Hi everybody, and welcome to the best Ever, Best Ever You Show.
I'm Elizabeth, Yes, I know who I am, but I have Dave
Palzer with me. How are you welcome? I'm fine, I'm talking.
I'm gonna read laughing. You know I messed up on my own name.
It's not good, but we keep you know, everybody knows we never edit
this show, and whatever it is, it is. Ed Asner answered adorable
in the middle of our show. We're good. So introduction for Dave Palzer.
I'm just going to read this this. You've done a lot of stuff,
and you are I'm just gonna read so. And I edited a little
bit too, because I wanted to add some things about you as I was
reading more about you. But you are an individual who represents overcoming adversity,
and I would say one of the best examples of resilience we have. I
can't even believe some of the things. So when I think of resilience and
I think of you, and what an example you are of of reaching to
be your best. So you've dedicated your life to helping others, which to
me represents such a compassion about you in a benevolence about you. But others
have helped themselves and us to learn how to help ourselves through adverse situations.
And I learned I didn't know this about you. You're a former Air Force
combat air crew member and your job entailed midair refueling of the ones highly secretive
SR seventy one Blackbird and the F seventeen Stealth Fighter. And while in active
duty, you were selected as California Volunteer of the Year. That's pretty amazing.
So I want to learn all about all about that too. I just
want to sit here and learn all about you. So but this is so
cool everybody listening and watching. You've received personal recommendations from four US presidents.
Now how many people can say that? That's amazing? And you were honored
as one of the ten Outstanding Young Americans and later was the only American to
be honored as the Outstanding Young Person of the World. I want to know
about that. And the recipient of the National Jefferson Award that I know about,
which is considered the Pulitzer Prize for public service. And you're in a
really good company there with Santa Day O'Connor. And I never know whether to
say named Colin or Colin you hear both ways. I say, Colin,
which one is it? Colin Powell? General? Yeah, yeah, of
course, But I always, you know, you see that messed up so
often that you don't know which one is just a normal person, It's like,
and you can't really ask him. We go, how do you,
sir? How do you pronounce your name? Exactly right? But anyway,
I think he corrects people here and there. But you're the author of nine
inspirational books, or he did correct people. His books have been on the
best sellers or you books have been on the best seller for well over thirteen
years combined. A child called It Alone was on the has has it been
on? Or was on? I don't know how to word that the New
York Times Bestsellers list for well over six years, which is incredible. And
you're the first author to have four number one international best sellers and to have
four books simultaneously on the New York Times best seller list. That's incredible.
You must just kind of like this all the time, now, I know
you don't, and I know for nearly the last ten years you've served as
a California fire captain in two separate districts, which I want to know which
ones too. I think I know, but I want to know a little
bit more. During that time, you've been deployed to some of those states
most horrendous fires, and there's a lot of that going on out there.
I worry about people out there with all the floods and fires and everything,
and now the the incredible amount of snow, which I think I hope people
are grateful for because it makes it so much. I hope everything to settle.
Yeah. Really, it's all over the place out there. So welcome
and welcome to the best every shows. Thank you for having me on your
show. I know you're very busy. No, well, you know,
not really that busy. But it's okay, all right, there's said a
lot of time doing my hair now I'm just kidding. It's funny. So
we're here to talk. I have your book. We're here to talk about
your new book, Return Up, Return to the River. And can I
just ask you right off the bat about the cover because this is such a
beautiful cover. It's a it's a good Easter ray. Question one I had.
I was kind of like co produced for this book with Health Communications because
they had the first two books and they gave me a lot of latitude,
and what I wanted to do was convey a romantic title with a serious subtitle
and a beautiful setting. And I found a local author in the Russian River
area, Nan Still, and I commissioned her to hand paint the cover for
the book, and that represents the summer of nineteen sixty six, which tells
the story within the book, the best summer I had as a young child
with my family before everything went you know, a little bit sideways, as
we say. And it's a beautiful It has your Parker Bridge there, it
has the place for kids to play, the little riverboat that came into the
area, the concession stand, and it's it's it's really beautifully romantic. Yeah,
and it's meaningful. I when I first got the book, I'm like,
Okay, that means something. It's up to me to figure out what
it is. You do to figure it out? Yeah, yeah, And
so I love that. So thank you for explaining that. Why another book?
What made you turn around and go? Okay? I go. Anybody
who knows me knows that one. I'm not a really good writer, and
I really it takes me a good eight to ten hours to write describe a
single paragraph, and when I write, I feel like I'm a film director.
It's very visual, it has a lot of emotion to it. And
when I write, it's really not about my character. It's about you putting
yourself in that character's place, looking at situations and how you would have done
things or not done things. And this was what I call an unexpected pregnancy,
because it usually takes me about a good year and a half two years
to do a pretty good rough draft. This book was written suddenly and I
had it all basically wrapped up within six to eight months, which was fast
for me. And part of the reason was that I was kind of going
through a change in life. An unexpected situation happened. I had two major
losses, is in the middle of COVID and on top of that, trying
to find a place to live which represents your heart, your safety, and
at the same time doing my James Bond Jack Bauer firefighting thing in two separate
districts. And what I like about the book, it's kind of a beautiful,
haunted, romantic love story, and it's really about family dynamics and generational
situations and kind of take an inventory of your life and where you at what
are you doing, why you're doing this? And where do you want to
basically settle? And it's it's really a cosa. It's a very powerful Costa
Blanca love story. It is I it is that for sure. I gotta
tell you. My heart hurts though sometimes in this and it did with your
with a child called it too, And of course I mean it should hurt
from that. But it makes me so mad that that happened to you.
I don't even know how to explain it. I was nervous to interview you
because I felt like I might misspeak about about things that have happened to you
know kind of but but I mean, you know, to talk intelligently about
something I kind of know nothing about. But I'm reading about you. It
makes me so mad. I don't know what other emotions I have if sad,
mad, everything. I mean, I'm not crying right now. I'm
like, why would this? You know, who's the thing, Liz,
And you know this because you know you're a parent, and you've moved around
in different life, You've done different things. You meant beautiful people. And
I'll say this with love in my heart. Bad things happen if we've learned
anything from COVID, if we've learned anything from the fires or the floods or
tornadoes. Okay, life is not fair. Life is not easy. Bad
things happen to good people every single day. It's a fire. Captain.
We have a saying. I tell the young kids, we're going to meet
extraordinary people and the worst parts of their life. So do things with humanity.
And then you look at the book in itself, and it's about the
tumbers in life. How certain things happen to me at a certain time that
elevated me to escape from being abused, to be allowed to serve in the
air force, they'll be allowed to fly, or all these little things that
this come together when you really really need it, whether it's compassion, love,
advice, or maybe even a kick in the pants. Because I will
say this list I really believe, particularly at my time of life, I
sit into you in a small, beautiful townhouse looking at the beautiful redwood trees.
I don't know anybody who's had as much luck or blessings than myself.
And it's you know, we all take hits, we all follow down,
we all falter, but you want to strive to get up and at the
same time. And this is important for your audience. An audience, write
this down if you're taking notes. You survive to be happy. There it
is, you survive so you can do what you want when you want.
I've never met anybody, Elizabeth that says I'm a victim of can So they
say, I fight the cancer. I survived the cancer. And every day
is a blessing in California. In Oakland, California, we have at least
one to seven shootings a day. I say, every day our kids come
home from schools safe. There's a great day. Every day we don't get
COVID. Great day if we go to Applebee's. Okay, man, I'm
on supersize fries. Thank you very much. You know you survived to be
happy. Maybe me being smacked around for the first twelve years of my life
wasn't a blessing. But what I've been able to do because of that.
Every time I have a meal, ice water my biggest thing. And and
everybody knows this. I love clean sheets. If I had Oprah money,
I'd have my sheets changed twice a day. Okay, love clean I'm sending
you some sheets. I'm sending some bamboo opra sheets. Oh baby baby,
it's it's kind of like you come back from a war, yeah, whether
it's the COVID war or physical wars, ecological war, and you go,
wow, this is pretty cool. There's a I Love movies, Elizabeth,
and there's a movie called Castaway, and there's always a takeaway line like I'd
be back, go ahead and make my day the takeaway and Castaway. I
have ice. I have ice. And it's always the simplest things, whether
it's a sunrise or sunset, you know, or the kids are sleeping or
just they're doing the kid thing, or you go to the bathroom at two
o'clock in the morning, you go back to bed and you can spoon with
that person and that murmur. You see, it's always the small things.
It's not once I get a million dollars, once I countered Mount Everest.
It's always the little things in life. And that's what the Return to the
River I think, really really really represents. You just open up your heart,
you let in the good, you let in the bad. But what
was that line from wasn't in Churchill? When you're going through hell, you
just keep going the line from World War Z Brad Pitt plays to doctor life
is about movement, just keep moving, and my character or myself I just
had to kind of like exam that and say, Okay, life isn't fair.
I didn't expect these things to happen to me, but I've got to
do something. And at the same time, I'm trill trying to be of
service to others who need help more than I do. Yeah, yep,
that's exactly. As a writer, I've written a lot, and I've been
fortunate enough to have some commercial success, but I really think this is the
best writing I've ever ever ever done, because it's really about how everybody can
hopefully look at life and say, you know what, I need to do
this or I don't want to do that. I don't want to take this
for granted. I need to kind of just okay, little up spring cleaning,
do some inventory, and then live, you know, a better happy
life because you know, because we're best ever you and we do help people
a lot through adverse seeing things like that. One of the questions I always
ask people is about their incredible yes and do you have a moment where you
said yes to something or someone and it completely changed your life? All the
time I know there's a lot of moments all the time, one or two
or three like that. You know, God has blessed me. I think
what I've done, I've been lucky, but I've kind of given myself permission
to do those mission impossible things. You know, it took me. I
didn't speak until I was like fourteen because I wasn't allowed to speak, and
my trachyn esophagus was scarred from small and ammonia twice in twenty four hours,
so I had to learn slowly. I couldn't even tie my shoes because my
fingertips were numb from working with chemicals for all those years. I mean,
he's a kid that couldn't speak, and now I'm allowed to do calm or
speak different languages. That child with no coordination that was allowed to fly for
the Air Force, or I never thought as a kid back in the day,
boys wanted to be out or not. Some girls want to do the
ballerina thing, or they wanted to play baseball. I just wanted to write
because I was in the basement reading Stevenson, you know, Treasure Island or
Mice and Men by Steinbeck, or I could not believe I said yes,
today's fifty two to become a firefighter. So I think what it is is
you have to be open to try to attempt to do something, and some
things work out, whether it's relationships or jobs or you know, your your
journey on life man plan. God laughs. But I've said yes to a
lot of things, and I'm at the age right now I'm kind of slowed
down and can go wow. I always say, here's the line. I
say, I'll read this to you. I'm supposed to be in the book,
and it's going to be in the next printing. I tell this to
my young firefighters a lot. I say, live a grand adventure, to
tell a great story. And there's another line, and this is a good
one for your listeners. I heard this in a movie and I was crying.
The proper function of men is to live, not to exist. I
shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my
time. Jack London in this, when we have returned to the river,
we make mention of COVID, this invisible, all overwhelming force. In any
situation, there's a pattern. There's always denied, denied, deny. Okay,
then there's anger and the bargaining. Okay, if I do this,
you do that, take me back, blah blah blah. Then there's the
depression. And finally the fifth step is I accept it. I have to
accept that we live in COVID, we have to be in house, we
have to live in a different manner, we have to do certain things,
whether it's nine to eleven post World War two or per say something like COVID
or a divorce or a medical situation. So I try to kind of like
use these different metaphors within the book to really talk about where are you at
and where are you going? At the same time, be happy in your
journey. I mean, and the book I lost the Atomic Blonde the most
amazing I feel. I always feel bad. It makes people laugh and make
them cry like how could you do that to you? And it's it's and
that's the thing too. What I wanted to do is I'm tired, and
I think America is tired on on the Johnny Depp Amber divorces. I don't
need to see it twenty hours a day for five weeks. Serious problems in
this country and in this world and creeping up on the crap dashings is no
longer on any buddies. Did I say that right? He did? Creeping
up on the crap? I did say that right, I did. It's
who cares. Here's the thing. We need strong people like yourself to step
up to the plate and attempt to try to help other people out. Yeah,
medical services or mental service is going to be the big thing in the
next twenty to thirty years. So let's address the situation. Maybe not be
so serious and move on and be happy. Yeah, you have a lot
of long jokes. I'm going to refrain, I don't know she dies or
hair ladies and gentlyn No, you can't tell it all, can you?
No, I don't see nothing. Okay, take my Instagram and I'll post
pictures of the three hundred foils in my hair. And I'm gonna tell your
audience this. When I think when we first talk before we start recording,
didn't I say you looked a lot younger? You did? Yeah? Those
are good. Those are good interview points. Thank you. Okay, I'm
going to make you look good. List Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
anybody I am in my it's wild too, you know, I it's
wild. How age? You know we're we're aging? And I think kind
of getting better as we age. You know, I think I know more
than I used to know. But you know, the approach, it's kind
of like m fifties. Yeah, and it's amazing because I'm I'm sixty two
and you have my grandson is like, you know, I can't keep up
with the man. Slow down, slow down says, we got to get
to everything. Let's go, let's go. But it's amazing when the inside
kind of matches the outside, because there's certain things now that I didn't do
back then, like raise my hand asking a question, or just I think
for me, it's about time and energy that I don't have that much time
and energy to listen to other people's white noise, unnecessary drama or to me,
everything's about going to bed. Resting sleep differs with my rest are sleep.
I just don't have time for it. There's I learned this from a
beautiful lady many years ago. She had a problem with her son and she
said, stop it. You're fifteen. You have no answers to life.
And I don't know how many more summers I have left. There's a note
to write down, you know, when you're on a vacation. You know,
we gotta do this. We got to do that. We don't have
a lot of time. Let's get it all in, you know, use
the forest, Luke, do the type the first tide Chea moves. She
pushed down the energy. Then you go out, take that, about that
and return to the river about again, using your time and just finding your
happy place, your happy spot. And in my case, it just happened
to be the river the cover of nineteen sixty six on the book. As
you read, my mom pulled me into her chest and we had a moment
for like eight seconds and affected me for the rest of my life. Those
beautiful eight seconds we watched the sun set. I really believe she loved me
and we can fix things. Or that same summer, my father and I
took a two minute walk, big deal. But for me, that small
little thing was enough to get me through some of the hard times. Yeah,
you know, I really like I hope I turned to the right page
here, I didn't turn to the oh here it is. I like it
when your son says, you know, I want you to be happy.
You're a good person. You do so much too much for everyone. Now
it's time for you. What of them, isn't it beautiful. It really
is. Yeah, I in the middle of this is the middle of the
COVID right after the shutdown, and I was working back and forth, and
you know, it's coincidental, and we talked about tumblers. I swort it
down on the Bible. I just got a text from his lovely wife saying,
because we spent and I didn't know this. I think someone from the
publisher told me. They said, do you realize you're coming up on the
fiftieth anniversary of your rescue mister Pelzer. I'm like wall and it just really
then hit me. And usually, as you read in the book, I
work. I'm always up service. And this year we decided just to do
something with the family. I took my grandson to San Francisco Golden Gate Park.
My grandson is three and a half. I took my son at three
and a half to Golden Gate Park to do the same thing, the aquarium,
the Japanese thing, and so forth. That was last month, and
then not even an hour ago, my beautiful daughter in law says, oh
my god, we had a blast. Da da da da dada. And
I'm like, oh, and it's just amazing how you can kind of just
change. And this is important for your audience. People want to do radical
shifts. Three easy payments in nineteen ninety five. I want to lose one
thousand pounds in five seconds. Oh I got a relationship. No, I
don't know, I got one. I mean, slow down. It's always
the simple things that can bring you so much joy, but you kind of
have to be open to it, and you got to just change your scope
just a little bit. Yeah, when so COVID hit, like, I
was completely freaked out. I'm just gonna I haven't really shared this too much
with the world, but you know, completely freaked out. You know,
like we gathered kids from college and everybody came back home, and I was
like, well, this is interesting. This is time that I would not
normally have with you. So we're going to make the best of this,
you know. So we had some fun there as a family, you know,
hunkered down, trying to stay safe and all those things. But those
really scary. That's really scary. You're like, Okay, what's going to
happen to us? You see people dying? You know, You're just it's
unclear you were helping everybody during this time. But when I'm reading this were
you scared for your own well being as well, or were you telling you
know, Liz, that's a great question, and I always have to be
honest, whether it makes me look like an idiot, which is not hard
for me to do. I think I was just too ignorant to think about
the magnitest within the magnitude, within the magnitude, because I've been to rescue
ops like in Katrina. I've been to war zones, you know, and
these things are overwhelming. Or being a fire captain, you know, you're
overwhelmed because you're worried about this house, this person, this block, safety
Da da da da. But after a while there's a certain calmness and you
have to be kind of calm. And I think, looking at it now,
it was so overwhelming for everybody, you know, And I got to
give a shout out to the truck drivers. I was expecting mad Max type
situation where people would, you know, kidnap or fuel or fuel trucks or
medical supplies, and these people just they did the same thing. They said,
well, I'm going to keep on driving. So I think for me
being on the other side, rather than being overly hunkered down, it gave
me more freedom, you know, because I can drive around backwards of the
fire engine and wave at everybody. But it was looking at it now,
extremely serious. Mister COVID came to visit me three weeks ago. Third time,
I'm going COVID. We broke up. I'm seeing other viruses. Thank
you by to go, you know, and COVID went fall on, Covid
went. And I'm still a little icky about that. But for my position,
you know, you just do what you have to do for the now,
and that's an important thing, you know, whether you're depressed now,
are feeling angry now, it's just for the now. You haven't only a
bad day. But looking at it now, you know, I'm like,
wow, how did we do that? How did these people think of this?
And sometimes you don't know what to do, but at least you do
something. So we did what's called PPE protective personal equipment. We mask,
we glove all the time, and we just put on like another layer.
It's almost like you're going onto a combat situation. You have kevlar, you
have armory of weapons. It's another layer of life. But I really think
as a country and the world at large, we all did pretty darn good
because this thing could have been a lot worse. And that's why I mentioned
the book and I do little nuances to movies, and I said, this
was the war of the world's pandemic. It really was. It was overwhelming.
And then you look at it just like I said, Wohan, what
that can't happen to us? What Venice? What Seattle? Oh my god?
I mean anger, you know, And then you saw it and then
the political side, the anger involved, and that doesn't help in a bad
situation. You want people to be cool, common, logical and hopefully aspire
you just if you're a parent. The kids chopped off their finger, they're
screaming, Oh, it's nothing, It's only a finish mood. I got
this, you know, you just kind of that type of thing. But
it was looking at it now, it could have been scarier. Yeah,
it couldn't be scarier. But I think everybody, everybody over the age of
five, contributed to a positive way on this. Yeah. That's a that's
a really that's a really good way to think about it too, because I
know I did everything to self soothe that I could possibly do, including you
know, take myself to the parking lot of home depot where there's a marsh
and redwood and blackbirds hang out and sat there and took pictures of redwood blackbirds
for you know, like almost a year, you know, and did a
blog life with the zoom lens on, and you know, I just tried
to do other things. And then it sort of dawned on me really early
on though that we would maybe be a beacon of light for people and best
ever you. And we continued on with blogs and shows and mental health awareness
and things to entertain people and everything to kind of keep us all going and
that field that was positive. Way. Yeah, it's weird because I used
to do internet radio and I'm proud to say one of my shows was live
from Baghdad. I mean, how many people can say live from Baghdad.
It's a radio Dave. And we did little snl skits like when you want
to buy a DVD that's pirate, did see happy Ali? He'd be most
happy to see you like that? And that was a real thing. Yeah,
And my friends were always saying you should do a podcast show, and
I'm like, you know, the internet is a fad. I have a
slide rule. I don't believe in this plan. Dame gold stuff, and
when COVID hit, I was hearing so much anger and then political division with
professional medical people. I'm going, this does not make sense. And I
kind of did that whole world Roger's thing and it worked out very nice because
I'm obviously not the smartest person. If I'm the smartest guy in the room,
Elizabeth Houston, we have a problem. Yeah, I just wanted to
kind of do calmness, common sense, and a little little bit of Robin
Williams, a little bit of Edie heck it is, heck it. And
that's the one thing I've done in life and in stressful situations is you just
want to somehow have that release. Yeah, you know, and we all
do that, as as as firefighters will load someone in an ambulance onto a
helicopter and somehow one of us will do a stupid joke. It's usually me,
you know, But and that's so important to have that release, or
like you said, to have that private time onto yourself. And as a
mom, you're going, Okay, I've got laundry, laundry, laundry,
and this toilet is stuffed up and Johnny wants chicken Marcella, okay, or
are we going to get at that. You know, you just you just
And that's the thing too. I tell people self care very important. You
want a note for your audience, I'm with self care. Yeah, I
don't expect anything from anybody. Take care of yourself and everything that you do,
so you can give more of yourself, I think. And I've I've
learned that lesson because I'm so used to saving everybody that I forgot that,
you know, I became weak, you know, or I didn't pay attention
to things that I should have. And it's I'll say this, Elizabeth,
and everybody knows this, but I still love miss A toomin Blonde. I
know, and I know, and there is no doubt in my mind that
that she truly loves me, you know, And and sometimes you know and
that I'll say this and I probably shouldn't, but it still warms me because
I have issues with abandonment and being thrown out, being invisible, and I
did feel all of that a thousand times more in the middle of this war
the world situation. But you know, I'm I'm in a different place and
partly because of that. And I'll say this too, and you read it
in the book four generations, four generations. I've been here at the Russian
River and now my grandson is experiencing that, and I think that is so
beautiful. Yeah I do too. I yeah, I really, I really
love this book. I wasn't sure what to I wasn't sure where you were
going to go with it. You know, I was like, that's what
I want, Christopher rolling on you. I'm like the guy from Inception directly
going, you think is about this? Yeah? I was like, but
that is not what that's about. Yeah. So yeah, it's really it's
really wonderful. So I'm gonna hold it up again to some people know what
we're talking about and go get it and everything. Tell me about the tagline
a little bit, reflections on life choices during a pandemic. Just explain why
you chose that. I wanted because I was I was told I can't say
pandemic. I'm going people know there's a pandemic out there. We should probably
talk about the elephant in the room. I remember one time, I'm going
on for for a second, I'm in Iraq and I have my cross,
and I had Saint Christopher and Saint Jude, and they said, Chief,
you can't wear those Why is that young man might make the terrorists upset?
Well, I think the terrorists are already upset and they know we're here.
So let's just I wanted to have a story within a story within a story
that addressed the elephant of an overwhelming force? What can you do about it?
If anything? And at the same time, you're just in the life,
because life is still moving on in a sense. So it's a very
I think deep subtiles to the book. And yet I love the time of
return to the river. I mean, to me, that's just totally romantic.
Because anything, if you know me for more than five minutes, I
knows you're crushing on me as you should. I'm a romantic. Yeah,
everything in my life is about romance, having a cup of coffee, working
hard, doing a good job, making people laugh, or trying to attempt
the bit of service. Because I will say this, I know what it's
like to be less than zero. I know it's like to be invisible.
Yeah, I know it's like to have nothing or be nothing. And now
that God has blessed me with such a beautiful life, I mean, do
I miss the atomic blonde? Oh heck, yeah, I pray she misses
me a lot more than I'm ass or of course, you know I'm a
guy, but but look at that. I'm a child from a basement.
Yeah. I used to stutter, and you know I smelt so bad kids
would throw up. I was told at age fourteen, death or prison.
By the time I was twenty, there was no chance in hell. Yeah,
who I have a question on that? Hang on, who in the
hell says that? To somebody? It was different back this, Okay,
to explain your audience there for about a year and a half, and I'm
kind of like green man. You know, I'm yeah, I don't make
eye contact, and you know I'm still you know, they're do I mean
eight years in a basement. Really, to this day it's still I have
held like wherever I'm at. But basically it was the child psychiatrists from the
county and he basically said, you know, the abuse was too too much.
He's been socially in EPP for eight years and he said he still cannot
walk or talk. There's no way this thing, this entity is going to
make it with the normal, confined society. And I understand it. But
here's the thing, and I want the audience to kind of slow down for
a second. I love the N word. I do you say no to
me, I'll be back. I can't tell you how many billions of times
you're not good enough, You're not gonna make it, You're unworthy, You're
not going to join my air force. You can't do this, you can't
do that. Really read the bio, babe. Do you have to have
a little bit of adversity, a little bit of challenge? You see what
you're made from. If COVID taught us this, we had to do something,
either do something, freeze in the headlights, or just go cuckoo kuchu.
It only adds to who you are when you're in a divorce, when
you're there's a medical situation, when the fit hits the sham. See how
I said that. I like that. Yeah, I've had one of those,
so I know, find out who you are. Yeah, when you're
having a bad day and you can still give up yourself as a parent or
as a Samaritan, or as a Christian or whatever your faith is. That
shows me something called character and character is important and we need that and that's
what it represents in the book, I believe. Yeah, Yeah, I
am our family is kind of like that. I never used the word adopted
except to just explain this story because it doesn't make sense unless I say that.
So, we have a lot of kids in our family. I'm in
the middle of eleven kids. And my parents were the type of people to
give wherever they could and help whoever they could, and all these things.
So my mom got pregnant with my sister Alex, but before that, she
adopted, adopted Justin. And Justin is a distant family member, but in
our circle of family. But somebody drank and was addicted to drugs throughout his
pregnancy, and so he has feel alcohol syndrome and was born addicted. And
they they warned my mom and dad and all of us that he would never
do all these things ever, no no, no, no no, never,
never talk, never walk, never tie his shoes, never, you
know, the list of you're never going to do anything, and he's never
going to amount to anything. And my parents and family and everybody stuck by
him so tightly that he can he's savant in areas, so incredibly savant in
areas. He can write. He wrote a book. He's a poet.
He has more like if you sat down and talk to him. He would
know more history than you. It's crazy, just stuff like that. And
he's six foot six, he you know all of these things. And so
whence people tell us no, or me know or you know or anything like
that, I get you completely, but I still don't understand why people do
why people don't think and end listen, especially with your charge of people.
Well, I have to say this because I work a lot with folks in
recovery, and they've actually taught me more about life or humanity of life than
any book or any situation. And when someone like that says that to you
or treats you horribly, you can spend so much time and energy finding out
what about this? Like in my case, as we said in the Return
of the River, I'm trying to find my mother's a proval. I'm trying
to do all the chores on time. If I do this, this,
this, this, this, and come up with a cure for cancer and
COVID, maybe maybe maybe she'll like me accept me. You know what,
you can't chase the phantom menace, so you kind of have to like go
to the bathroom, flush the toilet, wash your hands, walk out,
and move on. That's their side of the street. And again because of
time and energy. For me, I just don't have the time and energy
to try to think about figuring out your all your issues. I like the
N word, and that's what I did if my success because I used to
do public speaking and I love doing work with the military because as my family
or my social workers, I'm not the best public presenter when it comes to
major corporations because they want you in a box and I'm definitely not a box.
Boil, Okay, I think, like day, what's the key to
your success? The N word. I'll crawl on glass, I'll go over
under, sideways, backwards. I do what I have to do. And
I had to learn these boxes, these little things in my backpack when I
was a kid. It's simple dimple. My mom does not feed me.
I feed myself. I steal food. I never give in. She would
beat me up. I had to learn a kinesiology, you know, how
to protect myself. I was kind of like that little beautiful mind trying to
think of all these millions of things and how it might connect together, which
is why I did very well in foster care and the military. I was
whoe way above I started out as a swamp cook in Florida, and then
I got to fly for the Air Force. Or again the writing, writing
as you know, as a writer to find a publisher. But you just
it's like, there's a story many years ago after American lady in Oakland,
and we know how easy it is to be a single mom, Black lady
in Oakland. She raised five kids by herself. They all went to college.
How would you do it? She says, I don't need to explain
it to you. I just did what I had. Who do? Yeah?
There it is. Yeah, it's three fifty one. Can you hang
around a little bit more? Can you keep on? I'm gonna I have
some light coming in here. And this made me look very angelic, so
I take care of that, but i'll be back. Okay, there you
go, there's some light. Okay, it's perfect. So we're doing this
live. Okay. Yeah, okay. By the way, I pulled my
hair and got a haircut for you and didn't I was waiting for you for
about an hour and a half. Remember that list. Yeah, Okay.
I don't get out much people. Okay, I'm like, I didn't have
the time, or I wish I would have known you at a time we
could have just texted and recorded earlier, but I feel bad that you were
waiting. Are you in person like if like in like in your day to
day? Are you actually like quiet and shy? Oh yeah, I love
and shy. Personality for you on the show is one provide good, pertinent
information for your audience, to present it in digestible bits and just a little
bit of humor rather than I mean, I can act very official and act
like the statesman and the old professor. That's just not me. But in
real life, I kind of have a persona. I'm kind of Clark Kent
and below the radar where I live because the challenges. Oh my god,
you're that guy who wrote that book. Okay, hey, so I read
that book and I have a thousand questions and my friends and then it's like
whoa, you know everybody you know the type of thing. But I don't
go out a lot. I'm very you know. I go out for maybe
a drink once in a while. I bring my food home, which is
part of my trigger thing. But I you know, and I stay busy.
You know, I'm always doing something for goodness sakes. So yeah,
I was I was on a walk the other day and somebody stopping and said,
are you the lady who wrote that book? And I'm like, oh,
this is kind of strange and and you're kind of quietly walking by yourself,
and but I stopped him like I was really sweet and nice and everything
like that. But I walked away going that's that happened. I was knall
called it. I'll never forget this. A lady friend and I were walking
in Carmel down the street and my lady friend says, your father is very
very important. Your father is very famous. And he's like a teenage like,
wow, big deal. And I sort of got people were pointing in
our direction. I thought, oh my god, Clay East, what's right
behind? It was, Oh my god, it wasn't he wasn't that was
you. I felt like, oh my god, we got to hide out.
But that's part of the thing. You know, you get recognized.
And I'm always you know, I'm very proper, and you know you do
photos and autograph stuff whatever. But I will admit this, sometimes I wish
I invented a better shampoo. I can give you a free bottle spanking on
behind and say, okay, you leave you look great, scally love your
hair. But because of the magnitude of the book and the psychological experience of
the books, and and you know, it really does tap into people's hearts.
Yeah, and and and there is a responsibility. I mean I mail
out probably dozens and dozens of books every week on my time and time,
you know, or we do a lot of gratus things to help people out.
You know, you always want to be of service. But it is
kind of difference, you know. And it's weird because you meet real celebrities
and you ask them that's the first question we talked about, like how the
kids or hey, does this ever happen to you? And they go,
yeah, I'm going, oh my god, I'm in the same club.
Okay, okay, but it's it is a weird thing, but after a
while, it's kind of normal. Yeah, kind of normal. You just
want to be kind and polite. Yeah, tell me about Robin Williams a
little bit more, because I know you love Robin Williams and I love Robin
Williams. I got to make cookies for him. Once my my audience knows
that we love Robin Williams's I really believe, And and and this is kind
of a hard for I mean to talk about. Robin was just one of
the kind of souls this world has ever produced, and he gave of himself
and a lot of people like I have to say no to people sometimes,
Okay, I've already spent an hour with you. I have to go now,
thank you. But Robin was the type of person he always felt he
had to be on and he brought so much joy. And I was telling
you before that this man visited basically every military outpost, outposts and this planet,
and no one knew about it. We had a slight situation on September
eleventh in New York. He might have heard about this. Yes. The
first person to visit us was the president of France, which is amazing because
Lafayette helped us during the Revolutionary War World War One. That was our cry,
Lafayette, we are here, and that's what the United States and France
have always been close brothers and sisters. The second person to stand at ground
zero was Robin Williams. And he made sure that everybody who crawled out,
you know, he would high five them or touch them or tell him a
quick joke and so forth. And I miss Robin Williams, he would have
done so much good work for us during the Trump administration and COVID. I
mean, that's a double header right there. And I miss Robin, and
I was very upset at the situation. But I had someone very close to
me explain exactly how it happened and it was inevitable for him. But I
do believe that he's using Joan Rivers in heaven as a footstool. It's worried
because over the past few months they say, you know, you're kind of
Will Rogers meets Robin Williams and going I will take that. I would,
Okay, I get it. Yeah, me. And it's it's amazing whether
it's a Robin Williams or an uncle or an aunt or a teacher, someone
out of Nowork and have such an amazing, dramatic effect on your life,
you know. And that's why I say, again, you got to leave
that grand adventure to tell a story or two. But you know, there's
just I've had so many millions and millions and millions of people I've been allowed
to visit or spend hours with or years with, and it still has such
a beautiful effect of my life. Hence Miss Atomic Blonde. By the way,
that's a I lifted that song from The Killers Ladies and John Yeah,
yeah, yeah. At what point did you know you could imitate people?
I don't know if that's the right word, but imitate people's voices like you
care. That's that's that's an easy one. In Foster Care, I got
beat up twice a day. I spy got I was in junior high and
if I didn't stand on the square before the bus picked us up, they
would hunt me down. I got beat up. God, yeah, because
I was the kid who people with the glasses and I had red corduroy pants
and a green flannel shirt. You know, you know, live on to
school with you. I would I used to step in you could you could
have been my Lucy Lou. I would have. Yeah, there would be.
It was I spent so much time free time in movie theaters, and
I would see movies and and and and then, as I was learning to
speak at age fourteen, rather than using my voice, I would remember a
line that's the most powerful handgun in the world and blow your head clean off.
And I said that, and they said, dude, next time you
get beat up, you got to tell that bully that line, and of
course the bully goes, what did you do this weekend calls? Your smells
are really you're talking to me? Will are you punk? WHOA? The
Bully's like taken aback, but only for a few seconds. Then he beat
me up and his friends will say, oh my god, you made me
laugh. And at that time, by coincidence, there was that Robin Williams
show Mark from Orc whatever, a more com minny show. And then I
would watch actors and a lot of people when they do comedy, they just
only do the voice. Like when I do the comedy, you do the
whole character. The other shats and egg is fantastic. And this is amazing
because I'm so pumped up. So I learned very quickly that I can kind
of diffuse the situation and and and I think the best comedy show I ever
did was Live in Kuwait, and it was like an HBO show, a
little bit of adult situations, but at the same time I mixed in some
psychology about how you adjust when you go back home from a war zone.
But I think it's it's I'm not trying to be a comedian per se,
because I'd rather be known for the new sense of being trying to be a
Will Rogers. But I've learned over the many, many years that you know,
a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down. Yeah. Yeah,
I was gonna ask you, are you're going to do stand up or
anything like that, but I think answer, I'm going to stand up for
your show up. Okay up, Okay, Yeah, it's perfect. This
started out being a letter to your teachers. Oh the first book. Oh,
the first Oh, the first book. I thought this one did too.
No, you're a letter to the teachers. Okay, dad, I
got that wrong. Let's let's talk about the teachers, because I sometimes want
to do that too. Is like write a letter to the people who have
saved my life before, because I'm a human being who like you, would
be called to my house to make sure I'm okay and give me up an
nefriend because I have life threatening food allergies. So the fire I know the
fire crew very well and every town I've ever lived in the rescue team.
Do you tell me about those letters? And did you did you write them?
Did you talk about you? And what I wanted to do? And
it's like anything in life, you know, you really don't plan to find
all in love. You don't plan for this, plan for that. I
was a very young man flying for the Air Force, had a babe and
got involved as acclensear in juvenile hall, and I thought, what if I
can write this letter, a kind of a long letter, explain the situations
and then how they intervened and helped me. And eventually that became a child
called it. And I will say this with love in my heart. That
book was printed years before it was officially published, and that's a different thing.
And that book was given to my teachers on the exact twenty day anniversary
of my rescue. And as you know, the first two books were dedicated
to my teachers. And I used to spend my rescue celebration by visiting the
schools before the teachers retired and doing in service training. And it got to
the point that went from like a half day, six hour visit to a
seven day pillars or palooza which I would visit all the schools or juvenile halls
or the colleges and trying to help out. And what I would do too,
because I am a romantic. My my teacher, Miss Constant she's oh,
oh, oh, she's just a small little teacher. All right.
I bought a bouquet one time that was bigger than her. She retired.
She says, you know what I'm gonna do with you, David, you
can teach my class for half an hour an hour. I said, all
right, I'll do kinda darden cop and we'll go outside and do the exercise
and un and I used to take him to a restaurant that they used to
visit, and I have to this day. I mean, I've I've been
allowed to visit kings for presidents, for celebrities or whatever. And it's it's
kind of cool because I have to, like, Okay, Dave, don't
do the Robin Williams thing when they say don't be don't do comedy. It's
it's I had mister Reagan put his arm around me one time. I said
do me, do me Now, I'm like, oh, mister president,
And I was so nervous I could not do his voice. Yeah, but
I've I have no photos that are framed except for present Reagan and myself.
No photos framed. And I have hundreds of photos in a box. But
I'm proud to say, you know, I have right behind me photos of
mister Ziggler and myself or my teachers on the twentyth anniverse and my rescue or
taking my teachers out, and they're in a frame. And to me,
it's just such a blessing for me to remember and have those memories. Yeah,
that was my next question. Who's on your wall? So you got
that one? Yeah, you knew that looking at Stephen. Here behind me
is my teachers and my time in foster care. And over here there's a
lot of photos of Stephen, but my little grandson is slowly taken over like
the virus taken over, taken over. There it is, I got you.
I see what do I see? I see Stephen, I see s
J. I see my teachers, I see you, I see everybody.
So this is my Davey Romper room. I guess that's perfect. Yeah,
I'd like to how you did that in the book too, where you described
your new your your surroundings and things like that. It gave us a pretty
good visual. Let me let me ask you this and and and we're going
a little off here. No, it's okay. What did you think about
the parallel of the story at the very end and the Monet painting. Wasn't
that beautiful? I think I did think that was absolutely beautiful. And to
describe it to your audience, ladies and gentlemen, I love. I'm sorry,
no, keep going. I had painting I had in storage for many
years, and when I came to the river my townhouse. It's very romantic,
I took it out of its box and I actually studied the painting that
I've owned for twenty years. I just glanced at yeah, and what it
was. This beautiful couple is in the background on a Sunday afternoon, and
everything is all around you so much beauty, and I think the man proposed
to the woman or the lady said to her husband, honey, were pregnant.
It was to me something that boomed and happened, yeah, boom,
and yet it was there all the time, So which represented me, you
know, slow down and look at the inner part of it. Yeah,
you know, I've I read that and I thought the same thing. I'm
like that people who I think, people who like Mona do that with his
pictures, are like, what's actually happening here? And you see that in
photos? And I'm looking at right now because you see the major moment.
But then what's behind it that moment that makes it so unique? Yeah,
we did a lot of that in the book. Yeah. I have page
two O nine dog eared two here and I want to know. Oh,
I have a question for you this you can pass on this because again I
know not what I asked, But how come you how can you wrote your
father's the most broken person you've ever known, and not your mother. Oh
that's easy, Okay, I'm curious. I'm like that is that is so
easy for me and it's kind of like wrenching. I'm sorry. Nothing could
have saved my mother. Nothing, No, ye, mom my mom.
Elizabeth never had a chance. She was raised in a nineteen thirties in Salt
Lake City, Utah. It was men, dogs and way below that women
was raised. Keep your mouth shut. This didn't happen, Mary, mister
Mann. Keep it in a lockbox. Boom boom boom. And then you
saw it in the second act of the book, The Darth Vader of Darth
Vaders, my grandmother. Oh yeah, I was like that didn't know that?
Yeah, oh yeah, because I wanted to kind of look at that
scope. I got to that and like, it gets worse there's a line,
and we'll continue with my father here in a second. I'm in the
bottom of the basement. I'm basically a caged animal. My mother and grandmother
are screaming at each other. You're not good enough, You're stupid, You're
ugly. I told you this would never work. The controlling vial of my
grandmother that crushed my mother. That was one of the reasons why my mother
wanted to escape, and one of the reasons why she might have become an
alcoholic. She had three kids in less than four years. Oh my god,
are we learning yet? And there's a scene in which my mother opens
up the door to the garage, flips on the light and I'm just this
cage like animal, and my mother says, there it is. I told
you it's still there. And my grandmother says, that's the sorriest child I
have ever seen. And my mother this turns to her and Schmirk's and that's
what used to say about me. So mom never had a chance. My
father was a very very gentle person. My father always just to say,
one of these days, I'm gonna have a talk with her, and I'm
gonna tell I'm gonna one of these days you wait and I'm gonna take care
of this. But he was so gentle. My mom was so overwhelming,
and I think my father didn't understand, Oh my god, we've got God.
I'm living with God's Zilla. I'm living with the anti Christ. And
the fact too, he gave my mom every single scent of his check.
They separated, and he was homeless at times. So I think that is
the perfect sentence Elizabeth to me, he was the most broken person in the
world. And as you saw in the book too, I lied, Yeah,
I told him before he died, Oh, I got the house and
we're gonna go to the Russian River and no one's It was so mice and
men, and I couldn't believe that I was lying so badly, you know,
But I will say this being the romantic, and you read it in
the book. You know, I carried his badge on every association, thousands
of in service trainings, war zones, rescue ops. As a firefighter,
you know, I had my badge for two separate fire districts, which was
crazy. And then his badge was like, okay, this side, Skinny,
this side is Beyonce, say okay, Jaylo Waltu wants half her cheekback.
Okay, thank you very much. Yeah, it feels it feels to
me like you really loved him. You know, I loved him, you
know, the father's son thing. I loved him when he tried to represent,
you know, as a firefighter. I loved him because I really believed
at the time and that linear, childlike sense, one of these days is
going to happen. There was a scene in the book, and I threaded
it very carefully. The editors weren't sure I'm going This is called a lead.
This is a mcguffin. This is a switch in which my father is
separating from my mom on Saturday, rainy glum day. My mother presents his
entire life in a wet cardboard box. And I was so scared because I
didn't want to live. Oh my god, my Mom's going to kill me.
And I was going to escape, and I, by accident, I
opened the door and I was going to run off to live in an alley.
And one second later, by accident, father closes the door, and
I thought, did you do that deliberately or was it just an accident?
And that's why that scene in the end of the book as that ocation with
my father and mine myself, it's very sad. Do you wish you would
have Do you wish you would have run off? Oh? Hell yeah?
Yeah? But then again too, I mean, my problem was it's almost
like I'm a single mom or I'm a mom. It's abused, and I
got three kids. Where the heck was I going to go? How would
I survive? So? And I already had millions of plans since I was
four, And at age twelve, I almost escaped again, but I was.
I was so lucky that that hours before I was supposed to have that
weekend home alone with mom, the entire weekend that was rescued. And imagine
that too. I mean, at age fifty two, I became a firefighter.
My father died at age fifty six. Let me get that right again.
At age fifty two, you became a firefighter. Yeah, your dad
died at fifty six. Yeah. That's the hell of a thing, ain't
it. Yeah? And he had he I can forgive my mom for what
she did to me, can kill I understand the dynamic of how this cancer
grew. That's my job, Elizabeth, As I'm a psychological warrior. I
read what people what makes them great, How politicians solve problems, doctors Walt
Disney, Rivn Williams. I also studied Timothy McVeigh, Oklahoma Killer. And
what I'm looking for is, what was that one trigger? You know,
I actually wrote in my mind a crime I'm seen on a disaster of Mount
Everest from the book in the Thin Air. I know exactly who caused that
one precipice of situations. My mom never had a chance. There's nothing no
one could have done, even in this day and age, with all that
we have. My father was just so so broken. And again at the
end of the day, and I'll say this, I have a grandson,
I have ice. Tomorrow. There's a bit. You're the only woman that
knows this. Only you know this. Don't tell anybody Tomorrow is clean sheet
Friday. All right, It's going to be flowers. The only other human
being I know that I talked about sheets in my book, you know,
Okay, the only other human being. I remember too, And I remember,
and I wrote this in the book, and I wrote in the first
book too. When my mom stabbed me, I was like nine years old,
and it was an accident. It wasn't premeditated. Like mother read that,
but still and then I remember waking up when blood's going a hospital could
have been involved, perhaps well that and I thought we're going to the hospital
and I didn't want food? What did I want? Clean cheet? So
it's amazing how you can have an experience that might be a joyful experience or
a negative experience as a child, and how it still carries through the rest
of your life. And I just try to be joyful about it. I
really do. Yeah, no, I can tell and I'm and I'm I'm
proud of you for doing that. And I think it's I think it's so
I don't know what I think yet. I'm still meeting you, but I
think I think it's a really special human being that can go through what you've
gone through and you're smiling and you're compassionate and you're kind. But I'm also
I made a lot of mistakes. Oh yeah, but you know I own
it, I really And that's the moment too, is I remember when I
was a new fire fighter. We debreathe everything as much as we can,
and there's a million things happen on every call, and I was kind of
embarrassed to raise my handset Oops, that was my bad and that, but
after you kind of like do it a lot. It's cleansing, Yeah,
it's cleansing. But then you know, you know, you own you have
to own your side of the street, good or bad. Did you ever
have a moment where and again you can pass on this or if it's a
dumb question, let me know and then we're going to go. Did you
ever have a moment where I don't know how to explain this, but now
it can be good or bad, Like it can go like the way the
doctor's like he's gonna end up this way or this way. Did you ever
have a moment where you decided or is that not in you at all?
Like you can like be pissed. Okay, he's so completely pissed that that
life. You know, I've never had that question ployees before, but I'll
tell you the try I said it right either, but I know what you're
saying absolutely hell yeah, yeah, And that's why I really particularly as you
grow, you know, you have to make there's checkpoints and you may there's
a scene that I wrote about in which I'm being teased in the fifth grade
on Friday, and I always hated Friday because that means that whole weekend I'm
going to be in the hell house. And I mean tease and I on
the inside, my little fantasy mind, I jump up and scream and hurl
like you've got clean sheets and you get food, and you have no idea
what my life was like. Damn lucky. And there are points in my
life I wanted to just release vomit thermonuclear dave. And I think at times
I've done a little bit of you know, a little bit of lava,
a little bit, but it might have been too much for some people.
But I've always wanted to be on a higher path, yeah, because I
mean, we do movies about it. If you look at Star Wars,
the original Star Wars, it was a space Western. Yeah, it was
a very psychological space Western. Once you travel down this path, young Skywalker,
forever, it will control your destiny, I tell you. And I've
always wanted to be on the side of righteousness, yeah, because when you're
raised in evil. And I remember Miss Catan said that my foster mother,
and I practically fainted. She told a staff member, you know, I've
been in foster care for many years. I've seen thousands of kids hundreds of
parents. Missus Pelzer was absolute evil. And the way she just said that,
this Christian woman saying that to a staff member, I could I've seen
the darkness and I'd rather be you know, that's I wasn't really expected that.
In the day of interview. He's rather effable and kind of funny.
Well maybe that can be a lesson. Yeah, because we see a lot
of evil right now, school shootings, political divide, countries that are being
overwhelmed for what. Yeah, it's just terrible. So if I can shine
a little bit of light. And I pray with this one show because I
know we're going a little long, but that's fine. I pray that your
audience can take two or three things away and going hmm. I'm gonna try
that. I'm gonna make a note of that. I'm gonna do this.
Here's my thing, and I know we got to wrap up here. We
do be kind, to be nice, do three nice things a day,
step outside yourself, attempt and try be happy. Be happy now, be
happy now, damn it. There it is beautiful. I don't want to
go, but I gotta go. Well, we'll do show. Let's do
another show. Listen, Yeah, I want you in Redhead. Next time,
I want you with the redhead. Okay, your husband will thank me
lad for that. Okay, actually I actually do have red hair. It's
kind of funny. But no, but I want to wrap up with this
too. And I know we're going on, but that's okay, this is
important. Yeah, tell us more. Right now, our country is still
in a show yet a lot of people are very afraid, in part because
of COVID YEA. The political division as of a few days ago has divideds
even further. A lot of people are scared. We need people like yourself,
Miss Elizabeth, to keep speaking up and stepping out. Your audience should
be praising your greatness because you don't need to do this. And I want
to thank you for all that you have done with your writings and with your
show like this, and it's my privilege to be on your show. But
the quote, my friend, mister Schwarzenegger, I'll be back all right.
It was really nice meeting you, and I wish you all the best of
all of your success with your book. I'm just going to tell everybody here
it is again Returned to the River. This is available on Amazon. It's
available wherever books are sold. It's available on Barnes and Noble, Simon and
Schuster. But I think one of the most important things lately for people and
bookstores is those independent bookstores. So make sure you go in. If it's
not in there, you can go in and ask for it and it'll be
in there. So I think that's really important these days too, because I
know it's important on Amazon too, but you know, the bookstores are craving,
craving writers books. So anyway, all right, I'll be back.
Thank you so much for being here. It was just an absolute joint honor
your family, and thank you so much. All Right, everybody, thanks
for listening. Everybody, take care,