Episode 1189 - Mandy Patinkin
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fucksters what is happening mandy patenkin is here today
Marc:You know him from his movies and TV shows, The Princess Bride, Homeland, his Broadway shows like Evita and Sunday in the Park with George, his albums, his concerts.
Marc:And we talk about almost none of that.
Marc:It just didn't go that way.
Marc:We got on the horn.
Marc:We got on the video horn.
Marc:And I'm like, all right, so this guy's about a decade older than me.
Marc:So it's one older Jew talking to an older Jew than him.
Marc:I'm like, let's see, an aging Jewish man with a depressive slash manic personality.
Marc:I'm wired to have this conversation.
Marc:This might as well be family.
Marc:It was.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Mandy Patenton coming up.
Marc:What have you been doing?
Marc:What have we been doing?
Marc:I'm trying to get organized, trying to get my room organized.
Marc:I'm trying to get my books together.
Marc:I had all the books from my old garage, which was just a packed sort of collage of life of mine, my life, a museum of me.
Marc:And fan art, but books.
Marc:And I just start going through all, pulling my old books out of the basement.
Marc:There are moments where I'm like, what do I need all these books for?
Marc:And I've been carrying a lot of them around for years, but just to sit with them occasionally, now that I'm reorganizing them, I'm like, oh yeah, this one.
Marc:And even if you pick up a book you've been carrying around for 20 years and look at three paragraphs...
Marc:And it reinvigorates your interest.
Marc:It dumps something new into your head that you can add to the stuff that's already there and turn it around a bit or make you see it differently or blow your mind even for a fucking second or two.
Marc:God bless, right?
Marc:Or whatever.
Marc:That's what books are for.
Marc:That's what hundreds of books are for.
Marc:Had all the Wilhelm Reich books.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:I was fascinated with the guy.
Marc:The guy was this fucking renegade, this outlier, this outcast, this psychoanalytical prodigy of Freud.
Marc:And then he comes here and he just fucking turns it out, man.
Marc:Pops his brain open, blows his own mind, maybe a little bipolar, maybe a little nuts.
Marc:Decided that, you know, I mean, I guess he was...
Marc:coming one day and he was like it's all here man all the power is emitting from my balls all the power is emitting from the vulva from the clitoris all the power is coming out of the orgasm all this power the orgone is the quantity is the photon of the biological energy that surrounds everything in all of us and is racing through everything in all of us all the time and you can tap into it right in your pants the guy was a wizard
Marc:The Reichian Institute in Maine, Oregon Therapy, Reichian Therapy.
Marc:He got a little out there, though, man.
Marc:He got a little out there.
Marc:He set up a big cannon to shoot...
Marc:orgone into the sky and change the weather.
Marc:So that seemed a little far-fetched, but he was pursuing it and they ran him down like an outlawed dog.
Marc:He built the orgone boxes.
Marc:I guess that's how I got into it first.
Marc:Maybe Burroughs was talking about the orgone box, which is this box constructed of organic matter.
Marc:You sit in it, it collects orgone energy, you recharge.
Marc:But they busted him to the point where
Marc:They burned all his books, shut him down, threw him in jail in the late 50s.
Marc:He died in jail.
Marc:The FDA shut him down.
Marc:Now, I'm speculating a little bit, and I don't know the true history of it.
Marc:But I was fascinated with the guy because basically what he was dealing with, I think...
Marc:Was the idea that most of our problems come from sexual repression or sexuality repressed on purpose in order to control people.
Marc:So it seems that the core of his idea was to unleash the cock, unleash the vag, unleash the orgone energy.
Marc:No shame about the sex.
Marc:Sex economy, he called it.
Marc:And that's where love and everybody could come together.
Marc:Eradicate the shame around orgasm and sex.
Marc:And he built an entire science out of it.
Marc:And they burned his fucking books.
Marc:Then later in the 60s, people resurrected him.
Marc:It was like, this is the time for this.
Marc:For the Oregon.
Marc:Nonetheless, fascinating character.
Marc:Now, here's where this story goes.
Marc:So I just I'm poking around in the book.
Marc:And I know, I think, I don't know the history of him.
Marc:I don't know what, you know, transgressions he's committed.
Marc:I know he's thought of as a lunatic.
Marc:But there is stuff here.
Marc:Like, I just opened this book.
Marc:Apparently, he wrote a couple of books about psychology that were very, you know, that still hold.
Marc:Character Analysis and the Mass Psychology of Fascism.
Marc:But this one's called Ether, God, and Devil.
Marc:It's two books.
Marc:And Cosmic Superimposition.
Marc:And I turn this to page 16.
Marc:I'm just browsing.
Marc:i'm browsing and i find we observe that i'm quoting reich here we observe that human thought systems show tolerance as long as they adhere to reality the more the thought process is removed from reality the more intolerance and cruelty are needed to guarantee its continued existence
Marc:Holy shit, was that the opening of a news show?
Marc:Should that be on the front page of what we're living through right now?
Marc:I wonder.
Marc:Feels like it should to me.
Marc:Then I found another quote from Reich.
Marc:Fascism is the frenzy of sexual cripples.
Marc:Fascism is the frenzy of sexual cripples.
Marc:The army of unfuckable hate nerds, among others.
Marc:Sexually crippled does not mean that you don't come.
Marc:Sexually crippled can mean that you're paralyzed by porn.
Marc:Sexually crippled is broad.
Marc:What does it mean?
Marc:What does that repression mean?
Marc:What does that shame mean?
Marc:What does that self-hate mean?
Marc:What are you looking for?
Marc:Love?
Marc:Are you looking for love?
Marc:Are you afraid to surrender?
Marc:Are you unable to open your heart?
Marc:Are you broken?
Marc:Are you broken by your creators?
Marc:Fascism is the frenzy of sexual cripples.
Marc:So this takes me to another place.
Marc:It takes me to E.L.
Marc:Doctro, the writer.
Marc:Here's the deal.
Marc:I'm going through my books.
Marc:I have this book.
Marc:called Wilhelm Reich in the USA.
Marc:And it's about the trial of Wilhelm Reich.
Marc:And oddly, it's got a diagram for how to build an orgone box in the back.
Marc:That was the pretext they nailed him on.
Marc:Interstate commerce selling the boxes.
Marc:Hey, man, it might have been a hustle, but a hustle's a hustle.
Marc:You're going to judge a guy for hustling orgone boxes?
Marc:Well, then I've got an orgone box I want to sell you.
Marc:But I have this book.
Marc:Now, the reason this is trippy
Marc:They tried to shut a genius down.
Marc:They shut a genius down.
Marc:They put a massive mind, a provocative and interesting possessed thinker that threatened the established order with his thinking, which could have spread and fed the fire of socialism, free love, liberation.
Marc:It was a threat to capitalism, aside from
Marc:hocking the orgone boxes.
Marc:But they put him in jail.
Marc:He died in jail.
Marc:Not saying he was a saint.
Marc:Don't know a lot about him.
Marc:This is just a story I'm obsessed with.
Marc:And I've given you some of the tidbits.
Marc:But I have this book, Wilhelm Reich in the USA, which belonged to E.L.
Marc:Doctro, the writer of Ragtime and many other books.
Marc:People love E.L.
Marc:Doctro.
Marc:How did that happen, Maren?
Marc:Well, it's got E.L.
Marc:Doctro's notes in it and new doodles.
Marc:Not really doodles and things he marked as important.
Marc:Maybe E.L.
Marc:Doctro was thinking about writing a novel that involved Reich or he wrote historical novels, maybe a character like Reich.
Marc:But wait, Mark, why do you have E.L.
Marc:Doctro's book?
Marc:The first deal I had in show business, I believe, was at NBC.
Marc:And when you get a deal, you meet a bunch of writers and they assign you a writer or you choose a writer who they have under contract to create a sitcom with.
Marc:Now, the pitch was I was this aggravated neurotic chef who was working in a basically a corporate kitchen.
Marc:But I had a vision, man.
Marc:So it was basically me.
Marc:Instead of a comic, I'm a chef.
Marc:And the guy I was writing with, who I was told the selling point was, he was on Single Guy.
Marc:This guy was on Single Guy.
Marc:Richard Doctro.
Marc:The son, yes, of E.L.
Marc:Doctro.
Marc:Fine.
Marc:One day we met in New York at his father's apartment and his father was teaching, rest in peace, was teaching at NYU.
Marc:And we met at an apartment in the Washington Mews, which is this beautiful gated community from the 1800s, right in the middle of fucking downtown Manhattan.
Marc:And I saw this book.
Marc:And at the time I was sort of getting into trying to understand Reich.
Marc:And I said, can I borrow this book?
Marc:And I did.
Marc:I took it right off of E.L.
Marc:Doctro's shelf and
Marc:And it never got back to him.
Marc:Not only that, the pilot went nowhere.
Marc:I don't think Richard Doctro liked me at all.
Marc:I didn't get the sense.
Marc:I was just this coked up, sweaty, neurotic Jew with this idea.
Marc:And I never shut up.
Marc:We wrote a script.
Marc:It went nowhere.
Marc:And then I did not ever see him again.
Marc:And then as I was sitting there the other day in a mountain of fucking books, reading his father's property, I said, what happened to that guy?
Marc:And I tried to find him.
Marc:And it just like his show business career goes away.
Marc:by in the late 90s no sign nothing do a little deeper google search looking at pictures trying to find him then he turns up now i'm afraid i don't want to maybe he's hiding but i found him in an article as the curator of an exhibit at the sag harbor whaling museum yeah
Marc:Now, I don't like I literally haven't even thought about this guy in decades.
Marc:And I track him down and that's where he's at.
Marc:And I'm like, look, man, I respect anybody who makes a decision to get the fuck out of show business.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Get out.
Marc:Get out.
Marc:And find another life for yourself, you know.
Marc:But wow.
Marc:He's at the Whaley Museum.
Marc:And I found this book.
Marc:In his father's library about the FDA and the U.S.
Marc:government.
Marc:Harpooning a big thinker.
Marc:A whale of a fucking thinker.
Marc:And taking him down.
Marc:Locking him up.
Marc:Letting him die in jail.
Marc:Willem Reich.
Marc:Whaling.
Marc:That horrible...
Marc:Age-old business of killing the big cosmic monsters.
Marc:The beautiful cosmic monsters.
Marc:The whales.
Marc:The geniuses of the ocean.
Marc:Reich.
Marc:The genius of the orgasm.
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:Sometimes life is like a novel.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:Sometimes if you just connect the dots, the stories go beyond.
Marc:They go beyond.
Marc:Now, this was one of those talks, me and Mandy Patinkin.
Marc:where he had nothing to really promote.
Marc:It was just like maybe he did originally back when we were going to do it originally.
Marc:It just never happened.
Marc:I don't know what happened, but we just wound up talking about whatever, just kind of did it.
Marc:And it turned into a pretty deep talk about life and what it all means.
Marc:And I think basically it's a good way to start the new year as we head into the unknown.
Marc:This is me talking to Mandy Patinkin.
Mandy Patinkin.
Guest:How's it going?
Guest:How's it going?
Guest:Well, as can be expected.
Guest:You know, the day is good so far.
Guest:The dog did her business, and my wife is not totally furious with me.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:You took the dog out?
Marc:What, do you walk every day?
Guest:Oh, we walked several times because right now she's being treated for heartworm.
Guest:So part of it is to give her prednisone, which makes her pee a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Today was her very last prednisone pill.
Guest:So for eight weeks, she usually runs free.
Guest:We live out in the country.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So for eight weeks, she had to be on a leash, which we thought would be a quite a shocking thing, but it's actually worked out great.
Guest:And she's a dear heart and, and we're very, uh,
Guest:happy that in two weeks she'll be able to be off the leash and how old is it dog i love this dog yeah i can't even put it into words she we got her on march 13th right after new york shutdown oh okay and we and we didn't get her as a covid dog the kids kept saying dad you need a dog you need a dog why they why did they think they were worried about me
Guest:what was going on rightfully so i was uh i was alive so so they thought they thought get a get dad a dog and um and so kath and i started talking about it when we um we'd been talking about it and the problem always was my life you know i'd travel and right yeah crazy what do you put the dog how do you right what do you do
Guest:And but I wanted to take six months when I finished.
Guest:I finished doing a lot of work.
Guest:I finished like 10 years on a television series and then I finished 30 cities in a concert tour.
Guest:And and I said, I need to stop.
Guest:I was going to stop for six months to a year and just see what life was like.
Guest:And I used to I used to say to everyone, you know, what about all the things that I didn't consider when I was a kid?
Guest:oh yeah like what like anything everything else that i i didn't uh well everything else at life that you didn't do 60 years ago you're gonna like what are you gonna build build model planes exactly planes out of paper and so and so so anyway but but it's very you know because i had a lot of friends that were retiring and i would ask them and they would all say you know i'm busier than i ever was right you know doing the
Guest:And I thought, oh, OK, so we'll see.
Guest:But but you can't see what that's like when the whole world retires with you, you know, by force.
Marc:True.
Marc:But you know what, though?
Marc:You know what I realized, Mandy, when that happened, like I realized that there's nobody to resent for doing something you're not.
Marc:So there is a piece to it.
Marc:Like, you know, it's like, well, what's that guy doing?
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:No one's doing anything.
Marc:Well, that's relaxing.
Marc:I mean, you got to that's that's one of the perks.
Guest:Yeah, exactly right, Mark.
Guest:And you're never testing yourself if something tempting comes along, whatever it might be.
Guest:No, there's nothing.
Marc:There's nothing coming along.
Marc:People might want you to use your voice for something or do one of these things.
Marc:And that's it.
Marc:That's all you got.
Marc:This is it.
Guest:This is the highlight of my life.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:You can't call your agent.
Guest:I don't mean to pressure you, but don't fuck it up.
Marc:It's already been great.
Marc:But you can't call your agent and go, what the fuck is happening?
Marc:I didn't really want to retire.
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:You got to learn how to enjoy your family and your dog.
Guest:Well, and that's, you know, it's really been interesting.
Guest:My son was on, he was away working and he was my younger one.
Guest:My older one's away with his then fiance, now wife, because they were going to have a wedding in October and now it became a COVID wedding.
Guest:So they actually had a beautiful wedding.
Guest:on a mountaintop by themselves, which I always which I thought, you know, a lot of people all over the world had those kinds of unions.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and in some ways I thought, my God, it's so pure.
Guest:There's no commercialism involved.
Guest:No, believe me.
Marc:Believe me.
Marc:You know, and, you know, if things don't work out, you don't disappoint 150 people who bought you presents.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And you can go have parties, you know, come in when the time's right.
Guest:And so so but my younger one was worried about us.
Guest:And so he wanted to get here to take care of us and not go.
Guest:We shouldn't go shopping like, you know, like we're in his mind.
Guest:And and once he got here, he calmed down and we had a way of, you know, living with safety and distance.
Guest:And yeah, no worries.
Guest:And so but the joy has been having him here.
Marc:That's nice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:How old is he?
Guest:He is 34, the younger one.
Guest:And so he's busy working, you know, his stuff.
Guest:You know, he's an artist.
Guest:So he's in, you know, in the in the in the room making up whatever he's going to do when he gets the green light to be free again.
Marc:Well, you have like it seems like everybody around you, it seems like you come from an artistic family.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Marc:Did you grow up like that?
Guest:Where'd you grow up?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I mean, when you when you said that, I immediately thought of my family south side of Chicago and no artistic nature there.
Guest:But I did hear that my grandfathers were cantors and Moyles and sholkits, you know, for kosher.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:So they were actually you come from the Jews that were engaged with the community on that.
Marc:I come from Taylor's.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, we were actually, I think we were shoemakers because in Polish, the name patinka means women's slipper.
Guest:So when I think, I think, therefore, we probably had something to do with making shoes.
Marc:So you go back to Poland?
Marc:Is that where it is?
Guest:Yeah, I actually found that we're also connected to Belarus recently.
Marc:Me too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So Eastern European.
Marc:Pale of settlement.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I found this out because I did the the PBS show Finding Your Roots.
Guest:Me too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Has yours been aired?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mine wasn't aired yet.
Guest:So, you know, Henry was incredible.
Guest:And what they uncovered was just earth shaking.
Guest:I don't want to share what it was at this point because I don't want to say what, you know, their show.
Marc:No spoilers for the for the Patentkin genealogy line.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:No spoilers for the protection.
Guest:I'm conditioned to not saying anything about anything I've done.
Guest:It's a big finish.
Marc:It's a big finish.
Marc:You don't want to ruin that for anybody.
Guest:There may be.
Guest:Although I spoke to them for about five hours.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:God knows what they'll edit down.
Marc:You know, you get a very nice book and in a big you get a book and a poster.
Guest:You get I got that.
Guest:But it was my son, Gideon.
Guest:He said, Dad, I'd love it if you would call these guys because I think they'll do it with you.
Guest:And I'd love to have it for the family to pass on, you know, to everyone.
Guest:And they do amazing work.
Guest:And so I did it for him.
Guest:But he called them and they're going to send us all five hours.
Guest:So he'll have that for his archives and whatever he wants to do with it.
Yeah.
Marc:he'll have the slow build to that's right to the big how have you been mark how how have you been doing the last couple days have been difficult i don't know why it comes and goes you know uh you know like i i was full of dread and anxiety before you know and then i had a tragic loss of a loved one and then you know this whole thing and but for some reason there are moments where you know i wake up and i'm like you know what the fuck happens now
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm so I'm sorry for your loss.
Guest:I I I found out about it this morning.
Guest:I listened to the whole podcast of of you introducing the old one.
Guest:You met her.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When you met.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Listen to to that.
Guest:And.
Guest:And what happens now?
Guest:I mean, for whatever it's worth, if we're lucky enough to live long enough, we're all going to go through this.
Guest:But you don't want to go through it with loved ones that are in the prime of their life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you can't.
Guest:I don't know how to process it, and I've been through it too many times.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I have no understanding of it.
Guest:You know, of all the plays, I always tell friends, my favorite line in all of literature was written by Oscar Hammerstein from all things but a musical called Carousel.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the line that I love that I say to myself and all friends is, as long as there's one person on earth who remembers you, it isn't over.
Guest:And I love it.
Guest:And the other thing that I do because of that line is,
Guest:Every day in my meditations or my prayers or walking the dog or whatever, sometimes two or three times a day before I go on stage, before I go in front of a microphone, I say this meditation.
Guest:And inclusive in that is I say the names of everyone I knew who have passed on.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:And I do it for comfort and for the possibility that if if Einstein's theory of relativity was right and energy doesn't die, no matter what energy inhabited before its new form.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Then maybe I can talk to Moses or Jesus or Buddha or Abe Lincoln or my dad or sure or my best friend, Bob.
Marc:They're all still they're all still around in some form.
Guest:I hope so.
Guest:It's you know, I live in my imagination.
Marc:Well, that's what you know, that's as long as it's a moral universe.
Marc:That's I think that's what we all do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's the world I'm comfortable in.
Guest:And it's a game, no doubt about it.
Guest:But it's a game I like.
Guest:I think it's all a game.
Guest:I think religion is a great game invented by incredibly.
Guest:Well, how were you brought up?
Guest:A conservative Jew in Chicago, which I always say is a is an Orthodox Jew if you're from L.A.
Guest:and a Reform Jew if you're from New York.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I was brought up conservative Jew in New Mexico.
Marc:I come from New Jersey Jews.
Marc:So so basically, I don't know.
Marc:Did you find like when I look back on it as I get older and spirituality becomes a question or, you know, I've never been that much of a seeker of divinity.
Marc:But.
Marc:But I mean, I found that as a Jew, I was taught nothing about building a relationship with God.
Marc:I, you know, we read the books, we went to the Hebrew school, but I never was taught how to use God.
Marc:I was told he was there, but there was no practical way I could do it every day.
Marc:I'm not going to do tefillin.
Marc:I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to daven every day.
Marc:So as a conservative teacher,
Marc:you know, middle-class Jew, you know, it was just the idea of God was never put into function for me.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:I, I'm, you know, all religion, people would say to me, were your parents Republicans or Democrats?
Guest:And they were only men's club sisterhood.
Guest:The synagogue was the center of the life.
Guest:I went to Hebrew school every day after three o'clock public school.
Guest:And I was there till, you know, five 30 or six when you go home for dinner.
Guest:And, uh, but I never believed in God.
Guest:And I, I, um,
Guest:You know, my ultra-Orthodox Holocaust survivor friends, etc., would refer to it's necessary for you to breathe the fear of God into the fetus while it's in the mother's womb.
Guest:Okay, so if that's what does it and gives you the belief of God, God bless you.
Guest:And I hope you have a good, wonderful, peaceful life.
Guest:That didn't happen for me, nor is it ever going to happen.
Guest:But when I met my wife 42 years ago, I had a feeling that I couldn't explain.
Guest:We didn't want to get engaged.
Guest:She didn't want to get married.
Guest:She was a very 60s feminist person, and I didn't know what that meant.
Guest:Do you now?
Guest:I better not talk about that.
Wow.
Guest:I have a whole list of things that I should put on the walls that my children have said, Dad, don't talk about that.
Guest:Don't talk about that.
Guest:Don't mention this.
Guest:Don't mention this.
Marc:And now there's no escape.
Marc:So you can't even go away for two days.
Guest:But we got married because I wanted to do something that was beyond my understanding of what I felt.
Guest:And that definition of what's more than I understand is the word religious religion.
Guest:And I don't even know what it means.
Guest:But as I got older and I'd say probably within the past 10 years, yeah, just certainly when children came along, you know, I wanted to ask for other help to make sure they're OK.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But at some point, I think within the past 10 years, my ultra-Orthodox friends would constantly refer to Hashem instead of God or G-D.
Guest:Hashem.
Guest:Hashem.
Guest:And I started using this word when I say my prayers every day.
Guest:And so even though I don't believe in a literal God, I believe in energy, like I said, from Einstein, and that everything lives on in that way.
Guest:But I'm nothing but a hypocrite like most human beings.
Guest:And I speak to this person I've labeled Hashem that I heard the name from others.
Guest:And I literally say, help me help you in any way I can, in any way imaginable.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, I've reengaged with prayer and I say I pray to the big nothing.
Marc:And, you know, I think there is something about the act of it that puts you into a groove that has been carved through.
Marc:For centuries, you know, that there is a frequency there that you can tap into that is grounding.
Marc:I started to meditate recently, which I never did before.
Marc:And I can see how that that helps out a bit.
Marc:But it's interesting to me.
Marc:You speak of these ultra orthodox friends.
Marc:How many ultra orthodox people are you hanging out with?
Guest:Well, there was mainly Mr. Sidney, who was the landlord in my apartment in New York, and he was a survivor of the Holocaust from Auschwitz.
Guest:And we became dear friends, and I became dear friends with his family members.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I remember he told me about making matzah in Auschwitz with just some little flour that he finagled from the guards on a rock, on a hot rock that he found.
Guest:And one day I was in Colorado and we were in Passover.
Guest:So we were looking for matzah to make a Seder.
Guest:And everybody would say, well, what the hell?
Guest:What's matzah?
Guest:And it was a Jewish cracker.
Guest:And we couldn't find it.
Guest:And so I made Mr. Sidney's matzo on a rock or water on a rock outside that I put a fire on.
Guest:And it was it was really meaningful because I guess at the end of the day, the whole ballgame for me is about connecting, connecting to the unknown.
Guest:My friend, Mr. Sidney, when I when I sing music,
Guest:Particularly the Yiddish concerts is when I formed it as a literal imaginary friend.
Guest:When I look into the darkness when I'm on stage, you can always put whoever you want out there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But at one point, I just put all the survivors of all the Holocaust, not just Jews, but Native Americans and African-Americans who were killed on ships and people who are continually suffering to this day.
Guest:And all those people, I put them all in the seats in the audience.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And therefore, I'm very comforted and not alone.
Guest:And I know it's crazy, but I don't give a shit.
Marc:It's not crazy.
Marc:It's being of service.
Marc:It's connecting to this universal idea that you have.
Marc:And it's also honoring the memory, like you said initially, that if there's one person out there that remembers you, honoring the memory of the lost is an important thing.
Marc:I mean, that's the most important thing.
Marc:I mean, that goes back to the carousel idea, is that the biggest threat to civilization is the trivialization or forgetting the past.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I don't I am not a believer that, you know, on the couch or let's go over what happened in life and it will it will free me and unlock me and let me be peaceful.
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:Have you tried, though?
Marc:It doesn't do it.
Marc:Yeah, because it's very difficult because you get into that dynamic where you get into that sort of repetitious victim mode where you're not really doing anything but circling around a thing forever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, I you can play that game and say, well, this is your mother.
Guest:This is your father.
Guest:This is the DNA of suffering of your people, et cetera.
Guest:You know, great.
Guest:If that's what rocks your boat.
Guest:I don't buy it.
Guest:I believe that this is my life.
Guest:This is your life.
Guest:It's my job to do whatever I need to do to get through the next five minutes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think it's a cognitive exercise.
Marc:You make choices.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I think so.
Marc:But next five minutes.
Marc:So you're on a five minute clock sometimes.
Guest:Yeah, I actually have a clock in front of me and it's a chess clock.
Guest:And I see how long you go.
Guest:I see how long I go.
Guest:Sometimes maybe we'll do a speed round.
Marc:Five minutes, a five minute clock on your well-being.
Marc:So when did you start singing?
Guest:I started singing in the choir at seven years old.
Guest:The choir?
Guest:Jewish choir?
Guest:Jewish choir in the synagogue, the boys choir on Saturday morning in the synagogue, and on Friday night with the family choir.
Guest:At seven years old.
Guest:And that's where I heard music.
Guest:I heard all the old guys singing and shuffling and the cry, the voice, you know, and that's where I heard it.
Guest:And that's where I just became home with it.
Guest:In Hebrew?
Guest:All in Hebrew.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So those primitive melodies, those old... And when we do that, a guy just sent me some sort of a 20-minute piece on Havana Gila, which I'm not very interested in these things.
Guest:If people send me on my phone, you know, watch this.
Guest:It's too much.
Marc:If you have enough people on your phone, it's like a full-time job.
Guest:I know.
Guest:But this one, I wanted to be able to say something nice back.
Guest:So I looked at it, and the first four or five minutes, the guy was talking about prayer, and there were no words to Havana Gila.
Guest:It was used as a celebration, the origins of the melody, etc.
Guest:And then the guy says that in Judaism, whether this is true or not, I liked it.
Guest:And he said, in Judaism, the prayer, and they come from the Talmud and these various areas...
Guest:He said, but the most holy prayer of all, the most holy sound of all is music.
Guest:And I love that.
Guest:I think it's true.
Guest:Because I do feel it's universal.
Guest:It's magic.
Guest:I feel it connects us in ways that we can't even express.
Guest:I have, you know, I can't help but be so...
Guest:affected by learning about your loss and feeling connected to all of us who are dealing with loss in such insane numbers.
Guest:But none of that, whether it's historical, immediate, what's happened in our lives across the world, or personally to you, or what's happened to me, when it happens to you directly, you have to live it.
Guest:And it is
Guest:It is a mystery to me that I'm certain at this point, I know everybody deals with it, I know everybody comes to that end, whether you're awake or not, conscious or not, but I'm certain at this point I will never understand it.
Guest:When I lost my best friend, you know, who we grew up with in February,
Guest:And I went and sat with him and what horrible thing happened and kissing his head.
Guest:And then and every day I'm just lost.
Guest:And another dearest friend of mine who died a number of years ago named Debbie Friedman.
Guest:Did you know that name?
Guest:Mm hmm.
Guest:Debbie Friedman was, of our generation, probably the foremost Reform Jewish composer of Reform music, Reform Jewish liturgy.
Guest:But her gift wasn't—she just took the words from liturgy.
Guest:But she would say to me—
Guest:I don't know where the melodies come from.
Guest:I don't know where they come from.
Guest:And we used to have in common because of our, just our common struggle of dealing with depression and, you know, just trying to be peaceful.
Guest:Uh, we would have a conversation where we would both say to each other at times, sorry, my wife's going out the door.
Guest:We'd both say to each other at times, you know, at our best, you get these notes as I'm sure you've gotten from people saying, thank you so much.
Guest:Your comedy or your work or your music got me through this time, got me through my father, my mother, my dad.
Guest:And, and you're very grateful for this, you know, unknown connection that, you know, what we do because we're not sitting with everybody when, when our work is being received.
Guest:Uh, and, um,
Guest:And we used to say to each other that she was at her best.
Guest:She feels like this hose goes through her and just comes out kind of clean and uncorrupted.
Guest:And I used to say to her, you know, Debbie, I understand that so well, only it's the wrong kind of hose.
Guest:It doesn't have those little holes in it like that garden hose.
Guest:So none of it seeps into me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And a good day, it comes through and there's not too much Mandy going out.
Guest:So it's clean and available for you.
Guest:But I wish it had holes so that it would get in.
Marc:I understand that.
Marc:I understand that.
Marc:So so, you know, that so the idea is that you give and there's a reward to that moment of giving.
Marc:But, you know, you walk away depleted instead of full.
Yeah.
Guest:I wouldn't say totally depleted.
Guest:I would just say maybe life would have better if some leaks would have occurred.
Guest:No, I get it.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:Well, the grief thing, like I don't like it's insurmountable.
Marc:And I can identify with what you're saying, because like, you know, just yesterday, I really tried to limit, you know, she got sick in the house here.
Marc:And, you know, and then.
Marc:You know, they took her away and I never saw her again.
Marc:And I didn't know.
Marc:I didn't know.
Marc:No, we didn't know.
Marc:You know, so.
Guest:And it's impossible to understand.
Guest:How can I be talking to you right now?
Guest:And one of us might not be here in an hour or whatever.
Guest:And the friends that we've lost that way.
Guest:And I, I not, you know, all the people that have experienced this or what's going on now.
Guest:It's I just want to share, you know, because.
Guest:I just want to share something to just say that, you know, don't feel funny or bad or like you have a problem.
Guest:Maybe because every day you open up your phone and you read about numbers that are insane about who's dying all over the world.
Guest:And so you're just, you know, overwhelmed or you're having dreams that people are coming to get you or it's over or whatever, whatever's going on.
Guest:But I'll find myself just convulsed in sobs, weeping profusely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And thank God for Catherine, my wife, because she will literally, she just sits on the couch with me and holds me.
Guest:And sometimes I can't stop crying for an hour.
Guest:And I can't tell you the trigger of the tear or the emotion or what brought it on.
Guest:I just get overwhelmed.
Guest:And she just holds me.
Guest:And the other day, it was so clear to me, and I just want to say this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nothing new what I'm about to say to you.
Guest:You've probably thought of said to others or heard yourself.
Guest:But I'm listening to Debbie Friedman's music because I would sing with her and I'm exercising this music and all of a sudden the floodgates go and I'm gone for, you know, I can't stop.
Guest:because i missed her so right and and it took me six years to have dreams about my foot till i had the first dream about my father when he died when i was 18 and i was ecstatic when that dream came yeah and every time where where you know where i'll
Guest:in my father in a dream or I'll be overwhelmed that he's missed the kids or yeah or I miss Debbie from hearing her music or I take a walk with the dog and where's my buddy Bob yeah and I just sometimes I cry and sometimes I'm just fucking lost in the woods I'm ecstatic that I'm having those thoughts yeah
Guest:Because I'm with them in a sad way.
Guest:But it's better than nothing.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I have dreams about her.
Marc:And every time I have a dream about her, it's really nothing more than that she's here.
Marc:That we're here.
Marc:That we're together.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, my God.
Marc:So you're OK.
Marc:And then you wake up, and it's terrible.
Guest:But let me offer this.
Guest:And call me crazy if you want.
Guest:I don't care.
Guest:I see you on a Zoom screen.
Guest:You see me.
Guest:I'm looking at the room.
Guest:I see my dog.
Guest:This is all supposed to be what's called reality.
Guest:I have a dream where I see my father.
Guest:You see Lynn or my buddy Bob visits me.
Guest:And that's the dream.
Guest:That's your subconscious.
Guest:Fuck you is what I say.
Guest:That's my brain having these thoughts, these images, these memories.
Guest:Don't tell me that they're any real or
Guest:or not as meaningful as looking at a photograph or having this conversation.
Guest:That's reality and the other's just a drink.
Guest:It's not for me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:They're both real for me.
Guest:Yeah, why not?
Guest:If my mind did it in whatever my brain works,
Guest:I'm good with it.
Marc:Why not?
Marc:Why not look at it like that?
Marc:Why not?
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I mean, that's you're being visited.
Marc:You're spending time.
Marc:I mean, you know, this is what life is.
Marc:And that thing you're saying is true, is that the horrible thing about grief and about everybody having to deal with it is it's as common as birth, as eating, as dying is as common as anything else we do as people.
Marc:Shitting, eating, being born, whatever it is.
Marc:But the fact that we're conscious of our own mortality and the sort of weight of it and the feeling of loss and missing and then your own mortality.
Marc:It's like the...
Marc:I feel like it was the final kind of rite of passage to being, you know, alive and grounded and in touch with the world was this loss, you know, and I'd never experienced it before.
Marc:And it's devastating.
Marc:Like I watched a video.
Marc:I try not to do it, but I watched a video of her yesterday.
Marc:And like, you know, just to sort of check in, you know, just you have these weird pieces of film with her, you know, singing or dancing or whatever.
Marc:And it was just, I can't, I just, it's just terrible.
Marc:The loss is just, it's just terrible.
Marc:And I'm so happy that you're able to stay in the crying because I can't stay in it very long.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, no.
Marc:I stopped myself.
Guest:You know, you spoke a lot.
Guest:I read what you had to say about this period.
Guest:I read about your trying to stay with the grief.
Guest:And I wanted to chat with you a moment because I listened a long time ago when my friend Robin Williams died and you had done an interview with him and you played it.
Guest:Robin and I went to school together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I loved Robin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I knew him before he was Robin Williams.
Guest:Where, Juilliard?
Guest:At Juilliard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was the kindest student in a place that was cutthroat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, the way people can be in those places.
Guest:You know, I want the part.
Guest:I want the attention.
Guest:I want I want.
Guest:And he left, though.
Marc:Right.
Marc:He didn't finish.
Marc:Right.
Guest:No, he didn't finish.
Guest:But but Robin, you would be insulated.
Guest:You'd be have like 20, 25 kids in your group.
Guest:So you would do that.
Guest:But you could go see the other groups work.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:People in there.
Guest:And Robin would come in and he was just such a cheerleader.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was just so supportive.
Guest:And it was only unusual because no one else did that.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:No one else did it.
Guest:And and then we would go to Central Park and be on the promenade near 72nd.
Guest:He put on his pantomime gear and he'd walk around following people like he did in San Francisco.
Guest:And and then.
Guest:And then we would see each other at I think was called Lenge on Columbus, that sushi restaurant, bump each other at the sushi bar every now and then.
Guest:And then I was doing a concert years later, and I was doing a play at Berkeley.
Guest:And I went backstage because he was going to do a benefit there.
Guest:And I went to say hi.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was terrified, just terrified.
Guest:He had on his colorful shoes that he was going to put on.
Guest:And we were backstage.
Guest:We were each going to go on.
Guest:And he was just so frightened.
Guest:And I'd run into him a couple of times like at Letterman or whatever backstage.
Guest:And I would just see how frightened he was.
Guest:And and one day we we had a dinner with my kids when they were little.
Guest:And my son, Isaac, had memorized, you know, the good morning Vietnam monologue at the beginning that was not to come out of the mouths of a of a seven year old.
Guest:But but Robin sitting at the table and Isaac unloads the entire speech on Robin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Robin's mouth is dropped.
Guest:And it would be very quiet if you knew Robin, very quiet unless he was on.
Guest:And when I was in Cape Town, South Africa, and I turned the corner on my way home from work, and I heard the news on the radio, I couldn't understand how that happened.
Guest:I couldn't understand how Robin, whose talent and gifts were meteoric and left me not even in the dust.
Guest:I didn't even exist compared to what Robin's abilities in nature were.
Guest:And yet we had somewhat of a similar life.
Guest:We both performed.
Guest:He in comedy, me with music.
Guest:We both were actors and plays and films and television.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we'd be on the road and you finish your performance and and people would leap to their feet and say, thank you.
Guest:And before you get off stage and the lights go back to black, you are in a it's over.
Guest:You're gone.
Guest:Then you usually go back to the hotel where the hooker gave you the fucking presidential suite.
Guest:You're all alone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you're just trying to get get to the morning where you get back on the plane in candy from the mini bar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And my teacher that I met in 2006 worked hard with me.
Guest:When that news came of Robin, I couldn't understand.
Guest:But the work that he's done with me since 2006 and has changed my life is to stay with our discomfort.
Guest:period whatever it is oh i i like to when i'm in discomfort not only do i stay with it i make it worse generally yeah yeah and and yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah fuel the fuel the flames but but but i believe deeply that it is a uh um
Guest:a global epidemic of people not knowing how to do it.
Guest:And by that, I mean this.
Guest:And I use the two examples of one who was an acquaintance, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and one who is somebody that I was connected to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And yet those are just famous people.
Guest:This happens to people every day because I couldn't understand how in those moments when he was trying to set up a chair and an ability to take his life, all the seconds that go in between that balancing act,
Guest:How do you not have that one second catch yourself that so many of us have been in so many times in our life and for over 30 years and we get through it?
Guest:How did you not get through it that one time?
Guest:And so whether you want to use the word alcohol or drugs or it's an illness, none of that matters to me really because what I believe is
Guest:is the missing thing for all of our lives and people all over the world is, is we're not taught how to be uncomfortable.
Guest:Meaning a little kid who falls and scrapes their knee, mommy and daddy say, let me kiss it and make it go away.
Hmm.
Guest:Don't make it go away.
Guest:Kiss it's fine.
Guest:Don't tell him it has to go away.
Guest:So we spend our lives trying to fix everything.
Guest:We fix it with a literal fix.
Guest:We fix it with food.
Guest:We fuck it away.
Guest:We quit it away.
Guest:We run it away.
Guest:Nation states kill it away.
Guest:And if Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robin Williams, two of our greatest...
Guest:contributions to arts, humanity, to this life that we know, if they'd been you can't have that kind of mind and not be aware.
Guest:But even if you're overwhelmingly successful, it can be just as uncomfortable.
Guest:And so you've got to numb it.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:I mean, I get that.
Marc:But like the weird I think like.
Marc:Look, man, I mean, you know, I am fortunate in that I don't believe that I am clinically depressed.
Marc:I suffer from profound dread and anxiety.
Marc:So, you know, so when I have suicidal thoughts, it's really not because things are so miserable.
Marc:It's just it's just I need I need a break.
Marc:So I'm able to to move through that generally.
Marc:It's anxiety based.
Marc:So but I think these people who are overly, you know, in tuned and overly sensitive and can't sort of find their way out from under it.
Marc:I mean, well, with Philip, it was a horrible addiction.
Marc:But with Robin, you know, it was a choice from what I understand around not wanting to live with a with a crippling disease, but still the choice that you're talking about.
Marc:is a profound one.
Marc:And it sounds like you have talked yourself out of this before.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I've been dark.
Guest:I'm certainly one person who said, you know, I don't want to go through this.
Guest:And the thing you don't want to go through is feeling pain.
Guest:You want peace.
Guest:Anybody who does anything, all they want is peace of mind, peace.
Guest:They just want peace.
Guest:And who doesn't want peace?
Guest:So we've all had a version of that.
Guest:And I just say to myself and to anybody that I talk to on occasion when the subject comes up, and forgive me for going into territory that may be inappropriate, but, you know, this is how I knew you, you know, this connection to Robin from before.
Guest:And then a friend said, you know, about what happened in your life recently.
Guest:And I just...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I just feel it's common ground that we share as humanity and.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's a learning curve.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's profoundly sad, you know, and I try to, you know, my choice to sort of be public about it was, you know, to honor some some some some of the stuff that you're saying, you know, like I don't you know, my comedy and my work has always been from me.
Marc:engaged in in the life i'm living so i i chose to sort of you know share it and you know in it in that in of itself it's it's sort of what you're talking about when about the hose you know is that you know when you when you're giving your heart or you're you're expressing your your true feelings
Marc:There's a tremendous risk there.
Marc:And the risk is not so much that you're going to be hurt.
Marc:The risk is that, you know, there's no what's the return on it.
Marc:And then you have to ask, you know, well, why am I doing it?
Marc:Am I looking for that?
Marc:Am I doing it to to to experience people going like, oh, we love you.
Marc:We love you.
Marc:But even that's not enough generally.
Marc:So what is it really?
Marc:I mean, what have you come up with?
Marc:I mean, if you're not I'm not one of those people that needs the love of an audience.
Marc:That was never why I got into it.
Marc:But I mean, when you say that the hose doesn't work inside, I mean, what if what if your conclusions around that, around your impetus to do this stuff?
Guest:It's not the the adulation is its own drug that is as poisonous as drugs that kill you.
Guest:It's a bottomless pit.
Guest:If you go ego surfing, you'll never get enough and you'll only find things that hurt you because you went looking and you'll find things hurt you.
Guest:So what I've come to think is why I do what I do and have done what I've done is for the structure of it, for what we've really just experienced in these past nine months, a life without distraction.
Guest:And the test of that existence without a distraction is pretty profound to relationships, to, to our own selves.
Guest:And, and I think I'm not so in love with singing or acting or what it takes.
Guest:I love the craft of the research of the structure of the, of the taking the walks and coming up with possibilities that I've looking for connective tissue that I can connect to.
Guest:And, and,
Guest:And how it just wastes my time in a way that John Lewis would say is good waste, good trouble, you know, and uses up my energy and makes me feel like I've lived the day.
Guest:And when I've now been through nine months without it, I've come full circle to those nine months ago and go, I don't need a break.
Guest:I don't want to retire.
Guest:I want to find a way to be in a room with my friends and make what new music we're going to do.
Guest:How do we rebirth?
Guest:community getting together in the theater where people are it's the last thing on the list of going to an environment you know where you can sit in a room with other people and experience and so how can i be a part of of is it a halfway house is it other spaces people have all kinds of ways they're trying to come up with this
Guest:But that world gave me my life.
Guest:And right now it's decimated.
Guest:The article in Saturday's New York Times about, I think, I forget the young lady's name, who's the violinist, the 52% of the arts community that isn't working at all, that lost everything.
Guest:She had a good career with a whole year's bookings, gone, along with millions of other people.
Guest:you know, in different forms of work and living on food stamps.
Guest:And it's stunning that the restaurant industry versus 52% is only 12% affected, 12.5% affected, meaning they can still sustain the lifestyle that they've sort of designed.
Guest:But the arts is just devastated.
Marc:Yeah, people got to eat.
Guest:People got to eat.
Guest:And what can we do who were given such gifts by, you know, look, in talking about this recently, I've realized, what is it that I'm missing?
Guest:I'm missing being with my piano player and making the music.
Guest:But that's not what I'm missing.
Guest:I'm missing just, I just need one person in the room.
Guest:No, absolutely.
Guest:Just one person to laugh or remember the music to remember.
Guest:And that one person makes what was a boring rehearsal into just a life.
Guest:No, I absolutely.
Guest:So how do we get those one persons?
Marc:I just did.
Marc:I just did a movie.
Marc:I was on a movie for for 12 days with strict protocols, masks and everything.
Marc:But it felt so good.
Marc:Like.
Marc:It was good, but it was like I chose to take it.
Marc:I'm alone.
Marc:I'm sad.
Marc:You know, they convinced me that it was going to be safe enough.
Marc:And once I surrendered to it, I was so fucking grateful, Mandy, to be around people and to be doing the work.
Marc:And, you know, it's...
Marc:Acting work is relatively new to me in terms of figuring out how to do it and making choices and getting better at it.
Marc:So you're right.
Marc:You're absolutely right.
Marc:How do we get back to that?
Marc:Because it was scary.
Marc:Everyone's in masks.
Marc:It's not the fun kind of collaborative community that it once was.
Marc:Everyone's terrified, but you're making the shit.
Marc:But let me ask you something.
Marc:When you were starting out,
Marc:I mean, how did you balance this idea of like, you know, acting or singing?
Marc:Like, were you always going to end in the musical theater?
Marc:Was it always that or was it there?
Marc:Was there a time where you're like, I'm going to make a choice?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The singing thing is a no brainer.
Guest:You didn't have to do anything.
Guest:You didn't have to go to Juilliard to learn how to sing.
Guest:You just right.
Guest:Because everybody sang in the synagogue.
Guest:Every little kid sang, every old man sang.
Guest:So that wasn't anything you had to work at.
Guest:You just you just go to show.
Guest:And nothing to do.
Guest:But I wanted to become a classical actor.
Guest:And somehow that evolved into go to a school that teaches you to become a classical actor.
Guest:So so I did that.
Guest:But ironically, Juilliard, the famous music school in the drama department where we were, there was no singing, not a fucking note was sung.
Guest:You know, it's just all tearing people apart and putting your heart on the table.
Guest:And some teachers not know how to put it back in your body and zip up, you know, your skin again.
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:You were there.
Marc:You went through the whole program.
Guest:No singing.
Marc:But you didn't get cut and you learned the competition of that environment.
Marc:Was it devastating?
Marc:I mean, were there any positive lessons learned from that competitive nature of that place?
Guest:Not the competitive nature.
Guest:The competitive nature, to this day, I feel is unnecessary.
Guest:I do not feel that a school where you're either on scholarship or paying as a young person, that you should taste what real life has to offer down the road and it's cutthroat and get used to it.
Guest:You know, we're going to throw you out of the program where, you know, you don't make the mark.
Guest:Bullshit.
Guest:This is a time to be safe and cared for and kindness applied.
Guest:The real world comes long enough to everybody and we'll all get a taste of it.
Guest:But I had the gift of Bill Hurt, William Hurt, whose name is Bill.
Guest:name will always be Bill to me, and the work we did together, and Gerald Friedman, my teacher, and Marion Seldes, and then also my two friends who were cut from the program.
Guest:And one of them had, they each had a quality that I wanted in life.
Guest:One at 18 years old spoke his mind to grownups, and I'd never seen a youthful person speak whatever he had to say without concern.
Guest:And the other one had a kindness that I desperately wanted.
Guest:And a vulnerability that he just was so beautiful.
Guest:And I left the program after two and a half years.
Guest:We had 26 kids, I think, in our class.
Guest:I think there was one guy left at the end of the four year program.
Guest:And I think six or seven women, all the rest of us left in my group.
Marc:On your own volition.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I left.
Guest:I wanted to leave after I was there for five minutes, and I waited because I didn't want to leave until I'd gotten whatever it was that I went for, and I didn't know what that was.
Guest:And then I got to be with Gerald Friedman, who was a teacher of, we did the Duchess of Mafia, and he cast Bill and myself as Boswell and Ferdinand.
Guest:We sat around a table, and he tried to teach us what an action was.
Guest:Bill was much smarter than me, and he could nail it right away.
Guest:I would write long, long paragraphs instead of a single word.
Guest:Jerry would crumple them up.
Guest:I had a mountain crumpled up paper.
Guest:Then later on in life,
Guest:I would be at Sondheim's house and look on his piano and there were postcards or scraps of paper, backs of envelopes with just lists of words looking for rhyme and going down to just find that one word, the vocabulary, the dialogue, the script of your life that is your connective tissue to connecting.
Guest:Just that word connecting.
Guest:And then my brother-in-law, who's a Zen Buddhist monk, has a phrase in his monastery that is part of our family's belief system, which is our actions are the ground we walk on.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And so that craft of learning to see if I could figure out an action.
Marc:Wait, let me see.
Marc:So the one thing that you put so much stock in, your imagination and the idea that it might all be imagination, is actually the one thing that you have to constantly negotiate with and slow down.
Yeah.
Guest:because you overthink everything everything and overcomplicate overcomplicate too much mandy too much mandy too much mandy that's your gift mandy is that you have to untangle your own fucking thoughts at every turn
Guest:every fucking turn and i'll work it i mean richard harris i did i did a thing with richard harris years ago and and i was so excited to be with him and he said that he was no longer drinking and i'm sitting in a hotel with him for hours while he's telling me he's no longer drinking he has a glass of wine in each hand and a cigarette in each hand i'm sorry it's so great that you're not drinking anymore and he says to in the midst of this you know you don't need to work so hard yeah
Guest:And he was trying to give me everything he had to offer, which was just show up.
Guest:Maybe just shut up and show up.
Marc:But what I'm feeling and what I'm seeing, because I relate to you, is that isn't it this fundamental...
Marc:I don't even want to say it's Jewish and I don't even want to say it's specifically insecurity, but it's this idea that whatever I'm doing cannot be enough.
Marc:It cannot be good enough.
Marc:It cannot be right.
Marc:It is not correct.
Marc:Someone else knows how to do it better than me.
Marc:Who's got the answer?
Marc:Please give it to me now.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Now, the clearly some of the key ones you said is not good enough.
Guest:So the the mantra, not good enough, not enough, not good enough.
Guest:I would tell this to David Kelly when we were working together and he wrote it.
Guest:You know, he would ask.
Guest:But I literally was talking to my image in a window once just say not good enough, good enough, not good enough.
Marc:Where does that come from?
Guest:My mother.
Guest:That comes from my mother.
Guest:But I don't blame my mother anymore because she was hurt.
Guest:She was hurt by her folks.
Guest:Good for you.
Guest:And, you know, Catherine says hurt people.
Guest:My wife has this expression.
Guest:Hurt people hurt people.
Guest:Hurt people hurt people.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:You know, but... It doesn't mean the fucking wires were not already crossed.
Marc:So, like, I mean, I do that, too.
Marc:Like, my parents were whatever they were, and I, you know, turned out to be the mess I am.
Marc:And then you go through years of, like...
Marc:Well, what did they have that was good?
Marc:What am I grateful for?
Marc:What did they give me?
Marc:What are the gifts?
Marc:Set aside the horrible things and then forgive them.
Marc:Yeah, I forgive them, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to fucking get my brain back.
Guest:Yeah, but I believe, Mark, that the mess of our lives is the glory of our existence because it creates the battlefield of our work, of our canvas that we've spent our life trying to humorize, connect to,
Guest:make, make alive, turn the darkness into light, turn darkness into light.
Guest:That's yeah.
Guest:We're the, the, the alchemists of depression.
Guest:The Jewish people take that away, take the troubles away.
Guest:And who the fuck am I in some way?
Guest:I wouldn't trade.
Guest:I want in one minute.
Guest:I'll say, all I want is peace of mind.
Guest:The other minute I say, don't take away my troubles.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, but, but, but Bandy, I mean, how old are you?
Marc:They're not going away.
Marc:There's no taking away.
Marc:What are you fucking, I mean, it's like, it's a dream.
Guest:What do you, I mean, it's a hundred, I'm 187 and, and you're actually, you're absolutely right.
Marc:We have these conversations with ourselves.
Guest:I have good skin, but I am 187.
Marc:You look great for 187.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:But I mean, this is this game we play.
Marc:I want to keep my problems.
Marc:I want to temper them.
Marc:I want to taper them.
Marc:I'm going to hold on to some character defects in the language of recovery.
Marc:But the truth is that they're not negotiable.
Marc:How the fuck are they going to go?
Marc:You've got a brother-in-law who's a monk.
Marc:I mean, what are his struggles?
Guest:He's got plenty of struggles.
Guest:But it is comforting when I'm in the darkest place to hear a voice.
Guest:And if I can't hear my own memory of that voice, I'll call my doctor up and he'll talk to me for 30 seconds.
Guest:And he'll remind me that it's because of this that you are able to do what you do.
Guest:It's because how hard you work.
Guest:And the other reason I work so hard in just the structure of it is I'm so terrified of going on stage or in front of a camera, in front of a microphone and fucking up.
Guest:So if I bust my fucking ass or even if I have the balls to do it, Richard Harris says, which is just don't do anything.
Guest:Just shut the fuck up and show up.
Guest:Even no matter what I do, if I do whatever I've learned in my life and I've done my best to do it and then I fuck up, it's not my fault.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Whose fault is it?
Guest:Not mine.
Guest:Not mine.
Guest:Because I worked my ass off.
Guest:I did everything I know.
Guest:I did it well.
Guest:I did it poorly.
Guest:And then I fucked up, but I didn't take it for granted.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But this is interesting to me, the Richard Harrison, because having just come off a shoot and trying to figure out, after talking to people like you and many other actors,
Marc:You know, about how they approach things.
Marc:It seems that that at some point that once the work is done, Mandy, that, you know, you of all people seem to have a you have to have some belief in your basic talent, correct?
No.
Marc:No, I don't.
Guest:I don't.
Guest:I'm probably the most insecure person I know.
Guest:I like playing people that aren't on TV, but I'm probably the most insecure person I know.
Guest:And I'm comfortable with that at this point in my life.
Guest:I consider it now one of the gifts that have given me my life.
Marc:But don't you drive people crazy?
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And that's why I won't call you and say, I just want to be your friend, Mark, after this interview.
Guest:You can.
Guest:But yes, I drive people crazy.
Guest:I drive my children crazy.
Guest:I drive my wife crazy.
Guest:One of the tricks of COVID is to get the fuck away from each other every now and then any way we can.
Marc:But has it affected your work in a collaborative environment?
Guest:At times, yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Sometimes to a wonderful degree and sometimes to a very negative degree.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Because you're so hard on yourself.
Marc:And in the midst of that tornado of self-doubt and insecurity, you know, it's hard to wrangle that stuff.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you got it.
Marc:You probably alienate some people at times.
Guest:I remember something that I remember because it's a way of being kind to myself, that James Lepine, who wrote Sunday in the Park with George and directed it and a good friend, said to my wife years ago about when I'd be thought of as difficult.
Guest:He said, let me tell you something about Mandy.
Guest:He's only difficult to himself.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Other people experience it in different ways, but but he's only hard on himself as opposed to other people that are doing it to take advantage of other people.
Guest:He's just doing it to try to make the work great.
Guest:And I and I always hear that echo in my head to know that I'm not I'm not doing it to make you look bad or to fuck you over or to hurt someone else.
Guest:I'm just trying to make the scene live.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I understand that.
Marc:But the point I'm making from my own experience is that, you know, that guy knows you.
Marc:That guy, you know, took the time, whether he wanted to or not, you know, to understand how you work.
Marc:So but if you enter a situation where that that isn't a given, then a lot of people are going to take it personally and they're going to get hurt and they're going to.
Marc:And then so then you've got to go through the whole apology process and
Guest:And they should fire me.
Guest:They should fire me.
Guest:And or I shouldn't be with them if they're not going to have any kind of sensitivity to who I am.
Guest:I can't change who I am.
Marc:I know.
Marc:But at what point does it become selfish and maybe a little abusive?
Guest:Probably at any point that it affects anyone else that isn't positive.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:At many points.
Guest:I'm not absolving myself or forgiving myself for it.
Guest:That's another great thing the teacher said to me.
Guest:I said, I just can't forgive myself.
Guest:He said, good.
Guest:I used to think somebody said, what's the meaning of Judaism?
Guest:I would say, well, rachmonis, compassion and forgiving yourself.
Guest:I've given up on forgiving myself because he said to me one day, and I love this.
Guest:I mean, you know, you buy the teaching you want to buy that feels good, that tastes good.
Guest:And he said, who are you a deity?
Guest:Who are you to forgive yourself?
Guest:Aren't you a human being?
Guest:Don't human beings make mistakes?
Marc:Isn't it nice when you find the guy that validates the worst parts of your character?
Guest:Absolutely, and I'd pay him handsomely.
Marc:I don't want to stop that.
Marc:Finally, I found the guy that justifies the worst fucking thing I do to myself.
Marc:He encourages it.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:It just doesn't get a little exhausting.
Guest:But it is exhausting.
Guest:But I'm exhausting.
Guest:I exhaust myself.
Guest:I exhaust others.
Marc:I feel like we've been talking for nine hours.
Marc:It's only been an hour.
Guest:But, you know, I need a guy since that's such a part of my nature to exhaust myself privately, to exhaust myself publicly.
Guest:I need someone to say that's okay.
Marc:Well, you know, I get that, too.
Marc:But I got a friend that said something to me that took me years to understand when I call him up, a dear friend of mine who I can be honest with and talk about, you know, problems.
Marc:I'm a recovery guy.
Marc:So I got, you know, sobriety.
Marc:But so that he's one of those guys.
Marc:And when I tell him about all these horrible things that I'm going through in my mind, he would ask me, like, well, what are you getting out of that?
Marc:What are you getting out of that?
Marc:And that's a great question.
Marc:What am I getting out of that?
Marc:Like I'm doing it over and over again and I'm complaining about it.
Marc:So I must be getting something out of it.
Marc:What is that?
Marc:And that's a provocative question.
Marc:It's like, yeah, what am I getting out of that?
Marc:And do I want that anymore?
Marc:These are choices, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But if you happen to be a painter or a composer or an actor or a writer, and you choose one day to play someone who is incredibly lighthearted, seems to laugh away the world, seems to...
Guest:brush off every shoulder every second, no matter what it is.
Guest:And why are you that way?
Guest:Because you are loaded with agony.
Guest:And you have found that the way to counteract it is to be this other way.
Guest:And what becomes the connective universal tissue to the listener is, I have that agony.
Guest:I know that.
Guest:But to me, the trick and what I admire and the guy I want to have dinner with is the one who manages it by finding ways to have fun in spite of their nature.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, what about love?
Guest:What about it?
Marc:Well, I mean, what about vulnerability?
Marc:What about I mean, I understand agony.
Marc:I understand the relief of agony.
Marc:I understand, you know, you know, getting the laughs and and and and turning darkness into light.
Marc:I understand that.
Marc:But there is a sort of power to to being open hearted without fear.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:May you live long enough, in spite of the love you've just lost, to find a friend, another human being on earth, to just do nothing with, to say nothing with, to just feel comfort from, to not be able to help them in their pain.
Guest:but to know that they just want to sit and be lost with you on the couch, on the chair, in the car.
Guest:And that, to me, is the definition of love.
Guest:Just comfort and company and being lost together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:You know, it is that this fucking thing about sex that we got when we were little and all the stuff about sex and all the energy lost over sex, you know, in energy in terms of what you could have done literally just with that hour, you know, trying to calm yourself down, self-medicate.
Guest:I mean.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:You know, it's just insane.
Guest:The whole world over this kind of stuff.
Guest:Genius people, you know, who could solve the world's problems politically, scientifically are ostracized because they needed to calm themselves down by masturbating.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Who doesn't masturbate?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I'm a proud.
Marc:I was a daily masturbator for years.
Marc:I've just taken a break because I'm getting older.
Marc:I tried to cut it down to twice a week.
Marc:But, you know, it's important.
Marc:I've always felt that that's, you know, it's built in, it's relieving, and it's a gift.
Marc:It's one of the many gifts that Hashem has given us.
Guest:And it is great at times, but is it the defining factor?
Guest:Is it the definition of love?
Guest:No.
Marc:No, it's onanism.
Marc:A friend of mine said to me, he said, if you masturbate a lot, like daily, your primary sexual partner is you.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Did you read this book, Sapiens?
Marc:Which one?
Guest:Sapiens.
Marc:No.
Guest:So it's just like, you know, five, 800 page book.
Guest:I don't know what it is.
Guest:Now you just now I know I'll never read it by a great historian who does, you know, does, you know, it goes billions of years.
Guest:Did you read it?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Into the formation of mankind.
Guest:And then I'm reading this thing because I really want to see what's happening.
Guest:And he takes it into the present.
Guest:He's going all through the timetable of existence and and how sapiens came to be what they are and and what they've done.
Guest:And then the last 10 chapters virtually.
Guest:And this guy is an avowed atheist, by the way.
Guest:But the last 10 chapters really are saying, in my humble opinion, and I'm not the wisest, greatest reader in the world, but is that you cannot find happiness.
Guest:And I hated that book from those last 10 chapters.
Guest:And I really read that book and loved a lot of it.
Guest:But I hated that.
Guest:That's you make that kind of effort and garner your audience and you have a successful book.
Guest:But that's what you're offering us at the end.
Guest:That all of us who are looking for peace and happiness, you're going to say in your, you know, huge mind that that's a wasted goal.
Guest:Fuck you.
Marc:See, and then he proves his point.
Marc:See what he did to you.
Marc:Look what he did to you.
Marc:He's correct.
Marc:No, I mean, I talked to somebody recently said that most animals, you know, that were designed to think negatively out of fear and protection.
Marc:So, like, that's one of the things we've had to reconfigure as conscious, you know, sentient animals, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that's what we're talking about here.
Marc:That's the challenge.
Marc:That's what we've been talking about the whole time.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, fear, I'm so exhausted from being terrified.
Guest:And, you know, people, people will say to me, you know, I have to public speaker, I got to make a speech, what do I do?
Guest:Can you help me?
Guest:And I say to them, you know, shake.
Guest:Shake.
Guest:Let your legs shake.
Guest:Let your arms shake.
Guest:Let your lips shake.
Guest:Sweat.
Guest:Let tears roll down your eyes.
Guest:Have you ever walked away from someone in that condition in front of your eyes?
Guest:People will lean into you.
Guest:And those that don't, just hope they walk away quicker.
Marc:Well, I mean, if you're advising a guy who's going to give some sort of corporate presentation, just go out there and cry.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:First of all, you've got them in the palm of your hand.
Guest:Secondly, they're going to want to pay you to shut the fuck up and get to the next guy.
Marc:Yeah, help this guy.
Marc:This guy needs help.
Marc:Should have got it together.
Guest:Yeah, give him a billion dollars and let him build it.
Marc:So you did the show, the Homeland Show you did for a long time, right?
Yeah.
Guest:approximately 10 years from hello to, to the final goodbye, but it was eight seasons, but we enjoyed it.
Guest:I really, I just loved it.
Guest:I truly loved it on, on, on, on, on so many levels.
Guest:The people involved first and foremost, the,
Guest:character of the material, the relationships with the intelligence community that we formed in terms of our research systems, and the relationships that I made with those people long term in many cases, the connective
Guest:the connective nature of, of my being to a global understanding of, of, of systems broken and needing attention paid.
Marc:So it informed you politically to some degree.
Guest:Politically.
Guest:It gave me a platform, unlike any other part of my career.
Guest:It, it, it started my relationship with the international rescue committee and helping refugees be listened to and should be paid to them.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:And then, you know, because of all of that, it literally it's all the ripple from that whole thing because of the platform we made from I made the refugee thing.
Guest:I never had social media.
Guest:We started it for refugee crisis with the International Rescue Committee.
Guest:Then my son, who always has taken out a cell phone, you know, filming family things, you know, takes a family movie of Catherine and I after we have a fight on our anniversary, says, you know, this was really kind of sweet.
Guest:Can I put that on your social media?
Guest:I said, I don't know how to do that.
Guest:I have someone who does that for me.
Guest:He says, I can do it.
Guest:And he does it and it goes well.
Guest:And then he starts doing that at the time when the pandemic starts and it's bringing a smile to people.
Guest:So, you know, we're just the hired idiot parents.
Guest:We just answer his questions.
Marc:You're on the Instagram.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We're doing nothing except answering Gideon's questions.
Guest:And he's putting this stuff out there.
Guest:And then, you know, George Floyd is murdered.
Guest:So we then shift.
Guest:It's not appropriate to do that.
Guest:So we shift into awareness for Black Lives Matter and that moment.
Guest:But in the back of our minds, the minute this thing started catching, we thought if we could grow this platform, we can maybe help get out the vote, you know, in September and October.
Guest:And we were a little part of that effort.
Guest:And, you know, from, you know, all of those things from being in a television show.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's interesting, though, that that, you know, as a progressive, thoughtful, creative Jew guy that, you know, it feels like it took you a while to get on board with the social activism, huh?
Guest:Oh, no, no, not at all.
Guest:I'd been it was my wife brought us on board early on social activism in terms of social media.
Guest:We have been very active since really I did since I began doing solo concerts.
Marc:Are you a fan of Theodore Backell?
Guest:I know him.
Guest:I've been with him.
Guest:My father loved him.
Guest:Beautiful man.
Guest:I'm glad I got to be on a stage with him once.
Marc:You were?
Marc:Yeah, because it seems like there is some connective tissue there.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'm certainly one of those guys of our generation.
Guest:Are you asking me to sing you a Yiddish song?
Guest:Is that what you love?
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:I'm just wondering.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:I'd love you.
Marc:No, I'd love it.
Marc:Did you have to learn Yiddish?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I mean, I particularly know the words, every word I sing, but I learned it to a point through the lyrics that I went to Germany and on more than one occasion, but I go to a German movie and find my way around.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:What's your favorite Yiddish song?
Guest:German bass.
Guest:My favorite Yiddish song, I think, is the one my dad sang.
Guest:The only one my dad sang.
Guest:He never sang much, but it was...
Guest:so it goes on and it's about mama mama what do you want what do you want my daughter what do you want you're not happy do you want a pair of shoes no mama you don't understand you never understand do you want a new dress no mama you don't understand you never understand do you want a boyfriend yes mama you understand you always understand yeah and my dad used to sing that so when i learned all this yiddish music that was the one that mattered to me yeah yeah yeah this is my dance
Marc:So was there Yiddish spoken in the house?
Guest:Only as a secret language.
Guest:And particularly when when Grandma Celia came over, because she never learned how to write very well or speak English.
Guest:And she would always go in the basement with my father because she didn't want my sister and myself to see how long it took her to sign the checks.
Marc:My grandparents used to speak when they didn't want us to understand what they were saying.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, that's amazing.
Marc:So when you do these things, how many people are left of the generation that that is provocative?
Guest:It's astounding how Yiddish...
Guest:has grown through Volksbina and different organizations that have brought, you know, in the language that was tried to have been decimated, attempted to be decimated completely, back to life.
Guest:Their camps, they just did, my friends at Volksbina did this Yiddish fiddler on the roof.
Guest:It was one of the most extraordinary things.
Guest:You know, all of us have seen fiddler on the roof in one iteration or another.
Guest:This was the definition of how it should have been seen.
Guest:And it was unbelievably powerful.
Guest:And Joel Gray directed it and it had a simplicity that was almost like a high school production.
Guest:But because of the connective tissue of the sounds of a language.
Guest:And I remember when we recorded it,
Guest:I had many of the same musicians, African-American musicians, Asian musicians, who worked on most of my other recordings in New York, studio musicians.
Guest:And the African-American and Asian musicians came up afterwards and said, we just want you to know we've worked on all your albums.
Guest:This is the most powerful experience we've ever had.
Guest:And we couldn't understand a single word.
Guest:And as I started to perform it and
Guest:Catholic priests and nuns and Irishmen would come back and say, thank you.
Guest:I learned what meaning of this was.
Guest:I just happened to be a Jew who connected to my heritage's language.
Guest:The lesson was whatever you come from, whatever the language is of your ancestors, take a walk in it, take a bath in it, let it wash over you.
Guest:Don't try to understand it.
Guest:Just drink it and let it wash you.
Guest:And there's something about it.
Guest:And it's...
Guest:It's one of great things that's unexplainable.
Marc:Well, yeah, it's like that.
Marc:It's like the idea of centuries of prayer.
Marc:There's like a groove there.
Marc:It's not just tradition.
Marc:It's not legacy.
Marc:It's almost genetic.
Marc:It's a language spoken through centuries.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And once you tap into it, it makes you feel connected.
Guest:Connected, yeah.
Guest:I mean, that's to me the word James Epine put it in Sunday in the Park with George.
Guest:So my character of George Surratt, when I was 31 or two years old, I think, or maybe I was 34, repeated this line over and over again through the play, connect, George, connect.
Guest:And it became the word I realized of my existence.
Guest:And it's the only words, if I have a tombstone, which I'm not dealing with because I can't deal with any of that.
Guest:So I'll check out when the time comes and it's my children's problem or my whoever's left.
Guest:I don't expect to know about it.
Guest:I don't want to know.
Guest:I don't want to know I'm going to be put in a box.
Guest:I don't want to know that they're going to cook me in an oven.
Guest:I don't want to be in a mud hole.
Guest:I don't want any possibilities to exist.
Guest:And so I don't want to know.
Guest:But if there is a tombstone, I wanted to say he tried to connect.
Marc:Well, you do.
Marc:And I think that, like, as you're saying this, that the horror for you, that the existential dread must come from those moments where you feel disconnected.
Guest:Very much.
Guest:And the most painful moments, both personally, if they're with my children or wife, when I can't communicate or I over-communicate or I'm over-emotional or over-sensitive and I blow the moment or I'm on stage and I just...
Guest:missed it or did too much or couldn't recover quick enough or was too young to know how to recover.
Guest:I was in great pain and still am to this day at times, particularly with family, because I don't get that moment back.
Guest:Yet with those who love you, you do get another try.
Guest:As soon as you knock on the door, they will open it.
Guest:You're the one who closes it.
Marc:Yeah, because you're busy beating the shit out of yourself in the room.
Guest:And to have my two sons and my wife, Catherine, for 42 years between Catherine and the boys constantly love me in spite of it all is pretty overwhelming.
Marc:Yeah, thank God.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You did fuck that up.
Guest:Good for you.
Guest:I'm a lucky guy.
Marc:You knew where the line was, apparently.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:But they also knew that it's going to take Dad.
Guest:Dad's going to go to the city.
Guest:Dad took the dog.
Guest:He may come back.
Guest:He may not come back for a week.
Guest:It always happens around my birthday and Thanksgiving, which are days apart.
Guest:Always.
Guest:Always.
Guest:I can't handle something about it, and I usually check out.
Guest:Last year, I went to go to New Orleans because somebody said something and I got upset, packed my bag, went to LaGuardia.
Guest:got on the airplane then the uh something happened on the airplane and at that moment i felt better and i thought i don't need to go to new orleans so i said to the stewardess can i please get off the airplane i need to get off the airplane there was some sort of problem i said i got to get off the airplane made it like a little crazier yeah and they opened the door they let me off i got back in the cab i went back to the country and i said i'm home so
Guest:So now we kind of refer to it as he in New Orleans.
Marc:So so you find that the the the depression comes at certain times at times.
Guest:Yes, but it never I can never identify the trigger.
Guest:It comes out of nowhere.
Marc:Literally, occasionally you literally have to go away for a few days.
Guest:Yeah, I just have to know that I can escape, that I have an alternative to being confined.
Guest:And by confined, meaning if it's with my wife, that you have to be that to my wife, that my darling, you have to be around me.
Guest:I don't want to expose me to you.
Guest:I don't want my kids to have to be exposed to my darkness and I need to know I can get away.
Guest:And everybody's fine.
Guest:I mean, Gideon, my youngest one, he had it better than anybody and he taught the rest of the family.
Guest:So every Thanksgiving and Christmas,
Guest:The men, the family members of the monks at the monastery in upstate New York, where my brother-in-law is, it's family on Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Guest:So one day I was in a bad way and we drive the family up there.
Guest:We're in the parking lot and everybody knows dad's in a dark spot and Gideon outside.
Guest:And he's about, I don't know, maybe he's 15, 16, maybe.
Guest:And he said, if you can't get it together, don't come in.
Guest:And I didn't.
Guest:And I stayed in the car for about an hour.
Guest:But but he was he's the clearest one.
Guest:He's the only one in the family that doesn't try to fix me.
Marc:Yeah, I you know, I grew up with a father with depression and I you know, I know the the the the story of it.
Marc:But for you.
Marc:No medicine.
Guest:Oh, I had 15 years of five different medicines at a time at one point.
Guest:I was on stage in New York doing my one, I think my Sondheim show, 20 minutes into the concert.
Guest:And I went up because of what some lyric did to my head.
Guest:And I stopped.
Guest:And I started the whole thing over again from the beginning.
Guest:And a friend of mine said, you can never do that again.
Guest:And I thought to my friends, let me tell you, I'll do it again if I need to do it again.
Guest:And I went home and I took that last bottle of pills I had and I put them in the toilet.
Guest:And I said, because I tried to get off those pills many times over the years.
Guest:And I prefaced this by saying some people need medication and it's important.
Guest:But for me, all the medications put that fighting part of my brain to sleep.
Guest:And I needed every cellular opportunity to stay focused and alive and battle the darkness.
Guest:And so I would try many times to get off it with, you know, lying to the doctor, just not taking it over the years.
Guest:And and like clockwork, you know, two weeks into it, I'd crash, call the doctor, have to take it again.
Guest:But that night I put it in the toilet and I said, never again.
Guest:And I'll I'd rather not be here than feel chained to this.
Guest:I can't do it anymore.
Guest:And I and it was the moment when I was ready, you know, and I was done.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:These were prescribed medication.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I get the other thing that everybody probably knows is there are psychopharmacologists out there that should be put in prison.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That that give you medications.
Guest:They don't know that should not be giving you them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, I it's all speculative, it turns out.
Guest:Look, I really I'll repeat the preface.
Guest:Some people really need to have certain medications.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Don't take some word of some actor on a podcast, you know, listening to what he said and think it's right for you.
Guest:What's right for you is what's right for you.
Guest:Not what I say.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did you listen to music today?
Guest:Just the music I heard at the beginning of your podcast with one of Lynn and a little bit of music that there was in there.
Guest:That's all the music I heard today.
Marc:And do you listen to music every day?
Guest:No.
Hmm.
Guest:I don't, my kids, Gideon, if my son Gideon was here, he would tell you, he would interrupt and go, my father doesn't like listening to music.
Guest:Because, and I think partly because music is, I love doing it and it's my work, but it's not where I relax.
Guest:And where do you relax?
Guest:I relax taking walks and ironically on my walk, I run a concert.
Guest:So I'll run an hour, hour and a half worth of material of lyrics and singing like, you know, just about this loud, you know, really quiet while I'm singing.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's what I do.
Guest:And occasionally I do.
Guest:I'll listen to Mahler or I'll listen to my son's recordings or I'll listen to Debbie Friedman because it's just an OK time for me.
Guest:But in general, there is so much noise in my head, Mark.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So much noise that I love quiet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my wife loves more noise and more noise.
Guest:And we've learned that I need quiet.
Guest:And I read a book once somebody gave me called Quiet.
Guest:I forget the woman wrote it.
Guest:And it's about introspective people.
Guest:And you'd never think when people talk to me or you see me on some fucking interview, I sometimes watch myself talking to some person like yourself.
Guest:And I turn to my wife and I'll go quiet.
Guest:I don't know how anyone could tolerate me.
Guest:You know, it's just I'm desperate to get away from this fucking television.
Guest:I can't watch a minute more of myself.
Guest:And the book is about people that you'd never guess were introverts.
Guest:So it made me realize that in many ways, even though I do what I do, that I am an introvert.
Guest:and and some of the people that are described as introverts it's extraordinary book for people you know i mean i mean it used to be at harvard and stuff they used to say to you there was courses about how you had to be an extrovert to have any existence you know oh yeah well it's well it's like it comes back to robin you know who was probably like one of the most introverted people that i ever met ever yeah yeah and then you put on the thing yeah it's almost like a protective uh magic trick you know like
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:I'm going to go be quiet now.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But when you, when you would, when you would experience it with Robin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was, uh, undefinable almost.
Guest:It was so hugely different from, you know, one thing to the other.
Marc:Oh, when he turned it on.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It was like, all of a sudden you're on a, one second he can barely look in the eye and the next you're like, Holy shit.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:We're in an amusement park.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's great talking to you, buddy.
Marc:You feel good?
Guest:I do feel good.
Guest:And it's wonderful talking to you.
Guest:And I want to leave you and whoever's listening with one.
Guest:I had a father's group when the kids were starting in preschool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And these four fathers and then the mothers became friends.
Guest:And then we had life together all the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Holidays.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one of the dads passed away from melanoma and there's a dear friend of mine named Mark Harrington and I loved him dearly.
Guest:And he kept himself alive for the moment when Catherine and I heard that it was time and we ran back from Colorado where we were visiting people.
Guest:And we made it to his room and he asked the nurse for a cup of morphine and he took the morphine and he struggled to get himself up in bed.
Guest:And he looked at these two lunatics, my wife and myself, and he said the most challenging words of all time, have fun.
Yeah.
Guest:And then he laid down, and about a day later, he left us.
Guest:But he knew that that was the job at hand, and he knew it was the Everest to climb at the same time.
Marc:And how are you doing with that?
Guest:I'm doing better than I've ever done in my life, and that's why I love getting older.
Guest:I'm not crazy about the knees and all the things that go with the...
Guest:designed body parts, but I love getting older for just the time lived in the things that terrified me that I now have learned to ignore.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Marc:It all goes away.
Marc:Nothing's that important.
Guest:And you can't get over how one minute you were ready to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and the next minute you can't even remember why.
Marc:So maybe that's your version of self-forgiveness.
Marc:You're forgetting.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And my wife will say, I wish I had your memory, which is zero.
Guest:I remember nothing.
Marc:It's a gift, Mandy.
Marc:It's a gift.
Guest:I think so, Mark.
Guest:And I wish you I wish you fun.
Guest:And and I wish you to have your loved ones in your mind and heart all your days.
Marc:You too.
Marc:You too.
Marc:And in a similar sense, Warren Zevon, I think, once said, enjoy every sandwich.
Guest:I will.
Guest:I will.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Guest:Take care.
Guest:What is your favorite sandwich?
Marc:That's a good question.
Marc:Um,
Marc:I love a very moist brisket sandwich, Jewish-style brisket.
Guest:Wow, we're pretty close.
Guest:I would love cold meatloaf sliced with mustard, thick iceberg lettuce on toast.
Marc:Oh, that's nice.
Marc:Like a meatloaf your mom made or something?
Guest:Yeah, just meatloaf.
Marc:Yeah, I like the deli meats, but not much on it, just the dark mustard.
Guest:Oh, yeah, it's too much for me, the dark mustard.
Guest:No, no good.
Guest:I'm a French's yellow mustard.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:All right.
Marc:I'm a simple man, Mark.
Marc:I can live with that.
Marc:I think we can live with our choices.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Take care of yourself, buddy.
Guest:All right, you two.
Guest:All the best.
All right.
Marc:all right that was mandy patentkin you can go see his stuff from homeland to princess bride the records the plays you can't see i don't know maybe they're on available i'm not sure are they sunday in the park with george i don't know i don't know okay all right fascism is the frenzy of sexual cripples wilhelm reich here's some guitar
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey lives.
Marc:La Fonda!
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.
Thank you.