Rita Wilson

My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is joy. I talked to interest in people about what brings them happiness. Meet Rita Wilson. She's a producer, she's an actress, and she's a hell of a laugh. I was just thinking on the way here today, I thought, because the traffic was bad, I know, you know, that was bad, and I was I was a little grumpy, and I thought, I'm a bit grumpy today.

I'm a little I'm a man called great today. That was such a great film.

Which one the man called Auto.

Oh yeah, I was a man called Craig. Then I was like, I was very cranky. Yeah, how did you find that?

Fortunately it came in a DVD packet through the Academy. It was another movie. Then it was I saw the Swedish film.

First, I think you got the script or something.

No, we developed the script, but I found it through the Swedish movie. And then I realized there was a book to it, so immediately tried to get the rights to the book, which we were able to do, and then got a great team together.

I love that.

Movie really good.

I love directed that movie.

You directed the movie right, produced it okay, which, as everybody knows, if you're really into a business show, you really did the job.

You know what. I can be unequivocally honest about that and say, yes's.

True because the only one time I directed a movie and I didn't produce it.

I've only even like three or something, but.

I directed a movie and I was like, this is everybody's telling me stuff and they'n getting my way. Now I realized the people that were getting my way with the producers, and I'm much happier being the producer than being the directors.

Yes, it's true.

So let me ask you, because there was I think I wanted.

To ask you about, which is You're the only person I know. Now I'll preface this by saying, I have become fascinatedly with pre Roman Church Christianity. Oh just fascinated by it everything I can about it. I've become totally obsessed with it, as is my one. And you're the only person I know who I think is in the Greek Orthodox Church?

Right?

Which is the split? Now?

You tell me, you tell me what's the difference between if you can and now I'm not.

I don't want to for theological, but I know that this split happened round about then you can't.

I'm so bad at history, really am. But I will tell you what I believe is what I understand to be some of the differences. Right. And in Greek Orthodoxy, which was the older religion, right, the Byzantine exactly was before Catholicism, before the schism. What happened in the schism, I think is that the Catholics wanted to form a

To God, which the Christians didn't.

Have, right, And so I think that's one of the differences. Secondly, this is my own observation, having a lot of Catholic friends and going to a lot of Catholic churches in my youth, is in the Greek Orthodox Church, we don't really focus so much on the crucifixion as we do

So it's part of the story, is not like.

Yeah, which I think is just I don't know if that's my own observation or if that there's intention to that.

You know what I noticed when I was in Italy a couple of years ago.

I go there a lot because I love it, Yeah, and I noticed that the beautiful artwork, you know, in the Vatican or in the bigger Catholic churches in Italy, the very impressive artwork is not mirrored in the rural churches, and you can see some really crap pictures. Like I was like the church and I was like, what's that. Listen, that's this is the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus. So I'm like, that to me looks like a bare claiming of fans.

It doesn't look anything.

And I love the idea that there's you know, valiant efforts by people who are not as talented to make because of course great artist, just because they're you know, depicting the crucifationion or the resurrection.

But here's the thing, here's being well, there's also one other thing in the church. In our church, Greek Orthodoxy, priests can marry a priest and they can have children. And I think this is important, especially if you're going to talk to someone about your marriage. How does someone know what you know a marriage is like if they've

After the fact is that in the Catholic Church.

In the Catholic Church, priests can't.

Marry, can't marry at all.

But that was only for that was from the Second Vatican Council or something or seven hundred. That was because of priests were leaving their you know, their inheritance to their children, and the church wanted it. So it was it was not really know when celibacy I mean as a as a spiritual aesthetic. I goes back to Buddhist esthetics and pre Roman Christianity. Because I've become fascinated about it because.

I think someone I think of someone at the door with coffee. Actually, hold on.

It's the priests. They're coming together.

Hey, wait a minute of the thank.

You that's so great.

So there's this guy I've become fascinated by.

His name is And I want to know why you became fascinated with the Greek Orthodox Church.

Well, it's not so much the Greek Orthodox, but I don't know about the Green. I've been surrounded by Catholicism my whole. I'm not a Catholic, but I grew up in Scotland. There's a lot of Catholics around, and I have friends who were Catholics, and so it wasn't mysterious to me. But I didn't really have much contact with anyone who was in Greek Orthodoxy. And as I was reading about the it really I became fascinated by it because of being sober. Oh, and sobriety was something that

Have you heard of now?

He's fascinating figure. He was a theologian, he was a desert father, so it was his pre Roman Christianity and these aesthetics they go out and it kind of was like it really it's a mirror of Christ's forty days in the wilderness. And they lived that, but they lived there all the time. Saint Anthony lived there, you know, and all that and what it became. Vagrius was a theologian. Pontus I think was like Northern Turkey or something.

I mean, everything was all.

Different then it right, and he came up with the eight thoughts, eight demons that will separate you from the divine.

Oh, I love this.

It's fascinating. And the eight thoughts are and you recognize them when I start saying them.

They are sloth, avarice, lust, you know.

And suddenly it's the seven deadly sins, right, and the seven deadly sins com'st eight eight Well.

He put and this is what I love.

I've edited out sadness and sloth were put in together.

Oh, and I thought, though, that kind of makes sense too.

Wow.

But they thought about demons in the way that we talk about kind of psychosis or stuff or addictions or stuff. And I just became fascinated by that, and I started wandering into it. And I knew when you were coming in today, I thought, oh, no, you are. I don't know how connected you are to your church though, Are you very very connect?

Oh?

You are?

Oh?

Yeah, good. So I can ask you lots about it.

You can ask me lots about it, but I don't know how informed i'll be about it.

All right, So to be fair, you're not speaking in an official capacity for right, okay, right?

Yes? Did you get married in the Greek church? In the church that I got married it's here in Hollywood, right, Saint Sofia Cathedral. It's the church I was baptized in, that, my sister got married in, that I baptized my nieces in that I got married in, baptized my granddaughters in, and then also did the rituals from my mom and my dad there. So it's kind of like it's been all my life.

They must get so much money out of you, but we won't stay. That's a charge, didn't they? Does the docs? Does it have the Eucharist? Does it have everything?

All right? All that we have all the sacraments, we have all of the h We don't have a wafer, but we actually do bread and wine all right?

And do you believe in transubstantiations?

Okay? Now, now this is where I'm probably going to get beat up by you know, I don't know critics, but oh god, you know we still do the sipping of the wine, the communal cup. And during COVID, I just stopped taking communion because I was that's okay, I can't do this.

I just fou we're an early adopter of.

Exactly. You guys were like, I was like, that is fast. You guys are very good. We were the first counsel of COVID. What that was? That was?

I mean, you go to in Australia, right, Yes, I remember reading about it because I was like, oh my god that first of all, I didn't even know that it was in Australia, and nobody knew if you were going to.

Die from it, that nobody yes, but nobody knew. It was all terrifying and strange. But I have enormous faith in my Yeah. And at the same time, there is science that says, maybe you don't want to be sipping off of a spoon during COVID.

I think that's okay, And also that I don't know what the ritual is in Greek Orthodoxy, and I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think it has to be communal, or maybe it does, because.

I was going to be like, it's just been the way it's always been, right, Well, it was like that, you know. I literally have gone to church early for communion on the most obscure like if it's during Holy Week, the most obscure morning service that I can take communion and I will get there and I will sit in the front row and I will be the first person up for communion to get to that before anybody that first up and you step.

I think that's very wise, but it does kind of.

Can I ask you something question, how long have you been sober?

Thirty one years? And I'm happy to say.

That, Oh my god, yeah, I.

Got sober when I was twenty nine.

That's incredible.

Yeah, it is it's a It's actually it's one of the reasons why I become fascinated with religion, because the longer I'm sober, the more I think that's kind of a miracle, and it is a miracle, kind of I don't really know. I mean, it is kind of a miracle. I don't know how it really happened, and I find myself interested in these things completely curious.

I do think it is one of the things that I can only think of the word miracle when it comes to that, because it's like I have seen people transform their lives, sure, and it's because of that, you know. It's like one day you're this and the next day you're somebody completely different. Well, it's and the day after and the day after.

The reason why I became fascinated by it is because and being sober and trying to remain sober and trying to improve your sobriety. I guess is that I became interested in what happened before. You know, in my case, there was an organization which I wouldn't mention for the reason of the traditions, but it came into being in the mid nineteen thirties and the warham before that. Of course, there were temperance movements and all that kind of thing

No.

Roland Hazard was a drunk from a.

Rich family in the north east of America in the nineteen I think it's been nineteen thirties.

I guess eli thirties. And he was a hopeless case.

And eventually the Hazard family, because they had a lot of money, sent him to be treated by Carl Jung.

That's a different kind of rehabit.

It's crazy, right, So they sent him to Roland has to be treated by Carl Jung. But before that they had asked Freud and Adler if they would take them, and they were.

Like that, he drunks. We there's nothing we can do. I mean, they're hopeless.

Wow.

So they sent Roland to Carl Young. Roland Hazard works for a year with Carl Young, and Carl Jung says, I think I think you're good to go. I don't know enough about it.

Good luck.

So Roland makes it as far he was in Switzerland, he gets as far as Paris, he gets drunk, and he goes back again. He says to Carl Jung. I don't know what to do. Am I going to And Carl Jung says, I think you're going to die. I don't think there's what I can do. And he said

Wow, isn't that fascinating? And he did that?

Well, I think in my case, yes, the psychic change the cars because this is not really about me. But but I'm interested because you're a religious person, and you've always been a religious person. Has there ever been a point where you've thought, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. It's no, So you haven't had to make that that tarn No, my mom.

Was really the person who was the bringer of the faith, right, my dad, he must have Chris made it or converted before he married. My mom converted because chrismation is if you are already baptized in a religion, but you're going to get married in the Greek Orthodox Church, right, or not married because you can. You can get married if you're a Christian. You don't have to be Greek Orthodox

You know, that's not the reason why the ball is Wilson, And I think that it is.

Yes, I mean I feel like I just learned really profound No, because there is the name of the volleyball is well, there's there's a Wilson brand, there's a Spaulding and there's a light.

Yeah.

I think that's lovely.

But it's just like, I feel like I'm weirdly excited by that.

There's something very human about it.

And I think that's great.

It's great. It's great, it is great. So that was and then you know, I met so many of my relatives who are Muslim, and it was just so interesting to me because my dad never really talked about it. He didn't, you know. There was a lot of things I found out about my dad then, you know, after he passed away, was well, your.

Dad was an immigrant, and was your mom an immigrant too.

My mom was actually born in New York, right, and then raised in a little tiny village She's Greek, on the border of Albania and Greece. And when the war broke out, well, first they went there when she was four years old and her father died and so her mom my yeah, yeah, grandmother was left with four kids. And the relatives in New York said, what are you going to do a widow with four children in New York.

So you, as a kid, you don't know this about your mother and father.

I knew this about my mother, I did not know. I knew that my father was in a labor camp, but I did not know there was an earlier part of the story, which was he was in the army, the Bulgarian army, and while he was at the Bulgarian army, he saw Seltzer bottles right right from somewhere and he took the twelve There were twelve Seltzer bottles, and he took them. And knowing what I know about my dad, he only did things for other people, so I thought

In prison for taking an empty bottle.

Yes, exactly. They were trying to make an example of him.

Could the great bottle thieving Yeah, exactly.

It was all about bottle thievs. I mean they had all the documents there, so it wasn't like there was there wasn't anything being hidden. It was just literally and this prison was very, very dangerous and treacherous. Anyways, he gets out and he meets a girl and they get married and she gets pregnant and I knew none of this and this is not your mom.

They were talking no, oh my no.

And she delivers a baby on December twenty sixth. I want you to remember that, okay. And so on December twenty ninth, she dies from complications of childbirth, things that nowadays modern medicine would be able to take care. Of course. So, so my dad is now the father of an infant. He's living with his in laws. The tragedy of this beautiful young woman dying and this little baby. So this was after the war. I don't know how they kept that baby alive, because what do you do. There's no milk,

It's so like, so crazy, sad story.

Very sad, and I think this is one of the reasons why my dad was like, I'm out of here. I'm getting out of Bulgaria, and he tried.

I never knew any of it.

I never knew anything. But what's ironic is my sister's first child was born on December twenty sixth, and my second son was born on December twenty sixth, and I always thought on Christmas and that next day, which was always a big celebration in our family, that my dad was must have been thinking about his firstborn son, Emil and knowing that, like, yeah, what what is this about. I have baby? Everybody in my family's having babies on December twenty sixth.

It's funny my wife has a grandfather who has it is not the same story in it, but he was from a country that no longer exists, and in that area the republic of something or something, and he came over and they could never find out what he did. But he would always carry cash. And he had a farm in Massachusetts, and he would always carry cash in the so for alls, just in case, just in case, because.

You never know what we have to fear. Run. Nothing takes away that fear. I think it's no, it's true.

It's strange because you don't get free of it. I was talking to I was talking you know, Dik Shepherd.

Yeah, Dyks loved dad.

He's great. I was talking to him the other day.

And he grew up in kind of difficult circumstances in Troy, and and I grew up not rich either. And I don't think that feeling ever leaves you. It doesn't matter how much money you make. You know, it's like, no, keep some aside face.

My dad was a bartender, and so he would work and bring and you know, he would get tips, and so he would bring the tips home in a Crown Royal felt bag, you know, yes, okay, And on Saturday mornings, we would spread out all the coins on the kitchen table and we would take the quarters and put him in the little bank rolls of coins right the I would still do this, I totally. It was like this

Right in the other bed behind your driver's license.

Yeah, my dad would take money and he would put it in a lead pipe so he would just like whatever bills he would like. It was like his bank account. He would put it in a lead pipe that had screws lids on each end in case there was a fire.

You growing up, Yeah, it's crazy if you grew up the child of immigrants with a shocking story, but in Hollywood. So I feel like I always believed in them, not believed in the myth. That sounds wrong, but I was always much more impressed by Hollywood and Hollywood ness until I started doing the Late night Show and then you just meet everybody, and then you just realize it's like, you know, the dousche dementia ratio is just the same as it as everywhere else in the world.

Some people are great, some people are assholes, isn't it?

And it's fine, right, But until that point I had there was a mistique about Hollywood that I really believed in. Did you not never have that because you grew up here or did it crumble over time like it did for me?

No, it was just my hometown, right, And I knew that people came here from all over the world to pursue their dreams, but this was my hometown. I went to Hollywood High School Lacante Junior High which is right down the street right Hollywood Boulevard was where we would go and get back to school clothes, your bike.

Yeah, you can't do.

That in Hollywood Boulevard.

Now if your bands go closed in Hollywood, it's a completely different looking for a different kind of school.

Yeah, it's And we would go to movies at the Chinese Theater and go to Musso and Franks on a special occasion and it was just home. But I started modeling first at fourteen years old, right here at Hollywood High School.

I was discovered that quotation took me through the discovery but a little bit.

It was first day of school. Yeah, yeah, it was kind of like that, except they were legit. They were from Harper's Bizarre magazine, but I didn't know that at the time, And the photographer was a very famous photographer nowadays he's still alive. His name's Albert Watson. He's incredible, right Scottish, I believe is he really is, and so is his wife, I think. So. He saw me walking and asked, they had permission from the school to be there,

Issue no I believe is that when eighteen year olds got the vote here.

Yeah yeah, So but after that I just started working. And the first job I got to get my screen Hunter's Guild card was The Brady Bunch, and that was at Paramount Studios. Now still to this day, if I walk into a driving, into a studio, walk into a sound stage, I have that feeling of its magic. It's a very specific smell, exactly climate. It's a volume of height,

I mean it was just like, I wonder if that's because you knew the neighborhood. I mean, like not just knew the neighborhood, like the streets, but you like, if you grew up amongst it, if you're kind of you speak the.

Language almost well.

I think if people come here, particularly young women, If young women come here and they're white eyed in there, you know, it may bee maybe attracts.

I don't know. I don't know. I mean because I had a lot of friends that bad things happened. Yeah, so, and yes they did come from other places. But look, it has it change? Has the time changed?

Do you think has it changed?

I think it's much scarier now. It's much scarier now.

There's just there's it feels like it's everywhere now like the world is Hollywood.

Yeah, it's like there was still a some kind of accountability this. The town was not as big as it is now. For one thing, now, I think La is like twenty million just lap. That's like bigger than some countries.

So four times size of Scotland.

Yes, exactly so. But I feel like, you know, there were things like the Christmas Parade on Hollywood Boulevard where my dad we would come down and you know, you'd pack up in the car, we'd park blocks away and then you know, he'd carry me on his shoulders and we would wait for Nudy to come down in his Cadillac. Nudy. Nudy was a big Western guy. Did you ever like that guy Nudy on Hollywood? Bud is a different nud that goes back to that other kind of school, but that.

There was a I moved here in nineteen ninety five to Los Angeles, and even then there was a.

Kind of sleepiness to the town.

There was a change.

It really did, yes, And I can't I can't quite tell when I think it's something to do with uber or smartphones or GPS or something. Something something happened and yeah, really really different.

Or maybe I'd just go older, or.

Maybe no, No, something did change. It would It would be so fascinating when somebody could analyze that and say what was the difference, Like what was that shift that that happened and why? I don't know. I really don't know. Maybe maybe phones or computers. Computers were out in ninety six.

Yeah, I think when people started, you know, there used to be the sign where you couldn't there's a sign that said no walking to the Hollywood sign.

And I lived up in the hills and you can walk to.

The Holliday Actually could walk to the Hollywood Sign, but they would put signs up saying that you couldn't, and you could wander up there, and that was always the walk that I I'd walk up man.

Hollywood and down by the Observer Change.

Great beautiful.

Yeah, And I did it recently when I was here, and it's packed.

Everybody knows where to go. Oh, you're kidding, it's packed.

There's like people above the sign. There are all tourists up there. They all walk up there, and I mean, I get every right to go.

It's just so many walked up to the Hollywood sign. Born and raised. Don't even know how to get there. No, I don't even know how well. I wouldn't want to bother the neighbors up there. There's nobody up there but coyotes and still. Yeah, but now tourists you missed, Yeah, but I mean there were. I mean nowadays, if you go up there, I think it's very like it it's rude, right, you don't want to disturb the residents and things like that.

You can there's pass up to you can walk up to it from It's all right, And it might.

Be rude I don't know. Funny, I don't know.

No, you can get up through canyon, and I'll tell you. You can walk up through canyon the secret way up because.

The Batman Caves are over there, the Batman Cave.

Well, you just you go up past the Batman Caves and then you walk right. It's really steep walk up the hill and then you walk over to the left and you're above the ho Did.

You ever go horseback riding at Sunset Stables? I did go over into Burbank for the night. And then have you done that?

Oh?

I love that? It was so much fun. They still do it apparently.

Yeah, I fell off a horse recently.

Do you ride horses? I do. I love horses.

I like horses too, but I write English.

No.

I have a Western saddle in Scotland. But my horse we put the Western saddle on them. My wife is very, very very horsey, very no in appearance.

No, she's not horsey appearance, but she's gorgeous. She's gorgeous, but she's she has a beautiful pony. But we put this I think they call it the girth on the English shaddley where they call it, they call it the girl like.

The bridle or not the bridle, the girth.

Yeah, the girl. So I think it was pinching his little leggy bit. Oh no, and he he buckd. He's only ever buked twice. Once I saw it when he was lungeon I was lunging him, and then the other time I was on him and I came off.

He's a big horse too.

Wow.

I was very and I'm sixty one years old. I've fallen off many horses, and I've noticed over the years that it hurts a lot more now than.

Do you ever have an accident on your horse.

I've been thrown from a horse, sure, but nothing that resulted in injury. My injuries are from the two times I tried snowboarding. Because I ski hearts so much morning. Why you fall? You as your feet are stuck together on a board, you can't escape. No.

It's like I like to say at the end of a rule in a movie theater in case I have to leave, and I feel the same about skiing and still boarding.

I don't want my feet exactly. I gotta go bye.

Yeah, I gotta leave.

Sorry, something came up. I go to leave. Do you let me ask you a question? Then? Did you ever get a fear of flying. I used to. I don't anymore want to hear why. It was very specific. I had two friends, sorry, one friend, and he was in a plane crash. The crash, the plane went off the runway, the plane caught fire. Everybody got out and survived, so it had a happy end that But I called his wife when it happened and I said, oh my god, how was he doing? Oh my gosh, they're they're British.

I was like, okay, the idea of you, once the doors are closed, you hand the power over to someone else and that always.

But I actually what I did is I learned to fly.

Your own plane.

Yeah I did.

What did that do? But you know Kurt Russell.

Yes, right, so Carl, you know cars like crazy, Yes, aviator. So I said to him he was on the old Late Night Show and I said, I'm frightened of flying. I know you love flying, and I'm frightened of flying.

He said, you're not frightened to flying.

You're just a control freak. And I went, that's not true, and I went, it is true. I read your book and I went, you read my book.

And then I ended up talking to about the book because I was so excited that Kurt read my book.

But he didn't forget.

And so for my birthday, Megan called up Kurt and said, hey, let's get him some flying.

Lessons because I used to be terrified of flying.

And he went great, and he found a flying and struck a really gnarly old guy over at Vanny's Airport. Took me up and after about seven hours of flying instruction for me where I was terrified, Kurt said.

You come up with me.

I was like, oh God, So he has this super powerful plane.

Right, there's a tea.

I don't know if he still has it, but he's a at a TBM seven hundred.

It was like a rocket ship.

And we go up to this plane and we fly just from Santa Monica over Santa Maria Airport. It's done far and as we're landing there's a bit of a crosswind and he said land the plane.

I said, I'm not ready for that.

He went, well, I ain't doing it.

So and eventually, you know, I did it and I got it close and then he took over and he landed the plane. Oh, I was I was terrified. But you can't cry in front a snake. Plusken, there's no you can't, you know. But I went home and something cracked a little bit. I don't know what it was. When I went home, I was like, no, it's different. I understood the mechanics of it a little bit.

So now are you less afraid to fly in a commercial flight?

Yeah, I would say that I am.

Because you understand the mechanics.

I understand how it works. Yeah, And I understand that.

I also understand that the person that's flying the plane is far more qualified than I am to do the job.

So that kind of works. Don't put him on a late night show or a podcast. He can't do it.

Who can't the pilot or the pilot? They are very specific breed pilots. Actually, did you never get into that. Yeah, it's kind.

Of a Hollywood thing.

There's a community of people here that do it, and I was kind of surprised with the people that. I was like, oh my god, and you run Edward Norton at the airport or you know, travel is famously a flyer or tom Cruise or like there's a whole I'm like, oh my god, this is like.

The oscars is exactly here.

The ocar in like really fancy suits. So I'm like, oh, everyone's wearing pressure suits. It's cool, but it's kind of like and I thought it'd be like super expensive and it is.

But you know, so do you still do it? Do you still take less? I have?

I have a little little, tiny two seater plane that I can only fly at certain times of the year because of the weather.

But wow, and you keep it in Scotland? I do, but I share it with a guy who's a really good pilot. Okay, so when you go, you take a co pilot with you.

Yeah, well let's say I take the co pilot. But really I'm just sitting going, Yeah, what does that do? Can I have a show? Can I have a show. Do you have a thing that your antidote to show business? Because it's such an odd kind of capricious world and that you know, it's just by the nature of it.

I don't mind it. I think that's the way it is. It's the circus.

But I often feel I'm drawn very much to things which are innanted, which take my head out of it.

Do you do that, do you? Yeah?

I mean you have your faith obviously.

Yeah. Well, first of all, my family super close to them. After this, I'm going to go see my brother lives right up nearby. Nice. But I have to be outside in nature. Like I love swimming, I love hiking. Yeah, I love walking. Anything that is outside is that is just heaven for me. And also I really like driving by my like I just love it. I feel like it's a cocoon and you could think and nothing, you know,

They have Christian desert mystics. They would make they make baskets, they would weave baskets. They were in constant prayer, right.

And so that I think that's a form of meditation, right, And I love that. I listened to music, I listen to books on tape, but mostly I just like to let the mind wonder. Are your gearhead? Do you like have special cars?

Do you like go to Jaylenel's and say, let me try this one.

I don't. Actually my car is You're gonna think this is crazy. Ten years old. You know how most people get a brand new car like everything. Now my car is ten years old, never getting rid of it. I love it. You know.

One of a big thing that happened to me in Hollywood. I was working in Warner Brothers and I was in the nineteen nineties and I just go here. I was doing the Drew Giarrey Show and Clint Eastwood was working in the Warner Brothers law and he drove in in a ten year old Ford Explorer and I was like, that, so fucking cool.

That's so cool. It's like I don't care exactly.

It is like, you know, it's not going to make me anymore Clint Eastwood advice, right, just I love the kind of like, yeah, it's a car.

I have a car, one of my cars. It's a truck. Is I should say? Ours is twenty one years old.

I think that's great though. I love it.

Hang on long enough and they become vintage. That's right. I think.

I feel like I'm trying that for myself as well. I feel like if I can survive long enough, it'll come back around again. I noticed kids at my stand up shows now and they're like under thirty.

I'm like, what the hell are you doing here?

Then I thought you're here ironically, aren't you?

It's because of TikTok or something?

What about that? Do you do TikTok?

I was about to ask you. I kind of dip in and out of it. But I treat it the same way as I do with anything that I don't. I don't read anything the MD else puts out right. I just like, I do my thing and then I run away.

I know I have an account, but I've never been onto it. I don't know how to do it.

Do you do the Instagram or any.

Of the Instagram and Facebook and Twitter right formally then is Twitter? I think Twitter is is it's kind of going away? I think now is that what I I wish I would all go away? I kind of do too. Can I leave now? We haven't hasn't it had its moment? Can't we just go back to like looking at each other? I was honking to each other.

I was hoping it was going to be like Cbe Radio, like you come and go, and that would be it. I think I feel that it kind of I remember actually Tom was scheduled to do a sport in my old late night show, and for some reason he couldn't do it, and he wrote very classy gentleman as I'm sure you know, he wrote a no.

Of apology and it was written in an old typewriter.

Yeah, And I went, oh my god, that's so cool because it wasn't just somebody had just done it. No, it's all there was some thought in it, and it marred to me. It was like it was like it was like it really was something.

There's something really good about analog things. I agree written not a hand type note.

I listened to my music on vinyl now you've gone back to that.

My new album's coming on on know soon.

Your country artists sort of kind of.

Yes, yeah, I love that. I'd like to say that I'm southern southern California. Southern California. Why not.

It's like that NASCAR guy that's from California.

I can't remember his name, but yeah, he's sort of southern California.

But I love Vinyl. I love it so much. It reminds me. There's, first of all, it's textile, yeah, and it reminds me of how we used to listen to music as a whole. So there was a narrative story that the artist or the band was looking to tell, and you would listen to it and there'd be that moment where his side one was over side A and he'd flip it over and do side B and it was just like, I love the ritual of that.

That's the smell of it.

Like the smell of it, I know.

And then the thing is as well, is that you can listen to Vinyl a little volume and here's stuff that you can't hear. I never know is that until very recently minute and I played it to our youngest boy is twelve and I got this final setup and I played it to him for the first time and it was like a big electronica thing as a Scotch band called Mogwai and it's like it's real bra you know, Oh my god.

And I played it too him. He went, oh my god, what is this?

Wow? I said, this is this is analog music speakers.

Yeah.

Yeah, And he was like, I love this.

He said, I feel I've been robbed.

I said, you have exactly turned him on. Get him his own turd table. There was a woman that lived up the street from us when we were growing up, and she worked at Capitol Records. So this was during the sixties when the Beatles were assigned to Capitol. Wow. So whenever there was an album a Beatles album released, she would bring it to us and my sister, well all three of us, we would just put that thing on. Call it a high fi Why was it a high fived high fidel? But it had a turn My dad

I bet you could do it.

I found that a nineteen thirties wooden radio in the house in Scotland, and the what we call the sellers is kind of crept and I don't know why the radio was down there, but all the valves and stuff were gone. But there is a company that will put new inrds in it for all.

That's so cool. Do you live in an old house in Scotland? It's pretty old? Is it haunted? Yes? Really? What kind of ghosts? What kind of things have you heard or seen?

Well, there's always bumps and squeaks and do you believe in all this?

We had one house that had things that were inexplicable. I love this. Told me too.

The most haunted US I've ever lived in was in the Hollywood Hills.

What yes, Okay, tell me what happened.

I didn't know what happened, but it was scary.

Megan was like, what dill is that?

And it was like, ah, maybe the homeless guy. I don't know, but it was. It was scary. It was a scary house.

That's wild.

Where was your haunted hos?

It was an old nineteen twenty six Mediterranean's the okay?

That Maine was a nineteen twenty six Mediterranean.

What? Yeah, they were like they were friends, you may us were friends? Maybe? Where was it was in the Hollywood h no in Santa Monica area?

Right?

Okay? So here's the thing though, that there were just inexplicable things and everybody heard them, and you just couldn't explain why the TV would go on by itself in the middle of the night. Seen why. It sounded like there was somebody dropping a stack of books to the floor from the second floor landing. Sounded like somebody was just dropping a stack of books.

We had one in the house, like we were in the old house in Scotland, right, And there was a portrait, an old portrait of the woman who had owned the house a couple of hundred years ago, was up in the wall, right, and Meghan and I were standing in the room. We were talking about something.

We're just being married talking. I don't know what the hell you talk.

You know what it's like you've been married forever?

Is it's like you just talk about everything now you know what it is? You remember that thing?

Yeah, So we're just talking and there was a door that never opened, right, I just couldn't. It was always so stemming. You could open it, but it was very, very difficult jiggle the thing the handle. So we were looking at this portrait and I said, oh, she's still here somewhere, and Meghan was like, well, and she said, it's a joke. She said to the portrait, it's my house now, girl. And the door wiggled and then the door opened, and I was like, oh, no, way did

What was inside the door?

Nothing? We thought it was one of the kids coming through. There was nobody there, nothing, The door just opened. Just tell me about it right now. So Chris, yeah, I know, it's crazy.

All right, we're completely out of time. I don't know if we.

If we don't, are we supposed to be talking about joy?

But if you don't know if you noticed, but I tried to get you to talk about everything.

Throw your joy, but what's the joy? Oh? The things that bring me joy? Your faith? Your family? Oh? Got it? Okay?

But you know what, if you want to define it in some way put but I'm very happy with that the button on it. I mean, what does define joy for you?

Well, I mean I think it has to be just making people happy and trying to I mean for me anyways, I like to do that. I like to make people happy. I like to okay, if it's stuff that's not related to family, because obviously that that's like a given. I supposed, but I will always not Yeah, that's true, maybe not not always.

Any The reason why I didn't like bring it up in a fashion and just ask you directly is because I think sometimes it's nice to talk to people and find out what makes them happy without saying what makes you happy?

Right exactly? No, I get that, but I I would have to say that. I think music for me, and you know, because I came to it. I've always loved music and wish that I had started it younger, but

It's also a collaborative platform that you know, you're working with a whole bunch of different people coming with a whole bunch of different angles and agenda, right, whereas a musicianist like you drive the thing.

A little bit more. And it was really it just brings me so much joy to do that. Like when I know that I have a writing session or I'm going to go in and record something, it just I'm so excited and that absolutely brings me joy. And you know, look, you're right. My faith is a huge driver of that, I think because I I have faith. You know, it gets tested. Everybody gets tested, you know, we have that happen. But I still feel like at the end of the day, I I have that.

So there's a great line. Do you remember the movie Chariots of Fire? Yes, all right, so in charit's the fire. It's one of my favorite lines.

Greek people would say Vangelis did the soundtrack. The Greek people would always if there's a Greek person somewhere in the vicinity of a conversation, a Greek will point that out.

So in the Vangelis movie Charities of Fire, it's about a Scottish runner who is very religious man, and the story is that he won't run in the Olympics on a Sunday, right, and there's a big problem because that's when the final is and that's the story of the movie sort of. And his sister, who's even more religious than him, doesn't want them to run at all because they've got to go in their their missionary work in China is what needs them.

And he says this line to her. I don't know who wrote the script.

It is terrible, but there's a great line in the they're walking in the hill above Edinburgh and she's saying she's trying to persuade him not to go to the Olympics, and he says, I believe God made me for a purpose and that purpose is China. But when I run, I feel his pleasure.

Oh that's so beautiful.

And I think that can be your music for you beautiful.

Yeah, it feels like that, it really does, and and I can't it's it is, it's exactly that. It's exactly that. And now that we're talking about it. You're making me think about all sorts of other things because some of them tie together. Earlier, you asked me what gives me joy? Like, I love I'm a hobbyist, but I do watercolor painting, okay, perfect, and it is. It gives me so much joy because here's why I always wanted to try it, and I never could do it, and I was like, why am

It's like you know me, but I've seen to do yourself. Finally, I feel like I've been released. But it's funny because I think what it is is that when you're young, When a person is young, I think they judge themselves and they look at the results. The biggest challenge I have when I start writing anything, No anymore, But it used to be I would start saying, you know, once upon a time or whatever it was that I wrote, right, and then by the third sentence I was constructing my thank you speech.

Like, no, were you funny as a kid? Yeah?

I think I probably, yeah, liked you.

You knew that you could make people laugh.

Yeah, well I knew i'd better or they yet me, so that it was kind of like not so much my family, but but in the society I grew up and yeah, paid to be funny, yeah right, or something right, you know, or just keep your hand down right.

It was did you ever do anything different? As just like something that you said, I really want to learn how to do this, not the flying thing, but a creative endeavor, like.

Yeah, what was it?

And it was for me it was stand up really yeah, because because stand up comedy was there was you know Billy Conley, Yeah, of course. So Billy's twenty years old than me. So when I was ten years old, Billy was thirty years old. She was just coming to prominence in Scotland and I had never seen anyone from my background do that. Right, It was unbelievable to me. This was like some I mean Americans did that, but not

He opened the door and so.

I that was what it was, and I thought, I'd like to be able to do that.

Looks like a really cool thing to do.

And you know, through one thing and another, in various endeavors, I ended up having a crack at it and it kind of worked out here and there, and that's what led me into it.

Wow.

But it was like it was like an instrument. Yeah, you know.

That if you learn to play the guitar, you play in a band, you're playing, maybe you write a movie score, maybe you you know, work with other people, but what you really like to do is just play the guitar, play exactly. And that's what I love about doing it, is just playing.

To be honest.

I felt the same way about about Late Night too. Is that eventually I thought, you know what, the guy who got me into it said, you're a natural for this, and I said, you're crazy. I don't even pay any attention to this sort of stuff. And he said, it doesn't matter, you're natural for me.

Wow, and he was right.

I was Wow. I just love those stories. I mean so we're only really limited by our own belief systems, or I think that's what we've heard as kids or teenagers, because I think it's not even the limitations we've put on ourselves. But sometimes you know a teacher or a parent or someone you admire saying something like, you can't dance, you're you know, even too long the time, or that what was that you just sang and you're oh my ear, And if you're a kid, you can hear that and

He was, but it's too late.

That time is too late up until that point.

Keep going, keep going, you keep going, keep going, keep anytime