't fall out of the seat. I had my seat belt on, but I literally thought, whoa. It was like the plane literally fell to the left to the port side.

They thought you were crazy. Yeah, they all looked like, oh shit. And you felt what was the plane dipping. There was no question. It went like, hey, are we dipping a little bit to the left? It's like plummeting, like falling from the sky. And the flight attendant said, no, that didn't happen. Yeah, I asked later. I said, was there something that happened? Nobody seemed to react but me. She says, no, sir, we were a little concerned, are you going to be okay? So I went to Vancouver and I got to work the next day. So I went and saw a doctor,

gave me some scopolamine or something like it, no dromamine kind of thing, Marazine or whatever they call it, all that different. It's basically all scopolamine, I think, and took that. I was fine. I did the show, I did the show and forgot about it.

Wow. It's, you know, it's amazing to me is like you, you're like this. Like, your mind. It works so fast. No, no, no, I've never, I've never seen anything like this. Have you, Ryan? I've never seen, I can't think as fast as you're talking.

I think that was lost to me years ago. Are you serious? I'm still, I feel like my cockpike. You're so articulate. You're, the stories you tell, they're cohesive, they're linear. They make sense. No, but I'm really shocked. Does Parkinson's usually does it affect, doesn't affect your brain too?

It definitely affects your brain. And I thought it was so brain damage, I couldn't make it here today. So I'm very happy to year. Maybe there's some things, but like when you, while I'm having a conversation with you, I would never have thought that. I swear to God. That's great.

That's very good. Well, I guess there might be some truth to that because on several shows recently, I said to the show runner and the co-stars of the show, when we wrapped, I said, I got to thank you so much. You were all so patient with my Parkinson's. And they went, you're what? What did you just say? They had no idea.

I went, okay, that's, maybe they saw a little bit of trembling. They figured just I'm an old man. you know can they do doctors sort of predict that uh if you stay on these drugs you stay healthy you stay uh active that you could have many many more years what the doctors and i'm not taking shots at a m medicine kind of stuff i need them and i use them the the stuff that i take that is prescribed for parkinson's is very good and it works it keeps you keeps you from shaking the other stuff that i do very few of them have any interest in that if anything the best that they can do, a lot of them they say,

well, it's not going to hurt you, so go ahead and take it. A lot of them don't think there's anything to NAD or hyperbaric chamber or glutathione. So I don't know, all I can say is it's worked for me and has worked consistently. Because I was a hostile witness, to be honest with you, when my wife first said to me, want you to try something called NAD. It said, fine, can I just take a pill? She said, no, you've got to get an IV of it. I get to get an IV.

How long does that take? An hour? No, it's like two to three. Oh, no, I'm not doing this, honey. Another one of these crackpot things who want me to do, crystal-toning bullshit. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to stick with my Riteri.

It's a good doctor. Leave me alone. She browbeat me into finally doing it just so I did it to prove her wrong. Walked into the clinic. Sat there for three and a half hours, walked to my car, pissed off. Well, there's three and a half hours of my life.

I'm not going to get back again. She comes up with these crazy... Wait a second. What's going on? I'm walking back to my car. I'm walking much straighter than I walked from my car. No, it can't be this bullshit I just did. It can't be.

It's working. It was working big time. It actually had some effect on me that was tangible. Again, this is the opposite of placebo. I'm pulling for it not to work. Right. I'm upset about the whole experience. So I go again and do it again and does the same thing.

Maybe it's just the way it's effectively below the waist, but it's not affecting my whole body. So I used to be a drummer, so I did wipeout on the way into the thing. I'm slopping my knee right now into this old song before you were, Wipe out. Wipe out. How do you know about that? Some retro channel.

I'm 53. Well, I'm still amazed. You shouldn't know it, but you do, which is great. I do. So I did that on the way in, and it was what it was. It was pretty good. On the way out, it was very good, each and every time. So I had a quantifiable.

Again, this is not a clinical trial. I'm not suggesting it is. How often do you do it? I haven't done it now in probably a month. I should do it more than that. I should do it like every two weeks. Do you feel like it reduces inflammation to? I think that's exactly what it does.

I'm told they also give it to people who are like coming off heroin or something or something like that that helps to soothe the neurological situation. But it relieves some pain and like if you have arthritis and things like that, could it help with that? Yeah, I never thought about it. It might relieve pain too. I have pain occasionally and it might have done that. I'm just so amazed by the way I walked back to the car because it was noticeably every time consistently different, as was the little 30-second version of wipeout that I did on a countertop

on the way in and the way out. So again, it's fairly scientific. What's your wife's name? Rochelle. Rochelle. Thank you. Exactly. It pains me to say thank you to her about anything, but I think I will. Thank you, Michelle. You're crazy witch. How long been married? Crazy. Witch. We've been together since 93. We split up 20 times the first three years, 20 times. one time Michael I changed my number change my phone number you know a lot of women don't get the subtle signals that you're sending them like a number

change I just so didn't want to be in a relationship quite specifically not with her but she is what they say in Yiddish my Bichert my destiny and I'm very happy for it she's a lovely woman what is it what is it about that you can't you can't not be with her she's very hot okay that's a good that's a very good thing Probably more to her than...

There could be, but that's an important... This is what I get out of that. First of all, she's going to deep down like it, but she's going to hate me for it more than that because she wants to be known for being more than that. And she probably is, but don't tell her that. You guys fuck with each other a lot, don't know. Yeah.

I don't want her to feel good about herself. If her self-worth goes up, she'll leave me in a shot, Michael, so I can't have it. Constantly demeaning her. Is this the relationship constantly? I'm afraid so. It is. It's very sick.

Just kind of a sick, dark, Now I know why Carrie loved you. I could see the darkness in you. You're not, I mean, you're kind and all that, but you also have a dark sense of humor. I guess I do. I can't deny the truth when it's presented to me. Activist, actor, author, hundreds of films, stage performances, TV shows, officer and a gentleman.

This is Spinal Tap Pineapple Express. Best and Show Mighty Wind. Better Call Solace, Clifford, Maine. Arrested Development. Even my three sons that I used to watch as a kid you were in. Yeah. just saw Stanley Livingston and Barry Livingston at one of these autograph shows. Two wonderful guys.

They were the young stars. They were two of the three sons. I remember the music. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, that's amazing. I love that show. What do you love most? I mean, if you look back, like, do you love doing film?

Do you love doing TV, stage, all of it? Or really, is there one if you had to choose? You know, there used to be a big, hard line in the sand, a big wall, more of a wall than a line in the sand between TV and film. If you're a film actor, you did not do television. Yeah. You know, you just wouldn't see the big stars doing television. They didn't do it. And that started to change, and now it's become quite the opposite.

Some of the biggest stars want to be on television more than anything, because they get to do, please, let me get a show like Brian Cranston got years ago. Let me get a Breaking Bad. I can do it for six years. Bob Odenkirk six years and doing another six years I mean fantastic everybody wants that job to do wonderful creative work

like you see Elizabeth Moss do and Handmaid's Tale and this stuff not just the season not just one year but multiple years and that's what drew me to St. Elsewhere the show St. Elsewhere He did that for eight years? Six. Six years. But the writing was so good

I just wanted to be on that show. I went and read for the part that I wanted and I knew I was going to get because I read very good for the part of Dr. Peter White. I wanted that part desperately. I went in and my age and called me up and said, you didn't get it. What do you mean, I didn't get it?

I read really good. I mean, like, really good. They loved it. They, a few of them clapped. I thought I read really good. No, they got somebody in mind already for that part. Who do they have? I thought it would be a star bigger than me in 1982,

which was easy to accomplish. So now under they got, let's see who they got. They got Terence Knox for the part. They offered it to him. I think he's going to take it. Terence Knox. Who the hell is Terrence Knox? I'd never heard of him.

And I was very depressed. They called back, my agent called back in like five minutes. They liked you a lot, though, and they want to offer you another part. Oh, great, what's the part? Dr. Erlich. Dr. Victor Erlich. Wasn't a regular. Had two goddamn lines.

It was the third line they added. They combined them with a character called Stanton, but the problem with Stanton and Erlich were having a conversation together. So I was talking to myself, basically, if I was going to say yes to this part. I said yes to it, of course, because the writing was good. Hopeed it might, you know, they might write for me a little more. Now I can jump ahead in the story and tell you. In year two of the series of its six years,

Terrence Knox's character, Dr. Peter White, gets shot in the balls and then the stomach. He's dead and gone. He was a hospital rapist that turns out, dead and gone halfway through season two. My character was around for all six years, one of the more popular characters of the show. Once again, Michael,

I always wanted what I wanted, you know, and what I got was much better than what I could ever dream of. You know, what I wanted was quite inferior to what I got. At some point, quit paddling hard and let the river take me where it was clearly destined to take me for Cherat. And it did.

And it was much better than what I had in mind. You got nominated for Emmy six years in a row. Six years in a row. And a golden globe. I mean, you thought it was just like a glorified extra. That's what it was. But then they paired my character. They saw some reaction go on between Mark Craig, the character of Mark Craig played by, Will

Daniels and they started writing for that this mutton Jeff I'm tall he is not tall and he's a great actor I've seen him in parallex view I've seen him in the graduate I've seen him in two for the road I was a big fan of of Bill Daniels and here I'm working with him and now they're starting to write for the two characters they made a call look I know he's just the recurring character but we want to make him a regular call up the agent now I'm a regular and I'm a regular and I'm on the show for all six it was it was just crazy change your life change my life Bruce Paltrow changed my life what about you know going back to Bob Odenkirk and working with them because you and I just saw each other last week at the Food on Foot. You go to FoodOnfoot.org, uh, nonprofit organization. I love that.

uh, really helps homeless people across California. It's such a meaningful way. Yes. It's not a handout. It's a hand out. It's a hand up. No, it's like, you know, you have to do the work. You have to want it. You have to want a job. They'll help you get a job. They'll help you get an apartment. They'll help you. And it's just really amazing if you, uh, want to donate food on foot.org. But I'm a 98 club, 99, $98 club member every month. I do that. And we went and seeing Bob Odenkirk on stage, it really surprised me how emotional he got. He got emotional. I think you did too. I know I did. I did. He, you know, he was just like, you know, I just, he felt that there's so many people that don't have this.

And you know, if you just, and I was like, oh my God. And so I guess my thought was, when you're working with him, do you see that same kind of passion in a different way with acting? Yes, he's very passionate about his work and it shows. He's doing nothing but the best television for the past 12 years. He did that six and six. And now he's doing the best movies. You can imagine the best stage work. He's a great actor, a great writer.

You know, he wrote on Saturday Live, I believe. Yeah, yeah. He was on the podcast. He was great. He's fantastic. He's so quick. He's so funny. His daughter's a wonderful artist.

They did this great book during the pandemic. Yeah. They spent their time she doing these incredible illustrations. He wrote great text. It's just a wonderful, wonderful book. I love their relationship. I love your relationship with Hayden, too. You're so close.

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Hosted by former Navy SEAL Mike Ridland. It's unfiltered. You know, when you go to the sound of the gun, bam, you're gone. It's weird. I mean, I've had so many near-death experiences. It's raw. I love this country. I offered my life to serve this nation and protect its people.

The question, you know, what's the meaning of life? And to me, it just boils down to one single word, which is purpose. Mike Drop, follow and listen on your favorite platform. What's it like? I mean, you know, did having children change your life? Definitely. I wanted to have kids from the youngest stage. It's just something I felt was in my soul.

I just wanted to have a family at some point. And I met a great lady in 1976. She was ready to get married and have kids. well she was ready to get married on the way back from Vegas from our quick slapdash wedding I said you know I'm going to want a family pretty soon so like okay so we should go see the doctor Monday morning you should go see your doctor

and get that IUD take it out honey I'll drive you I'm gonna say hell been okay and so we had kids right away and it was great but I was not mature enough to be a husband at that point I had some major flaws I was still a practicing alcoholic practicing philander a gambling addict and so I had a lot of work to do. So the second marriage, I got a lot better.

But Ingrid, my first wife was fantastic. Gave me two wonderful children that are the joy of my life along with Hayden. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. It's amazing when you look back at all the dark times when you were this gambling addict and alcoholic and doing drugs and philandering. Did you ever think there was a way out or you thought this is how I'm going to keep living?

I knew there's a way out. I didn't want to take it. By that, I have evidence of that. I didn't really fully understand it at the time. When I finally got so bad, I had the DTs and I just didn't know where to turn. I went, oh, yeah, that thing I put in the back of my wallet. In the back of my wallet, Michael,

I had taped a little piece of paper the size of a fortune cookie. I'd cut it out of the daily variety of the Hollywood reported one of those trade papers that just said, Alcoholics Anonymous, 2 and 3, 385, 2,600, or whatever the number was back then of central office. I cut it out and put it into, pasted it into my wallet with a piece of tape.

Why did I do that, Michael? Well, we both know why I did it. I wanted to have, as I have in a hallway of a school or many office buildings, in case of fire break glass, pull the lever hard and the alarm will sound. There was a fire blazing called alcoholism, and I needed to pull that alarm, which I did, went into recovery, and here we are many years later. How long have you been sober? Since 1979, so that's coming up on 14.

Any vices? No drinking, no drugs? Do you smoke at the time? I never smoked cigarettes. A little pot every once in a while? No pot for me. It just makes me paranoid, so I'm not drawn to that. You know, Hayden told me, maybe she shouldn't have, but she emailed me because I go, any scoop you got for me, give me the dirt. And she told me something about an LSD trip. Oh yeah, it took acid in 1969, and most people would go up to Big Sur or to Joshua Tree. I walked down Ventura Boulevard on acid.

I'd started with a friend of mine. I wanted to village his name, but a guy that went on to great success as a comedian and as an actor. Steve Martin. It wasn't Steve. But I did it with him, and we went out to,

we were going to go visit some friends in Thousand Oaks and be out there in nature along Lake Sherwood, and somehow they were constructing the 101 at that time they're doing construction. There are all these similar

kind of S-shaped detours that we went through. And I thought we were going in a circle, like a Mobius strip, an MC Escher kind of a circle. I just, I was on acid, and I knew that, but I just was sure we were going in this kind of Mobius strip,

this loop. Right. And all the signage supported that. Didn't say, you know, Chesboro Canyon, didn't say Canaan Road, it went Malacca Canyon Drive or what I said. It was suddenly all in Cyrillic, you know, like Russian lettering. And so finally, my friend pulled the car off, and they said, okay,

you just got to calm down. You get a little upset. I said, okay, I just got to breathe for a second to be around nature. Oh, look, here at a gas station, Leif's, thank God, they have some grass around where the gas pumps are. Oh my God, oh my God, it wasn't grass at all. And this was the first time in my life I had seen it the first time I'd ever seen it outside of like a golf course or a putting green or a miniature golf more likely. It was fake grass. I'd never seen fake grass at a gas station before or anywhere on a city street. I really hadn't seen it. They weren't doing it that much until this. This was 1969. And I saw the fake grass. I pulled that and it came up a little bit and I went, we got to get

out of here. The kid's going to pick us up. What do you mean the kid's going to pick us up? Nobody's picking us up. So I thought a kid with a Lionel train set hat was going to pick us up and put it back in a little train depot on the, I thought we're part of a giant train set or something, a lionel train set. And I thought, you know, there's a kid going to come down to the basement and see that we're there with this fake grass. Like, I made my own Twilight Zone. So finally, Michael, my friend said, okay, we got to get back. We got to get you back home. You're blowing it.

You're starting to blow it here at this gas station. So he tried to drive me back. But driving back, what happens then? Same Cyrillic lettering. Same kind of, you know. The same S-shaped detours. How did I ever actually get out of the car? It's like the flying dame.

Dutchman. I've always been in this car. I will always be in this car. There's never been anything but this car. And finally, I started to, I opened the door while he was going at freeway speeds. I was about to like jump out or something. I said, okay, I'm hearing you know, I'm hearing now. Just stop it. Cool, cool, cool. I'm going to pull the car over. He pulled off at Topanga Canyon. I went, I'll see you in another life, my friend. I started to walk down Ventro Boulevard at Topanga. I lived at Burbank Boulevard and Fulton, Burbank and Coldwater, basically. So that's a hell of a wall. hell of a walk. But I was going to do it. I was just going to do it. And I had this acid left on me and I thought, oh, what am I going to do? I got to ditch it because the cops are going to, oh my God,

here they come. Here they come. The cops are pulling alongside and the helicopter. Okay, he's about to do. He's, he's about to get rid of the drugs, move in. And so I could see the cops of the helicopter and the black and white car were coming closer to Nabby. Oh, no. I was hallucinating all of this. There's no helicopter overhead. Suddenly there's a boat like an icebreaker plowing down the middle of Ventura Boulevard, a Cessna crashes into a building. All this crazy stuff was happening. Oh, my, this is the worst LSD trip ever. The worst ever. So I'm starting to, and I've got to get rid of it. I got to, I'm just about to put it in a trash can again. Move in, he's ready to jump it. I realize there's only one place I can get rid of it. What way is that, Michael? How do I get rid of it? But they can't find it on me.

Take it. I swallowed it. I swallowed another one. So now a miserable trip gets worse. By the time they finally came. If I had just known there with LAPD, I wouldn't have been nearly as upset. I thought there were the time police. I thought they were the time police. The black and white, the yin and yang, you know, the nuns were the habit, the black and white habit. All the torturers in my life was all the black and white

because there's one thing and there's no thing. And I went back, you know, there's a big bank. We all pretty much agree to that. Big bank. What is there besides the big bang? There's a big crunch and this was a big crunch. Everything was going back to what they call a singularity in physics,

going back to the one thing, to the nothing, to the no thing. and it started to crunch and it was very, very bad and then I woke up in a jail cell naked. You saw the Big Bang theory. You saw the Big Bang.

I didn't have, I wasn't part of a joyous and wonderfully explosive Big Bang. It was part of what they call the Big Crunch where everything went back to one. And you went to jail. I went right to jail

because by the time the cops came I basically shot water out of my eyes under the windshield. Can I get that for you? Let me clean it up. I was just so weeping and scared. Because I didn't know there were cops. They're these black and white gladiators at this point with all this leather on that creaked when they walk and two flaming red torches on the top of their chariot.

Oh my God. It was pretty bad. Bad acid trip, as I said. I never would think Ed Begley would be doing LSD and tripping. So that's why it was one and only one acid trip in the life. That is amazing. God, I wish we had more time. I want to keep talking to you.

This isn't me. We'll do it a second time. Yes. You worked with Maud. on mod with B. Arthur. I sure did. What an honor that was. Was she tough? She was tough if you didn't know what you were doing,

if she was something that was happening that she didn't think was proper. But the smart people on the set, and Norman was one of them, when she had any idea, that was almost always a good idea, they would adopt it. And Adrian Barbeau and everybody,

and Bill Macy, everybody thought that was a good idea. She didn't always want to change things. It was really good writing. So she wasn't changing dialogue like crazy. Just little things. She had things that she knew would be true to her character into the thrust of the show.

But she was at that point when she did this, a wonderfully successful Broadway actress. So she needed, you know, they needed her in the show more than she needed the show probably. Yeah. But she was great in the show, and it showed it ran for how many years did that show go? I don't know, Ma.

Probably like six years, was it? I think so, something like that. It was a very good show. Yeah, it was great. You ever deal with anxiety? or depression in your life? I do because of the Parkinson's and my loss of vision with

I have a pretty bad vision loss from I just have I've lost a lot of my eyesight and catastrophic hearing loss. Glaucoma is what I was trying to remember. I have glaucoma and so now I don't see in the periphery that well.

Right. So between the glaucoma and the hearing loss and the Parkinson's and all of that you know there's a tendency to get depressed and I do get depressed but here's the great thing it's just part of my nature I'm not getting anything out of it so I stopped doing it after like five minutes I'm not kidding five I'm never I'm rarely depressed for six minutes I'm not kidding because what am I getting out of this okay wow I can't it's a serenity prayer the things you can

change and the things you can't the way to know the difference I can't change the hearing loss I can't change the eyesight loss I can still see you right now I can't see you as well. Ryan, right? I can see Ryan. I can see you. Memories like that. And I can hear you.

Even though I have tremendous hearing loss, you have good headsets and I'm wearing them. I can hear what you're saying. Some people have things so bad, much worse than what I'm talking about. I know people that are still sober that are in wheelchairs for life, you know, that have lost the ability to control their arms or their legs. So I have no problems. My problems are minor compared to that. So we soldier on.

That's a good way to think. my friend. Your old house was solar power, wind power. You're paying around $300 for electricity a month. It was. We had a wind turbine, but it didn't work very well. Those vertical axis wind turbines, don't harm any birds. They don't make a lot of noise, which is good for city ordinances and what have you. There's another problem. There's a problem associated with them, I should say, all those good things. Don't harm any birds or any wildlife. Don't make any noise to disturb your neighbors. They also don't make any power. other than that they're wonderful I mean they make like

10 watts of power something they're rated at 500 watts the ones that I got you could spin them you know in the wind or with your hand you could spin them like as fast as the thing would go without blowing a bearing and it would literally put out like 10 to 15 watts which as you probably know that's like a refrigerator bulb

right horizontal access wind turbines the one the proper ones like I have out in the California desert had I had it for about 30 years I did not own it as part of my property or my house. I owned it as part of an investment. It was a wind farm. I owned just half of one of those wind turbines. The old kind that are now short compared to the big ones. Yeah. There's 75 kilowatts. But what I got with that was even better than the power directed to my home. It was directed to many homes. So I got the bragging rights to say,

I've been carbon negative since 1985, you know, not just carbon neutral. Yeah. I've eliminated my carbon footprint and then some. Well, it's, it says you and Bill Nye are in a friendly competition. petition to see who can have the lowest carbon footprint. And he would beat me often, but only because I had three people in my household and he had one. Now at least he's married. There's two people there and I can compete. But also, I'll never use no power, no city power. That's not possible because I have basically an electric vehicle charging station. Everybody comes to my house to charge because they know I get all the solar during the day of nine kilowatts of panels on the roof. So that's good. But also at night,

I'm buying 100% green, 100% absolute green power because the LADWP program is a very good program that uses real new green electrons. If you buy $800 worth of green power over a year, let's say, they will buy out in the marketplace $800 worth of pure green power, wind solar or geothermal. So it's not like the ones that are problematic, the ones like, I have green power for my home.

What do you mean by that? Well, we took title to an existing hydro plant in Idaho So we have green power now. No, that's like a paper transaction. I'm not interested in the paper transactions. I'm interested in new electrons going into the grid because of what I did. That's what I do. I get buying the 9 kilowatts on my roof and when I need to buy power at night to charge one of the five cars that regularly charge in my house besides my family, you know, I just buy some for the DWP that's 100% green like my roof.

When's the last time you had a gas vehicle? I had a hybrid car, 2,000 through 2,000. I can't remember when I had a hybrid. But it's been 15 years probably. Yeah, it's been a while. I only use a hybrid for long trips. Around town I've used an electric since 1990. I had an electric in 1970, but they were very short range then and very slow.

Well, you were one of the first people to have an electric bike probably, right? Yeah, I had a nice electric bike for a while and I've had a few of those. Now, because of the Parkinson's, I'm cooling with a bike riding. I've almost fallen over a few times. Now I ride a stationary bike. And your driving's okay? My driving's very good because I'm a very cautious. Very cautious.

And I have a car with autonomous driving. So I'm a very good co-pilot. Hands on the wheel looking out the windshield ready to take over. And I have not had to take over yet. Christopher Gast, working with Christopher Gast, all the movies you did with him. He, you know, I've met him once. And what's funny is like a lot of times you think, oh my God, this guy's hysterical. In person, kind of serious.

He's very low key. He doesn't like, here's what I think he's, I'd love me not presumed to think what Chris Gest is thinking, but he, he's a very real person and he doesn't want to be phony and go, oh, I loved your last movie. You're so wonderful. Let's do lunch. He doesn't like that. He's not that at all. He's just, he can like somebody's work and eventually will say, hey, that scene was very good. I like that movie that you did. He's not lacking in emotion or response to good work, but he just doesn't dole it out recklessly. He's very careful about the way he acts. He's a very, he's a very, he's a very, he's a very much. He's a very much. He's a very much. He's a very very real person. He doesn't like superficial. No, he doesn't do superficial at all. It's either a real conversation or no conversation. Exactly. Steve Martin's like that. He's, yeah. He's very, very funny when he wants to be, which is, you know, whenever he wants to be, he's going to be very funny, but he can be very serious too, which is refreshing that somebody isn't on all the time. Yeah, I worked with Steve Martin. I remember he was so sweet. He came up to me in first day and just goes, so tell me about this smallville. And

He was just so sweet. I was sitting at lunch by myself. And Steve goes, you mind if I sit here? And he would sit with me. Oh, nice. Just a wonderful human being. I remember I go, could you sign my jerk poster on the last day? It's my last dad, I didn't want to bother.

He was like, yeah, come in. I'm playing some banjo. You want to hear some banjo? I go, yeah. And I listen to some banjo while he signed my jerk poster. So do you have any autographs? You have any autographs at all? Did you ever get any?

When I was a kid, I got some great autographs. I got Michael Kane. I got James R. N.S. from Gunsmoke. I got Steve Allen, some people I really liked, and I have them to this day. I love that. You've written many books, living with that, a guide to the eco-friendly life and many others. A vegan book, a vegan survival guide for the holidays and your memoir to the Temple of Tranquility and step on it. You're always working. You're a mensch. You're a munch. You're an Uber minch. This was an absolute joy talking about. too, buddy. Your stories are so. I didn't know what to expect. I was like, you know, I was, I don't know what it happened. I haven't had thorough conversations with you. But this was one for the books. This was, this was awesome. This was truly awesome. Both you and Ryan. Thank you both. Thank you for being here. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing. of Amex.

Conditions apply. Ed, you're the best. Thank you so much for doing this podcast. You really brighten my day, my mood. And I think you did that with all the listeners out there who are listening to you because you're filled with wisdom, my friend. And you'll be hearing from me soon, bugging you to post this. Yeah, that's about all I could say.

It was a really fun interview. He's a legend. He's a legend. And I like, it's cool when, um, Legends of Hollywood come through because they do come through from time to time. Yeah. People with perspective and wisdom.

John, John, Reese. Oh, yeah, Davies. Davies. They usually have three names. Ed Baker Jr. What's his name? Billy D. Williams.

So many. I mean, it's been awesome. And the environmental stuff is cool too. Yeah. Good for him. Yeah. Good for you. All right.

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Couldn't do it without you. Period. The end from the Hollywood Hills in Hollywood, California. I'm Michael Rosenbaum. I'm Ryan Tejas. I've been here as well. He's been here forever.

Wave to the camera. Thanks for. being here every week for me. It means a lot and be good to yourself. Okay? Just do it. Freaking do it. Be good to yourself.

This isn't your average podcast. Do you like party? I do like a huge chug of tequila. The hollerhead whiskey bottle chug. In front of Dana White. That was the first time we ever went to L.A. We somehow got into a bitty party. It's an Elon Musk house party look like.

My party generally have a very high production value. This is full send. I do want to do a lot more pranks. A bunch of different pranks. Join the party. Jack Dordy in the house. Feeling good, man. What are we going to talk about with Will Smith?

I don't know what you're going to say. Shout out to Phil Vaughn. It's been entertaining, dude. The Full Send podcast. Got the boys, got the beers. Let's do it. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.