Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes)

We're having a James Von Prague. I don't know if you know who he is. He's written several--he's a medium. Oh. And he's written several books called Talking to Heaven, I think, or something like that.

I love his book, Talking to Heaven, and I had the honor of making a film with my wife Mary based on his life.

Well, I just optioned a book by James Von Prague, Talking to Heaven.

Please check out his book, Talking to Heaven, among his many others.

It's a way of being in the world, a way of paying attention.

It started with the idea of...I've worked with a lot of artists over the time that I've been doing this.

It's not about music. It's a way of being.

So by never mentioning the artists, the reader is the artist in all of the stories in the book.

It's to know how would I do? How could I do this? How could I look at this problem?

One of my favorite movies as I told you is old country No Country for Old Men and I Loved you in that movie so much and I talked specifically about that scene

Bill Wilson, the founder of AA famously was doing LSD therapy while sober and writing this book.

That's in the Michael Pollan documentary.

Which is almost godlike, that book is like, wait, where did that come from?

And so I was seated next to the director and my translator. It's all in Vietnamese. And for people listening who might not know anything about the play, All My Sons, it takes place during the Second World War.

The lead man, the father, he owns a factory that makes parts for American bombers. And he knows that the factory is making faulty parts and he doesn't say anything because he doesn't want to lose his government contract.

But one of his sons knows that he's lying and accused him of being greedy and his other son is a pilot in a bomber and ends up crashing and dying, possibly because there were faulty parts in his plane. At any rate, it's about good and evil in America.

And after the play is over, I said, I asked the director, okay, you're under bombs, you're at war, why are you performing an English play, I mean, an American play, All My Sons? He said, this is a troop of, through the translator, this is a troop of actors who travel from village to village after a bombing has taken place and performed this play.

The play shows that there are bad Americans and there are good Americans. One day this war will end and our countries have to be friends. We don't want our people to hate you.

Have you read the Charles Porter's book?

I said, read it.

It's like, oh, it reads like a Cullen brothers script.

I've been working on a book.

It's called You Never Know.

So I've been thinking about a lot of that stuff.

I put it in the book, so I hope this.

So it involved a lot of emotional investment.

I wrote a book, I put out a memoir a couple years ago

I went through like when I started writing about my childhood, I didn't like realize how fucked up it was until I really started like putting it together and not only like writing the things that happened like but really trying to get underneath them and understand like why and what it did and how it shaped me and why did things happen and trying to understand like in a deeper way

one thing I realized that like that I'm so lucky about is that like and I think maybe you know I don't know you Ted but I know you would maybe you can relate to this like no matter what happened there was always this fucking light like this thing that like was so beautiful also like the things that made me happy made me so happy like just you know the concept of maybe loving you know what I mean like like or sex or you know the like playing basketball being in the moment that freedom that feeling of like when I was in the moment and then when I started playing music like that feeling of being gone or belonging connecting with other people whatever it was like the things that I found beautiful were always so beautiful to me like not just like O'Funn or whatever but like fucking Providence, you know

Tim Stack, he's a friend. And he gave me the book, The Old Man by Thomas Perry.

And I read the script and like you, I liked it, the script.

So I read the script, dug it up again.

It is sweet, funny, poignant and just really lovely.

I've read about 100 pages and it is so beautiful.

It was such a generous act of child to mom. Really, really loving.

It was the most loving thing. I grown to love you even more as a result of reading this book.

It's about having the courage to have the conversations it's about speaking what has been unsaid it's about listening to each other it's not about agreeing it's not even about forgiving

Those books saved my life. I had back pain for years. And till you recognize, oh, this is... Oh, it's a stress reaction.

Those books saved my life. I recommend them to everybody.

I read that Joanna Merlin book, Auditioning.

I read Uda Hagen's book.

But after reading Uda Hagen it felt like- I was like, I think I need to learn by doing more than continuing to read.

a best-selling author and I want to talk to her about a book she wrote about her late daughter called Carrie and Mead.

It's called Carrie and Me, A Mother and Daughter Story.

He's also written a memoir called The Man of Many Fathers, which is out now.

Can we jump into your book? I know there's so much else to talk about, but A Man of Many Fathers.

Well, but I mean, my father, for what you delayed until your 40s, I never got because my dad passed when I was 16. Right. So you have to start piecing things together.

And it was a really, really fun journey to put together. Like it really was.

You've written this book. The Man of Many Fathers. So, obviously aimed also at your son Henry in a way, right? Hoping that this is something that, not aimed at, but something that he can read.

I've written some great books. Healing Grief. Good book. Check me out.

There's a great book called The Quiet Mind by White Eagle. Everybody should just run for that book.

So prolific that she wrote a book about it. It's called I Don't Know What You Know Me From, My Life as a Co-Star.

We had that book, the Uta Hagen book.

I love his books and I love to listen to them because he reads them, but he talks about like doing his Trash walks, um, and just picking up garbage on the side of the road when he does his walk.