Episode 817 - Lesley Stahl / Demetri Martin
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck tuck ins?
Marc:What the fuck a recans?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Marin.
Marc:This is WTF, my podcast.
Marc:I am broadcasting today from a hotel room in the amazing metropolis that is New York City.
Marc:I love New York City.
Marc:I love being here for about three days.
Marc:Come the fourth day, I'm exhausted, my feet hurt, and I'm paralyzed with how limited my life remains even in a huge city.
Marc:I come back to the same few blocks that I'm familiar with and I walk around them.
Marc:I walk across the island to mostly downtown and I eat at the same places twice.
Marc:I get awfully hard on myself about not branching out more, but I did a little bit.
Marc:But look, let's talk about other things first.
Marc:Today on the show, I have a veteran journalist, Leslie Stahl.
Marc:To talk about the sort of arc of time in her career that's happened since she started and being involved in the Watergate investigations and and, you know, on through interviewing and being a grandmother and whatnot.
Marc:I had the opportunity to talk to her.
Marc:She's an interviewer.
Marc:I'm an interviewer.
Marc:Why not interview her?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Also.
Marc:Dimitri Martin stopped by, and we had a great conversation, just a little talk with me and Dimitri about his new movie, Dean, which is now playing.
Marc:He's in it.
Marc:He wrote it.
Marc:He directed it.
Marc:And Dimitri and I have always known each other, but I'm not sure.
Marc:I think that our relationship has evolved over time, and this time that you'll hear right now that we talked, I really felt...
Marc:for the first time a sort of kindred spirit with the dude and I've known him I feel like since we were kids or since he was a kid since he started and he started a little after me but I was always a little judgmental as some of you know I'm I'm want to do on occasion but generally I move through it oh my god I think there's somebody half naked walking on the roof across the way oh is that is she what's happening
Marc:Okay.
Marc:She has pants on.
Marc:All right.
Marc:New York City, folks.
Marc:New York City.
Marc:I'm high enough to see rooftops.
Marc:Dimitri will be here, and that woman is now going back into her penthouse apartment.
Marc:So, what have I been up to?
Marc:Last week's shows were both pre-recorded before I left for a press junket in London, England.
Marc:And now...
Marc:London, England is back in the news.
Marc:And it's horrible.
Marc:And my heart goes out to the people that lost people and also to the people of the UK in a general way.
Marc:There's a lot going on there, terrorism-wise and politically.
Marc:So it's a tough time over there.
Marc:And I was there for three days.
Marc:I was there in between these two horrible events.
Marc:And heading there, I was...
Marc:Nervous and scared, but when I got there, I was astounded at the sort of continuity of civil life that was going on.
Marc:England's a beautiful place.
Marc:London's a beautiful city.
Marc:And just last week, last Wednesday, I was standing on one bridge in front of the Tate Gallery, which is the one place I make sure I go when I'm in England.
Marc:And I was looking at that London Bridge, wondering if I should get over there because it's sort of an astounding, beautiful piece of architecture and engineering that's been around a long time.
Marc:And now it's a place where something awful has happened again in England.
Marc:And I'm terribly sorry to hear that.
Marc:But being in London, it was a pretty amazing thing for the three days I was there.
Marc:And I was happy to see that for the most part, people are...
Marc:Seem to be continuing life in the face of terror, as we all are to some degree in different forms or another.
Marc:But I am in New York.
Marc:I came to New York after London.
Marc:My body clock is completely dysfunctional.
Marc:It has no idea what time it is, what day it is, what time of day it is.
Marc:But it's starting to level off.
Marc:As some of you know, I came here to promote the new book.
Marc:Waiting for the punch.
Marc:We were here at Book Expo and BookCon on Friday.
Marc:Last Friday, I was to host a one-on-one conversation for a live audience with Senator Al Franken.
Marc:Some of you listened to my podcast I did with Al Franken while I did it again live, and it was great.
Marc:It was a great time, great experience.
Marc:It's nice that Al feels a little wiggle room in the funny area these days.
Marc:He's feeling a little more able to be funny.
Marc:He's a little more grounded as a senator.
Marc:He's doing great stuff fighting the good fight in the context of the U.S.
Marc:government.
Marc:And he's got great stories.
Marc:And that event went beautifully.
Marc:It was interesting before Al and I got on stage, we were back in the green room and I got Al talking about the Grateful Dead just hanging out.
Marc:We're talking about our concert experiences, about the new Grateful Dead documentary.
Marc:That's a little longer than an actual Grateful Dead concert coming in somewhere around four hours.
Marc:But if you're at all
Marc:prone to the dead, if you have any of that machinery in your head that locks in with the Grateful Dead, that movie is definitely worth seeing.
Marc:And it's always fun to get Al, Senator Franken, all lit up about the Grateful Dead because he'll just go on about it.
Marc:And it's definitely a place where he's not thinking about politics and he's not thinking about what he's saying and he's just excited about the music.
Marc:And we did a little of that before we got onto the stage and we got onto the stage and
Marc:It was great.
Marc:It's great to work with a guy on stage who knows how to be funny in a very specific way, is completely confident in that.
Marc:And outside of him being a senator, I always loved him as a comedian and a comic mind.
Marc:And to sit on stage with him and just give him the space to work as he's improvising
Marc:was a real treat, folks.
Marc:That's what I'm trying to tell you.
Marc:It was a real treat.
Marc:And the event that Brendan McDonald and myself did, we had several hundred people there, got their free books, and Brendan just drove the show, set it up, gave me context, let me babble, and then pulled it around, did a little Q&A.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:We're actually a pretty good comedy team.
Marc:He's really my best straight man, Brendan, and no one knows me better than that guy.
Marc:So that was fun.
Marc:Got some good laughs.
Marc:Got to talk about the book and about the show.
Marc:You can definitely get a link over at WTFPod.com to pre-order Waiting for the Punch.
Marc:Go do that.
Marc:We gave away about 800 books the other day.
Marc:And then there was a signing.
Marc:Got to meet some of yous.
Marc:A lot of different types of people coming up.
Marc:People traveling.
Marc:People coming from Newfoundland, from Ireland, from Syracuse, from New Jersey, from Florida.
Marc:Coming up, some kids coming up to high school students with their mothers with questions about podcasting, how to start a podcast, what effect their podcast is having on their high school community.
Marc:Some people who are new to recovery.
Marc:thanking me, telling me they're doing it.
Marc:Some people just love the show.
Marc:Families, people getting books for their boyfriends, their girlfriends, their kids.
Marc:It's humbling and exciting, the reach of this show.
Marc:And God damn it, I appreciate it.
Marc:I appreciate it in this world that it seems to be coming unraveled at the seams.
Marc:I appreciate it.
Marc:I appreciate that this means something.
Marc:So I'm sitting in New York.
Marc:I got Sarah with me, and we're doing the thing, and it's been busy.
Marc:And I always get this urge.
Marc:I feel like I've got to go do something new.
Marc:I've got to get something new into my head.
Marc:I've got to go see some stuff.
Marc:I'm in New York.
Marc:I've got to see some stuff.
Marc:I always get this itch to go to Lincoln Center because years ago when I was staying at a hotel right across from Lincoln Center, by coincidence, I just walked over and saw a symphony.
Marc:And I was just amazed at the ability to do that.
Marc:So I always come to New York, even if I've only got a few days, and see what's going on at Lincoln Center.
Marc:And I wanted to see jazz at the Lincoln Center, right?
Marc:And there is a Lincoln Center jazz orchestra.
Marc:and it's Wynton Marsalis is the manager and artistic director, and they were doing something called World of Monk, and that would be Thelonious Monk.
Marc:I like Monk, but again, as some of you know, I'm sort of a jazz novice.
Marc:I'm just starting to really listen to it.
Marc:My brain was always wired for it, but now I'm really getting into it.
Marc:I'm not in a nerd way, not in that I know all the nuances or all the players, but I like listening to the music.
Marc:It's relaxing, and it takes me to a different place.
Marc:It's not beholden to words or hooks or anything.
Marc:You just have to get in.
Marc:It's like a pool, and you just got to get used to the water and just float in it.
Marc:So I bought some nice seats, and we went up, and we saw what turned out to be the last night of the World of Monk.
Marc:It was spectacular, man.
Marc:We were at the Rose Theater.
Marc:I didn't know what to expect, but now there's the woman again.
Marc:She's half naked and she's taking garbage out.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:I'm not supposed to be looking, but I'm just looking out.
Marc:It doesn't... I'm not looking now.
Marc:So...
Marc:We went and I didn't know what to expect, but I just wanted to sit in a space dedicated to art, dedicated to music, listen to some jazz, have my mind blown.
Marc:And it was phenomenal.
Marc:And now with everything that goes on in the world, every time you enter a train, every time you go out into a public place, every time in your theater, there's part of you in the back of your brain if you're in a big city.
Marc:It's like, is this where it happens?
Marc:Is this where it ends?
Marc:Is this where something horrible happens?
Marc:Is this where the terror happens?
Marc:That's a real fear.
Marc:It's a tangible fear, especially if you're in a big city.
Marc:And then you gotta transcend that.
Marc:On top of everything else, you have to sit down in a space and let go of that.
Marc:And the phenomenal thing, truly phenomenal thing about jazz music is that it is a fundamentally American musical framework that can carry and elevate any type of improvisation from anywhere in the world.
Marc:It was truly just an intersection
Marc:It was just such an amazing testament to the creativity of the human spirit.
Marc:And there were just no words, no words, except when Wynton would talk in between things, just pure expression, just, you know, right to, to, to the roots of jazz, but completely integrated.
Marc:What it was just a fucking astounding experience.
Marc:And I sometimes, you know, I wonder about the power, you know, like does do people have the power?
Marc:Does art have the power?
Marc:Does expression have the power to fight against the sort of like brutal consolidation of of of narrow minded thinking?
Marc:And it's like no one act does.
Marc:But all acts together, all voices together, even in their sporadic places, just the elevation of human creativity and the human spirit to just continue to exist, to push through like fucking flowers on a garbage dump.
Marc:It's like got a little faith because of jazz, man.
Marc:So now we're going to go back to the garage and listen in on my conversation with Dimitri Martin.
Marc:His new movie, Dean, is now playing.
Marc:He's in it.
Marc:He wrote it.
Marc:He directed it.
Marc:And this was really the best conversation I've ever had with the fella.
Marc:And I've had many.
Marc:And I like him.
Marc:OK, this is me and Dimitri.
Guest:Truth is, and I might have talked about this years ago when I was here, and now lately I've turned every green room into therapy.
Guest:I go in and I'm like, I want to dig deeper.
Guest:And I'm really trying because I love one-liners.
Guest:I love jokes.
Guest:But you know what I mean?
Guest:I want to talk about what I feel.
Guest:I want to talk about like below the neck stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's hard.
Guest:It's hard.
Guest:If that's not where your head goes, it's hard to get comedy out of that.
Marc:Well, if you say you turn every green room into therapy, like who are you talking to?
Marc:Other comics?
Guest:Yeah, just other comics.
Guest:It's like comedy therapy.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's not like I need help with my life.
Guest:I'm like, yeah, you know, I just want to dig deeper.
Guest:I want to connect in a different way with the audience rather than I feel like what I have to offer is, you know, my jokes, but it's not that human.
Guest:There's just like a ceiling.
Guest:Well, you did it in the movie.
Guest:I watched the whole movie.
Guest:Oh, thanks, man.
Guest:I don't do that.
Guest:you know what's funny you know before on the way over before i came over i was like oh did they send him a screener because i didn't i was saying yes i'm trying to promote my movie and then i'm like i was ambivalent i was like shit i don't know if i want mark to watch this just because we don't know each other well but you've known me a long time i'm like oh boy here we go
Marc:But like, that's all you, you know, that's interspersed with, you know, I could tell in the writing of the script that, you know, there was some of your style of writing, but also you put a lot of the comic art in it.
Marc:I did.
Marc:The cartooning, which, and I think that that you're able to go deep with somehow.
Marc:It's true.
Guest:I feel like I feel more entitled or something.
Guest:It's just a few little lines.
Guest:Yeah, it's true.
Guest:I think for me.
Marc:But they're very simple too, though.
Marc:They're like your jokes, but they're just, you know, they seem, well, this-
Marc:Obviously, these cartoons in the film, which are your cartoons, they have a theme that's not a beat, per se.
Marc:That's true, yeah.
Marc:It reminds me of, not Gahan Wilson.
Marc:Who's the other guy?
Marc:Gross?
Marc:S. Gross?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:A little bit?
Guest:Is that possible?
Guest:I think so, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm late to the New Yorker stuff.
Guest:I loved Gary Larson when I was growing up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's not a big reach, but I'm from Jersey Shore.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So there were like two bookstores in my mall.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'd go to this one and they always had like Farside books.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I was like, cool.
Guest:So I like that stuff.
Guest:Later, all the New Yorker guys.
Guest:Now I have books of Saul Steinberg and all these guys, which is great.
Guest:I love that stuff.
Marc:Have you had stuff in the New Yorker?
Guest:No.
No.
Guest:I had like a fiction thing.
Guest:The guy, the cartoon guy, he invited me.
Guest:He emailed me years, I don't know, four years ago.
Guest:Hey, I'm an hire of your work.
Guest:You know, we're doing a special issue, a cartoon issue, and we feature new people.
Guest:Come to the office.
Guest:I was like, cool.
Guest:So I brought my, you know, some drawings.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he just kind of gave me a lecture and rejected them.
Guest:And I was like, okay, yeah.
Marc:What kind of lecture?
Guest:You gotta get better at drawing.
Guest:You're not good enough at drawing.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, these kind of aren't funny enough and all that kind of stuff.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, and it's all subjective.
Marc:Sure is subjective.
Marc:Definitely is subjective.
Marc:Well, I thought, how long did it take you to make the film Dean?
Guest:long time it took i started writing it six years ago right five six years ago and then i stopped and i had like 50 pages then i started writing again and then took a while to get the financing and then i actually shot it and it took a while to edit it because i was just trying to save it i was just trying to not be embarrassed by it so it took me like i'm serious like we edited at my house and i was just like it went from being really hopeful like cool i'm gonna make a movie to
Guest:oh shit, I just don't want to be embarrassed.
Guest:It's like defensive.
Marc:So you shot it how long ago?
Guest:Like three years ago.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Almost three years ago.
Marc:So the film is not unlike the book that you're writing in the movie.
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Guest:And in fact, I just got my publisher to agree to let me do another book of cartoons to come out in the fall because my book of stories was due.
Guest:I got three extensions on that thing.
Guest:It was due like two months ago, and I just, it's not done.
Guest:I'm not good enough.
Marc:The book deal, oh, you mean you don't think you're good enough?
Guest:Yeah, the story is just, I think it's hard in life, but sometimes it's just the truth that some things just aren't good enough.
Guest:And it's just to tell yourself, I'm not good enough.
Guest:I'm just, I'm not good enough at writing fiction.
Marc:Well, I think the problem there is like the idea of it hanging over you is the worst.
Marc:And also I think that if you're not, if your soul thing isn't writing fiction, like if you're not writing stories all year long and when they give you the book deal, you're like, oh, I'm almost done.
Marc:I've got enough for, you know, if you have to write stories.
Marc:It's a nightmare.
Marc:It's got to be a nightmare.
Guest:And it's humbling.
Guest:I like to try to multitask and hey, I'm a writer and I'm an actor.
Guest:It's
Guest:If you're not doing that thing all the time, you get your ass handed to you.
Guest:It's hard.
Guest:You know what it is?
Guest:I'm trying to write like kind of Kurt Vonnegut, like mid-century style.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Like a story, like 15, 20 pages.
Guest:So a couple of them, I'm like, hey, I worked it out.
Guest:And then others, I'm just like, it's just not good enough.
Guest:I'm going to be embarrassed by it.
Marc:Well, what did your editor say?
Marc:Where's the pages?
Marc:You haven't even showed them anything?
Marc:No, I haven't showed them.
Marc:So you're just at home kicking your own ass?
Marc:Yes, and then I tried- Making your wife read it over and over again?
Guest:Exactly, you know it.
Guest:How old's your kid?
Guest:I got two now.
Guest:One's three and a half, and the other's 10 months old.
Guest:Oh, so you can't lay it on them yet.
Guest:No, exactly.
Guest:Come here.
Guest:And I have the fear.
Guest:I have the just primordial earning fear.
Guest:You know, I'm afraid, man.
Guest:That you're not going to make money?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, I'm afraid.
Guest:I never was.
Marc:Well, the last time-
Marc:Well, the last time I saw you, you're very selective.
Marc:I was sort of impressed with the idea that, and I realized something, though, because I think the last time we worked together was at Red Rocks for the Oddball Fest, and you were like, yeah, I haven't really been doing it.
Yeah.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:But what have you been doing?
Marc:You did a benefit, but what do you do?
Marc:It seems like you're still kind of like- Kicking around.
Marc:Doing all these things, but you're doing gigs?
Guest:I'm doing gigs, yeah.
Guest:I'm trying to do this new hour.
Guest:I'm telling you, it sounds- Oh, because you're going to shoot in Seattle.
Guest:I'm going to shoot in Seattle, so I'm trying to do a new hour.
Guest:I have a bunch of one-liners, but I don't know if it's having kids or something, but it feels, I don't want to say pointless, but I'm lost.
Guest:I feel kind of lost.
Marc:Sometimes that's just life.
Guest:yeah for sure so I'm doing that well isn't it funny with comedy where like for me because I like jokes and even like you said the drawings for me it's like that's just what I wanted that's like the track yeah so guys like you and I don't know just list them off people who are kind of more opening a vein up there yeah I never didn't like that it's just like it just didn't it doesn't connect for what like aesthetically like that's what I want and now I gotta tell you I'm older I'm like
Guest:When you talk about doing sets to work it out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You feel like doing it?
Guest:Well, that's what I've been doing lately.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:How's it going over?
Guest:Bumpy.
Guest:I saw Louie at Meltdown like a month ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's what I'm talking about, the therapy thing.
Guest:I saw him.
Guest:He came in when I was on stage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know when someone's older, it's like the senior comes in, you're a freshman.
Marc:With the large Louie waddle.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:yeah the statesman louis yeah yeah yeah louis the statesman with his glasses on yeah right so i come off and louis there surprised i'm like i just ate shit trying whatever yeah i was like yeah i'm trying he's like the audience doesn't care i'm like i'm a one-liner he's like they don't care he's like you got to figure it out just it's gonna be quiet for a while just try it you know it's gonna be quiet and it has been it's just like and people are kind of talking me out of it your jokes work like what are you doing he has a way of saying things it's gonna be quiet for a while
Marc:Well, because he did that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because, like, you know, he was primarily a joke, an absurdist, noise-driven joke comedian.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And at some point, he was just like, it's time to stop.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And open it up.
Marc:And that's what made him famous.
Marc:How has your crowd changed from this?
Marc:Oh, it's good.
Marc:My crowd's a very sweet crowd.
Marc:They're, like, you know, mildly disgruntled, all ages.
Marc:That's nice.
Marc:You know, thoughtful, intelligent, good tippers.
Marc:Like, it was... And it's 50... You get a pretty good mix, gender-wise, right?
Guest:You get a lot of women.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, and I get like all ages too.
Marc:It's interesting.
Marc:I have a certain demeanor, you know, philosophically aggravated and, you know, intellectually aggravated or whatever it is to how I do.
Marc:And people who know me from this know me pretty well.
Marc:But it's really kind of like I usually say it's not a demographic, it's a disposition.
Marc:And they feel very familiar to me and they know me.
Marc:And if they're there for me, I kind of know them.
Marc:That's cool.
Marc:Yeah, and I do all right in some cities.
Marc:I can sell a few tickets.
Marc:So it is a different game than just doing the clubs.
Marc:Where are you playing?
Marc:How's your crowd holding up?
Guest:I'm decent.
Guest:I have certain cities I do well.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I think Seattle's a good one for me.
Guest:You know, Boston, Chicago, New York, like kind of direct flights, I'm pretty good.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:But then I'm, it thins out pretty quickly for me.
Guest:And I'm kind of still in theaters, and then in certain markets, I'm barely, so I'm kind of more comedy club.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like clubs for working out stuff.
Guest:Clubs are good, yeah.
Guest:Clubs are good.
Guest:Clubs are good for everything, if most of them are there to see you.
Guest:No, no, exactly, yeah.
Guest:Like I, you know, if I had my way, man, if I could do like 2,500 seaters and do a couple shows.
Guest:A year?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly, seriously.
Guest:Yeah, with kids now, I just want to be home.
Guest:I don't want to go anywhere.
Guest:I forget you even live here.
Guest:Yeah, I'm like near Westwood.
Guest:Very cool neighborhood.
Guest:Wait, really?
Marc:Did you buy a house in Westwood?
Marc:You're there, yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:But it's nice.
Guest:It's like a mid-century thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My wife does commercial interiors, so she made it nice.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Yeah, she classed me up.
Guest:It's nice.
Guest:Oh, that's sweet.
Marc:So, well, what do you do?
Marc:What are you just sitting there trying to write?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Doodling?
Marc:Pretty much.
Marc:So you wrote this movie, like the first draft was six years ago for Dean.
Marc:Maybe five years ago, yeah.
Marc:How old are you now?
Marc:I'm going to be 44 next month.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So, like, did it feel when he finally got around to doing it that this is like, this guy's 35 in the movie.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I was like, fuck, man.
Guest:I sold my first script that I sold.
Guest:I sold a pitch in 2005.
Guest:Of this movie.
Guest:No, another, like, a concept-y thing to DreamWorks.
Guest:They paid me a bunch, and I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to.
Guest:I'm gonna write movies.
Guest:And then, of course, the turnaround thing never got made.
Guest:And then I sold another one to Sony.
Guest:Got paid, never got made.
Guest:Full screenplays, not ideas?
Guest:I sold ideas, but then I wrote the screenplays.
Guest:So they owned it and had to give me notes and stuff.
Guest:So by the time this came around, I was like, I just want to try to make a movie.
Guest:So that's why it's no big concept.
Guest:It's grounded, emotional, whatever.
Guest:But it was hard.
Guest:The budget was under a million bucks.
Guest:It was a 20-day shoot.
Guest:It was really, really hard.
Guest:It was great to see Kevin Kline.
Guest:Yeah, he's good, right?
Marc:He's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Mary Steenbergen.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They were great.
Marc:You were good.
Guest:I did okay.
Guest:You did.
Marc:Good actors make you look better.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you did.
Marc:You held your own there for a bit with Kevin.
Guest:I went too small.
Guest:I learned because I got to the edit.
Guest:I didn't have time to watch my performance.
Guest:What the hell am I gonna do anyway?
Guest:What's my range?
Marc:You mean you're gonna keep running back looking at playback?
Guest:And it's insulting.
Guest:I can't do it to Kevin Kline.
Guest:Be like, hold on, buddy.
Guest:I wanna see how I did, you know?
Marc:Well, the thing is, it's like it's one of those stories where, you know, it's a heavy story.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, like I thought you cast it well.
Marc:I thought like Rory was great.
Marc:Yeah, he was great.
Marc:I love Rory.
Marc:Yeah, he was great.
Marc:And I thought that that woman who played the psycho friend.
Guest:Briga.
Marc:Briga.
Marc:Briga.
Marc:What's she from?
Marc:She's in love too, my girlfriend said.
Guest:I think she was in love again after we shot this.
Guest:And now she's on, she has a show.
Guest:She stars in the show called Good News or something like that.
Guest:It's just started.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I just talked to Michael Higgins.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Great news.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:He's a funny guy.
Marc:But no, but like, you know, once when it started getting going, like there was a, you know, it was heavy.
Marc:And then like, I didn't know what was going to happen.
Marc:And, you know, and, you know, grief is, is, is tricky.
Marc:But I thought that stuff, you know, between you and your dad worked out really well.
Marc:You know, come, like, you know, the third act was really, you know, it was moving, you know.
Marc:And it was hard not to get emotionally involved in that.
Marc:And also the stuff where you're just in this fragile place.
Marc:And that scene with her, the last scene with... With Gillian.
Marc:Yeah, with Gillian was like...
Guest:There's only a couple of things from my real life.
Guest:So I lost my dad, actually, not my mom, when I was 20.
Guest:He was 46, so he went young.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:We were shocked.
Guest:My mom was widowed at 41.
Guest:It was a shock to our family.
Guest:I don't think we've really recovered, to tell you the truth.
Guest:Yeah, how many is in your family?
Guest:You got a brother?
Guest:I got a brother and a sister, yeah.
Marc:That's really young.
Marc:What, heart thing?
Guest:No, cancer, he got kidney cancer.
Guest:Turns out my town in New Jersey, Toms River, there was like a chemical plant and they illegally buried toxic waste like just directly in the ground in drums like in the 70s or something.
Guest:Really?
Guest:So all these people died of kidney cancer.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My girlfriend in high school, her dad died at 39 of the same cancer.
Guest:And then we had these neighbors, they bred Labrador retrievers.
Guest:Like seven of their dogs died of kidney cancer from just drinking the water.
Marc:And was there a class action suit?
Marc:Was there anything?
Guest:I think there was.
Guest:Actually, I was in the Barnes & Noble on the promenade, I don't know, two years ago.
Guest:I saw a book in the health section or something.
Guest:It just said Tom's River.
Guest:It was my town.
Guest:This huge book about the whole thing.
Guest:And I almost bought it, and I was like, I'm just going to get upset.
Guest:I kind of know the story.
Guest:Forget this.
Guest:I don't want to...
Guest:But yeah, it was like a shock to our family.
Guest:It was, you don't expect that.
Guest:And then my mom got Alzheimer's.
Guest:When I had my Comedy Central series, it was eight years ago or something when it first started.
Guest:She was diagnosed with early onset at 56.
Guest:Jesus.
Guest:So she's been four years now of the last, I'd say four or five years.
Guest:She can't talk.
Guest:She doesn't know who anybody is.
Guest:It's horrible, man.
Guest:So in a way, of course, it's like, there's nothing new here.
Guest:It's the first time filmmaker.
Guest:Oh, here's my story, you know, but it's fiction.
Guest:And like you said, I put the drawing.
Guest:So I tried to at least do something cinematic with it.
Guest:And it's not reportage.
Guest:It's not my actual life.
Guest:It's just what kind of my experience with grief and,
Guest:I don't know how to do it in stand-up.
Guest:I got to tell you, I don't know how to... I know people do that and they talk about that kind of stuff on stage.
Guest:I don't know how to do it.
Guest:I just don't know how to... I'm still drawn to just the jokes.
Marc:Well, it seems to me that given that... How old were you when your father passed?
Marc:20.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, like something... Do you go to therapy?
Marc:No, I've never gone.
Marc:Because you have sort of your personality...
Marc:It's pretty compartmentalized, right?
Marc:So like, you know, you're obviously, you know, you've designed everything you do to manage feelings.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, which we all do to, you know, you seem pretty good at it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I'm not great at it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you might not have, do you know what I mean?
Marc:You might not have this sort of like capacity at your, at your, you know, at your fingertips to communicate that way.
Guest:I think that's true.
Guest:I also think being in my 40s, maybe just being around long enough, I'm 20 years into stand-up about.
Guest:You know, I talk to my wife about it who's not a comic.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she tells me stuff that's interesting.
Guest:She's like, you know, your haircut, it's shorter now and stuff, but it's still, for a while I think there's literally hiding behind it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like half my face is kind of hidden.
Guest:So I think I'm emoting and expressing and connecting with people.
Guest:And she's like, you seem aloof.
Guest:Like you just seem disconnected.
Guest:I'm like, I feel like an open wound.
Guest:She's like, what?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:That's interesting, though, because you feel that inside.
Guest:There's a disconnect.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's not kind of translating.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:And even in the green rooms, when I... When you're losing it on your openers?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Have you been there?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But, you know, it's just like I feel like I'm trying to make an effort to talk to people more.
Guest:I often just show up at the set.
Guest:I look at my little notebook, say hi or whatever, and then I do my set.
Guest:And I realize, oh, suddenly I'm not the young comic.
Guest:Like everybody's younger than me in a lot of these rooms.
Guest:And it's like, then I'm a dick because I didn't talk to somebody.
Guest:So you're like, oh shit, make an effort, talk to people.
Marc:Tell them how frustrated you are.
Guest:Tell them how lost you are.
Guest:Or me, my canceled Comedy Central show.
Guest:Oh, that was a long time ago.
Guest:Isn't it weird when you go to New York, like if I go to the cellar, it does feel like there are kind of ghosts there.
Guest:Like even I feel like I've been around long enough where I'm like, wow, this has changed.
Marc:Yeah, and they changed the structure of it a little.
Guest:Yeah, I haven't been there since they did that.
Marc:Well, they were working on it when I was there, and I'm like, uh-oh, this feels weird.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a little, you know, it's like going, there are ghosts, but there's also that kind of weird New York thing where it's like, oh, he's still here?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That thing.
Marc:You know, like there's actually living ghosts.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Comedians.
Marc:Yeah, no, definitely.
Guest:And the hanging out, like you can kind of kill at the table and, you know.
Marc:Well, a lot of that pressure is gone.
Marc:It's different.
Marc:Well, yeah, because Manny's gone.
Marc:Patrice is gone.
Marc:Geraldo.
Marc:Geraldo's gone.
Marc:Yeah, that's true.
Marc:So, like, it doesn't have, it's not what it, well, I don't know.
Marc:I don't go in there that much.
Marc:I should go in more.
Guest:I usually stop by.
Guest:I never really go up.
Guest:I just go and see who's there and hang out a little bit.
Marc:Yeah, that's sort of what I do.
Marc:I don't rush to go do the 10 minutes there.
Marc:But I'm not in New York that long ever.
Marc:Maybe I should go for a little longer.
Marc:It's nice to drop in and do a little thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what's the plan for the movie?
Guest:What happens now?
Guest:So it's a platform release, right?
Guest:It's a small movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like a counter-programming thing for the summer.
Guest:There's like all these superhero movies, and then my thing will be out there.
Guest:I think there's going to be, I'm sure, plenty of indie movies through the summer.
Guest:But the idea is I'm touring, so they're piggybacking some of the cities I'm in, so there'll be a screening.
Guest:I'm going to go to Boston.
Guest:Yeah, I'm going to go to Boston, and then I'll do stand-up one night, and then the next night they'll show my movie somewhere, and I'll do like a Q&A and that kind of thing.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that's a good way to do it.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I want to make more movies.
Guest:I want to write my books.
Guest:Maybe you're similar.
Guest:I tell my wife, she said this to me.
Guest:I was like, I try to diversify enough so that if I'm in trouble in one area, then I can kind of stand on another leg.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But unfortunately for me,
Guest:I'm more motivated by escaping pain than kind of moving towards pleasure.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Maybe that's most comedians, but for me, it really is true.
Guest:So I'll do stand-up.
Guest:All I want to do is stand-up and then I'm doing it.
Guest:I'm on the road and I'm miserable.
Guest:I just want to go home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like being on stage, but the travel, you know, I just, I get fucking pissed.
Guest:Like I hate the TSA thing.
Guest:I just hate all, you know, I'm TSA pre, but it's still a pain in the ass.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Then I come home and I'm like, I'm just exhausted.
Guest:I just wish I could just write, just have a career where I just write books in my house.
Guest:And then I'm writing and I hate it.
Guest:It's like homework.
Guest:It's hanging over my head.
Guest:I feel not good enough.
Guest:And then I'm like, I wish I could just get cast in something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Acting's like the easy money.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Then I get a part in something and I'm just like, I feel like a piece of meat.
Guest:I have no creative control.
Guest:You know, it's just a wheel of self-hatred that just rolls around, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, my relief from that is doing this and also...
Marc:that I've like standup has been more fun.
Marc:Cause I'm not, there's like, I'm not freaking out.
Marc:Like I don't have a kid.
Marc:I don't have a wife.
Marc:I paid for the house.
Marc:So like the financial thing is not hanging over me in the future.
Marc:So now all that's hanging over me, it's like, well, the equation, everything is set up for you to be happy.
Marc:How's that going?
Guest:That's the worst.
Guest:You're at the end of the line.
Guest:You're just at the cliff.
Guest:Like you made it uphill.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:Where's the happy time.
Guest:I had that once when I first moved out here.
Guest:It's the same exact thing.
Guest:We moved to Santa Monica.
Guest:I went for a really long walk in the summer all the way down through Venice.
Guest:And as I came back, two things happened in the same walk.
Guest:I was coming north and it was like sunset.
Guest:It was beautiful.
Guest:It was perfect.
Guest:And the beach was empty because it was, I don't know, late.
Guest:I remember thinking, just like you just said, I remember thinking, I'm going to fucking die.
Guest:Yeah, because everything was I was in love.
Guest:We moved out here.
Guest:I had the show at the time and it was just like, oh, my God.
Guest:And I wasn't even like I was Spielberg.
Guest:And I'm like, I've succeeded.
Marc:It's a hard reality when you realize that, you know, some of this stuff is really up to you.
Guest:yeah for sure it's it's um to me it's a balance it's a struggle between i'm not working hard enough and i should be working harder like why just try harder you know and i'm just like i'm that's where i feel lost i think is like i don't even know what i do that to myself too but but you know they're like and it happens at certain times you know like that like in terms of my popularity and my my um
Marc:My earning ability, I'm okay with it.
Marc:I don't really want to be any bigger.
Guest:You crossed over.
Guest:I feel like in some ways comedies like hip-hop where the people, it's its own community.
Guest:Podcasts have certainly changed the landscape, but there's some people who cross over.
Guest:Again, when I started, you guys...
Guest:I saw guys, I'm like, okay, he's kind of famous.
Guest:To me, people were famous.
Guest:They were a big deal.
Guest:Then I realized, oh, now they are.
Guest:Like, Louie's, you know, the easy example where you're like, whoa, whoa.
Guest:He's like in popular culture.
Guest:World famous.
Marc:Yeah, I'm still not there yet.
Marc:I still hold the place.
Guest:I feel like you have.
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:Maybe I'm wrong.
Guest:Certainly the podcasts were right.
Guest:Like, it's not the comedy world.
Guest:It is a different world.
Marc:No, yeah, and it's all fed each other, and I have my own show and stuff, but it's on IFC, which is fine.
Marc:But somehow or another, and I think it's probably not a bad karma, that I've been able to occupy these spaces without a lot of mainstream attention.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:People find me, and they're excited.
Marc:To me, that's nice, because if you're- Yeah, if you're still discoverable.
Marc:The weight isn't on you.
Guest:And if you're a certain amount of known, then the people who know you overlap a lot with the people who like you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But if you're really famous, then people who hate you, they know you.
Marc:Yeah, that's a good point.
Marc:Yeah, so I'm good with that.
Marc:But there's still this sort of fundamental...
Guest:thing where i get hard on myself like if especially like i'm working towards a special and i'm like yeah i got joke like this this hour you know like i threw it together is it really you know is it a good hour and it's like it's fine yeah you know like i i feel i i'm at a point where i'm like there's so much content if you do something really really excellent or really really horrendous that's your only chance of being remembered for a little while
Guest:Everything else is gone in the middle.
Marc:That guy did the worst thing ever.
Marc:No, I get that's true, you know, but this keeps me busy.
Marc:I get to talk to people and, you know, and you're doing fine.
Marc:I'm doing fine.
Marc:But like, you know, whether or not we feel okay.
Marc:is is really uh is acceptance yeah and that's fleeting for some reason because like certain people like myself like you know when i'm you know i i tend to find there's something not comfortable but certainly familiar about being hard on myself yeah
Marc:It's always been there.
Guest:And maybe it is comfortable in as much as it's part of identity.
Guest:For me, it's as I know myself.
Guest:If that goes away, then maybe it's kind of scary.
Marc:It is, but if it goes away, then maybe you can really experience it because it is a control thing.
Marc:I mean, it's very subjective, right?
Marc:I suck.
Guest:yeah right right right it's like you know the comic i mean the beauty of it for us is we know you do two shows in one night yeah there's the classic experience of like the first crowd loves you you eat shit same material i mean it's the same room it's the same conditions that a great joke you know that old joke no no about the uh you know comics you know just did you know he's out on the road and he did a couple of shows
Marc:the night before and he's at the mall the next day and you know some you know hot shit comes up he's away and she goes i saw you last night you were great and he goes which show that's amazing it's so true that's just that's just amazing
Marc:it's so good it's good yeah it's it's yeah well let's look we're doing all right your kids are healthy you got a life the movie's good people enjoy it and you know you're working on the hour you're doing the work you know happiness maybe that's you know maybe that'll come maybe it won't who the fuck knows that's right okay good talking to you thanks mark
Marc:All right, so that was, did you hear the love?
Marc:Did you hear us coming together in a way we'd never had before?
Marc:Maybe you're not as attentive to my relationship with Demetri Martin as I am when it happens, but it was good.
Marc:I was happy to talk to him and go see the movie, Dean.
Marc:It's now playing Around.
Marc:So Leslie Stahl is somebody I never thought I would talk to, and I was able to talk to her.
Marc:Her book, Becoming Grandma, The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting, is now available on paperback.
Marc:And it was nice to talk to another person that talks to people professionally.
Marc:This is me and Leslie Stahl back in the garage.
Marc:Well, you know, Leslie Stahl, you're an interviewer, and I get nervous when I interview interviewers.
Marc:I have not interviewed many of them.
Guest:I want you nervous.
Guest:You do?
Guest:Is that your tactic?
Guest:No, it's not my tactic, but I'm rarely interviewed.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I want to keep you just a little off balance.
Guest:Am I going to be able to?
Marc:I'm always off balance.
Marc:That's not going to be a challenge for you to keep me off balance.
Marc:But, you know, like I watch, like I have certain questions that I don't want to get into like specific interviews, but let's start with like, how did you, where'd you come from?
Guest:I came from Swampskirt, Massachusetts.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, that's north of Boston, right on the ocean.
Guest:It is spectacularly beautiful.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it's one of the reasons I love it in L.A., because I can go out to Santa Monica and look at the ocean and feel at home.
Marc:Different ocean, though.
Guest:Yeah, but it looks exactly the same.
Guest:Does it?
Guest:Exactly the same.
Marc:I spent a lot of time in the New England area, and that ocean, there's a ruggedness to the kind of like Marblehead.
Guest:That's where I'm from, Marblehead Swamp's Good.
Guest:It's a great place.
Guest:Oh, so you know my town.
Marc:I do.
Marc:I know New England pretty well.
Guest:Well, the real difference is the temperature.
Guest:The water is unbearably cold up there.
Marc:Right, yeah, and the humidity in the summer is awful.
Marc:So you just, how many people in your family, how many kids?
Marc:Like from you sisters?
Guest:Me and my brother.
Marc:And you just grew up in Swampskirt.
Guest:We just grew up in Swampskirt.
Marc:You don't strike me as like a New England person.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Well, I always felt like maybe a New York person.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:No?
Guest:No.
Marc:What'd your father do up there?
Guest:Well, my father went to MIT to study organic chemistry.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And then went into business with his father and his brother.
Guest:And initially they made leather colors.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:For tanning or dyeing leather?
Guest:For leather.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They made the colors.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then they moved a little.
Guest:They stayed doing that and went on to make shiny things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they made, for example.
Marc:Specialized in shiny things.
Guest:Shiny things.
Guest:For example, they made something that should have been a roaring success and wasn't.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The pour on floor.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And it was.
Marc:Like anyone can do it or just like a linoleum that you could pour?
Guest:Yes, it was like linoleum.
Guest:You'd pour it, it would harden.
Guest:And we had it in our kitchen.
Guest:Of course you did.
Guest:It never scuffed.
Guest:It was beautiful.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:and it just didn't take off didn't catch on they also invented the shiny look uh you know raincoats that looked like leather and had a huge oh lovely shine yeah yeah they invented that and that was a big success yeah so he had a patent on the shiny stuff
Guest:He had patents on the shiny stuff and pour on floor, and they made some kind of inks.
Guest:They also made the paint that goes down the middle of highways.
Marc:They made that?
Guest:Yeah, they made that.
Marc:The reflective, shiny paint that they need to redo in L.A.?
Guest:Yeah, they know that bright yellow.
Marc:L.A., they never expect rain.
Guest:Well, they probably didn't buy my father's if they have to redo it.
Guest:But then he sold his business when I was in my early 20s.
Marc:And that was it?
Marc:He retired?
Guest:He didn't retire.
Guest:He went to work for the company that bought his company.
Marc:Because he wanted to?
Guest:I think he did.
Guest:He was too young to retire, but he wanted to sell a business.
Guest:And he became the head of a whole new division and went around the world buying companies.
Guest:And he told me it was the happiest time of his whole career.
Marc:So he's an entrepreneur and a world traveler and a big business guy.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That started out in Swampscott.
Guest:Started in Swampscott.
Guest:And his little company called Stahl was an international company.
Guest:So he traveled constantly and took my brother and me with him a lot.
Marc:So you got to see the world.
Guest:Even before I got to CBS News, where we travel all the time, I traveled all the time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what'd your brother end up doing?
Guest:My brother was in real estate.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then, sadly, he died when he was 55 years old.
Marc:Oh, I'm sorry.
Marc:Of larynx cancer.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Sorry to hear that.
Guest:Where are you from?
Marc:I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Marc:My parents are from Jersey originally, so I'm genetically Jersey, and my roots are in Jersey, and I spent a lot of time there as a kid.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:But don't you think that when you go to school that then your peers are more formative than your parents?
Marc:Well, I think that I've grown to believe that however you're wired emotionally and whatever those shortcomings or strengths may be, you're put in pretty early.
Marc:And then...
Guest:Really?
Guest:I think I disagree a little bit.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Because I think high school and Mean Girls and all of that, I think maybe shaped me more than anything, even my own basket of genes.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Well, I think that.
Guest:I don't know if it's true, but I feel it.
Marc:You think it shaped your sense of self?
Guest:Yeah, my sense of self, my interests, my insecurities.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, they can certainly make you aware of those when your feelings are hurt.
Marc:Yeah, I spent a long time looking for something to be and for how to act and what I was interested in.
Marc:I think those come from influences, and I think those are very defining.
Marc:But just judging by my life and relationships, the more emotionally and intimate things in my life, I'm like, oh, my God, I'm them.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I've been there.
Guest:Or I've accomplished the anti-them.
Marc:Right.
Guest:One or the other.
Marc:Yeah, that comes from that fight.
Marc:There's a determination like, well, I'm not going to be that.
Marc:And then eventually you do.
Guest:Yeah, that's pretty sad.
Guest:Is it true, though?
Guest:Sometimes, yeah, sometimes you hear your mother or your father in your head, but it depends on how determined you are not to be.
Marc:Right, and that's exhausting.
Marc:That's very exhausting.
Marc:After a certain point, you've got to embrace the good things about them, and hopefully they'll outweigh the negative things that are coming out of you.
Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:So that's how I grew up.
Marc:So what was the process?
Marc:You had a curiosity, I guess, and you had some experience global traveling.
Marc:But how did you, like where did you go to college?
Marc:What led you to journalism?
Marc:I'm sure you've answered these questions before.
Guest:You must have wanted to do something else.
Guest:I'm not a kid.
Guest:And in my day, God, I can't believe I'm saying this, my day.
Marc:I say that and I'm 53.
Guest:Oh, doesn't it?
Guest:I sound like my grandfather.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So much has changed, though.
Marc:I mean, like in the last decade, it's like profoundly different.
Guest:Well, yes.
Guest:But I'm going back.
Guest:So no one ever even mentioned journalism to me.
Guest:Never wrote for the school paper.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Never took a journalism course.
Guest:Came to New York.
Guest:Was going to be a doctor.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Really.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So when you say I'm a New Yorker, I did go to New York in the early 60s to prepare for medical school.
Marc:What did you study undergrad?
Guest:History.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And then I didn't have enough science courses.
Guest:Went to Columbia.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Majored in zoology.
Guest:Hated it.
Guest:For graduate school?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Zoology?
Guest:Well, I didn't have enough science credits.
Marc:So that's what you thought, you'd lock them down.
Guest:Hated it, hated it.
Guest:I wouldn't touch anything.
Guest:The TA said to me, Leslie, you can't be a doctor.
Guest:And it was just too icky.
Marc:Yeah, really?
Marc:Just like dead animals and bugs?
Guest:Well, parts of animals.
Guest:Sheep hearts.
Guest:Sheep hearts of animals?
Guest:Sheep hearts.
Guest:And they gave me my own dogfish shark.
Marc:To work on for the semester.
Marc:No good.
Guest:No good.
Guest:So then I ended up answering an ad in the New York Times.
Guest:Went to work for Mayor Lindsay.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Mayor Lindsay.
Guest:Mayor Lindsay.
Marc:He's before my political awareness, but I remember seeing pictures of him a lot in the 70s.
Guest:Gorgeous.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was he a good mayor?
Guest:He was just an okay mayor.
Guest:He had a strike and things conspired against him, but he was a good guy.
Marc:And what year are we talking?
Guest:I was working for him 66, 67.
Guest:Doing what?
Guest:Worked on his speech writing staff.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, as a researcher.
Guest:And then went into the newsroom one day where all the reporters hung out and asked one of them, what do you do all day?
Guest:Who are you?
Guest:What do you do?
Guest:And he told me, and when he finished, I had a burning, almost passionate desire to be a reporter, and it was a flash.
Marc:What did he tell you?
Guest:What was it that really provoked you?
Guest:He told me, you know, basically fundamentally that you could be really nosy and gossipy and you could write it down and tell other people what the secrets you found out and they pay you.
Guest:And I thought, whoa, no one told me that.
Marc:That I can make my hobby a profession.
Guest:We're laughing, but it's kind of true.
Guest:And then I went looking for a job.
Marc:As a journalist with no experience.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And NBC News was gearing up their election unit for the 68 presidential campaign.
Marc:Humphrey and Nixon.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I got the job because I was a researcher already and they were hiring me as a researcher.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And really those were the only jobs there were for women.
Marc:At that time.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:This is pre-affirmative action.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So they hired me.
Guest:Oh my goodness.
Guest:I jumped.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And what'd you learn on that campaign?
Guest:Oh, it was a wonderful job.
Guest:I loved it.
Marc:Were you a political person?
Guest:Not really.
Guest:My mother and father disagreed violently.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:On what sides?
Guest:My dad was a Democrat, a liberal Democrat, and my mother was a conservative Republican, and they never voted the same, and they argued, and I grew up in that household, and I thought whenever my mother spoke, she made sense.
Guest:Whenever my dad spoke, he made sense, so...
Marc:It is kind of a tricky balance, and usually it goes the other way.
Marc:Usually the man is the conservative, I would think, but maybe I'm generalizing.
Guest:Well, they say that as women age, they get more liberal, and as men age, they get more conservative.
Marc:Sure, as they feel it slipping away, that they need somewhere to be angry about it.
Guest:Well, maybe it's as women realize they may be widows.
Guest:They want more government support.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:There's a bunch of reasons.
Marc:What were their backgrounds?
Marc:What kind of family was it?
Marc:Are you Jewish?
Guest:Jewish, but no religion.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, yeah, like most of us.
Guest:Yeah, okay.
Marc:Totally mainstream.
Marc:Yeah, culturally Jewish.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So there you are.
Marc:And like that was a big that was a big election.
Marc:And, you know, Nixon was not appealing.
Marc:Except to my mother.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:How that guy charmed anybody is fascinating to me.
Guest:I know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But he did.
Marc:Well, I'm not sure charmed is the right word.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What do you think it was?
Guest:I think that he conveyed a sense of stability and experience.
Guest:He'd done a lot, and he was very smart.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He was a real politician.
Guest:He was a real politician, but he came off as, I think, someone with depth, and he was smart.
Guest:And maybe it was kind of like now where people were looking for some kind of even...
Marc:right stability we go back and forth between wanting someone who's a little older and a little calmer and then the new guy who's going to change everything yes yeah just turn it in on itself yeah what i find interesting though is like i came very late to politics and you know you really kind of made your bones you know reporting in politics and you know i was i don't know if i was apathetic but i i guess i was i i was a more creatively driven person and then
Marc:Somewhere in the very late after Reagan, you know, and I'm 53.
Marc:So I should have been more active.
Marc:And this is something that resonates with me now because of the election is that if you're progressive or liberal or or you just want to, you know, you're doing other things or an arty person, you just want things to be OK.
Marc:And you don't you don't you're not you don't you don't activate your civic responsibility.
Marc:You take things for granted.
Marc:And or maybe I should just say I do.
Marc:And this is one of those elections where it's sort of like, you know, we're all we all sort of took things for granted.
Marc:A lot of people.
Guest:Well, I do think it's very much determined by the time in which you come of age.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And if you came of age in the 60s, it would have been different.
Guest:Well, of course, it was the draft and there was a Vietnam War and Nixon and Watergate.
Guest:All these things conspired to make even the youngest person.
Guest:Freak out.
Guest:Yeah, freak out and be concerned about the leadership of the country and all of that.
Guest:And then I actually was my formative years were in the Eisenhower years.
Marc:Right, in the 50s.
Guest:And we were called a silent generation.
Marc:Why was that in retrospect?
Marc:Were you comfortable?
Marc:Did you think everything was okay?
Guest:Yeah, and we had daddy running the government.
Guest:You didn't have to worry about it.
Marc:Yeah, he was a general.
Guest:The general was running the government.
Guest:And he was older and calmer, very much calmer.
Guest:And the economy was really going slowly but steadily upward.
Guest:Incomes were going steadily upward.
Guest:The middle class was just exploding.
Marc:Wasn't that the establishment of the middle class?
Marc:Wasn't that where it really became defined during those times?
Guest:The man in the gray flannel suit, yes.
Guest:But we also at that point had the unions coming on strong and forcing the car companies and the other large companies, GE...
Guest:to pay a decent wage because the unions were strong.
Guest:And it just was a time of great promise.
Guest:We were still coming out of World War II.
Guest:Our parents were still thinking about the Depression.
Guest:It just was a completely calm... Right, and there was relief.
Marc:It seemed like America was going to, you know, fulfill its promise to these people.
Guest:Right, and people were looking inward instead of outward.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:You know, we had been through World War II.
Guest:We did have the Korean War.
Guest:I was too young to really be that aware of it.
Marc:Well, you might have an opportunity to see another one.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:It's awfully kind of you to remind us.
Guest:If you missed the first one.
Guest:No, but I do think the times will create a political person.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So when you got that job as a researcher, what, you're in your early 20s?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's 1968 and things are starting to blow up in terms of culturally.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:And did you feel that happening?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All around.
Guest:Well, there were marches.
Guest:There were anti-war marches.
Guest:And just beginning, just beginning.
Guest:And Lindsey, who had been my boss, was very much involved in that.
Guest:He was one of the first people in Congress to vote against the Vietnam War.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, it was in the air.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then we had the 68 convention.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right, and the hippies and the big marches and the violence.
Marc:And the violence.
Guest:And Mayor Daley in Chicago causing mayhem at the convention.
Guest:So yeah, that was kind of the beginning of everybody's new awareness of politics.
Marc:And then I guess when the kids got shot at Kent State, that kind of sealed the deal that there was a real fight for the country in what people believed it should be.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And there were strikes and demonstrations at virtually every university.
Guest:And they were coming out of the silent generation.
Guest:And it's the baby boom generation.
Guest:So that's a huge number of people.
Marc:Was it scary?
Yeah.
Marc:Because now, I can't picture it because I was way too young, but there's a tangible fear in the air to me, and I'm an older person now, but I just wondered then, was there a fear of the government?
Guest:Well, my recollection, and things get accordioned in, in your memory, right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Compartmentalized.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what's really big.
Guest:But my memory is that that sense of fear that we're having now is more similar to what was going on during Watergate than the 60s.
Guest:So the early 70s when the country was completely polarized, much as it is now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And half the country loved the president, the other half hated the president, and there was no in between.
Guest:And people were still demonstrating against the Vietnam War.
Guest:So there was actually more violence in the country than now.
Marc:Was the polarization as vicious?
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:And Agnew, the vice president, was running around the country attacking the press.
Guest:There are similarities.
Guest:And when I say my brain has been accordioned, it may have been worse then.
Guest:You always think it's worse now.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But it may have actually, there may have been more strife and more division, serious division in the country than even now.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, because I think it seems that then the momentum of the younger people was massive.
Marc:And now it seems like a lot of the younger people are either detached or not sure how to activate.
Marc:Like you see these marches and a lot of people are coming together.
Marc:But back then it was all like 18 to 22 year olds.
Guest:Well, they had the draft.
Marc:Yeah, it was terrifying.
Guest:This is not now.
Guest:So they really had skin in the game, totally.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they were the baby boomers, so there were huge numbers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Although, I just read a poll this morning about 18 to 24-year-olds really turning seriously against President Trump.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So maybe there's an activation going on right now.
Marc:Yeah, what that looks like, I don't know.
Marc:It could be just tweets.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, well, there's no draft.
Guest:That made a giant difference.
Marc:Yeah, that makes sense to me.
Marc:So how did you get from research to reporting?
Guest:Slowly, very slowly.
Guest:Actually, my first ambition was to be a producer.
Guest:Because my perception was that the producers, generally speaking in television, were doing a lot of the reporting and writing.
Guest:And that's what I was interested in.
Marc:You ultimately do that now, though, right?
Guest:We do it now.
Guest:But in those days, that's where my head was.
Guest:And I was probably wrong in my perceptions back then.
Guest:But that's what I thought.
Guest:So I was trying to become a producer.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And it took me a long time.
Guest:But I didn't care.
Guest:I loved every job I had in journalism.
Marc:So what was the big break?
Guest:Oh, if any young people are listening, they'll appreciate that the big break was a failure.
Guest:And, you know, you come out of the ashes and you're actually stronger.
Marc:What do you mean it was a failure?
Guest:Well, I had fallen on my face and had to build back.
Guest:How so?
Guest:Well, after the election,
Marc:In 68.
Guest:In 68, NBC News sent me to London where they made me something called a field producer, which meant absolutely nothing.
Guest:I did nothing.
Guest:Nothing meaningful in my own eyes.
Guest:And the then president of NBC News said to me when I complained about it, he said, you know, you young people, you think you can start at the top?
Guest:Well, if you start at the top, you're going to fall flat on your face.
Guest:Nobody starts at the top at a network.
Guest:If you really want to be a journalist, go get a job at a newspaper, go to a wire service, or go home and go to a local television station.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I applied everywhere.
Guest:New York Times, UPI.
Guest:I was living in London at the time, so I tried to get a job there, and no one would hire me.
Guest:Came home to visit my parents and went over to the local CBS affiliate in Boston, and they hired me.
Guest:And it was a step backward.
Guest:It was a big step back to go from the network as a field producer...
Guest:to become a producer on a show in Boston that was very similar to 60 Minutes in its format anyway.
Marc:But you were not in front of the camera aspirations?
Guest:No, I wanted to be a producer.
Marc:So you wanted to amalgamate research and find the through line and set up the segments?
Guest:And even write it in those days.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But it was necessary, obviously, to learn to get the skill set.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:You know, if you were a field producer, what did that really mean?
Guest:Nothing.
Marc:It meant nothing.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:Really nothing.
Guest:I would go out with a camera crew and say, could you take a picture of that?
Guest:That was it.
Marc:And then they'd organize it later.
Marc:So the real producing happened later.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:All right, so you're learning your trade.
Guest:You're producing segments.
Guest:And I'm living in Boston, which is one of the great reporting town cities in the country because it's a capital.
Guest:It's where all the great universities and medicine.
Guest:And in those days, politics, because busing was the big story.
Guest:We had the busing queen, Louise Day Hicks.
Guest:That was her name, Louise Day Hicks.
Guest:Everything was there, right there.
Guest:And one day they decide, well, the FCC denies the renewal license to the owner for lots of reasons you don't care about.
Marc:The owner of what?
Marc:The busing company?
Marc:The owner of the television station.
Guest:And my station was taken off the air.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And right before that happened, my wonderful boss said, you know, I'm going to give you some on-camera experience.
Marc:Why did they shut the station?
Marc:Was it political?
Guest:It was that the owner engaged in what they called an ex-partate communication.
Guest:some kind of a bribe to one of the FCC commissioners to re-up the license.
Guest:It was something like a cruise or something like that on a yacht or something.
Guest:Let me take care of you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On the station.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And he blew the whistle and that was it.
Guest:So everybody at the station was then looking for a job.
Guest:And I got a call from an old friend in New York from my NBC days saying, you know, there's this thing called affirmative action.
Guest:And all the network news stations, outlets, are desperate for any woman who has any experience or any minority who has any experience.
Marc:So you took the gig doing on-camera stuff before you got to New York?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So you had a little of that.
Guest:And my friend said, you have to put together a reel of your work.
Marc:Did you like doing it?
Marc:Right away?
Marc:No, like being on camera?
Guest:I wasn't very good at it.
Guest:I remember having to do what we call a stand-up for the end of the piece where the correspondent finally appears on camera.
Marc:Which you do at the beginning of the piece now on 60 Minutes.
Guest:Oh, on 60 Minutes, yeah.
Guest:But this was for hard news, as we say.
Guest:And the end of the piece is about 15 seconds.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I couldn't do it.
Guest:And the sweet cameraman threw away an entire reel of film.
Guest:We used to work in film.
Guest:He just said, well, I misplaced it.
Guest:So that was like 15 minutes.
Guest:I couldn't do 15 seconds.
Guest:I couldn't remember 15 seconds in my head.
Guest:Oh, my goodness.
Guest:But I wanted to.
Guest:The jobs available were on camera.
Marc:So that didn't make the reel at that point.
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, I finally got the 15 seconds onto the reel.
Guest:And the networks were really desperate for women around the country who had done any work.
Guest:And there were very few because it was pre-affirmative action.
Guest:And CBS hired me.
Guest:Great.
Guest:That was my big break.
Marc:Thanks to affirmative action.
Guest:And the station being taken off the air.
Guest:No, definitely affirmative action, no question about that.
Marc:And then you started as you were an on-air reporter for which show?
Marc:Was that Face the Nation?
Marc:Which show was that?
Guest:No, no, that was for the CBS Bureau in Washington.
Guest:And it was the Diamonds in the Tiffany Network.
Guest:I'm going across the row.
Guest:We had Marvin Kalb, Dan Rather, Roger Mudd, Dan Shore.
Guest:I remember him.
Guest:Remember all of them.
Guest:I walked into that bureau my first day of work and was completely dazzled.
Guest:And their offices were like...
Guest:The windows of Saks Fifth Avenue, you know, the doors didn't close.
Guest:So you walked in and there they were sitting at their desks in these open offices.
Guest:And I thought I'd gone to heaven.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so that was in Washington?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And so then you were a Washington correspondent?
Yes.
Guest:No, they hired the affirmative action babies, that's what we called ourselves, as really apprentices.
Guest:And we had a different title.
Guest:We were reporters, and all those stars were correspondents.
Guest:And we were apprenticed to one of them.
Guest:Each one got paired off.
Guest:And we learned by osmosis.
Marc:Who'd you get?
Guest:I got Dan Shore.
Guest:And we learned by osmosis, just following them around.
Guest:They didn't instruct us.
Guest:They just let us tag along.
Marc:Well, how much did you know going into covering politics the way it worked?
Marc:Because what I found is that when I started working at Air America years ago, I knew very little about how politics works.
Marc:Did you know any of that going in?
Guest:I don't remember that being, I didn't, the answer is no, I didn't, but I don't remember that being my problem as much as writing, how to write a really good television hard news story.
Guest:Well, who did the reporting on it?
Marc:Like, where would you get the information?
Marc:If you're writing a piece about a piece of legislation or an international problem, I mean, what is the process?
Marc:What did you do?
Guest:Well, in the beginning, I followed Dan Shore around, watched what he was doing.
Guest:This was 1972, and the presidential election of that year was underway.
Guest:And the bureau was pretty empty because most of the correspondents were assigned different candidates in the primaries.
Guest:Nixon was running for re-election, so there were a lot of Democrats running.
Guest:There were very few people.
Marc:Like McGovern and Muskie and all those guys.
Marc:All those guys.
Marc:I vaguely remember from Mad Magazine, because I was nine years old.
Marc:So I remember the characters, but I remember caricatures of them because that's how I got the news, Mad Magazine.
Guest:Well, they weren't going to send the new kids out there.
Guest:So we were very few in the Bureau.
Guest:And I came right before this unbelievable break-in at the Watergate of the Democratic National Committee.
Guest:And nobody thought it was anything except a very local B&E.
Guest:And they sent me break in and entering.
Guest:Oh, yeah, right.
Guest:Break in and entering.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not at Watergate in those days.
Guest:It was just the Democratic Party.
Guest:And no one sent reporters except the Washington Post and CBS News.
Guest:And they sent me alone without Dan Short, just me.
Marc:Just to report on the break-in.
Guest:Just to be there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, on the break-in.
Guest:It was in the court.
Guest:I went to the arraignment of the burglars.
Guest:And the only other reporter in the courtroom was a guy named Bob Woodward.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the two of us were in the reporter section, and that was it.
Guest:And no one else was there.
Guest:It was an empty courtroom.
Marc:What did you feel that day?
Marc:Were you like, something's up?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Bob and I, our eyes were bulging because one of them worked for CREEP, which was the committee to reelect the president.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And there were these consecutively numbered $100 bills and phony passports.
Guest:I mean, it was all smelly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I would run to the phone, as I was instructed, and record radio.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:From the courthouse.
Guest:From the courthouse.
Guest:I was reporting what I was seeing.
Marc:They had a row of phones then for reporters.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Run to the newsroom and pick up a phone.
Guest:I've seen it in movies.
Guest:Actually, I think it was not quite that.
Guest:I think I ran outside and went to a pay phone.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And put in my dimes and recorded these things for radio.
Guest:And I only found out years and years later that they never put them on the air.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I didn't know that.
Guest:Yeah, really.
Guest:So every hour or so, I'm writing these little short 45-second summaries of what was happening in the courtroom with all this stuff about the creep and the money.
Guest:It went nowhere.
Guest:Didn't even go out on the airwaves.
Marc:That's sad.
Marc:You were doing big things, and just no one was listening.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but I was learning.
Guest:The good part was I was learning.
Marc:But you stayed in the saddle with Watergate through the whole thing.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And you were there scooping it to some degree.
Guest:Well, in the beginning, every time the story died, which it did every couple of weeks, it just died.
Guest:It was over.
Guest:Woodward would say to me, don't give up.
Guest:Don't let them take this away from you.
Guest:Well, of course they did.
Guest:I was the junior.
Guest:And as it became a big story, in the courts, in Congress, wherever the story went, the White House, I was always number two.
Guest:But I stayed with it.
Guest:To shore.
Guest:To shore.
Guest:And then to Fred Graham, who was covering it in the courts.
Guest:And Dan Rather in the White House.
Guest:And, you know, it just kept moving.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It was this blob.
Marc:But Woodward and Bernstein, like you were talking to Bob Woodward, and they were the ones that ultimately broke it, right?
Guest:Yeah, but they kept breaking it, and it would die, and then they'd break it again.
Guest:And each time they broke it again, it got closer and closer to the president.
Marc:Well, tell me how that worked then, because we're witnessing it now.
Marc:I'm too young to remember Watergate.
Marc:I mean, what was the pushback from the administration that would make it go away?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, the whole operation of the White House was built to keep it away from the president.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And obviously, there was this deep throat guy having Woodward meet him in garages and things like that.
Guest:The leaker.
Guest:The leaker.
Guest:And every time the White House put up a wall...
Guest:the leaker managed to put you know get a little hole in the wall yeah and push it further and further toward the white house yeah and it was incremental this story went on for two and a half close to three years uh and it was it was if you telescope it unrelenting but to live through it it was more drawn out
Guest:Oh, way drawn out.
Guest:And as I keep saying, I kept dying.
Guest:And I kept saying to my friend Bob, I can't stay on this.
Guest:There's nothing, I have to go cover other stories.
Guest:I have to advance my career.
Guest:Don't let go, don't let go, he kept saying.
Marc:He wanted as many people as possible working on it?
Guest:No, he was my friend and telling me that this was going to explode one day.
Marc:And he saw you as sort of like, he was a newspaper guy and you were a TV person.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:We were dating.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:I was his girlfriend.
Guest:And he was just, he never gave me a story.
Guest:He never told me anything.
Guest:He just kept saying, just don't let them take this away from you.
Marc:That's interesting.
Marc:Journalists dating.
Guest:Yeah, you thought we never did, right?
Marc:I didn't know.
Marc:Maybe I should have known.
Marc:But was that a competitive situation?
Marc:No.
Marc:No?
Marc:Are you still friends?
Marc:No.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Well, that's nice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So, like, let's talk a little bit about your job currently and how this works, you know, in the sense that, you know, you spent how long did it take for that thing to three years, three years for it to take him down?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So what we're seeing now, like I think I want to talk about because, you know, you do you do get scoops, you do produce, you do report.
Marc:But like in terms of like the leakers and the whistleblowers, like especially in a time like, you know, now and I imagine in a time like then, it doesn't seem that that people really know that they're necessary.
Marc:In a sense that you have to have them, especially when the whole thing is rigged against you.
Marc:And I'm saying rigged, but just saying there's one party dominating and everything is insulated executively.
Marc:That if you don't have whistleblowers and you don't have leakers, it's a real problem.
Guest:Well, I think whistleblowers and leakers only become heroes in history.
Guest:At the time, particularly when we're talking about the White House, those officials who are on the record will put up a huge battle against the leakers because they don't always while it's going on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because they know that they could bring them down.
Guest:So we're seeing now and for the last several presidencies, it's not just President Trump.
Guest:It was Obama.
Guest:It was Clinton.
Guest:It was George W. I mean, this dislike of the press, dislike of anybody within their administration who talks to the press secretly.
Guest:I mean, they're seen as betrayers and traitors.
Guest:I guess that's the way it's always been.
Guest:So Deep Throat is only a hero in hindsight.
Guest:At the time, somebody like him would be castigated.
Guest:Don't forget, when there is a president, that means, except this time, that most people voted for him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Except this time.
Yeah.
Guest:But generally, the public is on the side of the president in the beginning.
Guest:They just voted for him.
Guest:You want to think you made the right decision.
Guest:You support your guy, your team.
Guest:You're on his team.
Guest:And so when you begin to see that the press or whoever you're going to blame for the negative stories are going after your guy, you're going to dislike them intensely.
Guest:And that's where we are right now.
Guest:And that's where we were during Watergate.
Marc:So after Watergate and after that, I mean, I imagine, you know, when you bring a president down, that the nation must be just sort of like, what the fuck just happened?
Marc:Like, what was the... Well, it was incremental enough.
Marc:That they knew was coming.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there were impeachment proceedings going on in Congress.
Marc:For like a while.
Guest:For a while.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was the drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.
Guest:And the public, I think they were exhausted.
Guest:And when Jerry Ford came in, I was in the midst of it and couldn't believe how quickly things just settled down.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:How important who is president is to the mood of the country.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So here we had all the turmoil, constant churning, churning, churning, arguing, screaming.
Guest:These hearings were on television all day long.
Guest:Right, I remember that.
Guest:And then reprised every night.
Guest:And then Jerry Ford, oh, such a normal man.
Guest:He made his own English muffins in the White House.
Guest:And he had, you know, kids and the first lady was talking about dealing with sex with her children.
Guest:And it was normal.
Marc:Oh, is that what they felt, people felt?
Guest:They were normal people.
Guest:He hadn't even run for president.
Guest:He was an appointed vice president.
Guest:And he didn't have that craziness that people who run for president have.
Guest:And really the whole, that bubble that was just expanding, expanding, just burst.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just settled down.
Marc:So as you did this, as you covered the White House, because I was trying to think what was baffling.
Marc:When I watch your interviews with presidents and I watched the one with President-elect Trump shortly after, that outside of the investigative pieces, which we'll talk about, just in talking to these guys who have this amazing power and you know that they have this power, and on some level, you know that you're going to...
Marc:They're going to attempt to use you as a facilitator of whatever bullshit they want to put out in the world.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So like as a reporter, knowing that's the score, because I've talked to politicians before.
Marc:I talked to Obama, but I was carefully not I was careful not to talk about politics because that's not usually what I do here.
Marc:But when you're doing that, what is going to make it different?
Marc:How are you not just going to fulfill their agenda, like when you walk into that?
Guest:That's the game, and I use that word, game.
Guest:Because he has the president, and it's always been a he, he has his agenda for this interview.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And of course, we're trying to get past the talking points.
Guest:We're very desperately trying to get past the talking points.
Guest:And you just go back and forth.
Guest:It's a tennis match.
Guest:Here's my question to break through the wall of your planned remarks.
Guest:And to give you a question you weren't expecting, because they planned for it, especially a big interview like 60 Minutes.
Guest:They planned for it.
Guest:He probably had people, anybody coming on, a senator or whatever, they have their staff throwing questions at them ahead of time.
Guest:And so you're trying to get around that.
Yeah.
Marc:Even for a second.
Guest:Even for a second.
Guest:Even for a look.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because I noticed like in you talking about your interview with Trump most recently in terms of the president-elect interview was that, you know, he, you know, you're observant of his body language.
Marc:You were making assumptions based on your experience with past presidents.
Marc:And like, I wonder how you feel about that in retrospect, your assumptions about what happened that day.
Marc:in talking to him?
Guest:Well, it was surprising all the way around, that interview.
Guest:I had already interviewed him the day he named Pence as his running mate.
Guest:So I had been in the room with a guy who had the sense of a cat who was ready to pounce, just ready for combat.
Marc:Did you know him before from New York?
Guest:A little.
Guest:I'd interviewed him before, but I didn't know him really well.
Marc:Does anybody?
No.
Guest:He had insisted that my boss and I go and meet him in his office before the first interview.
Guest:I felt it was somewhat of an audition.
Guest:I actually felt it when we were in the room.
Marc:How he could work you.
Marc:I mean, that's why he's a hustler.
Marc:So he's got to see the mark to figure out how he can charm you, right?
Marc:Oh, he did charm us.
Guest:Believe me.
Marc:He was very good at that.
Guest:He was excellent at that.
Guest:And he gave us a little tour of his office, which is huge.
Guest:This is the best office in all of New York.
Guest:It's huge.
Guest:This is the best office.
Guest:Look at my view.
Guest:It's the best view in the world.
Guest:You know, that kind of thing.
Guest:But so I expected the first...
Guest:Trump that I saw when he was still running.
Guest:But I interviewed him again, the one you're talking about, three days after the election.
Guest:A different man walked in.
Guest:Oh, here's something interesting about him.
Guest:He didn't, at least in those days, come with an entourage.
Guest:He walked in the room alone and sat down alone and didn't have the usual people around him whispering in his ear that you see with so many politicians.
Guest:And he was...
Guest:Instead of leaning forward, ready to pounce, he was leaning back.
Guest:And I just had the strongest impression, even though he denied it, that he was in shock, that he had not expected to win.
Guest:And this was only three days later, and it was still, you know, the idea that he had this huge responsibility now was just washing over him.
Guest:It was a strong impression.
Marc:But he denied it.
Guest:Oh, yeah, totally denied it.
Guest:Oh, he knew he was going to win all along.
Marc:Well, what did you learn?
Marc:What have you learned from interviewing, I guess, like, what is it, Carter through Trump?
Marc:You've interviewed all of them.
Guest:Did I?
Guest:I didn't interview George W. Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But all the others.
Guest:Did you try?
Guest:Well, I was at 60 Minutes by then, and he was taken.
Guest:Another correspondent was assigned.
Guest:With Clinton, I interviewed him in a group.
Guest:The whole team interviewed Clinton when he was president.
Guest:He didn't like 60 Minutes.
Guest:And he and Hillary...
Guest:were unhappy with the interview that's the brilliant interview that steve croft did with them when they were still running uh i don't it a lot of people a lot of analysts say that made him president yeah but uh they didn't like it so oh yeah so we did though 60 minutes did interview him mike was there morley was there ed bradley yeah and steve croft and i five on one
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And they didn't like it.
Guest:Well, that interview, I think they liked.
Marc:Because I know it's a challenge.
Marc:Coming from ideological press, where theoretically you have to be unbiased in your approach.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And trained to be.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And people are going to make whatever assumptions they're going to make.
Marc:And we've already established that the idea is to try to cleverly and get around their talking points to at least get a moment of authenticity or thoughtfulness or catch them in, I don't know, a lie or not a lie.
Guest:Kind of like what you're doing right now.
Guest:That kind of thing, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But but what what what I'm curious about in that, you know, having interviewed these presidents and then seeing the arc of their careers after your assumptions and after interviews and whatever information you got, what have you learned about these men who are in this position?
Marc:You know, outside of that, you know, they're cagey and some of them are smarter than others.
Marc:But is there a common thread to how they hold that job?
Guest:No.
Marc:No.
Guest:No.
Marc:It's all different.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I once asked somebody about this in this particular case, but it's a lesson for anybody at the top of a big organization.
Guest:This was about football coaches.
Guest:And I wanted to define what makes a successful football coach in terms of temperament, personality.
Guest:And I was informed that there is no formula.
Guest:You know, you can have a football coach who screams and yells at everybody and never invites them in for a one-on-one chat.
Guest:And then you can have the coach that's dancing in the locker room with the guys.
Guest:And they're both wildly successful.
Guest:And I would say the same with presidents.
Guest:You have introverts and extroverts.
Guest:You have schmoozers and guys who close the door and don't want anyone coming in.
Guest:And so that question about what does it take is pretty much indefinable.
Yeah.
Guest:But there's got to be some... Ambition is maybe the only thing.
Marc:But some of them, I guess, are better leaders than others.
Marc:And sometimes that depends on who they surround themselves with, probably a great deal.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I agree with that.
Guest:And then in terms of... But it's also the times that they're in that require an outgoing or an ingoing or a person who wants to...
Guest:quiet things down or whip things up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It can't just be the isolated figure.
Guest:He's right for this time but wrong for that time.
Guest:Yeah, I get it.
Guest:And things will change in the middle of a presidency.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He'd be right at the beginning and wrong at the end.
Guest:I mean, we've had a lot of that.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:But like being in it all the time, like I watched your interview with Netanyahu in Israel.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And he's like, you know, he's...
Marc:He's a very grounded, no bullshit kind of character.
Marc:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, I don't... To be honest, I don't think there... We were talking about what's the common thread.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:There's bullshit with all of them.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:That's the one common thread.
Guest:That's the one common thread.
Guest:You found it.
Guest:You put your finger right on it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you've got to get around.
Marc:That's another word for talking.
Guest:Tiptoe around.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But I told you it's a game.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I really like politicians.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You'd have to to stick around and cover that world so much.
Guest:Why do you like them?
Guest:Well, most of them, and when I meet someone who isn't this way, I'm basically hurt.
Guest:But most of them come into this business to do good.
Guest:They don't set out to destroy or take the country in the wrong direction.
Guest:Their motives are pure in the beginning.
Guest:And I don't look upon them as crooks or evil people.
Marc:No?
Guest:No.
Marc:I guess you couldn't.
Guest:In the beginning.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then they turn.
Marc:Doing good is relative to ideology as well.
Guest:Well, yes, but doing good is definitely related to ideology, but I want to see, at least in the beginning, I want to see that their heart's in the right place, even if you don't agree with the direction that they want to take us.
Marc:And you have found that, you have seen that at the beginning.
Guest:Generally speaking, yes.
Guest:Generally speaking, not 100%, but generally speaking.
Guest:And really, when I said to you we're trained not to be opinionated, we are.
Guest:And I've been at this, do I have to admit how long?
Guest:No, I don't have to, but a long time.
Guest:And sometimes I think so long that it's hard to find my own opinion sometimes.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I guess that is relative to your own place in life, too.
Marc:Like, you know, where you are.
Marc:You know, how you feel about... Grandmother and stuff like that.
Marc:Grandmother, you know, different periods of economic stability.
Marc:Whatever it is, you know, what's important for you from a politician is going to be different.
Marc:But, you know, we all have a general sense of this is bad.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Well, I guess where I am right now is I worry about the future because I have grandchildren in a way I never thought about it before, even for my own child.
Guest:So I really do worry about what kind of world my little kids are going to- How old are they now?
Guest:Three and a half and six.
Guest:So I think about the environment a lot, which I hadn't been doing before, but I guess we're facing a crisis, so maybe everybody's there.
Guest:I'm worried about, really, really worried about technology and the Internet, what that's doing to us and babies' minds and all of that.
Marc:Well, what has it done to journalism?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It's changed it.
Guest:Can you do, instead of 180, can it just be spinning around all the time so you don't know where you are at any moment?
Guest:I mean, think about it.
Guest:I told you I started in film.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So in film, you had to wait for the film to be developed.
Marc:Yeah, there's no time for processing.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:That's the big difference.
Marc:And it doesn't seem to be any real.
Marc:It takes a lot of energy to source properly, even as a consumer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, like, I've actually been nostalgic for three networks in the sense that everyone was sort of on the same page and you could go figure out things and we weren't getting all the information.
Marc:And now we think we're getting all the information, but sometimes that's not even good.
Marc:Because, you know, what's the credibility of that information?
Marc:And there's absolutely everyone has a voice on a social networking platform.
Marc:So there's no there's no it's an enemy of tolerance and processing and thoughtfulness about what's happening.
Marc:There's no time.
Marc:It just honors the emotions.
Guest:The no time is distressing for a consumer, but also for the journalist.
Guest:You see something and boom, you're typing it in or you're talking it in.
Guest:There's no time to ask for the opposing view.
Guest:There's no time to look for the context historically.
Marc:i don't know do you think like when when what it seems like a lot of there's a lot of great journalism going on now it seems like there was that that right now because of this presidency it's sort of woken up you know the responsibility of of news outlets to really do their job i agree and it seems like people are really stepping up i agree and they're they're not being intimidated
Guest:They're not being forced to agree.
Guest:They're really being courageous.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's a little sense of Watergate in there.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:I mean, there's a little sense of like there's Watergate, but there's also this pressing kind of apocalyptic vibe going on now.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Scary.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:Yeah, it is scary.
Marc:And I think it's been scary before, but it seems more scary now to me.
Guest:There's too much going on.
Guest:It's coming at us too quickly.
Guest:Every day, three new things.
Guest:And we're just not built to absorb that much.
Marc:Do you think that's intentional on behalf of this administration?
Guest:Partly.
Guest:I think it's to...
Guest:Perhaps.
Guest:I'm not covering Washington.
Guest:So I'm a consumer of that news exactly as you and all your listeners are.
Guest:But it does look like there are attempts to distract us from X. I'm going to have your mind look at Y. I feel that there's a lot of that.
Marc:Well, and I think that some of that is on the is on the I think that the journalists are somewhat responsible for that as well.
Marc:That in being thorough, you know, at all levels and also competing to get information out there and create, you know, and finding these bits and pieces that, you know, you're getting all the pieces at once all the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And speculation about the pieces and and then analysis of the pieces.
Marc:Like if you if you've got three or four news outlets coming in on your phone, it's it's nonstop.
Guest:And you feel you have an obligation to report every one of them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And no time to put context around any of them.
Guest:And I don't know because I'm not reporting on it, but it feels deliberate.
Marc:But it seems that some of the stuff that you do does take the time to process.
Marc:When you do an investigative piece, when you spend that time with Netanyahu or you do the piece on Gitmo or the nuclear power plant or the one I watched about police informants.
Guest:Isn't that something?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but like, you know, in some of the interviews where you get these great scoops, you know, that a lot of that, there's time to put it together.
Marc:A lot of time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We have the amount of time we need for each piece, unless it's hard news and then you just go with it.
Guest:But usually we take months.
Marc:And you know what you want to do.
Marc:You're producing, you've got this story, and you're like, there's got to be more to this story.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:And that's why I have the best job, certainly in broadcast journalism.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And we're still doing it the same old way.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Everything's the same.
Guest:We still go out with two camera crews.
Guest:We still take a lot of time to get the opposing views and the context out.
Marc:And those things make a difference.
Marc:I mean, all those stories.
Guest:They make a huge difference.
Marc:You know, changed policy, changed, you know, safety situations in these, like the police informant thing was just horrifying.
Marc:Because I had this moment where I watched, how old was that?
Guest:That was, was it last year or the year before?
Guest:Two seasons ago.
Marc:Well, the moment that you showed that college interview with the guy who was in charge of this informing unit.
Guest:Oh, the police, yes, yeah.
Marc:That, you know, what I sensed in it was this sort of like, I'm going to get these college kids.
Marc:Who do they think they are?
Guest:It was a little bit of that.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that is sort of a thread that's going on in politics now.
Marc:Anti-elitism, anti-intellectualism, you know, a bitterness towards education and towards people that seem to have a better go at it.
Guest:This is what is stunning to me about working at 60 Minutes as opposed to covering the White House.
Guest:We deal mostly with what you might call, my hands are going quotes, ordinary people.
Guest:We're not dealing with the president or the vice president.
Guest:We're dealing with a family whose kid commits suicide because he's become a police informant and he's being called upon to tell on his friends
Guest:or his family's going to find out he took some dope.
Guest:And the kid can't handle it, and he kills himself.
Guest:It's way down at the granular, horrible life that kids find themselves in.
Guest:It's real life.
Guest:It's real people.
Marc:And that's where stuff has to sort of start changing.
Marc:It's the most important there.
Guest:And it hurts to cover these stories.
Guest:And when you're interviewing a politician, it doesn't hurt to ask some tough questions.
Guest:It actually feels okay.
Guest:But these stories that you're bringing up, really, I suffer.
Guest:One, you suffer watching it.
Guest:And it's even worse when you're in the room with a parent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:or someone else who's faced a tragedy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do a lot of that.
Marc:Yeah, but it does, you know, when you take the time to flesh this stuff out and you have the arc of the injustice or the, you know, dubiousness of what's happening, that it has an impact.
Yeah.
Marc:And things change.
Marc:You know, 60 minutes still means something.
Guest:You know, things change.
Guest:I'm not so sure.
Guest:I never, it's, I don't want to say never, but it's pretty rare that we do a piece, and let's say it has a huge impact, but the things really change.
Guest:I worry about that all the time.
Marc:Well, yeah, there's a lot of lip service paid to, like, we're going to check it out.
Marc:We got a guy on it.
Marc:You know, we're reinvestigating.
Marc:And then, you know, it goes away.
Guest:It goes away.
Guest:Do you ever follow up?
Guest:Yeah, we follow up.
Guest:We try.
Guest:And that's why I'm distressed because we follow up and find out.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:Yeah, that there was a little bubble of news and finger pointing and then right back to normal.
Guest:They wrote it out.
Guest:And this is true in Washington with legislation and so forth.
Guest:And then it's true in the case of these local people.
Marc:Well, how do you not get depressed and disillusioned?
Guest:Here's the sad, horrible sort of downside.
Guest:We move on too.
Guest:And we're working on our next stories.
Guest:And our next stories are absorbing, completely, totally absorbing.
Guest:And we don't go back there very often.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:So mea culpa.
Marc:Yeah, I understand that.
Marc:I don't know that there's another way to be.
Marc:You can only do what you can do, right?
Guest:Yeah, and you know something?
Guest:It's not our role.
Guest:Our role is to keep moving forward, and someone else needs to pick up the ball when we shine light somewhere.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:What happens at 60 Minutes, though, is we go into reruns in the summer.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I'm already working for next season.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I'm finished for this.
Guest:They all haven't run yet, but I'm done reporting.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And now, well, let's talk a little bit about the book.
Marc:Oh, please.
Marc:My book.
Guest:The grandma book.
Guest:The grandma book.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, were you a good mother?
Guest:Not particularly.
Guest:But this is interesting.
Guest:You know, I have this theory about, first of all, the book's called Becoming Grandma, The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting.
Guest:But you asked me if I was a good mother.
Guest:I was a working mother.
Guest:And we don't think we're good mothers because we have this image, we working mothers, that a good mother's there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think my daughter would probably tell you I was a good mother.
Guest:I wasn't on her case 24-7 because I wasn't there 24-7.
Marc:And she turned out okay.
Guest:She turned out great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:um but no i don't think i was a good mother um i wasn't a bad mother i loved her i took care of her i guess you know it's it's it's interesting i don't know what your relationship with your mother is and you know i guess people do the best they can do so they say but you know i think what we underestimate is you know kids are pretty resilient too and they're gonna they're their own people so they a lot of times they find their way if it's not abusive
Guest:Well, and somebody was taking care of my daughter.
Guest:My husband worked at home, and we had daycare from a nanny.
Guest:And I think that my self-worth was not tied up with her success.
Guest:It meant a lot.
Guest:I wasn't on her case.
Guest:I was not a helicopter mom at all.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:I think maybe we need to let these kids find their way more themselves.
Guest:Although I did keep her pretty busy.
Guest:I was hoping that if she had something to do after school every day, she had gymnastics and painting and all of that stuff, she wouldn't notice that I wasn't there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's what they do, camp.
Marc:You go to camp.
Marc:Go to camp.
Marc:My parents sent me to two camps in one summer.
Yeah.
Marc:So you wouldn't notice they weren't around.
Marc:Right, exactly.
Marc:Well, what are some of the advice you have for new grandmothers?
Marc:What is your approach to this?
Guest:Mark, it's not an advice book because I am the last person, believe me, anybody wants to take advice from as a parent or even a grandparent.
Guest:It's kind of a 60 minutes research project on, first of all, why do grandparents have
Guest:have this physical love for their grandchildren.
Guest:It's a full body ecstasy.
Guest:Second chance is part of it.
Marc:Less responsibility in some ways.
Guest:That's another one.
Guest:Seeing your baby have a baby and seeing that they do a good job is part of it.
Guest:When we're parents, we're policemen.
Guest:We have to whip you little kids into shape.
Guest:You can't do this.
Guest:Clean up your room.
Guest:Eat your vegetables.
Guest:And when you're a grandparent, your job, your whole job is to say yes.
Marc:Yeah, they're great.
Marc:My grandmother was very important to me.
Guest:And grandparents are very important.
Marc:And it's to say yes and just love.
Marc:Period.
Marc:That's it.
Guest:And who else is going to love you that?
Guest:Who else is going to think that you put your right shoe on your right foot?
Marc:It's amazing.
Guest:That you're a genius, right?
Guest:Who else is going to tell you you're perfect?
Guest:And every human being needs one person to say that to them or to feel that, to convey that.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I didn't think when I started the book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That there was a whole book about grandparents.
Guest:And then I would talk to someone.
Guest:They'd take me in a whole new direction.
Guest:I kept going in new directions.
Guest:Step-grandmothers, surrogate grandmothers.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:Grandfathers.
Guest:There's a neurobiology to grandparenting.
Guest:Because when we hold our little babies, our brains change.
Guest:And we are infused with a hormone called oxytocin.
Guest:And that makes you just feel good all over.
Marc:You can get addicted to grandchildren.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:We are addicted to grandchildren.
Guest:Do you know how many animals have grandmothers?
Marc:How many?
Guest:Only three.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:Well, in the animal kingdom, when you can no longer reproduce, you die.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So elephants, whales, and humans.
Guest:We're the only three.
Marc:Oh, I wonder if they all feel the same.
Guest:We do.
Marc:That's true.
Guest:Oh, watch.
Guest:And the role in all three cases, the deliberate role why we have grandmothers?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Babysitting.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Just leave them with grandma.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they're happy.
Marc:They're happy babysitters.
Marc:And you don't have to pay them.
Marc:Well, and we don't say no.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Well, look, it sounds great.
Marc:It was great talking to you.
Marc:I hope I did a good job with the interview.
Marc:Did I?
Guest:I loved it.
Marc:I loved it.
Marc:I think I learned some things.
Guest:It was smart.
Marc:I appreciate you coming and take care and enjoy your grandchildren.
Guest:Thank you, Mark.
Marc:All right, that was me and Leslie Stahl.
Marc:It was nice talking to her.
Marc:All right, no music today.
Guest:Except for that.
Marc:Take care of yourselves and other people around you.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Boomer lives!