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Hi everybody, and welcome to the
best Ever, Best Ever You Show.

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I'm Elizabeth, Yes, I know
who I am, but I have Dave

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Palzer with me. How are you
welcome? I'm fine, I'm talking.

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I'm gonna read laughing. You know
I messed up on my own name.

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It's not good, but we keep
you know, everybody knows we never edit

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this show, and whatever it is, it is. Ed Asner answered adorable

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in the middle of our show.
We're good. So introduction for Dave Palzer.

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I'm just going to read this this. You've done a lot of stuff,

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and you are I'm just gonna read
so. And I edited a little

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bit too, because I wanted to
add some things about you as I was

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reading more about you. But you
are an individual who represents overcoming adversity,

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and I would say one of the
best examples of resilience we have. I

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can't even believe some of the things. So when I think of resilience and

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I think of you, and what
an example you are of of reaching to

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be your best. So you've dedicated
your life to helping others, which to

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me represents such a compassion about you
in a benevolence about you. But others

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have helped themselves and us to learn
how to help ourselves through adverse situations.

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And I learned I didn't know this
about you. You're a former Air Force

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combat air crew member and your job
entailed midair refueling of the ones highly secretive

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SR seventy one Blackbird and the F
seventeen Stealth Fighter. And while in active

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duty, you were selected as California
Volunteer of the Year. That's pretty amazing.

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So I want to learn all about
all about that too. I just

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want to sit here and learn all
about you. So but this is so

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cool everybody listening and watching. You've
received personal recommendations from four US presidents.

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Now how many people can say that? That's amazing? And you were honored

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as one of the ten Outstanding Young
Americans and later was the only American to

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be honored as the Outstanding Young Person
of the World. I want to know

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about that. And the recipient of
the National Jefferson Award that I know about,

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which is considered the Pulitzer Prize for
public service. And you're in a

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really good company there with Santa Day
O'Connor. And I never know whether to

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say named Colin or Colin you hear
both ways. I say, Colin,

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which one is it? Colin Powell? General? Yeah, yeah, of

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course, But I always, you
know, you see that messed up so

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often that you don't know which one
is just a normal person, It's like,

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and you can't really ask him.
We go, how do you,

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sir? How do you pronounce your
name? Exactly right? But anyway,

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I think he corrects people here and
there. But you're the author of nine

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inspirational books, or he did correct
people. His books have been on the

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best sellers or you books have been
on the best seller for well over thirteen

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years combined. A child called It
Alone was on the has has it been

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on? Or was on? I
don't know how to word that the New

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York Times Bestsellers list for well over
six years, which is incredible. And

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you're the first author to have four
number one international best sellers and to have

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four books simultaneously on the New York
Times best seller list. That's incredible.

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You must just kind of like this
all the time, now, I know

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you don't, and I know for
nearly the last ten years you've served as

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a California fire captain in two separate
districts, which I want to know which

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ones too. I think I know, but I want to know a little

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bit more. During that time,
you've been deployed to some of those states

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most horrendous fires, and there's a
lot of that going on out there.

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I worry about people out there with
all the floods and fires and everything,

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and now the the incredible amount of
snow, which I think I hope people

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are grateful for because it makes it
so much. I hope everything to settle.

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Yeah. Really, it's all over
the place out there. So welcome

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and welcome to the best every shows. Thank you for having me on your

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show. I know you're very busy. No, well, you know,

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not really that busy. But it's
okay, all right, there's said a

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lot of time doing my hair now
I'm just kidding. It's funny. So

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we're here to talk. I have
your book. We're here to talk about

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your new book, Return Up,
Return to the River. And can I

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just ask you right off the bat
about the cover because this is such a

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beautiful cover. It's a it's a
good Easter ray. Question one I had.

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I was kind of like co produced
for this book with Health Communications because

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they had the first two books and
they gave me a lot of latitude,

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and what I wanted to do was
convey a romantic title with a serious subtitle

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and a beautiful setting. And I
found a local author in the Russian River

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area, Nan Still, and I
commissioned her to hand paint the cover for

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the book, and that represents the
summer of nineteen sixty six, which tells

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the story within the book, the
best summer I had as a young child

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with my family before everything went you
know, a little bit sideways, as

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we say. And it's a beautiful
It has your Parker Bridge there, it

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has the place for kids to play, the little riverboat that came into the

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area, the concession stand, and
it's it's it's really beautifully romantic. Yeah,

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and it's meaningful. I when I
first got the book, I'm like,

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Okay, that means something. It's
up to me to figure out what

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it is. You do to figure
it out? Yeah, yeah, And

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so I love that. So thank
you for explaining that. Why another book?

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What made you turn around and go? Okay? I go. Anybody

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who knows me knows that one.
I'm not a really good writer, and

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I really it takes me a good
eight to ten hours to write describe a

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single paragraph, and when I write, I feel like I'm a film director.

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It's very visual, it has a
lot of emotion to it. And

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when I write, it's really not
about my character. It's about you putting

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yourself in that character's place, looking
at situations and how you would have done

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things or not done things. And
this was what I call an unexpected pregnancy,

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because it usually takes me about a
good year and a half two years

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to do a pretty good rough draft. This book was written suddenly and I

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had it all basically wrapped up within
six to eight months, which was fast

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for me. And part of the
reason was that I was kind of going

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through a change in life. An
unexpected situation happened. I had two major

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losses, is in the middle of
COVID and on top of that, trying

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to find a place to live which
represents your heart, your safety, and

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at the same time doing my James
Bond Jack Bauer firefighting thing in two separate

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districts. And what I like about
the book, it's kind of a beautiful,

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haunted, romantic love story, and
it's really about family dynamics and generational

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situations and kind of take an inventory
of your life and where you at what

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are you doing, why you're doing
this? And where do you want to

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basically settle? And it's it's really
a cosa. It's a very powerful Costa

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Blanca love story. It is I
it is that for sure. I gotta

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tell you. My heart hurts though
sometimes in this and it did with your

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with a child called it too,
And of course I mean it should hurt

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from that. But it makes me
so mad that that happened to you.

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I don't even know how to explain
it. I was nervous to interview you

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because I felt like I might misspeak
about about things that have happened to you

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know kind of but but I mean, you know, to talk intelligently about

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something I kind of know nothing about. But I'm reading about you. It

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makes me so mad. I don't
know what other emotions I have if sad,

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mad, everything. I mean,
I'm not crying right now. I'm

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like, why would this? You
know, who's the thing, Liz,

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And you know this because you know
you're a parent, and you've moved around

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in different life, You've done different
things. You meant beautiful people. And

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I'll say this with love in my
heart. Bad things happen if we've learned

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anything from COVID, if we've learned
anything from the fires or the floods or

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tornadoes. Okay, life is not
fair. Life is not easy. Bad

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things happen to good people every single
day. It's a fire. Captain.

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We have a saying. I tell
the young kids, we're going to meet

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extraordinary people and the worst parts of
their life. So do things with humanity.

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And then you look at the book
in itself, and it's about the

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tumbers in life. How certain things
happen to me at a certain time that

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elevated me to escape from being abused, to be allowed to serve in the

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air force, they'll be allowed to
fly, or all these little things that

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this come together when you really really
need it, whether it's compassion, love,

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advice, or maybe even a kick
in the pants. Because I will

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say this list I really believe,
particularly at my time of life, I

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sit into you in a small,
beautiful townhouse looking at the beautiful redwood trees.

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I don't know anybody who's had as
much luck or blessings than myself.

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And it's you know, we all
take hits, we all follow down,

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we all falter, but you want
to strive to get up and at the

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same time. And this is important
for your audience. An audience, write

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this down if you're taking notes.
You survive to be happy. There it

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is, you survive so you can
do what you want when you want.

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I've never met anybody, Elizabeth that
says I'm a victim of can So they

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say, I fight the cancer.
I survived the cancer. And every day

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is a blessing in California. In
Oakland, California, we have at least

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one to seven shootings a day.
I say, every day our kids come

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home from schools safe. There's a
great day. Every day we don't get

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COVID. Great day if we go
to Applebee's. Okay, man, I'm

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on supersize fries. Thank you very
much. You know you survived to be

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happy. Maybe me being smacked around
for the first twelve years of my life

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wasn't a blessing. But what I've
been able to do because of that.

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Every time I have a meal,
ice water my biggest thing. And and

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everybody knows this. I love clean
sheets. If I had Oprah money,

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I'd have my sheets changed twice a
day. Okay, love clean I'm sending

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you some sheets. I'm sending some
bamboo opra sheets. Oh baby baby,

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it's it's kind of like you come
back from a war, yeah, whether

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it's the COVID war or physical wars, ecological war, and you go,

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wow, this is pretty cool.
There's a I Love movies, Elizabeth,

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and there's a movie called Castaway,
and there's always a takeaway line like I'd

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be back, go ahead and make
my day the takeaway and Castaway. I

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have ice. I have ice.
And it's always the simplest things, whether

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it's a sunrise or sunset, you
know, or the kids are sleeping or

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just they're doing the kid thing,
or you go to the bathroom at two

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o'clock in the morning, you go
back to bed and you can spoon with

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that person and that murmur. You
see, it's always the small things.

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It's not once I get a million
dollars, once I countered Mount Everest.

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It's always the little things in life. And that's what the Return to the

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River I think, really really really
represents. You just open up your heart,

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you let in the good, you
let in the bad. But what

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was that line from wasn't in Churchill? When you're going through hell, you

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just keep going the line from World
War Z Brad Pitt plays to doctor life

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is about movement, just keep moving, and my character or myself I just

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had to kind of like exam that
and say, Okay, life isn't fair.

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I didn't expect these things to happen
to me, but I've got to

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do something. And at the same
time, I'm trill trying to be of

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service to others who need help more
than I do. Yeah, yep,

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that's exactly. As a writer,
I've written a lot, and I've been

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fortunate enough to have some commercial success, but I really think this is the

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best writing I've ever ever ever done, because it's really about how everybody can

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hopefully look at life and say,
you know what, I need to do

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this or I don't want to do
that. I don't want to take this

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for granted. I need to kind
of just okay, little up spring cleaning,

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do some inventory, and then live, you know, a better happy

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life because you know, because we're
best ever you and we do help people

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a lot through adverse seeing things like
that. One of the questions I always

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ask people is about their incredible yes
and do you have a moment where you

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said yes to something or someone and
it completely changed your life? All the

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time I know there's a lot of
moments all the time, one or two

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or three like that. You know, God has blessed me. I think

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what I've done, I've been lucky, but I've kind of given myself permission

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to do those mission impossible things.
You know, it took me. I

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didn't speak until I was like fourteen
because I wasn't allowed to speak, and

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my trachyn esophagus was scarred from small
and ammonia twice in twenty four hours,

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so I had to learn slowly.
I couldn't even tie my shoes because my

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fingertips were numb from working with chemicals
for all those years. I mean,

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he's a kid that couldn't speak,
and now I'm allowed to do calm or

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speak different languages. That child with
no coordination that was allowed to fly for

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the Air Force, or I never
thought as a kid back in the day,

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boys wanted to be out or not. Some girls want to do the

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ballerina thing, or they wanted to
play baseball. I just wanted to write

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because I was in the basement reading
Stevenson, you know, Treasure Island or

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Mice and Men by Steinbeck, or
I could not believe I said yes,

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today's fifty two to become a firefighter. So I think what it is is

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you have to be open to try
to attempt to do something, and some

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things work out, whether it's relationships
or jobs or you know, your your

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journey on life man plan. God
laughs. But I've said yes to a

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lot of things, and I'm at
the age right now I'm kind of slowed

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down and can go wow. I
always say, here's the line. I

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say, I'll read this to you. I'm supposed to be in the book,

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and it's going to be in the
next printing. I tell this to

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my young firefighters a lot. I
say, live a grand adventure, to

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tell a great story. And there's
another line, and this is a good

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one for your listeners. I heard
this in a movie and I was crying.

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The proper function of men is to
live, not to exist. I

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shall not waste my days in trying
to prolong them. I shall use my

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time. Jack London in this,
when we have returned to the river,

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we make mention of COVID, this
invisible, all overwhelming force. In any

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situation, there's a pattern. There's
always denied, denied, deny. Okay,

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then there's anger and the bargaining.
Okay, if I do this,

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you do that, take me back, blah blah blah. Then there's the

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depression. And finally the fifth step
is I accept it. I have to

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accept that we live in COVID,
we have to be in house, we

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have to live in a different manner, we have to do certain things,

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whether it's nine to eleven post World
War two or per say something like COVID

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or a divorce or a medical situation. So I try to kind of like

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use these different metaphors within the book
to really talk about where are you at

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and where are you going? At
the same time, be happy in your

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journey. I mean, and the
book I lost the Atomic Blonde the most

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amazing I feel. I always feel
bad. It makes people laugh and make

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them cry like how could you do
that to you? And it's it's and

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that's the thing too. What I
wanted to do is I'm tired, and

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I think America is tired on on
the Johnny Depp Amber divorces. I don't

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need to see it twenty hours a
day for five weeks. Serious problems in

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this country and in this world and
creeping up on the crap dashings is no

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longer on any buddies. Did I
say that right? He did? Creeping

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up on the crap? I did
say that right, I did. It's

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who cares. Here's the thing.
We need strong people like yourself to step

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up to the plate and attempt to
try to help other people out. Yeah,

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medical services or mental service is going
to be the big thing in the

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next twenty to thirty years. So
let's address the situation. Maybe not be

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so serious and move on and be
happy. Yeah, you have a lot

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of long jokes. I'm going to
refrain, I don't know she dies or

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hair ladies and gentlyn No, you
can't tell it all, can you?

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No, I don't see nothing.
Okay, take my Instagram and I'll post

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pictures of the three hundred foils in
my hair. And I'm gonna tell your

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audience this. When I think when
we first talk before we start recording,

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didn't I say you looked a lot
younger? You did? Yeah? Those

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are good. Those are good interview
points. Thank you. Okay, I'm

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going to make you look good.
List Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,

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anybody I am in my it's wild
too, you know, I it's

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wild. How age? You know
we're we're aging? And I think kind

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of getting better as we age.
You know, I think I know more

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than I used to know. But
you know, the approach, it's kind

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of like m fifties. Yeah,
and it's amazing because I'm I'm sixty two

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and you have my grandson is like, you know, I can't keep up

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with the man. Slow down,
slow down says, we got to get

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to everything. Let's go, let's
go. But it's amazing when the inside

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kind of matches the outside, because
there's certain things now that I didn't do

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back then, like raise my hand
asking a question, or just I think

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for me, it's about time and
energy that I don't have that much time

250
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and energy to listen to other people's
white noise, unnecessary drama or to me,

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everything's about going to bed. Resting
sleep differs with my rest are sleep.

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I just don't have time for it. There's I learned this from a

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beautiful lady many years ago. She
had a problem with her son and she

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said, stop it. You're fifteen. You have no answers to life.

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And I don't know how many more
summers I have left. There's a note

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to write down, you know,
when you're on a vacation. You know,

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we gotta do this. We got
to do that. We don't have

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a lot of time. Let's get
it all in, you know, use

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the forest, Luke, do the
type the first tide Chea moves. She

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pushed down the energy. Then you
go out, take that, about that

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and return to the river about again, using your time and just finding your

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happy place, your happy spot.
And in my case, it just happened

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to be the river the cover of
nineteen sixty six on the book. As

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you read, my mom pulled me
into her chest and we had a moment

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for like eight seconds and affected me
for the rest of my life. Those

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beautiful eight seconds we watched the sun
set. I really believe she loved me

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and we can fix things. Or
that same summer, my father and I

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took a two minute walk, big
deal. But for me, that small

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little thing was enough to get me
through some of the hard times. Yeah,

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you know, I really like I
hope I turned to the right page

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here, I didn't turn to the
oh here it is. I like it

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when your son says, you know, I want you to be happy.

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You're a good person. You do
so much too much for everyone. Now

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it's time for you. What of
them, isn't it beautiful. It really

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is. Yeah, I in the
middle of this is the middle of the

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COVID right after the shutdown, and
I was working back and forth, and

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you know, it's coincidental, and
we talked about tumblers. I swort it

278
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down on the Bible. I just
got a text from his lovely wife saying,

279
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because we spent and I didn't know
this. I think someone from the

280
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publisher told me. They said,
do you realize you're coming up on the

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fiftieth anniversary of your rescue mister Pelzer. I'm like wall and it just really

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then hit me. And usually,
as you read in the book, I

283
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work. I'm always up service.
And this year we decided just to do

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something with the family. I took
my grandson to San Francisco Golden Gate Park.

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My grandson is three and a half. I took my son at three

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and a half to Golden Gate Park
to do the same thing, the aquarium,

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the Japanese thing, and so forth. That was last month, and

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then not even an hour ago,
my beautiful daughter in law says, oh

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my god, we had a blast. Da da da da dada. And

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I'm like, oh, and it's
just amazing how you can kind of just

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change. And this is important for
your audience. People want to do radical

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shifts. Three easy payments in nineteen
ninety five. I want to lose one

293
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thousand pounds in five seconds. Oh
I got a relationship. No, I

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don't know, I got one.
I mean, slow down. It's always

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the simple things that can bring you
so much joy, but you kind of

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have to be open to it,
and you got to just change your scope

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just a little bit. Yeah,
when so COVID hit, like, I

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was completely freaked out. I'm just
gonna I haven't really shared this too much

299
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with the world, but you know, completely freaked out. You know,

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like we gathered kids from college and
everybody came back home, and I was

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like, well, this is interesting. This is time that I would not

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normally have with you. So we're
going to make the best of this,

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you know. So we had some
fun there as a family, you know,

304
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hunkered down, trying to stay safe
and all those things. But those

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really scary. That's really scary.
You're like, Okay, what's going to

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happen to us? You see people
dying? You know, You're just it's

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unclear you were helping everybody during this
time. But when I'm reading this were

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you scared for your own well being
as well, or were you telling you

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know, Liz, that's a great
question, and I always have to be

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honest, whether it makes me look
like an idiot, which is not hard

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for me to do. I think
I was just too ignorant to think about

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the magnitest within the magnitude, within
the magnitude, because I've been to rescue

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ops like in Katrina. I've been
to war zones, you know, and

314
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these things are overwhelming. Or being
a fire captain, you know, you're

315
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overwhelmed because you're worried about this house, this person, this block, safety

316
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Da da da da. But after
a while there's a certain calmness and you

317
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have to be kind of calm.
And I think, looking at it now,

318
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it was so overwhelming for everybody,
you know, And I got to

319
00:22:25.720 --> 00:22:30.400
give a shout out to the truck
drivers. I was expecting mad Max type

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situation where people would, you know, kidnap or fuel or fuel trucks or

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medical supplies, and these people just
they did the same thing. They said,

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well, I'm going to keep on
driving. So I think for me

323
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being on the other side, rather
than being overly hunkered down, it gave

324
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me more freedom, you know,
because I can drive around backwards of the

325
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fire engine and wave at everybody.
But it was looking at it now,

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extremely serious. Mister COVID came to
visit me three weeks ago. Third time,

327
00:23:00.880 --> 00:23:03.799
I'm going COVID. We broke up. I'm seeing other viruses. Thank

328
00:23:03.839 --> 00:23:07.720
you by to go, you know, and COVID went fall on, Covid

329
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went. And I'm still a little
icky about that. But for my position,

330
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you know, you just do what
you have to do for the now,

331
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and that's an important thing, you
know, whether you're depressed now,

332
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are feeling angry now, it's just
for the now. You haven't only a

333
00:23:19.960 --> 00:23:23.720
bad day. But looking at it
now, you know, I'm like,

334
00:23:23.759 --> 00:23:26.359
wow, how did we do that? How did these people think of this?

335
00:23:26.720 --> 00:23:30.799
And sometimes you don't know what to
do, but at least you do

336
00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:36.039
something. So we did what's called
PPE protective personal equipment. We mask,

337
00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:38.200
we glove all the time, and
we just put on like another layer.

338
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It's almost like you're going onto a
combat situation. You have kevlar, you

339
00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:48.160
have armory of weapons. It's another
layer of life. But I really think

340
00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:51.559
as a country and the world at
large, we all did pretty darn good

341
00:23:51.559 --> 00:23:55.400
because this thing could have been a
lot worse. And that's why I mentioned

342
00:23:55.400 --> 00:23:59.480
the book and I do little nuances
to movies, and I said, this

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was the war of the world's pandemic. It really was. It was overwhelming.

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And then you look at it just
like I said, Wohan, what

345
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that can't happen to us? What
Venice? What Seattle? Oh my god?

346
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I mean anger, you know,
And then you saw it and then

347
00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:22.480
the political side, the anger involved, and that doesn't help in a bad

348
00:24:22.519 --> 00:24:26.599
situation. You want people to be
cool, common, logical and hopefully aspire

349
00:24:26.680 --> 00:24:30.000
you just if you're a parent.
The kids chopped off their finger, they're

350
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:33.039
screaming, Oh, it's nothing,
It's only a finish mood. I got

351
00:24:33.079 --> 00:24:37.160
this, you know, you just
kind of that type of thing. But

352
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it was looking at it now,
it could have been scarier. Yeah,

353
00:24:41.960 --> 00:24:47.480
it couldn't be scarier. But I
think everybody, everybody over the age of

354
00:24:47.519 --> 00:24:51.359
five, contributed to a positive way
on this. Yeah. That's a that's

355
00:24:51.359 --> 00:24:52.960
a really that's a really good way
to think about it too, because I

356
00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:56.880
know I did everything to self soothe
that I could possibly do, including you

357
00:24:56.880 --> 00:25:00.400
know, take myself to the parking
lot of home depot where there's a marsh

358
00:25:00.440 --> 00:25:04.400
and redwood and blackbirds hang out and
sat there and took pictures of redwood blackbirds

359
00:25:04.400 --> 00:25:07.079
for you know, like almost a
year, you know, and did a

360
00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:11.559
blog life with the zoom lens on, and you know, I just tried

361
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to do other things. And then
it sort of dawned on me really early

362
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:18.559
on though that we would maybe be
a beacon of light for people and best

363
00:25:18.599 --> 00:25:23.240
ever you. And we continued on
with blogs and shows and mental health awareness

364
00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:29.160
and things to entertain people and everything
to kind of keep us all going and

365
00:25:29.839 --> 00:25:33.640
that field that was positive. Way. Yeah, it's weird because I used

366
00:25:33.640 --> 00:25:38.480
to do internet radio and I'm proud
to say one of my shows was live

367
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from Baghdad. I mean, how
many people can say live from Baghdad.

368
00:25:41.799 --> 00:25:45.640
It's a radio Dave. And we
did little snl skits like when you want

369
00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:48.559
to buy a DVD that's pirate,
did see happy Ali? He'd be most

370
00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:52.799
happy to see you like that?
And that was a real thing. Yeah,

371
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And my friends were always saying you
should do a podcast show, and

372
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I'm like, you know, the
internet is a fad. I have a

373
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slide rule. I don't believe in
this plan. Dame gold stuff, and

374
00:26:00.279 --> 00:26:07.599
when COVID hit, I was hearing
so much anger and then political division with

375
00:26:07.799 --> 00:26:11.519
professional medical people. I'm going,
this does not make sense. And I

376
00:26:11.640 --> 00:26:15.680
kind of did that whole world Roger's
thing and it worked out very nice because

377
00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:19.440
I'm obviously not the smartest person.
If I'm the smartest guy in the room,

378
00:26:19.480 --> 00:26:23.119
Elizabeth Houston, we have a problem. Yeah, I just wanted to

379
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kind of do calmness, common sense, and a little little bit of Robin

380
00:26:27.880 --> 00:26:32.440
Williams, a little bit of Edie
heck it is, heck it. And

381
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that's the one thing I've done in
life and in stressful situations is you just

382
00:26:37.279 --> 00:26:41.319
want to somehow have that release.
Yeah, you know, and we all

383
00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:45.119
do that, as as as firefighters
will load someone in an ambulance onto a

384
00:26:45.119 --> 00:26:48.039
helicopter and somehow one of us will
do a stupid joke. It's usually me,

385
00:26:48.759 --> 00:26:53.839
you know, But and that's so
important to have that release, or

386
00:26:53.960 --> 00:26:57.559
like you said, to have that
private time onto yourself. And as a

387
00:26:57.599 --> 00:27:02.400
mom, you're going, Okay,
I've got laundry, laundry, laundry,

388
00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:07.079
and this toilet is stuffed up and
Johnny wants chicken Marcella, okay, or

389
00:27:07.079 --> 00:27:10.359
are we going to get at that. You know, you just you just

390
00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:15.359
And that's the thing too. I
tell people self care very important. You

391
00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:19.000
want a note for your audience,
I'm with self care. Yeah, I

392
00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:25.519
don't expect anything from anybody. Take
care of yourself and everything that you do,

393
00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:30.079
so you can give more of yourself, I think. And I've I've

394
00:27:30.119 --> 00:27:34.400
learned that lesson because I'm so used
to saving everybody that I forgot that,

395
00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:38.079
you know, I became weak,
you know, or I didn't pay attention

396
00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:42.279
to things that I should have.
And it's I'll say this, Elizabeth,

397
00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:47.400
and everybody knows this, but I
still love miss A toomin Blonde. I

398
00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:51.240
know, and I know, and
there is no doubt in my mind that

399
00:27:51.240 --> 00:27:57.799
that she truly loves me, you
know, And and sometimes you know and

400
00:27:57.799 --> 00:28:03.640
that I'll say this and I probably
shouldn't, but it still warms me because

401
00:28:03.680 --> 00:28:07.519
I have issues with abandonment and being
thrown out, being invisible, and I

402
00:28:07.559 --> 00:28:11.920
did feel all of that a thousand
times more in the middle of this war

403
00:28:11.119 --> 00:28:17.440
the world situation. But you know, I'm I'm in a different place and

404
00:28:17.599 --> 00:28:19.240
partly because of that. And I'll
say this too, and you read it

405
00:28:19.279 --> 00:28:25.359
in the book four generations, four
generations. I've been here at the Russian

406
00:28:25.440 --> 00:28:29.519
River and now my grandson is experiencing
that, and I think that is so

407
00:28:29.559 --> 00:28:32.759
beautiful. Yeah I do too.
I yeah, I really, I really

408
00:28:32.759 --> 00:28:34.440
love this book. I wasn't sure
what to I wasn't sure where you were

409
00:28:34.440 --> 00:28:37.640
going to go with it. You
know, I was like, that's what

410
00:28:37.119 --> 00:28:41.799
I want, Christopher rolling on you. I'm like the guy from Inception directly

411
00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:44.720
going, you think is about this? Yeah? I was like, but

412
00:28:44.839 --> 00:28:48.200
that is not what that's about.
Yeah. So yeah, it's really it's

413
00:28:48.240 --> 00:28:49.480
really wonderful. So I'm gonna hold
it up again to some people know what

414
00:28:49.519 --> 00:28:55.880
we're talking about and go get it
and everything. Tell me about the tagline

415
00:28:55.880 --> 00:28:59.839
a little bit, reflections on life
choices during a pandemic. Just explain why

416
00:28:59.880 --> 00:29:07.160
you chose that. I wanted because
I was I was told I can't say

417
00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:11.960
pandemic. I'm going people know there's
a pandemic out there. We should probably

418
00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:15.000
talk about the elephant in the room. I remember one time, I'm going

419
00:29:15.119 --> 00:29:18.720
on for for a second, I'm
in Iraq and I have my cross,

420
00:29:18.839 --> 00:29:22.880
and I had Saint Christopher and Saint
Jude, and they said, Chief,

421
00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:26.759
you can't wear those Why is that
young man might make the terrorists upset?

422
00:29:27.119 --> 00:29:30.519
Well, I think the terrorists are
already upset and they know we're here.

423
00:29:30.599 --> 00:29:37.640
So let's just I wanted to have
a story within a story within a story

424
00:29:37.799 --> 00:29:42.119
that addressed the elephant of an overwhelming
force? What can you do about it?

425
00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:45.720
If anything? And at the same
time, you're just in the life,

426
00:29:45.720 --> 00:29:51.000
because life is still moving on in
a sense. So it's a very

427
00:29:51.240 --> 00:29:55.960
I think deep subtiles to the book. And yet I love the time of

428
00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:00.000
return to the river. I mean, to me, that's just totally romantic.

429
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:02.279
Because anything, if you know me
for more than five minutes, I

430
00:30:02.319 --> 00:30:06.359
knows you're crushing on me as you
should. I'm a romantic. Yeah,

431
00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:10.599
everything in my life is about romance, having a cup of coffee, working

432
00:30:10.759 --> 00:30:15.359
hard, doing a good job,
making people laugh, or trying to attempt

433
00:30:15.160 --> 00:30:18.119
the bit of service. Because I
will say this, I know what it's

434
00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:21.720
like to be less than zero.
I know it's like to be invisible.

435
00:30:22.119 --> 00:30:25.200
Yeah, I know it's like to
have nothing or be nothing. And now

436
00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:30.480
that God has blessed me with such
a beautiful life, I mean, do

437
00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:33.039
I miss the atomic blonde? Oh
heck, yeah, I pray she misses

438
00:30:33.039 --> 00:30:36.480
me a lot more than I'm ass
or of course, you know I'm a

439
00:30:36.519 --> 00:30:40.160
guy, but but look at that. I'm a child from a basement.

440
00:30:40.920 --> 00:30:44.240
Yeah. I used to stutter,
and you know I smelt so bad kids

441
00:30:44.279 --> 00:30:48.480
would throw up. I was told
at age fourteen, death or prison.

442
00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:51.160
By the time I was twenty,
there was no chance in hell. Yeah,

443
00:30:51.200 --> 00:30:52.799
who I have a question on that? Hang on, who in the

444
00:30:52.920 --> 00:30:59.359
hell says that? To somebody?
It was different back this, Okay,

445
00:30:59.400 --> 00:31:03.160
to explain your audience there for about
a year and a half, and I'm

446
00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:06.400
kind of like green man. You
know, I'm yeah, I don't make

447
00:31:06.400 --> 00:31:08.799
eye contact, and you know I'm
still you know, they're do I mean

448
00:31:10.119 --> 00:31:12.519
eight years in a basement. Really, to this day it's still I have

449
00:31:12.599 --> 00:31:18.079
held like wherever I'm at. But
basically it was the child psychiatrists from the

450
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:22.799
county and he basically said, you
know, the abuse was too too much.

451
00:31:22.880 --> 00:31:27.440
He's been socially in EPP for eight
years and he said he still cannot

452
00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:33.240
walk or talk. There's no way
this thing, this entity is going to

453
00:31:33.319 --> 00:31:37.039
make it with the normal, confined
society. And I understand it. But

454
00:31:37.160 --> 00:31:40.079
here's the thing, and I want
the audience to kind of slow down for

455
00:31:40.119 --> 00:31:44.880
a second. I love the N
word. I do you say no to

456
00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:48.359
me, I'll be back. I
can't tell you how many billions of times

457
00:31:48.720 --> 00:31:52.119
you're not good enough, You're not
gonna make it, You're unworthy, You're

458
00:31:52.119 --> 00:31:56.160
not going to join my air force. You can't do this, you can't

459
00:31:56.160 --> 00:32:00.200
do that. Really read the bio, babe. Do you have to have

460
00:32:00.279 --> 00:32:05.359
a little bit of adversity, a
little bit of challenge? You see what

461
00:32:05.400 --> 00:32:09.200
you're made from. If COVID taught
us this, we had to do something,

462
00:32:09.319 --> 00:32:14.480
either do something, freeze in the
headlights, or just go cuckoo kuchu.

463
00:32:14.640 --> 00:32:19.400
It only adds to who you are
when you're in a divorce, when

464
00:32:19.440 --> 00:32:23.599
you're there's a medical situation, when
the fit hits the sham. See how

465
00:32:23.640 --> 00:32:27.440
I said that. I like that. Yeah, I've had one of those,

466
00:32:27.519 --> 00:32:30.680
so I know, find out who
you are. Yeah, when you're

467
00:32:30.680 --> 00:32:36.559
having a bad day and you can
still give up yourself as a parent or

468
00:32:36.599 --> 00:32:38.599
as a Samaritan, or as a
Christian or whatever your faith is. That

469
00:32:38.680 --> 00:32:45.359
shows me something called character and character
is important and we need that and that's

470
00:32:45.359 --> 00:32:47.960
what it represents in the book,
I believe. Yeah, Yeah, I

471
00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:53.079
am our family is kind of like
that. I never used the word adopted

472
00:32:53.359 --> 00:32:58.599
except to just explain this story because
it doesn't make sense unless I say that.

473
00:32:58.680 --> 00:33:00.559
So, we have a lot of
kids in our family. I'm in

474
00:33:00.599 --> 00:33:05.920
the middle of eleven kids. And
my parents were the type of people to

475
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:08.079
give wherever they could and help whoever
they could, and all these things.

476
00:33:08.119 --> 00:33:14.359
So my mom got pregnant with my
sister Alex, but before that, she

477
00:33:15.519 --> 00:33:22.319
adopted, adopted Justin. And Justin
is a distant family member, but in

478
00:33:22.680 --> 00:33:28.839
our circle of family. But somebody
drank and was addicted to drugs throughout his

479
00:33:28.920 --> 00:33:32.799
pregnancy, and so he has feel
alcohol syndrome and was born addicted. And

480
00:33:34.400 --> 00:33:37.920
they they warned my mom and dad
and all of us that he would never

481
00:33:39.400 --> 00:33:43.359
do all these things ever, no
no, no, no no, never,

482
00:33:43.720 --> 00:33:46.480
never talk, never walk, never
tie his shoes, never, you

483
00:33:46.519 --> 00:33:50.119
know, the list of you're never
going to do anything, and he's never

484
00:33:50.160 --> 00:33:54.680
going to amount to anything. And
my parents and family and everybody stuck by

485
00:33:54.759 --> 00:34:04.039
him so tightly that he can he's
savant in areas, so incredibly savant in

486
00:34:04.079 --> 00:34:07.400
areas. He can write. He
wrote a book. He's a poet.

487
00:34:08.559 --> 00:34:13.320
He has more like if you sat
down and talk to him. He would

488
00:34:13.400 --> 00:34:15.800
know more history than you. It's
crazy, just stuff like that. And

489
00:34:16.159 --> 00:34:22.960
he's six foot six, he you
know all of these things. And so

490
00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:25.960
whence people tell us no, or
me know or you know or anything like

491
00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:30.559
that, I get you completely,
but I still don't understand why people do

492
00:34:30.639 --> 00:34:36.679
why people don't think and end listen, especially with your charge of people.

493
00:34:37.320 --> 00:34:42.360
Well, I have to say this
because I work a lot with folks in

494
00:34:42.440 --> 00:34:45.679
recovery, and they've actually taught me
more about life or humanity of life than

495
00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:51.400
any book or any situation. And
when someone like that says that to you

496
00:34:51.519 --> 00:34:54.440
or treats you horribly, you can
spend so much time and energy finding out

497
00:34:54.519 --> 00:34:57.880
what about this? Like in my
case, as we said in the Return

498
00:34:57.880 --> 00:35:00.599
of the River, I'm trying to
find my mother's a proval. I'm trying

499
00:35:00.639 --> 00:35:01.559
to do all the chores on time. If I do this, this,

500
00:35:01.559 --> 00:35:05.159
this, this, this, and
come up with a cure for cancer and

501
00:35:05.239 --> 00:35:07.039
COVID, maybe maybe maybe she'll like
me accept me. You know what,

502
00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:10.920
you can't chase the phantom menace,
so you kind of have to like go

503
00:35:10.960 --> 00:35:15.800
to the bathroom, flush the toilet, wash your hands, walk out,

504
00:35:15.039 --> 00:35:21.280
and move on. That's their side
of the street. And again because of

505
00:35:21.320 --> 00:35:22.719
time and energy. For me,
I just don't have the time and energy

506
00:35:22.880 --> 00:35:27.559
to try to think about figuring out
your all your issues. I like the

507
00:35:27.639 --> 00:35:30.719
N word, and that's what I
did if my success because I used to

508
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:36.000
do public speaking and I love doing
work with the military because as my family

509
00:35:36.599 --> 00:35:39.440
or my social workers, I'm not
the best public presenter when it comes to

510
00:35:40.079 --> 00:35:45.000
major corporations because they want you in
a box and I'm definitely not a box.

511
00:35:45.079 --> 00:35:47.719
Boil, Okay, I think,
like day, what's the key to

512
00:35:47.719 --> 00:35:52.280
your success? The N word.
I'll crawl on glass, I'll go over

513
00:35:52.639 --> 00:35:58.599
under, sideways, backwards. I
do what I have to do. And

514
00:35:58.639 --> 00:36:02.960
I had to learn these boxes,
these little things in my backpack when I

515
00:36:04.039 --> 00:36:07.599
was a kid. It's simple dimple. My mom does not feed me.

516
00:36:07.960 --> 00:36:12.800
I feed myself. I steal food. I never give in. She would

517
00:36:12.840 --> 00:36:15.880
beat me up. I had to
learn a kinesiology, you know, how

518
00:36:15.920 --> 00:36:20.079
to protect myself. I was kind
of like that little beautiful mind trying to

519
00:36:20.119 --> 00:36:23.159
think of all these millions of things
and how it might connect together, which

520
00:36:23.199 --> 00:36:27.719
is why I did very well in
foster care and the military. I was

521
00:36:27.800 --> 00:36:30.880
whoe way above I started out as
a swamp cook in Florida, and then

522
00:36:30.920 --> 00:36:36.280
I got to fly for the Air
Force. Or again the writing, writing

523
00:36:36.280 --> 00:36:39.280
as you know, as a writer
to find a publisher. But you just

524
00:36:39.679 --> 00:36:45.239
it's like, there's a story many
years ago after American lady in Oakland,

525
00:36:45.280 --> 00:36:49.519
and we know how easy it is
to be a single mom, Black lady

526
00:36:49.760 --> 00:36:53.719
in Oakland. She raised five kids
by herself. They all went to college.

527
00:36:53.960 --> 00:36:57.920
How would you do it? She
says, I don't need to explain

528
00:36:57.960 --> 00:37:00.559
it to you. I just did
what I had. Who do? Yeah?

529
00:37:00.719 --> 00:37:06.360
There it is. Yeah, it's
three fifty one. Can you hang

530
00:37:06.360 --> 00:37:09.320
around a little bit more? Can
you keep on? I'm gonna I have

531
00:37:09.400 --> 00:37:12.960
some light coming in here. And
this made me look very angelic, so

532
00:37:13.880 --> 00:37:20.599
I take care of that, but
i'll be back. Okay, there you

533
00:37:20.679 --> 00:37:24.360
go, there's some light. Okay, it's perfect. So we're doing this

534
00:37:24.480 --> 00:37:30.360
live. Okay. Yeah, okay. By the way, I pulled my

535
00:37:30.440 --> 00:37:34.679
hair and got a haircut for you
and didn't I was waiting for you for

536
00:37:34.719 --> 00:37:37.599
about an hour and a half.
Remember that list. Yeah, Okay.

537
00:37:37.880 --> 00:37:42.239
I don't get out much people.
Okay, I'm like, I didn't have

538
00:37:42.320 --> 00:37:44.360
the time, or I wish I
would have known you at a time we

539
00:37:44.400 --> 00:37:46.440
could have just texted and recorded earlier, but I feel bad that you were

540
00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:53.000
waiting. Are you in person like
if like in like in your day to

541
00:37:53.119 --> 00:37:58.960
day? Are you actually like quiet
and shy? Oh yeah, I love

542
00:37:59.280 --> 00:38:04.679
and shy. Personality for you on
the show is one provide good, pertinent

543
00:38:04.719 --> 00:38:09.519
information for your audience, to present
it in digestible bits and just a little

544
00:38:09.559 --> 00:38:14.039
bit of humor rather than I mean, I can act very official and act

545
00:38:14.079 --> 00:38:17.880
like the statesman and the old professor. That's just not me. But in

546
00:38:17.920 --> 00:38:21.639
real life, I kind of have
a persona. I'm kind of Clark Kent

547
00:38:21.760 --> 00:38:25.239
and below the radar where I live
because the challenges. Oh my god,

548
00:38:25.320 --> 00:38:28.920
you're that guy who wrote that book. Okay, hey, so I read

549
00:38:28.960 --> 00:38:31.360
that book and I have a thousand
questions and my friends and then it's like

550
00:38:31.880 --> 00:38:36.599
whoa, you know everybody you know
the type of thing. But I don't

551
00:38:36.599 --> 00:38:39.199
go out a lot. I'm very
you know. I go out for maybe

552
00:38:39.199 --> 00:38:44.559
a drink once in a while.
I bring my food home, which is

553
00:38:44.599 --> 00:38:49.079
part of my trigger thing. But
I you know, and I stay busy.

554
00:38:49.519 --> 00:38:53.440
You know, I'm always doing something
for goodness sakes. So yeah,

555
00:38:53.480 --> 00:38:57.159
I was I was on a walk
the other day and somebody stopping and said,

556
00:38:57.199 --> 00:38:59.280
are you the lady who wrote that
book? And I'm like, oh,

557
00:38:59.320 --> 00:39:02.840
this is kind of strange and and
you're kind of quietly walking by yourself,

558
00:39:02.880 --> 00:39:06.880
and but I stopped him like I
was really sweet and nice and everything

559
00:39:06.920 --> 00:39:10.960
like that. But I walked away
going that's that happened. I was knall

560
00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:15.800
called it. I'll never forget this. A lady friend and I were walking

561
00:39:15.880 --> 00:39:22.039
in Carmel down the street and my
lady friend says, your father is very

562
00:39:22.239 --> 00:39:24.840
very important. Your father is very
famous. And he's like a teenage like,

563
00:39:24.880 --> 00:39:29.519
wow, big deal. And I
sort of got people were pointing in

564
00:39:29.519 --> 00:39:31.079
our direction. I thought, oh
my god, Clay East, what's right

565
00:39:31.119 --> 00:39:35.719
behind? It was, Oh my
god, it wasn't he wasn't that was

566
00:39:35.760 --> 00:39:37.679
you. I felt like, oh
my god, we got to hide out.

567
00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:42.079
But that's part of the thing.
You know, you get recognized.

568
00:39:42.119 --> 00:39:44.920
And I'm always you know, I'm
very proper, and you know you do

569
00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.840
photos and autograph stuff whatever. But
I will admit this, sometimes I wish

570
00:39:50.239 --> 00:39:52.719
I invented a better shampoo. I
can give you a free bottle spanking on

571
00:39:52.840 --> 00:39:55.559
behind and say, okay, you
leave you look great, scally love your

572
00:39:55.639 --> 00:40:00.840
hair. But because of the magnitude
of the book and the psychological experience of

573
00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:05.760
the books, and and you know, it really does tap into people's hearts.

574
00:40:06.480 --> 00:40:09.840
Yeah, and and and there is
a responsibility. I mean I mail

575
00:40:09.920 --> 00:40:15.480
out probably dozens and dozens of books
every week on my time and time,

576
00:40:15.400 --> 00:40:19.079
you know, or we do a
lot of gratus things to help people out.

577
00:40:19.559 --> 00:40:22.000
You know, you always want to
be of service. But it is

578
00:40:22.079 --> 00:40:25.320
kind of difference, you know.
And it's weird because you meet real celebrities

579
00:40:25.760 --> 00:40:29.800
and you ask them that's the first
question we talked about, like how the

580
00:40:29.880 --> 00:40:34.119
kids or hey, does this ever
happen to you? And they go,

581
00:40:34.440 --> 00:40:36.880
yeah, I'm going, oh my
god, I'm in the same club.

582
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:42.360
Okay, okay, but it's it
is a weird thing, but after a

583
00:40:42.360 --> 00:40:45.159
while, it's kind of normal.
Yeah, kind of normal. You just

584
00:40:45.199 --> 00:40:47.719
want to be kind and polite.
Yeah, tell me about Robin Williams a

585
00:40:47.760 --> 00:40:51.880
little bit more, because I know
you love Robin Williams and I love Robin

586
00:40:51.920 --> 00:40:53.679
Williams. I got to make cookies
for him. Once my my audience knows

587
00:40:53.760 --> 00:41:00.960
that we love Robin Williams's I really
believe, And and and this is kind

588
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:07.239
of a hard for I mean to
talk about. Robin was just one of

589
00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:13.760
the kind of souls this world has
ever produced, and he gave of himself

590
00:41:14.559 --> 00:41:17.039
and a lot of people like I
have to say no to people sometimes,

591
00:41:17.079 --> 00:41:20.039
Okay, I've already spent an hour
with you. I have to go now,

592
00:41:20.079 --> 00:41:22.920
thank you. But Robin was the
type of person he always felt he

593
00:41:22.960 --> 00:41:28.519
had to be on and he brought
so much joy. And I was telling

594
00:41:28.559 --> 00:41:32.199
you before that this man visited basically
every military outpost, outposts and this planet,

595
00:41:32.239 --> 00:41:37.320
and no one knew about it.
We had a slight situation on September

596
00:41:37.400 --> 00:41:39.440
eleventh in New York. He might
have heard about this. Yes. The

597
00:41:39.480 --> 00:41:45.559
first person to visit us was the
president of France, which is amazing because

598
00:41:47.119 --> 00:41:52.280
Lafayette helped us during the Revolutionary War
World War One. That was our cry,

599
00:41:52.760 --> 00:41:58.719
Lafayette, we are here, and
that's what the United States and France

600
00:41:58.760 --> 00:42:02.719
have always been close brothers and sisters. The second person to stand at ground

601
00:42:02.840 --> 00:42:08.320
zero was Robin Williams. And he
made sure that everybody who crawled out,

602
00:42:09.960 --> 00:42:13.400
you know, he would high five
them or touch them or tell him a

603
00:42:13.480 --> 00:42:16.639
quick joke and so forth. And
I miss Robin Williams, he would have

604
00:42:16.639 --> 00:42:22.159
done so much good work for us
during the Trump administration and COVID. I

605
00:42:22.159 --> 00:42:28.079
mean, that's a double header right
there. And I miss Robin, and

606
00:42:28.159 --> 00:42:30.920
I was very upset at the situation. But I had someone very close to

607
00:42:30.960 --> 00:42:36.880
me explain exactly how it happened and
it was inevitable for him. But I

608
00:42:36.880 --> 00:42:44.920
do believe that he's using Joan Rivers
in heaven as a footstool. It's worried

609
00:42:44.960 --> 00:42:46.920
because over the past few months they
say, you know, you're kind of

610
00:42:46.920 --> 00:42:50.880
Will Rogers meets Robin Williams and going
I will take that. I would,

611
00:42:50.920 --> 00:42:55.360
Okay, I get it. Yeah, me. And it's it's amazing whether

612
00:42:55.400 --> 00:43:00.960
it's a Robin Williams or an uncle
or an aunt or a teacher, someone

613
00:43:00.079 --> 00:43:07.199
out of Nowork and have such an
amazing, dramatic effect on your life,

614
00:43:07.079 --> 00:43:09.000
you know. And that's why I
say, again, you got to leave

615
00:43:09.039 --> 00:43:14.360
that grand adventure to tell a story
or two. But you know, there's

616
00:43:14.400 --> 00:43:17.519
just I've had so many millions and
millions and millions of people I've been allowed

617
00:43:17.559 --> 00:43:22.800
to visit or spend hours with or
years with, and it still has such

618
00:43:22.840 --> 00:43:28.239
a beautiful effect of my life.
Hence Miss Atomic Blonde. By the way,

619
00:43:28.480 --> 00:43:31.760
that's a I lifted that song from
The Killers Ladies and John Yeah,

620
00:43:31.840 --> 00:43:37.840
yeah, yeah. At what point
did you know you could imitate people?

621
00:43:37.960 --> 00:43:39.760
I don't know if that's the right
word, but imitate people's voices like you

622
00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.760
care. That's that's that's an easy
one. In Foster Care, I got

623
00:43:44.760 --> 00:43:49.480
beat up twice a day. I
spy got I was in junior high and

624
00:43:49.599 --> 00:43:52.800
if I didn't stand on the square
before the bus picked us up, they

625
00:43:52.800 --> 00:43:57.400
would hunt me down. I got
beat up. God, yeah, because

626
00:43:57.440 --> 00:44:01.000
I was the kid who people with
the glasses and I had red corduroy pants

627
00:44:01.599 --> 00:44:06.679
and a green flannel shirt. You
know, you know, live on to

628
00:44:06.760 --> 00:44:10.079
school with you. I would I
used to step in you could you could

629
00:44:10.079 --> 00:44:15.079
have been my Lucy Lou. I
would have. Yeah, there would be.

630
00:44:15.199 --> 00:44:22.639
It was I spent so much time
free time in movie theaters, and

631
00:44:22.679 --> 00:44:25.519
I would see movies and and and
and then, as I was learning to

632
00:44:25.519 --> 00:44:30.480
speak at age fourteen, rather than
using my voice, I would remember a

633
00:44:30.559 --> 00:44:34.440
line that's the most powerful handgun in
the world and blow your head clean off.

634
00:44:34.760 --> 00:44:37.480
And I said that, and they
said, dude, next time you

635
00:44:37.480 --> 00:44:39.639
get beat up, you got to
tell that bully that line, and of

636
00:44:39.639 --> 00:44:43.199
course the bully goes, what did
you do this weekend calls? Your smells

637
00:44:43.199 --> 00:44:46.400
are really you're talking to me?
Will are you punk? WHOA? The

638
00:44:46.480 --> 00:44:50.599
Bully's like taken aback, but only
for a few seconds. Then he beat

639
00:44:50.679 --> 00:44:52.960
me up and his friends will say, oh my god, you made me

640
00:44:52.079 --> 00:44:57.719
laugh. And at that time,
by coincidence, there was that Robin Williams

641
00:44:57.719 --> 00:45:02.159
show Mark from Orc whatever, a
more com minny show. And then I

642
00:45:02.400 --> 00:45:08.559
would watch actors and a lot of
people when they do comedy, they just

643
00:45:08.679 --> 00:45:12.440
only do the voice. Like when
I do the comedy, you do the

644
00:45:12.480 --> 00:45:16.800
whole character. The other shats and
egg is fantastic. And this is amazing

645
00:45:16.840 --> 00:45:22.000
because I'm so pumped up. So
I learned very quickly that I can kind

646
00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:27.639
of diffuse the situation and and and
I think the best comedy show I ever

647
00:45:27.679 --> 00:45:30.679
did was Live in Kuwait, and
it was like an HBO show, a

648
00:45:30.719 --> 00:45:37.000
little bit of adult situations, but
at the same time I mixed in some

649
00:45:37.079 --> 00:45:39.800
psychology about how you adjust when you
go back home from a war zone.

650
00:45:40.360 --> 00:45:44.920
But I think it's it's I'm not
trying to be a comedian per se,

651
00:45:45.440 --> 00:45:49.280
because I'd rather be known for the
new sense of being trying to be a

652
00:45:49.360 --> 00:45:52.360
Will Rogers. But I've learned over
the many, many years that you know,

653
00:45:52.360 --> 00:45:57.639
a little bit of sugar helps the
medicine go down. Yeah. Yeah,

654
00:45:57.960 --> 00:45:59.679
I was gonna ask you, are
you're going to do stand up or

655
00:45:59.679 --> 00:46:01.920
anything like that, but I think
answer, I'm going to stand up for

656
00:46:01.960 --> 00:46:07.800
your show up. Okay up,
Okay, Yeah, it's perfect. This

657
00:46:07.920 --> 00:46:14.239
started out being a letter to your
teachers. Oh the first book. Oh,

658
00:46:14.320 --> 00:46:15.440
the first Oh, the first book. I thought this one did too.

659
00:46:15.480 --> 00:46:19.519
No, you're a letter to the
teachers. Okay, dad, I

660
00:46:19.559 --> 00:46:25.480
got that wrong. Let's let's talk
about the teachers, because I sometimes want

661
00:46:25.519 --> 00:46:28.559
to do that too. Is like
write a letter to the people who have

662
00:46:28.599 --> 00:46:32.320
saved my life before, because I'm
a human being who like you, would

663
00:46:32.360 --> 00:46:36.559
be called to my house to make
sure I'm okay and give me up an

664
00:46:36.559 --> 00:46:39.679
nefriend because I have life threatening food
allergies. So the fire I know the

665
00:46:39.719 --> 00:46:45.920
fire crew very well and every town
I've ever lived in the rescue team.

666
00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:52.400
Do you tell me about those letters? And did you did you write them?

667
00:46:52.400 --> 00:46:54.400
Did you talk about you? And
what I wanted to do? And

668
00:46:54.719 --> 00:46:59.960
it's like anything in life, you
know, you really don't plan to find

669
00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:02.840
all in love. You don't plan
for this, plan for that. I

670
00:47:02.880 --> 00:47:07.679
was a very young man flying for
the Air Force, had a babe and

671
00:47:07.880 --> 00:47:13.239
got involved as acclensear in juvenile hall, and I thought, what if I

672
00:47:13.239 --> 00:47:17.119
can write this letter, a kind
of a long letter, explain the situations

673
00:47:17.199 --> 00:47:22.239
and then how they intervened and helped
me. And eventually that became a child

674
00:47:22.280 --> 00:47:27.679
called it. And I will say
this with love in my heart. That

675
00:47:27.719 --> 00:47:32.440
book was printed years before it was
officially published, and that's a different thing.

676
00:47:34.079 --> 00:47:39.119
And that book was given to my
teachers on the exact twenty day anniversary

677
00:47:39.199 --> 00:47:44.199
of my rescue. And as you
know, the first two books were dedicated

678
00:47:44.239 --> 00:47:49.800
to my teachers. And I used
to spend my rescue celebration by visiting the

679
00:47:49.840 --> 00:47:53.360
schools before the teachers retired and doing
in service training. And it got to

680
00:47:53.400 --> 00:47:59.840
the point that went from like a
half day, six hour visit to a

681
00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:04.719
seven day pillars or palooza which I
would visit all the schools or juvenile halls

682
00:48:04.920 --> 00:48:08.480
or the colleges and trying to help
out. And what I would do too,

683
00:48:08.480 --> 00:48:13.599
because I am a romantic. My
my teacher, Miss Constant she's oh,

684
00:48:13.599 --> 00:48:15.360
oh, oh, she's just a
small little teacher. All right.

685
00:48:15.800 --> 00:48:22.360
I bought a bouquet one time that
was bigger than her. She retired.

686
00:48:22.719 --> 00:48:23.920
She says, you know what I'm
gonna do with you, David, you

687
00:48:23.960 --> 00:48:27.840
can teach my class for half an
hour an hour. I said, all

688
00:48:27.920 --> 00:48:30.159
right, I'll do kinda darden cop
and we'll go outside and do the exercise

689
00:48:30.199 --> 00:48:35.840
and un and I used to take
him to a restaurant that they used to

690
00:48:35.920 --> 00:48:38.639
visit, and I have to this
day. I mean, I've I've been

691
00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:47.360
allowed to visit kings for presidents,
for celebrities or whatever. And it's it's

692
00:48:47.440 --> 00:48:51.719
kind of cool because I have to, like, Okay, Dave, don't

693
00:48:51.719 --> 00:48:57.760
do the Robin Williams thing when they
say don't be don't do comedy. It's

694
00:48:57.960 --> 00:49:00.599
it's I had mister Reagan put his
arm around me one time. I said

695
00:49:00.599 --> 00:49:01.840
do me, do me Now,
I'm like, oh, mister president,

696
00:49:02.880 --> 00:49:07.719
And I was so nervous I could
not do his voice. Yeah, but

697
00:49:07.800 --> 00:49:13.840
I've I have no photos that are
framed except for present Reagan and myself.

698
00:49:13.880 --> 00:49:17.079
No photos framed. And I have
hundreds of photos in a box. But

699
00:49:17.159 --> 00:49:21.679
I'm proud to say, you know, I have right behind me photos of

700
00:49:21.679 --> 00:49:24.920
mister Ziggler and myself or my teachers
on the twentyth anniverse and my rescue or

701
00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.800
taking my teachers out, and they're
in a frame. And to me,

702
00:49:29.880 --> 00:49:34.360
it's just such a blessing for me
to remember and have those memories. Yeah,

703
00:49:34.360 --> 00:49:37.039
that was my next question. Who's
on your wall? So you got

704
00:49:37.039 --> 00:49:40.760
that one? Yeah, you knew
that looking at Stephen. Here behind me

705
00:49:40.960 --> 00:49:45.519
is my teachers and my time in
foster care. And over here there's a

706
00:49:45.519 --> 00:49:49.599
lot of photos of Stephen, but
my little grandson is slowly taken over like

707
00:49:49.679 --> 00:49:52.440
the virus taken over, taken over. There it is, I got you.

708
00:49:52.679 --> 00:49:55.639
I see what do I see?
I see Stephen, I see s

709
00:49:55.760 --> 00:49:59.679
J. I see my teachers,
I see you, I see everybody.

710
00:50:00.039 --> 00:50:02.519
So this is my Davey Romper room. I guess that's perfect. Yeah,

711
00:50:02.559 --> 00:50:05.760
I'd like to how you did that
in the book too, where you described

712
00:50:05.800 --> 00:50:07.880
your new your your surroundings and things
like that. It gave us a pretty

713
00:50:07.880 --> 00:50:12.559
good visual. Let me let me
ask you this and and and we're going

714
00:50:12.599 --> 00:50:15.400
a little off here. No,
it's okay. What did you think about

715
00:50:15.440 --> 00:50:20.440
the parallel of the story at the
very end and the Monet painting. Wasn't

716
00:50:20.480 --> 00:50:24.800
that beautiful? I think I did
think that was absolutely beautiful. And to

717
00:50:24.840 --> 00:50:31.760
describe it to your audience, ladies
and gentlemen, I love. I'm sorry,

718
00:50:32.320 --> 00:50:38.800
no, keep going. I had
painting I had in storage for many

719
00:50:38.880 --> 00:50:44.039
years, and when I came to
the river my townhouse. It's very romantic,

720
00:50:45.039 --> 00:50:49.920
I took it out of its box
and I actually studied the painting that

721
00:50:49.960 --> 00:50:52.880
I've owned for twenty years. I
just glanced at yeah, and what it

722
00:50:53.039 --> 00:51:00.199
was. This beautiful couple is in
the background on a Sunday afternoon, and

723
00:51:00.519 --> 00:51:05.079
everything is all around you so much
beauty, and I think the man proposed

724
00:51:05.119 --> 00:51:09.360
to the woman or the lady said
to her husband, honey, were pregnant.

725
00:51:09.400 --> 00:51:13.840
It was to me something that boomed
and happened, yeah, boom,

726
00:51:13.920 --> 00:51:17.800
and yet it was there all the
time, So which represented me, you

727
00:51:17.840 --> 00:51:22.199
know, slow down and look at
the inner part of it. Yeah,

728
00:51:22.800 --> 00:51:25.360
you know, I've I read that
and I thought the same thing. I'm

729
00:51:25.360 --> 00:51:30.239
like that people who I think,
people who like Mona do that with his

730
00:51:30.360 --> 00:51:34.599
pictures, are like, what's actually
happening here? And you see that in

731
00:51:34.760 --> 00:51:37.599
photos? And I'm looking at right
now because you see the major moment.

732
00:51:37.679 --> 00:51:44.400
But then what's behind it that moment
that makes it so unique? Yeah,

733
00:51:44.400 --> 00:51:47.559
we did a lot of that in
the book. Yeah. I have page

734
00:51:47.599 --> 00:51:53.760
two O nine dog eared two here
and I want to know. Oh,

735
00:51:53.840 --> 00:51:58.239
I have a question for you this
you can pass on this because again I

736
00:51:58.280 --> 00:52:01.280
know not what I asked, But
how come you how can you wrote your

737
00:52:01.320 --> 00:52:06.039
father's the most broken person you've ever
known, and not your mother. Oh

738
00:52:06.079 --> 00:52:12.280
that's easy, Okay, I'm curious. I'm like that is that is so

739
00:52:12.320 --> 00:52:15.679
easy for me and it's kind of
like wrenching. I'm sorry. Nothing could

740
00:52:15.679 --> 00:52:21.320
have saved my mother. Nothing,
No, ye, mom my mom.

741
00:52:21.599 --> 00:52:29.960
Elizabeth never had a chance. She
was raised in a nineteen thirties in Salt

742
00:52:30.039 --> 00:52:37.000
Lake City, Utah. It was
men, dogs and way below that women

743
00:52:37.760 --> 00:52:40.719
was raised. Keep your mouth shut. This didn't happen, Mary, mister

744
00:52:40.760 --> 00:52:44.719
Mann. Keep it in a lockbox. Boom boom boom. And then you

745
00:52:44.760 --> 00:52:47.519
saw it in the second act of
the book, The Darth Vader of Darth

746
00:52:47.599 --> 00:52:51.840
Vaders, my grandmother. Oh yeah, I was like that didn't know that?

747
00:52:51.960 --> 00:52:53.320
Yeah, oh yeah, because I
wanted to kind of look at that

748
00:52:53.480 --> 00:52:59.360
scope. I got to that and
like, it gets worse there's a line,

749
00:53:00.119 --> 00:53:02.599
and we'll continue with my father here
in a second. I'm in the

750
00:53:02.639 --> 00:53:07.239
bottom of the basement. I'm basically
a caged animal. My mother and grandmother

751
00:53:07.280 --> 00:53:09.760
are screaming at each other. You're
not good enough, You're stupid, You're

752
00:53:09.840 --> 00:53:15.880
ugly. I told you this would
never work. The controlling vial of my

753
00:53:15.039 --> 00:53:20.079
grandmother that crushed my mother. That
was one of the reasons why my mother

754
00:53:20.159 --> 00:53:22.760
wanted to escape, and one of
the reasons why she might have become an

755
00:53:22.760 --> 00:53:25.639
alcoholic. She had three kids in
less than four years. Oh my god,

756
00:53:25.719 --> 00:53:30.119
are we learning yet? And there's
a scene in which my mother opens

757
00:53:30.159 --> 00:53:35.199
up the door to the garage,
flips on the light and I'm just this

758
00:53:35.360 --> 00:53:40.480
cage like animal, and my mother
says, there it is. I told

759
00:53:40.480 --> 00:53:45.800
you it's still there. And my
grandmother says, that's the sorriest child I

760
00:53:45.840 --> 00:53:51.760
have ever seen. And my mother
this turns to her and Schmirk's and that's

761
00:53:51.800 --> 00:53:57.880
what used to say about me.
So mom never had a chance. My

762
00:53:58.039 --> 00:54:04.360
father was a very very gentle person. My father always just to say,

763
00:54:04.400 --> 00:54:07.320
one of these days, I'm gonna
have a talk with her, and I'm

764
00:54:07.320 --> 00:54:09.840
gonna tell I'm gonna one of these
days you wait and I'm gonna take care

765
00:54:09.840 --> 00:54:15.360
of this. But he was so
gentle. My mom was so overwhelming,

766
00:54:15.199 --> 00:54:19.320
and I think my father didn't understand, Oh my god, we've got God.

767
00:54:19.360 --> 00:54:22.639
I'm living with God's Zilla. I'm
living with the anti Christ. And

768
00:54:22.760 --> 00:54:28.960
the fact too, he gave my
mom every single scent of his check.

769
00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:34.039
They separated, and he was homeless
at times. So I think that is

770
00:54:34.039 --> 00:54:38.679
the perfect sentence Elizabeth to me,
he was the most broken person in the

771
00:54:38.719 --> 00:54:44.480
world. And as you saw in
the book too, I lied, Yeah,

772
00:54:44.559 --> 00:54:46.360
I told him before he died,
Oh, I got the house and

773
00:54:46.480 --> 00:54:50.760
we're gonna go to the Russian River
and no one's It was so mice and

774
00:54:50.800 --> 00:54:57.440
men, and I couldn't believe that
I was lying so badly, you know,

775
00:54:57.599 --> 00:55:00.719
But I will say this being the
romantic, and you read it in

776
00:55:00.719 --> 00:55:05.760
the book. You know, I
carried his badge on every association, thousands

777
00:55:05.760 --> 00:55:08.159
of in service trainings, war zones, rescue ops. As a firefighter,

778
00:55:08.880 --> 00:55:13.480
you know, I had my badge
for two separate fire districts, which was

779
00:55:13.519 --> 00:55:17.480
crazy. And then his badge was
like, okay, this side, Skinny,

780
00:55:17.559 --> 00:55:22.480
this side is Beyonce, say okay, Jaylo Waltu wants half her cheekback.

781
00:55:22.480 --> 00:55:25.440
Okay, thank you very much.
Yeah, it feels it feels to

782
00:55:25.480 --> 00:55:31.760
me like you really loved him.
You know, I loved him, you

783
00:55:31.760 --> 00:55:36.960
know, the father's son thing.
I loved him when he tried to represent,

784
00:55:37.119 --> 00:55:39.679
you know, as a firefighter.
I loved him because I really believed

785
00:55:39.719 --> 00:55:45.000
at the time and that linear,
childlike sense, one of these days is

786
00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:47.960
going to happen. There was a
scene in the book, and I threaded

787
00:55:47.960 --> 00:55:52.880
it very carefully. The editors weren't
sure I'm going This is called a lead.

788
00:55:52.960 --> 00:55:57.119
This is a mcguffin. This is
a switch in which my father is

789
00:55:57.119 --> 00:56:02.480
separating from my mom on Saturday,
rainy glum day. My mother presents his

790
00:56:02.639 --> 00:56:07.199
entire life in a wet cardboard box. And I was so scared because I

791
00:56:07.199 --> 00:56:09.880
didn't want to live. Oh my
god, my Mom's going to kill me.

792
00:56:10.280 --> 00:56:14.320
And I was going to escape,
and I, by accident, I

793
00:56:14.360 --> 00:56:17.400
opened the door and I was going
to run off to live in an alley.

794
00:56:17.480 --> 00:56:22.000
And one second later, by accident, father closes the door, and

795
00:56:22.039 --> 00:56:27.360
I thought, did you do that
deliberately or was it just an accident?

796
00:56:28.440 --> 00:56:31.440
And that's why that scene in the
end of the book as that ocation with

797
00:56:31.480 --> 00:56:37.159
my father and mine myself, it's
very sad. Do you wish you would

798
00:56:37.159 --> 00:56:42.519
have Do you wish you would have
run off? Oh? Hell yeah?

799
00:56:40.960 --> 00:56:45.000
Yeah? But then again too,
I mean, my problem was it's almost

800
00:56:45.039 --> 00:56:49.639
like I'm a single mom or I'm
a mom. It's abused, and I

801
00:56:49.679 --> 00:56:52.320
got three kids. Where the heck
was I going to go? How would

802
00:56:52.320 --> 00:56:55.800
I survive? So? And I
already had millions of plans since I was

803
00:56:55.880 --> 00:57:00.880
four, And at age twelve,
I almost escaped again, but I was.

804
00:57:01.159 --> 00:57:06.280
I was so lucky that that hours
before I was supposed to have that

805
00:57:06.320 --> 00:57:10.679
weekend home alone with mom, the
entire weekend that was rescued. And imagine

806
00:57:10.719 --> 00:57:14.519
that too. I mean, at
age fifty two, I became a firefighter.

807
00:57:14.679 --> 00:57:19.159
My father died at age fifty six. Let me get that right again.

808
00:57:19.199 --> 00:57:22.800
At age fifty two, you became
a firefighter. Yeah, your dad

809
00:57:22.840 --> 00:57:24.719
died at fifty six. Yeah.
That's the hell of a thing, ain't

810
00:57:24.760 --> 00:57:30.199
it. Yeah? And he had
he I can forgive my mom for what

811
00:57:30.280 --> 00:57:35.639
she did to me, can kill
I understand the dynamic of how this cancer

812
00:57:36.039 --> 00:57:39.519
grew. That's my job, Elizabeth, As I'm a psychological warrior. I

813
00:57:39.639 --> 00:57:45.519
read what people what makes them great, How politicians solve problems, doctors Walt

814
00:57:45.559 --> 00:57:52.519
Disney, Rivn Williams. I also
studied Timothy McVeigh, Oklahoma Killer. And

815
00:57:52.559 --> 00:57:57.280
what I'm looking for is, what
was that one trigger? You know,

816
00:57:57.440 --> 00:58:00.599
I actually wrote in my mind a
crime I'm seen on a disaster of Mount

817
00:58:00.639 --> 00:58:06.840
Everest from the book in the Thin
Air. I know exactly who caused that

818
00:58:07.159 --> 00:58:13.920
one precipice of situations. My mom
never had a chance. There's nothing no

819
00:58:13.960 --> 00:58:15.360
one could have done, even in
this day and age, with all that

820
00:58:15.400 --> 00:58:20.599
we have. My father was just
so so broken. And again at the

821
00:58:20.719 --> 00:58:22.679
end of the day, and I'll
say this, I have a grandson,

822
00:58:23.679 --> 00:58:27.719
I have ice. Tomorrow. There's
a bit. You're the only woman that

823
00:58:27.840 --> 00:58:31.079
knows this. Only you know this. Don't tell anybody Tomorrow is clean sheet

824
00:58:31.119 --> 00:58:39.800
Friday. All right, It's going
to be flowers. The only other human

825
00:58:39.840 --> 00:58:43.519
being I know that I talked about
sheets in my book, you know,

826
00:58:44.400 --> 00:58:50.400
Okay, the only other human being. I remember too, And I remember,

827
00:58:50.519 --> 00:58:52.119
and I wrote this in the book, and I wrote in the first

828
00:58:52.119 --> 00:58:55.639
book too. When my mom stabbed
me, I was like nine years old,

829
00:58:57.159 --> 00:59:00.400
and it was an accident. It
wasn't premeditated. Like mother read that,

830
00:59:00.440 --> 00:59:06.440
but still and then I remember waking
up when blood's going a hospital could

831
00:59:06.440 --> 00:59:08.360
have been involved, perhaps well that
and I thought we're going to the hospital

832
00:59:08.440 --> 00:59:14.360
and I didn't want food? What
did I want? Clean cheet? So

833
00:59:14.400 --> 00:59:19.280
it's amazing how you can have an
experience that might be a joyful experience or

834
00:59:19.280 --> 00:59:22.480
a negative experience as a child,
and how it still carries through the rest

835
00:59:22.519 --> 00:59:25.320
of your life. And I just
try to be joyful about it. I

836
00:59:25.360 --> 00:59:29.519
really do. Yeah, no,
I can tell and I'm and I'm I'm

837
00:59:29.559 --> 00:59:32.440
proud of you for doing that.
And I think it's I think it's so

838
00:59:35.440 --> 00:59:37.960
I don't know what I think yet. I'm still meeting you, but I

839
00:59:37.440 --> 00:59:40.360
think I think it's a really special
human being that can go through what you've

840
00:59:40.400 --> 00:59:45.360
gone through and you're smiling and you're
compassionate and you're kind. But I'm also

841
00:59:46.599 --> 00:59:51.039
I made a lot of mistakes.
Oh yeah, but you know I own

842
00:59:51.039 --> 00:59:53.239
it, I really And that's the
moment too, is I remember when I

843
00:59:53.360 --> 00:59:58.519
was a new fire fighter. We
debreathe everything as much as we can,

844
00:59:58.960 --> 01:00:01.320
and there's a million things happen on
every call, and I was kind of

845
01:00:01.320 --> 01:00:05.760
embarrassed to raise my handset Oops,
that was my bad and that, but

846
01:00:05.800 --> 01:00:07.960
after you kind of like do it
a lot. It's cleansing, Yeah,

847
01:00:08.000 --> 01:00:12.800
it's cleansing. But then you know, you know, you own you have

848
01:00:12.840 --> 01:00:15.440
to own your side of the street, good or bad. Did you ever

849
01:00:15.519 --> 01:00:20.679
have a moment where and again you
can pass on this or if it's a

850
01:00:20.719 --> 01:00:22.559
dumb question, let me know and
then we're going to go. Did you

851
01:00:22.559 --> 01:00:28.280
ever have a moment where I don't
know how to explain this, but now

852
01:00:28.280 --> 01:00:31.639
it can be good or bad,
Like it can go like the way the

853
01:00:31.679 --> 01:00:35.519
doctor's like he's gonna end up this
way or this way. Did you ever

854
01:00:35.559 --> 01:00:38.039
have a moment where you decided or
is that not in you at all?

855
01:00:38.280 --> 01:00:44.760
Like you can like be pissed.
Okay, he's so completely pissed that that

856
01:00:44.960 --> 01:00:46.639
life. You know, I've never
had that question ployees before, but I'll

857
01:00:46.679 --> 01:00:50.079
tell you the try I said it
right either, but I know what you're

858
01:00:50.119 --> 01:00:55.480
saying absolutely hell yeah, yeah,
And that's why I really particularly as you

859
01:00:55.679 --> 01:01:00.639
grow, you know, you have
to make there's checkpoints and you may there's

860
01:01:00.679 --> 01:01:07.199
a scene that I wrote about in
which I'm being teased in the fifth grade

861
01:01:07.199 --> 01:01:09.800
on Friday, and I always hated
Friday because that means that whole weekend I'm

862
01:01:09.800 --> 01:01:15.519
going to be in the hell house. And I mean tease and I on

863
01:01:15.559 --> 01:01:20.760
the inside, my little fantasy mind, I jump up and scream and hurl

864
01:01:21.519 --> 01:01:24.360
like you've got clean sheets and you
get food, and you have no idea

865
01:01:24.480 --> 01:01:29.559
what my life was like. Damn
lucky. And there are points in my

866
01:01:29.599 --> 01:01:37.000
life I wanted to just release vomit
thermonuclear dave. And I think at times

867
01:01:37.039 --> 01:01:38.360
I've done a little bit of you
know, a little bit of lava,

868
01:01:38.400 --> 01:01:42.920
a little bit, but it might
have been too much for some people.

869
01:01:43.039 --> 01:01:47.400
But I've always wanted to be on
a higher path, yeah, because I

870
01:01:47.760 --> 01:01:51.639
mean, we do movies about it. If you look at Star Wars,

871
01:01:51.719 --> 01:01:55.239
the original Star Wars, it was
a space Western. Yeah, it was

872
01:01:55.280 --> 01:02:00.679
a very psychological space Western. Once
you travel down this path, young Skywalker,

873
01:02:00.239 --> 01:02:05.280
forever, it will control your destiny, I tell you. And I've

874
01:02:05.280 --> 01:02:09.719
always wanted to be on the side
of righteousness, yeah, because when you're

875
01:02:09.960 --> 01:02:15.159
raised in evil. And I remember
Miss Catan said that my foster mother,

876
01:02:15.400 --> 01:02:19.719
and I practically fainted. She told
a staff member, you know, I've

877
01:02:19.719 --> 01:02:23.239
been in foster care for many years. I've seen thousands of kids hundreds of

878
01:02:23.280 --> 01:02:30.079
parents. Missus Pelzer was absolute evil. And the way she just said that,

879
01:02:30.320 --> 01:02:34.960
this Christian woman saying that to a
staff member, I could I've seen

880
01:02:35.079 --> 01:02:38.199
the darkness and I'd rather be you
know, that's I wasn't really expected that.

881
01:02:38.280 --> 01:02:40.760
In the day of interview. He's
rather effable and kind of funny.

882
01:02:42.719 --> 01:02:45.760
Well maybe that can be a lesson. Yeah, because we see a lot

883
01:02:45.840 --> 01:02:51.960
of evil right now, school shootings, political divide, countries that are being

884
01:02:52.079 --> 01:02:57.039
overwhelmed for what. Yeah, it's
just terrible. So if I can shine

885
01:02:57.079 --> 01:03:00.639
a little bit of light. And
I pray with this one show because I

886
01:03:00.639 --> 01:03:04.280
know we're going a little long,
but that's fine. I pray that your

887
01:03:04.320 --> 01:03:07.519
audience can take two or three things
away and going hmm. I'm gonna try

888
01:03:07.559 --> 01:03:09.880
that. I'm gonna make a note
of that. I'm gonna do this.

889
01:03:10.400 --> 01:03:13.519
Here's my thing, and I know
we got to wrap up here. We

890
01:03:13.559 --> 01:03:19.360
do be kind, to be nice, do three nice things a day,

891
01:03:20.039 --> 01:03:25.840
step outside yourself, attempt and try
be happy. Be happy now, be

892
01:03:25.920 --> 01:03:31.760
happy now, damn it. There
it is beautiful. I don't want to

893
01:03:31.800 --> 01:03:36.280
go, but I gotta go.
Well, we'll do show. Let's do

894
01:03:36.320 --> 01:03:39.280
another show. Listen, Yeah,
I want you in Redhead. Next time,

895
01:03:39.320 --> 01:03:44.400
I want you with the redhead.
Okay, your husband will thank me

896
01:03:44.480 --> 01:03:47.480
lad for that. Okay, actually
I actually do have red hair. It's

897
01:03:47.559 --> 01:03:52.199
kind of funny. But no,
but I want to wrap up with this

898
01:03:52.320 --> 01:03:53.719
too. And I know we're going
on, but that's okay, this is

899
01:03:53.760 --> 01:03:59.559
important. Yeah, tell us more. Right now, our country is still

900
01:03:59.639 --> 01:04:02.159
in a show yet a lot of
people are very afraid, in part because

901
01:04:02.199 --> 01:04:08.039
of COVID YEA. The political division
as of a few days ago has divideds

902
01:04:08.079 --> 01:04:11.800
even further. A lot of people
are scared. We need people like yourself,

903
01:04:11.840 --> 01:04:16.119
Miss Elizabeth, to keep speaking up
and stepping out. Your audience should

904
01:04:16.159 --> 01:04:20.760
be praising your greatness because you don't
need to do this. And I want

905
01:04:20.760 --> 01:04:25.400
to thank you for all that you
have done with your writings and with your

906
01:04:25.400 --> 01:04:28.159
show like this, and it's my
privilege to be on your show. But

907
01:04:28.280 --> 01:04:31.920
the quote, my friend, mister
Schwarzenegger, I'll be back all right.

908
01:04:31.960 --> 01:04:34.559
It was really nice meeting you,
and I wish you all the best of

909
01:04:35.360 --> 01:04:40.960
all of your success with your book. I'm just going to tell everybody here

910
01:04:40.960 --> 01:04:45.000
it is again Returned to the River. This is available on Amazon. It's

911
01:04:45.000 --> 01:04:47.920
available wherever books are sold. It's
available on Barnes and Noble, Simon and

912
01:04:47.960 --> 01:04:53.519
Schuster. But I think one of
the most important things lately for people and

913
01:04:53.559 --> 01:04:57.760
bookstores is those independent bookstores. So
make sure you go in. If it's

914
01:04:57.800 --> 01:05:00.119
not in there, you can go
in and ask for it and it'll be

915
01:05:00.119 --> 01:05:03.199
in there. So I think that's
really important these days too, because I

916
01:05:03.239 --> 01:05:06.440
know it's important on Amazon too,
but you know, the bookstores are craving,

917
01:05:08.039 --> 01:05:12.480
craving writers books. So anyway,
all right, I'll be back.

918
01:05:13.320 --> 01:05:15.400
Thank you so much for being here. It was just an absolute joint honor

919
01:05:16.440 --> 01:05:19.280
your family, and thank you so
much. All Right, everybody, thanks

920
01:05:19.320 --> 01:05:20.599
for listening. Everybody, take care,