The Bobby Bones Show - Classic Replay with Actor/Activist Ed Begley Jr.

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

In this Classic Replay of Takin A Walk, Buzz talks to Actor/Activist Ed Begley Jr. Ed has appeared in hundreds of films and TV shows including St. Elsewhere from 1982-1988 and recurring cast appearances in the mockumentaries of Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy. He is also a member of the board of directors of The Walden Woods Project.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to another Taken a Walk classic replay. I'm Buzz Night, your host. Now, if you have suggestions about the Taken a Walk podcast, feel free to reach out to us at our website, takena walk.com. You might have some ideas on how to improve the podcast. Maybe you have some guest suggestions. You name it.

You reach out to us there. On this classic replay, let's go back to March of 2022, when taking a walk traveled by playing, not by foot, to L.A., where I met up with one of my favorite actors, known for so many great performances, Ed Begley Jr. I love Ed. In particular, love him in those mockumentaries

from Christopher Guest and Company, Best in show, waiting for Guffman, a mighty wind in particular. Ed Begley Jr., he's terrific. He was so gracious to us, welcoming us to his neighborhood where we took a walk, and here's Ed Begley Jr. On this classic replay of Taking a Walk. Nice little neighborhood in Studio City is called Colfax Meadows, and it's a lovely area with lots of mature trees,

which is the big draw. People finally figured out a few years ago. One of the most prevalent, is one of the most common denominators in homes that have tremendous value is mature trees. You know, wherever you are, whatever part of the country, the world you are,

will go around this succulent here. Don't get stuck, Buzz. I will not. I promise you. So in the series that you did that was really about Living Green, which was a tremendous series, I loved it.

Thank you, Bruce. You had a neighborhood friend slash nemesis, I would say, in the series. Is that fair to say? Oh, boy, you had to bring him up. You're going to even say his name? Okay, I'll say it. Bill Nye. Bill Nye. Okay, here we go. Yeah. We were having a fine walk, buzz, and then you had to get into that. No, the truth is, he's my dear friend, and it's like a wrestling match or something. I'm going to take you down, I'm going to take you down on the 23rd of March. You know, it's a fun kind of competition that we have to see how's the

lowest carbon footprint. And I'll be honest, he was beating me for years, but only because there was one of him and the three of us. So per capita, I was doing very well over the years. I was his immediate neighbor. We're about a mile apart now, but we're not at all apart in our approach to this, and we want to promote sustainable stuff that people can afford. Not everybody can afford the kind of solar that I have or some of the other things that I have. So you want to promote things that people can afford, the average Joe or Jane. So we've tried to do that. If you want to buy some highfalut and fancy car, that's fine.

But if you only have the money to buy some light bulbs and energy-saving thermostat, you should do that. You know, plant a vegetable garden, make some compost, ride a bike, take public transportation. All that stuff I just mentioned is very cheap. And so that's the way I started to. People say, I can't afford X, Y, and Z like you. And I go, neither could I when I started. You don't run up to the top of Mount Everest.

You get to base camp and you get acclimated, and you climb as high as you can. can. So that's what I'm trying to do, show what works, and do it myself in my own life. But I hasten to add, this I didn't get right away, Buzz. For years I've been promoting, do what you can and buy the energy-saving life bulbs and do everything. There's important what we do. That's important, but that's only one of three pillars you need to have any environmental success. The other two are corporate responsibility and good legislation. Yep. And if everybody's just doing stuff themselves and the government is involved in businesses aren't called you're not going to get anywhere.

We needed the Clean Air Act to clean up the air in LA. It wouldn't just people like me driving electric cars in 1970 and beyond. It takes good legislation and that's how we did it. And it takes corporate responsibility and that's how we did it. So you need all three. And if any of them short, you're going to have a wobbly situation. You need to have them all of equal strength. So that's what I'm making sure people know.

Do what you can in your own life. But make sure that there's corporate responsibility whenever you can affect it. They're of course related. The more stuff that you do, the more energy-saving light bulbs you buy or green cars that you buy, than corporate America is going to be more inclined to make them. You know, you can influence corporate America with your purchasing power. You can vote on election day. You can vote in the supermarket aisles and the showroom floors.

And then, of course, good legislation, same thing. If you're affecting what corporate America is doing, you're doing stuff in your personal life, you're going to help. That will help make for good legislation. You know, if you get involved as an activist, too, and start influencing the way people vote, the way our legislators vote. But you were a lone wolf at that time. It was very odd to drive an electric car in 1970.

Of course, they've been around for years before me. Henry Ford's wife preferred her Baker Electric to his noisy contraption. That was a 1910 car called a Baker Electric. They've been around for a while. But, you know, I did what I could, stood on the shoulders of, people, you know, Rachel Carson, you know, and other people like that. She wrote Silent Spring and Henry David Thoreau. You know, Emerson people talked about the value of the natural world, and I chose to value it myself. Also, I got to give credit my dad, Ed Begley, Sr. He never used

the word environmentalist, really, but he was one. He had lived through the Great Depression. He was a son of Irish immigrants. So we turn off the lights and turn off the water and save string and say tinfoil. So over the time Earth Day came around, I was primed and ready to go. And he died within a few days of that first Earth Day. Is that right? Yeah.

So I did a lot of the stuff I did to honor him because he was always interested in what I was for, not what I was against. And I said, I hate this smog. Smog, it's hurt in my lungs, dad. And I hate it. I said, he would say, well, I know what you're against, which is smog, and I'm against it too.

But what are you for? What are you doing? Go help the build a green car. go down to the smog control district and testify about how we should clean up the smog. Do something. Get involved. Don't just talk about it. And so I got motivated in 1970 and I did a lot of stuff. And it all worked. What I did, what corporate America did, what good laws did like the Clean Air Act. We have four times of cars in L.A. now from 1970.

Millions more people, but a fraction of the smog. Wow. And describe the scene where we're taking a walk right now, if you could. Let me stop for a second, just point out what's going on here. Yep. This is the L.A. River. You can see a little bit of water in a secondary channel cut at the bottom of the larger channel. It's for flood control.

I understand why they did what they did back in the 30s. A lot of it happened in the 30s. The Army Corps of Engineers decided to pave over it to control it because there was a great deal, there was a certain amount of loss of life and a great deal of loss of property. Because L.A. River was a meandering river that would be over here one day and over there. And farmers and people kind of dealt with and built on higher up things like where my house is now. That's higher than this area.

Yep. You just walk from. And so Army Corps of Engineers channelize the river. That was what they thought was best at the time. We know better now. You can do what they did in Scottsdale, Arizona and other places. They're big spreading basins. You let the water spread out.

This, even your swift water rescue Navy SEALs, you fall in this water, you might not make it until they pull you out. The water is very cold in the wintertime, and it goes very quickly, and so it's like a freeway of death this water. So what they're doing more of what they're already have in place now, called Bell Bowl Park, it's a wetland where the water is spread out over a larger area, allowed to do what its job is, which is to percolate down into the water table, and do that. So we're attempting to do what is downstream of here already.

There's a permeable bottom. The sides are still channelized. but the bottom is not and the water goes down and so it's not as much a rush of water as you go further downstream we're going to go up to the the source of this nile if you will the beginning of this l.a river in chatsworth in that area it's called box canyon up there the west san fernano valley and begin to break up the bottom of this l.a river so it begins to permeate down more and the more you do that and continue to move eventually make it to the ocean long beach and places like that where this all empties. You know, Biona Creek and Long Beach is where this all

empties, then it won't be so much volume of water being wasted too. We can meet more than half of LA's water needs by just collecting our water by one having it go back into the water table and two to do what I'm doing at my house which is to let it all flow into a water tank underground. I have a 10,000 gallon water tank buried underground. The water goes into that then I can use it for emergencies and I can certainly use it as I do every day for irrigation. Wow. So that's amazing. Now did you, did your wife come along immediately in this, in this passion? Kicking and screaming, I'd say with the two words. I remembered that in the show was a little

bit of kicking and screaming. Yeah. And but now she's along for the ride, isn't she? She definitely is because a lot of it makes financial sense and I finally ceded control over stuff that I really didn't have that big an interest in. She didn't want to see solar panels for some reason. I like the look of them. I just do. But a lot of people like my wife. wife doesn't so they said the architect and her and the builder said we're not going to see any solar panels i said if you can pull it off that's great because they're up on a flat roof but all they did was build a parapet wall this big i'm holding my fingers about five or six inches apart right now buzz and that's all a little wall that tall is all that it does because the first solar panel down at

the bottom of it is just a quarter inch below that lip and then they go up at an angle that you is a straight line from that so you can stand anywhere in the property go this ed begs is a liar. He doesn't have one solar panel on that roof. You need a drone to fly over to see I got lots of panels, got nine kilowatts. But the wife didn't want to see them and we can do that. Aesthetics, we've got beautiful

walls that are stucco and what have you. She wanted that look of French Mediterranean design. We did all that, but what's in the wall is mine. I own that stuff in the wall, the insulation and the thick walls that are 12 inches thick. So now it's much easier to heat or cool that envelope that very well sealed up home.

So she gets what she wants, and I get what I want, which is the gearhead stuff, the nuts and bolt stuff, and she's in charge of aesthetics. Was there some counseling involved that got you guys through? Very much so. We somehow made it, and nobody got hurt. She's much stronger than me. You'll meet her in a minute. She can take me pretty good at this point. Now, how did you get involved with a passion that I share with you with the Walden Woods Project? Two words, Don Henley. Don is a dear friend of mine since he's. early 70s. We met at the Trubodore bar there and the Trubodore club. He was on stage,

a wonderful guitarist, songwriter, drummer. He's a brilliant musician. And with Glenn Frye, they wrote some great, great songs. I would say. And he's written some great songs on his own, too, of course. He's a dear friend. And he wanted to do something. He had heard about, you know, this property that was going to be made into like an industrial park or something, or they were going to develop this area. where Henry David Thore wrote and walked and lived. And so he thought that was like firing up a foundry in the Sistine Chapel. And if we could save Walden, maybe we could save other places too.

So he said about doing that. He enlisted my help and Bonnie Raid and James Taylor and lots of friends and Sting. And people over the years have all helped. And he's done a good job. It's one of my favorite places to go take a walk. In fact, the first two episodes of Taking a Walk actually were recorded there. The first one was with Jeffrey Kramer. Oh, yes, I love Jeffrey Kramer.

And then the second one was with a former morning host of mine from my radio days, a guy by the name of Wally Brine. Do you remember the first time you took a walk in the Walden Pond area? It was with Don Henley and Kathy Anderson. It was the first Walden Woods walk that we had. We had an event there to raise money to buy the land. and we did and, you know, that was, I think that was the early 90s, like 91 or something like it. That sounds right, because I met you and Don for the first time when I programmed the classic rock station, WZLX, and you guys came up and did an interview, so that was around that time.

That sounds like 92, something like that. It was not in Boston or Concord. That was in Boston. Yes, I remember that now. And then we ultimately met at a Nicky Songus. benefit and conquered at the Rasmussen's beautiful house there. And I knew Paul Songers too. He's a wonderful man. Wonderful man, yeah. So walking for you is important.

Very important. That's my transportation hierarchy. I quite deliberately moved to an area where I could walk to restaurants, walk to the bank, walk to the post office. You know, that's my number one former, I'm known for electric cars, but my number one form of transportation is walking. Number two is my bike number three is public transportation so the electric car is a distant fourth and so you know and I try not to fly too I can recently it's been a lot easier because nobody was flying much but I went two and a half years recently without flying and I was very happy with that so and does walking uh is it clear your head if you're in a creative log jam it does it's wonderful when you're writing or just going about the business of living going about the business of the day to just take a walk

let it all peel away and drink in the moments like this one right now where everything is perfect. I have everything that I need. The river is flowing even though we haven't had much rain late you can see water down there that's coming from something called the Hyperion plant. They take all the raw sewage in that end of the valley well the middle of the valley really is where it sits from uphill of there in the San Fernando Valley and they treat it so that is really nearly drinkable water I suppose you could drink it if you're in a real pinch, but it's been fully purified and what have you. And now it's part of the ecosystem.

That water is running year-round because it's raw sewage, it's been cleaned. And so there's birds and other aquatic life that depend on it now, and it's not harming them. It's not toxic the way it used to be because of the manner in which they treat it. And that's the important thing people have to realize. The environment isn't just Walden Pond and isn't just the rainforest in Brazil. That's, of course, the environment. We have to protect that. That's essential. But The environment is also here in this concrete channel. This is part of the environment. South Central is part of the environment.

You know, Love Canal is part of the environment. We just need to set about cleaning up those things where we've made a mess and protecting all the areas, this and everything that we have developed. We have to make sure that it's in some kind of balance and we continue to live and thrive with what we need from the natural world. So are you currently working on any script? processes for movies or television these days? I'm writing these days. I'm writing my memoir, believe it or not. I've finished it pretty much.

I'll wait and see what a book agent or a publisher has to say about it. I'm certainly open to changes, but I've finished it. It's, you know, 54,000 words or something. I think that's a good length for a book like that. And I've enjoyed writing it to remember all that's happened in the past 72 years has been a joy. And did you do that during the last couple of of years where you were particularly focused on it? I just started it just after Christmas and before New Year's. I just started a few months ago. Really?

And it just poured out, you know, I just, oh, wow. One event connected to another. And let me be clear here, a lot of these are stories I've told many times over the years. The story about Marlon Brando and the Electric Hears, Eels is the story I've told many times. The story about, you know, having a car accident on Christmas Eve on Sunset Boulevard and San Francisco. That's a story I've told many times. And so I just wove all those stories together in some hopefully coherent manner. And pretty soon it's a book.

And did you have fun writing it? I had great fun because the process of writing that stuff that's part of your life, the keyboard becomes like a Ouija board, but one that's not bogus, one that actually works. Wait a minute, why am I being pulled over here to this event? What's happening? The Ouija board is trying to tell me something. But it really is.

One event connects to another. You open a doorway. you haven't opened in a while and the process of opening that door blows open other doors down that same hallway that lead to things you haven't thought of in 55 years. Wow, that's outstanding. And do you, when you list some of the characters that you've played, are there favorite characters in particular? I mean, there's so many characters you have played. It would take me days to list them, but are there particular favorites of yours? Just by the longevity of it, by the length and the quality of it, A scene elsewhere was a great show, and that took place in Boston, of course.

And I was a California native, moved to Boston to study medicine. And I did that show for six years, you know, with Denzel Washington and Bonnie Bartlett and Bill Daniels and Ed Flanders and Christina Pickles, wonderful actors all. David Morris, I mean, the quality of the acting, the quality of the directing, the quality of the writing. Bruce Paltrow literally changed my life by giving me that job. I didn't get the job I wanted. I wanted to play Dr. Peter White,

but he got killed three years into the show, my character, which was a minor character, the pilot, like one or two lines, became one of the major characters. It's sometimes better if you don't get what you want, Buzz. Wow. And what was it like working with that whole crew around the Christopher Guest mockumentaries?

How did you just get through without completely being in stitches all the time? It's nearly impossible. work with Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara. They're trying to check into the hotel, invest in show. And, you know, there's no script. There's a treatment. You know that the slug line that you have to operate off of is Jerry and Cookie Fleck, which is Eugene and Catherine. Try to check in the hotel. Their credit card doesn't work. That's all you have. But then you're dealing with those two and look out. Oh, my God. And I would imagine you were channeling in some instances, you know,

hotel employees and check-in that you probably had dealt with. Is that? Exactly. And trying not to do what they did in so many bogus scenes and movies that I've seen were, sir, your credit card doesn't work. And somebody's got, when I've seen that happen, when somebody's credit card doesn't work or even mine didn't work, they're like, they pretend it's not really happening.

They're anything but confrontational. So it must be the strip. Maybe it's a bad strip. Let me try. No, it's actually saying, declined. Is it possible? They're not trying to, you know, make you feel bad. They're trying to pretend it isn't happening to help you feel better. So I tried to use that as my guiding force with this and just keep it real with those two with Eugene and Catherine. And then Michael McKean and Michael

Higgins check into the hotel too. And that just, I mean, that was nearly impossible to keep a straight face with those two. Oh my God. Do you watch your work from the past ever? I do. I'm very objective about it. There's some stuff I don't like, but I mostly like it because I work with good people. It's not that I'm so good. I'm working with Eugene Levy and Catherine Aher. I'm working with Michael Hitchcock. You know, I'm working with Michael Higgins and Michael McKean, you know, Fred Willard, all these great actors, actresses and the incredible Chris Guest, you know, Parker Posey, for God's sake. I just try to keep up with those two. I just hang along, you know, hang on to them for the ride is what I do. Is there anybody that you haven't worked with that you'd like to work with?

There's a boom man at Burbank Studios, at Warner Bros. I haven't worked with him. There's a dolly grip at 20th. I'm going to have lunch with them this week. I'm going to put an end to that. There's two people that I haven't met. I was born here, Buzz. What am I going to do? Born here in 49. At Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital. Didn't get any more Hollywood than that. How has Hollywood changed? It's changed in some good ways, as I mentioned. There's a lot less smog now because of everything we did right. There's a lot of development. There's sadly a lot.

of problems with homeless people now. We need to find housing for those people as best we can. It's a challenge. Not everybody in LA wants to make room in their neighborhood for that. So we're trying to be understanding of everybody's position that and do its best for all. And hopefully we'll get to that. So it's changed a lot, but there's a lot that's good. Besides clean air, there's more opportunities for a lot of people that should have have opportunities years ago, you know, not just with voting, but access to jobs and what have you. You know, I finally became aware. I think I was 30 years old before I really realized that I won the lottery

being born at Begley's son. I really think I was that old a man. Really? Something like 30, and went, wait a minute, I got a great deal here being born his son. A lot of people didn't have that kind of privilege and that opportunity. And so that's being addressed now, and I think that's a wonderful thing in long overdue. Who were some of his friends? Do you remember meeting when you were young?

You know, I hadn't a clue who I was meeting sometimes. We would go and stop at this couple's house in Santa Barbara. His name was Paul, and her name was Bella. The two of them lived up there in Santa Barbara, and it was like, Dad, I want to ride the cable cars in San Francisco. When are we going to get out of here? What time are we going to leave? And they were talking about stuff, acting perhaps and other things and just life.

And I just wanted to get away from that. It was Paul Muni, the great actor Paul Muni. I was in the presence of greatness as a kid. kid you don't know that. So then I cherished and tried to remember those stories when I realized who I was dealing with. I hadn't seen fugitive from a chain gang. I haven't seen, I didn't see here and my father on Broadway and inherit the wind for which they both won Tony. So I was just some guy. And, uh, but he had a lot of normal friends too. Guys, he worked with at a factory in, uh, in Hartford, Connecticut where he was born called the wire mold factory. Literally the kind of conduit, the molding that

They used to run a wire like to an overhead fan into a light bulb in an office or a home. It was called wire mold. It was, and you put the wires in there. You didn't want them to short out or be somebody to cut them accidentally. So they're in this. And my dad worked at the wire mold plant for years. So we had these friends that worked at that plant with him. He was really basically a factory worker that made it late in life.

Like when he was about 40, he started to make it in radio in Hartford, Connecticut. Then he went on to New York and did better in radio. and he did stage plays in New York and then finally movies and he got nominated four and won an Oscar for Sweet Bird of Youth 12 Angry Men Not a bad movie

What a cast What a wonderful movie I grew up in Stanford Connecticut By the way And I started in radio Actually in that area Fairfield County Connecticut So where your father started

Is a kind of a special place That's great TIC It's still there isn't it? It is WTIC A M and FM That's great There was a guy named Bob Stub who used to work there. I think he was there. I think he was there 60 years before he ultimately

retired from his craft. So when you think of your craft, can we start walking back? Sure. When you think of your craft, is there something that you haven't learned maybe that you would like to learn? I really, I'm enjoying life right now, whatever my position the food chain is or, you know, whatever work had before me, I feel like I'm right on schedule and I, you know, I'm just taking what comes my way. I'm not very aggressive about seeking out parts. I'm very lucky in that people come to me and ask me to play part X, Y, or Z, and I enjoy it.

If I don't enjoy what I'm reading, I won't do it, of course. I don't have to audition often, which is nice. I just get asked to do a role, and I do it. And, you know, it's a pretty nice setup to still be in Hollywood, still be working 55 years later. I just feel blessed. So when you think of the world today, the conflict that's going on, the Ukraine conflict there, which is just so horrible, when you consider what entertainment means to people now, how important

is it in light of the terrible things that are happening in that war? I think entertainment has tremendous value to people. situation they're in, if they're doing well or doing so-so, certainly doing poorly, I don't think the people in Ukraine can really think much about entertainment right now. They're just thinking about getting water and food and getting shelter from the elements. But there'll come a time where they will be able to appreciate art again. You know, I'm not saying they don't appreciate it now, but they just have other things to focus on.

We need to help them in every way that is humanly possible. and there's relief organizations that want to do that. But sadly, right now as we walk along this river today, the relief organizations are having a lot of trouble getting to where they need to get to just because of infrastructure problems, supply chain problems, to get enough fuel, to get on the bus, it's going to get them there,

to give relief, to get a truck, loaded up with food or water, to get to the people. It's hard to get fuel for that truck even. So we all need to pitch it. in and every way we can and help those people and help those relief organizations that I can eventually do something to better the lives of the folks in the Ukraine. Well, and it's so important also to acknowledge how there's so many nonprofits have been challenged certainly during the COVID crisis and I think there's so many of them that need

help certainly because it's just been such a tough couple of years, right? has and I love the fact that Kathy Anderson from the Walden Woods project told me that during COVID that the amount of people walking at Walden Pond increased massively during the last couple of years wonderful because people are seeking the outdoors and I didn't know that buzz that's great news so I think that is really outstanding news. And I have to thank you so much for taking a walk with me. I'm such an admirer of your work, but I'm such an admirer also of what you're so passionate about, your activism, and how you bring it forward to people with honesty and dignity. And I'm just so grateful

that you and I got to take a walk here in Studio City. Me too, Buzz. It's really great to see you again. Taking a walk with Buzz Night is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Iris Palmer, host of the Against All Odds podcast. Every week, I'm sitting down with exceptional people who have broken barriers even when the odds were stacked against them. Like chef Victor Villa of Villas Tacos. You know the taquero from the Bad Bunny halftime show? It was great. It was a big moment.

It was special. And I felt like I was really representing my family, you know, my brand. My city, I was representing all taqueros, not only of like, you know, the U.S., but of Mexico and beyond. All the taqueros of the world. Listen to Against All Odds on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hello, gorgeous, it's Lala Kent. Host of Untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up cups at Sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley.

Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate. It's unruly, it's unafraid, it's Untraditionally Lala. Listen to Untraditionally Lala on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Now everybody over here? Oh, it's one of my other favorite places. The Twilight Gazebo. Sunset Gardens.

Twilight Gazebo. What's next? Dead Man's Grove? Mom, could you please try to be a little bit positive about this? From Kenya Barris, the visionary creator of Blackish, comes Big Age, an audible original about finding your way in life's next chapter. This audio comedy series follows a retired couple's reluctant relocation to Sunset Gardens, a Floridian senior community that is anything but relaxing.

Starring Comedy Legends, Jennifer Lewis, Cedric the Entertainer, and Nisi Nashvettes. Through its blend of outrageous comedy, Key Party Anyone, and, touching revelations, Big Age explores what it means to be. grow older without growing old at heart. Go to audible.com slash big age series to start listening today. Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of IHeart Media, and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Magic, stories from the frontiers of marketing. Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing. Coming up this seasonal Math and Magic, CEO of Liquid Death Mike Sassario. People think that,

that creative ideas are like these light-bald moments that happen when you're in the shower. Where it's really like a stone sculpture. You're constantly just chipping away and refining. Take to Interactive CEO, Strauss Selnick, and our own chief business officer, Lisa Coffey. Listen to Math and Magic on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.