The Harland Highway - PODCAST 151

Episode Date: August 13, 2010

Interview with cast of big Hollywood movie, What happened to Tom Cruze? Voicemails, and Dr. Ascot. Twirl my turnip sauce!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Loneliness is such a sad affair. And you won't be lonely today. No, you've got me here with you, and you are on the Harland Highway. No loneliness, just lots of fun and togetherness. Me, you, and all the other hundreds of thousands of millions of listeners here that jump on the highway. every other day of the week and enjoy the madness and what madness we have today

I will be interviewing these huge movie stars from a hit movie that came out I guess it was a couple of years ago now but I recently rented this movie on DVD and I got the stars of the movie into the studio for an interview it's going to be fascinating

and speaking of stars we're going to be dissecting kind of the rise and fall of Tom Cruise. Remember how he was once a mega movie star, a huge superstar, and now he's kind of like struggling at the box office a little? Why is his image fading? What happened? We're going to go into that.

We're going to get into some of your voicemails. We've got some happy listeners, and we got one guy that just hates me, and he goes off on me. You're going to like this. And here's someone I'd like to go off of the end. End of a large cliff is Dr. Ascot. He's here today on Friday the 13th.

Let's see what he's got. It's my bad luck, but it's your good luck. You're right here on the Harland Highway. I've got the sideburns, I've got the chin, come on baby, pretty baby, let me in. Oh, thank you. I've got the sideburns, I've got the chin, come on, Bakerby, pretty baby, let me in. Whoa, oh, oh, don't you hear you go down and a hot dog flies into that magic, oh, yeah. I don't want to be

Hey, R-L-A-N-D. Welcome to the Harland Highway. Hey, it's Harlan Williams riding with you down the Harland Highway. And I don't know. You ever rent a video for a hit movie that came out a while back? You never saw it in the theater, but you finally saw it on DVD. So I rented the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Pretty good movie. And I thought it would be cool to get the stars, the movie, in here for an interview. So this is a special treat. I got him with me today. I got, uh, hello lion. Ooh. Ooh. Br.

Okay. And, uh, witch, how you doing? I'm a witch. Ah, he's a witch. And, uh, Wardrobe, how's it going? Okay, you're not very talkative. So tell us about the movie, the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

How was it on set? Was there a lot of camaraderie? Was it exciting? Was it fun, lion? Ooh, really? And what about you, witch? I'm a witch. Okay, interesting, interesting take. Wardrobe, any interesting events happen for you on the set?

Nothing, huh? Just people walking into you, opening your doors and walking right in through you? Nothing, huh? You're not going to talk. All right, hey, what do you think? Is there going to be a sequel, Lion Witch and the Wardrobe 2? What do you say? Really? Wow, that sounds fascinating. Well, I want to thank you guys for dropping by the studio today.

I'm a witch. Nothing from you. you, huh, wardrobe? No. Okay, well, hey, we look forward to the sequel. Thanks for dropping by the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe here on the Harland Highway. Okay, how'd that go? What do you mean? It was stupid? It wasn't stupid. Yeah, people are going to believe it. Yeah, they're going to believe it because I say they're going to believe it, okay? my listeners they don't know

what I do they think I actually had a wardrobe and a witch and a lion here because that's who my listeners are what we're still on well why didn't you turn my mic

off dumbass oh god what's the matter with you go jump in the wardrobe and eat some mothballs idiot well I guess I want to to talk about Tom Cruise today.

Yeah, I said it Tom Cruise. Remember when that guy was just the biggest star in the galaxy? Remember there was a time when just the mention of him was exciting? Just when you knew one of his movies were coming out, it was exciting. I remember when trailers of his movies would play. People would cheer. Remember the Mission Impossible Days? and he was one of these guys that did it right most of his career.

What he did is he took kind of the Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn approach to his career, where he kind of limited the access that the public had to him. He did a limited amount of interviews, a limited amount of press and TV. You rarely saw him on the late-night talk shows. and the effect you get from doing this is you create a mystique. You build a mystery about yourself. You build a curiosity about yourself.

The less people know about you that seems the more they want to know about you. Okay? And then you say, well, why the hell do you do a podcast three days a week, loser? Well, okay, good point. But let's get back to Tom Cruise, shall we? But here's where it all changed, and I guess money and greed play into it. Tom was cruising along, no pun intended, just fine. Biggest star in the world, created a frenzy wherever he went.

Most people really like the guy, men and women alike. And then I guess it was around Mission Impossible 2 when Tom became a producer. And you know what that means. When you're a producer, you have more to gain by basing it on what the box office does. So as a producer, you're involved that maybe you've invested some of your own money or maybe you've been given a producer title because you helped with the script or you brought the idea to the studio. There's a lot of reasons you could become a producer,

but the end result is the upside of being a producer usually means if you're a producer in the credits, you get a lot of box office bumps. You get a salary for being a producer, and then you make a lot of money depending on how well the movie does. Okay, so it was around that time when I think Tom became a full-fledged producer on, I think it was Mission Impossible 2.

And all of a sudden, Tom stepped out from behind the shadows. He stepped out from, you know, wherever it was, he kept himself. And he started doing interviews. And he started making himself more accessible. And he started to spread the word about Mission Impossible 3. And I guess it was around that time when he did the infamous interview on Oprah, where he stood up on the couch and jumped up and down. and, you know, expressed to the world his love for his girlfriend at the time, or fiancé,

I forget what she was, which in my mind I thought was a great thing. Here was a guy that was so excited about his girl that he couldn't contain himself, and he jumped up and he expressed himself. Whoop he do. Isn't that what love is supposed to do? Isn't love supposed to fill us full of butterflies and fancy, free, carefree spiritness? and I mean, I think it would be good if more people jumped up and down and announced to the world how much in love they were.

I think it's healthy. But, of course, being America, the land of the free, where everyone does everything because it's free. Yeah, right. Everyone in America just looked at the guy and they're like, ooh, what the hell's wrong with that guy? What's that creepy behavior? Is he insane?

Is he on pills? Who does that? here in America the land of the free getting up on a couch and jumping up and down expressing yourself well here's where people

here's why people freaked A they just were taken off guard and if anything they should have been happy for the guy and B there's a lot of jealousy here in the United States a lot of people don't like seeing people happy believe it or not

a lot of people don't like seeing people celebrate love openly and be joyous and full of happiness and bubbling with exuberance. Because it reminds them that they're not happy. And I'm not saying all of you are unhappy. God, no. You're listening to the Harlan Highway. You've got to be happy. But there's a lot of people who kind of take the reverse psychology effect

towards people that are happy and bubbly and holding hands and snuggling. and they're repulsed by it or they're confused by it or they turn their back on it because it's something they either don't have they have no prospect of having or they don't understand the concept they don't know how to feel that way which is truly the most tragic of the three to not be able to feel that kind of fun love in your soul

and your belly and your whole being If you've never felt that, that desire where you just had to stand up and jump because you were so in love with someone, then I think it's a sad day for you. I hope and I pray that you do get that experience at some point in your life because it's really the essence of life. It's probably one of the finest, purest, most beautiful moments you can have when you can't contain your excitement for another human being. I mean, don't most of you sit around every day cringing over human beings that you ever walk on a crowded subway and you're like, oh, God, look at all the people. Or you get on an airplane, oh, look at all the people. I just want to get away from people, right?

Every year you plan a vacation. Where do you want to go this year? I don't know, just away from people. So I think it's a great thing when one person, celebrates another person. Okay, so I'm getting off track of it, but here's where the tables turned for Tom Cruise. People got turned off by this. They didn't understand it.

They didn't think a guy of his caliber, of his rank, should be doing that. He's an actor. He's an actor. Actors deal with exploring their emotions. They are emotional people. They're artistic. He was the perfect guy to jump up and do that. All the women in the world should have been,

oh, my God, I wish he was jumping on a couch for me. Come on, honey. Let's go to IKEA, see if anything happens. But so for some reason, the poor guy got bad press on that. And that's when the Tom Cruise star started to fade a little bit. Okay? And then he had, he started coming out more with his interviews. And, you know, what inevitably happened.

with a lot of these stars, they do the interviews, and they get bored of talking about their movie. They get bored about talking about where they were shooting. They get bored about praising their co-star. And I think eventually they start to feel like, is this all I've got? Is this all I'm about?

I'm answering questions about production values and locations and my cast members. Surely I must show people I've got a deeper side. And so a lot of celebrities you start dipping into the political water. They start dipping into the social problem water. They start dipping into the charity water. They start anything that's a diversion or makes them look intelligent or anything but what they are,

they start to gravitate to. And sure enough, all of a sudden, here's Tom Cruise, and people know he's a Scientologist. He gets on the morning show or the Today show or the morning breath show. or whatever the hell it is. And he's going at it with Matt Lauer and he starts talking about postpartum depression and the evils of taking prescription medicine and pills

and talking about the corruption of psychiatry and all this stuff. And the guy starts expressing himself and we start to get to know him better. We start to see different sides of Tom Cruise. Okay? And no longer is he this kind of imaginary hero, this guy who can defy the odds, this guy who always gets the most beautiful girl, the guy who can fly his jet upside down, the guy who can jump through a wall of fire and not get burned. Suddenly he's this flawed human being with problems and hang-ups and opinions.

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And poor Tom Cruise is now at a place where he's doing, you know, bit parts and movies. that normally he would never would have done. He's taking projects that not necessarily he would have taken, you know, when his star was high up in the sky. He's doing more interviews and more talk shows to try and compensate. And you get into that rut where you think, well, I was a huge star. And then I started doing all these talk shows and I started to fade a little. So I'll do more and more talk shows.

So people see me and hear me. And then I'll get more famous and more famous. more famous but what it does is it just knocks you down deeper and deeper because all the mystique is peeled back all that interesting mystery is gone and so tom's last movie came out night and day with cameron diaz and uh you know unfortunately cameron's starting to get a little older she's gone from looking like a hot school chick school girl college dorm chick to she's starting to look like a cougar she's still hot as hell but you know time's wearing on everyone but back to tom so now this poor guy he's uh he's in a place where his last movie i don't even think it cracked like 60 million

which is a lot of money to you and me but when you think of tom cruise as the 200 300 million movie guy and there's just not that rush anymore they're just not that hoopla they're just not that vibe around Tom and so I'm bringing it up because it's just kind of sad it's sad to see a guy that was uh you know so beloved um so uh you know so the the public was so captivated with the guy and now he just ranks up there with like you know your everyday actors like you know polly shore willam defoe or well those aren't fair comparisons because willam defoe does have a bit of mystique, and Polly Shore could never act. But he's just, he's kind of, Tom's fallen from superstar and to just kind of star.

And I guess the message is if you look at guys like Jack Nicholson still and Sean Penn to a point, there's these stars that you rarely see doing interviews, rarely talking, and those are the guys, those are the actors and actresses that we still think are huge stars. You know, guys like Clint Eastwood. You know, they don't do a lot of press. And so there's still this mystique. There's still this, oh, who is that guy? Ooh, he's so famous.

He's so, you know. So word to the wise, all you up and coming actors. I know the landscape's changed. It's hard to stay private anymore. It's hard to stay away from the public. But there you go. There's my theory. There's my essay on.

Tom Cruise, I hope some of you cared and some of you listened. You've probably tuned out, and you probably would rather hear Rain Man blather away. But there it is. Harlan Williams, celebrity analyst, here on the Harland Highway. Hello? Hello? Yo, Arlen, Denver wants more cinnamon boy. Give me more cinnamon boy.

Hi, I'm cinnamon boy, and I love cinnamon. Give me more cinnamon boy. I'm cinnamon boy, and I love cinnamon. Give me more cinnamon boy. I'm cinnamon boy, and I love cinnamon. Give me more cinnamon boy. Screw you, cinnamon ass. Yeah, Harlan, this is your mom.

Tonight when you get home, you will clean the basement or you will not leave the house tomorrow. Is that understood, Harlan? My name is Mueite. No, your name is creepy. Wente is Spanish for Mom, by the way. Let's see who else we got calling into the old Harland Highway hotline here. Hello. Dude, you're the funniest guy I've seen in a long time.

You were hilarious at the comedy works, and you're even funnier on the radio. Keep up to good work, buddy. Bye. Oh, man, I love positive feedback. It's such a fine, sophisticated crowd. that listens to my show, the educated, the in the know, the hip, the smart. Is it? The highway?

Which way? What is the speed limit? And, you know, bipolar people can enjoy my show, too. The main thing is that you listen to the show and you love the show, right? You are a dumbass. You are the most unfunny moron I've ever heard. What are you, like, 60 years old? You have to be like five years old to enjoy your.

You're an idiot. Get off the radio. Wow, man. I mean, it makes me wonder if the guy's that angry why he would take the time out of his busy day to call me and spew his anger at me. Like, if I don't like a dish, like if I've eaten some food and I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't take it. I don't take another bite. I don't spend time on it. If I go on a horrible date, I don't call the girl back.

I don't waste time. So if this guy hates the show so much, why is he picking up the phone and wasting time to let me know? I think he secretly likes me. Right, sir? You are a dumb ass. Now, you didn't mean that. You're an idiot.

Hey, I'm no idiot. I went to school. Okay, buddy? I am very well versed. articulate, very well-educated, insightful, and... What are you like? Six years old? Okay, wait a minute here, sir.

I just realized something that by insulting me, you are insulting my highly intelligent listeners. Sophisticated and intelligent and involved. I mean, you're insulting listeners like this. I'm marshy the manatee. Blah, blah, blah. Be my mail order bride, Ireland. Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh, uh, uh, what, okay, what did you say I was, sir?

You're an idiot. No, didn't you say I was something else? You are a dumb ass. Uh, any suggestions that might help me correct the problem, sir? Get off the radio. Uh, anything else. Give me more cinnamon boy. Ha, ha, good.

suggestion, sir. Hi, I'm cinnamon boy, and I love cinnamon. Get off the radio. Oh, wow. The anger. You know what really makes me happy with that, with that whole thing, through that guy's anger and his, uh, his, his, uh, his, his, his, his venom. He thinks we're on the radio. So in a way, I kind of win by default. We're not on the radio, buddy. We're not on the radio, buddy. We on a podcast on the internet. So, you know, you kind of burned yourself right there, okay? Get off the radio. Get off the radio.

Oh, but you know what? It's all fair. People don't even bother, like, calling in or writing in to my defense. Don't be like, oh, that guy's an idiot, man. How can he say that? Or, oh, what a dude? That guy's a jackass. And then don't even bother writing.

or calling and going, you know what, that guy's right, man. You are an idiot. You're a loser. You probably are on the radio. You know what? It's all a fair game. You know, it is like food. I made the analogy to food.

You like it. You don't like it. You know, there's people that might love what I do. There's people that might hate what I do. I got to tell you, I love hearing from all of you, you know, sometimes, believe it or not, when you get haters like that, they make me want to work harder. They make me want to maybe win you over. They make me want to think of a way that, you know,

maybe I can step up my game a little. But I'm not doing it for them, believe me. Because, you know, sometimes when people decide they're angry and their haters, that's just who they are. That's their nature. So, you know, I'm not going to, it's like I was saying earlier with the Tom Cruise bit, you know. There's a lot of people out there in the world.

And maybe that accentuates the point. there's a lot of people out there in the world that don't want to see other people have fun or don't know how to be happy or don't know how to jump up and down on a chair. Well, I'll tell you what, the Harland Highway is all about getting you up on that chair and having you jump up and down and throw away. Yeah, throw away all your conservativeness, throw away all your reservations. This show is just about having fun and being silly and from time to time touching on serious things. You can be stupid here.

You can be nutty here. You can have fun here. Tom Cruise, if you're listening, I want you to come and jump up and down on my couch. And if my couch isn't available, you can jump up and down on my face. I don't know why I would let you do that, but, you know, just jump up and down somewhere. But either way, keep your letters and calls coming at harlowe Williams.com. I love getting them. You can be nice, you can be mean, you can be happy, you can be sad, whatever you want.

You can talk about a favorite character. Whatever you want, just go to harlomwelliams.com. The phone number's right there at the bottom of the home page. It's a big, bold phone number there. You can call it and leave any message you want, and, you know, I listen to them. And if I think they're fun or they're good or they're making a problem, point i will uh i will play them um and there's some that are just a waste of time that i won't play but uh you know it's my podcast i get to play which ones i want um and speaking of what i don't want

uh it's friday and that means i have to sit with my stupid therapist dr ascot and do my on-air therapy session. I wish that angry caller would caller would call Dr. Ascot and give him a piece of his mind. For now, I've got to give a piece of my mind to Dr. Ascott. Hello, Dr. Ascott. What are we doing today? What are we doing today? Holland. Stop saying my name and let's just get this.

over with. Holland. Stop saying my name. Arlen. Oh, God. What are we doing? Arlen, today is Friday the 13th. Okay, and?

Friday the 13th is a very superstitious day, Arlen. Yeah, and? A lot of bad luck happens to people on Friday the 13th. Yeah, I believe it. I'm sitting here with you. Holland. Well, what does that have to do with anything? "'Arland, today, I want you to go into detail about a story in your life

"'that maybe you felt you had some bad luck, "'and the energy has been plaguing you in your adult years. "'Oh, brother, are you kidding me? What's that going to do? "'By talking through a bad memory or some bad luck that you might have had, Arland, "'we can clear it from your subconscious, and you can get on, and grow as a human being. Okay, as stupid as this stuff is, that actually seems like it makes a little bit of sense.

Absolutely, Arland. Okay, well, I did have a bit of bad luck with a girl. Excellent, Arlen, let's talk about it. Let's get it out, in essence, we will exercise the bad luck out of your system here on Friday the 13. okay uh let's uh let's do it excellent let me get ready arland what do you mean get ready well i have to prepare for the friday the thirteenth talk arland well aren't we just talking what are you doing what do you do it just let me put this on

arland why are you putting what is that a goalie mask Arland. Why are you wearing a goalie mask? Holland, it's Friday the 13th. I'm trying to help you get rid of your bad luck. Oh, this is ripe. Holland. Just tell your story. I'm going to tell a story about an emotional, torturous, past relationship I had with a girl, and you're going to sit there wearing a goalie mask? Yes, Arland.

Oh, this is going to be right. Stop saying ripe, Holland. Oh, God. Just start, Holland. All right. I was dating this girl. Her name was Karen, and everything was going great, and I thought I really liked her,

and then bad things started to happen. I started to have some bad luck. What the hell was that? Holland just continued. What is that stupid noise? Holland, it's all positive noise. of the Friday the 13th experience. What?

Continue, Arlen. All right, well, this girl was like accident prone or something, okay? Everywhere we went, things went wrong. I remember we went out to a nice dinner one night, and our waiter dropped the bottle of wine right onto our table, and it splashed all over both of us. What the hell was that? was bad luck holland no that noise nothing alland continue okay so now we've got wine all over us and if things didn't get

worse we ordered our food and it took it i'll never forget it took almost an hour and a half for our food to get to the table what is that what what is that noise nothing allan continue oh you are annoying Continue, Holland. It's Friday the 13th. So then we eat our meal, and believe it or not, she gets, like, intestinal cramps immediately. Continue, Holland. What is it? Just continue, Holland. So next thing I know, we're walking out the door, she throws up right on the car.

Are you going to keep doing that stupid noise? Ohland, I'm trying to get the bad luck out of you. Oh, my God. Please continue. So she throws up... Are you going to keep doing that noise? Alan, tell us about the vomit. She throws up, and by God, if she didn't slip on her own vomit, she falls down and breaks her hip.

Okay, that's enough. Enough of the stupid noise there. That's all I'm telling you. Holland that was a real round of bad luck yeah it was and you know what's even more bad luck sitting here with you come on why don't you do the noise now harland uh dr ascot alland you're getting confused yeah i am because you're doing that stupid friday the 13th noise come on why don't you do the noise when i tell you that you're bad luck that's not gonna happen alland you're bad luck not gonna happen you are

bad luck, Dr. Ascot. Nothing. You're bad luck. Nothing. You are bad luck. It's not going to work, Holland. All right, let me try something else then. How about this?

The very notion that you got a degree in psychology is extremely bad luck. See? See, I did it. I knew it. Stop it, Holland. That you are a practicing psychologist is unbelievable. I did it again. I did it. Stop it, Arland. The fact that you even get paid is almost unfathomable. Scott. This session is over, Holland. Oh, this session's just getting started. This session is over, Alland.

Sorry, got to go. What? Where are you going? Got to get to Camp Crystal Island. Camp Crystal Island, I'm going camping for the weekend. Oh, my God. Get out of here. Would you like to come to Camp Crystal Island? Get out of here. Camp Crystal Island, wonderful cabins, and get out!

Oh, what a dillweed. I hope Jason Voorhees shares a cabin with that freak. Oh, Lund. Get out of here. Go eat a canoe or something. Oh, Lund. Get out! Oh, well, I hate to end the show on with that note.

Mental case making horror noises while I try to get through my emotional problems, Dillweed. well sorry you had to sit through that folks you know what have a good weekend be safe out there it is friday the 13th don't walk in front of any black cats or uh or is it the other way around don't let a black cat walk in front of you i don't know how you'll stop it maybe uh strap a rottweiler to your pelvis or something that'll keep the cats away um but thank you for joining us uh today i hope uh it was lucky that you you listen to the Harland Highway. Here's wishing you tons of luck.

Over the weekend, I want you all to get lucky if you know what I mean. Hello. Holland. Get out of here. All right, that's it. We are done. We will catch you next time right here on the Harland Highway. And until then, my friends, chicken chow main, baby.

Thank you.