The Delta Flyers - John Billingsley - Tissue of Lies

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

The Delta Flyers is a weekly podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. This week’s episode is an interview with John Billingsley.For more information, or to donate to the Hollywood Food Coalition organization, visit https://hofoco.org/We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, Brannon Braga, Bryan Fuller, John Espinosa, & Ariana DelbarAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Executive ProducersStephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Janet K Harlow, Brian Barrow, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Vikki Williams, Holly Smith, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Lisa Robinson, Alex Mednis, James H. Morrow, Roxane Ray, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Feroza Mehta,  Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, Matt Norris, & Izzy JafferAs well as our phenomenal Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Janet K Harlow, Brian Barrow, Heidi McLellan, Rich Gross, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Vikki Williams, Holly Smith, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Lisa Robinson, Alex Mednis, James H Morrow, Roxane Ray, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, & Matt NorrisOur amazing Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Luz R., Chris Knapp, Dannielle Kaminski, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Gravens, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, E, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Jenna Appleton, Lee Lisle, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, Sandra Stengel, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Tim Beach, Victor Lling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, Christopher Arzeberger, Tae Phoenix, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Steven Lugo, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Mars DeVore, Stephanie Lee, David Smith, Matt BurchAnd our amazing Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Equus ferus - Wild Horse Photography, Trip Lives, Ann Marie Segal, Samantha Weddle, Chloe E, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Fillmon, Chad Awkerman, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Mary O'Neal, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Cindy Ring, Alicia Kulp, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Ashley Stokey, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Dominique Weidle, Jennifer Jelf, Louise Storer, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Aaron Ogitis, Ryan Benoit, Megan Chowning, Rachel Shapiro, Eric McConnell, Captain Kak Greymoon, Clark Ochikubo, David J Manske, Amy Rambacher, E.G. Galano, Will Forg, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Christian Koch, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, Shane Pike, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Akash Patel, Jennifer Vaughn, Cameron Wilkins, Michael Butler, Ken McCleskey, Walkerius Logos, Abby Chavez, Preston Meyer, Lisa Hill, Benjamin Bulfer, Stacy Davis, Mary Jenkins, Ryan Mahieu, Andrew Cook-Feltz, & Karen GalleskiThank you for your support!“Our creationsOur Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Robbie and myself. And this week's guest is none other than Mr. John Billingsley. Welcome, John. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So good to have you. And you and your books.

I see books. Oh, there's all my goodness. Yes. I'm thrilled with your life. I'm jealous of your library. I'm going to ask you right off the bat. How do you categorize or how do you, you know, sort to arrange your books? How do you arrange them?

Technically, this is the room that runs from B to I for the thick. For fiction? This is fiction? Yes, I have, back in the day, I think I've got about 15,000 books. Oh, my. It's really a sick. Some people are a heroin addict. Some people are gamblers.

Some people are. I just wanted to live in a lot. library. You do. You have the Billingsley home library, which is bigger than most. I have a question when you say that you want to live in a library. So I, when I was young, we moved a lot when I was every couple of years. We were moving. And so I was very, I was very much a lone wolf when I was a kid, you know, because I was, I just didn't seem to fit in. I was always the new kid. And I would spend my lunches. Any time I had free time, if I got to school early, I'd go to the library. Yeah. I used to cut school to go to the library. I'd call my mother and say, I just, I wasn't

in the mood. And she would, you know, she would, of course, you know, the token protestation. It's like, you can't, all right, I'll come pick you up. She'd come pick me up. We'd spend the whole day in the library. She brows, eyebrows. They had, when I grew up, they had a living room was floor to ceiling books, the whole room. And I would sit at the base. of that bookshelf. And I didn't quite understand the concept of reading, but it was aspirational.

It was like, these books were totemic. One day, I am going to enjoy them the way I see my parents enjoy them. Wow, that's beautiful. Well,

it looks like you do enjoy it. For those just listening, John has so many books behind him. It looks like a bookstore. There's so many. That's one room. I also have an extraordinarily patient wife who is Willing.

I have to say, she initially, when we marries it, as long as they're not, you know, piled up on the floor. Now it's like, as long as they're not on my side of the bed. Here's one thing I'll say, John, that I've learned with that many books, with as many

books as you have, don't move because moving the books is one of the biggest of all the things. And I've moved a few times the last few years. The books are the biggest pain in the butt. It's the last move was from Silver Lake here, and that nearly killed me. And we've been 23 years and they're going to have to, you know, take me out. you're done the books have anchored you now you're you can't move if we had all the time in the world i tell you a story about moving my books down from seattle that uh that nearly killed some people i bet with that with that many books i bet i was in a u-hall and and you know and it's a big you hall and you know i was getting off the freeway and i i i exited and i was in the right-hand lane

i wanted to merge in the left hand lane so i was off the freeway to take a left and i sign and I looked in the mirror, and there was a, like a Mack truck was in the left lane. And they were scared and they swerved and they went, like ass over teacup. Like, and I thought, what the fuck have I done? Oh, my God. Because you started making the lane change. And then you shoulder changed. I signaled it.

Oh, God. So anyway, I pulled over, a crowd gathered out of the cab of this, you know, gargantuan truck. Scott Bacula came out of that truck? Scott Bacula and Joliet Leilock. That is the best story we've ever had. That is the best story we've ever had on this podcast. Not true.

No, but out of that had two 18-year-olds, they had a kid stole his dad's Mack truck for a joy ride. Oh my gosh. So I waited for the cops and I explained the situation and people said, Oh, no, no. You were just, you just, this truck was barreling off the freeway. Wow. Wow.

And with, with all your books in the back, that would have been tragic. I mean, it would be sad to, yeah, it would be sad to have lost you, but the books. I was safe. The books, a little tussled, but. And if these two kids didn't get. Yeah, but you're so lucky that that was, first of all, what if that was somebody with a full load of merchandise that completely you know what I'm saying this wasn't a regular truck driver this was the kid stealing it from his dad well and at first I thought I was responsible because I thought you know what I mean I

was like I didn't change lanes I did but you know in the moment what did I must have yeah it's not your fault it wasn't your fault definitely but still it's also a relief to know that there was no merchandise ruined no one's lives were you know in a torus I don't consider anything my fault which is as we were talked before here it's one of the wonderful qualities of Torians. It's like, when is your birthday? May 20. We are the ideal triumvirate. Check it out, Robbie.

He's rat, your dragon. 1960 rat, 1964, dragon, 1968, monkey. These are the ideal compatible signs and these three. So I said if we were to collaborate on projects, so you direct and I act with John, okay, this

will be a blockbuster. This thing would be, we would knock it out of the really. Yes. This is the best. The best. Don't even really need a script. We don't even need it. No, no, we just, we improvise everything, Robbie. Everything is going to be a dragon.

It's going to be a movie about a guy moving from Seattle. Seattle in a lot. And how an accident that's not his fault. Changed his entire life. Changes his life. That's what it's good about. I was just going out with Bonnie at the time. And I find, by the way, when I do an interview,

it's usually just one question suffices for the entire interview. So we're done. We're done. That's how good our signs are. We don't need to do it anymore. We don't even. I called Bonnie that day. It was like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Early on in our relationship. Oh, God, wow. Honey, will you visit me in prison? I mean, we haven't been together very long, but, yeah. Were either the vagrant boys injured in the accident? Were they okay? No, no. And it took me a while, of course, to pieces together.

I got cops had to stick around, and they came out of the cab, and they were interviewed, and the cop came over and said, okay, so here's what happened. go home you're fine you have no you know culpals no responsibility good yeah wow all right so going back to the books because that's what i'm obsessed with your background lie down in lie down in darkness billion siren's first novel that looks like a collectible of some sort not necessarily no it's it was his first novel written in 1951 he wrote sophie's choice you know one of great american novelists only wrote four or five books, four or five novels. Oh.

This first one had absorbed a lot of Faulkner. I'm a big Faulkner fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But having said that when you read a great novelist virgin work, it's still like, wow. Wow. Yeah. I'm a great fiction reader. That's sort of my, I read a lot of fiction and nonfiction, but primarily I'm a lover of fiction.

I want to get to Bourne and all that, but the books keep, the book questions keep coming. What kind of fiction is it a man? authors? Is it European? Is it international? All over the map. I mean, I probably, you know, not as well versed in

European fiction, in part because the tiniest slice of world fiction gets translated into English. Yes. But having said that, no, I, you know, cover the waterfront for the most part. I'm a fairly slow

reader, actually, so it's not as if I've read everything in the world. I'd just like to always be reading something. Great. Both you and Robbie are very similar in that regard. You read a lot or are always constantly reading something. And so what I wanted to add is that I know you guys read a lot when you were young. Did either of you do this?

There was one year in high school where I didn't even go to the lunchroom. All my lunches were in the library for that whole year. Oh, wow. So that was my contribution. And I, uh, to that, to the book, uh, talk. Yeah, I would go to the library at lunch. And my library, um, you know, they would have the books and then they'd have magazines and newspaper subscriptions. And they would always get the Chicago Tribune Sunday Times in my high school. Why Chicago, I grew up in

Atlanta. Yeah. Why Chicago and not the New York Times or Washington, you know, some other paper but Chicago Tribune and I would read the Chicago news and so in my mind I was going to Chicago like I knew Chicago I knew the theater scene there I knew sports I knew the politics I was obsessed with Chicago did you start off in Chicago I wanted to no instead I went to me or start off in Chicago myself oh yeah it couldn't have it's cold it's very cold it's cold it's He went to New York. It's like, it's, you know, there's like, where's the fall? Yeah.

Yeah. There is none. There is no fall. Well, okay. Are we ready to jump into the, let's go to our life story and see that it exists. Born in Pennsylvania, correct? They didn't stick around long, media, Pennsylvania. My dad worked for GE.

He. My dad's work for GE, too. What? He was in the information services. Your dad and my dad were the same dad. Oh, my God. That would be incredible. now that's the movie we would make

there's the movie we did a podcast and discovered we had this father my father worked for general electric information services so the computer division of GE and he dealt with customer

yeah it was customer service so he would go out to companies that back then you couldn't buy computers for your business so you rented time and information help from GE that had these giant mainframes. If you wanted to crunch data or store data, you know,

you're all kinds of things, you'd use GE's computers or IBMs or, you know, some of these big companies. My father who was gay, got to hire a young toothsome male morsels and place them in various training programs all over the country. Wow. What? It's a heavenly job for my father. He started actually moving around the country back when NASA was. was in the middle of, you know, their big push for Moonshot. So we were in Huntsville, Alabama, Slydell, Indiana, eventually moved to Southern Connecticut, which was culture shock because I taught like this. How many years were you in Huntsville and Slidell?

How many years was that? Well, actually, we started Pennsylvania, Schenectady, New York, Fayetteville, New York, moved to Huntsville when I would have been four, was in Huntsville until I was six. Louisiana until I was eight-ish-nine-ish. Yeah. So that southern accent was already ingrained in you when you moved to Connecticut at that point. Yeah, and a list. Oh, no. I was a southern list. I was a frail southern boy with a list. To hear all your moves as a young child and your dad work for GE, that's exactly my life. My dad worked for GE and we moved, you know, every couple of years. we were. Was he gay? My father was not gay that I know of. No. Okay. That's where our roads divide. It's a

miracle. I'm here. So your father was gay. Was he out of the closet? Or was he married to your mother? When did that? No, it's for all the things that are f***ed up about the world and for everything that makes you want to tear your hair out these days. I do sometimes think we don't really have enough historical perspective. We don't remember what it was like to live in a world in which you simply could not you could not be. My father was a deeply closeted gay man because it was simply no way that you could be anything other than that in the 50s and 60s. He was in the Navy. He got out of the Navy. He went to college, Antioch. He met my mother, who was eight years older, who had a PhD in behavioral psychology. My dad was like left behind the ears, Oki. They married very, very quickly.

Early on in the relationship, my mother caught my father. Ogilina gas station attendant and said, are you attracted to him? And he said, well, yeah. Oh, wow. And they stayed together. Wow, my goodness. Ours, I know, they had sex twice and had two children.

So it is truly a miracle. But you're absolutely right. Like the historical perspective, because I remember, I'm four years young. I mean, forget. Yeah. Yeah. I remember growing up in Atlanta, my junior high in high school years, because I was getting involved in the theater, I knew a lot of, a lot of gay men.

And, you know, closeted gay men. Closited. It was, the, the way that that issue was dealt with in your life was so different. It was, it was a secret. It was something that you really didn't, you know, you didn't share with many people, if at all. Right. But it wasn't, it wasn't, guys, it wasn't just, you know, oh, I'm going to keep this a secret. If you came out back in the day of his father, you lose your social life, your business life.

Every part of your life is now done. It was so bad back then. Absolutely. Yeah. In subsequent years, I mean, I didn't know my father was gay until my mother passed away. Really? Odd story. My first wife, a wonderful woman named Janet Fryberger, she had caused to visit San Diego.

My mother had passed away. They lived in Seattle. My dad relocated to San Diego. My wife at the time was in San Diego on business, even though they didn't particularly get along. She thought, oh, I should be courteous. I'll see John's dad. My dad at the time was dating a Marine. They all went out to dinner.

The Marine got pie-eyed and at the bar next to Janet said, Ah, Bill, you know. Oh, wow. My wife comes home and says, says, um, John, did you know that your dad was gay? It was like, wow. Oh, it's like the penny drops. It's like everything made sense.

So much made sense. I later found out from my older brother that, in fact, he had found a stash of my dad's gay pornography when he was a teenager that he'd hit the filing cabinet. That he never shared with you as a- Wow. And it explained a lot about why my brother and my father. had an estrangement that lasted until he died oh my goodness this actually i don't know why i just just have it at hand lie down in darkness is uh oh an interesting book but a lot of it is about these

buried family secrets and uh you know every family has odd ones um wow i it's funny you use the term family secrets because one of my favorite podcasts and here we are in our podcast i'm going to pitch another podcast. There's a woman named Danny Shapiro, who is an author and found out very late in her life, Danny Shapiro found out through a DNA test that she did spontaneously with her husband. She found out that her father was not her biological father. Happened to a friend of life. Gosh. And it opened up this reality of she was not, you know, her father was not her father. It opened up this concept of family secret. She started doing a podcast that is one of my favorite podcasts she brings on guests who it the idea that that

every family has secrets is so true and when you start to hear other people's live for me it was cathartic it was cathartic because every family's got things they just fascinating and if there's anything that to me you know we we sometimes feel to recognize about the modern age is that many of those family secrets had to do with with what was considered to be shaming Your ethnic identity or your sexuality, the idea in the modern world that we can be what we are, which is still, of course, under terrible assault. Generally speaking, it is one of the great accomplishments of our world that our identity is nothing to hide. Yeah. Danny Shapiro uses a term, a phrase. What is the podcast called, by the way, Robbie? What's the name of it?

It's called Family Secrets. It's called Family Secrets. That's the name. It's a fantastic podcast. She has a phrase she uses often that I love called the known unknown. And it's when there's something going on and you don't know exactly what's off, but you know something's off. Yeah. And then when it's known, when you know, and you kind of go, oh, that was, I knew there was something. It made suddenly my whole child. Everything makes it. Yes.

Always seemed to have an interesting companionate relationship, but not one that ever seemed, particularly physical or romantic why my father was always spending time in the city not coming home why my mother was such a loner in certain respects i mean they they had a wonderful relationship on some levels but it it there was always an absence did your dad have siblings dad had a younger brother who was also gay and an older brother who was uh who was a roisterer drunken roisterer wow okay three boys there my dad ran away from home but he basically he hated his mother. He emancipated himself at 16. He said, I'm not going to live in this household anymore. And to live with his aunt, he joined the Navy at 18, on his birthday in

1945. So he saw action then. No, we saw he was a clerk typist. So he saw, he saw a typing action. He saw type. He saw a typewriter. Okay. Yeah. It's interesting how we, I think so many of us, we choose one of two ways to go with that influence of our our childhood traumas or our childhood influences. We either choose to cling tighter to it because it gives us some comfort in some way and so trying to recreate it or we completely reject it. You know, there's sort of this fork in the road

where you kind of rebel in the opposite direction. If it's heavy religion that seems to have traumatized you in some way, you go anti-religion or if it's yeah and i can see both of my parents having had certain traumas in their in their child childhoods i i had a relatively untramatic childhood i mean my parents loved me i had a good education they were reasonably well off i never felt you know in any way um that i couldn't express myself freely or be who i wanted to be that's a great gift yeah it was a great gift and they early on when i expressed an interest in drama We're nothing but supportive.

When you moved to Weston, Connecticut, that was at the age of nine. And at that point, you jumped into a new school. You have a Lisp and a Southern accent. You're a frail kid. And you jumped into drama immediately? Or what, how did that happen? They never entered my mind. I love to read.

And because of that, they had a mandatory audition for the school class play in the fifth grade. Oh, wow. You had to audition for it. had to audition. You had to read for it. Okay. Everybody in the, you know, fifth grade, and I was a big reader, so I could read with some degree of, you know, reverb. Yes. And I would have to Scrooge. And so for, there was a pale, lisping, four-eyed Scrooge, nonetheless, so for one. With a southern accent, how he ended up in London, we don't know. Oh, there are no poor houses?

I don't know what, I'll tell you. So for one. There's Tynne of Tim. Okay, go ahead. Tanya Tim. I was working with a speech therapist to try and eliminate both the accent and the Lisp. You're being serious? Oh, yeah.

Really? Wow. That was your parents? Or you asked your parents for this? They were, they were askeute. Yes. They realized, certainly the Lisp, you know, they wanted to grab a width. Right.

And, of course, of going to speak. speech therapy and also just, you know, you're living in a world where you're going to imitate people who don't sound like you. So I lost the southern accent pretty quickly. Okay. Lisp took a lot longer. But in any case, plain Scrooge, that brief, shiny moment of glory when all of a sudden you go from being the class pariah to the class star, and then it ended and I went back

to being the class pariah, and I thought, oh, I get it. But that's when the- I got to do more of that. Yes. That is when the acting bug bit you that, when you played Scrooge. I don't know if it was the acting bug. I think it might have been the, you know, let's not get beat up at recess bug. Right.

The non-pariah bug. I never got to be it. I was too tart-tongued. The bullies didn't really want to get into, you know. Really? Your defenses were your daggers comments. Totally. Totally.

I was never, I was a weenie physically, but I never backed down from anybody because I just wouldn't. You were one of those kids that had comebacks for anything or in any situation. Pretty much. You were verbal kung fu master. I would occasionally get into a fight because somebody would like it. Why do you're happy? But generally speaking, I wasn't really bullied. However, I was a class pariah.

I don't particularly, you know, loathed me for my own qualities. But generally speaking, nobody was going to approach me. So this period of glory, and after that I asked my parents, I could take acting class and they found a couple, Ed and Dorothy Bryce, who used to be on the guiding light to alcoholism, derailed their careers. They started teaching acting classes. That's a great move to kids. When you can't fit in because you're a drunk with adults, let's go hang out with a bunch of kids.

They went on the wagon. If their son, Scott Bryce is listening to this, Scott, you know I adore Ed and Dorothy. long on now, but they were wonderful teachers of mine. I studied with them for a number of years. And they actually had, they had an acting class that kind of allowed kids to study with adults. Oh, wow. Kind of cool because I was not taking a kid's acting class. Right.

I was a kid in acting class. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Huh. But I mean, parents would never have let me, you know, like go into New York and try to audition. So I was doing it because I liked it, not because I had professional. Community theater, just as a hobby. It was your passion.

It was your hobby. But they, that was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I feel like this couple was, they were very influential in your development as a young actor. You know, I mean, without them, you wouldn't be here, I feel. At their pictures of my wall. Oh, there you go.

No, they were, they were lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely folks, lovely people. Right. And Weston, just so. people listening know Weston, Connecticut is near Westport, Connecticut. And is that Fairfield County? Yep. So Fairfield County, Connecticut is on the border of New York State and not far. It's a bedroom community for a lot of people that work in the city. Long Island Sound. You take the L-A-R end of the city. My dad was a commuter for years. So I was in and out of the city growing up. It was a big Mets fan, you know. So even though it's in Connecticut, it's more like a New York

suburb? Yeah, you kind of, a lot of people in that part of the world kind of call themselves, you know, quasi-New Yorkers. New Yorkers. Okay. Thank you for explaining that. It's got its own kind of country, New England charm to where John grew up. Yeah. It's very tiny and Tessie and Fred Nethyl in the later years of Bile of Lucey. That's where they moved. Yeah. So how long does it take in public transport to get from West End to New York City to Manhattan? It's about 30 minutes to the train station, and then the train is maybe 45 minutes. 45 minutes, yeah. So not bad at all.

No, it's not a bad commute. And it was a very, like Paul Newman lift out there, I think. Eddie Davis, she turned the hose on me when I was child. Are you serious? Out my yard. Fairfield County had really strong ties to that old, a lot of entertainment was based on that community. You know, sitcoms, Dick Van Dyke shows. things like that they were also they sort of lived in that world it wasn't a california it's just

sheber country you know i mean if anybody found a john cheever you know a lot of his a lot of his books were were written about the bedroom communities of new york people are always taking the train yeah my dad i have to say it would be like hi dad how you doing it's been a little time of the bar car coming home tonight when they had a bar car got rid of the bar car i believe I love Fairfield County. I love where you grew up. When I lived in New York City, that was always a fantasy of mine to somehow move out to Fairfield County and go into the city. I worked in plays in New York City with actors, older actors that had done that, that had moved out to Connecticut.

And that's where they lived and they came into their Broadway show. No, I mean, the only problem is it's white, white, white, white, white, white, white with a little dash of, white. Yeah. Oh, wow. Very preppy. West in Connecticut was, you know, I mean, this is what you don't really realize when you're growing up. I mean, you just, you don't necessarily have your finger on the pulse of the world. Yeah. I didn't know until I was much older that I led a privileged existence, but I also let a blinkered existence. Yeah. Very little. Great public school. Right. As far as I can recall, two African American students. Really? Wow.

So ethnic diversity, almost nil. What about Asian students? Was there an Asian student in your school? No? Maybe, you know, maybe. Wow. Well, and I won't say the world has changed because I suspect if you went to West in Connecticut, you would probably still find the same, you know, this.

Pretty close. I bet it. It feels a bit timeless there. Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. There's a wonderful book by guy named Jay, his name Lucas, I think, that was about the wonderful, wonderful nonfiction writer.

it was about the Boston, the years in which Boston tried to desegregate. And one of his fundamental arguments is the North kind of, kind of like, it gets very sort of like, oh, the Southerns, you know. But racism is an American disease. It manifests itself differently in the North. In the South, you know, Robbie, you're lived right next door to a person of another, the rules, the codes, the strictures. But in the North,

people, this is growth generalization, can tend to have more, more, you know, how do I say, this progressive attitudes because they live in a community in which there are no people that. It's not challenged. Yeah. There's no challenges for them to their, you know, whatever. Their lifestyle, their existence. They want to claim a position, but they don't have to actually live it. They don't have to live it.

Or live it. Yeah. Wow. It's wonderful. Another book called The Big. sort and this guy's argument is that every 10 years we should treat the country like a blanket we should pick it up by the four corners and toss everybody in the fair and then come down and they would have to kind of like learn how to get along figure it out yeah and historically he says look at all the eras in american history for instance when the when that happened second world war started

people had to fan out all over across the country it changed the nature of everything yeah it's true you graduate from high school and at that point did you you go to college immediately? And if you did, it was a drama? Absolutely was opposed to going to college. I wanted to go to New York. I wanted to study. I wanted to do walkabout. I wanted to chase girls. Anything I wanted to do, none of it had to do would go into school. I was a shit. I was a student. I was a terrible student. I got five. Yeah. Because I'm pretty quick-witted. But I never like to study. As soon as somebody assigned a book, it was like, I'm not reading that. this in me.

Yeah. Parents were like, you're going to college. And I, although at the time, I thought, well, what if I'm not? What if I, it's like, I'll just go off and be by myself in New York and I'll get a job. I didn't seem like that was an option that somehow. I kind of went, all right, then I'm going to a girl's school with no grades. So I, Lawrence, where did you go? Bennington.

Bennington. So I did my research. What are the schools that have more girls and boys and that don't have grades and don't make you take shit you don't want to take. And I, and I only applied to those schools. Wow. Bennington is a scholar, so Bennington paid my, paid for it. So I,

I got more or less a free ride and I chased girls and I didn't have grades and I only took acting. I got out in four years. So what was your major then when you were in Benettington? It was theater. I was going to go to the double major. I studied again, I don't know if you're, do you know who Bernard Malamud is?

Sadly, and I bizarrely neglected. writer, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He was up there, Othello and Roth as the three big Jewish-American writer at heavy rates. He wrote the natural. Okay. Yep, yep. On the National Book Award for the Fixer, wrote the assistant, one of the most beautiful novels you'll ever read. He was my teacher. Wow. Like studying, acting with Olivier when you're 18 years old. So I thought, I guess I'm not a writer. Bennington is known for producing some of the greatest writers.

Yeah, Donna Tart got his at Bennington. Lethetham briefly went to Bennington. Jonathan Latham, one of my favorite writers, Fortress of Salatheam. Actually, Fort Worth's a Solitude has a section said at Bennington. Not if you've read that one. Yes, yes, you're right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I knew very well that he was, what parties he was talking about, the dress to get laid parties at Bennington.

which I never, I never got laid, no matter what I wore. Did we say Brad Easton Ellis went there as well? I don't count him. Oh. There, sorry, don't count him. No offense. Yeah. No, they have for years one of the, you know, biggest and most successful summer writing workshop programs.

Oh, yeah. A lot of great writers and a lot of great teachers. George Garrett was a teacher of mine, another sadly neglected writer Nick Del Bonco. was a teacher of mine. And I could have graduated with a double major. I had to write a, you know, I had to do a thesis, or I had to write an office, basically, or it was like, I don't need to be a double major. Well, of all your teachers in college, who was the most important? And Nikki Martin.

And why? You probably know Robbie Nicholas Martin, the district director, I passed away a couple of years ago. He at that time was kind of persona non grata as an actor. he'd had a drinking problem and his friend Leroy Logan who was the head of a drama department at Bantington asked him to come and teach and he came and was a wonderful teacher

a dear human being and became a dear friend and became a director and his first, the first show he ever directed was under Milkwood that I was in and commino reale which I was in it wasn't like I needed inspiration I mean, I pretty much knew I was at a certain point. So once it was clear, I wasn't going to be a writer.

I was going to have to be an actor because I don't have any of them skills other than that. So it wasn't like I needed somebody, but he was possibly the person I got the most out of as a teacher. What were the things, if you can articulate them, that Nicholas Martin sort of inspired you? Like when you think of him as a creative inspiration. So much, I think, of what makes a teacher compelling in your memory is simply the nature of what the personality was and how you attached to it and how much you invested in it. But if there's anything that I took away that, you know, I think this is true for actors. It takes years and years and years before you fully understand it is the primacy of action, the nature of how every moment you are actively engaged in the pursuit of something that you want or need. The idea that as long as you're honest in the active moment, you're not in your head.

You're not worrying about trying to conjure an emotional reaction. You're not worried about trying to manifest a behavior. You're simply in pursuit of something. I think that was probably my biggest discovery as a young actor, even though it took me many years, I think, to kind of absorb it fully, the nature of what it meant to be active on the beat. You know, eat to be, active on the beat, active on the beat, active on the beat, active on the beat. he was also Meisner influenced so probably the other thing that was most important for me to learn is that within that space of being active on the beat you also have to be wide open to the reality of the other person's behavior and let it affect you yes those two things can ever come together

in your work you're probably going to be okay yeah agreed I'd love that yeah I think you're right those those inspirational mentors that we have in life often we attach to their personality as much as technique or ideas or any of that. There was a high school mentor of mine, Linda Wise, it mentioned her before in this podcast. Linda was like she was a Tennessee Williams character. She was kind of a heavyset woman, big personality. She smoked cigarettes in a cigarette holder that went out two feet from her face.

She always had these amazing berets on and wore these kind of house-dressed, you know, homemade things. And her personality, and she lived in this Victorian home in this tiny town called Conyers, George, outside of Atlanta. And in the front of the house, she had a wine and cheese shop. And she would have these salons on Sundays where she'd invite people just to hang and drink wine and cheese and talk about literature and art and ideas. And, you know, so to describe how Linda inspired me, it was this, this thirst. for life and an experience in life in a way, more than, you know, a particularly, you know, creative acting process. I don't know. Yeah. Nicky had just, he, he was the,

possibly the funniest human being I've ever met. I just adored his absolute, um, mastery of any situation. He simply was, it was like, you know, having Kitty Carlisle be your or mott's be your teacher you know right you felt like you were directly connected to some aspect of what you always read about when you were growing up you know how to be your stage the algon circle he represented something to me that felt very um you know uh very significant about that few mind you i never got to actually be on the algonquin roundtable or ever appeared on a new yorkman stage so you finished bennington and after that you made the the the trip to Where did you go after Bennington?

I spent a fair amount of time traveling. They had sort of a Bennington abroad program, so I got to go and spend some time in London and study with teachers affiliated with Rata. Oh, that's awesome. Packed some time on. Bennington also had something called the non-resident term. In the winter months,

you were supposed to go out and get a gig, primarily because they couldn't afford to heat the joint. And so they're charging you money to go get a job, and they called that your education. It's like, what a racket. So I managed to convince them to allow me to bop around the world and write about it as part of my fulfillment of my writing. Look at you. Look at you.

Oh, I spent almost a year out of the country. And when I came back, my last term at Bennington, when I graduated, my parents had hit the road when I went off to college. They sold their house in Connecticut. I hadn't seen him for two or three years. Wow. They settled in Seattle. So I thought, my best friend and I, Chris, why? another wonderful theater person

used to be involved in running the Huntington in Boston, dear pal. We hitchhiked across the country back when you could hitchhike. Oh my gosh. So we managed to get to Seattle. We didn't have a dime. But, uh-oh, I didn't think about this.

How am I going to get back to New York? I'll just hang out with my parents for a while. I didn't realize Seattle had a fairly vibrant theater scene. Yeah. I started auditioning. Long story, short, I ended up spending 13 years in Seattle. By the way, hitchhiking, to go back to hitchhiking, so we talked to Frakes a few weeks ago. Franks also hitchhiked across the country, but he was arrested.

He was arrested because it was illegal. He and his buddy got thrown into jail and spent the night in jail, but he said the cops felt kind of bad because they seemed like good kids and they fed him well. And they took him right back to where they had picked him up hitchhiking in the end. I knocked them off and said continue. Just don't hit like from here. Just don't let us catch you doing this again. We got as far as Chicago. And we hit Chicago.

It was like, okay, we don't have me dough. We got to get from Chicago to Seattle. That's a long way. I don't know how confident I feel about that. So we scraped up enough dough to get Greyhound tickets. But we did get from Vermont to Chicago, and it was a circuitous roof. We went down the eastern seaboard. It was a great time.

I mean, I, my time with Chris traveling across the country, Chris, one of the highlights of my life. He's six foot six, and he weighs about nine pounds. He's like thin as a rail. Oh, God. I'd be. So we traveled together. We had these little ridiculous signs, you know, like going south with a picture of a, you know, cocktail glass. And I think people just thought two more non-threatening bozos could not exist.

So we got picked up all the time. Because the old Abbott and Costello look that you guys had going on, is that, okay. And Chris would always, because, you know, you're still going to get picked up by lunatics. Yes. Chris would always pretend if the driver seemed to be like nuts. Chris would always pretend to fall asleep. You like, you have to deal with them. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I'd have the burden of conversation. Rob, did I tell you this? My dad, when he was a college student, when he was a graduate student, picked up a hitchhiker who then proceeded to pull a knife out on him. What? Yeah. And he said, give me all your money. And my dad pulled out, he had $4 on him.

So this was 1966, right? And he goes, well, this is all I have. He goes, well, give it all to me. And my dad goes, but I don't, this is my lunch. I have to eat lunch. And the guy goes, fine, take $2 back. And I'll take the other two. And then he goes, let me off here.

And so he robbed my dad of half of his money. Of $2. Of $2 instead of all four. But he was held up. That was nice of him. It was nice of him. And also, it was nice. that he didn't stab my dad either.

Yeah, that's true. Because I also, this is a weird hitchhiking story. I was also hitchhiking in England and the guy picked me up in Rye and we started gabbing and where you're from, blah, blah, blah, blah. I said, oh, I lived in Westin Connecticut for a while. And I said, oh, where'd you live? And I said, Lila Glane. And I said, I lived on Lila Glane.

What? And he said, you lived on Lila Klan? And I said, yeah, I lived on number 13, Lila Klan. He said, the house at the end of the road of the long driveway. And I said, yeah, he said, I lived in that house. What? No. Weird?

Wow. If it had been me, like, you know, if he was just saying that to get in my pants, which, of course, everybody wanted to do at the time. But he was providing. And still do, by the way, still do. They still do. Everybody wants to get in your pants. You've got to be kidding.

That's crazy. He had lived there like 15 years earlier. Oh, my God. What are the odds? In England. No. In Y, England. That's crazy.

When you did go abroad, other than London, you said you were at Rada, which was probably an amazing experience, right? You had, no, not so much. Okay. They have very different, you know, I mean, there's is so technique oriented. Where else did you travel besides England? You said you went to multiple places. We went to, we started in Ireland. We took it to Dublin.

We bicycled across to Galway. We took a fishing boat to the Aaron Islands. We went from Ireland to Spain. We went as far as we went to Barcelona, Sevilla, Granada, up through Madrid. We went to Venice for the, we definitely wanted to get to Venice for the, carnival. Ah. It was one of the highlights of my life.

Wow. Then I met a woman there and we, I left my pal because the gal and I were going to have, and we had an affair in Paris. Wow. Travel to southern France together. She was Australian. She had to split. And then I went back to England and spent some time in the southeast,

southeast coast of England. So the pal that you were with is the same person that you hitchhike to Seattle with? No, different pal. No, different pal. another pal of mine from college, who was built like a brick, Michael Rogers, the handsomest guy. It was a little debilitating because everywhere we went, especially in Spain, all the Spanish seoritas would follow him going, well, Rupio, Blopi, Blopi, be like my chopped liver.

It's like, we had to split up. It's like, you know what? You go your way. He drew too much attention. Get that guy out of here. Oh, my goodness. So this is the, so that European tour is what you wrote your thesis or your college paper about. Yeah, it turned out.

that that was not going that was that turn it turned out i thought that was going to be the what would allow me to get a double major they said no no this fulfills your non-resident turn apply it to you know in essence every job was supposed to be kind of in the further fulfillment of a degree you were taking this will further fulfill your degree in the english department but you don't get to get off of having a thesis so it's like fine oh man do you still have have that paper. What was the takeaway when you try to capture a trip like that, which sounds incredible? My primary goal was to be unexpurgated. And in part, it was also because my parents so graciously, I mean, I had a free ride at Bennington. But nonetheless, my parents were

fronting, you know, certain costs, and they certainly fronted that trip. And I thought, you know, maybe one of the best, what you're talking about, when you're talking about writing something for your kids, I thought possibly the best thing I could do for my parent was to say, I love you enough to not be guarded. So I won't write it from a point of view of this is how it's sanitized or presentation to my hear sainted parents. This will be what, you know, it will be what happened. No secrets. No family secrets. So I wrote about, you know, everything that you feel when you're on the road. It's like, where am I going to score some hash? How come I can't get laid? Why am I traveling with the sun god here? It's driving me crazy. I want to read this. Would you allow me to, can I can

can we read can i read this please we're gonna we're gonna publish a link on the podcast but i wish we could i i'll tell you this when the first time when my pal and i we went through paris from it'll from ireland before we traveled south to spain first time i we checked into our hotel in paris there was like this this what i took to be a wine cooler in the bathroom it's like this is weird why would they put a wine the bidet but you know my pal and i we kind of looked at it we thought well this is so strange what could possibly before. It has to be a wine cooler.

So we stuck our white wine in there. And each day we'd come back and the white wine would be on the dresser and we'd go, why did they take the white wine out of the cooler? Finally, at some point, somebody said, that is where you wipe your ass. It is where you wash your ass.

Wow. Oh. Do no. We left the chamber and made a big tip. The wine cooler. That's amazing. And we thought at a time, it's like, it's not very cold.

So you thought the Wait a minute You guys thought the bidet Was where you would put the wine And you turn the water on And it would cool It would chill the wine I thought

The French love wine What else could have possible I had never heard of the concept Of no Additional cleansing Yeah So this is in your paper too

Oh yeah I want to read this paper So I'm so serious I'm gonna come I can't wait to I'm coming to your house tomorrow. It was more of a journal. I mean, it wasn't, I would, I don't care.

I want to, I want to read this. This is going to be, I haven't read it in a year, four years. There you go. We can read it together. As far as your acting career. Oh, right. That part. So you're in Seattle, which did have a vibrant theater scene.

Yeah. And you spent 13 years there doing theater. I started a theater company. Yeah. Tell us about that time. The big flagship theater there was a Seattle rep. There was also at the time was 18. The C.T. The empty space. There was enough theater to get by. There was enough industrial

film, commercial work, occasional TV or film to make a living. There was a point in my life when I thought, this is not satisfying to me, and I either have to A, move to New York, B, move to Los Angeles, or C, figure out some way to do something here that feels more fulfilling. A woman named Jane Jones introduced this concept to some of us, presenting fiction verbatim on stage, which we put some stories up. I loved it. I've always been a big reader, so I thought this would be great, but you can need a shitload of people to come together to put stories up every month in a workshop presentation to figure out what is the best, and then the best of the best you take on the road, you tour, and then you do in half,

then you do, you know, put it up for bigger audiences. We called that that shambolic entity book it. And I ran it along with some other folks, including Jane and Myra, who eventually took it over when I left for about five years. That was a big, big part of my life. I learned a lot doing it. I learned a lot about how to pursue the business of the business because I was an artistic director. And you got to figure out how to, you know, keep moving your head. My marriage ended.

And I was also teaching. Was the Intamon Theater already in existence in Seattle at that point? Okay. All right. Intamon, the group, Tacoma Act. Guild. There were maybe 10, 11, you know, equity houses and a number of fringe houses. Got it. Okay. Yeah, Seattle had, has always had a great theater scene there, a theater community, very highly respected. Yeah, Seattle Rep is the most famous. You got divorced at that, and then after that.

Yeah, the divorce kind of was like, okay, you know, those lines in your life where it's like, if not now, when. Yeah. And I realized that while I got a lot out of being an artistic director, it's demanding and grueling. I was not making any money. It was going to be years before the theater company was going to be able to make enough money for me to be able to pay myself. I really made my money teaching acting. I taught Meisner for a number of years. Just thought, you know, I don't want to teach anymore. At which point, it was like, what do I do? And I decided, you know, I always liked the limited experience I had doing film and TV. I like that. I like those mediums. I like not having to worry about how you justify the performance choice to hit the back wall.

Yeah. Challenge of theater. So I moved to L.A. in 1995. And that's when Robbie and I started our show. That's when our show premiered in 95, actually. When you made that move, did you feel like it was a smooth transition? Did you immediately have success? Or were there...

It took two years, which I think, you know, relatively speaking. I mean, the odd thing I've always said to younger actors is the experience of running, book it was was incredibly valuable because when you are running a business you you you simply have no choice when it comes to the actions if you have to pay the rent you have to pay the rent if you have to have a conversation with a company member that's hard you have to have that conversation coming here i felt like what i was able to bring to the table was simply a realistic appraisal of how do you go about getting a career going and what are the tough things you're going have to do that other people don't want to do i was never shy going in and saying i got to have a

conversation with you agent this is not working out and here's what i need and here's what i'm not getting good for you so so to a certain extent uh the first two years were learning the city kind of getting to understand what was required to get to know the casting directors or workshops valuable or showcase is valuable how do you how do you kind of you know and i had to make a hard decision which was to say I'm not going to pursue theater. It felt to me, I've had a lot of different conversations of people down the years about this, it felt to me that the friends I had who were trying to be theater actors and film and TV actors were kind of, you know, falling between two stools.

Yeah. I found if I was doing a play, I worked for a while at a noise within here locally, that when I'd get home, if I had an audition and I had to prepare material, I'd be. be beat. I just had been a rehearsal or I've done a show. I was probably not going to go in that next day back then frequently you had those next day auditions. Some kind of shit little language. I thought, I'm not going to put my best foot forward. I've just got to make this my raison debt. Very smart of you. Did you know a lot of people when you came to L.A.? Yeah, fair number. And I make friends pretty easily. Yeah. No, I knew a fair number of people. I mean,

there was a whole contingent of folks who had been moving down from Seattle in part because Seattle lost that limited amount of film TV commercial work it did have to Canada. A lot of people went FICOR, so they were able to have a lot more, they were able to hire non-union actors. It just became impossible unless, you know, you had a really cushy day job or you were really riding the cream of the cream on the theater circuit to make a little. So a lot of people started moving down here. So I knew a fair number, folks.

So you knew a fair number. Yeah. You talk about when you were running the theater company, artistic director, and learning the practical elements of running a theater and how to have hard conversations, things like that. Do you think that helped you when you're on set now, and you've got a creative difference with a director

or the material or writer or even another actor, you know, blocking a scene? Yeah, I mean, to a certain extent. And I mean, as you know, I think the biggest accommodation you have to make to beat on a set is that the clock is the clock. You don't have time to have the kind of conversation you might have if you are in rehearsal for a play. So if you have a solution, great. If you don't have a solution, then you have to figure out how to make the direction you're getting function. And I'm generally not somebody who is going to engage in a shitload of conversation unless I'm very clear about what I think might make it better.

I remember that I was directing an episode. And there was one day where I had fallen way behind. And the very last scene of the day was, I think, you and Scott and Jolene in your lab where you make a huge discovery. And it was like a two and a half page scene. It was a big scene. And I remember Mary Howard had come down. And I was easily two hours or more behind. And we had thought this long scene was going to take three hours.

And we had basically 45 minutes left in our day. As you said, the clock was ticking. And I remember going to you and Scott and Jolene and saying, if you guys can help me work this out, we'll do this scene as a wonder. Get out of here. Do you remember that scene? No. Oh, I remember it vividly.

And it was one of the first times where I had to abandon my plan completely and sort of get to the heart of what the scene needed to be for the story. And then think of a way to do that in 45 minutes, period. That was the goal. And we did it as a handheld oneer and you guys shot it and we got it done in 45 minutes and wrapped on time. I couldn't believe it. It was like. I don't remember. that I that the you know we have our the memories we have as actors are so uh you know are so rooted in

like one horrible memory I have from that particular show is I had gone out drinking and carousing the night before and I came home this is back when the pages would be delivered to the door yes there were new pages and it was two two new scenes with me yeah words I didn't even think I was working the next day And, you know, I was like And I came in that next day And I got through the first scene, okay

But the second scene shot late in the day Roxanne was reflecting No, you know the show we were on It was some of those scenes with the gobbledygook Oh, yeah Oh my God You know, some space alien species That I'd never heard of

And I was like, take 12 What are they? Mattoxel What are they? The mettoxels. The whole crew was going, metaxils! Metaxles! Say it!

And finally, Rock said, I forget, we're not getting this scene. Oh, gosh. That rarely, if I... Rarely happen. I mean, that's just circumstance. You were my hero on the scene I was describing. I've recapped that scene for others since on, you know,

and other directors on, you know, the clock is the clock, as you said earlier. And sometimes reality is reality. and you've got to find a way. Well, and you know, I mean, we're always, it's like, it is, even on that show, there were times when it's sort of like somebody would say, I think in this scene,

my character would have, you know, a sippy cup. It's like, what? Yeah, I really think in this scene I should have a sippy cup. Like, I, get him a sippy cup. Well, we can't find a sippy cup. Would you have about a glass? No, it got to be a sippy cup. It's like, yeah.

You know, it's not. something big if it's not central if it's not and if you can't figure out something to offer that is going to help solve the scene or or shift the thinking on a scene then it's better just to I think you know I tend to not although I'm pretty voluble I tend to not talk too much unless I really think there's something that I can be pithy about but Robbie in the end I just want to ask probably this real quick. In the end, when you watch that episode that you directed, that oneer is absolutely fine, right? It doesn't stand out. It's better. It's more than fine. It's better than my original idea. It worked out. The episode needed that energy,

the scene because it was a turning point in the story. It was a discovery. It was putting together sort of connecting dots and saying, there's our answer. It was an aha scene. You know the, you know the bishop's wife, the Carrie Grant, there's a scene in the bishop's wife. where it's just like, it's just the master. And actors slowly enter the frame from various offstage points until the frame is filled up with Carrie Grant and David Niven and Loretta Young

and, you know, two or three had that the dog. And so it's about their arrival and the playing of the scene and the camera never, we don't have any close-ups at all. And it's like, you know, a fairly lengthy scene. And it's just, I miss that. I miss that too. We just live in a world in which

if you don't have a gazillion cuts I'm not considered interesting enough for an audience. Well, what I loved about the scene that we did and you guys made it work was that it hinged on the energy of your performances. And you guys, you know, knew the words.

That was a day where you knew your words inside and out and everybody did. Oh, that one day, I didn't know my word. But everybody sort of rose to the challenge and allowed our real circumstances of filmmaking, to fuel the imaginary circumstances of the scene, which is we need an urgent solution to this problem. And how can we rethink this in the scene?

That's what the scene was about. And it all came together beautifully. Our show got better, I thought, towards the F, because urgency was put in in a way that I kind of thought was lacking generally in our show in the first and second season. I didn't do a lot with you guys,

maybe three or four episodes in total, but I always enjoyed coming over there. It was a great group. It was on episode, you and I did get to work on a lot. It was sort of about a fellow from the species that we were perpetually at odds with. Yes. That was lovely. I so enjoyed it. That was probably one instance where I really got to work with you. Yeah. All right. Well, we have, we've thoroughly enjoyed having you on and hearing your stories and filling in some blanks that we've had. And so we want to thank you, John, for being on the podcast. today you're a wonderful wonderful guest so thank you thank you for having me and i can't believe both of our fathers work for g and we moved around every two years oh oh oh i should probably

closed by saying everything i said tissue of lies yes in fact if you wanted to call the episode tissue of lies that is the title of your autobiography i think actually it's suitably rumbled but tissue of live suitably rumbled is that what you said oh i love suitably rumpled yes okay thank you john it was great so great to hear your stories and things i never knew i'll come back to talk about the hollywood food coalition yes when it when it comes time we could do the hollywood food coalition is needs its own episode because there's lots to talk about there's a huge huge part of my life but i know it is yeah i know it is well uh for those that don't get to hear the hollywood food coalition special episode that we will do down the road just remember that's really important to john

What's the web address? Hofocco.org. There you go. Hofocco.org. As opposed to the whole pan can address. I know. Oh, LichO, F-O-C-O-Hollywood Food Coalition, hofocco.org.

And we will do Trek Talks 3 at some point. Yes, that is a charity very near and dear to John Billingsley's heart that everyone should definitely check out and donate to and get involved. All right, for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. Thank you.