BONUS Extra Ed Begley Jr.

00:00:50Guest:I lost half my sense of taste and smell, and I was twitching a little bit, but very little, so I didn't even mention that to them because it wasn't happening when I had all the tests.

00:01:02Guest:If I'd said that or that had been twitching a little more, they probably would have figured in 2004, but that wouldn't have been to my advantage.

00:01:09Guest:I didn't know for 12 years that I had it, so I just kept riding my bike up the hill and doing everything I did.

00:01:14Guest:And it didn't progress?

00:01:16Guest:It did, but very slowly.

00:01:17Guest:Yeah.

00:01:18Guest:Same as it has since 2016.

00:01:20Guest:They got medicine for it now?

00:01:23Guest:They got medicine, and I do all this extra credit shit.

00:01:26Guest:Stem cells, glutathione, NAD, hyperbaric chamber.

00:01:30Guest:Yeah.

00:01:31Guest:And what I did all along, not knowing, good exercise every day.

00:01:35Marc:Yeah, and that helped.

00:01:37Marc:It helps a lot.

00:01:38Marc:Well, that's good.

00:01:38Marc:Well, I'm glad you're fair and all right with it.

00:01:41Marc:Me too.

00:01:42Marc:Do you feel on some level...

00:01:45Marc:It was brought on by your past?

00:01:50Guest:It was brought on by my past, but not the wild years past.

00:01:53Guest:It was brought on by, they theorized that it's head injury and toxic exposure, and I'm a poster boy for both, as it turns out.

00:02:01Guest:Hmm.

00:02:01Guest:Head injury.

00:02:02Guest:When did that happen?

00:02:03Guest:I had quite a few.

00:02:04Guest:I had, when I was a year old, my mother dropped me at Hollywood and Vine on the concrete of my head.

00:02:09Guest:Yeah.

00:02:09Guest:Then my sister pushed me off a high recliner when I was about a little less than two on the corner of the fireplace.

00:02:16Guest:Yeah.

00:02:16Guest:Stone, and it split my head open pretty good.

00:02:19Guest:Yeah.

00:02:19Guest:Then I had an accident in Prague in 1993.

00:02:22Guest:In Prague?

00:02:24Guest:In Prague, I ran head on into a dump truck.

00:02:26Yeah.

00:02:26Marc:In a car or a bike?

00:02:28Guest:In a car.

00:02:29Guest:Oh.

00:02:30Guest:What year?

00:02:31Guest:That was 93.

00:02:32Guest:And I used to, when I did my stand-up act that we talked about last time I was on, I used to hit my head on the stage every night as part of a big payoff to this bill that I did about a musician who was playing his body because he didn't believe in instruments.

00:02:45Guest:Right.

00:02:45Guest:And so I would, at the end, hit my head and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and sink to this thing.

00:02:51Guest:And it was real funny.

00:02:53Guest:At the ice house, it worked well because it was a hollow stage, but at the troubadour, there was solid concrete underneath the wood, so it wasn't very bright.

00:03:00Marc:But you didn't concuss yourself.

00:03:02Guest:No, I never concussed myself, but head injuries and toxic.

00:03:06Guest:Oh, and I drank ant poison when I was a kid crawling on the floor.

00:03:09Guest:I don't know if I mentioned that.

00:03:10Guest:Oh, good.

00:03:10Guest:I lived next door to a dry cleaner with perchloroethylene blowing in the window every day.

00:03:14Guest:So you've got a long list.

00:03:16Guest:Long list.

00:03:17Guest:Of possibilities.

00:03:18Guest:Toxic and head injury.

00:03:20Guest:Not to mention all the blow.

00:03:22Guest:Lots of blow.

00:03:22Guest:Lots of toxic blow and toxic heroin.

00:03:25Guest:No, not so much.

00:03:26Guest:I did heroin four times was all, but that was plenty.

00:03:29Marc:Yeah, it's good when you don't take to the heroin.

00:03:31Guest:Yeah, it is.

00:03:32Guest:Probably the smartest move in life.

00:03:34Marc:Well, either you like it or you don't.

00:03:36Marc:Either you like going fast or you like being dead.

00:03:38Guest:Well, I liked it, but the problem was the fourth time I did it was not the Mexican brown stuff that made me a little nauseous.

00:03:45Guest:The China white made me not sick at all.

00:03:47Guest:And so I went, oh, I'm done.

00:03:49Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:03:49Guest:I could just fast forward the tape and see where that led.

00:03:51Guest:I went, I'm done with this right now before I start.

00:03:54Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:03:55Guest:Who are you hanging out with with the dope?

00:03:58Guest:The dope, I got it from a woman named Kathy Evelyn Smith.

00:04:01Guest:Do you remember that name?

00:04:02Guest:No.

00:04:03Guest:Also known as Kathy Silverbag.

00:04:05Guest:She befriended John Belushi in the last days of his life.

00:04:08Guest:Oh, that one.

00:04:08Guest:And she gave him the fatal dose.

00:04:12Marc:Yeah.

00:04:12Guest:So she was around.

00:04:14Guest:She was around.

00:04:15Guest:Kathy Silverbag was her nickname.

00:04:17Guest:She had a little silver bag with packets of heroin in it.

00:04:19Guest:Yeah.

00:04:20Guest:I bought one from her.

00:04:21Guest:Yeah.

00:04:22Guest:Yeah.

00:04:22Guest:I was scared to death of needles, as John was, as everybody was.

00:04:25Guest:Yeah.

00:04:26Guest:But I snorted it.

00:04:28Guest:But I could see a needle in my future, so I stopped.

00:04:30Marc:That's what I did.

00:04:31Marc:I snorted it, and I got pretty sick pretty quickly.

00:04:35Marc:Yeah.

00:04:35Marc:Yeah, I threw up.

00:04:36Marc:But if you really are an addict, after you vomit and sweat, you think to yourself, I just got to get the hang of this.

00:04:44Guest:Exactly.

00:04:45Guest:I got to do it better.

00:04:45Guest:Yeah.

00:04:47Guest:Do it smarter.

00:04:49Marc:Yeah, I never, I never, I was in New York towards, what year is that?

00:04:54Marc:I don't know.

00:04:55Marc:But when all that China white started coming, the Mexican stuff was primarily here.

00:04:59Marc:I didn't really have much experience with that till later.

00:05:02Marc:But it spread across the country pretty good.

00:05:04Marc:Yeah.

00:05:05Marc:That black tar stuff.

00:05:06Marc:Yeah.

00:05:07Marc:Brown tar heroin.

00:05:08Guest:Turns out it's popular in lots of cities.

00:05:10Marc:Yeah.

00:05:10Marc:Well, now, you know, it's all been sort of pushed aside for fentanyl.

00:05:18Guest:That's right.

00:05:18Guest:That's a drug of choice for a lot of people.

00:05:21Marc:Bad.

00:05:22Marc:Yikes.

00:05:23Marc:Yeah.

00:05:24Marc:Now, I watched The In-Laws recently.

00:05:26Marc:God, do I love that movie.

00:05:28Marc:It's great.

00:05:29Guest:It holds up.

00:05:30Marc:Sure it does.

00:05:31Marc:I saw it on film.

00:05:33Marc:Over at the New Beverly, they ran a print of it.

00:05:35Marc:Fantastic.

00:05:36Marc:Quinton got a print of it.

00:05:37Marc:He did.

00:05:38Marc:The best print he could get.

00:05:40Marc:You know, it's weird how so many of those prints just don't exist anymore.

00:05:44Marc:I know.

00:05:45Marc:It's crazy.

00:05:45Guest:They, like, got rid of them when everything went digital.

00:05:47Guest:I don't know what the fuck they did.

00:05:48Marc:I don't know what happened to them or they just didn't take care of them.

00:05:50Marc:Exactly.

00:05:51Guest:And they deteriorated.

00:05:52Guest:Yeah, put that over here.

00:05:53Guest:We don't need that anymore.

00:05:54Guest:We got it on zeros and ones.

00:05:56Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:05:57Guest:What were you thinking?

00:05:58Marc:Yeah, well, now, like, it's amazing when you can get a good print of something.

00:06:01Marc:I hosted a print of...

00:06:03Marc:of Dog Day Afternoon at the American Cinematheque.

00:06:06Guest:What a good movie that is.

00:06:07Marc:Oh, my God.

00:06:08Guest:Jesus Christ.

00:06:09Guest:Sidney Lumet, John Cazale.

00:06:10Marc:Great fucking movie.

00:06:12Guest:Pacino.

00:06:13Marc:Yeah, and it all happens in one day.

00:06:15Marc:It's crazy.

00:06:16Marc:That movie is crazy.

00:06:17Marc:Crazy.

00:06:17Marc:And it's beautiful.

00:06:18Marc:But you were very funny in The In-Laws.

00:06:20Marc:And I have to assume, did you, like, what was, because in the essay that you wrote in the book, you were kind of scrambling to get down there and newly sober, huh?

00:06:30Guest:Yeah.

00:06:31Guest:Yeah.

00:06:31Guest:And the pressure of it, I ordered a drink at the bar there.

00:06:34Guest:They opened the bar at 8 a.m.

00:06:36Guest:At LAX.

00:06:38Guest:And I remember I told this guy at a meeting, I said, I'll call you before I drink next time.

00:06:45Guest:Yeah.

00:06:45Guest:So I, oh, shit, this goddamn guy, Billy Boyle.

00:06:48Guest:So I go over the pay phone.

00:06:49Guest:There's no cell phones then.

00:06:50Guest:I call him up, Billy, who the hell is this?

00:06:53Guest:Yeah.

00:06:54Guest:I said, it's Ed Begley.

00:06:54Guest:I'm here at the airport, and he told me to call you before I drink, and I'm about to drink, so I'm calling you.

00:07:00Guest:I said, okay.

00:07:01Guest:Where are you headed?

00:07:02Guest:He's like casual about it.

00:07:04Guest:Yeah.

00:07:04Guest:Going down to Cuernavaca to do a movie.

00:07:06Guest:Okay.

00:07:07Guest:I hear the weather's nice this time of year.

00:07:09Guest:Yeah.

00:07:09Guest:But maybe you don't understand what I'm saying.

00:07:11Guest:I already ordered the drink.

00:07:13Guest:Bartender.

00:07:13Guest:Do I have a drink waiting right there?

00:07:15Guest:Yeah.

00:07:15Guest:Are you going to come order it, drink it?

00:07:17Guest:Yeah.

00:07:17Guest:And so I said, yeah, I'm coming right there.

00:07:19Guest:I'm going to drink right now.

00:07:20Guest:In fact, I've got a first-class business ticket, so I'm going to drink on the plane too.

00:07:24Guest:He said, like I said, call me when you get there.

00:07:27Guest:I said, but I'm going to drink.

00:07:28Guest:He says, you're not going to drink.

00:07:29Guest:I said, I am going to drink.

00:07:30Guest:He says, you're not going to drink.

00:07:31Guest:I said, why am I not going to drink?

00:07:33Guest:And he said, because you called me.

00:07:35Guest:And I realized it was true.

00:07:38Guest:If you wanted to drink, you would have drank the goddamn drink.

00:07:40Guest:But he called me.

00:07:42Guest:Yeah.

00:07:42Guest:Was that guy your sponsor?

00:07:43Guest:He wasn't, but he didn't want me as a sponsee.

00:07:46Guest:Oh.

00:07:46Guest:But he was an incredible influence, Billy Boyle.

00:07:49Guest:But he saved your ass.

00:07:50Guest:He did.

00:07:51Guest:Totally saved it.

00:07:52Guest:Yeah.

00:07:52Guest:He was a great guy.

00:07:53Marc:But I mean, like, how do you like, like, because I guess you're a character actor, like your dad in a while, right?

00:08:01Marc:And you're a recognizable guy, but you're one of those guys of people everybody knows, but may not be able to identify what they know you from.

00:08:08Marc:Right.

00:08:08Marc:Because you've been in so much stuff.

00:08:11Marc:And you but you're also like you're part of a community that that doesn't seem to really exist anymore.

00:08:19Guest:Right.

00:08:20Guest:Before cell phones, people get around with their chairs and like a circle, like circle the wagons in their little director's chairs and talk to each other.

00:08:27Guest:Yeah.

00:08:28Guest:Now people are on their devices.

00:08:29Guest:People don't talk to each other the way we used to.

00:08:32Marc:But I think it's interesting because like, you know, the idea like, you know, some people get accused of name dropping, but you actually had relationships with all these people that meant something to you.

00:08:42Marc:I did.

00:08:42Marc:And I find that as well, maybe the same kind of person where, you know, you spend time with people on set or whatever, doing a movie or TV show.

00:08:50Marc:And I used to always think like, well, does everybody hang out?

00:08:52Marc:And no, they don't.

00:08:53Marc:No, they don't.

00:08:54Marc:But I think when you were coming up, it was a different time, and it was a smaller world.

00:08:58Marc:And I think we talked about this the last time you were here, and people did kind of hang out.

00:09:02Guest:They did.

00:09:03Guest:Yeah.

00:09:04Guest:You miss it?

00:09:05Guest:I do miss it, but I try to recreate it.

00:09:07Guest:I have people by for my birthday often, and you'll get an invite now that I've got a good email for you.

00:09:12Guest:I love to have a lot of these friends by.

00:09:14Guest:It's really great.

00:09:15Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:09:15Guest:But I feel kind of like Zelig, that character.

00:09:17Guest:You remember that movie, Zelig?

00:09:19Guest:Yeah.

00:09:19Guest:Like that guy, like, what's he doing at Yalta?

00:09:21Guest:Who invited him?

00:09:22Guest:Yeah.

00:09:22Marc:But what do you make of that in relation to yourself?

00:09:25Marc:Are you the guy that's sort of like, I got to be there, or you just find yourself there?

00:09:29Guest:I find myself there for the most part, but I'm a guy that was born in Hollywood, at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, and I've been around forever, so people, I guess, feel comfortable around me.

00:09:38Guest:I've just, I met this one and that over the years, so if you know, you know, Superstar A, then Superstar B goes, well, he must be okay, because Joe Schmoe likes him.

00:09:47Marc:Yeah, and then you just hang out.

00:09:48Marc:You just hang out.

00:09:49Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:09:50Marc:What did you do with Brando?

00:09:52Marc:Oh, going south with Brando.

00:09:54Marc:No, no, that was Missouri Breaks.

00:09:57Guest:I was a hanger out on Missouri Breaks.

00:09:59Guest:You were?

00:09:59Guest:I drove up there and just hung out to kind of drink in the whole experience.

00:10:03Guest:Where was it?

00:10:04Guest:It was up in Billings, Montana.

00:10:06Guest:Is that where you met Jim Harrison?

00:10:07Guest:That is exactly where I met.

00:10:09Guest:I'm pretty sure I met him.

00:10:10Guest:Oh, no, I met him on Going South.

00:10:11Guest:Down in Mexico?

00:10:12Guest:Yeah, I don't think he was there on Missouri Breaks.

00:10:15Guest:Because I know there's a pick, but I thought he lived up in Montana for a while.

00:10:19Guest:Yeah, he might have.

00:10:20Guest:He might have been there, but it was definitely in Durango for Going South, and that's where he and I hit it off.

00:10:25Marc:So you're up on Hanging Out on Missouri Breaks.

00:10:28Marc:I re-watched that movie again not too long ago, and I remember seeing it when I was a kid, and I liked it.

00:10:34Marc:I did, too.

00:10:35Guest:I thought it was still pretty good.

00:10:37Guest:Harry Dean was good in it.

00:10:38Guest:Yeah.

00:10:38Guest:Randy Quaid.

00:10:39Guest:Yeah.

00:10:39Guest:Fred Forrest.

00:10:41Guest:Jack.

00:10:42Guest:Yeah, Jack was great.

00:10:43Guest:Oh, it was Arthur Penn.

00:10:44Guest:Arthur Penn.

00:10:45Guest:Yeah, that guy.

00:10:46Guest:Very good.

00:10:47Guest:And that Brando character was so crazy, dude.

00:10:49Guest:Crazy.

00:10:49Guest:He'd just wear a gingham gown suddenly.

00:10:51Guest:Yeah.

00:10:52Guest:Show up in a gingham gown.

00:10:53Guest:His choice.

00:10:54Guest:Yeah.

00:10:55Guest:He was known to do that on several movies.

00:10:57Guest:Mr. Brando, I'm sorry, you're in the wrong outfit.

00:11:00Guest:We need you in the khaki slacks and the windbreaker for scene 27.

00:11:04Guest:And he was a bounty hunter, right?

00:11:05Marc:Yeah.

00:11:06Marc:And as a kid, the thing I remembered was that guy gets shot fucking that lady, that guy's wife out back.

00:11:12Marc:Remember?

00:11:12Marc:Oh, that's right.

00:11:13Marc:Yeah.

00:11:14Marc:There's that one.

00:11:15Guest:I can't remember how some of the other, and I remember.

00:11:17Guest:Harry Dean gets to like this metal, like Frisbee shot into.

00:11:21Guest:His forehead.

00:11:22Guest:Stuck into his forehead, yeah.

00:11:23Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:11:25Marc:And then when, you know why you just woke up?

00:11:28Marc:Because I cut your throat, yeah.

00:11:30Guest:Right, Jack was great and a very good Nicholson, by the way.

00:11:34Marc:Yeah, it's okay.

00:11:35Marc:I can only do it in a moment.

00:11:36Marc:Yeah, but I kind of liked that movie.

00:11:38Marc:It was one of those ones I remember seeing probably too young.

00:11:41Guest:Yeah, I liked it too.

00:11:43Guest:What was your experience with Marwin?

00:11:44Guest:It was great.

00:11:45Guest:He had heard of my environmental work, and he liked that, and he liked that I was handy too, that I made my dining room table and a chest of drawers.

00:11:54Guest:He loved anybody who was handy.

00:11:55Guest:He didn't want to talk about show business at all, no talking about acting, writing, directing, puppetry, claymation, trained seals, anything that was show business.

00:12:04Guest:He didn't want to talk about anything.

00:12:05Guest:Galvanized pipe versus copper, love to talk about that.

00:12:08Guest:Wind turbines, solar panels, loved it.

00:12:11Guest:Drywall, you name it.

00:12:12Marc:Well, I mean, that's the thrust of your life.

00:12:14Marc:It ultimately became environmentalism, right?

00:12:18Guest:It did.

00:12:18Guest:It's a big part of my life.

00:12:19Guest:When did that start?

00:12:20Guest:1970, believe it or not, early in my career, too.

00:12:24Guest:It happened with the first Earth Day because I grew up in that smog, and after 20 years of that,

00:12:29Guest:Suddenly they're talking about doing something called Earth Day.

00:12:31Guest:I went, well, what do you want to do besides the big celebration?

00:12:34Guest:What's going to happen to the other 364?

00:12:36Guest:And the people that were organizing said, we're going to clean up the air and we're going to clean up the water.

00:12:40Guest:I went, OK, then sign me up.

00:12:42Guest:Because I knew how bad the air was back in 1970.

00:12:46Guest:Horrible choking smog.

00:12:47Guest:And I'd seen what the Santa Barbara oil spill had done.

00:12:50Guest:I had heard what the Cuyahoga River had experienced with it catching fire in 1969.

00:12:56Guest:So I went, you know, we got a lot of work to do.

00:12:58Guest:Let's set about doing it.

00:13:00Guest:And with all the bad news about the environment, not a lot of people know there's good news.

00:13:04Guest:Even though we have four times the cars in L.A.

00:13:06Guest:since 1970, millions more people, there's a fraction of the smog.

00:13:10Guest:Yeah.

00:13:10Guest:And we've cleaned it up.

00:13:11Guest:So that's kind of a miracle.

00:13:13Marc:Between what, catalytic converters?

00:13:14Guest:Catalytic converters, cleaner power plants, cleaner buses, all of it together.

00:13:19Guest:We all hoped it would work, and it did work.

00:13:21Guest:Yeah.

00:13:22Guest:Are you hopeful?

00:13:24Yeah.

00:13:24Guest:I am, because I know we can apply that sort of stuff to the big ticket items like climate change, but we got to get cracking.

00:13:30Guest:We can't keep fiddle-fucking around, you know, pocky around with all sorts of bullshit.

00:13:35Guest:It's not really doing it.

00:13:36Guest:We got to get serious about it.

00:13:37Marc:Yeah.

00:13:38Marc:And some of the essays are sort of your journeys around this stuff, right?

00:13:41Marc:Yeah.

00:13:42Marc:Like, where are some of the places you've gone?

00:13:45Marc:As regards the environment?

00:13:47Yeah.

00:13:47Guest:Well, I've been to Love Canal to see what that was like, you know, back in the day.

00:13:51Guest:That was pretty bad.

00:13:52Guest:I've been to a few other toxic things.

00:13:55Guest:There's a place called South Belt in Houston.

00:13:57Guest:There's a lot of kids that got very sick.

00:13:59Guest:McFarland and Earl and Martin, the Central Valley, where kids got sick from pesticides.

00:14:04Guest:So I've tried to help out different people.

00:14:06Guest:Like Cesar Chavez was a great friend of mine.

00:14:08Marc:How'd you meet that guy?

00:14:10Guest:I met him at Pan's Restaurant on the way to LAX.

00:14:13Guest:I was there getting a bowl of oatmeal, and this guy gets out of kind of a beat-up car.

00:14:17Guest:And I went, that guy looks just like Cesar Chavez.

00:14:20Guest:It couldn't be him in that beat-up car.

00:14:22Guest:And I went, of course that's going to be the kind of car he drives, Cesar Chavez.

00:14:26Guest:What am I thinking?

00:14:27Guest:And he walks past me to get to his table, and of course it is him.

00:14:30Guest:So I go over and I say, Mr. Chavez, I've helped from a distance over the years, but if I can ever be of help, let me know.

00:14:37Guest:I gave him my card, and he took it, and I became part of the family.

00:14:40Guest:It was great.

00:14:41Guest:Wow.

00:14:41Guest:What year was that?

00:14:42Guest:That was 1980, hold on a second, 86, 1986, I think.

00:14:49Guest:Yeah, so he was already older.

00:14:51Guest:Yeah, he was older.

00:14:52Guest:He had some health issues.

00:14:53Guest:He had a very bad back from working the fields years before.

00:14:58Marc:Yeah, and you joined forces with him in the activism?

00:15:03Guest:Yeah, specifically about pesticides, exposure to pesticides and conditions in the field and stuff like that later.

00:15:12Yeah.

00:15:12Guest:I went to Keene, California and did some construction work there at the Farmworker Center, you know, where he lived there up in the Tehachapi Mountains.

00:15:21Marc:Yeah, because there's a picture in the book of you being a pallbearer.

00:15:26Marc:Yeah.

00:15:27Marc:So you were there all the way through.

00:15:29Marc:I was.

00:15:29Guest:Wow.

00:15:30Guest:He died in 93.

00:15:31Guest:Then I wrote a play about him that was...

00:15:33Guest:Had a lovely run in 2003 in the 10-year anniversary of his death, and I'm still friendly with the family.

00:15:39Guest:I hear from them and talk to them regularly.

00:15:41Guest:Oh, that's nice.

00:15:42Guest:Yeah, they're good people.

00:15:43Guest:And you were also an early adapter on the electric cars.

00:15:47Guest:Yeah, I got my first electric car in 1970, believe it or not.

00:15:51Marc:But I think—did I talk to you about that, the reason—

00:15:54Marc:It got shut down was really the petroleum corporations, right?

00:15:59Marc:We could have had electric a long time ago.

00:16:00Marc:We could have had rails a long time ago.

00:16:02Guest:Yeah.

00:16:03Guest:And the rail being a perfect example.

00:16:05Guest:We had the wonderful red car here in California.

00:16:08Guest:They bought it up and, you know, shit can.

00:16:11Guest:Scrapped it.

00:16:12Guest:They scrapped it.

00:16:13Guest:So.

00:16:15Guest:they're still fighting and trying to obfuscate the issues to this day, trying to tell people that climate change isn't really happening or that we're wasting our time with what we're doing for it.

00:16:24Guest:But I think people are starting to wise up and do something.

00:16:28Marc:It does seem like that.

00:16:28Marc:Who made the first electric car?

00:16:31Guest:The first electric cars were like the Baker Electric that Henry Ford's wife drove.

00:16:35Guest:I didn't have the money for that kind of vintage electric car.

00:16:38Guest:I bought a

00:16:39Guest:a tailored-down electric car.

00:16:40Guest:But when I say electric car, I'm being quite grand.

00:16:42Guest:We're talking about a golf cart with a windshield wiper and a horn.

00:16:45Guest:Right.

00:16:45Guest:Not freeway-ready.

00:16:47Guest:No, it was an electric cart more than electric car.

00:16:50Guest:Yeah.

00:16:50Guest:And so I drove that around.

00:16:52Guest:But it had a California license plate.

00:16:54Guest:You know, it had...

00:16:55Guest:windshield wipers and horn, you know, and brake lights.

00:16:58Guest:So that's all you needed to get past the DMV.

00:17:00Guest:So I drove it for a while.

00:17:02Guest:Then a few years later, they got better.

00:17:04Guest:They were still conversion cars that weren't made by GM or Toyota, somebody like they are today.

00:17:10Guest:You know, or Tesla.

00:17:11Guest:There's no Tesla, of course.

00:17:12Guest:So it was just people who were doing, you know, hobbyists who were doing kit cars and conversion cars.

00:17:17Guest:Right.

00:17:17Guest:So I drove those kind of cars for a while just to stay away from petroleum.

00:17:21Guest:And pretty soon they came out with that GM EV1.

00:17:24Guest:And then it's been pretty good ever since.

00:17:26Guest:You could buy an electric car made in Detroit.

00:17:30Guest:Sure.

00:17:30Guest:Made somewhere ever since.

00:17:32Marc:It seems like it's really...

00:17:33Guest:turning now i mean it is the whole industry seems to be everybody's got three or four cars with plugs i gotta get one yeah they're pretty good and what about like uh other kind of things are you a vegetarian i am a vegetarian and i uh i do everything i can you know in that way with my diet and with my home yeah i've got nine kilowatts of solar yeah i've got

00:17:57Guest:12-inch thick walls, solar hot water, a 10,000-gallon rainwater tank, a gray water system.

00:18:03Marc:That must be filled up.

00:18:04Guest:It sure is.

00:18:04Guest:It's filled up already.

00:18:05Marc:Yeah.

00:18:06Marc:Yeah, we got some water.

00:18:08Marc:I'm just so happy when California's not burning.

00:18:11Guest:Me too.

00:18:12Guest:You and me both.

00:18:12Marc:I'm grateful.

00:18:13Marc:It's a big relief to me.

00:18:14Marc:It's the little things that matter.

00:18:16Marc:Yeah, just a season without fire.

00:18:19Marc:Yeah, just give me one.

00:18:20Marc:Yeah.

00:18:21Marc:So after you finish this book and you go through your life, what do you take away from it?

00:18:28Guest:A lot of joy.

00:18:30Guest:There's been some sadness, of course, but mostly joy and gratitude.

00:18:33Guest:I'm just so grateful.

00:18:35Guest:Yeah.

00:18:35Guest:You know, I didn't have a lot of gratitude when I was young and certainly not when I was drinking and using.

00:18:39Guest:Yeah.

00:18:39Guest:I was always like, not always, but often resentful or thought I'd been given a raw deal or been shortchanged.

00:18:45Guest:Yeah.

00:18:46Guest:And finally, when I got sober, I started to realize how lucky I am to be born at Begley Sun.

00:18:51Guest:You know, I won the fucking lottery.

00:18:52Guest:I didn't even buy a ticket.

00:18:53Guest:born on second or third base depending on your point of view in Hollywood in Hollywood that's somebody who's A going to remember your name whether you're Ed Begley or somebody junior that's A and B they got something to talk about in the job interview I worked with your dad at Philco Playhouse he was great we did Aldrich Family 2 we did some other radio shows Fibber McGee and Molly top of page A daddy good luck kid yeah wow they're kind of rooting for you yeah like I just talked to Albert Brooks he's sort of similar yeah exactly park your car because his dad was a wonderful comedian

00:19:23Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:19:25Guest:You know Albert?

00:19:26Guest:I love Albert.

00:19:27Guest:He's one of the greats.

00:19:28Guest:Oh, he's great.

00:19:28Guest:Great guy, great comic.

00:19:30Guest:I love him.

00:19:30Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:19:31Guest:His wife, Kimberly.

00:19:32Guest:I love them both.

00:19:33Guest:They're kids.

00:19:33Marc:Yeah.

00:19:34Marc:I don't know the whole family.

00:19:35Marc:He met me at a hotel to do the interview.

00:19:37Marc:I guess he didn't want me in his house.

00:19:40Marc:That's funny.

00:19:40Marc:You're welcome in my house anytime.

00:19:41Marc:Well, thank you.

00:19:42Marc:He's allergic to cats, so he didn't want to come here.

00:19:44Marc:But he didn't want me to come there.

00:19:45Marc:So we set up at the Georgian.

00:19:49Marc:Where's the Georgian?

00:19:50Marc:Right on the water, Santa Monica.

00:19:52Marc:Oh, great.

00:19:53Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:19:54Marc:That's a nice venue, at least.

00:19:55Guest:Nice view.

00:19:56Marc:Oh, it's beautiful.

00:19:56Marc:Isn't that what it's called?

00:19:57Marc:It's stunning, that place.

00:20:00Marc:I feel like it's been around for a long time, but maybe the coast wasn't your thing back in the day.

00:20:06Marc:Yeah, the Georgian Hotel.

00:20:07Marc:It's been there forever, and they just renovated.

00:20:09Marc:It's old.

00:20:10Marc:Yeah, I've heard of it.

00:20:11Marc:I think I've even been there.

00:20:12Marc:Yeah, I'm sure you have.

00:20:13Guest:I haven't stayed, but I had some meeting or something there.

00:20:15Marc:Some meeting or some debauchery.

00:20:17Marc:Exactly.

00:20:18Exactly.

00:20:18Guest:No, I think maybe it was an environmental meeting in more recent years when I was a better person.

00:20:23Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:20:23Marc:Already?

00:20:24Marc:Yeah.

00:20:24Marc:That's what always fascinated me about that era of Hollywood, just running around the canyons, hanging out at houses.

00:20:31Marc:Yeah, crazy.

00:20:33Marc:Did you hang out with the sort of David Crosby crew?

00:20:38Marc:Definitely.

00:20:39Marc:David and Graham and all of them.

00:20:41Guest:Yeah.

00:20:41Guest:And Stephen.

00:20:42Guest:Yeah.

00:20:43Guest:Didn't you have a place up there in the canyon?

00:20:45Guest:I lived down the flats of the canyon, the valley side.

00:20:48Guest:Yeah.

00:20:49Guest:So you just go up there and just... I'd go up to whoever was having a party.

00:20:53Guest:Yeah.

00:20:53Guest:I'd look at some of this footage and like the Joni Mitchell documentary, I'd go, who's that...

00:20:57Guest:Blonde geek dancing off from the side there.

00:20:59Guest:Oh, shit, that's me.

00:21:00Marc:Yeah, and they don't even identify you?

00:21:02Marc:You just saw yourself?

00:21:03Guest:No, no, just from behind or what have you.

00:21:05Guest:But I can tell it's definitely the right shirt, the right pants, the right everything, the blonde hair.

00:21:09Guest:It's me.

00:21:10Guest:Yeah.

00:21:11Marc:Well, I guess you were pretty lucky, but you seem to deliver the goods.

00:21:14Marc:You are a thing.

00:21:16Marc:You know, you are you.

00:21:17Marc:And they keep giving you work.

00:21:19Guest:They do.

00:21:21Guest:But I don't care if you're in the storm door industry, you sell used cars to still be doing it after 57 years.

00:21:26Guest:You're just fucking lucky.

00:21:28Guest:Yeah, I guess.

00:21:29Marc:Yeah, I don't always understand it.

00:21:33Marc:But you seem to have, you know, you can do comedy, you can do straight, you can do whatever.

00:21:39Yeah.

00:21:39Guest:What I realized, I've never had the kind of talent that like Daniel Day-Lewis or Joaquin Phoenix or Meryl Streep have.

00:21:45Guest:I don't have that kind of gift or the know-how to do it.

00:21:49Guest:But I do a good enough job and I show up on time.

00:21:53Guest:I know my lines and I make sure every department, I can help them as much as possible.

00:21:57Guest:Sound, lighting, everybody.

00:22:00Guest:And that means a lot as it turns out.

00:22:02Marc:You like being on set?

00:22:03Marc:I do.

00:22:03Marc:I love being on set.

00:22:05Marc:It's exciting, right?

00:22:06Marc:It is.

00:22:06Marc:And that was sort of in your blood.

00:22:08Marc:Very much so.

00:22:09Marc:Because you had to go see your dad.

00:22:10Guest:Yeah, and he never walked to the set.

00:22:12Guest:He always ran to the set.

00:22:13Guest:Mr. Begley, we're ready for you.

00:22:14Guest:Boom, that short little.

00:22:15Guest:He's a good deal shorter than me.

00:22:16Guest:Yes.

00:22:17Guest:He would bolt for the set.

00:22:18Guest:Never make him wait, Eddie.

00:22:19Guest:Oh, really?

00:22:19Guest:Never, ever make him wait.

00:22:20Guest:That's what he said.

00:22:21Guest:Yep.

00:22:22Guest:What a pro.

00:22:23Guest:Learn your lines.

00:22:24Guest:Be on time.

00:22:25Marc:What a pro.

00:22:30What a pro.

00:22:38you