The Chris Cuomo Project - William Shatner on Life's Final Frontier

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

Chris Cuomo sits down with the legendary William Shatner to discuss aging in the public eye, the climate crisis, regret (or lack thereof), and more in this wide-ranging and insightful interview. They cover everything from social media's impact on discourse to new frontiers in space travel technology, with Shatner offering his trademark wit and wisdom along the way. Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He knows space. He's been in space. He brought space to us. And now he's with us here on Earth, maybe. Who am I talking about? William Shatner, Chris Cuomo here. Thank you for subscribing and following at The Chris Cuomo Project.

Thank you for joining the sub stack on no ads. Okay, I love our brand partners, but you don't want them? Fine. And you'll get more access to content that people will not get anywhere else, including direct access to me. Thank you for checking out the free agent merch. Check out the site, Free Agent Sales, Free Agent Sales, S-A-L-E-S. And you'll see a lot of great

merch there. As I get more money, we will start giving it away in the new year, okay? Thank you for checking out NewsNation, subscribing and following here and at News Nation, 8P, 11P Eastern, every weekday night. William Shatner, so much more than Captain Kirk, although that would have been enough for generations of viewers. He is a great testament that it ain't about age, it's about stage. And he has an open and curious mind.

And for all he has done, he believes there is still so much more. A conversation I absolutely didn't see coming with the one and only William Shatner. The Chris Cuomo Project is supported by Cozy Earth. Why? Because I like their sheets. That's why. A lot of people don't get a good night's sleep for a lot of reasons. One of the ones that you can control is bedding. One out of three of us report being sleep deprived.

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I'm not kidding you, all right? Now, so if you go to CozyEarth.com and you enter the code, enter the code Chris, and you can get up to 35% off your first order. CozyEarth.com and the code is Chris. William Shatner. So first thing I want to ask you is, we are in a climate now where there is an obsession with judging people as a function of age. This guy's too old. This guy's too old. You are doing amazing things.

You are on your game. You're witty. You're with it. What is your secret? And what do you believe about age? Well, of course, I've been asked about that. And on one hand, it's a little embarrassing. No, I'm the oldest person. I ran the fastest mile. I'm the oldest man to run the fastest.

No, it's just to be applauded. People, there he is. He's 92 and applause. It's embarrassing. I mean, I want to look like you. You look better than me. Are you kidding me? You're William Shatner. You're a little dark there. That's why. That's why I look good. That's the secret. Well, I'm in the sunlight here. The secret, age, I tell you, I'd love to say I've invented a pill,

but what I think it boils down to is the luck of not having a debilitating disease or accident, that your health, the dynamo within you, the life force continues. You see it wane in people. You can see it happening. And then the question becomes for people like me who feel the life force and feel like, when do you know you're dying? What are the symptoms of death? Does longevity run in your family? Does everybody live a long time? Well, I guess it depends what you mean by long. My sister just recently died, and she was 95.

Wow. First of all, sorry for your loss, but that is a remarkable run, 95 years of age. Remarkable loss. And the question that I ask myself quite frequently, and I think the older you get, the more frequently you ask the question, is am I dying? Like, you may have a bad night, you know, something got caught in your throat, something you ate. How many times have we talked to people, talked about people who said, you know, you just walked the room, lay down, and he died. There was no message, am I dying? Because you're not dead if you're saying I'm dying.

So not only is the boundless mystery what happens after death, what happens in that moment of death? And you're thinking about that a little bit. And if you catch COVID, which I did a while ago, I mean, you know, it could be bad. It wasn't that bad for me, but bad enough to say, gee whiz. So I'm in my fifties. And when I like walk downstairs, I'll be like, oh, I better be careful. My dodgy knee is a little off today. So you're saying for you, it's when you feel that you say, ooh I dying? Right. Is this the day? As it started, as the disease started in my knee, and it's going to work itself up to my lungs.

Yeah. But, of course, we know that that joint in your knee is one of the weakest in the human body, and everybody got one. And just, you know, use heat, use cold, get an operation, get an injection. There's many avenues open to you. Am I dying? I don't know whether you have an avenue. And then, of course, the answer to that question is no, you're not dying because you're able to ask the question. Am I dying? No, you're not. You ask the questions. You're not dying. If you can't ask the question, you're dying, but nobody knows. Do you surround yourself with younger people? Has that been one of the keys to keeping yourself young and vital and active? No, I don't consciously do that. I'm still riding horses,

although my dodging knee, to mount up, I need a mounting block now. That's a, like, little ladder. And so instead of getting up from the ground and putting your foot in the stirrup and with the strength of your left thigh, can't do that. So I get on the mounting block, which a lot of people do. They say, well, it's better for the horse.

But no, that question of age and dying becomes more and more enveloping. Well, then let's talk about living brother. What do you think was the thing you've enjoyed most what is the most enjoyable thing for you about living in the first place what do you love the most wine women laughter family what does it well you're asking for one thing and you just enumerated several that I enjoy. On a more intellectual basis, as against, you know, a great rum drink or a beautifully cooked meal for sensory stuff, I think the acquisition of knowledge.

I think the fact that I read a lot and I'm learning a lot and I've been able to put it to use. For example, I've been asked by the University of Indiana to go there on April 8th where the eclipse of the sun is going to take place. And they're going to fill that stadium with 100,000 people. And they want me to do 15 minutes before the eclipse. people and they want me to do 15 minutes for the before the eclipse i thought well that's about as challenging an effort i'm going to accept the challenge and so i said yeah i'll do 15 minutes how do you do how do you precede an eclipse which is one of the juicy questions. And also combined with the dynamism of the Earth with its newly discovered tectonic plates and the mysteries internally that are going on and the fact that we just became aware that a celestial body bumped into the Earth three billion years ago or more and knocked off a piece of the earth

that became the moon and now the moon is the thing that gets in the way of the sun and we thought so there's a lot of things dynamic things that if you've read about them you can precede the eclipse oh you're going to be good for 15 minutes. You'll be good. I hope so. I've written it. I want to get the music department involved, all with no rehearsal because I'm working the day before.

In any case, what I'm saying is, knowing what I know about the Earth and about the universe, as little as I know, as incomprehensibly little as I know, it's a thrill to acquire that knowledge and then use it preceding an eclipse. I think curiosity is key to vitality, not just in terms of duration with age, but stage as well. just in terms of duration with age, but stage as well. People get frozen in aspects of their lives, dynamics of their lives, periods. And curiosity is the key to all of it. You got to keep searching and asking yourself what your situation means and how you can improve it.

Otherwise you get stuck no matter what your age. I was doing some research for talking to you and it was interesting going back to when you were first discovered for your big and signature role on Star Trek. so gracious about all of it. Could you have ever imagined that you would be somebody who, who cares if you were 70 or 80 or 90, that you would always be sought out by people, always have fans, have new generations of fans as new generations came.

Did you ever imagine the longevity of relevance that you've had? Of course not. But you asked me like, Could you ever imagine the longevity of relevance that you've had? Of course not. But you asked me, like, what gives me satisfaction. Just recently, I was walking along the street with my daughter going to dinner, and somebody in a truck waved, hey, Bill, we love you. Oh, that's great. And, of course, I don't usually walk to dinner with my daughter,

so she doesn't know that that happens quite frequently. She's like, ah, somebody just waved at you. So then the rest of the family joined us. We had dinner, and everybody's leaving, and I'm walking away now with one of my daughters, that same daughter. And again, hey, Bill, we love you. And she says, imagine walking along the street and people wave at you and tell you that they love you. I thought, you know,

because that's been happening a long time. So I kind of think, yeah, great. Thanks, man. But it's true. Imagine going through life and people going, hey, we love you. Do you ever ask why? The other day, I said, do you really mean it? Which is a form of asking why. They never gave me a satisfactory answer. I think I'll go about and look into that. Why do you love me? Let me count the ways.

But I just mean as a point of personal reflection i mean in my own family you have three generations of fans my mother uh sends her regards she's got you but not by much um and her remark was oh yes he wonderful. Ask him what he uses. So that was my mom. My wife and I, my wife was a Trekkie. I was not growing up, but I always appreciated you and you just won me over in your later comedic moments. And when you started doing even Priceline, I found you so organically

hilarious and I love humor. So you got me. And now my kids, when you went up in space, my son was like, so that's really cool. So that guy's like a real space captain. I said, no, he's not a real space captain. Well, no, but I mean, like he was Captain Kirk and now he's going to space. I said, no, he wasn't Captain Kirk. He played Captain Kirk and he is riding to space. He's not piloting the aircraft. Are you jealous of his admiration of me? You know, I wasn't as jealous as I wanted to take you down. I think would be more accurate. I just, I wanted to diminish you. But you're mildly dissembling him. You're mildly saying, why do you idolize that guy? Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Now that I think about it, it bothered me. It bothered me that you

represented things to my son that I don't. He was admiring me and not you. Yeah. Yeah. But you're entirely admirable. I mean, I don't feel it now, especially after you took time to make this point. Mike Tyson and I have become acquainted over the years. He's an incredible individual. He's an extraordinary amount to talk to. I don't know whether you have or not. And I haven't asked him this question, but one time I will, unless you get to him before.

And that is when you got knocked down, because he never got knocked down. When you got knocked down, well, did you feel ashamed? Did you feel embarrassed? Did you feel anger? I never got to ask him that because what an interesting journey that would take you, conversational journey that would take you to find out what he really felt because he's so honest about his feelings. Did you see his one-man show? No, I heard about it. Oh, my. You have to get a recording of it uh if you want i'll find it

and i'll send it to you i'm burdening you with that task done done i've never examined any character who has created a change whether it's just a different side of himself or a development or whatever. But I knew him in the beginning. My father was friends with Customato, who was his trainer. And I went and saw him train in Catskill with my father. And we watched his first 11 fights, which lasted about 11 minutes. And he was quiet and always described as a little unstable, not the sharpest tool, emotionally undeveloped. that he is now with how he speaks about things and what he knows in the context for things has really been extraordinary. And I remember when Buster Douglas caught him with that left hook. Yeah. And I would love to hear his answer to that because I bet you it could be something as surprising as relief because he hadn't been training. He was way out over his skis.

His life was out of control. He didn't take Buster Douglas seriously. He didn't even really want the fight. He got caught with a punch out of nowhere against a much lesser fighter. And I wonder if he felt relief because... Interesting question to get him to talk about. It had been coming so long.

Yeah, I'd love to. We've been dancing with each other, trying to get him on talk about. It had been coming so long. Yeah, I'd love to. We've been dancing with each other trying to get him on. He's very in demand, you know, in this podcast space. Everybody wants him. He does. He did a podcast, and I did it. But I more or less interviewed him rather than him interviewing me because I was so overwhelmed with curiosity. But you do that.

I've interviewed you here and on CNN, and you ask a lot of questions for a guest. Well, it's part of the curiosity. It's the continuity of the conversation. I mean, what's the point of you saying, well, what was the best thing you ever did? And what do you do it, you know, as against, well, what did you do? And how did you? So apropos of Mike, How did you? So apropos of Mike, I said to him, I've never been in a fight as an adult. What's it like? And he went, you've never been in a fight?

Like astonishment that an adult has never punched anybody else out. Have you? Yes. More than once? Many. Did you win? Sometimes. I would argue, and not to be idealistic about it, if you are fighting barehanded, it is very hard to argue, unless you sucker punch somebody and get very fortunate, that anybody wins. Everything hurts, Bill. Everything hurts. Anytime you hit somebody,

but your hands. Hitting somebody, I show my son my hands all the time when I'm trying to tell him how stupid a surrender violence is and the staph infections I've had from teeth and stupid moves. And at the time, I thought there was a nobility in it because I was tired of being bullied about who my father was and making fun of the name and saying mafia this and Democrat that and all this other bullshit that I decided, you know, you want it, this is going to be a price. And so I started getting into stupid fights and it lasted a long time. Yeah. But if I were reading you from your interviews and watching you on television, I would surmise that you're aggressive. I would think that as against being, I don't know what the word would be, slightly different from aggressive, less intellectual, and more on the side of action.

Did you just call me a dummy, Shatner? Is that what you just did? No, no. No, you're an intellectual. Are you kidding? And you went like this with your hand, kind of in the shape of a brain. No, you're intellectual. You made a brain shape.

From your manner of, you know, well, what else did you do? I would think, well, that's kind of aggression. I am aggressive. I'm very comfortable in spaces of confrontation. A lot of this is armor. And it's all born of self-protection. From when you were young. Yeah. Naturally, I am more withdrawn. I'm an empath. I get very upset for people very easily. I don't get upset with people.

I have a very, very high bar of tolerance. People will expect me to have judgments about people or situations. And I rarely do because on one level, in terms of if it's about me at all, I have a very high bar of indifference that it takes a lot for someone to register with me in terms of, all right, well, now I have to have an opinion about what he or she are saying about me. But in general, I don't judge people's actions because I've been through so much. I've seen so much that you've always got to be careful about judging before you know what you would do in similar circumstances. But unfortunately, I'm in a business and in a world where vulnerability is a weakness

and people prey on it. You know, we're in a place now where when you apologize, it's an admission of guilt. So it's like we're forcing civility out of society. And that has created a different aspect for me and my personality that I'm aggressive and I take on things very easily. It's very easy to bait me into a situation, not necessarily a fight. But you're not delighted by it. I'm not. It's not something that I appreciate about myself.

I talk to my kids about it a lot. I talk to people who I try to help, or even when I've done training with people in self-defense, just walk away. Forget about the fact that you're going to lose no matter what happens. You're going to get sued. How about road rage?

Road rage has always been fascinating to me. It's an extension of social media. I don't have road rage, although many people have road rage at me. I believe it's an extension of our social media. The idea of how you'll act when you don't have to act on it. You know what I mean?

Like when you're in your car, you will say all kinds of things. When you're online, you'll say all kinds of things. Now let's see what happens. Finger, finger, finger. The guy stops. He stops. Now the doors to the car open. Yes.

Now what do you got? You're very different people. You're very different people in person than online. I can't tell you how many times, there's so much so that I stopped doing it, Mr. Shatner, where I would take a picture with somebody, they give me their names. Oh, I follow you.

And I look up their comments and they are tearing me to pieces or they're saying whatever they're saying online. And here we are in person and they want to take a picture with me. I find that amazing that you would look them up to see. I used to do it. Now I don't do it because I don't want to know. No. So I'm close to rage all my life that there is a rage that I've had to control. all my life, that there is a rage that I've had to control. But I'm thinking of one incident where I must have cut in front of a guy because I must have cut in front of him. Then I made a left turn and he followed me into the left turn. And I'm going down a normal street with parking

on either side and a car driving by. So it's like four lanes. Way ahead, there's a truck in the middle lane unloading. And this guy's right behind me. So I speed up. Finally, he's alongside me. And that truck is coming up. And I try and pull ahead to brush him off. Whereas he pulls ahead of me, pulls in front, stops.

And now he's getting out of the car. And he's about 25. He might have been a linebacker. That's the way he looked. And I get out of the car and I'm coming at him. This was not so long ago. And I'm coming at him and I still thought, what? Are you crazy?

And he stops and he says, Shatner, I'm your stuntman. I was stunted for him. I just, he, God saved me from being. Do you remember there was that actor who had a chain around his neck? He got into a fight on one of the canyons in Los Angeles. And the guy who was fighting yanked on the gold chain and he lost the fight. This big, tough guy. I don't remember it, but it's real easy.

It's real easy to lose a fight. You lose it as soon as you get into it. You never know what somebody has. You never know. It only takes one shot to completely disorient somebody. And it is a complete surrender of your own personal dignity. That's what, even though I'm still fascinated with self-defense and when I can, I train with a guy out in Los Angeles. I love the tactical sense of it, but it's also a sad aspect for me of my personality.

You love the science. I love the tactics of self-defense, of what to do based on what is done. Yes, exactly. And I also enjoy it because I'm not good at it. I'm very slow and I'm very accommodating of people, of letting people get and do, you know, part because of what I do professionally, but I'm just not inclined to want to hurt people. Like, that's not, I know people, and I've been around people,

and Tyson was one of them. I don't know how he is now, where he enjoyed hurting people. Oh, yeah. He was a killer. And that's a different kind of person. And I've never been that person. Even when I was younger and I would get into fights, there would be a good chance that I'd be one of the guys who was a little teary at the end of the fight. And I think it's unnatural.

And I think it's embarrassing. But on the flip side, Bill, we live in a society now where people say the meanest, most obnoxious things without any accountability. Are they increasing that or is it just they have the opportunity like this one to say it? I think it heightens it. I think that having the outlet encourages it and magnifies it, especially with the anonymity. That's exactly it. Yeah. I mean, look, as a lawyer, I understand.

And if just, you know, just as a journalist, I get why we got to be careful about enforcing any standard where you have to give your identity before you can exercise your speech online. where you have to give your identity before you can exercise your speech online. I get the risks in that, but I also get the counterbalancing. And I think we got a long way to go to understand it. And I know this within my own life. It must be great perspective for you.

Can you imagine where we are today technologically with where we were even in the heyday of Star Trek, where when you guys, other than teleporting people, all the things that you guys were doing and using there, it's like now we have it. Well, I've recently joined a company that has made the tricorder. Oh, really? Saliva thing, thing, read.

And at the moment, it's a different slide for a different disease. You know, whatever you're looking for. But the tricorder is there. I recently joined a company that uses a hologram as the technology. Obviously not my body, but three-dimensional. And in fact, I joined the company a week later. Somebody called and they said, we've got 4,000 people in Australia. No, no, no, but I can beam there.

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That's what happens with your first purchase. So make it go to drink. AG one.com slash CCP drink. AG one.com slash ccp check it out and it has the possibility of drowning us yeah and it's interesting it's a riddle how do you explain how technologically we're advancing so rapidly and yet in terms of civility we seem to be regressing. I hate to think, and yet I don't want to use that as an excuse of basic human nature. But there is a dichotomy, obviously, of the reptilian brain and our frontal lobes. But that division is so abrupt and so instantaneous. You can go from being this

intellectual to being the reptile in an instant, and that's human nature. How do we teach morality to a computer when we don't know how to teach morality to our children? computer when we don't know how to teach morality to our children. Look, and this is something as a parent, and again, as an observer of human behavior and a witness to history, has become more and more confounding. I have to tell you something, and I know this hits home particularly to you. I never thought that I would see in America that I would see in America, Jewish people afraid for being Jewish. I never thought I would see that here. Growing up in New York, the family that I choose, people who married into my family, my nieces, Jewish people all over. My father's good counsel was a Lubavitcher Rebbe. He was like a godfather to me. I was a Shabbos Goy, all these things. And now to see Jewish people saying to me,

should I change my kid's name? I should definitely take the Star of David off him though, right? Should I send him to Hebrew school? What do you think is going to happen to us? Do you think they're really going to— How surprised were you as someone who grew up in a conservative household that this is how people are regarding Jewish people? My preference, my choice to think of it, is that it's like some other cause in the world where the young people are. Vietnam. How many people turned against the country?

Turned, I mean, there was bedlam in the universities. Shootings in the universities. And you thought, my God, the country's ruined. And it comes back. The heavy weight of custom stops all these things eventually. And things simmer down back into the middle. I'd like to think that there is indeed an incredible admiration for the Israelis taking on this war and taking on the world with notable exceptions because they've lived with this fear for so long and they have to do something about it. for so long and they have to do something about it. I think when it's over, things will, like everybody's forgotten about the turmoil on the campuses in Vietnam, I think this will blow over eventually. Well, I hope it actually is a cause for change. I mean, the populations who are outraged or that are outraged, I wonder if they see Jewish people, at least as they understand them here in

America, to be graduated into whiteness where, you know, doesn't matter that Shatner's Jewish. He's a white guy who's successful and empowered and not a minority anymore. Jews are not minorities in America. They're white people who are in power. I don't get this white people thing. I never got this white people thing. Like Jews are advocating for other races to come in to overwhelm the white. Well, what are we? Aren't we white?

Some Jews are white, right? I mean, you know this, obviously, but a lot of Jews aren't white. A lot of Jews are Mediterranean complexions. But I do wonder if that's why they don't get protection on campus as minorities. You know, think about how bizarre it is. So you have a black female president, President Gay of Harvard, first black female, who is saying, well, it depends on the context when you talk about Jews and genocide. And behind her is the provost and the head of the Harvard Corporation who are both Jews. is the provost and the head of the Harvard Corporation, who are both Jews.

And the only thing that makes sense to me is that people don't consider Jews minorities in America. And it was just really baffling to me. It's baffling to me to watch this struggle going. I get being pro-Palestinian in terms of wanting to see the suffering to stop. I think that's an obvious and natural instinct. It does have to stop. And it's horrible seeing that concentration of young people in that population, in that small area getting murdered by the masses.

It's horrible. You should think it's horrible. Israelis think it's horrible. But the think it's horrible. Israelis think it's horrible. But the question is, how do you stop it? And what happens after there's a ceasefire? And how do you negotiate peace with a terror organization? And how does Israel do what the people want when the head of their government, Bibi Netanyahu, is out of step with his own people and doesn't really want a two-state solution. Like, I see all this nuance, and we're not in an age of nuance. We're in an age of just in-your-face, heavy emotion, heavy feel, light fact.

You could also say that these pustules of emotion, pustules of ugliness have burst. And in some cases, when pustules burst because of disease, you're on your way to healing. And is it possible that all this emotion, I'd rather say emotion than hatred, is all part of, oh, look, we've got something to be excited about, as was all these other demonstrations. And the truth of the matter will, and the humanity of the matter will evolve. But it is going to take, take a while now. Bill Shatner, colon. We need to pop the zit of xenophobia. Too long?

No. Perfect. My producer is staring at me with angry eyes. Cause I haven't yet said how much he enjoys your music. Shatner Claws. Oh my God. Come on. Shatner Claws was number one.

Has been. Has been. Great album. Ben Folds guided that album. I've got a new album coming out. Is it rap? Yeah. It's for children from six to 12.

It's for children from 6 to 12, involving the concept of how intertwined not only people but all of nature is. We come in that primordial soup. We came from those cells that instead of eating each other, absorbed each other and became more and more complex. So we, everything alive on Earth, come from the same place. We aren't like white and black. We aren't a leopard and a gorilla. a leopard and a gorilla. We are a life force of intelligence that came from the same place. Some of the titles of the songs, Elephants and Termites.

What is that? On the plains of Africa, the termites will build mounds six, eight, ten feet high. Very complex. Elephants roaming the prairie, so to speak, have an itchy butt. They itch their butt on the mound. The mound collapses. But it's a mud made that's been chewed and masticated. Water collects in that debris of the mound.

The elephants are walking around it. Gradually, it becomes a place where animals from all over come to this watering hole to drink and to mix and to breed and to feed. All from one of the smallest things that exist to the largest thing that exists. That happens all through nature. all through nature. And that's what my album encompasses, called Where Will They Sleep? Where if we continue doing what we're doing to the world, where will the animals sleep?

The discovery we were talking about earlier, the knowledge of, as science begins to discover, begins to discover this trail of incomprehensible, devious things that nature prescribed to escape one situation to another. It's incredibly interesting, and it's one of the things when you were asking me what thrills me, that thrills me. My ability to comprehend it and to acquire it thrills me. So I am able to tell people like you or my kids, look what I've just read. I've just read X, Y, and Z. Bill Shatner at 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, big changes, or have you always been pretty much how you are right now? Well, I don't know. I don't know whether the changes, hopefully I've changed from being that enraged. Well, I don't know. You said it wasn't too long obviously have changed, but I haven't. To me, looking inwardly, I'm basically the same, perhaps with more curiosity.

And I think what you said earlier about curiosity and human beings. That's the thing. This search for the truth, whatever it is, about a human being. I can't think of his name. The great heavyweight champion became a preacher, a retiring woman. Foreman? Foreman. George Foreman. So I got to know George Foreman.

We did a show together. And I got into the ring with him and started you know we were kidding around we had gloves and I'm jabbing and he had told me about his youth and talking about Mike Tyson

how when he got into a fight when he was a teenager he wanted to kill him he was a killer and then the championship and he acquired religion And he got into a fight when he was a teenager. He wanted to kill him. He was a killer. And then when he had the championship and he acquired religion and he began to understand humanity, he stopped being a killer. Then he had to go back in the ring. I said, why did you go back? He said, all my kids were going, eat, need to eat.

That's why he went back in. But I punched him, jabbing. And in the beginning, he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I could see the light, the killer light in his eye. And suddenly something woke up there. Holy mackerel. Something woke up there and I thought, holy mackerel. And we had planned a big John Wayne punch, which he did.

And I faked the whole thing down. But it was something to see, this kindling. Yeah, I don't know what you were thinking about. That was not, that was, listen, yes, you got a human being in there. You got a sentient person. You got someone who can evolve. But I remember the line from Dave Chappelle, the famous comic, when he was talking about the tiger that bit off the neck of one of the guys from Vegas, the couple. And everyone had said, whoa, that tiger went crazy.

And he said, no, the tiger went tiger. And you put your head in a tiger's mouth. What do you think is going to happen? You're getting a ring with a guy who's in the hurt business. You got to be careful. Oh, absolutely. Well, yes. I can't imagine him punching me out,

but I can imagine him saying, I got to control, I got to get the blinkers on this light because I'm suddenly 16 and I'm going to kill this guy on camera. Hey, how much of a thrill was it for you, Bill, to go up in the exploratory plane slash rocket? How big a deal was that for you personally?

It was huge. And I didn't realize how huge it would be. As you can imagine, I've spoken about it a great deal. So there's a long version, a shorthand version. The shorthand version is, I wasn't going to go. Who needed that, you know. Jeff Bezos himself went up first, second, and finally I said, okay, I'll do it. And I get to the liftoff, and as we're mounting the gantry,

there's all this gas being bled out of the, I said, what's that? They said, that's hydrogen. It's hydrogen? I mean, I've been brought up on those documentaries about the Zeppelins and the later, the Hindenburg. And the Hindenburg sparked from static electricity to some hydrogen that was burning. And then you remember all the, oh, the humanity of it all and little dark figures running.

And I'm thinking, my God, I'm getting it. So there was this apprehension. And then on the countdown, the guy said, T-17, hold on, there's an anomaly. There's an anomaly, what? And they're, okay, we're okay. And then about five seconds before liftoff, he said, all right, we're taking the gantry. We're dragging the gantry back now. Anybody who wants to get off should get off now.

And I thought, I'm going to go. No, I can't go. So what I experienced up there in shorthand was I saw, again, with as much drama as there was the beauty of the earth and the rapidity with which extinction is going on and how extinction carries with it a great deal of sadness because things that existed no longer exist, and we didn't know they existed. It took three and a half billion years for it to evolve, whether it was a cricket or a jaguar. It evolved and became a life form and was able to sustain itself in this life, and it's gone.

And we didn't know it was there. Bad enough. Oh, yeah, the elephants, there's a thousand elephants left, and they're going to go by the time your child grows up. That's imponderably sad. But not to know they existed in the first place adds a measure of tragedy. And that's what I'm doing. Do you take heart in the fact that there's a renewed curiosity about what has been seen in

the air around us and what can be identified and what can't and what the government knows beyond the conspiracy of the search for flying saucers and little green men, but that there's a real push in legitimate domains for transparency and to know what the government knows and how are we looking and how are we studying? Does that give you hope? Oh, the advance of technology in the last 50 years, let alone 20, let alone 10, and the prospect, that's the other part of it. What they're doing, they're on the cusp of finding so many things, new mean, esoteric discoveries that we have no idea yet, except they're in the labs. It's a race. The graph is going destruction, saving.

And that saving part of technology is just around the corner. We may be able to get carbon out of the air and bury it. We may be able to use methane as an energy source. We may, all the things that are wrong can be turned right by technology. It's there. It's almost there. And the race is, and it's a race. It's the next few decades of whether we live or die. That's how I feel about it. What do you make about the desire

to know more about UFOs and stuff like that? You think it's a worthy pursuit or you think it's people playing on mythology? Up until recently, when the government released film and stuff you could see and touch, I thought, if I'm an alien and I've come 10 billion years, you know, the whole society's came and went in my spaceship, and here I am. And I'm just going to hover around and look, and, oh, I'm not really here.

It's grotesque. But recently, we've been shown film that we can't explain. And there is a phenomena, I'm trying to think of the word, in which nature, like in the ocean, different heat levels, currents of heat, will affect sound so that whales can be heard 3,000 miles.

It bounces off certain waves of different temperatures of the earth. We now know that happens in the air as well. So there's much that we're seeing. God, the name, Meta, Meta. So that we're seeing visions of things that happen to nature. The most

recognizable one is an oasis in the desert. So you see an oasis and it's not there. And that's a projection of something thousands of miles away hitting a hot air stream and reflecting onto Earth.

And we think it's there, but it's not there. The word is coming to me, but it's not, hasn't come to me. You let me know when you have it. But I mean, look, that is the idea of, you know, sound channels and what that informs us about the ability to go through space and time. And that people could have, you know, not people, but whatever. Other life could have sent probes the same way we're sending out probes. And they're around.

Or maybe it's just Iran or China sending stuff around. When you use the word time, you're using a word that is infinitely adjustable. We don't know what time is. Yeah, you were messing our minds with that back in the 60s and 70s with Star Trek. You're the reason for all this. We don't know what time is. I'm totally confused by space time. I have no idea what that means anymore.

Are you surprised by where we are? Is this where you expected us to be when you look at the world around you? I have children like you. And grandchildren. And grandchildren. Great-grandchild children. And I fear for their ability to live on Earth. earth and so i'm preoccupied with what we've been talking about the last few minutes about the ex

the existence of life on earth i mean life will always continue uh here but certain types of life will not be able to to be able to live in the atmosphere. And there have been five major extinctions to the point where like 90% of life was dead. So we're in the midst of a sixth extinction right now. And mankind is responsible for it. So if we're responsible for it, and if we're acquiring the knowledge to do something about it, then maybe we will. How do you account for people completely dismissing that and saying, no, it's always been like this. And yeah, maybe we're contributing a little bit, but it's like

infinitesimal over the course of time. And these are just the cycles we've always had. I'm not buying an electric car. Exactly. I've received mail to that point. I think, are they crazy? I mean, it's wish fulfillment. No, nothing's happening. We're okay. That's kicking the can down the road. That's like, I can't pay the mortgage. Let's go to the movies. It's inexplicable to me with everything that's going around. There were some years back there when some scientists said, well, no, it's just a cycle and it's, you know, the earth is wobbling and the sun is emitting more heat or whatever it is. No, it's not.

We now know that it's going to happen and very rapidly. Do you believe in the value of looking back on choices and thinking about what you should have done different and what you regret? Or do you not believe in the value of that? I don't believe in regret. I mean, I don't know whether the word believe is applicable, but I don't believe, I don't think you should apply, I don't think you should think in terms of regret. And the reason for that is, you come to a split in the road, and you go to the left or go to the right, and you say, I'm going to the left. You've made a decision, and the first step you take going left, you're already in different circumstances. And should you say to yourself, oh, I regret not turning right, it's implausible because

you've already acquired the left hand, the choice of going left. Now you know more than you did before you had a choice. Now, if you wish to go right, change your mind, that's something else. But you can't regret a decision you made when you only had a certain amount of knowledge. You can't regret not going to that school and this school when you hadn't had the, and I'm picking up school because kids choosing colleges. You don't know what that school is like until you go there. And then when you say, oh, I should have gone to the other school, you can't regret it. It's because you've got new knowledge.

That's why I think it's spurious to regret. You've got to do something. What is your big dream that you want to make sure you fulfill? Where do you want to go? Who do you want to meet? What do make sure you fulfill? Where do you want to go? Who do you want to meet? What do you want to do? What do you want to see? Everything.

I'm so bummed that I'm my age and rationed to what I could discover and find out and talk to. I love talking to people. I love the meandering pathway of a conversation, which leads us nowhere but to exciting information about that, that individual or what that individual does. I want to do it all. And it just, and I'm trying hard, slowing down, need a gulp of water every so often. slowing down, need a gulp of water every so often. Are you obsessive about your health and fitness?

Do you have like a routine and all that stuff or no? No, in fact, the very opposite. I've been so healthy all my life that anything untoward happening to me isn't going, there isn't going to be a health issue. I'm too healthy. That's my fabrication. You think it's genes or from coming from Canada or what do you think it is? I think that inadvertently I lived a healthy life.

I, I, I didn't do drugs. But, but perhaps the most important thing is luck. And that luck is I never had a fatal, almost fatal accident, disease. As I said earlier, my life force is still there. And you meet people of any age who's, you know, they're broken. They lost their job on television and they're broken. But given the circumstances, that spirit will arise. You just have to call upon it.

Sounds like me. That's what I'm hoping happens. It will arise. You just have to call upon it. Sounds like me. That's what I'm hoping happens. It will happen. You're too, you're too, you're living the life too emphatically not to go back. You know, I went through, you know, so much of the, and you know this, and I've heard you speak to this before. So much of the greatest wisdom is like so hallmark, you know, right off the card, been stated a million different ways, a million different times. But I do remember having a, almost a hysterical laughing fit when I was talking to somebody on my, where I live, I was walking. I got into walking because nobody wanted me around because I was like a black cloud. So I was walking a lot. I'd walk three, four, five, six miles. And I'm walking, and I passed this same lady all the time who was just flying.

She was one of those speed walkers. And she was always looking at me, and half the time I had a cigar. So I stopped her once. No, she was always looking at me and half the time I had a cigar, you know, and had on. So I stopped her once. Oh, no, she was stopped. And I stopped her and she's like, boy, are you going through it? I've never said hello to her, you know, just a wave, just a wave, you know. And she stopped and I kind of stopped and said, hey, how are we doing today, Speedy? And she just looked at me and she was like, boy, are you going through it?

And I said, going through what? And she said, oh, I see it on your face every time you're out here. She's like, hey, it happened. It's over. And now you're going to go on. You'll appreciate it a little more or not. Who knows? But enough already with the puss.

I didn't even know this lady. So that was it. I just, I kept walking. I started laughing my ass off about how at the end of the day, you know, you know, this many times. You are a spectacular journalist. You are a real personality. You deserve to be up there as you are now, as you're coming back now. And I have nothing but great admiration for you. To be in front of America, in front of the whole world, this masterful, you were king. You were the best on that show. You were the best on that show.

And if anybody was impenetrable, it would have been you. And then everyone thought, oh, my God, if it can happen to him, he can't happen to any of us. That was the whole point was everybody was afraid of getting sick. I was afraid of getting sick. And I figured I might as well put it to some kind of value for people. And just like everything else, I never appreciated how much it meant to people, good, bad, and other, until I got fired and people started coming forward to say whatever it was. And I realized the relevancy to people and the usefulness to people after the fact,

which is fine, but I wouldn't do anything differently. I know that much. Well, you were caught in a web that didn't apply to your abilities and your intelligence and your... Look, I think the easiest way to deal with it is it happened. And the less I think,

you know, cause I spent so much of my time bill trying to figure it out and rationalize and argue or whatever. The past is a past. You learn what you can, you move on and you keep going. I got a lot, you know,

and you got, you got plenty of things to keep you. Is there a bit of logic to what happened? Nah, it doesn't work that way. It's, it's almost like chemical chain reaction, but listen, you were good to me when I was at CNN. You're good to me now. Uh, I love what you're doing. I love what you are about. I'm a huge fan of yours and I'm always available to help with whatever you're motivating. You got a platform with me. You look great.

You sound great. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. Pleasure to being with you, and thank you for asking me. Take care. William Shatner, 92, and still so much to do. What a great conversation that went to all these different places because that is the benefit, my brothers and sisters, of a curious mind.

What will Shatner do next? I can't wait to see. Thank you for subscribing, following. Thank you for being part of the sub stack. Shatner's in there. No, he isn't, but he might be. So you'll get no ads. You'll get more access to me and content you're not going to get anywhere else. Check out the free agent gear. Shatner's in there. No, he isn't. But he might be. So you'll get no ads. You'll get more access to me and content you're not going to get anywhere else.

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