The Tim Ferriss Show - #259: Lessons from 50,000 Interviews: Larry King and Cal Fussman

Episode Date: August 16, 2017

Cal Fussman (@calfussman) is a New York Times bestselling author and a writer-at-large for Esquire magazine, where he is best known for being a primary writer of the "What I've Learned" feature. He has transformed oral history into an art form, conducting probing interviews with a long list of icons who've shaped the last 50 years of world history. I've been trying to get Cal to do his own podcast. Rather than overthinking it, I simply asked Cal to interview a friend who I would also love to have on the podcast: Larry King. This episode is the result of that request. Larry King (@kingsthings) has been dubbed "The most remarkable talk show host on TV, ever" by TV Guide and "Master of the mic" by Time Magazine. Larry's been described as the Muhammad Ali of the broadcast interview, and he's been inducted into five of the nation's leading broadcasting halls of fame. He's the recipient of the Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism, an Emmy, the George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting, ten CableACE awards -- the list goes on. Enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at tim.blog/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Shopify. With the help of Shopify, many readers of my blog -- first-time business owners -- have ended up making millions of dollars each with their side gigs. Back in 2009, I helped create Shopify's Build a Business, which is now the world's largest entrepreneurship competition. The goal of this competition is to entice would-be entrepreneurs to get off the couch and make things happen, and all you have to do to qualify is open a store on Shopify and start selling. Top sellers in each category then have the exclusive opportunity to learn from mentors and experts like Tony Robbins, Daymond John, Seth Godin, Sir Richard Branson, and me a location like Oheka (aka Gatsby's) Castle or Necker Island. Listeners to this show can go to shopify.com/tim to sign up for a free, 30-day trial and get access to video courses that will help you get started -- including How to Quickly Start a Profitable Dropshipping Store with Corey Ferreira and some goodies from me. Check it out at shopify.com/tim today! This podcast is also brought to you by Kettle & Fire, which makes some of the best bone broth I've ever tasted. It came highly recommended by past podcast guests such as Amelia Boone and Dr. Dom D’Agostino. Kettle & Fire is the first shelf-stable (i.e. never frozen) bone broth that uses bones from 100% grass-fed, organically raised animals. They use longer cook times (20+ hours), which means more collagen and other nutrients. Visit Kettleandfire.com/tim and you can receive 20% off your entire order. ***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So check it out, tim.blog forward slash Friday. If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot and you can, of course, easily subscribe any time. So easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog forward slash Friday. And thanks for checking it out. If the spirit moves you, Tim. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is typically my job to deconstruct world-class performers

of all different types, whether they come from the worlds of chess, military, business, entertainment, sports, or otherwise. This time around, I'm doing an experiment, and I want you to support a friend of mine. And there's not much involved. You just have to listen. Cal Fussman has been on this podcast. Cal Fussman, F-U-S-S-M-A-N, Fussman, Cal Fussman on Twitter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and was the writer at large for Esquire Magazine, where he was best known for being a primary writer of the What I Learned feature. What does this mean? He has conducted interviews with icons who've shaped the last 50 to 100 years of world history. Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, the list goes on and on and on.

He did his first long form interview as the interviewee on this podcast. I interviewed him twice. He's an incredible storyteller. And I've been trying to get Cal to do his own podcast since we first did that probably a year and a half, two years ago. So this is what we did for this episode. I said, Cal, let me take the pressure off rather than overthinking the podcast. Why don't you interview a friend of yours who I would love to have on the podcast anyway, Larry King? All right. So this episode is Cal Fussman interviewing his friend, Larry King. And if you like it, I would love for you to tell Cal, you can just hit him on Twitter at Cal Fussman, F-U-S-S-M-A-N, or on his website, calfussman.com. But hit him on Twitter and let him know what you think. Encourage him to do a

podcast. My first podcast was a hell of a lot rougher than this one that he did with Larry. So Larry King, if you don't know who he is, is on Twitter at King's Things, or the website you can check out is aura.tv forward slash Larry King. Now, he has been dubbed, quote, the most remarkable talk show host on TV ever, end quote, by TV Guide and Master of the Mic by Time Magazine. He has done more than 50,000. That's right. I think I've done a lot with 260, 270 podcast interviews. He's done 50,000 interviews throughout his half century in broadcasting, including, let me try that in English, including exclusive sit-downs with every US president since Gerald Ford. Larry King live

debuted on CNN in 1985 and ran for 25 years. He's been described as the Muhammad Ali of the broadcast interview. And Larry has been induct the Muhammad Ali of the broadcast interview. And Larry has been inducted into five of the nation's leading broadcasting halls of fame and is a recipient of the Alan H. Newharth Award for Excellence in Journalism, an Emmy, the George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting, 10 Cable Ace Awards. It goes on and on. He is also the author of several books, including his autobiography, My Remarkable Journey. And I mentioned the link just a bit earlier, but he is currently the host of Larry King Now, which is produced on Aura TV. You can find that at aura.tv forward slash Larry King Now. So without further ado, here is the conversation between Cal Fussman and Larry King. And if you think Cal should do his own podcast, then tell him to not overthink it and to get started. And you can hit him up on Twitter

at Cal Fussman. And you can also check out his website at calfussman.com. So here you go. Enjoy Cal Fussman with Larry King. All right, here we go. This is Cal Fussman on his first podcast. The Fussman Factor. Can you believe that, Larry? You should name this The Fussman Factor. I'll bet no one has a podcast with a factor because bill o'reilly is out of work as you can tell my first guest is another then larry king in person 60 years 60 years on the air could you believe it cal fussman that i can believe 25 on cnn now or a dot tv in a sixth

year now already interviewed more than what 60 000 people that's the best estimate in 60 almost 61 years it could be right because i've worked a radio and did five hours of radio a night many times having multiple guests and and that was five nights a week five hours of radio a night, many times having multiple guests. And that was five nights a week, five hours of television every week. Yeah, a lot. Radio, television, racetrack interviews. I did show afternoon shows, remotes. 60,000 is about right. I've had a full career of this. So this is my first time behind the mic. Thank you, Tim Ferriss, for giving me the opportunity to guest host the podcast. Oh, this is not your podcast.

Well, it's my podcast, but Tim is being kind enough to set it off into the atmosphere. So this is kind of a Ferris wheel. Oh, man. Oh, I love that. Oh, man. He wheeled it over to Fussman. Okay, I get it. Okay, so this is my first. Let's immediately talk about your first time behind the mic. Well, it's a little backstory. I was in love with radio. As a kid, even I remember five, six years old, I would listen to the radio, imitate radio announcers.

There would be shows like A Tale Well Calculated to Keep You in Suspense. And I would, at five years old, run into the bathroom and A Tale Well Calculated, The Shadow Knows. And I was fascinated. When I was a teen, my father died when I was nine and a half. And that threw a roadblock into a lot of things. I later couldn't go to college. I had to help support my mother. But when I was a teenager, I'd go into Manhattan. We called it the city.

We lived in Brooklyn and called it Manhattan. They said, go into the city. I would visit radio shows that had studio audiences. I would watch announcers, you know, read off scripts and drop the paper down, look at microphones. And I said, boy, I want to do that. I really want to do that. I got a bunch of odd jobs after high school, one of which was for the Associated Merchandising Corporation, whose offices were at 1440 Broadway on the third floor. On the 20th floor was WOR Radio. Later, when I had a nationally syndicated show, WOR was my New York affiliate.

But I would take the elevator up to the 20th floor. And there were elevator operators then. And I would say to the elevator operator floor. And there were elevator operators then. And I was saved to the elevator operator. Lobby, please. Pretending I was an announcer. I fantasized as an announcer. I worked for the United Apostles Service.

I worked for Hearn's Department Store. And then I... So you knew this was your destiny. Yeah, well, I knew it was my my destiny I didn't know where I'd start I'm 22 years old My mother's now working I had to help support her My brother's in college

And I'm walking down the street And a friend, I forgot who it was even Introduced me to a guy named James Sermons Who was director of announcers at CBS. And I said to him, I would love to be a radio announcer. What advice do you give me? And he said, well, are you single? I said, yeah.

He said, well, try Miami. It's a big market, a lot of stations, no union. And they might have people, older people on the way out and younger people on the way up. And it might be a shot. So my uncle, my mother's sister had passed away. And my uncle, who owned a tuxedo store in New York, had retired down to Miami Beach. He had a department. And he said I could stay with him because I had no money. I took a train down to Miami. I think I had $11, $12 in my pocket. And I went to stay with him. I arrived at the train station. First thing I saw was a water fountain that said colored

and white. Two water fountains. I drank out of the colored fountain. I'd never seen a thing like that growing up in New York. Couldn't believe it. I get on a bus to go over to Miami Beach. I'm sitting in the back. The bus driver pulls over and asks me to please move up to the front. The back is for Negroes and the front is for whites. First day in Miami. Whoa.

So I said, my father's Negro. I prefer to sit in the back. I mean, it just annoyed me so much. Anyway, I went around the radio stations, and they wouldn't listen to me. I was 22 years old. So you're just knocking on doors? Yeah, no experience, have any jobs open.

WIOD was one of the first stations I went to where I later worked for 19 years. So I went to this small station on Miami Beach, WAHR. I went in, very small station. General manager was Marshall Simmons, a nice guy. And he said, look, I'll give you a voice test. And he put me into a little studio, a microphone like this. And he gave me a news analysis to read. And that's the first time

I ever... And I read it and he said, well, you have a nice voice and we have a lot of change over here. We're very small. We don't pay a lot. If you want to hang around and watch the announcers work and watch how to get the news, if an opening happens, we'll give you a shot. So I hung around for maybe three, four weeks. I stayed there day and night. I watched the announcers. I watched them rip and read.

I would go out with Sonny Hirsch when he did sports interviews. You know, I just was taking it all in. And one day, a Friday, Marshall Simmons, the general manager, called me and he says, well, Tom Bear's leaving. Tom Bear was in an unusual situation. He made $55 a week and his alimony was $60 a week. He figured out once that he could not make it on this. He used to live off coconuts,

coconuts from trees. So he says, you start Monday morning. You're on from 9 to 12 in the morning, and in the afternoon, you'll do news and sports. So you got your whole weekend to prepare for this. I went crazy. The whole weekend I had, I went back home. I came back to the radio station Saturday morning, started picking out the music I'm going to play, hung around there all Saturday, Sunday, practice, went into the little studio. Good morning, good morning, good morning, as we used to record. Les Elgort swinging down the lane. I'm so excited. Now, it's Monday morning, May 1st, 1957. I get there like six o'clock. I go on at nine. My uncle hugs me and gives me the best. It was a warm, muggy, sunny Miami Beach morning. 840 First Street, right opposite the police station.

I would visit there last year, by the way. It's another station now. But anyway, I walk in. There's a secretary who comes in at about 8 and say hello to the all-night guy and stack up my records. I'm ready to play. And then Marshall Simmons says, come into my office like quarter to 9. And I go in.

He said, well, this is your first day on the air. Best of luck to you and I said thank you what name you're going to use I said what are you talking about he says well Larry Zeiger that was my name ain't gonna work now it would work and it would now any name would go I ain't gonna but Humperdick any name name would go. So he said, Zygo won't work. It's a little too ethnic, and people won't know how to spell it, and we've got to change your name. I said, I'm going on the air in 12 minutes.

He said, yeah, well. And he had the Miami Herald open. I would later write a column for them. All these things are like miracles. And there was an ad for King's Wholesale Liquors on Washington Avenue. So he looks down at that ad? He looked at it and said, how about Larry King? I said, okay, it sounds good.

A year later, we legally changed it. And it's legally changed in AFTRA. So if you're a broadcaster, say, on an AFTRA station, even if your name is Larry King, you can't use Larry King. Because it's a branded name. Yeah, it's true. And then it becomes, when you become famous, no one could ever use it. Like, no one could be Arthur Godfrey or Jackie Gleason,

even if your name is Jackie Gleason. If you get a television show, you can't be Jackie Gleason after a station. But anyway, so now I got a new name. Now I go in. I'm about to go on the air. 9 o'clock, I start the record. I'm thinking down the lane.

I lower the record, put on a microphone, and nothing comes out. Nothing comes out of your mouth? Nothing. I bring the record back up, lower it down, bring it back up, lower it down, and I am panicked. I am sweating. I'm looking at the clock, and I literally said to myself, I can't do it. I can do a lot of things,

but I'm nervous and maybe I can't. My whole career is done. And Marshall Simmons, God rest him, kicked open the door to the control room and said, this is a communications business, damn it, communicate. He closed the door. I turned down the record, put the mic on and said, good morning. My name is Larry King. And that's the first time I've ever said that because I've just been given this name. And let me tell you, this is my first day ever on the air. And all my life life I dreamed of this when I was five years old I would imitate announcers I saw it destroy I just told you I told the radio audience that day my father died I did this and I've been there I'm

nervous I was very nervous here so please bear with me I played the record and was never nervous again and later later in life, that story, I would tell it to Arthur Godfrey, Jackie Gleason, others, and they said, well, you learned the secret of this business, which is there's no secret. Be yourself. So what I did that day, not I wasn't brilliant, I wasn't conceiving this, carried through me for 60 years, which is be yourself. Don't be afraid to ask a question. Don't be afraid to sound stupid.

What did that teach you about honesty? Not just honesty. It's, yeah, it teaches you a lot about being open and honest on the air. But of course, what you do when you do that is you bring the audience into your circumstance. And when you do that, if they like you, you win them. If they don't like you, they're not going to like you anyway. You can't make them like you. I asked Edward Bennett Williams, the great criminal defense lawyer once, what's the number one role of a criminal defense lawyer? And he said, put one juror in my client's shoes.

How would that play out? If you could put one client in your client's shoes, he'll never vote guilty. Because he would say, I would have done that. All right? So what I did that day was put the audience in my shoes. And I recommend that. I've done a book, How to Talk to Anyone at Any Time, Anywhere. I do a course.

If you're going to be your first public speech, you're scared. Get up and tell them you're scared. They would understand because they'd be scared too. Bring them into your situation. I was on the air when we had the earthquake here. I was on television, CNN, cameras bouncing around. I'm broadcasting the earthquake. We're having an earthquake.

Desks are flying. I hope we're still on. If we're still on. You know what I mean? I was in a station alone during a hurricane, and I broadcast the hurricane. For example, we were out of money. It was a cigarette machine and a candy machine.

It was just me and the engineer in the station alone. No one could get there. I broke the machine on the air. They heard you breaking into the machine? Yeah, because I told them my situation. I got no cigarettes, and I got no food. I said, you want to hear what a hurricane sounds like? We were the only station in the city, WIOD, with a generator, an emergency generator. We were the only thing on the air. You had to tune doors. So I would go outside, lean the microphone out the

window and say, here's what it sounds like. And I broadcast the I broadcast the hurricane. I just I just ate it up. This is the power of storytelling, what you're talking about. Yeah. And well, the power is I was always good at that. When I was a kid, they call me Zeke, like a short for Larry Zeiger. I was Zeke the Creek the mouthpiece. Because I would, as Herbie said,

I would go to a two-hour baseball game and come back and tell the guys about it and take two hours. In other words, I was descriptive. I always had the ability. I thought I would be a baseball announcer. I thought that was my goal, to be a sports announcer. Because I knew I could describe things well in front of me.

Do you think that that's a learned skill or is that something that you just had inside of you? I have no idea. I think you could teach certain things. You can't teach a good voice. You could probably help. I never had a voice lesson. I had laryngitis maybe once in the 60 years. I've worked, I worked sick and I had a heart attack. I was only off the air 10 days. I think one of the reasons for my longevity is the love of what I do.

In other words, I may have an unhappy day at home, things may not go right, I can't control, but when that light goes on, I control my environment. And in this, how many people get to control their environment? So when I hosted a radio show every night or a television show every day or wrote a column, I controlled the question wrote a column. I controlled the question I would ask. I controlled my environment. You know, it's interesting you say that because when I was thinking of doing the podcast, one of the things that scared me was as a writer all those years, I had control of the content.

And I can do an interview, but afterwards, I could piece it together to create the story in the best way possible. When you're doing an interview that's being, that's certainly that's live, you don't have that. Correct. And so I was going to have to give that up in order to do this. You've got to trust yourself. If you trust yourself, if you say to yourself,

I have never said to myself, can I ask this? I asked it. You know, I never doubted myself. I don't have it in social circumstances. I don't have it in life. I don't have it in social circumstances. I don't have it in life. I don't have command of situations. But I trusted myself because I loved it. If you love communicating, a lot of writers aren't good broadcasters.

Yeah, a lot of them are terrible broadcasters. Yeah, because they're used to the comfort of the control and the typewriter and the writer. If they only said to themselves, you know, I control this too. I control it. You do control it. You're controlling this podcast right now, not me, you. You know, the interesting thing,

and maybe we can set this story up together, because it reminded me of a story that Al Pacino tells that goes back to the Godfather. I know you're good friends with him, and you heard about his arc through that movie in the very beginning. They were going to throw him off. Yeah. You want to tell a little about that? And then I'll take it up to a point where he knew that the Godfather was going to be great.

And it speaks to this, what we're talking about. I'm trying to remember. I've got so many memories. So Al started, and he wasn't, I think, the top draft choice of the studio brass. They wanted Robert Redford. They went along with it. And then in the beginning, he was having a hard time grasping the part. And then I believe it was at a point where they were thinking of getting rid of him.

And he did that famous scene where he goes into the bathroom to get the gun. Get the gun to kill the cop. That's right. And he throws the gun away, which was his idea. And he had the confidence. And they kept him. That's exactly it. And so later on, the movie's proceeding.

And they're doing the scene where the godfather is going to be buried. And everybody works through the scene all day. Six o'clock, everybody's going home. They're all walking away and Al's about to leave. And he looks over and he sees Francis Ford Coppola sitting on a gravestone, weeping. And he walks over and Francis is bawling. And he says, Francis, Francis, what's wrong? Are you okay?

And Coppola says to him, they wouldn't give me another setup, meaning the brass wasn't going to pay for him to be able to shoot it again. And Al knew this guy is going to make a movie here because if you care that much and you have that kind of passion. See, now I didn't know that story. So you are telling me that story. I knew the story of they were going to throw him off until he finished that scene. I know Brando, I talked to Brando a lot about it.

I know one of the great scenes in The Godfather was totally ad-libbed by Brando. And that's the scene right before he dies. He's sitting with Michael, his son, Al, and he's an old man now. The grandson is playing. That's where he dies. He falls over playing with the grandson.

He's sitting and the waiter comes by and the scene was, do you want anything else? And they say no. He says, both say no. And he dismisses the waiter and they keep talking. The waiter comes by for the scene

and the waiter says, do you want anything else? And Brando out of nowhere says, I'll have some wine. And he looks at Al Pacino and says, lately, I drink a lot of wine. Oh, man. But it's so fit.

He's old now. He's not the mafia Don he once was. Lately, I drink a lot of wine. And that the passion that that must come from, whether you're Al seeing Coppola on the

gravestone, or whether you are in that moment and these words just come out of you. It just seems central to what makes people great. You hit it a great word, moment. And what I've tried to do the whole career is be in the moment. So I'm always in the moment. That is, if I've

interviewed Al Pacino yesterday and Barack Obama tomorrow, but I'm interviewing you today, I'm totally into you today. I'm not thinking about yesterday. And once the show is over, I never think about it. I don't listen to it. I know what I did. I don't have to listen to it. I don't have to watch it. Wow. That's what I need. Like, you won't have to listen to this podcast. You remember it. You know what you did. What are you going to listen for? Unless you want to judge it.

I don't. I never have in my life listened to myself. I know once I've done it because I know I've been in the moment. I trust. See, the word is trust. I don't trust myself off the air. And that's weird. I made so many mistakes, been in debt, many marriages. Life didn't always work out for me. Try to be a good father, sometimes was, sometimes wasn't.

But on the air, no one ever called me in, in my whole career, to say, what did you say yesterday? Well, there was one great story from back at first station in Miami. You got to tell us. This is my favorite Larry King story. Well, it's a great story. It's a true story. But management never really reamed me out. But what happened was I had just started and really I was on the air two months. I'm working nine to 12 on in the afternoons. And I'm loving every second of it. I mean, I can't wait to get there. I can't wait to be on. God, I loved it. And the general manager, Marshall Simmons, called me in and said, Al Fox, the all night guy is sick tonight. Would you do the all night show? And I said, sure. He said, well, you'll be here alone. You know, very small station.

We don't have an engineer at night. You just record the meter readings, play music and talk and you're on from midnight to six. And then you'll hang around and be on again at nine

and then get some rest. Oh boy, sure. Now I'm alone in the station. I'm playing records and I'm talking and talking to people and talking about the time and the weather and what's going on in the world because I'm living every minute of this.

And the phone rings and I pick it up and I said, WHR, and this woman's, I can tell you the truth, Cal, I can almost hear it now. This sexy woman voice says, I want you. Now, remember, I'm 22 years old. I think the pimples on my face are from Hershey bars. I'm a Jew in heat. And this girl, no one has ever said to me, I want you. And I suddenly said to myself, there are more than two benefits to being in this business.

So I said, what do you want? She says, come over. Come over to my house. I said, I'm on the air. She said, well, I get off at 6. I'll be over at 6. She said, well, I only live 10 blocks away, and I have to go to work at 6. So it's now or never.

Here's my address. Try to come over. I got this moral dilemma now. My career, my radio, but no one has ever said, I want you. So here's what the radio audience heard. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm just filling in tonight.

So I'm going to give you a particularly good time here. I'm going to play the entire Harry Belafonte at Carnegie Hall album uninterrupted. I had 23 minutes, which is all the time I needed and which is still true to this day. Anyway, I put the record on. We didn't have tapes then, which was the actual record. Zoom out to the car, drive to her house. There's the car. She described it in the driveway. I pull into the house. The light is on.

Over the door, I go in. There's a little dark room, and there's this woman in a white negligee sitting on the couch. She opens her arms. I grab her. I hold her around my cheeks against her cheek. And she's got the radio on. And I'm hearing Harry Belafonte, and he says, he's singing Jamaica Farewell. And he sings, down the way where the nights,

where the nights, where the nights. The record gets stuck. I place the girl back at the end of the couch, run out to my car, Jewish masochism. I keep the radio on all the end of the couch, run out to my car. Jewish masochism. I keep the radio on all the way driving to the station. Where are the knights? Where are the knights?

Where are the knights? I get in. All the lights are gone, flashing from people calling in. I'm totally embarrassed. I'm picking up. I'm apologizing to people. And the last caller was an older Jewish man. And I just said, WHR, good morning. And all I hear was, Vedder nights, Vedder nights, Vedder nights. I'm going

crazy with Vedder nights. And I said, gee, I'm sorry. Why didn't you just change the station? And he said, I'm an invalid. And I'm in bed and a nurse takes care of me. She leaves at night. She sets it to your station. The radio's up on the bureau. I can't reach it. I'm stuck. And I said, gee, can I do anything for you?

And he says, yeah, play Havana Gila. But I didn't get fired for that. Another thing that almost got fired, and this was, I don't know if you even know this story, Cal. I had to make a living, so I was making like $60 a week from the radio station. And I was doing it, my first thought on television, I was making $100 from that. And I was also the announcer at the dog track.

There Goes Rusty, Miami Beach dog track. It was right near Joe Stonecraft's. I used to walk in, look into Joe Stonecraft's window and say, I wonder if I could ever eat there. Anyway, I was doing three jobs. And this was a New Year's Eve. So I taped a television show, did my my radio show and did the dog track now the next morning

I'm on I think it was on that shift I was on 8 to 12 8 to 11 whatever it was so I'm dead tired and it's New Year's morning and no one at the station and there's a big it's a new station, WKAT,

and there's big window doors leading in where you could look up and see the announcer in the station. And I'm so tired, and I'm just playing music and talking, and oh, my God, please. And 9 o'clock, Don McNeil and the Breakfast Club goes on. That's a show from Chicago. It was an hour every day syndicated. Good morning, breakfast lovers, and howdy do ya?

At the 9.30 point in that show, Don McNeil would say, we'll be back in 30 seconds. This is the ABC radio network. And all I had to do was turn off that mic, turn on my mic, and say, this is WKAT, the big cat in Miami Beach, and switch that switch back on, go back to Chicago, and turn mine off.

But what I did was he said, this is the ABC radio network. And I turned him off, turned my mic on and fell asleep. Oh, man. And I'm the only one in the station and I'm snoring. Oh, man. Well, anyway, all people at home here is, right? So they panic. Somebody called the Miami Beach Police Department, and the fire department comes. They look in the window, and they see a guy slumped against the microphone.

Oh, man. And they figure, I'm dead. So they take hatchets and break their way in through the window. And as they break all the hatches in, I wake up. And you hear the fire. Now you're listening on the radio, and the firemen are going, are you okay, sir? What is it? And I go, whoa, whoa, whoa. What the hell's going on? And all of this is on the air. And I look up

and it's like a quarter to ten. I said, now back to the breakfast club. With Don McNeil. And the general manager of the station, Frank Katzentine, called me in. Did you think you were going to get fired?

I think all he said was, I know you're glib and I know you're good. We like your work, but give me any reason why I shouldn't fire you. Any reason. If it's within reason, I'll accept it because I like you. But I got to fire you by all rules of radio and ethics. I got to fire you. I got to fire. I said to him, okay, here's what I was doing.

I was attempting to check the reaction of the Miami Beach Fire and Rescue Department. How quickly can they come to an emergency? They get there pretty fast. We could have a good report on this. I'll do a little special. And he said, you son of a bitch. Get out of here. Get out of here.

But I had to pay for the window. He took out $10 a week out of my salary until the window was paid for. But those occurrences, and with the lady, nothing ever happened because management was asleep. I never got in trouble for something I said. I never cursed on the air.

I never said something that would bring me into repute. You know, I just was, I loved the radio. And then now I'm on the internet. And people curse on the internet. I've had guests say the F word. I still can't. I can't bring myself to do it because I'm so cognizant of the microphone and the old rules.

Well, first thing, are we hearing Biscuit the dog snoring? Yeah, that's fine. My dog. I'm just taking Larry's advice here. I'm just describing what's going on. Biscuit snores. You can take him and put him in another room. He don't care.

He's eight years old now. He's just an old dog. That adds to the podcast. See, here's the beauty of the podcast. That's right. Now they know Biscuit. Right. Now, in the old days, you would have been signaling the guy,

you try to get him to cut that, cut that, don't watch that, don't do that, don't do that. What the hell? Biscuit the dog. Biscuit was leery. If you heard the sound, if you didn't hear it, okay, that's what he cut for. If you did hear it, it's cute.

And Tim's got a dog, Molly, who he often has on his podcast and is always a great audience. One of the things about Tim's audience is they want to know how to be better in all aspects of life. What would you say? Let's talk a little about curiosity, about speaking, listening, empathy. You are one of the most curious people I've ever met. Is that something that is ingrained or is it something that everybody has, but somehow you never lost? Good question, Cal. That's why this, this, the Fussman Factor podcast will be a success. Truthfully, I don't know. I was always curious. I remember as an eight-year-old,

nine-year-old, I'd get on a bus and ask the bus driver, why you want to drive a bus? My curiosity was endless. So it led me into a broadcast booth that worked for me. That worked for me. My curiosity worked for me. I never got good grades in school except in things with oral projects, like English, where I could ask questions of the teacher. So I always had that curiosity and managed to find a workplace that brought it to me. I don't know the answer to that, but I could give you rules. Sure.

You know, like, which is, listen, listening is as important as what you're asking. So don't worry about your next question. Now, that's risk-taking, but don't worry about your next question. Often you see when people are in conversation, you can almost look at somebody carefully and see they're thinking about what they're going to say next. Now, that is natural. I react. You can't tell someone just starting.

So someone just starting, if it's comfortable to you to make little notes to yourself, so you have a bridge to fall back on, do it. I mean, you want to be good, but eventually get to be where you don't need those notes. Your curiosity works for you. And sometimes the simplest question is the best. Like when we had the first, the war in Kuwait, when we went into Iraq, we didn't go to Baghdad. That's a storm, right. We would have generals on every night and reporters.

And I would hear people at other stations, you know, this happened today and this happened. My first question was, what happened today? Okay, now I'm getting their perspective of what happened today. Now, based on their answer, I'll have to have another question. And I would, Whatever the answer was. Even if it was, well, today the troops advanced 10 miles into the enemy territory. Right? That's the answer.

Okay. Did that surprise you? There you go. You know what I mean? Here we go. Go right with it. Why did they do that? Do you trust the information that your superiors give you?

There's so many things. Like, I watch interviews today, they're nuts. I mean, people are terrible. Terrible. Especially after sporting events. What's the worst thing that you've seen? I see it every day. We have just seen a sporting event.

Right. A guy just got his first Major League home run to win the game. One stupid question I saw was, this was your first Major League game. It was the ninth inning. The count was two and one. And you hit that home run to right field.

And they put the mic in front of them. What's the question? There's no question. Or, second dumbest question. You got a home run and you're first at bat. What does it feel like? Now, wait a minute. What if he's going to answer terrible?

I didn't want to hit home run. I wanted a strikeout. I would go other areas like when you played Little League, what were some of your baseball dreams? and he might say to play in my first game, did you ever visualize hitting a home run? First of all, what were you thinking when you were on deck? Were your parents here? And not only these unexpected questions, but they're easily answered. Yes, my parents were here.

No, they weren't. And then, you know, feeling with them, get together, talk to them. In other words, it's a lot of how would you be in that situation, except you don't have to refer to yourself. You don't have to say I would have done. I don't use the word I. I ask questions because I'm an observer. I'm present at the creation.

I like to be there. Again, it's the moment. I like to be in the moment. Can what you do be used by anybody in their office? I would guess so. I do a course based on the book, How to Talk to Anyone at Any Time Anywhere. I've had some successful people tell me

that the book helped them in their life. It's still in print. I saw it in Norway. Yes, you can. Because in a communicating world, now the big difference today is with modern technology. Probably easier today, you could text. So people text today, which is

sad to me. So you don't need the art of phrasing. You don't need to use your voice well. What, do we lose something? You see people with their cell phones in their hands looking down.

Terrible. What do we lose when we no longer have eye contact with people? Intimacy. That's what I want in every show I do. An intimate relationship with the guest. If I can establish that, like Sinatra, I've got a letter here Sinatra wrote to me after his last television interview.

You make the camera disappear. Intimacy. Trust. If the guest will trust you, you're home. Because they know you're sincerely interested in them and therefore you could go anywhere you can go anywhere

depend how you phrase the question I feel but if you can put yourself in their shoes and get their emotion it's a good tip. Nobody thinks they're bad. Nobody. Hitler didn't comb his hair in the morning and say, I am an evil person. I am doing good for my country. I'm a joke. I'm doing good. So if you're going to interview Hitler, the stupidest first question would be, why did you invade Poland?

The best kind of first question is if I were interviewing Osama bin Laden, the stupidest first question would be, why did you kill 3,000 people on that September day in New York? I would have asked him, you grew up in the richest family in Saudi Arabia. Why'd you leave? Now, that gets him to think about what he wasn't, he didn't think about him, so why he left that day. But now... You've made him curious about himself. Right, but he also knows I'm sincerely curious about him.

I have made no judgment in that question. I don't bring an agenda. What do we want? We want to learn. All we want is information. Would you want to know the whys of Osama bin Laden? Wouldn't that help you understand when you're dealing with the Osama bin Ladens of the future?

Why do you want to know? I mean, all we want is info. I remember once I had this great guy on, Swami Satchitananda. I never forgot him. From India. And he was so calm

about everything. I mean, he was the kind of guy, I remember he said, when you wake up in the morning, when you open your eyes, did you deserve that day? Whether you believe in God or whatever, did Larry, did the Swami deserve this day? You woke up, it's a gift. You don't know where it came from.

It's a gift, the gift of life, the gift you woke up. It's a gift. You don't know where it came from. It's a gift. The gift of life. The gift you woke up. So what if it's raining? You've got the gift of the day. So what if the toast is burnt? Make more toast. You got the gift.

I said to him, Swami, what if I told you I'll pick you up tomorrow at three o'clock, take you to the airport, and I don't show? What would you do? I would call you and say, Larry, how are you? I know something terrible must have happened because you weren't there. The shoe is on your foot. Then I asked him the world's greatest question. Okay, Swami. I was being cute.

You come home, walk up into your bedroom, and your wife is in bed with another guy. And he said to me, well, what would you do? And I said, I would scream and yell. That's right, that's what everyone would do, scream and yell. The guy would run out, and the woman would be screaming in a pandemonium. But what do you want in that situation? Information. Information.

That was the best way to get it. Okay, this is very embarrassing, you two. I'm going to go down and make some tea. Why don't the both of you come down to breakfast then? Let's talk about this. Who owns that moment? You're in control. Now, that's the hardest thing to do. But basically, that's what I would do on the air.

Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? My curiosity would be there no matter what the situation. And eventually I would be asking Osama bin Laden, why did he send those people out that day in September? You know, the more you're talking, the more I'm seeing the power of control in questions. It's all control.

For most of my life in this great business, I have controlled my environment when working. And for a lot of time, when I did my national radio show, I did the first national network show, I was on from midnight to 5. I was on CNN from 9 to 10. I wrote a weekly column in USA Today. When I was writing the column, when I was on the radio for five hours, and when I was on television for the hour,

I controlled all of that. So people could actually use what you were doing to gain a better control over their own lives, even if it's not in broadcasting, just to use the questions like Swami said. Yeah. You could use it in, I, unfortunately, I don't do as well in the personal life. You know, no, everyone has their, you know, a lot of comedians are very unhappy people. Right. And they see things funny for an escape from their own reality.

So I do very well in this circumstance, sitting here talking to you. But I couldn't hang a picture well. The nail, I'd hit my thumb. I would, I'm not, I try to be a good driver, I'm not a great driver. You know what I mean? In other words, no one's perfect. Right. But in areas where you can, especially in the work environment,

where you can control something, yeah, I could teach you how to do it. What about empathy? Because that seems to be a quality that you have. You can listen to anybody, and you're making them feel. I'm not judgmental. Right. That I learned from broadcasting. What am I going to judge. I'm not judgmental. Right. That I learned from broadcasting. What am I going to judge?

I'm there to learn. Let the audience. See, the audience makes up its own mind. I'm a conduit from me to you. I learn, and through me, you learn. But I don't make a judgment call. In other words, I'm not the kind of broadcaster who argues with the guest it's just not my style i am passionate politically off the air i have my but i felt it best

as a broadcaster that my role was as a journalist was to give you more. When you sat at the end of an hour, you knew more than you did the hour before. When there's arguing, you don't learn. I don't like broadcasts where the guy just stands on a soapbox and talks for an hour. Well, there doesn't seem to be any empathy on TV anymore. No, that's gone. The day of the long-form interview is kind of gone. It's sad. Actually, it seems like the podcast is one way of trying to bring that.

That's the last venue of the long-form interview. This could not occur on television today. What you're doing right now could not occur. For a radio station, it would be rare, because today people want to eat it up, speed it up, get it out, get it out. It's a spit it out business. Get it up, get it out. Can't get it off?

Get right through it. Today, the rules are, you do an interview show today, the guest should be on tops 10 minutes. You don't want a half hour interview today. They're going to tune out because they've got 500 channels. And I think technology has added. What are we losing? Knowledge.

So we're not getting the information. And when you look at everything that's going on politically, it seems like we're not getting any depth anymore. That's why this New York Times that I have right here is my Bible. I learn more from it every day than I get from all of cable television. And they've got cameras and the New York Times doesn't. But they can write an in-depth article that continues on page 46, and I get more out of it. The sad thing is that newspapers have gone away.

That's all part of, you know, technology brings improvements, and they bring bad things too. When I spoke in Norway a couple of weeks ago, and someone was asking me about technology, here's the best and the worst thing about it. We know that somewhere in the world today, a guy is working on a cure for cancer. That's brilliant scientists.

Another guy is writing a great play. And another guy is inventing a new kind of airplane that will exceed the speed of sound. And another guy is planning how to build a nuclear weapon that you can hide in your hands and get on a plane. He's doing that too. So the guy who's curing cancer, he's going to succeed. But the guy with the little bomb is going to succeed too. So this is what you face

as we advance as a culture. We advance. Right? Remember the small grocer got overtaken. I like the small grocer. I like the guy who took the little pencil

and added it up on the paper bag and took the clipper and got the toilet paper down from the top of the rack. That's gone. The interesting thing to me, though, is that it seems like questions are becoming more important now because in this age of technology, you can Google any answer.

A six-year-old can Google any answer to any question in four seconds. But the right question? No. That six-year-old may not be able to come up with it. Ask more. Go through a day and see how many people ask questions rather than say things. My motto, my broadcast motto all my life was, I never learned anything when I was talking.

And that's interesting because you see TV, and the idea is just to talk over somebody to get your point. Now, at times you have to present. If I'm speaking, if you speak as you do, and I'm making comedy in front of a group, of course, I'm not learning anything. Right, right. But I'm entertaining. Exactly. Right, right. But I'm entertaining.

Exactly. That's different. You can entertain. If I'm telling a joke, I know the end of the joke. So I'm not learning anything, but I'm providing entertainment. If I'm making a speech, I'm not learning anything, but I'm providing knowledge. But if I'm a questioner, I never learned anything when I was talking. If I'm asking a question of you, it better be a question, not a statement, not a history lesson. Ask the question.

So many people I want to yell sometime is, what's the question? I hear what you're saying is is there like advice that you would give young people to better ask questions like I'll sit down before an interview and I'll write out maybe 200 questions I want to ask that's what works for you do it what worse right never do what doesn't work for you. So if Larry King says, don't write out questions in advance, that would be stupid for me to say. I don't do it. I can't tell you what to do. Whatever is your comfort zone. But is there something about just the foundation of, I give these speeches, change your questions, change your life, to look at questions a different way, to look at the power in them.

Step aside from where you are, look at yourself and see how a different question could change your position. Is this something that you have done or you're just constantly in the moment? I never sat down and figured it out. I'm just in the moment. I didn't do self-analysis. I'm in the moment. I just, but I know that listening is as important as asking. Listening is as important as what you ask because follow-up is,

you have to be in the moment. Is there advice? Is there ways for people to improve their listening? I guess, well, in this modern age of technology where you have instant information and where you can text people, listen is a weird word. Listen. Think about the word listen. What are you listening to today?

You're reading stuff off your little iPhone. And often people have their ears plugged to take in what they want to hear, so they're pushing away the outside. I'll tell you often how people don't listen. We could test. I did this with Jim Bishop one day in Miami. He did a column on this. When you see someone that you know or pass on the street, how you doing?

Right? Say, I've got brain cancer. How's your wife? Oh, my God. They don't listen. Yeah. How you doing? They don't want to know how you're doing.

Don't stop them. How am I doing? I'll to know how you're doing. Don't stop them. How am I doing? I'll tell you how I'm doing. The bank called me today. The second mortgage payment. You want to know how I'm doing? Sit down. I'll tell you how I'm doing.

Is there a way to break through that sort of cocktail party banter that means nothing? Now, this I don't know the answer to. I have always had people respond to me. It's worked with women. So you just get genuine, sincere responses. Yeah. And as George Burns said,

if you can fake that, you got it, babe. But I have always known in interview situations, I have always known, in interview situations, I've always known that I can get people to respond to me. So I could use humor. But they know that I really want to know what they're thinking and why they did what they did.

And people appreciate that. I don't know anybody that doesn't like to talk about what they do. Except Brando, who didn't like to talk about that. But that can be useful to anybody in any situation in the office. Of course. Just by looking into somebody and being... And being sincere and zeroing in. Right.

There's two questions you're asking the same question. Why'd you do that? Or why'd you do that? You're going to get a better answer with the second one. I was doing some reading and they say that when you take in a question, 10% is only the words, 30% is the tone of voice, what you just illustrated. Oh, tone is very important, which you don't get with your iPhone. And 60% is the body language behind that question.

Which you don't get with your iPhone. Yeah. And so I guess this is something people can work on if they want to, to learn how to better communicate. Yeah. Well, we're trying all the time how to talk to anyone anytime anywhere how to be better yet we all want to do better you're always you're always learning and you always accept the fact that you're still learning well if you're in sales you got to connect with people if you're a leader of a company you got to connect with people and basically they're they can use the same skills that you're using.

Of course. Anyone could use them. Presidents of countries can use them. I got some questions from Tim that he sent over. Okay. This is the Ferris wheel question. This is the Ferris wheel question. We've been going a long time here, Cal. All right. Didn't feel that way to me. Well, we've been over an hour.

I don't want to break it to you, Cal, but you're starting to get annoying. You know, I want to tell you, listeners, this is going to be a great podcast, but there does hit a point with the Fussman factor where he gets annoying. And we're very close to that point now. Yes, what questions do the Ferris wheel want? This is from Tim. If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why? A gigantic billboard anywhere.

Good question, Tim. Slow down! Exclamation point. Or ban all guns. There you go. I was thinking the John Wooden line when you said slow down. He said, be quick, but don't hurry. That's pretty good, A for him.

That's good. What is the book, Tim asks, you've been given most as a gift and why? I guess through life as Catcher in the Rye. I love that book. I read it at four different times in my life, teenager, later. Does it change? Yeah, I get different meaning from it. I get different reactions.

For example, my son Chance, who's 18, hated Holden Caulfield. Thought he was a pompous, pompous, spoiled brat. I never saw him that way. Didn't find him funny. That's interesting, the way kids, that perspective. That's good writing. If you can react hostilely to them. Yeah, and then 50 years from now, he may have a very different look at it.

Like, for example, you read Dickens, I like Scrooge. He wasn't a bad guy, Scrooge. Look at it this way. Crash it. He was a big complainer. He's a whiner. Come home, we've got a son, Tiny Tim. Take care of him.

Stop with the crap. Do your work. Look at this dog. Biscuit, can you name one to three books that have massively impacted your life? Well, Catcher in the Rye would be one. A Quiet Hero, The Life of Luke Gehrig. And then most of the books I'm currently reading, Richard Nixon's

biography is terrific, by John Farrell. I'm into their moment of what I'm doing now. Okay. You know, you read like six books at once. What I try to do is a novel and a

non-fiction. And I can read those two at once. But I got three going now. What's the third? I got the Richard Nixon book. And I got Alec Baldwin's memoir. Oh, you were reading the Frankel. I finished Al Franken's book.

Fantastic. Funny. On the mark, funny. And then I'm reading Shattered, the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Pretty good title. In the last five years, what new belief or behavior has most improved your life? Do you have new beliefs in the last five years? No, but the more I exist, the less I believe in something out there. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in life after death. Most people get older and they find some belief. I get older and find less. I have no, this is it.

You're just in the moment. The thing I fear the most is death. Because I can't imagine not existing. That drives me bonkers.

We were talking about this at breakfast, that we're all energy. Yeah, I don't know what you mean by that. We're all energy. That's what we are. We're energy. And so you're still going to be floating around somehow. Oh, come on.

I'm floating around. Do I know where I am? Well, you know, you're not going to know it. Yeah, well, I can't make any guarantees on that that but i have a feeling that you never go away and certainly you will be around for all of us who remember you what about memories yeah memory you'll have tapes of me i can exist but i'm not there you understand okay first one i don't exist and that bugs me they're not exist for example who's gonna be next person who's gonna win the pennant who's who's see the the why person fears death because they're not gonna know the answer the This is the one thing. You know, like I married into a family

they all believe. The Mormons, they believe. I'm going somewhere else. And I say to them, you can't lose. You're in a win-win. If you die and you go somewhere else, you were right. If you don't, you don't know it. They can't lose.

It's a good strategy. Well, my strategy, it don't work for me because I can't accept the fact. There's no heaven. You need a new strategy. There's no other plane. I'm not going to some planet. Stay here.

What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months or recent memory? Where did he come up with that question? A hundred dollars or less. I don't know. Where'd you come up with that question? That's a Ferris wheel.

That's the kind of thing. If you're stuck on a Ferris wheel, you think of things like that. Ferris. If I'm stuck at the top of a Ferris wheel first, I'm panicked. I'm Jewish. It's never going to start again.

And I'm stuck on a Ferris wheel. So you got less than $100. Less than $100. How did I spend less than $100? That what? That did what? It had a positive impact on your life. As a child, it was a yo-yo.

Because I never could master the yo-yo. It drove me crazy. And the fact that I couldn't master it drove me crazy. So I don't know why I just thought of that. Well, it would have probably been like a Dodger ticket when you were a kid. Yeah, but I... Now they're more than a hundred bucks. When I was a kid, one of the biggest thrills of my life was a ticket to Ebbetsville.

I'd go down to Montague Street and buy reserve seats when you could afford them, $1.75. Oh, and to hold those tickets and look at them. Now they don't know it's a piece of paper. You hand it in, you put it in your phone. I don't do that. When I go to the airport, I want a boarding pass and I'd like it to be thick, not paper. I don't trust going to the airport without a boarding pass. You can't get them. You can get a piece of paper. I'm very pissed. You got me very angry, Fussman.

First annoyed, now angry. Okay, how about, what advice would you give to a college senior about to enter the real world, and what advice would you give a smart, aggressive 30-year-old? You know, to a college senior, if you have a goal, don't give up. If you want to do something in life and someone can tell you you can't do it, and if you believe that, then you can't do it. If you think you can do it, you can do it. That's great. That's actually great advice.

And if you think you can't do it, you can't do it. That's great. That's actually great advice. And if you think you can't do it, you can't do it. Yeah. And if you can do it, but you think you can't, you can't. You're cooked. You've got to think you can do it. What about a 30-year-old? A 30-year-old is almost the same thing. A 30-year-old, you're at that bridge.

That's why I love athletes. Athletes' lives, careers, end when most of ours begin. So they face winning and losing. They face a final score. They face cheering that stops.

We don't have that. No one else in life has that. Most of our careers kick off around 35, 40. That's when they're done. And also they're getting paid for something that they did when they were seven years old and did it for more hours. How has a failure or apparent failure set you up for later success? You have a favorite failure? Well, you learn from loss. You learn a lot more from losing than from winning.

Well, probably the two stories you told about Jamaica Farewell and then falling asleep. I've had other failures, too. Failure in marriage. Wasn't good at it. That's because my job came first. See, again, my love for my broadcasting has hindered me in other areas. You know, because I'm driven by that.

CNN and Mutual Radio were the number one things in my life. Number one. Children were better, but I was a better worker than a father. I was a better worker than a father. I'm a better father now.

Old age has, see, but the weird thing about old age, Fussman, for the Fussman factor, is I'm 83, but I'm 17. In other words, I know I'm 83 from the pains and the little tribulations of life, but I'm 17. For example, you know what keeps me going? I wonder what I want to do when I grow up. I like being called promising. In other words, when I get a call like,

you've just been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Emmys, which I got six years ago. Lifetime Achievement. That probably can make you mad. Wonderful thrill, but at the same time, is that it? What do you mean? You mean it's over? Over?

You know, I look at my trophy room, and I have a trophy room right next door to this room it's got all the accolades over the years and the awards i go in there it's my ego room but i sit in there and i say to myself who the hell did this who the hell i look around at pictures and people with me with people. Who the hell? How the hell did I do this? You know, and it's just, you know, Bertrand Russell, the great philosopher, Nobel Prize winner, mathematician, was 95 years old.

And they had a dinner party. Someone said, Dr. Russell, you're 95. Great mathematician. Great writer. Nobel Prize. What do you know? What do you know? And he said, the only thing I know is that I don't know.

And if I had to sum up everything about human nature, about war, about life, about love, about the meaning of things, I don't know. I've had a lifetime of discovery. I've learned a lot of things. But on the basic things of life. I don't know. I don't know about women. I don't know about someone looking after me. I don't know about things up there. I don't know. I guess I'm an agnostic

but I just can't make that leap. I can't make the leap of faith. It's too big a leap. And when people have it there's a sense of envy. But at the same time, I don't mean to put them down, but a sense that they need a crutch. I don't have a crutch. Got a few more questions here from Tim. What are bad recommendations you hear

in your area of expertise? I don't know. I don't know how to answer that. I've never heard people give bad recommendations. I mean, like, you know, a bad recommendation would be, you don't need college. I think today you do. In my day, you didn't. Now you do.

The world is too competitive. What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love? Unusual habit? I have a habit of little thought habits. I try to total up words in a phrase or a sentence and then divide it to see if I get an even number. Like true love divided by two is four. There's four words in each thing. True love is four and four.

Oh, the letters. I see what you're saying. So I don't want an odd number. I want an even number. But I do that a lot in my head. You're doing it while you're asking questions? No, no, no. I try not to get distracted. Okay. Yeah, that'd be like having a calculator

going on. Yeah, no, no, no. But that's okay. That is unusual. Yeah. Well, everyone has a. But that's okay. That is unusual. Yeah. Well, everyone has a little unusual thing. For example, my pills, I take a lot of prescription pills and a lot of vitamins

and have to be in order in the closet. And when I lay them out for the next day, I have to take them out in the same order. That's a rule. Well, that's control and organization.

A lot of what we're talking about is about control. I'm very organized. And I hate, and I hate is a bad word, disorganized people annoy me. Like people who, I told my wife this morning, we're having dinner at Wolfgang's tonight. You want to come over? Come over. Greg has come. I don't know who's coming. But we're having dinner at Wolfgang's tonight. Two hours later, I said to her,

we're going at 7.30. Where are we going? Wolfgang. She said, I don't listen to details like that. You what? She doesn't know. You're in the moment. She's not in any moment.

Like, she doesn't know. She's got a plane tomorrow. She has no idea what time the plane's going. Well, I think there's a lot of people like that. I know what time my plane's going. Well, I think there's a lot of people like that. I know what time my plane's going a week from Friday. I got it. In the last five years,

this is a good question, Tim. Have you become better at saying no to distractions, invitations, etc.? No! No, he has not. Larry cannot say no. The hardest word in the English language is no, and that's where people with text can get away with it. Because it's easy to type no.

Easy to type no. Why can't you say no? I guess it's I don't like rejection, and I therefore don't like to reject others. I know it's stupid because eventually I get canceled something. Because you don't want to disappoint them initially. So five people can ask you to go out to dinner on Wednesday night. Too much in the moment. So I have to give a satisfactory answer to each and could drive you crazy.

And then works on the air. Doesn't work off the air. A lot of things that work professionally don't work off the air. Don't work off the air. What is the best or most worthwhile investment you've made? Could be in money,

time, energy. No, in my career. That's that paid off the most. The time I invested, the jobs I took, working radio, working the dog track, all those little things. I'm really getting also a sense of discipline. Yeah, in work ethic.

Right. Not in life ethic never handle money well still don't, I don't handle my own money I keep kind of a small checking account but I have accountants in Boston that do everything

I've never seen a CNN check never seen it. Don't know what it looks like. Don't know what Oratv checks look like. I keep a checking account, but I don't know what paychecks look like. When I get speeches, they go right to the Speaker's Bureau and they send it to Boston. I don't know what those check.

I know. Be nice to see what a check looks like. Okay, the last question. Finally, with the Fussman factor. We'll do an hour. Well, Fussman, we're at an hour and 35 minutes, Fussman. Okay, well. This is the world's longest podcast.

Longest first podcast. You're doing very well, Fussman. Well, thank you. When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused or you've lost your focus temporarily what do you do maybe this goes back to the Swami just look for information and maybe ever well I get lost in sports I'm like as we're doing this I'm watching a baseball game and I can do this and I know what's happening. So sports is a great thrill to me.

I feel sorry for people who aren't sports fans. You know why? When I get up in the morning, I have no idea who's going to win the games that day. None. So I have wonder and every day. Who's going to win? What's going to happen?

So you're talking and you're looking at the screen and your curiosity is at play, wondering, OK, what's happening? Well, I can't see what that guy is saying, but I know the Royals have come here with the hottest team. The Dodgers are the hottest team in baseball by far, and the Dodgers just keep winning to my amazement. They just keep winning. So I'm amazed, and I love that. I'm amazed at it.

I'm involved in it. By the way, I still remain emotionally involved in the teams I like. And so I get a lot of rewards out of being a fan of games.

You're still in the moment. Now, this is a bucket list request. I got no bucket list. I'll tell you my bucket list. It was going to be my bucket list, but go ahead. You tell me your bucket list. Every Fussman factor goes back to Fussman.

By the way, you're listening to the longest podcast ever. Fussman out to break world's records at all times. Fussman's trying to write War and Punishment. What was the longest book ever written? War and Peace. War and Peace. Crime and Punishment. Crime and Punishment.

I combined two books. There you go. I would like to do a Broadway show, a Larry King on Broadway as himself. It's like Larry King tonight, and you come and I tell my stories and take questions from the audience and an 8 o'clock curtain with the theater bill. It's the one thing.

I've done stand-up comedy. I do a comedy tour and everything, but to be on a Broadway stage, Theodore Bill. It's the one thing. I've done stand-up comedy. I do a comedy tour and everything. But to be on a Broadway stage as a theater group, that's something I would like to do. That's a bucket list. I'm not big on travel. I don't have to see the Great Wall of China. I've seen pictures. Like, we have a home in Utah.

I don't like Utah. It's boring to me. They're beautiful mountains. Okay. I saw the mountain. I want to see it again tomorrow. So that kind of wonderment I don't have. I wonder about people, but I don't wonder

a lot about places. See, if I've seen pictures of Berlin, I don't have to walk down the street in Berlin. But you, Fussman. I got to walk down the street in Berlin. You're the wanderlust guy. That's right. That's right.

It's very interesting because you have given me a lot of bucket list stuff. Really? Yes. Because I could enhance your life is a great moment to me, Fassman. Because of you. What? I now speak. Do you remember how I was when I first came to the breakfast table to help you?

Shy, Fassman. Hardly ever spoke. Fassman did not speak. And now, I want to warn you of something. Do not become a bore. Sometimes, Fassman, you can overdo it. Don't overdo it. You're not a bore, Fosman. You're a great man. I haven't overdone it yet, but it's the reason that I'm now on stage speaking to companies is because of you, because I was sitting at the breakfast table every day, listening to you speak.

And we'd go to your show at night. You'd put me off on the side of the camera. Nobody would see me. But I'm taking it all in. You've done very well. I have to say, I've watched you. You're a great speaker. I'm very proud that I played a part in it.

And I know that if I die, maybe I'll be the one that does it. Why not? There has to be a first in everything. But if I die, that I will carry on through you. That you will keep my name going and your children and my children. So I will exist in some form. As long as I'm here, that's for sure.

So let's do the last bucket list. And that is? This is my bucket list. There was a time when you were a kid and you're listening to Baseball Announcer. And then he moved on to Florida. You moved on to Florida. And then you were both working together. Same station, Red Bob.

Red Barber. And at the end of his report, he said, over to you, Larry. That was one of the great thrills of my life, still remains a thrill. Here's the guy I listened to from age 7, 8 on up. The guy who taught Vince Scully how to announce, the best baseball broadcaster I ever heard.

He had a southern accent, came from Tallahassee, Florida. And I could always hear his voice in my head. As people who grew up in Los Angeles have Scully's voice in their head. So when I was sitting there and I did my interview portion and he would do the sports news. And he said, that's the latest in sports. And when he said, my God, thing went through my head. Here's this little Jewish kid from Brooklyn with his 48-pound transistor radio, walking around on this Emerson radio to Coney Island, listening to Red Bob describe a scene. And to make that picture come alive,

Red gave me the game. When I walked into my first game at Ebbets Field, shortly after my father died, my uncle took me, Arlene's father, Bernie, took me to the Dodger game. And I walked onto that field and I saw the grass and the dirt and the white lines.

But I knew that field. Because Red gave me that field. And so then? To work with him and interview him and talk about Jackie Robinson coming into the league and what he meant to Red. Go, give me the bucket list already. Give me the bucket list.

Over to you, Larry. Now, if you will say, over to you, Cal. Oh, you want to hear Now, if you will say, over to you, Cal. Oh, you want to hear that? I want to hear, over to you, Cal. Over to you, Cal. Cal, take it. Cal, go ahead. It's your turn, Cal.

Take the ball and run with it. Over to you, Tim. Over to you, Fer to you ferris wheel boyla it's him there's another guy coming they're gonna have his own podcast sol roller coaster oh no i think that's funny hey guys this is tim again just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend?

And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that,

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