Every Arroyo Grande show, I ask a list of questions and my guests the Arroyo Grande Questionnaire. I decided to collect their wise answers for you. Jim Cavizel, Jonathan Rumy, Lauren Dagil and Moore sound off, and I solved the great You mystery all on this edition of the Arroyo Grande Show. Come on, I'm riting an Arroyo. Welcome to a Arroyo Grande. Go subscribe to the show. Now turn the notifications on. So much coming, you're not going to believe what's coming in the weeks ahead. Before we do
our star studded Arroyo Grande Questionnaire wrap up. I saw something on Dak Shepherd's podcast the other day that got a lot of people talking. It was about a now famous or infamous you bit that occurred on Laura Ingram's show a few years ago and involved yours truly Watch Anything Happened to You?
Yeah, okay, so you've been gone a couple of days. In the meantime, I've watched two full seasons of You, the show You, which reminds me I want to play the thing.
About me exactly.
It's about time that we revisit that because I'm watching it.
It's such a great exchange.
Okay's Laura Ingram?
Yeah, do you want me to put on the tv?
Oh? Yeah, yeah.
Some of my favorite of all time.
And now it has extra meaning because I'm watching the show.
Is it a great show?
I love it.
It has really Veronica Mars vibes all fun, but it's it's like Dexter meets Veronica Mars and I've never seen Dexter. Okay, okay, let's watch this real quick.
Yeah, I was watching an episode of You whereas came up?
When did? I don't know?
It was on you?
What was on me?
What are you talking about?
I never was on you.
We never did a measles a vaccine episode.
Is this a joke?
I don't know you're talking about?
It was on you? It was on you?
I never had Raymond.
The episode of show Laura, what's it called? You?
You on Netflix? Going to al I can't explain this joke so stupid.
Real life it really is.
I still laugh when I watch it. I wish I could tell you it was totally organic. But full confession, well let me get to that in a moment. When it first aired, it got tens of millions of postings. Late night shows commented on the thing, and I still get stopped at airports and asked, are you the you guy? Well, let me solve the mystery. I actually wrote that back and forth on a plane as I went to do
Laura's show live. I remember telling Laura, whatever you do, don't break character and stay committed to the argument, which we both did and it worked like a charm. Though I have to tell you honestly, we did that live with no rehearsal, no edits, without a net, and when it was over because of the satellite delay we were on satellite. I thought it was horrible. I thought it
had flopped. I was wrong. As Dak Shephard referenced, it was based on the old Abbot and Costello, who's on first routine Aha, And if you don't know their comic genius, I'm going to post a clip at the end of the show tonight so you can take a peek at them. As I always say, there's nothing new under the sun. You just miss the first act. Now to our Arroyo
Grande questionnaire. Once I started this show, I thought we needed a different way to reveal the qualities of our guests that the interview might have missed, little tidbits that often get glastotted over. This, too, is based on something that went before. It's called the Proust questionnaire, and that questionnaire was answered in eighteen sixty six by French novelist Marcel Proust, for whom it's name. It became a kind
of parlor game. Though Prus did not write the questions, James Lipton and other over the years have used it to cap their interviews. So when I started Arroyo Grande, I decided to write my own questionnaire, which I add and subtract from depending on who we're interviewing. I find the answers compelling, insightful, and really like a little confession. You learn a lot about the soul of people if
you listen carefully to their responses. With that, here are some of the best answers to our a Royal Grande questionnaire. Up first, Jim Cavesl, who's the person you most admire?
My wife?
Why this is my life pillar? As though it's not even have to think about that? See that was a bad question.
Well I'm starting easy.
I'm not good at these.
Who's the person you most despise.
I've forgiven him.
Another good answer. What is your best feature?
Feature? Yeah? Passion, passion, passion?
Yeah, I thought feature.
Not feature film. What's your best feature as a person, as a as an actor.
Isn't that a feature?
It can be anything. It could be a quality, it could be a physical trait. What's your best feature?
I don't know. I haven't thought about it.
You know what people would say, your eyes they're older, but that's probably what they would say, is your best feature.
But they're smiling.
It depends on if you're the guy you just forgave or not.
I guess irish eyes or smiling.
You know, it goes well, they must be up.
To something exactly exactly. Okay, what do you fear?
Well, the first thing is is is resurrection the film?
The greatest fear? Really? Oh yeah, anything can go on that.
Well, You've got to remember though, it's I was born to do so, but greatest fear. I worry my children, my my family. You know, I'm not the I'm a good husband, good father. I'm not the best father.
I want to be.
I one of the best husband I want to be. You know, those are those are other things. But I do love them deeply.
What is the thing you know that no one else knows.
I've heard other actors say it before. You know you're going to fail.
You know that it might be the great a gift that you have, but you're always concerned about that.
I just outwork everybody.
I think that's a big thing, is that I have to outwork on it and then the gift takes over from there. What's your favorite book? The one I'm doing right now is screw Tape Letters. It's what I'm into. It's a lot of fun. Well, it's book and it's very wise. Well it's very wise, but it's getting me ready for the Resurrection.
Really.
Yeah.
Oh, I'm really studying it.
So I'm breaking it apart and going through it and getting into the thoughts of evil, you know, the antithesis of what I'm going to be playing. And there's something how Jesus works is so simple. There's a reason why I'm doing it. And it's during Lent. I'm fasting. Even though you and I are going to go to a nice restaurant after this, I'm not going to have any wine. Oh okay, well maybe we won't be going to dinner. What is your biggest regret. I don't really have any
You don't have a professional regret. No, a role you should have taken. No, because there were reasons for it at the time. They've worked out, but it wasn't for me, you know, no regrets. I would have had a major regret if I had not married my wife.
That would have been and that almost happened. You know, I threw it away, and.
But I my soul was enough pointed in the right direction where something from above said, you know, gave me a bit of a broken heart and said she was in the plan for you.
Get back there, dummy, And I did. What's the best piece of advice you ever got?
I was talking to this this old priest, and he says, Jim, don't start any new addictions.
And so I never did. Well, that's a good piece of advice.
What about the old addictions?
They're there, but don't add on to him.
Don't add on to it.
Well, because you know, you think about it, like some people get into drugs and they go just one time.
But if I think.
You measure that, you go, what if I become so addicted to it, how's that going to change my life? Well, just look at the people that they couldn't get rid of it. I was working on a movie called pay It Forward, and I went down to the first avenue and I was with the people that were heroin addictions and they're all going to die. And the man that was working with me, he looked like he was in a concentration camp. He was just getting bunt and he was teaching me how to put the.
Out looks. And I watched all of them.
But I hear people talking about all the time when they say this is a pay it forward program or we're going to pay it forward.
And then, yeah, I was in that movie.
I played a heroin addict and I think of that guy and so I always pray for him.
When this is over, what happens.
Again?
Now I'm thinking way too far out. I want to enjoy the process. I'm so happy that my children get to see, you know, their father at work. But it's a continual thing. I'm not going to buy Jesus. I need him to play me. It's the only white way that this thing is going to work. But what happened when this is over? When this is over, yeah, who knows? If I'm still an actor, you know, if I can't get a job. Just be a dad and be a husband. Maybe play a little golf. We're going to go out
to dinner. Yeah, that's what happens when this is over.
Thank you, Jo, thank you.
Well, it's a prize winner. David Mammontt had a few interesting comments. Watch this. Okay, there's a series of questions. I ask everybody who's here. Oh, okay, you're ready. This is the Royal Grande questionnaire. Who is the person you most admire?
David?
The person I most admire today? Yeah, oh, that's a very very good questions. Donald Trump, Wow, why? Probably because of what we discussed a little earlier. Because he looked at something that was impossible, which was the resurrection of forgive me, I'm going to say it, the American dream and said, okay, what we need to have to happen? And he was treated worse than any American citizen in
history and nothing faced him. And something I heard something about Malania said that he came down the in before he ran in twenty four. She said, oh, you're going to run again? He said yes, and she said I hope you don't. And he said why and she said, because you'll win.
Not great who is the person you most despise.
Well, I despise a lot of people, But when I do, I try to remember that I should probably despise myself first, because the reason I find their behavior despicable is because the potential, if not the actuality, is in myself.
Right.
So yes, it's jushure, but spoken like a playwright. I like that you're empathizing with the Apparently he.
Wrote a book, Chuck Schumer called Anti Semitism in America. He did, and I thought, how dare he as somebody who's dissed the Israel and just the prime minister and withheld Israel? And now he writes a book called anti Semitism in America? But I read the subtitle says a quick start guide.
Is that right? It's just a quick start? Well, you got to start somewhere, David, that's right. What's the greatest feature and best feature in humanity?
Am I feature film?
No feature?
Like feature?
Like the feature you have the thing you possess. What is your best feature or the best in humanity?
I think I'm very understanding and forgiving to all the swindero don't understand my work.
And you write great books about them. Most importantly, your memoirs are worth the worth the trip. What's your favorite Neil.
Oh, that's a I could question. My wife makes this wonderful sardine pasta, sardines and bread crumbs. It was crazy good.
Ah.
Yeah, I've never had that.
Yeah, it's the only sardines and bread crumbs.
Yeah, she's been cooking out of a Sicilian cookbook.
Your favorite book and the last book you read.
My favorite book, Gully. I don't know, you know, I read the works in English a Vasily Grossman last year. She was the greatest writer of the twentieth centuries of Russian and he was, among other things, the reporter for Red Star, which was their stars and stripes, and he was at the front all through Stalingrad. He was at the liberation of whichever camp they liberated. I think it was burking out.
And why did you Why didn't you want to dive into his complete works?
Well, because I read one that I read them all.
Oh, you couldn't stop.
Yeah, you binge read them?
Yeah?
Was that the last?
No?
No, no, what I've been reading lately? What have been reading lately? Oh, I've been reading the works of Ross Thomas lately, who was an American crime writer. He wrote forty books. They're a lot of fun. And he also said something one of the best things I ever heard. He was an alcoholic and he was at Dan Tanis
or something with Ross MacDonald. It was another big drinker, the red middle of the day and they sit down in the red booth at rust and the water comes over and says, what can I get you, gentlemen, and Ross Thomas says, a couple of double martinis. And the waiter says, Oliver twist, and Ross Thomas says, we'll order later. Isn't it great?
It's great? I love it. Tell me what do you fear?
David mammontt you know what I think?
I think. I fear disgrace, I fear doing. And that's what a lot of my my especially about the Victorians, and a lot of my writing is about guys who make one false move. How close we are to That's what film wair is most mainly about how close we are, just stepping off the sidewalking out.
Right over there, books right?
What do you know that no one else knows?
Preston Sturgis was the great comedic director.
Movies is just brilliant.
You don't even want to watch them, you want to eat them. And he wrote a wonderful movie called Hail the Conquering Hero, where this Eddie Bracken is dismissed from the Marine Corps because he has allergies and he still wants to be in the Marine Corps and he's going home, but he can't tell them he's been dismissed. And so these marines show up and they say, come on, we'll put you in a marine uniform. You get off the thing and everything will be fine. When he goes there,
there are these two bands. One of them is playing Hail the Conquering Hero, and one of them is playing the star Spangled Banner American the Beautiful. And then I was reading a book by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, who will tell you about a second who describes that same scene written about eighteen eighty five. The hero gets off and these two bands when playing hal So obviously I know that Preston Sturgis read that.
Point and that book.
I know, But what's the But the question was what do you know that no one else knows?
I know that. Oh, I'll tell you another one.
Okay, give me another one.
This gets a.
Little bit arcane. There was in reading about the First World War, but flyers in the First World War, there was a ditty they said, he died with his hand on the throttle, and this is the reason he died. He forgot to recall that iota is the maximum angle of glythe right. So the question is what does that mean? So I'm trying to think, what does it mean iota? What does iota mean? What does it mean by what?
So?
And iota is always written in caps, and think it doesn't mean what is the maximum angle of glide? There is no such thing, But there's such a thing called the angle of maximum glide. So what's the angle of maximum glide on an airplane? Right? It's indicated by the air speed. Every airplane has a maximum angle. You're going to get the maximum glide on this air speed because if you if the because the increase the air speed by putting a nose down, you're going to increase the
air speed. But yeah, wow, so and you can and you can put the nose up and you'll be up longer, but you're going to smash too. So I started looking on pictures of old airplanes and I thought, how would you find the angle of maximum glide. What would ioda mean? What will be indicated on the air speed? So I look on the air and there and it.
Is, it's indicated.
Yeah, so he forgot the call that indicated on the air speed is the maximum gangl So I figured that out.
I love that.
I love That's what's it good for? I always thought, you know, if it's not good for anything, I'll remember.
You remember it, and you'll use it in a screenplay or play. Well, which I will be staying tuned for. What is the greatest virtue?
I think it's courage, don't you.
Honestly?
Uh huh?
Truthfulness?
Well, the other thing is but yeah, a lot of times you need you know, perhaps it's the preliminary virtue. If you don't have courage, what good is honesty?
Yeah that is, that's very true. But if you could live anywhere and you weren't here, where would you be?
Why would I want to live anywhere but here?
I don't blame you. I like it here myself.
As a matter of fact, we live around here. My wife likes it here. I always try to get her out of southern California. I live here because I want to be close to my taxes.
Well, you can. You can see them being used in such fascinating ways all around here.
I wanted to get it. I wanted to get a te should maybe me wear it today? Which said save water support Karen Bass, I should have done that.
Next time, we'll do that. We'll do that the next one. What's your biggest regret? Do you have one? Well?
Most of my regrets? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did a lot of stuff in my life that I regret, And at some point you got to say that that God says, you know, I know, you know, but they say prayer and study and good works moderate the severity of the decree. So there's a lot of stuff that I regret, but and don't have a lot of real estate regrets. Of course, who doesn't.
Yeah, well, especially Californians. They always have those those regrets. What's the best piece of advice you ever received, either professionally or personally?
Oh?
You know, I wrote these series of sketches they did in Chicago in a little forty seed theater with Billy Macy and J. J. Johnston. It was called American Buffalo. It's a series, and then we did it in New York at the.
Oh that little thing.
No it's before it's on Broadway, something called the showcase code for a moment, actors Equity forgot that they're insane, and so they said, well, anybody can do it in one hundred seat theater, ninety nine seed theater. Anybody can do twelve performances if everyone's working for nothing. So we did this play in this little twelve performance is a little one hundred seat theater off Broadway. I thought it
was pretty good. And Ulu Grossbard was a director, very good director, came up to me and said, if you figure out the plot, I'll put you on Broadway. And so he did.
That's how it happened. If you can figure out the plot, that can apply to.
A ton of things.
David, Sure, if you can figure out the plot, I'll put your own Broadway. I will remember that. Oh good. Why if you weren't doing what you're doing, if you weren't writing, if you weren't directing, if you weren't telling stories, what would you be doing?
Well?
I don't know. I flew airplanes for a number of years and I aged out of it, and I loved every minute of it. Had I started ten twenty thirty years earlier, I would have liked to have been a pilot. I'm a pilot. But what would I be doing now? Yeah, that's a very good question, and I think I spend most of my days thinking about it. I'm in the midst of various projects right now. I got a couple books coming out, and I'm doing a lot of cartooning
for Barry Weiss at the Free Press. I do a cartoon every week.
I see them. What happens when this is over?
David?
When what is over?
When it's all over?
Well, it's never all over when it's over for us or you mean we die?
Yeah, what happens when it's over?
Well?
I said to my wife, I just one thing for you to you don't marry a lawyer.
Is that what you think is going to happen?
I said, if you thinking about it, I want you to bury me on a rotisserie so I can roll over in the grave.
All the time. David Mammoth, it's always a pleasure. I always love being with you, and I feel full when I finished talking to you. And it's like when I read one of your plays or watch one of your films, you just feel reinvigorated again.
I think that's the whole purpose.
Right, Well, I and all of my people love watching you and Laura played the dozens.
We're laughing through the pain, David, We're laughing through the pain.
Thank you.
Actor Jonathan Romy also answered our questionnaire, who is the person you most admire?
Jonathan Romy person I must admire?
There's two, and it would have to be my parents, I think, knowing the circumstances that they overcame to make it to the United States and to raise a family, and to basically just do everything in service to making sure their children had a better life.
Who's the person you most despise?
Oh the devil? Yeah, okay, so I always trying to get my way. I know the feeling.
I met it once or twice or maybe more than that.
Uh.
What's your best feature?
My best feature? I think it would be.
I trust people pretty quickly, and I opened myself up to people.
What's your worst feature?
I trust people pretty quickly. I opened myself up to people.
When I when someone first asked me that question and said, what's your best feature? I thought physical? I think, well, my lips, I don't know my hands, I don't know what I but everybody asked it.
To they go to something much.
Deeper, because it sounds prideful to answer it otherwise.
Oh, think what it is?
Thank you, John?
I think Jonathan romy just said I'm prideful. Thank you. Well that's the last question. That's how John, That's how I feel.
I can't I couldn't allow myself to answer it any other way.
Yeah, you wanted to say your hair, go ahead, but your feel would say mine? Oh people people would say I would said not the makeup lady. Anyway. Your favorite meal?
See I just was in Italy. Oh it's a combination of steak impasta. Oh okay, well that's a good place to be. I'd say pizza. I love pizza anyway. Yes, what do you fear? What do you fear?
Not fulfilling my potential?
The greatest virtue is what Jonathan?
Humility?
M mother of all, mother of all the virtues. Yep, the word you could not live without. I won't believe you. That was it. Okay, we'll leave that there. Then, Family, If you could do anything else, if you couldn't do this, what would you do? Visual art?
Maybe musician?
Oh yeah, maybe I would be I would have pursued being a drummer in a band, A little more stringently.
I love music.
Music.
Music affects me in a way that none of the arts do. It's just wow, it's it's uh.
There's no thoughts.
It takes offense, yeah almost, it's a feeling. It's a feeling. Yeah, you can't. It just doesn't nothing else compared.
What's the best advice you ever got? And from whom.
Best advice I ever got?
Uh, that's a tough one. I think that the best advice I got was get a spiritual director?
Yeah, when did that come?
The one I have now my preest that spiritual director I have now, I've had him the longest.
But the initial advice I got probably.
Was twenty years ago, and it was many many years before I could find somebody. I was moving around a lot, and I just wasn't settled in my faith and I didn't look as hard.
So I think once I was in La my faith.
Funny enough, you know, people think people think of Hollywood in La as a godless place, and there's a lot of influence and a lot of dark influences in those areas in that city, but there's also a lot of light and a lot of people searching for the light and a lot of people fighting the darkness and the communities that I had, the faith communities that I built and I hadn't grew a part of, were communities of light.
And through those communities I found my spiritual director, who has been probably about six seven years now.
Yeah, what's your biggest regret?
I think my biggest regret would be that I didn't find I didn't surrender sooner to God.
But also, on the other hand, it's hard to it's hard to admit that because it's hard to think that that is actually true, because you know, I believe.
This was my path right.
God allowed me to wander, neander until I got to this point in my life where I finally recognized that I couldn't do this without him, and that's when I was.
Ready for this next step. So I don't know.
That I can really say that I have a regret, a deep regret. Yeah, what happens when this is over?
This interview probably get some neat don't be a smart ass.
What happens when the life is over? Ah? Would you say this?
Raymond?
You have to step to interpretations.
That's why I said dinner need when this is over.
I hope that when this is over, we we go on to the real life, the real phase of our existence, the real purpose of our existence, which would.
Be for me.
To find to be reunified with our creator, the source of all life.
Singing sensation. Lauren Dagel also took on the Arroyo Grande questionnaire. Okay, I ask everybody who sits in that chair these Arroyo grande questions. Okay, these are fast questions. You don't have to I don't want you to think about them. Just jump in.
We call these rapid fire the Q and A every VIP rapid fire and it's Lauren.
Don't take long on it, Laurn rapid fire. Who is the person you most admire?
Oh, my gosh, I would say collectively my family.
If that's okay, Well, you surround yourself with them.
I've seen you with men.
I love that about it. That's what I think keeps your spirit intact. It is because I've seen you in public settings and on tour that family.
Is always pretty close.
Yes, yes, okay.
Who's the person you most despise?
Hm, that's a tough question. You told me not to dwell on it. I don't have There's like not one person that I can say, I despise.
That's I could think of one, but I'm not going to bring her up anyway.
I would love to have a conversation.
Yeah, yeah, we're going to talk about that off camera. What what is your best feature?
Oh?
Maybe my Oh gosh, that's tough. I would say my I don't know what this one word would be, but my desire to relate to anybody and everybody. What would that?
Accessibility?
Empathy, empathy, empathy?
What's your worst feature?
Empathy?
There's a double edged sword again. Your favorite book and the last one you read?
Okay, last one I read was called Miracle and Voodoo Mountain. It's about this woman from or from Lafayette moved to Haiti, started this during the earthquake. Incredible story, very simple read, really good Miracle and Voodoo Mountain. It's because I when we were at that event, I met at one of the lawyers for the Human Trafficking Division of the White House, and I was like, this is incredible to see the work that is done. Her story kind of weaves into
that tapestry a little bit. It was really beautiful to me. So I find myself compelled by those stories. And then your book favorite book Okay, this is a favorite book for nostalgia's sake, if we can do that where the red friend grows red fernd And the reason why is because it's the first book I cried to. I remember laying in bed. I would read it every single night with my mom, like we would read chapter after try.
I just loved that book as a kid, and I remember looking like reading the book and having to pause for a moment and us looking at each other tears are coming down. Touched you that way friendship and seeing loss like real loss for what a how can understand even in that moment, you know it was It was complex to me.
But this Lauren Daegel fear, Mmmm, that's a great question.
I think there's a I talked to someone about this recently, the fear of the unknown, and that is my nemesis. It's the fear of because there's so many things that can fall into that fear, the fear of the unknown. Where it once was exhilarating, I think now I look with trepidation.
A little bit age will do that to you and responsibilities and your audience, and there's a lot more that walks in the door when you're walking out than was before, So that always what's your biggest regret? Do you have one?
Oh?
Do I have one? Okay, this is not going to be poignant at all. Okay, this is going to be if you're the unknown little poignant.
Great.
This is just real life. Chris Stapleton. We're in Why I Chris, if you listen?
No kidding?
I remember it was? Was it right before? It might have been right before twenty twenty hit? And he was playing the Cajun Dome in Louisiana and I went with my sister. We were backstage. I said hello to him, that whole thing, and he said, hey, you want to jump up on stage with me? I said, no, what is wrong with me? Why?
Right?
Man?
Why?
In my hometown people that.
They would it would have been a tsunami of love? And I said, and you said no?
I said no. And you want to know why this is so silly? I thought, what if he asks me to sing a song of his that I don't know? What if he has a song that I'm like, it's a deep deep deepe I don't know it.
Oh well, that's not that's not a bad reason to say no.
That it's a terrible reason because any artist would know I'm not going to put a girl on stage. He doesn't know the suthing right.
You'll probably ask you, do you know Swanny before?
Exactly?
That reminds me of something else, So I'll come back to it in a second. The best piece of advice you ever got.
Oh my gosh, I was thinking about it today. Someone gave me this advice almost ten years ago. Okay, and it's still showing up in my life ten years later. True freedom is giving people the permission to misunderstand you. True freedom is giving people the permission to misunderstand you.
That is the greatest advice, because, let me tell you, when I want to raise my fist, sometimes it's because I'm not operating in true freedom, because I'm being misunderstood, and I'm frustrated that I'm being misunderstood.
In this last question in the questionnaire, what happens when this is over, when.
This careers over, when this life is over, and what part is over?
I'll let you define. Oh that's true freedom. Why that I'm giving you true freedom? What happens when this is over? I think I know what that means, but you may have a different take on it.
Okay, My mind went to two places immediately, so I'll just tell you both, and okay, that's okay. First went to Okay, if I get a whole career, I am going to my gosh, I don't.
I actually haven't, Ancelona, I know I've been talking to people who know you. Well, go ahead, Okay, what happens when this is over?
When this is over? I have thought about going to law school, and I'm really I'm really thinking about it, like not sort of kind of like I want to say I'm going to law school. I want to just put that out instead of I think I'm going to law school.
Why.
I met with some friends of mine, some that are in government, some that are in politics, and various people, and to understand what your platform can do from an actual stature. For point, yes, it is important to me. I think I've realized that there's kind of a brick
wall you can hit even with a platform. And if this is a responsibility, like to be able to open ways for people who need true justice or who need the freedom that we get to walk around with, and protecting the freedoms as well, like how do we how do I do.
That with the voice And you're already doing that a little bit. The Price Fund named after your granddad, Julian Price. Tell me about that.
Love him. Yeah, people think it's about the money. Now it's about It's a family name, my brother and my grandfather. And he was someone I tell people this all the time. He would talk to the President of the United States. It's the same way he talked to the homeless man. We would go to Walmart and he'd be talking to the clerk, just chat and chatting, telling them mainly about the state of the world. He was one of those
but in a way that people loved him. We had people that would come around the table and we called it his coffee crew. And every day at nine am, the coffee crew would show up and they would just talk about current events and what's going on with the world. And I lived with my grandparents for a little while while I was going to LSU, and they were I mean, it was some of the most incredible moments of my life.
But I say I digress. He was one of the figures that taught me the most about legacy, because whenever he passed away was when I really found out about ways he was given to people behind the scenes and for the listener, this is not He was a blue collar worker. He worked. He was a conductor on the railroad and we would go and throw sack lunches to him, you know, and he would do the route from New Orleans to Batuge and just an incredible human. But he
lived a lot of hardship Boston daughter. He overcame addiction, just a lot. And the person that he became on the other side was the person who I was like, Wow, I'm so inspired by him. How do we see this version of someone when they're in the worst of times, Because sometimes you look at an addict, or you look at it and you can only see that. But he was actually probably to date, the most influential person in my life.
Now I see him in you. I see incredible And the fund help help the elderly children, I mean, yeah.
Windows and all the yeah. Because I've I've learned just as I've gone about. I went into some of the prisons here, I went to Angola, I went to San Quentin, Statesville, various prisons around the country, and I would ask a lot of these guys like, what can we do to help the is to break this cycle? But legitimately, yes, through legislature, But what is the core need of an individual that's coming through this kind of track. You know, they call it the public to prison pipeline. I'm sure
you've very well familiar. And I just asked them what can we do and they all said, get involved in after school programs, all of them across the board. They were like, if you get to these kids in an interim period where they're going home from from school to their home and their parents aren't there, that's when a lot of the vulnerability. Yeah, that's when it happened. And
so I said, okay, great, game on, we'll do. So we've partnered with so many organizations around New Orleans, but then we expanded and now every city that we go on tour with, we partner with a local organization, whether it's instruments, whether it's after school programs, whatever it is to keep these kids kind of fortified through their adolescent years. That's really important to me. And then we built a school in the Congo with Bob Golf, which was really beautiful.
And then we had another opportunity to partner with some senior citizens and the who some have Alzheimer's, but it's music with Alzheimer's and kind of getting them financial aid and things like that.
It's beautiful.
Yeah, it's what a year you've had. Super Bowl, Andrea Buchelli at Madison Square Gardens. I mean this tour, I mean it's pretty incredible.
It's been a wild time.
You said something. You said, the Lord has shown me what it is to have a craft and to serve and honor him with it. Do you still feel that way?
Absolutely? I think that I might feel that way till I die. It's the live spring, so well spring of it all. If you don't have the life blood, if you will if you don't. The craft part is the diligence, Okay. I want to honor you with the diligence of working hard at something and loving it and actually loving it. I think sometimes people think it has to be arduous. No, it's like scrubbing toilets just to hear. What is a c chord? How do I say this?
How do I support you?
Do I support it? What do the harmonies teach me?
You know?
And that honoring God with the craft? It is the work that you put in to say I want to do this, but I also want to love it, so I think that's serving it well the best that you can. I think you're gonna say, oh, no, no, I was going to say, sometimes when you get frustrated about having to work hard at something, it dilutes the potency that God can sometimes build in those moments.
You know.
So if you just keep the hard work, Yoka's easy burden is like, if you keep it light, then there's a lot that you can do and there's a lot that you can transform well.
On the new album, you have a song called these Are the Days, and I can't help but think these are the days for you as I watch this, as you listen to it and watch you expand and reach more people, it is incredible. And to get Justin Timberlake to do backups on twenty one You're a song on the album Pretty Good Crazy. Gary Sonise offered some fascinating answers to the Arroyo Grande questionnaire, Who's the person you most admire.
Jesus? Who do you most attest? Oh?
I can't say that, Come on, I can't.
Everybody tries to dodge on that. You right now? Thank you, yeah for asking that question? You awful person? You What is your best feature?
I don't know, maybe hard to say. Persistence? Maybe persistence?
What's your worst your worst feature? Persistent, the double edged sort of persistent. Well, you don't build a foundation and call it the Gary Sinisee foundation without a little persistent. Your favorite meal, Gary, Oh dear.
Gosh, maybe one of my favorite meals is chicken pacata.
Chicken pacata. Yeah, well, I see, I evade. I like anything Italian, So my favorite meal is one I get to eat with family or friends.
That's my favorite. Well, like the one I had last night with somebody.
But my dad used to make chicken pecata and that's a good man.
But I like a lot of food.
What do you fear, Gary, failure? Maybe maybe loss?
Your greatest virtue is what?
What do you what do you consider the greatest You're not your greatest virtue, but what do you consider the greatest virtue?
Honesty? Maybe honesty? Why?
Well, if you're if you're not honest, you know, and nobody's gonna trust you.
Yeah.
What's that old line? My great grandmother had a line. If you lie, you cheat, if you cheat your steel, if you steal, you're no good. I guess that's I guess that's true.
What could you not live without mm.
Air.
Well, that's a good answer. I guess that's that's kind of universal, Gary Oxygen.
What is your biggest regret?
Oh gosh, you know, I've thought about this with regards to Mac and just wishing that I had in those final days I had asked him if he was afraid and and let him talk to me a little bit more. But neither of us wanted to go there. You know, I don't know if that's my biggest regret, but when I think of it, I wished i'd before he was unable to speak again, you know, because he lost mad
capacity with what was going on with his lungs. It went so quickly that I wished that I had spent more time in those last days having you know, having that having some kind of more in depth conversation with him about his feelings, what he'd been through and what he was going through. But again, like I said, I I never wanted to feel like I was given up and you.
Were in the fight. And I would argue, if you'll permit me, you helped fill his last year, and that those last days with great joy and accomplishment for Mac. I mean I saw that from the little piece we did after Christmas, just on the cusp of the new year. The reaction he had to that, and the pride he had in that showing it to other people, and that was all you're doing so and it was the culmination of his work.
And yeah, and his mom and his two sisters. He loved them so much and they loved him so much. And you know, we all pulled together and they were a big part of everything, no question. And without their support, I couldn't have you know, I couldn't have gone gone through everything I was doing. And they were helping Mac in so many ways, so many beautiful ways.
What is the best piece of advice you've ever received?
The one I always I always give this one to like young actors who asked me for advice, and I save your money?
Is that the best piece? Scary? Save your money? That's all the broke actors out there. I know the feeling right, save saving.
Things are good today, but they might not be good tomorrow. Save your money, Save your money.
Okay, I guess it's good advice. If you could not do what you're doing now, what would you like to do? Hm?
Hmm. These are these are difficult questions because I I don't. I don't ever think about that. You know, I'm I'm fairly at you know, I'm at peace with what I'm doing. I've done a lot of things in my life with a career, and I've got a great family. My family is.
It's great.
May maybe spend more and more time with my family, you know, I'm still trying to accomplish a lot with the foundation work and the band and supporting the troops, and that takes me away sometimes. And you know, my wife is just the best person I know, and you know, and I look at how she has sacrificed for this mission that I've been on, because she's spent a lot of time without me there because I've been going somewhere to do something, and she's she's a real she's a
real hero and my biggest champion. You know, her brother served in Vietnam, and she always wanted me to go out there and try to make sure that our service members know they're appreciated because her brothers didn't get that when they came home. And so she's been backing me up every step in the way. So just you spend more time with them and that, you know, that's the important thing. And the grandkids and all.
That final question what happens when this is over, not the interview.
This life. Well, I hope I'll be welcomed.
And Lord will say good job.
I think you'll not only be welcomed, you'll hear familiar music, music, maybe Arctic circles played when you get there, my friend.
So great to see you. God, bless you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Rayman Tunnel to Towers founder Frank Siller answered the questionnaire as well. Who is the person you most admire.
My mother or father, two of them.
Who's the person you most despise?
Ohsa'ma bid Latin.
What what is the best feature that you have and the worst?
My best feature is my faith and the worst is I get very angry when I see bad things happen.
I share that with you. What do you fear, Frank?
I fel like I feel better today than I have did.
But I fear that America is moving away from what has made us great, which is sacrificing and our faith and that we are, you know, Judeo Christian country and born from that, and that we have to we have to have that understanding to stay in the greatness that we that we have. So that is my biggest concern. But I do feel better now. I'll be honest with you. I do feel that people are coming back to faith.
I see it all the time, the people I deal with all the time, I'm around it all the time, the people that you know, we just did a groundbreak in Bayville, New Jersey, where two thousand people came out to see us break round on a piece of property that we're going to be doing for homeless mens.
Two thousand people. Yes, so I see that, And if you.
There, you could feel the amount of energy and love and concern and commitment people have. So, you know, I do feel good about America. I feel so good about America. I feel like we're heading in a really good direction. But we got to be careful because we can't forget you know, how we got here, and we got to have our faith faith as well.
I love the Tunnel for Towers is Tunnel to Towers is really a vehicle for so many people to express not only their belief and the reverence, to reverence the sacrifice of all these people. It's a beautiful way to do that. What's the greatest virtue?
Love?
What is your greatest regret.
Regrets.
I've had a few, but too few to mention, you know. I look, we all make mistakes growing up, you know, on things. But I'm married for forty seven years. I have three beautiful children, seven grandchildren.
You know.
You know.
I'm sorry my brother's gone. It kills me.
I think about them every single day, but I can't. I can't change that.
I don't have many.
We all have small regrets. Yeah, there's no question about it. But I'd have nerve to complain.
I love that.
What do you know that other people don't know?
Frank Siller, Well, I don't know about that because I'm not that smart.
You know, I built the first smart home.
I want to say I built a smart home, not because I'm smart, because I got somebody smart to do it.
You know.
I think I think I realized I surround myself with just good people and talented people, and that's that's how we get it.
I get it done.
I consider myself like Tom Sorry a little bit. I got a lot of people to paint defense for me, and they come back and say, look at Frank Sila did. Now it's all these people painting offense that are doing it. I'm just a spokesperson for them.
That's so great. The best piece of advice you ever received is what, Frank.
The best piece of advice today.
I tell you there's something I live by, and when I'm angry, I do wait a day or two before I confront something. You know, my father, who was not a very patient person, I always take, said, take a step back, you know, before you open your mouth, because when you open your mouth, you know, you know, if you've two loaded, you know, you could screw terrible things. I mean, I'm not eve gonna say I live that
way every day, but I try to. I try to, and it always seems like if you wait twenty four hours on something, it's not as bad as it was four hours.
Beforehand in the moment. Yeah, that's great advice, actually, and particularly for hotheads like me, it's on me. What's your favorite book, Frank, And the last one you read that you really enjoyed? Well?
Well, So I continuously read a book about Saint Francis of ASSISSI. I keep on reading more and more books about Sant Francis ASSISI being that my parents, uh you know, were you know, live that life. I read daily prayers every single day. I I I love reading the Bible. I'm not Bible verse that you couldn't. I can't repeat the Bible and stuff, but I do like reading uh scripture, Uh for sure.
I put in a lot of the things when I when I give a talk, I call the speech a talk.
I usually put scripture in it because I related to how I'm supposed to do things. So I'm a big reader, but I read more inspirational books and stories all the time. But it all relates around faith.
What happens when this is over?
Frank, Well, first of all, this is never going to be over the foundation. That's a promise that we're building it the last forever. At young Stephen Junior working here. Wow, I got other family members involved because this is a family foundation. Yet we have you know, hundreds and hundreds of employees too, because we do build houses all over. We do with the homeless veterans. You know, we have case managers that have to work with these great heroes. So this foundation will never be will.
Never be over.
I'll expire like we all do. Right, I kept it all the time. I tell my kids I could be gone tomorrow. You know, you just got to be ready, you know, because we do not know the day, know the right, as it says. So I'm not worried about the foundation because the work we're doing is always going to be necessary, because there's always going to be heroes.
Dying for us.
John Rich took on the Arroyo Grande questionnaire with fascinating answers. Who is the person you most admire my dad? Why?
Because he is unyielding and relentless?
You took the lesson?
Well, my friend, who's the person you most despise.
Right now? Sean Combs and anybody like him?
What is your best feature?
Loyalty?
Ah? And your worst?
Hm?
Which one should I pick?
Pick a card? Any card?
I would say, rushing to judgment.
The last great book you read? And your favorite book? I think I know the answer to this one.
Well, I mean discounting the Bible, because I know not counting the not counting the Bible. Hill Billy Elogy is one of my town favorite books.
To be honest with the book.
Yeah, it reminds me of great book where I grew up, My people.
The American people. What do you fear, John.
Something happening to my kids?
We all fear that, all of us the greatest virtue is what.
Patience.
I think we have a shared lack of that. I guess nout the word you could not live without, idiot.
I say that word a lot every day. Look at this idiot. Sometimes I'm looking in the mirror and go look at this he.
Oh, No, you shouldn't do that.
If you could live anywhere, where would you live?
Probably just outside of Yellowstone?
Wow?
Except in the winter.
No, in the winter too gets a little deep.
And that's why with me.
Wow, Yeah, I like it out there. Beautiful country, good air, beautiful country. What is your biggest regret?
John?
Not jumping that train and getting the hell out of this interview?
We're almost done. Your biggest regret, John, besides jumping the train.
Biggest regret probably disrespecting my father in my youth.
Hmm.
I've apologized since then, but still I regret it.
The best piece of advice you ever.
Got was what.
You're never truly free until you can say no. Who gave it to you, Larry Gatlin?
Wow, you're never truly free until you can say no.
I love that. That's right.
If you could not do what you're doing now, you weren't a singer and a songwriter. What would you be, What would you like to do? What else were you called to do? Do you think.
Something where I can inspire people? Whatever that would be. I've always thought if I'd ever gone into the military, I would have been a guy that would have really probably enjoyed that and excelled at it, being around other really competent people, younger ones, especially bringing them up. I don't know that it would have been military, but something that would have put me in a spot where I can communicate.
Like that final question, what happens when this life is over?
When this life is over, every single human being that's ever lived stands directly in front of the Son of God, and he will either say come on in or he'll say depart from me. I never knew you one or the other. And the only way you get into heaven is by submitting your entire life and will to Jesus Christ. Going to church will not get you in. Academia about the Bible will not get you in. All of your philosophy will not get you in. Doing good deeds will
not get you in. If that was the case, the thief on the cross would have never gone into heaven. That's what happens when you die.
Well, you're on your way there, my friend, God bless you. Great wat John. Yes, sure see you next time. Hat looks good, I'm I've never taken it off. Now here's at least in town. Give me one of these.
There you go, Thank you, John.
Legendary singer Lee Greenwood also answered our questionnaire, who is the person you most admire?
Maybe Dwright the Eisenhower.
Why Eisenhower?
Remember he was a five star. He was a man that had to make decisions that no one else would.
Want to make out in a snap.
After the first wave in Normandy, he asked his chief of staff, what are the losses? And he said ninety said send the second wave.
That takes courage.
It takes foresight to know that he would end the war by stopping the Germans in France. He didn't do that. Many would Many more would have died later on. And then he became president of the United States. A man of great value. He knew faith. Yeah, and if he didn't know faith, he would be able to send those men to their death.
No, even Roosevelt called it the Great Crusade. He called that that particular invasion the Great Crusade. Interesting, Who is the person you most despise.
This is a tough one.
Oh that's harder than the firstly, Yeah, go ahead, don't look at that camera, Lee, look at me, keep your eyes here.
I'm on.
I don't think I can. I can. I can say that.
Okay.
You know the very few people that there's a psalm in the Bible.
It's Psalm thirty two. It's about forgiveness.
And I've had some people do me wrong and I forgive them, and I don't want to mention their names.
That'd be great answer. No one's ever given me that answer. It's my favorite answer to that. Okay, what is your best feature?
I think my distinctive voice. We all have distinctive voices, the voice print. And I was telling my tech that I was in a story the other day and just talking to the clear and somebody yearly agreement.
Aren't you so my voice? You know? I think that's my distinctive feature.
What's your worst feature?
Too short?
That could be cuge. I would get any voice you can't replace.
I would give anything to be five to ten. I could have been a basketball player.
No, yeah, just perfect the way you are. Your favorite meal, oh, fried chicken, fried chicken, even after cooking it, you still have.
A fried chicken and my wife's lasagna. Wow, she makes great lasagna and pumpkin pie. What do you fear losing my voice?
Have you ever loss it?
Yes?
I have working too hard for four or five years doubling gigs in Vegas and actually lost my voice and I had to stop for about three months and finally came back.
People don't realize how tender I sing a little bit on the side, Lee, And that's why I worship what you do. And I don't know how you do it because people don't realize you use it every moment and it reflects every part of how you're feeling that day, your emotional state, it's all there.
I can normally be ninety percent. A few times I'm one hundred percent, but mostly ninety percent. In the early days of my recording career, I was probably one hundred percent most of the time.
Wow. The greatest virtue is what in your estimation?
Honesty?
Why?
Because you can't ever live a lie?
The word you could not live without Lee Greenwood.
God, it's a good answer too.
If you could live anywhere but Nashville, where would it be? And why?
I think the West Coast of Florida pretty because it's far enough below Tampa where we have a place in Anna, Mary Island.
You're out there already.
Yeah.
And and and it's the beautiful beaches that could be anywhere in the world.
There's nothing more beautiful than the West Coast beautiful beaches.
And it's as in the golf lead.
Yeah.
We had a couple recently and we were fine.
Okay, but but it just I need the sunshine on my face as I get older. I'm very white. I'm a real Caucasian, you know. I'm Irish, English, Scottish and uh, I got to have a little bit of a tan.
What is your biggest regret?
Lee not writing God bless USA sooner during Vietnam? Wow, that's when they needed it.
The best piece of advice you ever received was what finished?
Big?
Who gave it to you?
My mother?
Wow.
I don't care what you do in the beginning or in the middle, finished big.
Wow, great advice, and you're still doing it.
Finale, finale.
If you could not do what you're doing, if you couldn't sing, what else would you like to have done or think you would have been really good at?
I would like to have been a soldier. I think it would have been good in the military. I was three a in the draft, so the draft goes back to the Vietnam ears and I'm not old.
But otherwise maybe a builder.
I mean, my stepfather, Louis d'antonoli, taught me a lot about building. My mother married him when I was fourteen, and it was a wonderful man.
I married it.
I knew him till his death, and we built motels around Disneyland. That's when I was living in California at the time, and I learned carpentry.
And there's a certain thing.
When you finish something, you get it done, you know, and it's something there, it's a structure.
A man has built something like that. Salisfaction of that, yeah, the satisfaction when.
This is over.
What happens when what is over?
Life is over? Oh, life is over, not this interview.
I know what happens after this interview. You can go have a drink and eat and be done with these bothersome questions. I know what happens after.
But what happens when this life is over?
Well, hopefully I will see Jesus Christ. I you know, that's a dream of every Christian atheists might not say that, but I do believe there's life that I can I can face later, I'll have to face my sins, and I'm standing before God and opens the book and said, this is what you did right and what you did wrong. I hope that I've the life that's fair and inequitable for the people that have treated me so well.
Comic legend Tommy Dreesen also grabbed the Arroyo Grande questionnaire by both Horns and Jove in I'm going to ask you a few questions. I do a little questionnaire, okay, and these are rapid fire. Okay. The person you most admire, tom is.
Whom you know.
My dream would have been that the person I most admire was me, but I never lived up to that. Wow, that's really really the person I most admire.
You know.
I know this is going to sound hokey to a lot of people, but even as a little boy, I wanted to talk to Jesus.
I just wanted.
I can't believe that this guy, at age thirty, he only preached three years, he only left, he never left, he never went town thirty five miles outside of his own town, and what he did this incredible thing. I mean, and I mean I wanted to ask him so many questions, you know, and I admired the courage that he went to the cross, the courage, the beatings, the ridicule that's spitting on him, and that life changed the lives of so many. So so yeah, I would have to have to go there.
What is your best feature? Keep it clean?
Tom I think I think it's always that that I really do like people, and I really do like making them laugh. You know, all the time I had the cancer, I never told anybody at my country club. I never told anybody there because every time I walk in that, hey, here's Tommy, what's the new joke?
Tell us the new latest show.
I didn't want people looking at me with puppy eyes and how you doing? Is it okay?
You're going to be fine? It words.
But so I think it's that that I really do enjoy people, and I enjoy.
Being around them, entertaining them.
And I'll tell you, Raymond, I could be feeling if I was home for a few days. I'm a bachelor, you know, I'm divorced, my X ray passed away. But if I'm if I'm at home for a couple of days and maybe I'm not feeling good for some reason. But if I go out and all of a sudden with some people, I feel good. I'm a people person.
What's your worst feature?
My temper on the golf course.
Only on the golf course.
Yeah, well, Irish Italian there's a war going on inside of me.
I know that I recognized that war, but believe me personally.
The Irish guy says, I don't get mad at I'm buy him a drinking. The Italian guy said, buy him a drinking and then beat the hell up.
Your greatest regret, Wow.
That's a good question. My greatest regret. My greatest regret is that when I went to a divorce, I wish I would have done it better. I wish I would have Frank Sinata told me when I was going to my divorce. He said, I went into Vegas. We were working at the MGM gran He said, hey, you're bringing the wife with you. I said, no, Frank, we're getting a divorce. And he said, oh, Tommy, I can't give you any advice on marriage, but I can give you advice on divorce.
He said, stay.
Friends with her, not for you, but for her. But for the children stay friends with her and I and I didn't.
We had a bitter divorce.
We later talked for a little while, and then we did. And I carry this to my grave and I say a prayer for her every night because I wish I without her, I wouldn't have had my children, my grandchildren, my great grandchildren. I wish I would have been friendly with her. That's my greatest regret, and I feel real.
Bad about that.
Wow, what's the greatest piece of advice you ever got?
The greatest advice I ever got was probably from the books. I read literally hundreds of books on the powers of the mind. But that this is your universe, and you're in charge of this universe. This is your universe. That you don't have to you are careful what you put in here. So be careful what you put in here. Negative thoughts are dirt. You don't have to they'll flow into your mind. You don't have to let them flourish,
you know. So you are in control of this universe of what goes in here and what goes in here. When I'm giving the motivation talks I talked to, I take a glass of water and I pour dirt in it and I stir it up and I say, drink this. Somebody drink this, and they won't. I said, you won't put filth in here. Why would you put filth in here? If you won't drink dirt, why would you think dirt. You can get negative thoughts out of your mind and
replace them what positive thoughts. That's that's great advice because it shows you that this is the universe you've been given and you're in charge of it.
You really are.
You have more power. You are far more powerful than you realize.
If you could not do what you're doing now, entertaining people, making them laugh, bringing them joy, what would you do.
Well? If I couldn't do that, I probably, you know, I've probably maybe been a writer.
You know.
I really liked the military. The military saved my life in a lot of ways. I was a raggedy kid. I went in the military the first time in my life. I had three squares day, first time in my life. I was equal to everybody. They shaved all of our heads and we all had the same clothes on. I'd been a raggedy, poor kid. I really love America. I've
been around the world. I love this country. It is the greatest country and the people that put us into this position, those people who founded this country, who wrote
that constitution, those are brilliant human beings. The men and women who died, you know, in World War Two, that if we lost that word, you want to argue with me about wars, you can argue about every war you want, you can argue with about World War Two, that if we lost that word, there was no doubt what Hitler had in mind for us, no doubt what Tojo had in mind for us. Those men and women, the women that went to work and went and went to war,
and the mini that they were heroes to me. You know that again, I think I just love this country. I wish maybe I would like to have been a politician that would in a way that's kind of a one who was a really who really believed in the constitution, We believed in the Prince of nutrit You know, Harry Truman once said, show me a politician who comes out of office with more money than he went in with, and I'll show you a crook. We got a lot of them too, and they're all coming out with more money.
Here's Tim Conway Junior, answering our Royal Grande questionnaire. Very quickly some a royal grande questions. I asked, oh, good, ok, you ready, right, who's the person you most admire?
Uh?
Probably my daughter?
Why? Because she's the most perfect.
Person and and and I don't know how that happened, because her mom spent a lot of time with her. I spent a lot of time with her, and she and she surprises us all the time. And and I would say that it would be my daughter. She is the most beautiful person inside and out. She treats people properly, she's nice to her friends, and the greatest thing in the world. You know, I was never gonna have kids that we had a daughter in two thousand and five, by a billion light years.
I get goose.
I was talking about it's a great thing ever did in my life?
Oh? No, it makes you a man?
And I'm real quickly, I'm somebody.
She works at a school and they and some kid was talking poorly about their mom, and she said, Hey, that's not you. You should never do that in life. I don't know where she got that from, not from me, not from her mom.
She created that. Well, I would say, my.
Daughter, Well, she got it from the love of her parents.
Maybe, maybe, maybe what is.
The thing that Tim Conway Junior knows that no one else knows?
Oh that's great that I never win at the racetrack.
After all those years, after all that math, crunching those darn numbers, and nothing broke.
AM a loser at the tracks.
I lose all the time. Okay, what's the best advice you've ever been given?
The best advice? I would say, don't panic? You know, never panic, And I told it to my daughter. Whatever happens, never panic. It's not gonna get you anywhere.
What's your favorite book? And the last great book you read?
Man?
First of all, the Racing Form is.
The wonderful Superman edition for right.
Somebody asked me to write a book, I go, I didn't even read him.
I would do it right one the old grutch Marks line. I just finished the book. I think I'm gonna read another one, you know, old final question?
What happens when this is over?
Oh?
You mean radio or life? I let you interpret it.
Okay, Radio, We've done everything we needed to do. I would feel if we walked away tomorrow, I'd be, you know, totally happy with it, because you know, we got to afternoon drive on the biggest station in the biggest market.
Incredible.
And we won number one on.
Barrett's US two years in a row. And that's like the Bible of talk radio. And so we've touched on you hit the top, right, But after what after life? I can't wait to run into grandparents, parents and run by. I think they're all up there.
Me too, I do.
And I can't wait to see your dad and Harvey Korman again, just to watch Harvey Corman break up and not be able to hold it together for a second.
I quite often have a dream about my dad, maybe two three times a month, where I go to the racetrack. He's there, we spend the day at the racetrack and I'm going back down the escalator through the clouds. He goes, won't you just stay? I said, no, I got a daughter, I got a wife. I'll see in a couple of years. I bet that's like a reoccurring drink. Really yeah, then I can take it escalater up the clouds, go to the racetrack with my dad, and then take a come back.
And then come back for a little bit.
It's weird, it's odd.
It's a beautiful actual but eventually, you know, I'm going to be staying up in the clouds.
Right, Eventually you'll be able to stay at the track with him. That's not a bad way to go, that's right, Tim Comway Junior, thank you are the best.
Thank you very much. It's so cool to have me on.
And I love you with Laura, I love you back. So it's a mutual. It's mutually beneficial.
Dolong with you.
Thank you, my friend. Great to see you. And Actor Billy Baldwin also took the Arroyo Grande questionnaire. Who's the person you most admire?
Oh my goodness, that's.
There's five answers, but the first one would be, uh, it would be my would be.
Christ or my wife?
I was I thought you would say your dad.
Yeah, he would be on the very short list. It would be Christ, my wife, my mother and father, my three children.
What's your best feature? Uh?
Certainly not giving short answers.
I noticed that I tell stories and I love this hold on it's coming back around.
Okay, we're coming back out there and there it is. No.
I think my best features feature is I'm going to answer in a way that's probably not true, but it's my my It's sort of all the same thing, but my desire to grow to learn not being afraid to be, not being afraid to ask a question, to show that I'm that I don't know the answer, that that's something that I that I.
Like about myself.
But I also want to get better about what does Billy Baldwin know that others don't know? I have a really really bad answer for come on, I give it to me.
I was going to say, I could show you, but somebody might lose an eye clip cut. That did not happen.
What was the question?
The question was what do you know that other people don't know? Not?
What do you have that other people don't have?
Clarify?
What do I show that other people don't know? Yeah, I don't know. M that's what I don't know. I don't know what I don't.
What's your biggest regret?
I don't.
I don't have any major regrets.
But having said that, if I could go back and do it again, there are things that I would change. Some things in my marriage, some things with child rearings, a couple of things with my career. One of the things that I will tell parents that is beautiful is my wife has had one on one time.
With each of our children.
She doesn't say Daddy and Billy, Billy and mommy, jump in the car with Jamison. She has one on one time with Jess Jamison, with jest Vance, with Jess Brooks, not all five of us, not three of them. And it could be let's go for a beach walk, let's take out the trash, let's walk the dog. And you could go walk the dog for ten minutes or fifteen minutes without uttering a word. You don't have to get to solve life's problem. Do you have a crush? Have
you ever tried drug? It doesn't You could walk in silence. Just one on one time with your child individually will create a bond.
She's hijacked my three children for me, not even my kids anymore. She owns all three of them. That number one. Number two.
Do not give your kids a smartphone until we should have given our kids a clamshell that dialed five or ten numbers so you can call her, text, Grandma, Mommy, Daddy, three of your friends.
No pictures, no social media.
No access to the internet, no social media, no bullying. And I would say, because the great thing about it is when my daughter would go to Straight State Street with her friends when she was twelve. I would text her and say yo or sup, and she were right back, yo, sup. And that just meant I hear you, I'm here everything. If there was a complaint or she was worried or she was scared, she would have already called.
But I'm just checking in.
And if you don't answer and I say sup again and another half hour goes by, you're in trouble.
Final question.
So they should have those because they're like a tether gives like having it Danny, but no access to the internet and no access to social media.
I just had a child psychologist and tell me the same thing.
Boy, she sees it.
It's contributing to the mental health.
Final question.
What happens when this is over?
Well, like me, I'd like all of you you to go to no addressmovie dot com see the film. Hopefully it will inspire you and motivate you and and hit that switch of compassion and empathy that will want you to that will you know, make you take action in any way, shape or form in your community.
To be engaged no matter where you are engaged. You certainly thank you Director John Irwin earnestly engage the arroyo grande questionnaire. These are real quick questions because I know you got to go and you've done it and you've got.
Many a great conversation.
Roy I ask everybody these arroyal It's my arroyo grande questions. Okay, great, you ready?
This is the what was the the what was the inner James James is?
That's right. I won't ask you the person you most admire, who is the person I most admire?
You know, I would say that I admire many many people like I love a great biography, and I love to learn from the stories of others. So of course, you know, I think right now, in the moment that I'm in, I would say David. Probably six months from now, when I'm directing this movie, I would say George Washington.
But Washington, yeah, But.
There's something about about gleaning from other people's stories and uh and a lot of that is whatever story I'm presently telling, or maybe a book I've read, but but I'm fully immersed in the story of David right now. What is your best feature? My best feature? You know, probably you know, I'll tell you this. This is the
under celebrated virtue. Okay, curiosity. I think if you can combine curiosity with pain tolerance, there is not much that you can't achieve if you can just be constantly learning.
And so I think I live I live my.
Life curious a level of curiosity and learning all the time. And I think when that is met with a level of determination, there is there are a few things that you can't achieve.
What's your worst feature?
Oh, my gosh, my worst feature is probably just the uncontrollable personality of the artist. Like if you're like, I'm a I'm an ADHD nightmare. But my my biggest battles are within not my biggest battles are with myself. Sometimes I feel like I'm I'm I'm the greatest villain to my own story, you know.
And uh, And that's I think one of the reasons.
Why I like telling stories, whether it's David or whether it's Jesus Revolution. I like these stories of imperfect people that are very flawed that God still uses because I feel like.
I fit right in.
We all do.
Yeah, what is the thing you know that authors don't know? I know, boy, that's a great question and a loaded question.
It is I know.
That it you know what.
I think the thing that I could.
Most that would be most helpful to people listening is I know that it just takes longer than you think, in the sense that I wanted to Ice first. The spark of curiosity for David happened when I was sixteen years old. The first script I wrote for a movie on David was in twenty twelve. And success is long obedience in the same direction. If you genuinely feel like your call to do something, just keep going. It's going to take a lot longer than you think, and then
you're going to get to this breakthrough moment. And I think there's not a lot of failures in terms of stories. There's just a lot of incomplete stories. In the sense of there's not a lot of bad films, there's just unfinished films. Sometimes we say, and I think sometimes people give up and you never know when that breakthrough moment where the fog clears was right around the corner, and
you stop too early, and you stop too early. So if I can give any advice to anybody is if you really feel like you're supposed to do something, as long as you're learning, as long as you're curious, don't give up. You just never know when that moment is right around the corner. Final question, what happens when this is over?
Oh? Man, I take a nap.
I think is But I'll tell you what I really dream of, and this is the dream of the under project. Is you think about the most profound outcome that could come from all this. Somebody should make a documentary sometime of the twenty five year mayhem that has led to Fate film and the reemergence of this type of content and the yahoos that God has used to do it.
But my hope the outcome that I would be most like this made the journey worth it is If you watch The House of David Traylor, the first title card that comes up is the MGM logo LEO the lionis is one hundred years of entertainment. My hope is that a lot of these successes for movies and television can coalesce into an institution that can last one hundred years and really allow us to tell these stories on a
global scale long after I'm not able. So I joke around that I'd love to see a studio last one hundred years. I'd love to get it halfway. If Clint Easwood can do it, I can do it, you know. But the idea is that that would be a transcendent outcome that my hope and prayer and strong belief is that there's now this group of creatives and we're willing each other on to success. We're competing in the best sense of the word, just trying to one up each other.
Like you know, I remember seeing every version of Dallas Jenkins scene of Walking on the Water. I was shooting the Jesus Revolution move with the Kesees DP, so we were looking at every version on a Keith's phone and I was con Dallas. But that was a I feel that that's the best version of the Walking on the Water that I've ever seen. It was so well done, and that just makes me want to like one up in which the Dam.
And Goliath, I'm like, wait till you see Davy Deliath.
But that's happening.
And my hope is that the work that we're doing as a group of friends and partners and collaborators right now will sort of break the dam, as it were. It will allow creatives to come behind us and have their voices heard, and that would be the most inspiring goal. And to have any role in something that's emerging right in front of you, like is a privilege. And to bleed on the bleeding edge, to be in the arena at all is a great privilege.
Well, John, I was not lost on me. Leo the Lion opened the movie and David confronts Leo in the movie. But I'm not what happened. Isn't that amazing?
I just think that was actually one of the things that that you know that you know, Samuel says to David in the show. Uh, you know, God doesn't look on the outward appearance. He looks in the heart. That's what's in the Bible. And then we add, and you have the heart of a lion, you know. And what a lions do? They roar, he tells him.
And uh.
And so the fact that the trailer opens with the lion energy, it is a good omen. I think it's great, great interview. We could have talked for hours.
I care pioneer Doctor Ming Wang offered beautiful answers to the Arroyo Grande questionnaire. Who is the person you most admire?
I am my Einstein? Why yeah?
Because he is thinking out of the box. He was thinking out the box that before him we recon ad space is three dimensional three x y z. He was able to think four dimensional, including the time, So thinking out the box, overcoming our natural instinct. I think that's how human being can progress. In Einstein's best.
Example is the person you most despise.
Adolf Hitler, because he's self proclaimed superority, which is human nature. By the way, as I said, we are so polarized because we think I'm better than the next person, and he has taken that to an extreme.
What is your best feature? My best feature? I'm not the smartest.
I'm like medium high IQ, but I recognize I can be the best student.
So I'm actually learning all the time. I learned.
I give you my little books, Supan combet how I learned from some very successful business people like Today's interestion with you, I'm learning from you.
I'm observing. I'm learning a lot from.
Yeah, I'm observing. I'm thinking while you're effective in what you do. So my best feature is I'm the good student.
What's your worst feature?
Worst feature.
Probably being a vorholic, and it's very different.
In my autobiography, I talk about some imbalance, beaten work and family, and because I'm so driven by work to help these kids, and it's a challenge how to achieve the balance.
That balance is always difficult, I think for every for every mother or father, it's hard. What is your favorite meal?
M favorite meal?
I think it's a sudden Chinese dish with some spice and some tofu, lots of vegetables, lots of green, good for the eyes, good for the eyes, vitamins C and E, A and E.
That's my favorite dish.
Wow, tell me your what do you fear?
Doctor?
I fear that human nature will d even allow our human nature, the polarizing nature, that self proclaim the superiority, that take better control better of us, and human being just sliding into the dead is spiral polarization and self destruction.
Into the abyss. Yes, what's the last great book you read?
Ah? Great question.
I think one of the last great books I read is del Cornnegies How to Win friends.
And Influence people.
And what I learned here is this.
Sometimes I argue with someone saying, hey, Johnny, this is this is wrong, this is and I couldn't get anywhere. And del Connie said, you know what, if you had good things to say, say, if you only have bad things to say, don't bother. So if I can change Johnny's mind, let him be. He's the only person I can change on this planet.
It's myself.
Huh.
That's that's wise, that's wise.
What is the word you could not live without?
Mmm? Mmmm?
I think love for me because it's it's for example, I love dancing, ballroom dancing, and oh it's exercise, yes, But it is their love for music, love for the moment, transcendental moment where we bring the beautiful costumes and music together to experience a deep passion amoung human being for those beautiful things in our life. So that love for music and beauty, love for family, love for my work to help us plong off with children is what drives me.
And love for human kind it self. That to recoon, we need to overcome polarization, find the common ground.
What is the greatest virtue in the world. What's the greatest virtue?
Humbleness? M humbleness.
It's very difficult because we tend to as human being, we learned something myself included. I think I know this, I know that, but to recognize what I still don't know is.
The greatest virtue? What's your biggest regret? Do you have one?
I probably would desire to have been more balanced work and family.
That is probably my biggest regret.
The best piece of advice you ever received was what.
In my little book.
I met a professor and he always got the diagnosis right. We are arguing all this eye problem could be this, and he walked in, doctor Savino. He comes in, he's this one and as doctor Vino, how'd you get it right?
I want advice? This is what he said.
He said, I mean, as human being, we tend to swimming, swim among uncertainties or could be this, or could be that. But I change my nature as such, I delivered to something different. I'll go into a situation where you all arguing about uncertainties or this next month, to this programming or maybe this programming audience like more and a lot of our different possibilities. I change my focus from looking at the uncertainties to looking for is there anything certain here?
I will be only one or two certainties, and I hand my head on top of that. So overcome a human natural tendency of swimming around among uncertainties, but deliberty, rationally, logically look for certainties lb.
It could be few. It's the best advice I've learned, great advice.
If you could not do what you're doing, what do you think you would do?
What would you like to do?
If think if.
I, if I'm not an eye doctor today, I probably will be our hoole player.
That chan's volid. I love it.
I love music, composition. I compose some songs my self. Dancer, ballroom dancer. I love volun dance.
It's amazing to me though these are things you did out of survival. You discovered the amount of survival, but you found a deep passion as both of them.
Yes, and sometimes they say, how come right? It's Here's interesting. If we like something as human being, we have to deeply appreciate it. M we have different ways to appreciate it. It could be something grandfather grandfather that they can inherit it right imprinted, or it could be something that through
life experience we learn the importance of it. In my case, I learned the dancing and also musing instruments out of need to survive, so they are more important to me because I literally without being able to without learning, will not be able to survive, so they take more importance to me than just a music instrument and hobby.
Wow, beautiful.
What happens when this is over?
This meaning the work?
I'll let you interpret it.
Could be this life, could be this interview. What happens when this is over?
I would say if I interpret this as my life, I wanted to be able to make Sometimes what's the purpose and need the study of science and medicine?
These are tools? What's the purpose to help these kids? Yes?
But overall all of these what I do, I have one single purpose behind all of these medical work is to help make this world a little better place to live when I.
Leave one of these days. I'm going to answer the whole questionnaire, but for now, I'm going to take a bat at this one. What is the best book you've read recently? I think it would be Graham Green's A Life in Letters. If you don't know who Graham Green is, He's really one of the greatest authors in the English tongue. I've read all of his books multiple times, three biographies, his short stories, even his film reviews. I've gone through.
But this was a fantastic book because it allowed you behind the veil, his bouts with faith, his romantic entanglements. The end of the affair was only barely fiction. Boys and girls. There is a great line in the letters that I found myself highlighting. Writing a novel is a little like putting a message in a bottle and flinging it into the ocean. Unexpected friends or enemies retrieve it. It's food for thought. Okay, to fulfill my promise that you.
Sketch that we opened the show with was based on Abbot and Costello's Who's on First, which they called baseball they labeled it. It evolved when the team hit vaudeville, and it's based on a lot of those wordplay sketches of the day, this particular sketch, and it constantly evolved. They never did it the same way twice. It dates back from the nineteen thirties.
Watch well, I see that we have on our team.
We have who's on first? What's on second? I don't know he's on third.
That's what I want to find out, the guy's name. And that's what I want to find out, the guy's name.
I'm telling me who's on first, what's on second?
I don't know?
's on third?
Have you got to be a manager in a baseball team. Yet you know the guy's names. Why are you tell me the guy's names on a baseball Say?
Who's on first? What's on second? I don't know's on third? You ain't saying that to me yet.
Tell me.
I'm telling you none yet, Malen temmy, who's on first? What's on second? I don't know?
Is on third? You know a guy's names? Any baseball team?
Well?
The heck? Who's on first? Yes? I mean the guy's name? Who they got planing fights? Whoh they got planning fights? Bess poo? They got a fust base? Who is on first? What are you asking me fighting?
How?
Wait?
I'm asking you who's on first? That's to me? Man tummy? Who they got on first? That's it? That's his name?
He said.
I asked you want a guy's name?
A push base?
Coming?
The guys name a push baby?
Oh?
You guys playing first? Make who is on first?
Leap?
I'll get excited. I'm saying, I'm asking you a simple question. Who's on first?
Yeah?
For good coming?
That's it.
That's who I'm asking you. What's the guy's name on pushbab?
No?
What's on second? I'm not asking you who's on second? I'm going for one base.
They are comic geniuses, you know, and it's rare to find comics who go on the road and work material for this long. They did it for a decade before they bring it to a mass audience. I mean they worked it in radio, they worked at in vaudeville, they worked it on the road, then they finally brought it to TV. I hope you'll come back to a Royal Grande soon. Why live a dry, constricted life when if you fill it with good things, it can flow into
a broad driving a Royo Grande. I'm raimont Arroyo. Make sure you subscribe like this episode, Thank you for diving in, and we'll see you next time. Royal Grande is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.