WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 930 - Peter Fonda / Andy Kindler & J. Elvis Weinstein

Episode Date: July 4, 2018

Peter Fonda is happy to be figuring things out, no matter how long it took. Childhood traumas and an emotionally distant father affected his life and career, and he finally has some missing pieces of the puzzle. Peter also talks with Marc about Easy Rider, the time he talked George Harrison down from a bad trip, and working with Christopher Plummer on the new movie Boundaries. Plus, Andy Kindler and J. Elvis Weinstein stop by to try and explain what their podcast Thought Spiral is all about. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

LOCK THE GATE! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuckocrats? What the fuckpublicans? What the fuckikins? What the fuckpublicans? It doesn't matter. I was trying to do the two sides thing on the day after Independence Day. I don't know what happened towards the end of yesterday. I'm recording this in the middle of yesterday. If the Civil War that Alex Jones prophesied came to pass, maybe everything's more in shambles than it was before. I think more than worrying about an actual civil war, it's a civil war you probably had to deal with at the barbecue. Or at the place you were hanging out. Or with somebody you're talking to. I don't know when that's going to end.

Probably never. Today on the show, I talked to Peter Fonda. And I don't want to disappoint anyone. This was before he impulsively expressed his anger on Twitter in a crass way. And it was startled and excited. The outrage machine. That happened after I talked to him, and he was on a bit of a time budget here, so we just went right into Peter Fonda land, and I jumped in. Childhood, 4th of July came to mind.

Smoke bombs, trying to get a brick of black cats. I don't know how old you are. I'm 54. Apparently, I said I was 53 talking to Paul Rudd. I'm not sure. If I was lying about my age, why would I only shave a year off? I guess I'm having mild moments of brain skid as I as i sort of um kind of like fall horizontally through time into it but uh but no i'm 54 but i just remember just like the mythical m80 man where do you get

the m80s apparently around here over where sarah the painter lives m80s are all over the place because they're fucking it's crazy over there back in my old neighborhood this neighborhood not so much not so much people are taking walks around where i live now and it's pleasant is that okay can i graduate to that can i graduate to a place where people take walks but man i just i remember seeing an m80 once but never ever getting one one time we got a brick of black cats with them all at once and it was just a cluster fuck of random explosions. You didn't know where to run. It was your own little very muted and harmless Vietnam, unless one caught you by the eye. You weren't going to catch any.

There was no enemy other than your hand lighting the fucking thing. But it was a rain of crackle. Yeah, I remember that. I remember smoke bombs. I remember snakes. I remember just hanging out in front of the house on the street you had about a two block rain back when i was a kid where you could go outside and yeah the creeps that kind of drove by there weren't many it was a

neighborhood it was suburbia setting up bike ramps on cans doing that kind of stuff. I remember one time we made a cannon. I don't remember who made it, but we made a cannon out of, back then it was tin cans, soda cans, I think four or five of them. And the bottom one, you had punched holes in the top. The rest were opened up on both sides to make sort of a cannon. And then you made a little hole on the bottom and you pop a tennis ball in and you shoot some lighter fluid into the hole on the bottom and you pop a tennis ball in and you shoot some lighter fluid into the hole on the bottom and then light it and that fucking tennis ball would shoot like 100 feet up it was the greatest thing i don't hear about them much anymore i guess i'm not really running in those circles but are there tennis ball cannons around anymore or do the cans not enable you to do

that i think it required a more durable can than an aluminum can yeah smoke bomb snakes mythical m80s the occasional black cat sparklers bottle rockets the best yeah yeah and the and the tennis ball cannon man i remember we tried to hold that thing and it blew off almost killed frankie fool i also remember playing chicken on the street and on bikes on ride bikes and for some reason i you know i stayed in it and me and frankie hit each other and it was just this monumental dumb thing you know i get you know it's like the idea that you play chicken it's exciting but you don't fucking hit each other just because no one's gonna chicken out what, dumb thing. This would be for skateboards. But, you know, that was my childhood. There is two parts to this show.

Remind me to tell you about Henry Fonda's boots. Okay? Just remind me. All right? Oh, the other thing is, I got a few emails with, I think, Paul Rudd. I said, Bob Hoskins, the British actor, the great British actor, was a British Jew. It's not clear that he was. If someone knows otherwise, please tell me, because there were certainly several volunteers

to tell me he wasn't Jewish. Not totally inappropriate. So that's good. I was going to tell you that I have Andy Kindler here. Andy Kindler and J. Elvis Weinstein, Josh Weinstein, they host the podcast Thought Spiral. They have a live taping coming up on Tuesday July 10th at the Hollywood Improv if you're interested in that and I'm always happy to see Andy and he brought a guy with him and we tried to have a conversation I have to say not tight on the

promoting of their show they might want to get that script down but always always good seeing uh uh andy and it was good to meet uh j elvis weinstein josh weinstein again i didn't remember meeting him the first time but uh here we are here we are me andy and josh why do you look so serious? Why are you guys here? What's this guy's name? J. Elvis Weinstein. J. Elvis Weinstein.

How do you get a name like that? Because I joined the guild, and there was another Josh Weinstein. So I threw the Elvis in to make my initials spelled Jew. So, Jew. That's a good story. So you write for the Simpsons? No. So that's why he has to do it.

Mystery Science Theater and Freaks and Geeks. Oh, but same universe. Yeah, nerd fodder, for sure. If you were a person who was social back in the 90s, and you were hanging around with me and my gang, you would have met Jay Elvis. Have I never met you? We've met a couple times, but only in passing.

I'm sorry. That's okay. It's the kind of meeting where the person less famous remembers. I don't know that if it was in passing and it was a long time ago that I would call myself famous. No, I knew. I knew at the time. No, you now insist that I call you famous. Well, that's it.

But I think that's reasonable at this point. Well, there's already famous Amos. He comes along with famous Mark. Boom. Boom. How funny am I in the morning? Have a cookie. You're great. Look at these three Jews here. There's three Jews. Very much. That's a whole lot of Jew. Half a minion.

Yes. You don't even, you know, the thing about it. No, actually, it's not half. We need four and a half guys. We need another Jew and a half a Jew. Isn't it nine? I think it's ten. Is it ten? Since when? Did they add one? Maybe it's nine. I don't know. It hasn't come up. So you go by J. Elvis?

I go by Josh in life, but my credit is J. Elvis. J. Elvis? J. Freaks and Geeks? Freaks and Geeks. Mystery Science Theater? Mystery Science Theater, Cinematic Time. Original Mystery Science Theater? Yeah.

With Conniff? Before Conniff. Before Conniff. Conniff replaced me. Oh, really? Yeah. Now, what are you guys doing? We do a podcast.

It's just me and him. That's it. There's no guests. There's no podcast. It's just me and him. That's it. There's no guests. There's no anything. It's called Thought Spiral, and we sit there for an hour and a half and try to make it work. Should it be called, let's see if Josh can get a word in? It's kind of that. It's kind of running alongside and just taking jabs when I can, finding the opening.

So what's it called again? Thought Spiral? Thought Spiral. Now, tell me about what does that mean? Do you pick a subject? Do you? It is, there is no prep. It is a comedic life dump.

Please tell me to use shitty mics and don't record properly. 58s. We use 58s. That's all right. That's all right. He lives three blocks away from me. So every Monday, I don't want to make it sound like we're family members, but just in the fact that to get me going in life, I go to his place once a week.

Right. It's a tradition now. But you did this before the podcast? No, no, no. This is how we socialize now. It is. It is basically our friendship on tape now, because we don't talk in between shows. So you catch up.

Yeah. He hasn't even seen my condo. You haven't seen my condo. It's like your show. When did you invite me to your condo? I know. That's the problem. I know.

Whose problem? Susan wants to invite you. I say I can't take it. Too close. We're asking for trouble. We have Marin over. We should have a dinner party. We should.

That's our new podcast. He's a very good cook. I can cook. I like that. So now, I'm not sold on it yet. Neither is any donation. Have you seen our numbers? But do you, like, for instance, how many have you done?

For instance. 60. 60 of them. Already? Yeah. So how long is it going on for a year and 10 weeks oh so this is like a hail mary pass you're yeah we're doing a live show that and that's why we really do want to appreciate it i hope you enjoyed the gift basket now we're doing

a live show no but barker was really i mean to do that when you said that you want to help your down and out friends i don't wish you would phrase it that way. Yeah, we're doing a live show. Somehow, I don't know, you said, we put up a paywall. I wanted to put up a paywall. He wouldn't let me. Why would you put up a paywall?

I know. That's my excuse of why we don't have big numbers. Because we don't have a paywall. Give me an example. I'm sorry I didn't do my homework. You want to do a little? I'll do it right now. You ready? This is a podcast.

Welcome to Thought Spiral. I'm your co-host andy kindler hi andy how are you then that's about so we go like that and then he doesn't even introduce his he doesn't come in by name uh no because we don't do it we don't even say his name so you just said i'm andy kindler it would never actually start like that as a thing so i wasn't we actually just what do you have music i know i pet his dog oh and things like that as a thing. Yeah, that's the thing. So I wasn't, we actually just started. But do you have music? No, I pet his dog. Oh. And things like that. No, there's no music.

Here's the, the overall feel is it's meant, I mean, as deliberate as it actually is, which isn't much, is my hope is that it just feels like an ongoing conversation. Sure. You know? Yeah. People who like it say it's like having lunch with us, but they just don't get to talk. Oh, I get it. Well, that is just like having lunch with Andy.

Yes, exactly. I couldn't hear what you were saying because i was coming thinking of a comeback you know because you didn't have a headset but it's a lot it's a lot of talking about uh about it i mean it's really start it's you know a lot of it is just you know trying to figure out how andy kindler gets through life oh okay so but do you do you talk about politics yeah so what i what i talk about you sound like an old jewish, you sound like an old Jewish guy. You sound like an old Jewish host trying to get some energy going. The guy who can't explain.

He's trying to help us form a pitch for ourselves. Andy, now, the thing is, really kind of what starts. Do you use a microphone? Yeah, we do, but we don't amplify it. Oh, that's very good. That's interesting. No, I was, and I think I talked to you around the same time. I had just gotten into therapy for the first time in my life.

How many years ago was that? I think almost two years. Like two years. Wow, just two years ago. Like shockingly recently. That's wild. And I got into, and I'm on Prozac. Yeah.

And so this has been, and we've been friends for a very long time. So it really is us talking. You and Josh? Jay Elvis. Yeah, Jay Elvis. Either one. Jew. Jew. Jay Elvis Weinstein. Yeah. time so it really is you and josh j elvis yeah j elvis either one jew jew j elvis weinstein yeah and so uh uh we really do get to the point where i think we have interesting discussions but uh forget about how i said the word interesting but the thing is interesting but the thing is

it's the hard in a lot of ways it's the hardest thing i've ever done and you say that when you see my stand-up yeah it's the hardest thing you've ever done? And you say that when you see my stand-up. Yeah. It's the hardest thing you've ever done? Yes. You say that this is the hardest thing you've ever done? When I started, because what you, you, and I don't want to shoot, paint up your. Yeah, whatever it is. Whatever the saying is. Whatever the saying is.

Yeah. I don't want to blow marbles into your head. You changed my, and this is true. You changed my life. And I don't know if you remember this, but when I started to listen to your podcast. Yeah. I was, I'd been watching politics I couldn't get it out of my head

and so it was driving me crazy so I loved it when you would talk about your mom and talk about so that's kind of what we're trying to do

it's your show but the guests never show up you should introduce them at the beginning and just say I guess they're not coming I guess Brad Pitt

chose not to make it should we do that my initial my initial thought was the andy kindler therapy wrap-up show oh yeah was well what are you finding with the therapy what have you learned andy that's it's been life-changing i have learned that i didn't realize that when i was young yeah i hated myself yeah and that i hated myself for a lot of my own life yeah struggling with a, trying to like myself. Right.

But trying to overcome hating myself, which was the internalization of the voice. Sure. Look, God bless my parents. I know my mom doesn't listen to this. Yeah. She's a wonderful person. But sometimes as a kid, you know. Yeah, you need a little support.

So. Need a little positive input. And the reason why I eventually, and the reason why I went was I kind of was hit rock bottom with the OCD. Oh, yeah? And I was on Twitter all the time. With the OCD, were you just like, were you walking in circles reorganizing things?

No, I was on Twitter, going to the interaction area, checking to see what people think about me. That's the whole thing is that I, as I now stop hating myself, I am now able to like accept feedback from my wife.

Yeah. You know? Without being defensive? Yeah, because she's not telling me I'm a horrible person. Yeah. She's telling me I'm a terrible person. She stopped doing that.

It's the subtext though. It's still the subtext. And he's very- Yeah, read between the lines, Andy. Now you would think, we have a similar background, but he's more, see, I see him as being a lot more well-adjusted than me. Well, yeah, because- It's a low bar.

Well, no, I feel like right out of the gate, I'm not feeling exhausted by him. See? See, he's not demanding my attention. Right. He's not challenging me to like him. Yeah, he has his own self-esteem. It's the Minnesota Jew. Oh, right. That's the special brand. The Dylan style. Right. He's not challenging me to like him. Yeah, he has his own self-esteem. It's the Minnesota Jew.

Oh, right. That's the special brand. The Dillon style. Yeah. Coen brothers. I can't tell this. You knew Dillon's mother. You did?

That's true, yeah. She was at my bar mitzvah. Nah. My grandma and Dillon's mother grew up together in northern Minnesota. Really? Yeah.

And my dad was a pledge brother of Dillon in college in Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity and tutored Bob Dillon in English. Really? Yeah. And my dad was a pledge brother of Dylan in college in Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity and tutored Bob Dylan in English. Really? Yes. Wow. Maybe your dad should get a little bit of money on the back end.

Yeah, I think he really, yeah. I don't think he did. I think he really did. I think he really did. He didn't do any of the rhyming help. Oh, no, no rhyming. He didn't teach him iambic. I think it was freshman comp.

Iambic photometer. Freshman comp, I think is what it was. Oh, really? Yeah. So was Dylan's grandmother a nice lady? She was. Beatty. Beatty Ruttman was her name by the time I knew her. it was. Oh, really? Yeah. So was Dylan's grandmother a nice lady? She was. Beatty. Beatty Ruttman was her name by the time I knew her.

It was his grandmother? His mother. His mother. My grandmother was a contemporary of my grandmother. Oh, I get it. I get it. Dylan and my dad are the same age. Oh, wow.

Now, do you live up by where the Dylan compound is or was? No, I live out here. And he... Did you grow up near it? No, I don't know where the Dylan compound was. I grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis. Oh, but that was where his mother lived? Yeah, his mother lived in-

In Minneapolis, outside of Minneapolis? Yeah, and then eventually I think she moved to Arizona. Huh. Remember when we went out for that movie? Me and you? The Jewish movie for the Coen brothers? Yes, for a simple man. For a simple man.

That's exactly- A serious man. A serious man. That's exactly what he says. That was my suburb. That movie was about my suburb, basically. I love it up there. I taped my last special in Minneapolis.

I love Minnesota. I do, too. I like the people in Minnesota. I think they're decent people. They're a good audience. They're pleasant. They're polite. It was a great place to start stand-up.

Yeah, I mean, the Jews are quiet and the Lutherans are pleasant. Yes. Yeah. It was a great place to start stand-up. It was, totally. You were a stand-up? Yeah, I still am. Now I feel like an asshole.

That's all right. Well, that's because- How am I going to know? Because he started with, no, with Louie Anderson or after Louie? Post Louie Anderson. Post Louie Anderson. I started, I was 15 and 87 when I started. 15 years old, he was doing stand-up in clubs.

Wow. So, let me ask you something. Let's go through some of the subjects that come up in a standard conversation. You do a little politics. You talk about your therapy session. Music. Do you talk about music ever? Yes.

And he's been playing. He is a musician. And I'm a musician. But I haven't brought my stuff to the actual. He has good recorded stuff. And then we talk about my original song I about like my original song i wrote uh called karen at 16 and it was just a terrible song you were 16 yeah and he wrote a song called karen yeah because she was had a crush on me i wrote when i was 14 i wrote a song called jessica i can't

believe you started guitar that early started guitar when i was like 11 oh okay but you're better than me right uh this is the kind of thing that stopped. This is another thing I learned from therapy, Mark. No, he's not. Another thing I learned from therapy, Mark, was that the reason why I didn't progress as a musician was because I hated myself. And I hated my voice. And so you can't, it's like saying I hate myself speaking comedy.

Yeah, but see, the thing is, who doesn't, like, what good Jew doesn't hate themselves because of the expectations their parents put on them? That's true. So the problem is, at some point, you've got to push through the fear out of complete necessity, and then you get to the higher ground. No, but the thing is, at some point, if you say you can't write songs, if after every song you say, you say to yourself, is this good this good do you think they'll like it that's not the way Dylan wrote you know it's like I'm not that way with comedy but I used to be that way with music so I'm learning now why right I was like the reason is why is like if

you jam with Amy and Michael once right yeah and then Michael Penn said what happened you would jamming yeah it's just I was doing like a sort of a cock-driven blues lead. And he goes, and said, what did he say? And he's like, I don't do that, or I don't do that. And he goes, oh, we could do that. He said, yeah, we could go that way. So that's the thing.

My whole thing is I wanted to be a musician, but I want people like Amy and Michael to tell me I'm great. And that's what it wouldn't. It's a pretty small audience. He's a great singer. That's great. You're making me uncomfortable, Andy uncomfortable i'm the same way with music though i mean like i was never confident you know but it wasn't so much because i hated myself i just didn't think i was good enough that's kind of yeah yeah and you know like in recent years i've practiced and i've gotten better and you know i still don't think of it

professionally but like jimmy vivino let me sit in with him you know when they do a blues night or something and it's very exciting for me and I still enjoy playing and I've sung a bit but I was terrified

I had a bad experience as a teenager singing in public it was very to me it's a very vulnerable place to be I just never thought I was good enough

but you just I put too much pressure on myself I don't think it was self-hatred and it's hard as a comic though too to be

to commit in that way, to commit to that kind of sincerity. Yeah, singing. Yeah, singing. But some people like, you know, some people like Aukerman, they can just go up there and sing. Kid Jambino? Well, he's sort of a genius, that guy.

He's something else. But, you know, like there are people that can sing without investing that right like i don't know how to sing and just be like i i everything is so visceral to me and so close to the surface that i can't just put on airs and be like you know like if i'm gonna sing i'm like oh god here we go that's that's what i mean my for me it's been that's been my lifelong battle is battling against self-consciousness so now i get to i'm now i'm at a point where i did a the a harry nielsen thing at molly malone's the other night it was like a birthday you can sing like harry nielsen well we did a song my wife my wife we did uh you're breaking my heart ah um so my wife and

i've been had a band together for like 20 years his wife is an amazing songwriter wow and you know people and we brought you know paul feig was our drummer for for years and dave gruber allen was in the band so it was a comic and it was a comic-y band uh-huh um so but now i felt like the other night we did this thing and we went up and we felt like we could just go do this thing commit to it not be pretentious but still have fun and it felt fun it was fun well that comes from doing it yeah yeah that's my whole point you don't do it is that no i could fun. Well, that comes from doing it. Yeah. Yeah. That's my whole point, Mr. Mark. You don't do it. You live in your head.

No, I could do it now. I'm ready to do it now. If I ever, I'm trying not to hate myself in my 20s because it's not a positive emotion, but it's always like when you're in the mode of, am I good enough yet? You're not probably good enough yet, but you have to, if you loved it so much,

you'd keep going. And I just found that comedy comedy was more easier well well that's to start with and it was frightening yeah I don't know what like I feel that comedy is so immediate that you know the actual time you put into like developing whatever it is you develop over the years doesn't feel the same as work right and it like you know if you have if you're driven to do comedy, it's because it's like, all right, you know, waiting to get on stage thing at the beginning is horrible.

But, you know, once you're on there, you know, here we go. That's it. I cried, though. See, he started out confident. I started out crying. Oh, I was terrified and, like, you know, compressed and angry. You cried? I cried because I was in a duo and then the first time I went on my own.

On stage? No, no, in the car. Oh, so you should have cried on stage. Yeah, I had the complete delusional confidence of being a teenager. That's great. I never was a confident teenager. Yeah. That was the thing that made me confident, though. Oh, a comic that's what i am that was your thing finding that identity

got me through the rest of high school yeah i still haven't found my identity you're so close i'm close i feel very close i wear it i mean i like i direct documentaries yeah in fact i direct you know lewis lee i'd write this i did a doc about uh acme comedy yeah really i did was there a long discussion about why he banned me for 12 years uh no but he let you but he let you back didn't he that is my class it's unbelievable like mark is mark is like me until you know on my on my deathbed which i hope they don't call it a deathbed. I go, I still feel Lewis should... He will not die until he gets through his grudge inventory. Andy, come here.

Come here. No, he apologized very nicely. Tell Gavin Poulos to go fuck himself. I've been waiting to say that my whole life. Make sure you tell him. That would be who I would tell. Really? I'm afraid of people like him.

That's his angle. Yeah. He's like a guy I think could beat me up, so that's always extra fear from me. So you never really seem to be scared about getting beaten up. I am, but at a certain point, it's sort of like I've learned to live with these things and just move through some of them. You know what I mean? Yeah. Of course, you know.

But, like, I have found that most of what you're afraid of and reacting to is something your head is making up, whether it's on purpose or reactive. It's not real. Right. And, like, you have to decide, like, is this a waste of time and energy or is it not? Yeah. Well, I've, and also I decided through therapy, this is why I say I'm the oldest Jew to enter therapy, is I learned that me feeling ashamed because I avoided like fights and maybe at three o'clock I'd start crying. Right.

You know. Before the fight? No, I wouldn't go to the other area to fight. That's the thing. But you set the fight up earlier in the day. No, I refused. The guy would torture me by that way so I thought that

you have to fight to be a man and now I realize that if I'm talking to a man if they want to punch me I don't

I don't necessarily there's nothing I can do in other words like my fear is I'm going to knock on someone's door and go please keep your noise down

or whatever and they're going to punch me but the thing is but you forget that you're a comedian and like if that ever happens like you know like if some guy goes i'm gonna kick your ass you'll be like really yeah do we have to do that now yeah yeah so you know you get out of it

well i'm a short though you guys well i don't know how tall are you i'm not a fighter yeah here i'm gonna say i'm gonna tell you something between you and me, and it'll be on the podcast soon, that I think will make you feel better. Ray Liotta. Punched you? Never been in a fight. Oh, I love to hear that. Oh, that is so great. Right?

I don't think you've been in a fight either, right? I have. Oh, you went in a couple. See, we've talked about it. But it was bad, and I wasn't good at it. You're not a scrapper. I'm not a scrapper. You got scrapped.

I got scrapped. I landed a couple, but they were very flailing. Was it just, you've only been in one? One real, with a stranger fight, yeah. Oh, wow. Was it messy? Yeah, on my end it was. How about you?

Did you ever get in a fight? Nope. Wow. It was, I was at this party, and someone, these two girls came in and went, someone come quick. And so like an asshole, I did. Wow. I was at this party, and these two girls came in and went, someone come quick. And so like an asshole, I did. Sure. And like ran outside. Wow.

And saw like two of my friends squared off against three of these other guys. So now I'm suddenly on their team. Yeah. And it's the Jew team. Yeah. Not the good team to be on in this scenario. They're trying to decide who's going in first. How are we going to do this?

And the littlest of their guys says to the biggest of their guys about me, because I was big, get him. It was over. It was his teenage shit? I was like 20, probably. And there was noises like, ah. I think that came out of me. Yeah, it's always surprising.

Surprising noises. Fear and pain. Well, Andy, I'm glad you're doing better. The podcast sounds wonderful. Wait a second. That was sarcastic. What do you mean doing better? That was really sarcastic. Was I out of the loop? No, I'm just going on doing better. The podcast sounds wonderful. Wait a second. That was sarcastic. What do you mean doing better? That was really sarcastic.

Was I out of the loop? No, I'm just going on tape. Was I in rehab? I'm following your lead. I was doing a bit on your bit. My character is the downtrodden guy. It's good. That's what you've landed on?

Yes. You're not sweating. You seem clear. I'm not sweating as much as I normally would be. Yeah, yeah. And you actually do make me very nervous. Oh, did I leave the air on? No, it's good.

Hold on. Oh, has that noise been there the whole time? This is unbelievable. You will make the same face when you're checking the temperature. It only hit the mic when you moved your head away. It did? Yeah. It's weird.

I wonder if you heard that. That'll be an experiment. Well, that's the thing people like these days is they like to hear audio recordings with the air on and they like to hear... And when and when you don't air this you can say oh sorry yeah yeah no please don't you have to please we're gonna go back so far and maron remember yeah what's happening this is still my character yeah no we you were great on maron all the energy puts all the energy uh it all goes away right when the camera's going. It's an amazing trick that Andy has.

He entertains the entire cast and crew. As soon as action happens, Andy's asleep. It's over. It's really kind of true, and I used to, that's why when I used to audition, I would go in and go, look, I can't audition well, but can I say, hey, you have a nice funny shirt on, and hey, show business joke. That's what I've always been doing and then they go you ready to read

and then well it sounds like you got it figured out yeah we do we do so what are we what are we promoting the live show

live show yeah that's on July July 10th at the Improv Lab what time 7 o'clock no guests no guests

well good luck with it thank you can I plug my doc too of course it's called I Need You To Kill it's about stand up in Asia and it's available on Amazon Prime No guests. No guests. Well, good luck with it. Thank you. Can I plug my doc, too? Of course. It's called I Need You to Kill. It's about stand-up in Asia, and it's available on Amazon Prime. That sounds interesting. It is.

Tom Segura. I love Tom Segura. So, he did stand-up in Asia? Yeah. Oh, and you went with him? I went with him and two others, yeah. And Louis Lee. And who?

And Louis Lee, which is what I was... He was there, too? Yeah. Why? Was he producing it? Because he was there too yeah why was he because he put together the tour and he ultimately produced the movie yeah huh so that's why you're kind of backing off of any negative things about no i've known lewis i've known lewis since i was 16 years old i've known him since lewis used to pour me scotch in a coffee cup when he was a bartender you can't different different liquor license le whole different club. Lewis had to fire me the first time I met him.

I don't know what that did to him. Because I couldn't follow the middle. Oh, no. I don't know what I did to upset him, but we're good. No, everything's good now. Yeah, we apologize. I've worked with him. I always never had anything against him, never understood why.

There's never a reason been given. Probably had something to do with the waitress, but we're good. Very gracious man. And that said, I'm doing that to... I know you're wrapping up a thing that's a different type of show. I'm wrapping up a thing where I'm overcompensating. No, no, he's great.

Could not have been... It's like the senator from Nevada in Godfather 2. The Corleone family's a great family. They've done nothing but good things. Louis Lee, that's what show business should be more like.

All right, all right. We'll have fun at the thing. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Okay, so that was good. That was Andy. That was Josh. Thought Spiral

has a live taping coming up on Tuesday, July 10th at Hollywood Improv if you want to go. So, Peter Fonda. Second time I've met him. I met him many years ago on a live taping of the Alex Bennett Show. And I was very excited to meet him because he's fucking Peter Fonda. And because he may be remembered and mostly known for one thing, but it was a pretty fucking amazing thing.

Easy Rider was a pretty fucking amazing thing. Easy Rider was a pretty fucking amazing thing. And before I even knew what the movie was. Or knew anything about it. Back in 1969, 1970, 1971. I lived in 1204 Dakota. Albuquerque, New Mexico. In a shag carpeted basement. Me and my brother.

And on that wall. Because I always was. i don't know how it trickled down to me but i was a avid reader of mad magazine and i i must have been looking around because it was the time 69 70 71 i was seven years old eight years old but for some reason my mother and father being the blissfully selfish and and relatively permissive i would say very permissive parents they were maybe they just didn't get down to the basement much but i had a picture of dennis hopper uh throwing the bird and uh you know i had a picture of the three of them fonda hopper and nicholson that and i had a mini bike and i had that american flag helmet that fonda had

i had another poster i had the horoscope sexual positions. I'm not lying. And I was that age. And they let me have that. Don't arrest my parents. There's a statute of limitations on that shit. But it was a blacklight poster. I did not have a blacklight.

Does that comfort you in any way? But Fonda is Fonda. And he was very reflective about his childhood in this conversation. And again, this was before he kind of went crazy on Twitter in his anger and his reaction to the policies at the border. And if you're a right winger listening to this because you want to hate buzz or if you're listening because you want to dredge up some clickbait about it. or if you're listening because you want to dredge up some clickbait about it, I'm sorry to disappoint you. It ain't here unless you want to talk about Peter working through childhood trauma and some probably well-worn Easy Rider tidbit.

So I think there is a new one here about a beef him and Hopper had. So this is me, Peter Fonda, talking here in the new garage. It was a tight talk. He had to be somewhere. He didn't seem to care, but his publicists were very explicit about him getting out of here inside an hour. The movie that he's in is called Boundaries,

which is in theaters now. And here, oh, the cowboy boots. Well, I did a movie with Lynn Shelton down in Alabama and my character wore these brown cowboy boots, just classic lizard cowboy boots. And I was able to take them, and I have them. And in my mind, I thought, well, maybe I can wear these. Maybe there will come a time.

I definitely wore cowboy boots in my past. Years I've wore black cowboy boots. I don't know what years they were, but I remember wearing them out to where the seams broke. So there was a time where that was okay. Black cowboy boots, Levi's, you know the scene. Maybe a western belt. It was probably in college. It wasn't the tacky style.

I was going for the rock and roll style. But nonetheless, I'm meditating on whether or not I can wear these new brown lizard skin cowboy boots I got. And that's just in the back of my head. And then the car pulls up with Peter Fonda in it. The back door opens and out of that back door comes the exact boots that I got. And it was then I realized maybe it's not time. Maybe that time hasn't come. You know, of course, Peter Fonda can wear cowboy boots.

What else is he going to wear? But maybe it's not time for me to reintroduce them into my wardrobe because they do imply certain things that you either always wear cowboy boots or because you're not a cowboy or that it's just not time. It's just not time. This is me and Peter Fonda. So, nice to see you. Thanks for coming. Oh, yeah. It's my pleasure.

I think this is my first podcast. Is it the first? How about that? Yeah, right. It doesn't feel that unusual, does it? I think I met you. It's just a little cooler. Yeah. I met you once. Oh, you know you once where oh you know what i remember

what it was you'll never remember but i remember back in san francisco i don't know what you were plugging but it was a radio show alex bennett show in the morning a live radio show i i wouldn't expect you to remember but you had a nice leather jacket on i remember uh complimenting the leather jacket i don't know what it when it would have. It probably would have been in the early 90s. Yeah, it could have been like 96? Maybe. 97? I don't know.

I think 97 when I was promoting Ulysses Gold. Yeah, man. That was a big thing. Yeah. That was like, he's back. You know what? I never left. I know.

I know that. They love to say, he's back. Yeah, well, I never left. I know. I know that. They love to say he's back. Yeah, well, I did. I was living on my own sailboat. It was an 82-foot, 20-foot beam for so many years sailing around the Pacific. Really? Oh, yeah. And of course, don't you know, everybody said, oh, he's just stunned out of his head out

there sailing around. No. And you don't pull over and park at night. That's right. So you can't be still under your head. Right. You have to grab, now we have GPS systems. You have to grab the section.

I'm a celestial navigator. Oh, yeah. You know, go ahead and make the shot on the moving deck of the boat. Yeah. You can't be still. You can't be still, yeah. Well, I mean, but I mean, we've seen that being out on the ocean is enough.

I mean, why would you need to be high on top of that? Oh, yeah. That's the trip. You bet. When did you start doing that? Well, I began sailing a little boat when i was 11 oh so it was in the family it was something you always did yeah my dad was in the navy yeah and so i had this little it was called a cat boat it had a marconi rig which is you know it doesn't have the gaff. Yeah. And it was like 14 feet long, 13 and a half feet long. Yeah. And this was off the North shore of Long Island,

a place called Lloyd Neck. And I'd sail out there and you really learned how to get as close as you could on the wind with a very difficult boat. Right. With no jib. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Main miss is just way up forward. So you get a sense of it. Right. With no jib. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That main miss is just way up forward. So you get a sense of it. Yeah, you learn a lot about making way and not being able to get very close on the wind. Yeah. So that's how I started there. And you loved it.

I loved it. I got a sailfish. Yeah. And then we went over to the Mediterranean, and my father had it shipped over. Only problem was the French people wanted me to put a French flag on it because it was an American hull. This is a bloody sailfish. It's like a surfboard with a sail. What do you mean I need a flag on it?

Holy moly. Was that a problem? Was it an international incident? No. I mean, I just ignored them. Did you live over there for a while with your family? Yeah, my father, my second stepmother, and my- How many were there?

Jane, five. Five stepmothers? No, no. Four. Three stepmothers for me. Yeah. But he was married five times. Oh, yeah.

And you and Jane and the second stepmother were in the Mediterranean in France? The second stepmother, yeah. Yeah. It was in France, though? It was in France. It was Cap Ferrat, which, I mean, Picasso had a villa out the end. Oh, yeah? And there was a Swedish summer school there with all these Swedish kids, including Carl Gustaf, who is now king of Sweden.

Oh, he was there, huh? Oh, yeah, absolutely. He was the kid. And you were going to school there? I was. No, he was. I was just trying to figure out how to keep my head above water in this mad family. Yeah. But we would invite all the kids down to the villa where we were staying because my dad

would be gone with my second stepmothers, and that was very good. Yeah. It was good when he was gone? We had these kids from the Swedish summer school. They were there, and a couple of good-looking gals, and Carl Gustav. Yeah. He must have been 15. Yeah.

I was 17. Yeah. And at one point, there's this image coming through the hedge. It's Greta Garbo. Really? Now, Gustav is not, no. Yeah. Carl Gustav has no idea that this is Greta.

Yeah. She's got a bathing cap on and a big terrycloth robe. Yeah. And she walked straight over, said, I'm going to go swimming now. I said, yes, it's perfectly fine. And she just took off the tray cloth totally naked. No. Yeah, absolutely.

By that time, when she talked to me, Carl Gustav realized it was Greta Garbo. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Jaw dropped, and she got in, did 50 laps, got out, put her back, and went back. She was coming from John Gilbert'sbert's uh a villa oh no kidding oh there was some amazing stuff happened and that gives me something that i could talk about in a good way yeah there was a lot of real bad shit that was going down in terms of your family oh yeah yeah but uh what was it the old man was this an abusive dude uh no not really his um i think he was extraordinarily shy, and he had a difficult time expressing love.

Oh, yeah. In the sense that he became uncomfortable when he felt that he had to put on some demand. He had to respond to some demand, and that wasn't really what was happening. Yeah. on to some demand. And that wasn't really what was happening. But regardless of how tough things were in different times, I'll tell you what, I grew up the first eight years of my life, I knew nothing about race or color. I had no idea.

First African-American I saw was Nat King Cole. So he's the first black man I seen. At your house? At my house. We had 12 acres out on Tiger Tail, just out in Brentwood, but up in the hills. And they had some parties that would come up there. Sure. And one of them was this guy.

I'd never seen him before. I'd never seen a black man before i thought remarkable looking guy and then he smiled he was and he was just around with everybody else sure he was a guest yeah but he sat down at the piano yeah and began to play and it was beautiful i had to take piano lessons looking at'm looking at, I'm so left-handed, and I'm looking at 88 keys of right-handedness. But this guy, he's doing, he's smiling up at me. His smile is just an explosion of teeth and white. And I was staring at him, and he said, do you play?

I said, well, they make me take lessons. And he got very serious. He said, you know, never look at playing an instrument like somebody's making you play it yeah you got to think you want to play it i said well sir uh i'm very left-handed there's a piece of right-handedness he looked at me he said watch this he crossed his hand over he plays cow cow boogie yeah and then he taught me how to play cow cow because boogie woogie uh up here it's going ching, ching, ching, ching, ching. Down there is the run is down in here.

The porting stops on the left hand. Yeah. Yeah, right. The whole thing is on the left hand. I felt like such a fool. And I only know it. It was boogie, woogie. And not, you know, Mary Z.

Dotes and old Z. Dotes and little E. Dotes. Yeah, right. So that's a great lesson to learn. Well, I did tell him a little bit later that the first piano recital I had to do, the song I was playing was Ladybug, Ladybug. Yeah.

And so as I was playing it, I wasn't singing. Yeah. But I was singing Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire. Your children were burned. Whoa. That's terrible. And in a sheer terror, I ran from the stage right that's a little

resounding five years older so your mind well yeah yeah fucking disturbing like rock-a-bye baby in the treetop yeah yeah when the wind blows the trade will rock yeah the kid's gonna when the bell breaks yeah incredible fall now i'm just whoa i you know what i don't like this idea of falling breaking i have too heavy man yeah too heavy oh man well i'm glad to know that your dad was shy because i got i don't know the whole history of of your family but like there's that and what fucking movie was that he did with charles bronson the one at the end where he sticks the harmonica in his mouth i can't remember but it was like he had this look in his eye. He was the heavy.

Your old man was. His name was Frank. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking just terrifying. And I'm like, oh, man, I hope that's not what they had to grow up with. No. You saw it sometimes.

Well, yeah. I remember, you know, there were lots of famous people that were around all the time. Jimmy Stewart, you know, is his dear friend and had been for such a long time. John Wayne. Yeah. Ward Bond. Randolph Scott. Some good people in Westerns and other times.

One morning, I remember coming down for breakfast, and there was Ward Bond and John Wayne. Yeah, hanging out. And we're having breakfast. We all get in. The Duke had a Cadillac, a four-door Cadillac convertible. It was a cream-colored car with red leather seats. Yeah.

Years later, I reminded him of it. He said, my God, you remember that? I said, oh, yeah. And I remember this and remember that. And they were finishing a film called Ford Apache. Oh, yeah. Which was a John Ford film, and it was Ford's version of Custer's last stand.

Yeah, yeah. And my dad was Custer, but he was called Colonel Thursday. Uh-huh. So when people say, what was it like growing up with your father? I said, did you ever see Ford Apache? Colonel Thursday? That's what it was like.

Because he plays this ramrod, terrible person. He deserves to get killed in the end. Yeah, man. I can't, like, it's like he must be. But you know what? Yeah. That one lesson, no bigotry, no racism, I didn't know. I had no idea.

Sure. So you're, so. Yeah, there was. Yeah. I had no idea. Sure. So you, so. Yeah, there was somebody very different in that King Cole. Right. But he was a person. Sure. Yeah. So you didn't learn it.

In other words. I learned nothing to hate. Right. So the, the, being a sort of a insulated in a kind of Hollywood world, you weren't given any hate. Never got it. Yeah. That's nice.

you weren't given any hate. Never got it. Yeah, it's nice. You know, and we weren't that insulated in a way. We would see different people come in. They were all people. Yeah. To me, Pedro the gardener.

Sure. He spoke a different language. I tried to learn to talk with him, but he could speak English too. I had no idea that he was Mexican. Right. He just spoke differently. Yeah. We all look alike.

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's good when you're a kid and you can hold on to that mind. You know what I mean? And we had a Japanese maid and we hid her during the war so she didn't have to go to detention camp. Oh, yeah?

Yeah. And of course, I didn't know anything about that from I was one and a half when I went to war. When my dad went to war and I was three years old. And then he was in the Pacific as a sailor. Yeah. He was already an actor, really? Went to war. My dad went to war when I was three years old. And then he was in the Pacific as a sailor.

Yeah. He was already an actor, right? Oh, yeah. He had been an actor and was very successful. We had 12 acres of land up in Brentwood. Yeah. He'd been around a long time, right? Did those-

We say at those times during the war, they were called victory gardens. Yeah. Everybody was encouraged to grow some food for themselves. Right. We had a truck farm. I mean, there was every vegetable you could imagine. And my dad made all the dirt through composting. So I thought his job, I had no idea what he was doing.

I thought his job was making the best dirt in the greater LA area. And it was really good dirt because we had great veggies. Right, right, yeah. So do you live here? Do you have a house here? Do you have a place? I have. I'm out.

I call it in the wilderness. I'm on the west side. I look down and see the back of the Getty Villa. Oh, yeah. And then out and see the ocean and the Palisades. Oh, that's beautiful. The place called Castle and Mary. Oh, that's nice.

So you don't have the place in Montana anymore? No. No? No, I decided, you know, what I say is I don't want to see the mountains anymore. Right. I don't want to see snow. I don't want to try

to blow snow out of a quarter mile long drift that's 10 feet high in the center. Nothing more than that. I don't want to see the wind bringing dust

through the logs of my house. Yeah. I don't want to wet a fly on the Yellowstone River. Yeah. I don't want to, however,

if there's film and the camera and money at the bank, what time do you want me there? Right. I'll fly. Very practical about that part. So when you grew up here, though, like at what point, because I've talked to guys, because you talk about your dad's friends, but you had a whole crew, too, from the late 60s and 70s that were equally as kind of important in the big spectrum of show business and movies and counterculture. And a lot of those guys, they're going away too now.

Oh, yeah. Well, that's the thing about getting older. You lose more friends. I know. It's so sad, right? But in a way, I know it's coming. Right. We all know it's coming.

People say to me, oh, how are you today? I'm alive. And they think I'm being cynical. Right, right. No, the alternative sucks. Yeah. I'm alive. Yeah. And they think I'm being cynical. Right, right. No, the alternative sucks. Yeah, I'm on the right side of the grass. But. Yeah.

Although it's inevitable. Yeah. At this moment, unacceptable. Right. So we keep trucking. That's right. That's true. So if the drive-by hits me and I'm out, it's been a hell of a ride, man.

Right. It has been, right? Yeah, you bet. hell of a ride man right it has been right you bet but but uh like i try to get a sense of what what what's interesting about hollywood and about show business is that you know when your dad was around it was it was just a it was like what three four studios and then when you like started coming up it wasn't much bigger just a new generation of people but it was still a small town kind of thing wasn't it yeah it was and it must have been like a like everyone i feel like there was a real community and everyone kind of knew each other everyone knew it was up and in the 60s in the late 60s like you must have felt that um like when things

started to shift because you did a couple of straight up what were your first movies uh tammy and the doctor yeah and then theors, a war is hell movie. Yeah. But it was like, those are straight up studio movies. Kind of. Yeah. Universal and Columbia. Right.

And then like, I mean, so you were just at that pivotal point where shit started to break apart, right? You felt it. Well, shit actually started breaking apart when I was six years old, but we don't want to get into it. Sure. We can get into it. I know. we don't want to get into it. Sure, we can get into it. No, you don't want to.

I promise you. In 2004, I found out the name of what was fucking me up. Yeah? What? Post-traumatic stress disorder. Really? I had no name to why I was so fucked up. Really?

Yeah. And what's that track to? Like, from what? Well, it starts yeah oh man it starts when i was thrown out of a barn window and fell 18 feet to the ground a hard packed ground on my chin and broke my neck i didn't know i'd broken it until 85 when i broke it the second time really yep who threw you out of it? The older boys who were jealous because I was Henry Fonda's son.

I mean, that's how I was described. Yeah. I had no idea who he was, so that was hard identity to live up to, whatever. You didn't have a sense of how big he was or what he did, really? No, I knew that he made movies, and I just didn't know how that worked.

He never talked about it. He never talked about his job. We knew that he had friends and they were all making movies, but we weren't sure what movies were. You have to remember, until 1940, basically I was born then, and those first years of my life, there was war. Yeah, right. And rationing and all that.

Yeah. So we had only a couple of friends that we could visit with. Right. Leland Hayward's three children. He married Margaret Sullivan, who was my dad's first wife. This gets really weird. And they had three kids, so they were like our best friends. We were either at their house

or they were at our house. Yeah, he stayed friends with her all that time. Yeah, and Leland had been his agent. Leland sold his agent's list to Lou Wasserman and Jill Stein. At MCA? When they came out from Chicago. Yeah.

And that was a bunch of incredible actors. So, Wasserman was an agent before he was the head of... He was in music, but it was all about music preparation stuff. Yeah, yeah. And they decided where they wanted to be. He was in Los Angeles, and they wanted to make movies. You know, I'm glad they did. Yeah.

So, those were your peers. Those were the people that were hanging around. And then they threw you out of a barn. Well, I was sent away to school. Yeah. I was almost 10 pounds when I was born. Big boy. And I was in New York for eight and a half weeks.

Yeah. Now, there was nothing wrong with me. I was a 10-pound baby boy. Yeah. But my father, when he heard about it, was hooping and hollering around the set of whatever movie he was making. And I probably would know, but I just prefer not to know. I don't know what to say. Saying, oh, boy, I've got a fullback for a son.

Right. Well, I was 10 years old. I was almost 10 pounds still. So I flunked that one right out the gate. No fullback. No, they wanted me to become more of a man a man i mean shit i was six yeah can't you let me be six yeah no they packed me off to this boarding school up in tobango canyon uh-huh in 1946 and uh yeah not too far from home uh for me it was like the other side of the world well you, you were living in New York then? No, I was living here.

But it was still. And we lived in this beautiful low top, a lot of sun, big fields, orchards and stuff, veggies, as I've told you, and just great. To this little school up in Topanga, which was really weird to me. I was wondering, why are we living like this? Yeah. To the floors. Was it like an outward bound kind of thing? Was it supposed to toughen you up?

Was that kind of school? Well, that's where they sent it to toughen me up, but it was just a school where people in the industry or famous people dropped their kids. Oh, yeah. And that's where you got hurt? Yeah. And that's where you tracked the post-traumatic stress too that's the beginning yeah uh it was compounded yeah uh later that very year in 46 was a hell of a bad year for this boy yeah um at any rate let me just say that uh i was i flew back east with my mother. Yeah.

And I thought, oh, I'm going to go to a hotel. I've never been in a hotel at school. And I'm looking at this taxi cab far out. I don't know. Yeah, right. What do I know? Yeah. And later I would find out there are people in hotels who come out and get your bags and help you.

Sure, yeah. But my mother had her little case, and I had my little small case and a teddy bear. Yeah. And I'm wondering, wow, you know, all this brick is this far out. Right. And I walked up these stairs, and then I flattened up more stairs into this.

Is this the lobby? Right. I know nothing. Yeah. It was just all these incredible floors. And my mother said, and as I'm telling the story, I can actually see her in a black dress, black hat, and a wide mesh veil.

It was just kind of the thing then. And she said, you stay right here. Someone will come and get you. And I watched her go click, click, click her heels. I could hear them hitting the floor as she walked away. And I didn't know. I said, somebody's's gonna find me here yeah well i've got my bag in my teddy bear what the hell and somebody finally came along right

this way i got an elevator i've been in elevators before sure they took me into my hotel room which was a funny green paint on it it had a bed with this metal table that swung over the bed and i remembered the table when i lost my tonsils. I was three years old when they took my tonsils. Yeah. So far out. You didn't know you were in a hospital. No.

I remember this kind of bed. Why were you there? Because I was so skinny, they thought that I had a tapeworm. Uh-huh. So all you have to do is to put two and two here together and figure, how are they going to figure out if I have and two here together and figure how are they going to figure out if i have it sure where are they going to go looking they're going to go digging around where yeah in your ass there you go and so i was mechanically raped when i was six years old

in john hopkins hospital fortunately those guys are all dead now otherwise i would be a known murderer i would go and shoot those those bitches i tell you that was Well, yeah. They didn't give me a shot of anything. I'd remember. See, I'm into the details, which really drives my family nuts. You hold on to it. I don't hold on to it. It's just there. Yeah.

I mean, I wish I weren't holding on to it. Yeah. So it was 2004. I figured out, oh. No, it was actually a psychiatrist who said, well, don't you know what's going on? And I said, no, I really don't know what's going on. I'm really fucked up.

And she said, here's what it is. You had all these things happen. Your mother died when you were 10. Blah, blah, blah, and went on and on. Oh, she did? When you were 10? That's big. Yeah.

She died of a suicide, but I didn't know it then. I wouldn't find out about that until I was 15 the first time, then 20 where she died, and then 25 how she died. So every bit, every time I was being slammed. Again. Yeah, because there was no word. She died, and her name was never mentioned again in the house. Right, because your old man just shut it out?

Yep. Yeah. And, you know, so that messed up a lot of shit in my life. And other things, you know. Sure. Hey, I'm very fortunate to be here. I've dodged so many bullets. Yeah.

When I was a month shy of my 11th birthday on January 9th, 1951. It was a Sunday. Yeah. And I was going trap shooting with two other young boys my age, Tony Avery and Reed Armstrong. And it was on the Kresge Estate in New York. So we went from Greenwich, Connecticut over to the Kresge Estate. And Reed Armstrong had brought this little pistol with a little 25 caliber you know single

shot break open and uh so we wanted to shoot it and i didn't and i didn't understand the pistol thing i understand rivals and shotguns so i put the shell in and you're supposed to the opening to eject the last the spent cartridge yeah and then you put the new one that's cocking the gun so instead of doing it smoothly, keeping a hand on the barrel and hand on the handle, the pistol grip, I just slapped the barrel to go up.

Yeah. It did spun in my hands and blew off right into, it blew off the tip of my liver to the top of my stomach. Oh, God. And center punched my left kidney. Jesus, man.

So basically, I died three times on that operating table, lost too much blood, my heart stopped. Ah, man. So basically, I died three times on that operating table, lost too much blood, my heart stopped. Ah, fuck. And it's a wonder, timing.

Yeah. I went and met the doctor. Yeah. Later, when I was 21, I went up and drove up to see him. Uh-huh. And his name was

Charles Clark Sweet. Yeah. And Dr. Sweet had told me that they saw this blood and they didn't understand about the tip of my liver being blown off. And they just thought maybe my aorta, my abdominal aorta was hit or my heart. Because when they were looking through to try to trace the bullet, the bullet was stuck on the end of my skin, on my back.

It had to be cut out. it was just lying flat on it and as they were trying to trace the shot the heart there it was the heart and the abdominal aorta kept coming in because the heart's a mup it's a muscle that pumps yeah it contracts yeah contracts yeah so. Contracts. Yeah. So the bullet hit my ribcage. This is told to me, I mean, I didn't know, right? Yeah.

Charles Clark Sweet told me. It hit my ribcage and started tumbling. Uh-huh. So the heart was just that part of the ventricle that was contracting.

Contracting. Yeah. Bringing everything, lifting the aorta up. Yeah. And the bullet went flipping by. That's called timing.

Yeah. Now, when does that really play? Yeah, that played pretty heavy. Yeah, right. lifting the aorta up in the boat it went flipping by that's called timing yeah now when does that really play yeah that played pretty heavy yeah right but here's the here's how I get out yeah right

in 1965 David Crosby called me I was just come on over we're going to oversee the Beatles and we're up on Bennett Canyon

right I said cool yeah man do you want me to bring anything? He said, no, no, I'm bringing it. No, David had the best of everything, right? So I drove up. I had an EJAG.

I thought, well, I'll come in that British racing green. Is it your car? Yeah. I pulled in. I knew the password. Yeah. I mean, the hills were alive with the kids. I bet.

It was pretty frightening. But we took acid. So you go to Crosby's house and you take acid? No, we go to the house the Beatles had rented. Oh, wow. How long were they here? Not long. I'm only tracking that day and a half.

That day or two? Yeah. Yeah. So you go there. So we go there and then it's announced that we're going to take acid. Yeah. I said, oh. The good shit.

The good shit. The Owsley shit. No, that was much better than that. Oh, to take acid. I said, oh. The good shit. The good shit. The Owsley shit. No, that was not much better than that. Oh, really? Absolutely. Straight out of Sandhouse. Where? Sandhouse.

Oh, yeah, really? Oh, the pharmaceutical. Absolutely. And that was Crosby's? He had that? Yeah, but he'd gotten it from me. You were the source. I just, I got there, right?

You knew the guy. Yeah, and you know, it's the old dropper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The sugar cube. Yeah, yeah. You could actually put it in the palm of your hand and wait 45 minutes and you'd blast off. At any rate, we've all done this deed, and I'm looking at everybody sitting at this big lunch thing, and they shouldn't be doing that. Yeah, yeah.

But that's kind of a judgment I'm not going to call. Yeah. And finally, Crosby came and found me. Yeah. For some reason, he said, Fonda, you got to go talk to George. Oh, no, is he truly losing it? Well, he thinks he's dying. I said, well, Cros, that's what this drug is all about.

You know, and your brain's trying to stop the effect. Right. But actually, you're cutting loose. Yeah, man. You're going to go on a freewheeling little tour of your brain. Handle it. Yeah. Handle it. Right. But actually, you're cutting loose. Yeah, man. You're going to go on a freewheeling little tour of your brain. Handle it. Yeah. Handle it.

Yeah. So I went down to talk to George. Yeah. George was sitting with John at his table in an outside area. We were disregarding

the screaming kids. I said, we've got to prove that we're here and they're not. Right. So I went down. I think because I was

the oldest guy there, right? That's why I'm sent on this journey of to Manzanar with George. Go take care of George. He's flipping out. He's flipping. And I went down and I said, George, you know, when you take this drug,

what happens is it's all cutting loose and your brain doesn't want that. So your brain's hanging on and telling you, I'm dying to make you stop. But don't do that. your brain's hanging on and telling you i'm dying to make you stop yeah but don't do that just take breaths just relax look george i know what it's like to be dead yeah believe me yeah i've i've died my heart has stopped yeah three times so lost too much blood yeah and and i'll tell you it's just really cool there's nothing i know there's no light there's no tunnel there's no people right it's just tunnel. There's no people. It's just nothing.

And it's really nice. And I'm here to tell you about it. So just let it go because I know what it's like to be dead. All right. You know, I mean, when I was a boy, in my life, things were basically all right. But, you know, everything was right. But this was a mistake. It was an accident.

Although my family thought I tried to commit suicide, George, I hadn't. It was a stupid, stupid accident for a little boy. I mean, everything was, I was just a little boy, but everything was all right. And Lennon looked at me. He said, what the fuck do you mean? Who put all that shit in your head? You know, i know what it's like to be dead you're making me feel like i've never been born i looked at him

they're far out and i let it go and the next year out comes revolver with she said i know what it's like to be oh there you go i know what's like to be sad and you're making me feel like i never when i was a boy everything was right so to be part of a beatle song man man you landed right i mean yeah that's that's pretty amazing but you know you also directed easy rider so well i know i hired hopper to direct yeah and that part that i hired him is what really pissed him off he thought he should have hired me but you wrote it right yeah yeah yeah i mean so like i mean dennis did some very clever stuff in there he did all the stuff with jack talking about venusians sure and all that yeah basically the rest of it

was so like i'd live but if you're doing 65 65 you're doing the sandoz acid so you know that's that's before the ship blows open down here it's before it's before the what 68 69 where everybody's doing it right you're ahead of the curve oh yeah were you doing work were you dealing with leary or kisi or any of those guys i i knew kisi and i knew leary but i really wasn't on the same wavelength i was closer to kisi than i was to leary yeah in terms of sort of like get out in it not don't hole up yeah get out and be out and do it yeah right yeah you know don't cause anything yeah yeah and and i was all for that and when i had learned that i want to do this as a job that means acting

i thought you meant acid no no as a job yeah uh it was a trip yeah for me to get there it wasn't just because my dad was in it at all right sure, sure. He never said one word to me about that or anything else. Yeah. It was my discovery that, oh, I really like this. Yeah. In terms of wrangling what was going on in the culture and sort of like, I have to assume that you didn't realize that Easy Rider was going to blow up like it did, right? No, I just knew that I was going to make money with it because it wouldn't cost me a lot to make.

That was it? And I thought that the tale was really commercial, visually commercial. Oh, yeah, sure, man. Yeah. It's a road story. Well, yeah. I mean, I was in Toronto, Ontario. Yeah.

And I was up promoting a film that Nicholson had written called The Trip that Corman directed. It was about taking LSD. Yeah. Dealing with press. So I have a custom made double-breasted suit. Yeah. Custom shirt. Yeah.

Air Maze tie. Really looking fine. No shoes and no socks. So I sit in a room in a chair. There's lights. Yeah. and no socks. So I sit in a room in a chair. There's lights. And people come into the room. They either talk to me or take me for a radio,

whatever it is, right? The first thing they come in the room, I'm just decked out to the nines. They see the bare feet and that stops it and they lose their interview. It becomes my interview.

I can say what the fuck I want. Promote the film, blah, blah, blah, and then next. And I knew that was the trick. Because they couldn't handle that image. Why doesn't he have any shoes or socks? It overtakes their mind. It's just like, whoa.

And so the first day I was there, there was a lunch with 1,200 people, maybe a bit more. And they were all distributors and exhibitors in Canada. And I was there at the AIP table, which was what it was. And up there was a big honor table with all the VIPs on it and then a dais. And they'd been talking, and i'm kind of checking everything out people look into my feet of course yeah and uh this little short guy comes up and gets on the mic and he's he's um lbj's um guy in the motion picture he was the head of the motion picture. He was the head of the Motion Picture Association of America. Right. Jack Valenti.

Oh, he was back then? He just began. Oh, okay. He was introducing himself. Oh, yeah, okay. He says, you know. I'm the guy. Yeah, I'm the guy.

Yeah. And looking down at me on the floor, he says, it's time we stop making movies about, and this is sounding like evangelical shit, right? It's time we stop making movies about, and this is sounding like evangelical shit, right? We stop making movies about motorcycles, sex, and drugs. And more movies like Dr. Doodle, which cost $27 million.

And he started this little launch by saying, my friends, and you are my friends. He said it twice. Why? I don't know, but I'm there. Second time, oh, maybe they didn't he didn't think we heard him and so that's my my tour i go back to my motel which was called the lakeshore motel at that time real seedy joint and i said so no more sex drugs and motorcycles far out

fuck that guy yeah that's my now i have a, which is signing these black and white 8x10s. And we didn't have Post-its, so everything had a little piece of paper. This guy owns 16 theaters. He's got two daughters. And now I would say, you know, whoever to ever end best wishes or love or peace. Peter Fonda. And then it came, one of these 8x10s comes up, and I'm looking at it, and I know what the picture is. 10s come comes up and i'm looking at it and i know what the picture is in that 8x10 format yeah in the middle there's maybe two inches of fully silhouetted motorcycle with two guys on it

you can't see who they are yeah because the sun's bouncing off what we're doing is riding it's me packing bruce stern and riding along the cement trail in uh venice beach it's it's a trick because it looks like we're riding on sand. Right. But, you know, I looked at that and I thought, who in marketing pulled this as something for me to sign? What was it from? You know, Dear Betty, Best Wishes, Peter Fonda. She's going, where the hell is he?

What movie was it from? It was from Wild Angels. Oh, wow. Yeah. I looked at it and bingo that's it it's not a movie about a hundred hell's angels on a hell's angels funeral it's two guys riding across john ford's west yeah oh god and they're going east yeah they're going east where are they going east oh yeah journey to the east east as a little Herman Hesse nod that's cool going east they're going to Florida to retire and okay that's what happens they get there and I've got these guys on motorcycles of

course yeah and they get there and they get whacked right because they don't look right yeah they got long hair right oh yeah okay that's beautiful now I have to back it up to make it work. Right. And then I got it back to the beginning where we're bringing from Mexico, we're bringing a white powder. We don't say what it is. I want the moralist to have the roughest time deciding about that. But you didn't name it in your mind either. No.

White powder. It was white powder. Right. Dennis probably promised me it would be real Coke, but it was powdered sugar. Man, that shit burns. And your nose no good you know and the camera's on me go whoa pin my eyeballs yeah and uh at any rate that was the point and uh after i got it all together with the beginning the middle and an end yeah and the journey yeah and what we do and what we can't do we can't go and eat in restaurants we can't we're not allowed to be in motels yeah all this shit all this it's like racial profiling sure and we're going to see what's happening on america in america yeah and i knew what that last

bit i knew for the beginning what i was going to do at the end. That guy in that truck, man. Yeah, but the idea. I knew that this was a big hit. I'd thrown sevens. And then I threw them between my legs. Yeah, I was still seven. Over my back, in the tub. It didn't matter.

I called up Hopper. It was 4.30 in the morning in Toronto. And I called him up and I said, listen to this. I had wakened him. I know that. Oh, yeah. That's surprising. He wasn't up?

Well, that part I can't, I don't know. Is this a call? You seem like a guy who didn't sweep much for me. So I told him the story. Yeah. He said, that's really great, man. What are you going to do with it? I said, well, I figure you direct it, I'll produce it.

We'll both write it and star in it. We can save some money that way. You want me to direct it? Sure, man. I mean, you have the passion. You know framing better than I do. You understand camera better than I do. Absolutely.

You're set for this. We can do this. Oh, man. I'm so glad you called me because I was never going to talk to you again. We don't want to necessarily go back and explain that. That's something I'll be writing about. What happened? He stormed out.

He wanted to direct this album that I was going to make. Hugh Masekela was my guy. A record? Yeah, a record. And he wanted to direct the album. Direct an album? You mean produce it? You don't know.

This is what he says. Comes to my house. I want to direct it. I said, Dennis, you don't direct albums. You produce them. You arrange them. That's what you're doing. You play on them, but you don't direct them.

No, no. I mean, then he started blowing off. Everybody steals my ideas. I can't blowing off. Everybody steals my ideas. I can't believe it. Everybody steals my, I'm thinking, what? Everybody says, I can't, but on and on until I finally, I have to stop this shit. So on the floor, I had this little, it was a reel-to-reel Sony that looked like it was an Ampex.

It's a higher grade. And I just picked that circle up and said, hey, hobby, yeah. I threw it on the parking floor, it broke. I said, when you can fix that,

you can direct an album. That was it. I can't believe you, did you see what you just did? I mean, you're a fucking child, man. I mean,

dig it, man, dig it, man, man, you dig it, I can't talk to you, you're a fucking child,

I'm never going to talk to you again, I'm out of here. He walked out, and I'm, no, I don't want to talk to you, you're a fucking child, I can't talk to you. You're a fucking child. I'm never going to talk to you again. I'm out of here. He walked out. No, I don't want to talk to you. You're a fucking child. I can't handle this. I'm walking away. I never want to talk to you again.

I'm so glad you called me because I was never going to talk to you again. That's hilarious. Did you guys stay friends? Things became a tad stretched. Yeah. He was out of control during the filming. Yeah. He was out of control during the filming. Yeah. He stayed out of control for a while, but when he leveled off, did you ever reunite?

I tried many times. Oh, really? I thought I was successful from time to time. Yeah. But, uh. I guess when you have a. He claimed that I cheated him. Oh.

Oh, on that. And I have tape of him being interviewed. He said some event he was in a cadillac with his then wife and he said yeah finally cheating me out of millions and millions and millions of dollars you use a microphone you couldn't see that i held up three fingers yeah yeah at any rate i thought oh great if he helps me find it i'll get a million and a half out of that go look are you fucking kidding me and he believed it and he said that he and he alone wrote easy writer oh so it just became a business megalomania played heavy on it it was too bad and the blow too i imagine for a while oh yeah but i mean we tried to get him stopped drinking yeah so he was going to a a meetings sure but he had a bag of coke in his pocket

solving one problem right then he he got rid of that problem too but the adventure man i mean the fact that you kind of you know blew out this you did easy rider you changed the face of uh of filmmaking and culture and everything else and then you're the guy you're that guy so then you're sort of like you're the biker guy yeah well the next film i did i i bought the script yeah and i didn't know i was i was going to produce it and act in it yeah and it was called a hired hand yeah and as i began reading it more and more i saw more and more of the stuff that yeah that i'd want to see and then i'll have them do this and i'll have them do that that'll rather look. And we'll shoot over here and that'll be good because I know it's there. And suddenly I stopped and I said, wait a second.

I'm the producer. I can't tell the director how to direct. Right. Oh, my God, I'm going to have to direct this thing because I could visually see it. Right. And at first reading, it was a visual imprint on me that it was as strong as a visual imprint of the story i made up in toronto called later easy rider yeah we didn't know what to call it at first right so yeah so it's interesting though that the western was still around and in warren oats you did a lot of movies at warren

oats huh i loved him he was a great guy was he really fine actor yeah great very easygoing funny guy we got along so well and he didn't have to die no like what about nicholson are you guys still friends we are i don't see him enough i in fact have to call him and just check on him see how he's doing yeah um because like i imagine like you know harry dean's gone i know man well as we said earlier well as we get older we start losing more friends but i like to know like i always ask guys like you know but there are guys that you stayed friends with, you know, throughout the time, huh? You know, like through the whole ride. Yeah.

That's nice. Yeah. You know, I still know McGuinn and Crosby. Oh, yeah. I talked to Crosby at my old house. Yeah. Yeah, for a couple hours. I think he would have stayed for the whole day if I would have let him.

Great guy. Yeah, he is. Yeah, he's a real sweetheart. And McGuinn is, too. And, you know. McGuinn, yeah. How about Tom McGuinn? You talk to him anymore?

I haven't seen him in quite a few years. That was a pretty big movie, wasn't it? 92? Well, it was artistic. Yeah. And that has its own story that I don't want to get into. Nothing's for the PTS part of it, but just in this book that i'm writing you're writing a book now yeah and second memoir yeah because a lot's happened since 98 sure what's

the angle uh well just in the what i'm talking about in pts starts off with uh the title, Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear. It's all about your past. And the motto for PTS people who are really fucked up by it is, the only good day was today. Yeah. Did you try the EMDR? I tried everything. Yeah.

How does it affect you? What are the manifestations of it for you on a day-to-day basis? What PTSD? I tried everything. How does it affect you? What are the manifestations of it for you on a day-to-day basis? What PTSD? I never know. I can see a commercial that does a certain thing, and I just break down crying. Full on. Full on.

And I've been after this for quite a while. I just didn't understand what I had. I thought I was nuts, and I better keep it to myself because they're liable to put the net on me. But it's also a sensitivity, right? I mean, it's like an oversensitivity almost, right? Or is it more of like you don't know, like just a trigger thing? Something triggers it. Ah, yeah.

And as I said, it could be a commercial. It could be something I see on the street. It could be a phone call I get, anything I hear. If it deals in a certain thing that I get caught on, it's not a barbless hook. Yeah. So you're going to discuss, so once you found out that's what you had, you kind of ran that through, you backloaded into your whole sort of past and and saw well i already i already was dealing with my past yeah uh every day without understanding why right now i understood understand why why you were hung up on the things you were

hung up on no how i got hung up i mean i didn't look at those things as hanging me up. Yeah. I wondered what was going wrong with my mother. Yeah. Later, when I was trying to resolve certain crises in my life about the mechanical rape, I talked to people who knew my mother during that particular time. And these two women, Eulalia Chapin and Marion Parker, and they explained a lot of stuff that went on and what happened.

About your mother's darkness? About my mother's darkness and my father's short-sightedness. Apparently, he used to cuff me on the head or slap me when I didn't finish my meal. Right. Hence my going to Johns Hopkins to look for a tapeworm. Right. Brilliant people, man. Yeah, man.

Of course, it was 1946, so I guess I cut a little ass slack there, but not a lot because it fucked me up. But do you think how much of the psychological trauma do you think sort of compelled you to sort of push the envelope with drugs and doing all the other shit? Well, I figured I was bent already, so what could I lose? Are you looking for solutions, you think, in retrospect? No, but on my third trip, I really expanded my brain a lot and got in there. But I still didn't see the causal effect of what was causing it. I just, I mean, it took me until I was 15 or 16 to realize what this terrible nightmare that I have every night was. Night terrors every night. And that was the tapeworm experience.

Mm-hmm. Tapeworm. Really? And gunshot and mother's death and so forth. I remember on my 50th birthday, my sister Jane wrote me a fax. I was making a movie in Switzerland. And I came back, great hotel, the Barlock. I came back to the hotel and there was sitting in the fax machine this fax from my sister.

And it was a poem. hotel and there was sitting in the fax machine this fax from my sister yeah and it was a poem and um she she does the the glass half full the class half empty uh-huh and it was kind of a cool little poem yeah but my response to that was my my my sister didn't get it my class was overflowing with this myriad of colors just all over the fucking place, you know? And I was going, yeah, yes. And I never thought I was halfway out. I was all the way in. Well, why is this doing this to them?

Pretty far out colors. So yeah, it was overflowing and it wasn't half full or half empty. And maybe I was half empty empty but i felt i was full yeah man and uh do you get along with her still yeah that's good yeah she's so uh into what she she does yeah and uh busy she's busy a lot yeah you know she's got her children and she's got grandchildren now but no tension with you. You're cool.

Yeah. That's good. We have to be. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. I have to think that way. I thought you were great in this little movie, even though you only had a couple scenes.

It's always nice to see you and you always pop up places. You know, what's interesting about that fact, that moment when I meet- Plummer? Christopher. Yeah. Because I've known him in real life since I was 18. I was able to throw my hands into that situation. And he just instinctually,

he's this great Shakespearean actor. Sure, man. You know, the best in the Americas on film or stage. And he wraps it where it's just so, I'm using this history i have knowing him for so long yeah not that i hung out with him a lot but your old man did not really no no my first stepmother no okay and he was a wonderful young guy lunatic i loved it yeah and so here i am i've seen this fellow that knew. And I just wrap my arms around him.

It's just, you can see it on film. There's something about the way we hold on, we just greet each other that makes you go, huh, you relax. Everything's fine. You know, I've been waiting for this bottle of wine. Now's a good time to open up. And then we're down there vaping up.

Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking, this is so far out. Yeah, man. I mean, I can feel that. Like, there's a looseness to it, you know? The finest Shakespearean actor in the Americas on stage or screen is selling pot to Easy Rider. There you go. Whoa.

That's the hook of the scene right there. How about that? Yeah, man. you and like your health is good everything else yeah my health is great you know yeah man but um my mental health is questionable but i you know i i don't find as much darkness sure i'm getting um used to it in a sense so it's easier for me to stop myself from getting caught. They're still barbed hooks. We're not catching release, and we should be catching release.

But I do have a great deal of empathy for our soldiers, our fighting men and women. You know, I didn't see a friend next to me get his head blown off. I didn't lose an arm or leg. I almost lost my lost my life but you know yeah i dodged many bullets sure uh and so maybe i don't have the right to have a tough time i mean i never had to worry about where i was going to eat or sleep yeah but but still you got it you got a problem you're dealing with it yeah um i i now know yeah about the the tapeworm thing. And I found out the reason my mother was there, she was getting a hysterectomy because she was a bleeder. She had heavy, heavy periods.

And she was, I now know, in postpartum. Those are phrases you don't know. And I took psychology in college. I figured I better find out some more about me because something's missing. So that was what that tracked the suicide to the postpartum or. I think that that's part of it. Wow. And,

and part of, of my dad, not, you know, wanting to divorce her. Oh, he wanted to, he wanted out.

I wanted to marry a younger woman. My first stepmother. Yeah. Whom I adore. Yeah. Yeah. And I could look at that whole thing and see she's the reason my mother killed herself.

But it's not that. And I could go spit on my father's ashes, but that's not it either. It's trying to understand that and forgive that. But before you can get to forgiving that,

you have to forgive yourself yeah how are you doing with that that's the hardest part yeah man well you know you seem pretty good hey i'm an actor i act like i seem pretty good no i you know i you heard it i mean you know how are you doing i'm alive the alternative really sucks Although inevitable at this particular moment, unacceptable. Yeah, exactly. Well, I'm glad you're alive. It was great seeing you. I don't want to hold you up because I know you've got to go get pictures or whatever.

I was told hard out, and then it's only a matter of time before someone comes to the door. Yeah. Hold on. I'll get that. It might be my lawyers. Thanks for talking, Peter. My pleasure. Thank you.

thanks for talking peter my pleasure thank you that was in and out of the peter fonda brain me uh bouncing around in the peter fonda brain in peter fonda land it was good to see him i'm gonna play some dirty distorted barely tuned guitar now boomer lives