July 30, 2025 • 68 mins
In this episode of Arroyo Grande, Raymond Arroyo dives into two very different cultural flashpoints. First, we unpack the firestorm surrounding Sydney Sweeney’s new American Eagle ad and the controversy over its “good genes” tagline. Is the outrage justified, or does it reveal something deeper about our shifting beauty standards and cultural anxieties?
Then, Emmy and Tony Award–winning actor Gary Sinise joins the show for a moving conversation about his extraordinary journey. From acclaimed roles on Broadway and in Forrest Gump to founding the Gary Sinise Foundation, Gary shares how he devoted his life to supporting veterans, first responders, and their families.
He opens up about the personal trials his family has faced, including his wife’s and son’s battles with cancer. Gary reflects on how his late son Mac’s inspiring final project—the album Resurrection and Revival—continues to bring hope, healing, and purpose.
From pop culture debates to stories of sacrifice and resilience, this episode reminds us that life’s greatest calling often comes when we least expect it.
🔔 Subscribe for more inspiring conversations: Arroyo Grande, available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and everywhere you listen, watch & stream.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I didn't want to, but the reaction to the Sydney
Sweeney ad demands some thoughts and imagine dedicating your whole
life to one pursuit. Then you get a call to
devote yourself to something new and entirely different. That's what
happened to actor Gary Sinise responding to the call, how
do you do it all? On this edition of the
Arroyo Grande Show. Come on, I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to
(00:33):
Arroyo Grande. Go subscribe to the show right now. Turn
those notifications on. I don't want you to miss what's coming.
Now you've seen this Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ad.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
By now I am sure.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I'm not here to tell you to buy American Eagle chans,
and I definitely won't say that they're the most comfortable chance.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
I've ever worn.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Sidney Sweeney has very keen You see what I did
there right? Well?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Some are claiming the double edged tagline Sidney Sweeney has
great genes evokes the Nazis and more.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
A blonde haired, blue eyed white woman is talking about
her good genes like that is Nazi propaganda.
Speaker 6 (01:15):
Look, I'm not saying that Sidney Sweeney personally wrote this
ad to revive the Third Reich, but American Eagle absolutely
knew what they were doing here. You don't get to
drop lines about inherited traits, blue eyes and great genes
while zooming in on somebody that could have walked straight
off of a Nazi propaganda poster and expect people not
to catch that reference. You guys are complaining about that
(01:36):
Sydney Sweeney gens ads.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
So I went and saw it.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
That's Nazi propaganda. Wow.
Speaker 7 (01:45):
The pun good genes activates a troubling historical associations for
this country, the American eugenics movement, and it's primed between
like nineteen hundred and nineteen forty weaponized the idea of
good genes.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Okay, this is lunacy. When was the last time you
heard anyone call out actual eugenics? Call me when the
professor does, of course, on Margaret's sanger and why planned
parenthood clinics are in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Look,
I watch that ad and I've yet to see the
Nazi or eugenics propaganda. Yes, she is white and blue eyed,
(02:22):
but so what tons of models are they're selling? Genes
with a kind of obvious play on words. And my
guess is the admin probably saw this old Brookshields Genes
Genes ad from the nineteen eighties, where she shimmies into
Calvin's with similar pattern.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Certain genes may fade away while other genes persist, and finally,
by natural selection, which filters out those genes better equipped
than others to endure in the environment, this may result
in the origin of an entirely new species, which brings
us to Calvins and the survivor of the fittest.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Nothing is new, kids.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
The angry reaction to this very tame, and as you see,
they're imitative commercial seems to be about something else. Are
they upset that Sydney Sweeney is the it girl of
the moment, or that she's returning advertising to a beauty
standard that we're used to seeing in ads. I don't know,
but the overblown furious reactions to this ad are totally
(03:26):
over the top. I mean, the genes look like mom
jeans to me. They don't even showcase her figure. The
last time anyone modeled a high waisted baggy denim like this,
Barack Obama was throwing out an opening pitch They're not
exactly Versace or Calvins. Those were built to accentuate the
curves and they did, making the high dudgeon from some
(03:47):
of these influencers all the more absurd. From the nineteen
forties to the early aughts, American marketers used attractive models
to sell stuff, particularly clothes. That's hardly news. We're all
to beautiful people. It's an attention getter. So why is
this particular ad so triggering? I think because the Sweeney
(04:09):
campaign symbolizes.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
A beauty boomerang.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
For years, Madison Avenue has tried to convince people that
this is beautiful every shape and size and spread and sprawl. Look,
Beauty comes in many guises, but it may not be
everyone's cup of deep TEA. Part of the reaction you
saw there is because they know this Sweeney ad feels
(04:36):
like a counter to the recent trend, and that's upsetting
to some.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
But think about it.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Do flabby guys fly into a rage on social media
every time some actor shows his abs in a spread? No,
you hit the gym, you eat less, or you ignore
it and order a double Shack burger and fries then
hit KFC on the way home. But why are people
so jumpy over this Sydney sweeneyad. I think because they're
(05:03):
worried about protecting an imaginary idea of beauty rather than
letting people decide for themselves. And they don't like the
idea that some might find a blonde, blue eyed gal attractive.
If out of shape people can be beautiful, so can
fetching actresses, even if she is wearing mom jeans.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Now to our deep dive.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Have you ever had a feeling that you were supposed
to do something else, something totally different, Well, that's what
happened to actor Gary Sinise.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I spoke to.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Him about the calling to care for our troops and
first responders and their families, and later to care for
his own family as both his wife Moira and his
son Mac battled cancer. Gary's an Emmy and Tony Award
winning actor a director, best known for his Oscar nominated
role as Lieutenant Dan and Forrest Gump. But Gary sinise
(05:58):
reshaped the American theater before all that. When he founded
a theater company in Chicago called Steppenwolf along with John
Malkovich and Joan Allen Lori Medcalf. He left a mark
on the acting approach of America that really has stayed
to this day. He took Broadway by storm in True
West The Grapes of Wrath Orphans, But it was during
(06:21):
his last Broadway show that he felt a different call
that would change his life forever.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
And the last thing I did was One Flew over
the Kuchar's Nest on Broadway, and that was two thousand
and one. So we closed July twenty ninth, two thousand
and one. Six weeks later, September eleventh, two thousand and one,
the attack on our country, and everything changed for me.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
At that point.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
I started thinking about different things, and I wanted to
kind of get very involved in supporting the men and
women who were deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. I just
got very involved in that. Never returned to the theater
after that.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
You did a show when you were at Steppenwolf Tracers.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
And did that?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Did that plant any seeds for the next phase of
Gary Sinice's life.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
It definitely was a seed that was planted in terms
of supporting veterans and trying to do something to help,
especially our Vietnam veterans.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, I tell people the Tracery is about that. That's
what Tracers is about.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
It's a story that was written by a group of
Vietnam veterans and they performed it on stage.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So they got together.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
One guy conceived the idea, a guy named John Difusco.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
He's a Vietnam veteran.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
He put an ad in the paper and said, hey,
I want to make a plan, and I'm looking for
Vietnam veterans. So he got he got some guys together
and they started. Every day they would go into like
a workshop where they talk about their experiences in Vietnam
and he would write things down and then they would
improvise and work on and they, you know, over the
(08:05):
course of time, they created a play so that they
call Tracers, and it was a play about the Vietnam experience.
I discovered it as the artistic director of Steppenwolf looking
for a play to do about Vietnam, because I had
Moira's two brothers served in Vietnam and her sister's husband,
(08:25):
Jack Terteres, also served in Vietnam as a combat medic.
And I got to be you know, I got to
know them a little bit, got to hear their stories,
got to feel a lot of compassion for them, and
quite frankly, a lot of guilt because they were just
a little bit older than I was during the Vietnam War,
(08:45):
and I was at high school and the chasing girls
around and you know, playing guitar and doing plays, and
they were getting shot at. And so when I met them,
I got to feel a little guilty about being kind
of oblivious during that period of time. So I wanted
to do something that spoke to the Vietnam experience, and
(09:06):
so I started to look and I found the play Tracers.
We eventually did it in Chicago, and that was a
big thing.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
When I read about that experience, you really building with others,
but you building and then guiding Steppenwolf. I see Gary
Sonise the builder, and you do have that in you
where you I mean, obviously your cause at that moment
was theater and creating great plays in some ways preserving
American classics of mice and men, which I saw. How
(09:38):
did that carry on into the next phase of your life?
How did it prepare.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
You for what you're doing now? And the building of
the foundation. Did it?
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Yeah? I think all all those things did. I think,
you know, if I look back to how I grew
up as a kid. My dad was a film editor
and in Chicago, and you know, the bulk of the
film work in Chicago in those days was like the
(10:07):
mad Men Show. You know, remember the advertising agency. So
the advertising guys were constantly making commercials and they needed
the editors to crank out these commercials and get them
done no matter what time it was because they were
all on deadline.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So my dad would work these crazy hours.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
And I don't remember dad being, you know, just around
that much, you know, when I was growing up in
terms of high school or any of that. So I
got to I got to kind of work things out
on my own anyway. My mom had her hands full
with she was taking care of her mom and her
sister and me and my brother and sister, and I
(10:53):
kind of developed this sort of do it yourself sort
of you know, I just can't wait around for somebody
to tell me what to do kind of thing. And
I sort of developed that at an early age, and that,
you know, then I got into high school and decided, well,
what I want to do is start a theater.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I could.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I'm not going to college because nobody told you you
couldn't that's right.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Nobody said you couldn't. And I had a great mentor
in high school. Her name's Barbara Patterson, and.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
She stayed in touch with her for a long time.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
I did.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
She was the drama teacher in high school and we
we became very close and stayed in touch with her.
And she saw me as a kid who you know,
I was bad in school and didn't you know, grades
were no good and all that, but I could actually act.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
She saw something in she saw badasses which she saw.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
She saw well, she saw a guy who could, you know,
just let it rip. And because I didn't, I didn't.
I didn't have any training or anything like that. I
just came to my first and started just doing what
I thought I should do.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And she kind of said, go with that.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
That's good. And so she gave me a lot of
courage and a lot of self confidence in terms of
just believing in my particular approach to things. And so
I just had a particular approach, and I also kind
of developed this sort of folk focus on leadership and
(12:27):
kind of seeing a thing over here and then going
and trying to make it happen. And there, you know,
that manifested itself into kind of finding a space and
creating a theater company and then you know, making movies
and conquering Broadway.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah yeah, I remember with True West.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
I was the artistic director of Stepping Will at that time,
and I really wanted to move that show. I was
looking like as soon as I took over as the
artistic director of Stepping Will, one of the things I
wanted to do because I thought we were really good
and I thought, you know, the next thing we got
to do is, you know, if we want we want
to be more well known in Chicago, and I think
that a good way to do that is to be
(13:12):
well known in New York.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
So so smart move.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
So we we took.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
A play there and it was a big, big hit,
and John John became a movie star. Steppenwolf got all
this attention. We all producers started coming to Chicago to
see our work. We ended up doing play after play
there every year in.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Incredible all hits.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
They were all doing great, and it really it really
set the stage for being able to build a building,
you know, because we were being recognized as really talented
group of people, and we were starting because of our
success in New York, starting to develop this sort of
international reputation because we would get all these great reviews
(13:57):
in New York and all those reviews would trickle out
to the West Coast and all around, and people were
starting to recognize Steppenwolf as something positive. So we were
able to raise the money in Chicago to build a building,
and that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
I know there was a big shift after nine to
eleven for you, at least in your own mind and heart.
But back in nineteen ninety four, Gary, you right after
Forrest Gump, you're addressing a group of disabled veterans. Tell
me about that moment and what you learned in that moment.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
That was Ye. Forrest Gump came out in on July sixth,
nineteen ninety four, thirty years ago. Wow. And shortly after that,
I received an invitation to come to the National Convention
(14:55):
of the Disabled American Veterans Organization, which I was not
aware of. Didn't didn't know the organization at all, but
they've been around for decades and decades, and so I
kind of looked into what is it? And they at
that point they represented about one point five million mooded
(15:19):
veterans going back to World War Two, and they wanted
to give me an award for playing Lieutenant Dan wounded guy,
and they thought I did a good job, and they
wanted to, you know, kind of bring me out there
and kind of give me something. So I went there.
Convention that year was in Chicago, and I went to
(15:40):
the Conrad Hilton in Chicago in August of ninety four,
just maybe six weeks after the movie came out, and
I'm standing on stage.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
In fact, the.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
First pages of my book Grateful American described this moment
of walking out on stage and looking out in the
in the crowd and there's you know, two thousand wounded
veterans out in this ballroom and they're all cheering for me.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And I was so moved by it.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
And just kind of the impact that was made by
seeing all these wheelchairs and you know, just wounded folks
just applauding me for playing this part was profound. And
so I stayed in touch with them and started working
with them and supporting them over the years. And I
(16:38):
think the Tracer's experience of working on that and getting
involved with local Vietnam Veterans groups in Chicago ten years later,
the Lieutenant Anne experience getting involved with our wounded supporting them.
Those were just those were seeds that were being planted
(16:58):
that would grow in to this full on mission after
September eleventh, two thousand and one, and.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I was just I just felt like call to action at.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
That at that point to get involved in a deeper way,
both those things the tracers experience in the Lieutenant.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Dan acclaim after the film, I mean it was it
was a cultural moment. But for the veterans community, they
saw themselves in a positive light. And as you mentioned earlier,
if you look at the Vietnam films and those stories
told before, it always ended horribly for them.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Yeah, it was depressing and dark or you just you
He always wondered, I'm just not sure that Vietnam veteran
is going to be okay. And after this film is over, Yeah,
Like look at the Coming Home, That's what came to mind.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Coming back.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
You see Bruce Dern, what's he do. He's so racked
with guilt and everything. He takes off his uniform and
swims out in the ocean. He's not coming back. You
wonder at the end of Platoon, when Charlie Sheen is
flying over the battlefield and he's looking down and he
sees all these bodies, and you know, the battle is
(18:12):
over and every lot of buddies are gone and he's
flying off. At the end of that movie, you just
wonder that guy's going to have a tough time going
into life casualties of war.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
The same thing with Michael J.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Fox. And then you got, Gosh, you got Martin Sheen
at the end of your Apocalypse. Now you got look
what happens to Chris walk And at the end of
Deer Hunt.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Deerhunter.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
These are all dark endings, That's what I mean. They're
all dark to semi dark endings. Lieutenant Dan is the.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Only happy ending. That's what was different about it.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And they are still talking about it and watching it today.
So after nine to eleven, what happens you start? When
do you start the band? The Lieutenant Dan Band.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
So I'd done Truman and I just finishedoing George Wallace
in like old January or February of ninety seven, and
then I went to Chicago to play Stanley Kowalski in
the streetcar named Desire. And I was on stage in
(19:18):
Streetcar and there was a guy who had written the
music for Streetcar named Keimo Williams and Kemo.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
He was a bass player, but.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
He liked to play guitar, and he heard I was
a bass player, so he said, hey, you know, if
you ever want to come over in jam, you know,
come on over.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
And so I was so busy during the run of
the show, I could never do it. I was tired.
You know, it's a shark. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
I just wanted to get to get through it. And
so right at the end we wrapped the show. I
got a couple of days before I'm going to fly
back to California, and I called him up and said,
why don't we get some pizza and we'll get some
guys and we'll play. And I went over started playing.
So that kind of rekindled some bass stuff in me.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I used to play bass and guitar and everything.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
I put it away when I was gotten so busy
with Stepping Wolf and everything. I hadn't really played much,
but playing it really got me going again. And then
I went Shortly after that, I went up to Atlantic
City and then Montreal to do a movie with Nick
(20:28):
Cage called Snake Eyes. And when I was up doing
Snake Guys in Canada, there were some guys on the
crew that played, and so we went and started playing,
and I called Chemo up and said, come on up
here and play with us. So he flew up to
Montreal and we were playing. And then after September eleventh,
(20:52):
I wanted to do more for the troops and I
started going on USO tours and handshaking and taking pictures,
and I went to the war zones a couple of times.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I went to.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Germany, I went to Italy and went to Walter Reed,
I went. You know, I was doing all this stuff
in two thousand and three, going one month after another
to some military base or something like that.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Just meet get so you got the band, no band, No,
it was.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
It was a series of meet and greets for the
for for for six or seven months.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I was I was going out.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Didn't have a job at that time that was keeping
me in towns, but I wanted. I wanted to help
our troops. You know, we had you know, we'd been
attacked and I wanted to do something. And so I
started visiting them and I had, you know, because I
had some jammers that I would play with from time
to time. I said to the USO, let me take
(21:45):
them on a tour. And eventually they said okay. So
I called up Chemo and said, hey, let's let's put
some folks together and and let's go and so we
we started touring and that that that's what began the
lieutenant and band. Kimo left the band after after a while,
(22:05):
and you know, we've we've now the band has played
Oh gosh, we've played one hundred, five hundred and seventy
five concerts on military basis. Incredible. I've been I've been
to I've been over one hundred and seventy five military
bases myself, you know, in the hospitals and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Why do you still do it? Gary?
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Once I started doing it, I could see that it
was impactful. It was in a positive way, like it
was it was good that I was there. You know,
I'd walk into a hospital room and maybe maybe there'd
be a wounded soldier service member in the bed, completely unconscious,
(22:49):
you know, hadn't woken up yet. Family is standing around
waiting for that moment, praying for that moment. And I
come in and they've been there for weeks, just dealing
with the issues, and somebody like me comes in and
the light faces light up, and you know, start taking pictures,
and it changes the mood, it changes the tone, and
(23:12):
I could see that showing up was making a difference.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
So then I.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
Wanted to do it again, and I wanted to do
it again after that, and I just kept wanting to
do it because I could see that it was helping.
Of course, if I had seen me, if I hadn't
felt that it was helping, I wouldn't there.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
To be how garrison these foundations, I mean, how did
the foundation start?
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Tell me about the founding. So you're out doing these
USO tours with the band. I know, you're also collaborating
with other organizations that are building homes for veterans and
helping veterans in various ways, and you're donating a lot
of the money from these concerts to these partner organizations.
But when do you start your own foundation? What was
(23:53):
the impetus for that?
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Well, you know, when I started making those tours, those
early tours, just volunteering to go to the hospitals or
you know, go shake hands or something, or you know,
now take the band and go play on military bases
and whatnot. One of the things that I also wanted
(24:17):
to do was to try to help more people was
to volunteer for a lot of different other organizations. There
were a lot of service organizations out there that were
supporting veterans and first responders, and I wanted to help
veterans and first responders, so I would volunteer to you know,
raise money for these organizations, raise awareness for what they
(24:42):
were doing by doing PSAs or whatever. So I just
started volunteering wherever I could for multiple organizations. So I
learned a lot about all these different needs and organizations
were filling this need, you know, you know, we were
building homes for our wounded, we were taking care of
our goal start children, or families of our fallen entertainment,
(25:06):
you know, whatever it was. It was a lot of
different things, and I support a lot of different organizations.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
After doing that for you know, ten.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
Years or whatever it was, it was clear that this
was something that was just a big part of my life.
And I started thinking, well, you know, I've got to
find a way to do this in a different way.
And I've seen all these nonprofits pop up and I've
tried to help them all. Why didn't I just start
(25:35):
my own? And at that point, I had been doing
it long enough that I had a pretty good reputation
with you know, trying to help, and so that's why
I put my name on the on the foundation. I
called it Gary Sneeze Foundation, because there was already a
you know, I already had a relationship with the military families,
(25:57):
and I had been raising money for all these other organizations.
I was on television, you know, Weekly and CSI New York.
So I just said this, let's do it. I want
to do more, and I think the way to do
that is to start raising our own money so that
I can hire people to do more. So we started
(26:19):
out very small, a couple of people, and now we've
got a giant organization.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Now give me a sense, and I won't make you
go through every program, but you all do things that
I don't see other organizations doing.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Years ago.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
I know you took over the Snowball Express program. Tell
me about that. I mean, I've covered it. It's the
most it's one of the most moving and I think
amazing and important moments at Christmas time. I think of
almost any organization in the country.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
It's beautiful. It's focused on the children of our fallen heroes.
And it was started at Disneyland in two thousand and
six by a group of folks that just want to
help the kids of our fallen heroes and help them
through the holidays by taking them to a happy place
like Disneyland and letting them play and letting them meet
each other, to see that they weren't alone, you know,
(27:14):
in their grief and what they were going through. There
was a lot of other kids that have lost a
parent in military service, and it was very.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Bonding and healing.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
I got involved with it the second year they had
done They had done one event at Disneyland. I was
shooting CSI New York and Studio City. They contacted me
and said they wanted to come and show me a
video of their first event. And I saw that, I
said I wanted to be involved. I volunteered to donate
(27:45):
my band the following year to come play for the kids.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I did that, then I went back the next year.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Then I donated and just kept doing it every year,
help helping to raise money or raise awareness or raised
spirits by bringing the band and playing.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
For the kids. I've done it.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
You know, I don't know we're in our eighteenth year.
I know it snowballs in its eighteenth year. So in
twenty eighteen. Having American Airlines is a big, big sponsor
of ours.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
With multiple programs.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
But American had actually gotten very, very involved, and so
the event moved from Anaheim and Disneyland after three years
to Dallas, and because that's the hub of American Airlines,
have got a lot of good support there. They could
do a lot of things for the kids. So it
(28:44):
was there for a number of years and then I
mentioned to the folks that were kind of in charge
of it at that time, Hey, you know, I've been
narrating the show at disney World for you know, a
dozen years. That's a great place for the kids. I
think we should take it take it there. Uh well,
(29:05):
it was going to cost a lot of extra money
to do that, and that's when we decided to fold
Snowball Express into the Garysonese Foundation as one of our
programs because we had the ability to raise raise the
amount of money to you know, you're taking a thousand
kids to Disney World. You got to get a lot
of hotel rooms and all.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
You know, it's a logistical and transportation.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
It's a big big thing. So American provides all the
all the transportation. Uh, you know, multiple charter airplanes that
come from all over the country with these kids on board.
All you know, all the people that all the flight attendants,
all the pilots, everybody volunteers their time. American donates the
(29:52):
airplane planes. We get all the kids to the Disney.
My foundation is the is the you know, it's the
Garysonese Foundation program. So we raise all the additional money
to do everything. They work passes and they and the
hotels and the food and every everything like that. It
costs a lot of money, hundreds and hundreds of volunteers
(30:12):
and we bring them in for you know, we bring
them in on a Saturday and they're there till like Wednesday,
and it's it's it's life changed. A lot of days
of fun and healing for these kids. You know, they
make lifelong friendships with somebody with another kid who's who's.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Lost a parent.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Tell me about the Soaring Valor program, which we were
talking about the other day.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Which I knew.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
I've seen them when I'm in and out of airports,
particularly down in New Orleans. I didn't realize the other
part of the city. It's not just veterans of war
that you're bringing in on these Soaring Valor trips.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Well, Soaring Valor is I have that.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
That's one that started with my relationship with the National
World War Two Museum in New Orleans, and Tom Hanks
invited me to. He was helping to make the movie
that plays in the theater there called Beyond All Boundaries,
and so Tom called some of his palace to do
(31:16):
voices in the movie. And I did the voice of
Ernie Pyle. And this goes back to two thousand and
nine or so, so I did the voice of Ernie Pyle.
And then I sent my uncle there, who was a
navigator on a B seventeen bomber over Europe and World
War Two, and they recorded my uncle on video for
(31:39):
the archive at the museum. And that's one of the
programs that they have at the museum where they tried
to get as many World War Two veterans to tell
their stories on camera and they preserve them in their
archives and they use.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
These stories throughout the museums.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
You'll go to an exhibit, you'll hit a thing, and
a and elderly World War Two veteran will come out
and start telling his story, right, and then you see
all this stuff there and he's telling the story of
what it was like to try to take that bridge
or whatever it is. So these you know that after
(32:17):
my uncle died. My uncle Jack died in twenty fourteen,
I called them and I said, can you send me
that video of my uncle Jack. They sent me the
video and I watched it and I was, you know,
just tears, and I got so moved by it. I
called them up and I said, you know, I'm so
(32:40):
lucky that I have this video of my uncle. Everyone
who has a World War Two veteran should have a
video of them telling their stories like this. Is there
anything I can do to help you get more of
these stories, to make sure that we preserve more of
these stories? And they said, you know, why don't you
(33:03):
fund some of our historians. So I said, great, We'll
fund historians to go out around the country and videotape
these World War Two veterans. And here's another thing that
I'd like to do. I'm going to approach my friends
in American Airlines and I'm going to pitch them an
idea to fly World War Two veterans down to the
(33:25):
National World War Two Museum to see this museum. Because
they are all over the country and many of them
will never see this museum that was built for them,
and so getting them there is super important. So I
want to start a program where we can fly these
(33:45):
veterans down there. So we started taking veterans in twenty fifteen,
and then in twenty seventeen, I thought, let's add another
component to this, and I pitch that to my team
at the foundation and also to American and I said,
I want to take high school kids on these trips
(34:06):
with the veterans, and pair up a high school student
with a World War Two veteran and they travel together
and experience the music, experience the museum with somebody who
lived through the experience. It'll be an education unlike anything
they'll ever get. Well, now we've done twenty seven trips
(34:27):
something like that taking World War II veterans and students
down to the National War War Two Museum, and you
can go on the Garysonese Foundation website and look at
our YouTube channel and you'll see a whole bunch of
videos of how special it is for these kids to
spend this time with these American heroes.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
It's beautiful, and you're also teaching that generation the cost
of their freedom and what. There's nothing like being confronted.
I remember taking my kids to you know, we're walking
through the Marines Museum out in Vietnam, Virginia, and as
we passed through, there was a retired elderly marine who
(35:10):
had been Aty Regima. Well, my kids were just fascinating
because we'd just come out of the See Regima exhibit
and here was the living embodiment of it. And this
man he sat with my kids for like a half hour,
and you could see the tears rolling down his face
because aid they were interested in what he had gone through,
(35:31):
and b he was passing it along to a younger
generation and they were excited about it. So the wonder
of what you're creating there and passing the history along
is so critical and important.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
It's beautiful, Raymond. I mean when you see it time
after time. I did the first It's been a while
since I've been able to get on a trip, but
I did the first twelve to fifteen trips.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
You know, every one of.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
These trips, you know, you know, helping these veterans get
through the museum and watching them interact with the students,
and watching the students interact with them, and the students
opening their eyes to what it is. I mean, the
cost of freedom is high. And you know they learn
from these veterans what they did that relates to them today, right.
(36:22):
I mean you know, without this, without us winning that war,
the Allies winning that war, we the world would have
been completely different and they would have grown grown up
in a completely different America.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I remember my son telling me after meeting that it
would seem a veteran when we were leaving. He said, Dad,
he's not that much older than I am now when
he went to war. I said, that's right, that's the lesson.
These were boys who went off to defend this freedom.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Yeah, it's incredible. It is an incredible sacrifice, and that's
a beautiful program.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
They want.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yeah, I'll say no, The Soaring Vellor is in all
of your program I mean your wellness programs. You have
the Rise program, which is about giving homes to your
to severely disabled vets. I mean we could spend an
afternoon talking about all the programs. You should go to
Garrisonese's Foundation website and look at it all. It's incredible work.
I want to talk though, about the string that I
see that runs through your life. Really from the time
(37:21):
you're in step and well, founding the foundation and then
in your personal life, and there is this string of
sacrifice that I see running through it and devotion to others.
In twenty eighteen, your son Mac is diagnosed with a
very rare form of cancer on his spine. It turns
(37:42):
into tumors that are popping out that the doctors can't control.
Your wife and during multiple surgeries at the same time
she's having her own cancer battle. How did you contend
with all this? First of all, what did you think
was happy?
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Well, it's just like you're getting punched.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
You know. When we found out my wife there was
you know, she had an mammogram and now we didn't
hear anything for a bit, you know, like so we
just assumed, you know, well maybe everything's okay. Then, I
(38:29):
don't know, maybe a month later, we get this letter
that said, you know there, you know, we'd like you
to come back in for another check, you know, like
a month later, we're like, what what's this?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, So a.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Month later we go back in, she gets another test,
and then they want her to go and see the
surgeon and he confirms that she has you know, cancer
in her limp Notes and that she's going to need surgery.
(39:05):
So they did a lump ectomy on my wife, which
you know, she didn't have to it's not a mass sectomy.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
She didn't lose her breast.
Speaker 4 (39:13):
But they did a lump acter mey whether it took
out nineteen nodes and then five of them were infected
with cancer. And it was successful surgery according to him.
But she was going to need to go through chemo
(39:35):
and radiation. You started chemo, she went through, you know,
all the chemo treatments, thirty five radiation treatments. And during
that time, you know, not too long after she had
had her initial surgery, Mac was having trouble with it
(39:57):
was just he was in pain when he was sitting
down and like his tailbone was hurting him. So we
sent him to a Moira's spine surgeon. And I get
this call that Mac has a has a tumor on
his sacrum. And I'm sitting there with Moira talking about
her breast cancer. I get a call Max now got cancer.
(40:20):
He's and it's something called cordoma, which is a very
very rare cancer.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I mean so rare. You know, when you think of rare, you.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
Think in the United States, well, maybe that's five thousand
people or something. This is three hundred per year, you know,
three hundred per year are diagnosed with this kind of tumor.
And it starts in the spine. It can start up here,
you know, at the top of the spine or at
the base of the spine. And with Mac that tumor
(40:50):
was was this big wrapped around his sacrum. And it's
such a slow growing tumor that it could very possibly
have been growing since birth that that long because it
grows very very slowly to get to that size. They
(41:11):
said that could have been there for a long long time.
And the only way to cure it is to take
it out and hopefully the surgeon gets every cell, every
bit of it, and that can happen successfully about seventy
(41:31):
percent of the time, but thirty percent of the time
they will take take it out and then it'll come
back and spread. And when it comes back and spreads,
there's very little it can be done. They try to
(41:52):
radiate it, they try any drug, any cancer drug they can.
We found out he had his initial tumor taken out
in September of twenty eighteen, and by May of twenty nineteen,
we found out that a cancer came back. So then
he went into like chemo treatments, radiation stuff, more surgeries
(42:14):
because now it was spreading to the neck, right had
he had tumors on his neck. He had in fact,
see this picture back here, that is five days before
he had to go in the hospital and get tumor
taken off his neck. In fact, you know, when he
wasn't on camera or getting his picture taken, they gave
him a neck brace to where when they discovered that
(42:36):
there was tumor on his neck, they didn't want him
to do anything that would you know, screw, you know,
pop anything, or that tumor was growing there and it
could fracture something. So they gave him a neck brace.
And he was wearing a neck brace until we got
into the hospital five days after that picture was taken. There.
But and he's also going through chemo and radiation, and
(43:01):
you know, they kept he had multiple spine surgeries because
he was in a lot of pain and the only
thing they could do was try to take the tumors
out off his spine. Each time they did that, he
became a little more disabled, until finally at the end
of twenty twenty, this was twenty twenty, he was in
(43:21):
a wheelchair and then he was still able to stand up,
but shortly after that he lost the use of his legs.
I remember coming in. I would come in and I
would stretch his legs out and have him push, you know,
his legs. And I came in and I said, Okay,
lift your leg up, but and he couldn't do it.
(43:43):
And he couldn't lift his leg up, and he just
looked at me, you know, he couldn't do it, and
he took it in stride. Raymond.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
I mean it was like like he's laying there.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
I think he knew something was happening, was getting harder
and harder to move his leg, and then when it happened,
it was like.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Can't do it. Then he was resigned to it. Yeah,
you know, it wasn't like he started crying or.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
Anything. He was just.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
We're in a different world now, you know. Now we're
in a we've moved to a new place.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
We're in another level of what we're going to do.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
The amazing thing to me is through all of this,
I mean, in twenty twenty one, you lose your father,
your wife is still battling cancer. Mac is now battling cancer,
but the mission, Max's mission and his love of music
never wanes.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
Gary.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
In fact, I would argue, well, you named the album
where he did resurrection and revival. It resurrects and revives him. Yeah,
in the last year of his life. Tell me about that,
what you saw, the drive you saw.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
In him, and the impact it had on you.
Speaker 4 (45:11):
Yeah. This record, this is part two of the first record,
the first record. In February of twenty twenty three, he'd
been fighting cancer and all of that, and he said
to me, Dad, there's a piece of music that I
wrote that I never finished in college, and I think
(45:34):
I'd like to try and finish it. So he contacted
one of my band members who he'd worked with a
little bit on some things, and my violin player Dan,
and Dan went to work with him on it to
help them kind of flesh out the ideas, and then
my piano player went to work on.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
It with him. Ben Lewis helping him.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
Ben would play things for him, send it back to
Mac and he'd make notes and send it back to Ben.
Then Ben would adjust. And then his buddy Oliver Shnae
came into the picture, who he.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Hadn't seen for a while.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
Oliver went to college with him, Yeah, and they hadn't
seen each other for a long time, and Mac played
him this piece of music that he'd been working on,
and Oliver went to work on it with him to
finish it. They went into the studio in July of
twenty twenty three and recorded the piece of Arctic Circles,
(46:31):
which is on Maxinese YouTube. Now that started the ball
rolling for Mac wanting to do an entire album, and
that's where Resurrection and Revival came from. I don't know where,
where he why he decided that that was the title,
but named it yeah, oh yeah, Mac Mac did.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Yeah, he.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Was.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
It was his project.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Well clearly it was resurrection and revival of his music,
but now in the light of what we know and
what's happened, it takes on a far greater significance.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yeah, he was.
Speaker 4 (47:08):
It was reviving him, you know, personally, to be to
be resurrecting some old pieces of music and bringing him
to new life.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
And you know, even that even that cover right there,
he who is this?
Speaker 4 (47:20):
That's my grandfather and his grave grandfather in World War
One who.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Kind of looks like Mac, I have to say, And
a little bit, but he looks he looks a little
bit like that he does. And when I saw it,
I thought, oh, he put his face. He super imposed
his face on an old picture. But it's not as
a relative, no.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
He he kind of revived that picture.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
One of the things he did when he was working
at the Foundation was kind of preserved things in archive
and he would take like, I had a lot of
these old pictures of my grandfather from World War One,
and he took them and kind of lightened them up
and fixed them up, made it look better and everything.
And his mom, you know, he's looking for one of
those pictures to use the cover, and he showed his
(48:02):
mom one over here, and she.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Said, what about that one with Grandpa on the horse? Huh?
Speaker 4 (48:09):
And Mac went back and got that and he looked
at it and he thought, you're right, mom, that's that's
a great that's a great shot.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
I had you on the show on my show on
a WTN on Fox and when the first album came out,
and as I listened to you, now you said when
Mac saw these pictures, he would brighten them up and
revive them. But it seems to me now now you've
released the second album of his work, some of which
you discovered like hidden treasure in.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
His devices after his death.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
You are the one who has now brightened and revived
and restored.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
These works that he left you. In many ways.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
Yeah, well, finding these musical treasures on his laptop after
he died was a blessing because it's given me this project,
you know, throughout this first year of our lives without
(49:15):
Mac that has really helped me through quite a bit.
It's resurrected me and revived me a bit from this
terrible grief that we're going through after losing him, you know,
and I'm grateful for that. You know, not everybody loses
somebody and then has you know, a treasure trove of
(49:38):
music to produce or something like that message.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
As you've told me.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
I mean, you were going clearly opening his opening these devices.
I'm sure the first impulse wasn't oh, I'm going to
go find some more music. You were looking for clues
in the sense of what he was going through. I imagine.
Speaker 4 (49:55):
I don't know what I was looking for Raymond.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
After he died. I you know, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (50:03):
Within days, I just went to his phone and I
just opened up his phone. I had his password, and
I opened up his phone and I started looking at
his text messages with people, and I looked at I
found voicemails of people that sent him.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
I mean that that.
Speaker 4 (50:21):
Called him the day he died, not knowing that he
was gone, or shortly after he died, not knowing he
was gone. These are friends that I didn't really know
very well. So and I found these voice messages. So
I ended up calling these these friends of his and
telling them, you know, we lost Mac. He's you know,
(50:43):
I just wanted you to know. I found this voicemail
that you left. I found text messages from different people.
I'm in fact, one of the one of the songs
on the record, it's It's he calls it quasi love.
It's you know, I know quasi is the pronunciation. But
(51:07):
Mac wanted to kind of do some some something different
with it, his own jazz, his own thing. And uh
So I found him singing into his phone the melody
for this song, uh into his voice message, and he
was writing a song in his head and he was
singing into his song. Then I found the chart for it,
(51:30):
and then I found text messages between him and my
violin player Dan talking about this song. And so I
went to Dan and said, what what what were you?
Were you working on another song with with Mac besides
Arctic Circles?
Speaker 2 (51:44):
And he said, oh yeah, Mac had this cool idea
and blah blah blah.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
And I said, we'll finish that song because we're going
to put it on We're doing a second record and
I want it on the record. And so it's on
the record. And I just found all kinds of things
on his phone, Raymond that I don't even know what.
I didn't know what I was looking for. I was
just I was just driven to find things and find
(52:13):
what was happening at the end of his life. Who
was who was he talking to? And do they know
what happened? You know?
Speaker 2 (52:20):
And so I had to let them know. And what's
the message?
Speaker 1 (52:24):
What did you discover that you didn't know that he
was going through at the end of his life.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Gary, through all of this.
Speaker 4 (52:35):
You know, I never wanted to have that sort of
what if conversation with Mac.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Mac.
Speaker 4 (52:44):
You know, we're fighting cancer and it's you know, it's tough,
and what if this happens were I never wanted to
have that conversation with him, you know, do you want
me to do this or do you want me to
do that? There was only one time where I asked
him about out something, what what would you want to
(53:04):
happen with your bank account? Because he'd saved a lot
of money, and what would you want to happen?
Speaker 2 (53:13):
You know?
Speaker 4 (53:15):
And he paid for the first record himself, I mean
out of out of his savings and everything.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
But he saved a fair.
Speaker 4 (53:22):
Amount of money, and so I asked him and he
told me what he would want with that. But then
I didn't I didn't want to have that conversation with him,
because I did. I didn't want him or me to
feel like we were we were looking at the end
of the road. I was always from the from the
(53:46):
get go, trying to find the drug, trying to find
the doctor, trying to find the procedure. What can we try?
Where can we try it? In fact, there was there
was Mac was getting ready to do another treatment when
he ended up in the hospital the last time he
was scheduled for another treatment and then he ended up
going into the er because his breathing was affected, and
(54:11):
we lost him on January January fifth.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
What did he teach you about sacrifice and staying on mission?
Did he teach you anything.
Speaker 4 (54:27):
Well, yeah, he fought this with such grace and courage that,
you know, I can only hope that I'm going to
be as graceful and courageous when you know, things get tough,
you know, for me, because I watched him knowing that
(54:52):
he knew how bad things were for him, and yet
he never.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
Never stop smiling through it.
Speaker 4 (55:03):
You know, if he was not in pain or not
feeling sick from the treatments, he was smiling. He was
watching the Cubs. He was a big Cubs.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Fan all this, all through.
Speaker 4 (55:15):
The summer of twenty twenty three, he was watching the
TV with his mom, watching the Cubs. My mom was
in there all through Moira, My mom and Mac all
had their Cub bats and they're all watching the Cub games.
He was smiling through that. He was playing ens harmonica.
He was working on the music. The entire last year
(55:36):
of his life. He was focused on creating this album,
and so was He was filled with like joy and
happiness for what he was doing, and it was giving
him this this amazing thing to look forward to every day.
I'm making a record. I'm going into the studio. He
(55:56):
was in the studio in July twenty twenty three. He
was back in the studio in November twenty twenty three.
The record was finished in December, he heard all the music,
he designed the cover, and he saw the final videos
that were made. And then a day later he was
(56:16):
in the hospital and we lost him six days later.
So that whole last year he was filled with joy
and happiness of working on this music and accomplishing this
thing that he wanted to do, and this beautiful music.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
I mean, it's stunning.
Speaker 4 (56:31):
So I watched him just gracefully go through the last
year of his life, you know, being paralyzed, being you know,
struggling with different things.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Yet Mac never ever looked like he was given up.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
Well, I love how you've continued. You took the baton
from him and in his passing, finished the work. Because
now you've gotten two more album I mean, it's really
two more albums.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
I know it's Resurrection and Revival part two. It's actually
part three two. I mean, you've got a lot here,
doule double disc. It's a double disc.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
I mean it's a lot of music. It's nineteen tracks
and they're very diverse. There's jazz, there's orchestra, orchestra, there's
a beautiful harmonica with strength. I mean, there's the diversity
of his musical palette is pretty wide and uh, in fact,
kind of fascinating. And I imagine as a father. I
(57:27):
mean I listened to it one way, but I'm sure
as a dad you listen to it and go wow.
I didn't realize that he had that in him, or
I didn't know he had he felt that, because I mean,
it's a wash of feeling.
Speaker 2 (57:40):
That's really what this is. It's an album is a
wash of feelings.
Speaker 4 (57:43):
And yeah, some of the stuff I discovered was I
was totally just like, wow, why didn't he ever?
Speaker 2 (57:49):
Why didn't he play that for me? It's so beautiful.
Speaker 4 (57:53):
There's a song called just for Now on it that
he did all on his computer programs. A lot of
the stuff he would write, you know, on his programs,
like just for Now, he did everything on his programs.
We took the just renowned track that Mac created with
the original vocals and everything like that. We added some
strings on top of some some of it, just just
(58:17):
to give it a little more. But the track could
have been put on the record all by itself because Mac.
Speaker 2 (58:24):
Mack did it. It's just a beautiful song.
Speaker 4 (58:27):
His friend from college, Lou Roy, sings on it. She's
got a beautiful voice. She sings on three of the
songs on the record. There's other other music on the
record that Mac did all by himself. There's a cover
of nature Boy, the old song by Natkin col.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (58:46):
Mac does a version of nature Boy where he plays
all the instruments and he sings, and he recorded everything.
Speaker 2 (58:52):
And he had that all on the computer. Where was this?
Speaker 4 (58:54):
That was?
Speaker 2 (58:55):
That was in his files?
Speaker 4 (58:56):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (58:57):
In his file?
Speaker 1 (58:57):
What do you think he would say if he saw
this part to What would he say to you?
Speaker 2 (59:05):
What would he say to me? I hope you'd say,
let's do part three?
Speaker 1 (59:13):
He may he may give a g yet, Gary, Okay,
there's a there's a string of questions I ask every
I call this my royal Grande questionnaire.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
So now you're going to be subjected to it.
Speaker 1 (59:23):
These are fast you don't have to spend much time
on these, but I'm warning you they are deadly questions.
You're right, who's the person you most admire? Jesus Hm,
who do you most attest?
Speaker 3 (59:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (59:38):
I can't say that, Come on, I can't. Everybody tries
to dodge on you right now.
Speaker 1 (59:43):
Thank you yeah for asking that question, you awful person.
Speaker 2 (59:46):
What is your best feature?
Speaker 4 (59:52):
I don't know. Maybe mmm, hard to say. Persistence, maybe persistence.
Speaker 2 (59:58):
What's your worst? Your worst feature? Maybe persistence, the double
edged sort of persistence.
Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Well, you don't build a foundation and call it the
Gary Sneze foundation without a little persistent Your favorite meal, Gary.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Oh, dear gosh.
Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
Maybe one of my favorite meals is chicken pacata.
Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Chicken pacata. Yeah, well, I see, I evade.
Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
I like anything Italian, So my favorite meal is one
I get to eat with.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Family or friends. That's my favorite, Well, like the one
I had last night with somebody.
Speaker 4 (01:00:34):
But my dad used to make chicken pecata and that's
a good man.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
But I like a lot of food.
Speaker 4 (01:00:40):
What do you fear, Gary, Failure? Maybe maybe loss?
Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Your greatest virtue is what? What do you what do
you consider the greatest virtue? Not your greatest virtue, but
what do you consider the greatest virtue?
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Honesty? Maybe honesty?
Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
Why? Well, if you're if you're not honest, you know,
and nobody's gonna trust you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
What's that old line? My great grandmother had a line.
If you lie, you cheat, If you cheat, you steal.
If you steal, you're no good. I guess that's I
guess that's true. What could you not live without? Mm air? Well,
(01:01:41):
that's a good answer. I guess that's that's kind of universal,
Gary Oxygen. What is your biggest regret?
Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
Oh gosh, you know, I I've thought about this with
regards to Mac and just wishing that I had in
those final days I had asked him if he was
afraid and and let him talk to me a little
(01:02:13):
bit more.
Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
But neither of us wanted to go there.
Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
You know, I don't know if that's my biggest regret,
but when I think of it, I wished i'd before
he was unable to speak again, you know, because he
lost that capacity with what was going on with his lungs.
(01:02:39):
It went so quickly that I wished that I had
spent more time in those last days having you know,
having that having some kind of more in depth conversation
with him about his feelings, what he what he'd been
(01:02:59):
through and what he was going going through. But again,
like I said, I never wanted to feel like I
was given up and you.
Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
Were in the fight.
Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
And I would argue, if you'll permit me, you helped
fill his last year and those last days with great
joy and accomplishment for Mac. I mean I saw that
from the little piece we did after Christmas, just on
(01:03:27):
the cusp of the new year, the reaction he had
to that, and the pride he had in that showing
it to other people, and that was all you're doing
so and it was the culmination of his work.
Speaker 4 (01:03:40):
And yeah, and his mom and his two sisters. He
loved them so much, and they loved him so much,
and you know, we all pulled together, and they were
a big part of everything, no question. Without their support,
(01:04:00):
I couldn't have you know, I couldn't have gone gone
through everything I was doing. And they were helping Mac
in so many ways, so many beautiful ways.
Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
What is the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Speaker 4 (01:04:14):
I always I always give this one to like young
actors who asked me for advice, and I save your money?
Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Is that the best piece?
Speaker 4 (01:04:25):
Gary?
Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Save your money? That's all the broke actors out there.
Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
I know the feeling, right SA saving good things are
good today, but they might not be good tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
Save your money, Okay, I.
Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Guess it's good advice if you could not do what
you're doing. Now, what would you like to do?
Speaker 4 (01:04:44):
These are these are difficult questions because I don't I
don't ever think about that. You know, I'm I'm fairly
at you know, I'm at peace with what I'm doing.
I've done a lot of things in my life with
the and I've got a great family.
Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
My family is it's great.
Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
May maybe spend more and more time with my family,
you know, I'm still trying to accomplish a lot with
the foundation work and the band and supporting the troops,
and that takes me away sometimes. And you know, my
wife is just the best person I know, and you know,
(01:05:26):
and I look at how she has sacrificed for this
mission that I've been on, because she spent a lot
of time without me there because I've been going somewhere
to do something, and she's she's a real she's a
real hero and my biggest champion. You know, her brother
(01:05:49):
served in Vietnam, and she always wanted me to go
out there and try to make sure that our service
members know they're appreciated because her brothers didn't get that
when they came home. And so she's been backing me
up every step in the way. So just you to
spend in more time with them, and that you know,
that's the important thing, and the grandkids and all.
Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
That final question what happens when this is over, not
the interview, this life.
Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
Well, I hope I'll be welcomed.
Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
And Lord will say good job.
Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
I think you'll not only be welcomed, you'll hear familiar music, music,
maybe Arctic circles played when you get there, my friend.
Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
So great to see you. God, bless you, thank you,
thank you, thank you. Rim here's the whole.
Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
Gary is a wonderful reminder that we receive calls to
action when we least expect them. Through providential events and moments.
Were sometimes called to leave something behind and do something
new for others. For Gary, his acting legacy gave him
the visibility to help veterans, and he would devote his
life to them. Then, when his son and his wife
(01:07:08):
face cancer, his mission changed again. And now he's extending
and spreading Max music in incredible ways. If you haven't
heard Maxnice's Resurrection and Revival, go to his YouTube page
and order copies at Gary Sinisefoundation dot org.
Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
I hope you'll support their good work.
Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
I know I do, and I'm so glad you spent
time with us today. Why live a dry, narrow, constricted
life when if you fill it with good things, it
can flow into a broad, thriving Arroyo Grande.
Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
I'm Raymond Arroyo.
Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
Make sure you subscribe, like this episode, come back for more,
Thanks for diving in, and we'll see you next time.
Arroyo Grande is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and
is available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
Spokust Perkastans Expence and spokes Constans
Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
Spokus Perkistans
I didn't want to, but the reaction to the Sydney
Sweeney ad demands some thoughts and imagine dedicating your whole
life to one pursuit. Then you get a call to
devote yourself to something new and entirely different. That's what
happened to actor Gary Sinise responding to the call, how
do you do it all? On this edition of the
Arroyo Grande Show. Come on, I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to
(00:33):
Arroyo Grande. Go subscribe to the show right now. Turn
those notifications on. I don't want you to miss what's coming.
Now you've seen this Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ad.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
By now I am sure.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I'm not here to tell you to buy American Eagle chans,
and I definitely won't say that they're the most comfortable chance.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
I've ever worn.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Sidney Sweeney has very keen You see what I did
there right? Well?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Some are claiming the double edged tagline Sidney Sweeney has
great genes evokes the Nazis and more.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
A blonde haired, blue eyed white woman is talking about
her good genes like that is Nazi propaganda.
Speaker 6 (01:15):
Look, I'm not saying that Sidney Sweeney personally wrote this
ad to revive the Third Reich, but American Eagle absolutely
knew what they were doing here. You don't get to
drop lines about inherited traits, blue eyes and great genes
while zooming in on somebody that could have walked straight
off of a Nazi propaganda poster and expect people not
to catch that reference. You guys are complaining about that
(01:36):
Sydney Sweeney gens ads.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
So I went and saw it.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
That's Nazi propaganda. Wow.
Speaker 7 (01:45):
The pun good genes activates a troubling historical associations for
this country, the American eugenics movement, and it's primed between
like nineteen hundred and nineteen forty weaponized the idea of
good genes.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Okay, this is lunacy. When was the last time you
heard anyone call out actual eugenics? Call me when the
professor does, of course, on Margaret's sanger and why planned
parenthood clinics are in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Look,
I watch that ad and I've yet to see the
Nazi or eugenics propaganda. Yes, she is white and blue eyed,
(02:22):
but so what tons of models are they're selling? Genes
with a kind of obvious play on words. And my
guess is the admin probably saw this old Brookshields Genes
Genes ad from the nineteen eighties, where she shimmies into
Calvin's with similar pattern.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Certain genes may fade away while other genes persist, and finally,
by natural selection, which filters out those genes better equipped
than others to endure in the environment, this may result
in the origin of an entirely new species, which brings
us to Calvins and the survivor of the fittest.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Nothing is new, kids.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
The angry reaction to this very tame, and as you see,
they're imitative commercial seems to be about something else. Are
they upset that Sydney Sweeney is the it girl of
the moment, or that she's returning advertising to a beauty
standard that we're used to seeing in ads. I don't know,
but the overblown furious reactions to this ad are totally
(03:26):
over the top. I mean, the genes look like mom
jeans to me. They don't even showcase her figure. The
last time anyone modeled a high waisted baggy denim like this,
Barack Obama was throwing out an opening pitch They're not
exactly Versace or Calvins. Those were built to accentuate the
curves and they did, making the high dudgeon from some
(03:47):
of these influencers all the more absurd. From the nineteen
forties to the early aughts, American marketers used attractive models
to sell stuff, particularly clothes. That's hardly news. We're all
to beautiful people. It's an attention getter. So why is
this particular ad so triggering? I think because the Sweeney
(04:09):
campaign symbolizes.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
A beauty boomerang.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
For years, Madison Avenue has tried to convince people that
this is beautiful every shape and size and spread and sprawl. Look,
Beauty comes in many guises, but it may not be
everyone's cup of deep TEA. Part of the reaction you
saw there is because they know this Sweeney ad feels
(04:36):
like a counter to the recent trend, and that's upsetting
to some.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
But think about it.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Do flabby guys fly into a rage on social media
every time some actor shows his abs in a spread? No,
you hit the gym, you eat less, or you ignore
it and order a double Shack burger and fries then
hit KFC on the way home. But why are people
so jumpy over this Sydney sweeneyad. I think because they're
(05:03):
worried about protecting an imaginary idea of beauty rather than
letting people decide for themselves. And they don't like the
idea that some might find a blonde, blue eyed gal attractive.
If out of shape people can be beautiful, so can
fetching actresses, even if she is wearing mom jeans.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Now to our deep dive.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Have you ever had a feeling that you were supposed
to do something else, something totally different, Well, that's what
happened to actor Gary Sinise.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I spoke to.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Him about the calling to care for our troops and
first responders and their families, and later to care for
his own family as both his wife Moira and his
son Mac battled cancer. Gary's an Emmy and Tony Award
winning actor a director, best known for his Oscar nominated
role as Lieutenant Dan and Forrest Gump. But Gary sinise
(05:58):
reshaped the American theater before all that. When he founded
a theater company in Chicago called Steppenwolf along with John
Malkovich and Joan Allen Lori Medcalf. He left a mark
on the acting approach of America that really has stayed
to this day. He took Broadway by storm in True
West The Grapes of Wrath Orphans, But it was during
(06:21):
his last Broadway show that he felt a different call
that would change his life forever.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
And the last thing I did was One Flew over
the Kuchar's Nest on Broadway, and that was two thousand
and one. So we closed July twenty ninth, two thousand
and one. Six weeks later, September eleventh, two thousand and one,
the attack on our country, and everything changed for me.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
At that point.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
I started thinking about different things, and I wanted to
kind of get very involved in supporting the men and
women who were deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. I just
got very involved in that. Never returned to the theater
after that.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
You did a show when you were at Steppenwolf Tracers.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
And did that?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Did that plant any seeds for the next phase of
Gary Sinice's life.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
It definitely was a seed that was planted in terms
of supporting veterans and trying to do something to help,
especially our Vietnam veterans.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, I tell people the Tracery is about that. That's
what Tracers is about.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
It's a story that was written by a group of
Vietnam veterans and they performed it on stage.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So they got together.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
One guy conceived the idea, a guy named John Difusco.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
He's a Vietnam veteran.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
He put an ad in the paper and said, hey,
I want to make a plan, and I'm looking for
Vietnam veterans. So he got he got some guys together
and they started. Every day they would go into like
a workshop where they talk about their experiences in Vietnam
and he would write things down and then they would
improvise and work on and they, you know, over the
(08:05):
course of time, they created a play so that they
call Tracers, and it was a play about the Vietnam experience.
I discovered it as the artistic director of Steppenwolf looking
for a play to do about Vietnam, because I had
Moira's two brothers served in Vietnam and her sister's husband,
(08:25):
Jack Terteres, also served in Vietnam as a combat medic.
And I got to be you know, I got to
know them a little bit, got to hear their stories,
got to feel a lot of compassion for them, and
quite frankly, a lot of guilt because they were just
a little bit older than I was during the Vietnam War,
(08:45):
and I was at high school and the chasing girls
around and you know, playing guitar and doing plays, and
they were getting shot at. And so when I met them,
I got to feel a little guilty about being kind
of oblivious during that period of time. So I wanted
to do something that spoke to the Vietnam experience, and
(09:06):
so I started to look and I found the play Tracers.
We eventually did it in Chicago, and that was a
big thing.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
When I read about that experience, you really building with others,
but you building and then guiding Steppenwolf. I see Gary
Sonise the builder, and you do have that in you
where you I mean, obviously your cause at that moment
was theater and creating great plays in some ways preserving
American classics of mice and men, which I saw. How
(09:38):
did that carry on into the next phase of your life?
How did it prepare.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
You for what you're doing now? And the building of
the foundation. Did it?
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Yeah? I think all all those things did. I think,
you know, if I look back to how I grew
up as a kid. My dad was a film editor
and in Chicago, and you know, the bulk of the
film work in Chicago in those days was like the
(10:07):
mad Men Show. You know, remember the advertising agency. So
the advertising guys were constantly making commercials and they needed
the editors to crank out these commercials and get them
done no matter what time it was because they were
all on deadline.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So my dad would work these crazy hours.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
And I don't remember dad being, you know, just around
that much, you know, when I was growing up in
terms of high school or any of that. So I
got to I got to kind of work things out
on my own anyway. My mom had her hands full
with she was taking care of her mom and her
sister and me and my brother and sister, and I
(10:53):
kind of developed this sort of do it yourself sort
of you know, I just can't wait around for somebody
to tell me what to do kind of thing. And
I sort of developed that at an early age, and that,
you know, then I got into high school and decided, well,
what I want to do is start a theater.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I could.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I'm not going to college because nobody told you you
couldn't that's right.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Nobody said you couldn't. And I had a great mentor
in high school. Her name's Barbara Patterson, and.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
She stayed in touch with her for a long time.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
I did.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
She was the drama teacher in high school and we
we became very close and stayed in touch with her.
And she saw me as a kid who you know,
I was bad in school and didn't you know, grades
were no good and all that, but I could actually act.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
She saw something in she saw badasses which she saw.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
She saw well, she saw a guy who could, you know,
just let it rip. And because I didn't, I didn't.
I didn't have any training or anything like that. I
just came to my first and started just doing what
I thought I should do.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And she kind of said, go with that.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
That's good. And so she gave me a lot of
courage and a lot of self confidence in terms of
just believing in my particular approach to things. And so
I just had a particular approach, and I also kind
of developed this sort of folk focus on leadership and
(12:27):
kind of seeing a thing over here and then going
and trying to make it happen. And there, you know,
that manifested itself into kind of finding a space and
creating a theater company and then you know, making movies
and conquering Broadway.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah yeah, I remember with True West.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
I was the artistic director of Stepping Will at that time,
and I really wanted to move that show. I was
looking like as soon as I took over as the
artistic director of Stepping Will, one of the things I
wanted to do because I thought we were really good
and I thought, you know, the next thing we got
to do is, you know, if we want we want
to be more well known in Chicago, and I think
that a good way to do that is to be
(13:12):
well known in New York.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
So so smart move.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
So we we took.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
A play there and it was a big, big hit,
and John John became a movie star. Steppenwolf got all
this attention. We all producers started coming to Chicago to
see our work. We ended up doing play after play
there every year in.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Incredible all hits.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
They were all doing great, and it really it really
set the stage for being able to build a building,
you know, because we were being recognized as really talented
group of people, and we were starting because of our
success in New York, starting to develop this sort of
international reputation because we would get all these great reviews
(13:57):
in New York and all those reviews would trickle out
to the West Coast and all around, and people were
starting to recognize Steppenwolf as something positive. So we were
able to raise the money in Chicago to build a building,
and that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
I know there was a big shift after nine to
eleven for you, at least in your own mind and heart.
But back in nineteen ninety four, Gary, you right after
Forrest Gump, you're addressing a group of disabled veterans. Tell
me about that moment and what you learned in that moment.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
That was Ye. Forrest Gump came out in on July sixth,
nineteen ninety four, thirty years ago. Wow. And shortly after that,
I received an invitation to come to the National Convention
(14:55):
of the Disabled American Veterans Organization, which I was not
aware of. Didn't didn't know the organization at all, but
they've been around for decades and decades, and so I
kind of looked into what is it? And they at
that point they represented about one point five million mooded
(15:19):
veterans going back to World War Two, and they wanted
to give me an award for playing Lieutenant Dan wounded guy,
and they thought I did a good job, and they
wanted to, you know, kind of bring me out there
and kind of give me something. So I went there.
Convention that year was in Chicago, and I went to
(15:40):
the Conrad Hilton in Chicago in August of ninety four,
just maybe six weeks after the movie came out, and
I'm standing on stage.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
In fact, the.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
First pages of my book Grateful American described this moment
of walking out on stage and looking out in the
in the crowd and there's you know, two thousand wounded
veterans out in this ballroom and they're all cheering for me.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And I was so moved by it.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
And just kind of the impact that was made by
seeing all these wheelchairs and you know, just wounded folks
just applauding me for playing this part was profound. And
so I stayed in touch with them and started working
with them and supporting them over the years. And I
(16:38):
think the Tracer's experience of working on that and getting
involved with local Vietnam Veterans groups in Chicago ten years later,
the Lieutenant Anne experience getting involved with our wounded supporting them.
Those were just those were seeds that were being planted
(16:58):
that would grow in to this full on mission after
September eleventh, two thousand and one, and.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I was just I just felt like call to action at.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
That at that point to get involved in a deeper way,
both those things the tracers experience in the Lieutenant.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Dan acclaim after the film, I mean it was it
was a cultural moment. But for the veterans community, they
saw themselves in a positive light. And as you mentioned earlier,
if you look at the Vietnam films and those stories
told before, it always ended horribly for them.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Yeah, it was depressing and dark or you just you
He always wondered, I'm just not sure that Vietnam veteran
is going to be okay. And after this film is over, Yeah,
Like look at the Coming Home, That's what came to mind.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Coming back.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
You see Bruce Dern, what's he do. He's so racked
with guilt and everything. He takes off his uniform and
swims out in the ocean. He's not coming back. You
wonder at the end of Platoon, when Charlie Sheen is
flying over the battlefield and he's looking down and he
sees all these bodies, and you know, the battle is
(18:12):
over and every lot of buddies are gone and he's
flying off. At the end of that movie, you just
wonder that guy's going to have a tough time going
into life casualties of war.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
The same thing with Michael J.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Fox. And then you got, Gosh, you got Martin Sheen
at the end of your Apocalypse. Now you got look
what happens to Chris walk And at the end of
Deer Hunt.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Deerhunter.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
These are all dark endings, That's what I mean. They're
all dark to semi dark endings. Lieutenant Dan is the.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Only happy ending. That's what was different about it.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And they are still talking about it and watching it today.
So after nine to eleven, what happens you start? When
do you start the band? The Lieutenant Dan Band.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
So I'd done Truman and I just finishedoing George Wallace
in like old January or February of ninety seven, and
then I went to Chicago to play Stanley Kowalski in
the streetcar named Desire. And I was on stage in
(19:18):
Streetcar and there was a guy who had written the
music for Streetcar named Keimo Williams and Kemo.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
He was a bass player, but.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
He liked to play guitar, and he heard I was
a bass player, so he said, hey, you know, if
you ever want to come over in jam, you know,
come on over.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
And so I was so busy during the run of
the show, I could never do it. I was tired.
You know, it's a shark. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
I just wanted to get to get through it. And
so right at the end we wrapped the show. I
got a couple of days before I'm going to fly
back to California, and I called him up and said,
why don't we get some pizza and we'll get some
guys and we'll play. And I went over started playing.
So that kind of rekindled some bass stuff in me.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I used to play bass and guitar and everything.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
I put it away when I was gotten so busy
with Stepping Wolf and everything. I hadn't really played much,
but playing it really got me going again. And then
I went Shortly after that, I went up to Atlantic
City and then Montreal to do a movie with Nick
(20:28):
Cage called Snake Eyes. And when I was up doing
Snake Guys in Canada, there were some guys on the
crew that played, and so we went and started playing,
and I called Chemo up and said, come on up
here and play with us. So he flew up to
Montreal and we were playing. And then after September eleventh,
(20:52):
I wanted to do more for the troops and I
started going on USO tours and handshaking and taking pictures,
and I went to the war zones a couple of times.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I went to.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Germany, I went to Italy and went to Walter Reed,
I went. You know, I was doing all this stuff
in two thousand and three, going one month after another
to some military base or something like that.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Just meet get so you got the band, no band, No,
it was.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
It was a series of meet and greets for the
for for for six or seven months.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I was I was going out.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Didn't have a job at that time that was keeping
me in towns, but I wanted. I wanted to help
our troops. You know, we had you know, we'd been
attacked and I wanted to do something. And so I
started visiting them and I had, you know, because I
had some jammers that I would play with from time
to time. I said to the USO, let me take
(21:45):
them on a tour. And eventually they said okay. So
I called up Chemo and said, hey, let's let's put
some folks together and and let's go and so we
we started touring and that that that's what began the
lieutenant and band. Kimo left the band after after a while,
(22:05):
and you know, we've we've now the band has played
Oh gosh, we've played one hundred, five hundred and seventy
five concerts on military basis. Incredible. I've been I've been
to I've been over one hundred and seventy five military
bases myself, you know, in the hospitals and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Why do you still do it? Gary?
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Once I started doing it, I could see that it
was impactful. It was in a positive way, like it
was it was good that I was there. You know,
I'd walk into a hospital room and maybe maybe there'd
be a wounded soldier service member in the bed, completely unconscious,
(22:49):
you know, hadn't woken up yet. Family is standing around
waiting for that moment, praying for that moment. And I
come in and they've been there for weeks, just dealing
with the issues, and somebody like me comes in and
the light faces light up, and you know, start taking pictures,
and it changes the mood, it changes the tone, and
(23:12):
I could see that showing up was making a difference.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
So then I.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
Wanted to do it again, and I wanted to do
it again after that, and I just kept wanting to
do it because I could see that it was helping.
Of course, if I had seen me, if I hadn't
felt that it was helping, I wouldn't there.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
To be how garrison these foundations, I mean, how did
the foundation start?
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Tell me about the founding. So you're out doing these
USO tours with the band. I know, you're also collaborating
with other organizations that are building homes for veterans and
helping veterans in various ways, and you're donating a lot
of the money from these concerts to these partner organizations.
But when do you start your own foundation? What was
(23:53):
the impetus for that?
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Well, you know, when I started making those tours, those
early tours, just volunteering to go to the hospitals or
you know, go shake hands or something, or you know,
now take the band and go play on military bases
and whatnot. One of the things that I also wanted
(24:17):
to do was to try to help more people was
to volunteer for a lot of different other organizations. There
were a lot of service organizations out there that were
supporting veterans and first responders, and I wanted to help
veterans and first responders, so I would volunteer to you know,
raise money for these organizations, raise awareness for what they
(24:42):
were doing by doing PSAs or whatever. So I just
started volunteering wherever I could for multiple organizations. So I
learned a lot about all these different needs and organizations
were filling this need, you know, you know, we were
building homes for our wounded, we were taking care of
our goal start children, or families of our fallen entertainment,
(25:06):
you know, whatever it was. It was a lot of
different things, and I support a lot of different organizations.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
After doing that for you know, ten.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
Years or whatever it was, it was clear that this
was something that was just a big part of my life.
And I started thinking, well, you know, I've got to
find a way to do this in a different way.
And I've seen all these nonprofits pop up and I've
tried to help them all. Why didn't I just start
(25:35):
my own? And at that point, I had been doing
it long enough that I had a pretty good reputation
with you know, trying to help, and so that's why
I put my name on the on the foundation. I
called it Gary Sneeze Foundation, because there was already a
you know, I already had a relationship with the military families,
(25:57):
and I had been raising money for all these other organizations.
I was on television, you know, Weekly and CSI New York.
So I just said this, let's do it. I want
to do more, and I think the way to do
that is to start raising our own money so that
I can hire people to do more. So we started
(26:19):
out very small, a couple of people, and now we've
got a giant organization.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Now give me a sense, and I won't make you
go through every program, but you all do things that
I don't see other organizations doing.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Years ago.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
I know you took over the Snowball Express program. Tell
me about that. I mean, I've covered it. It's the
most it's one of the most moving and I think
amazing and important moments at Christmas time. I think of
almost any organization in the country.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
It's beautiful. It's focused on the children of our fallen heroes.
And it was started at Disneyland in two thousand and
six by a group of folks that just want to
help the kids of our fallen heroes and help them
through the holidays by taking them to a happy place
like Disneyland and letting them play and letting them meet
each other, to see that they weren't alone, you know,
(27:14):
in their grief and what they were going through. There
was a lot of other kids that have lost a
parent in military service, and it was very.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Bonding and healing.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
I got involved with it the second year they had
done They had done one event at Disneyland. I was
shooting CSI New York and Studio City. They contacted me
and said they wanted to come and show me a
video of their first event. And I saw that, I
said I wanted to be involved. I volunteered to donate
(27:45):
my band the following year to come play for the kids.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I did that, then I went back the next year.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Then I donated and just kept doing it every year,
help helping to raise money or raise awareness or raised
spirits by bringing the band and playing.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
For the kids. I've done it.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
You know, I don't know we're in our eighteenth year.
I know it snowballs in its eighteenth year. So in
twenty eighteen. Having American Airlines is a big, big sponsor
of ours.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
With multiple programs.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
But American had actually gotten very, very involved, and so
the event moved from Anaheim and Disneyland after three years
to Dallas, and because that's the hub of American Airlines,
have got a lot of good support there. They could
do a lot of things for the kids. So it
(28:44):
was there for a number of years and then I
mentioned to the folks that were kind of in charge
of it at that time, Hey, you know, I've been
narrating the show at disney World for you know, a
dozen years. That's a great place for the kids. I
think we should take it take it there. Uh well,
(29:05):
it was going to cost a lot of extra money
to do that, and that's when we decided to fold
Snowball Express into the Garysonese Foundation as one of our
programs because we had the ability to raise raise the
amount of money to you know, you're taking a thousand
kids to Disney World. You got to get a lot
of hotel rooms and all.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
You know, it's a logistical and transportation.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
It's a big big thing. So American provides all the
all the transportation. Uh, you know, multiple charter airplanes that
come from all over the country with these kids on board.
All you know, all the people that all the flight attendants,
all the pilots, everybody volunteers their time. American donates the
(29:52):
airplane planes. We get all the kids to the Disney.
My foundation is the is the you know, it's the
Garysonese Foundation program. So we raise all the additional money
to do everything. They work passes and they and the
hotels and the food and every everything like that. It
costs a lot of money, hundreds and hundreds of volunteers
(30:12):
and we bring them in for you know, we bring
them in on a Saturday and they're there till like Wednesday,
and it's it's it's life changed. A lot of days
of fun and healing for these kids. You know, they
make lifelong friendships with somebody with another kid who's who's.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Lost a parent.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Tell me about the Soaring Valor program, which we were
talking about the other day.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Which I knew.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
I've seen them when I'm in and out of airports,
particularly down in New Orleans. I didn't realize the other
part of the city. It's not just veterans of war
that you're bringing in on these Soaring Valor trips.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Well, Soaring Valor is I have that.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
That's one that started with my relationship with the National
World War Two Museum in New Orleans, and Tom Hanks
invited me to. He was helping to make the movie
that plays in the theater there called Beyond All Boundaries,
and so Tom called some of his palace to do
(31:16):
voices in the movie. And I did the voice of
Ernie Pyle. And this goes back to two thousand and
nine or so, so I did the voice of Ernie Pyle.
And then I sent my uncle there, who was a
navigator on a B seventeen bomber over Europe and World
War Two, and they recorded my uncle on video for
(31:39):
the archive at the museum. And that's one of the
programs that they have at the museum where they tried
to get as many World War Two veterans to tell
their stories on camera and they preserve them in their
archives and they use.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
These stories throughout the museums.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
You'll go to an exhibit, you'll hit a thing, and
a and elderly World War Two veteran will come out
and start telling his story, right, and then you see
all this stuff there and he's telling the story of
what it was like to try to take that bridge
or whatever it is. So these you know that after
(32:17):
my uncle died. My uncle Jack died in twenty fourteen,
I called them and I said, can you send me
that video of my uncle Jack. They sent me the
video and I watched it and I was, you know,
just tears, and I got so moved by it. I
called them up and I said, you know, I'm so
(32:40):
lucky that I have this video of my uncle. Everyone
who has a World War Two veteran should have a
video of them telling their stories like this. Is there
anything I can do to help you get more of
these stories, to make sure that we preserve more of
these stories? And they said, you know, why don't you
(33:03):
fund some of our historians. So I said, great, We'll
fund historians to go out around the country and videotape
these World War Two veterans. And here's another thing that
I'd like to do. I'm going to approach my friends
in American Airlines and I'm going to pitch them an
idea to fly World War Two veterans down to the
(33:25):
National World War Two Museum to see this museum. Because
they are all over the country and many of them
will never see this museum that was built for them,
and so getting them there is super important. So I
want to start a program where we can fly these
(33:45):
veterans down there. So we started taking veterans in twenty fifteen,
and then in twenty seventeen, I thought, let's add another
component to this, and I pitch that to my team
at the foundation and also to American and I said,
I want to take high school kids on these trips
(34:06):
with the veterans, and pair up a high school student
with a World War Two veteran and they travel together
and experience the music, experience the museum with somebody who
lived through the experience. It'll be an education unlike anything
they'll ever get. Well, now we've done twenty seven trips
(34:27):
something like that taking World War II veterans and students
down to the National War War Two Museum, and you
can go on the Garysonese Foundation website and look at
our YouTube channel and you'll see a whole bunch of
videos of how special it is for these kids to
spend this time with these American heroes.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
It's beautiful, and you're also teaching that generation the cost
of their freedom and what. There's nothing like being confronted.
I remember taking my kids to you know, we're walking
through the Marines Museum out in Vietnam, Virginia, and as
we passed through, there was a retired elderly marine who
(35:10):
had been Aty Regima. Well, my kids were just fascinating
because we'd just come out of the See Regima exhibit
and here was the living embodiment of it. And this
man he sat with my kids for like a half hour,
and you could see the tears rolling down his face
because aid they were interested in what he had gone through,
(35:31):
and b he was passing it along to a younger
generation and they were excited about it. So the wonder
of what you're creating there and passing the history along
is so critical and important.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
It's beautiful, Raymond. I mean when you see it time
after time. I did the first It's been a while
since I've been able to get on a trip, but
I did the first twelve to fifteen trips.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
You know, every one of.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
These trips, you know, you know, helping these veterans get
through the museum and watching them interact with the students,
and watching the students interact with them, and the students
opening their eyes to what it is. I mean, the
cost of freedom is high. And you know they learn
from these veterans what they did that relates to them today, right.
(36:22):
I mean you know, without this, without us winning that war,
the Allies winning that war, we the world would have
been completely different and they would have grown grown up
in a completely different America.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I remember my son telling me after meeting that it
would seem a veteran when we were leaving. He said, Dad,
he's not that much older than I am now when
he went to war. I said, that's right, that's the lesson.
These were boys who went off to defend this freedom.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Yeah, it's incredible. It is an incredible sacrifice, and that's
a beautiful program.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
They want.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yeah, I'll say no, The Soaring Vellor is in all
of your program I mean your wellness programs. You have
the Rise program, which is about giving homes to your
to severely disabled vets. I mean we could spend an
afternoon talking about all the programs. You should go to
Garrisonese's Foundation website and look at it all. It's incredible work.
I want to talk though, about the string that I
see that runs through your life. Really from the time
(37:21):
you're in step and well, founding the foundation and then
in your personal life, and there is this string of
sacrifice that I see running through it and devotion to others.
In twenty eighteen, your son Mac is diagnosed with a
very rare form of cancer on his spine. It turns
(37:42):
into tumors that are popping out that the doctors can't control.
Your wife and during multiple surgeries at the same time
she's having her own cancer battle. How did you contend
with all this? First of all, what did you think
was happy?
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Well, it's just like you're getting punched.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
You know. When we found out my wife there was
you know, she had an mammogram and now we didn't
hear anything for a bit, you know, like so we
just assumed, you know, well maybe everything's okay. Then, I
(38:29):
don't know, maybe a month later, we get this letter
that said, you know there, you know, we'd like you
to come back in for another check, you know, like
a month later, we're like, what what's this?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, So a.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Month later we go back in, she gets another test,
and then they want her to go and see the
surgeon and he confirms that she has you know, cancer
in her limp Notes and that she's going to need surgery.
(39:05):
So they did a lump ectomy on my wife, which
you know, she didn't have to it's not a mass sectomy.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
She didn't lose her breast.
Speaker 4 (39:13):
But they did a lump acter mey whether it took
out nineteen nodes and then five of them were infected
with cancer. And it was successful surgery according to him.
But she was going to need to go through chemo
(39:35):
and radiation. You started chemo, she went through, you know,
all the chemo treatments, thirty five radiation treatments. And during
that time, you know, not too long after she had
had her initial surgery, Mac was having trouble with it
(39:57):
was just he was in pain when he was sitting
down and like his tailbone was hurting him. So we
sent him to a Moira's spine surgeon. And I get
this call that Mac has a has a tumor on
his sacrum. And I'm sitting there with Moira talking about
her breast cancer. I get a call Max now got cancer.
(40:20):
He's and it's something called cordoma, which is a very
very rare cancer.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I mean so rare. You know, when you think of rare, you.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
Think in the United States, well, maybe that's five thousand
people or something. This is three hundred per year, you know,
three hundred per year are diagnosed with this kind of tumor.
And it starts in the spine. It can start up here,
you know, at the top of the spine or at
the base of the spine. And with Mac that tumor
(40:50):
was was this big wrapped around his sacrum. And it's
such a slow growing tumor that it could very possibly
have been growing since birth that that long because it
grows very very slowly to get to that size. They
(41:11):
said that could have been there for a long long time.
And the only way to cure it is to take
it out and hopefully the surgeon gets every cell, every
bit of it, and that can happen successfully about seventy
(41:31):
percent of the time, but thirty percent of the time
they will take take it out and then it'll come
back and spread. And when it comes back and spreads,
there's very little it can be done. They try to
(41:52):
radiate it, they try any drug, any cancer drug they can.
We found out he had his initial tumor taken out
in September of twenty eighteen, and by May of twenty nineteen,
we found out that a cancer came back. So then
he went into like chemo treatments, radiation stuff, more surgeries
(42:14):
because now it was spreading to the neck, right had
he had tumors on his neck. He had in fact,
see this picture back here, that is five days before
he had to go in the hospital and get tumor
taken off his neck. In fact, you know, when he
wasn't on camera or getting his picture taken, they gave
him a neck brace to where when they discovered that
(42:36):
there was tumor on his neck, they didn't want him
to do anything that would you know, screw, you know,
pop anything, or that tumor was growing there and it
could fracture something. So they gave him a neck brace.
And he was wearing a neck brace until we got
into the hospital five days after that picture was taken. There.
But and he's also going through chemo and radiation, and
(43:01):
you know, they kept he had multiple spine surgeries because
he was in a lot of pain and the only
thing they could do was try to take the tumors
out off his spine. Each time they did that, he
became a little more disabled, until finally at the end
of twenty twenty, this was twenty twenty, he was in
(43:21):
a wheelchair and then he was still able to stand up,
but shortly after that he lost the use of his legs.
I remember coming in. I would come in and I
would stretch his legs out and have him push, you know,
his legs. And I came in and I said, Okay,
lift your leg up, but and he couldn't do it.
(43:43):
And he couldn't lift his leg up, and he just
looked at me, you know, he couldn't do it, and
he took it in stride. Raymond.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
I mean it was like like he's laying there.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
I think he knew something was happening, was getting harder
and harder to move his leg, and then when it happened,
it was like.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Can't do it. Then he was resigned to it. Yeah,
you know, it wasn't like he started crying or.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
Anything. He was just.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
We're in a different world now, you know. Now we're
in a we've moved to a new place.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
We're in another level of what we're going to do.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
The amazing thing to me is through all of this,
I mean, in twenty twenty one, you lose your father,
your wife is still battling cancer. Mac is now battling cancer,
but the mission, Max's mission and his love of music
never wanes.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
Gary.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
In fact, I would argue, well, you named the album
where he did resurrection and revival. It resurrects and revives him. Yeah,
in the last year of his life. Tell me about that,
what you saw, the drive you saw.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
In him, and the impact it had on you.
Speaker 4 (45:11):
Yeah. This record, this is part two of the first record,
the first record. In February of twenty twenty three, he'd
been fighting cancer and all of that, and he said
to me, Dad, there's a piece of music that I
wrote that I never finished in college, and I think
(45:34):
I'd like to try and finish it. So he contacted
one of my band members who he'd worked with a
little bit on some things, and my violin player Dan,
and Dan went to work with him on it to
help them kind of flesh out the ideas, and then
my piano player went to work on.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
It with him. Ben Lewis helping him.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
Ben would play things for him, send it back to
Mac and he'd make notes and send it back to Ben.
Then Ben would adjust. And then his buddy Oliver Shnae
came into the picture, who he.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Hadn't seen for a while.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
Oliver went to college with him, Yeah, and they hadn't
seen each other for a long time, and Mac played
him this piece of music that he'd been working on,
and Oliver went to work on it with him to
finish it. They went into the studio in July of
twenty twenty three and recorded the piece of Arctic Circles,
(46:31):
which is on Maxinese YouTube. Now that started the ball
rolling for Mac wanting to do an entire album, and
that's where Resurrection and Revival came from. I don't know where,
where he why he decided that that was the title,
but named it yeah, oh yeah, Mac Mac did.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Yeah, he.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Was.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
It was his project.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Well clearly it was resurrection and revival of his music,
but now in the light of what we know and
what's happened, it takes on a far greater significance.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yeah, he was.
Speaker 4 (47:08):
It was reviving him, you know, personally, to be to
be resurrecting some old pieces of music and bringing him
to new life.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
And you know, even that even that cover right there,
he who is this?
Speaker 4 (47:20):
That's my grandfather and his grave grandfather in World War
One who.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Kind of looks like Mac, I have to say, And
a little bit, but he looks he looks a little
bit like that he does. And when I saw it,
I thought, oh, he put his face. He super imposed
his face on an old picture. But it's not as
a relative, no.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
He he kind of revived that picture.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
One of the things he did when he was working
at the Foundation was kind of preserved things in archive
and he would take like, I had a lot of
these old pictures of my grandfather from World War One,
and he took them and kind of lightened them up
and fixed them up, made it look better and everything.
And his mom, you know, he's looking for one of
those pictures to use the cover, and he showed his
(48:02):
mom one over here, and she.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Said, what about that one with Grandpa on the horse? Huh?
Speaker 4 (48:09):
And Mac went back and got that and he looked
at it and he thought, you're right, mom, that's that's
a great that's a great shot.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
I had you on the show on my show on
a WTN on Fox and when the first album came out,
and as I listened to you, now you said when
Mac saw these pictures, he would brighten them up and
revive them. But it seems to me now now you've
released the second album of his work, some of which
you discovered like hidden treasure in.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
His devices after his death.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
You are the one who has now brightened and revived
and restored.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
These works that he left you. In many ways.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
Yeah, well, finding these musical treasures on his laptop after
he died was a blessing because it's given me this project,
you know, throughout this first year of our lives without
(49:15):
Mac that has really helped me through quite a bit.
It's resurrected me and revived me a bit from this
terrible grief that we're going through after losing him, you know,
and I'm grateful for that. You know, not everybody loses
somebody and then has you know, a treasure trove of
(49:38):
music to produce or something like that message.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
As you've told me.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
I mean, you were going clearly opening his opening these devices.
I'm sure the first impulse wasn't oh, I'm going to
go find some more music. You were looking for clues
in the sense of what he was going through. I imagine.
Speaker 4 (49:55):
I don't know what I was looking for Raymond.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
After he died. I you know, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (50:03):
Within days, I just went to his phone and I
just opened up his phone. I had his password, and
I opened up his phone and I started looking at
his text messages with people, and I looked at I
found voicemails of people that sent him.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
I mean that that.
Speaker 4 (50:21):
Called him the day he died, not knowing that he
was gone, or shortly after he died, not knowing he
was gone. These are friends that I didn't really know
very well. So and I found these voice messages. So
I ended up calling these these friends of his and
telling them, you know, we lost Mac. He's you know,
(50:43):
I just wanted you to know. I found this voicemail
that you left. I found text messages from different people.
I'm in fact, one of the one of the songs
on the record, it's It's he calls it quasi love.
It's you know, I know quasi is the pronunciation. But
(51:07):
Mac wanted to kind of do some some something different
with it, his own jazz, his own thing. And uh
So I found him singing into his phone the melody
for this song, uh into his voice message, and he
was writing a song in his head and he was
singing into his song. Then I found the chart for it,
(51:30):
and then I found text messages between him and my
violin player Dan talking about this song. And so I
went to Dan and said, what what what were you?
Were you working on another song with with Mac besides
Arctic Circles?
Speaker 2 (51:44):
And he said, oh yeah, Mac had this cool idea
and blah blah blah.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
And I said, we'll finish that song because we're going
to put it on We're doing a second record and
I want it on the record. And so it's on
the record. And I just found all kinds of things
on his phone, Raymond that I don't even know what.
I didn't know what I was looking for. I was
just I was just driven to find things and find
(52:13):
what was happening at the end of his life. Who
was who was he talking to? And do they know
what happened? You know?
Speaker 2 (52:20):
And so I had to let them know. And what's
the message?
Speaker 1 (52:24):
What did you discover that you didn't know that he
was going through at the end of his life.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Gary, through all of this.
Speaker 4 (52:35):
You know, I never wanted to have that sort of
what if conversation with Mac.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Mac.
Speaker 4 (52:44):
You know, we're fighting cancer and it's you know, it's tough,
and what if this happens were I never wanted to
have that conversation with him, you know, do you want
me to do this or do you want me to
do that? There was only one time where I asked
him about out something, what what would you want to
(53:04):
happen with your bank account? Because he'd saved a lot
of money, and what would you want to happen?
Speaker 2 (53:13):
You know?
Speaker 4 (53:15):
And he paid for the first record himself, I mean
out of out of his savings and everything.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
But he saved a fair.
Speaker 4 (53:22):
Amount of money, and so I asked him and he
told me what he would want with that. But then
I didn't I didn't want to have that conversation with him,
because I did. I didn't want him or me to
feel like we were we were looking at the end
of the road. I was always from the from the
(53:46):
get go, trying to find the drug, trying to find
the doctor, trying to find the procedure. What can we try?
Where can we try it? In fact, there was there
was Mac was getting ready to do another treatment when
he ended up in the hospital the last time he
was scheduled for another treatment and then he ended up
going into the er because his breathing was affected, and
(54:11):
we lost him on January January fifth.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
What did he teach you about sacrifice and staying on mission?
Did he teach you anything.
Speaker 4 (54:27):
Well, yeah, he fought this with such grace and courage that,
you know, I can only hope that I'm going to
be as graceful and courageous when you know, things get tough,
you know, for me, because I watched him knowing that
(54:52):
he knew how bad things were for him, and yet
he never.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
Never stop smiling through it.
Speaker 4 (55:03):
You know, if he was not in pain or not
feeling sick from the treatments, he was smiling. He was
watching the Cubs. He was a big Cubs.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Fan all this, all through.
Speaker 4 (55:15):
The summer of twenty twenty three, he was watching the
TV with his mom, watching the Cubs. My mom was
in there all through Moira, My mom and Mac all
had their Cub bats and they're all watching the Cub games.
He was smiling through that. He was playing ens harmonica.
He was working on the music. The entire last year
(55:36):
of his life. He was focused on creating this album,
and so was He was filled with like joy and
happiness for what he was doing, and it was giving
him this this amazing thing to look forward to every day.
I'm making a record. I'm going into the studio. He
(55:56):
was in the studio in July twenty twenty three. He
was back in the studio in November twenty twenty three.
The record was finished in December, he heard all the music,
he designed the cover, and he saw the final videos
that were made. And then a day later he was
(56:16):
in the hospital and we lost him six days later.
So that whole last year he was filled with joy
and happiness of working on this music and accomplishing this
thing that he wanted to do, and this beautiful music.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
I mean, it's stunning.
Speaker 4 (56:31):
So I watched him just gracefully go through the last
year of his life, you know, being paralyzed, being you know,
struggling with different things.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Yet Mac never ever looked like he was given up.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
Well, I love how you've continued. You took the baton
from him and in his passing, finished the work. Because
now you've gotten two more album I mean, it's really
two more albums.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
I know it's Resurrection and Revival part two. It's actually
part three two. I mean, you've got a lot here,
doule double disc. It's a double disc.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
I mean it's a lot of music. It's nineteen tracks
and they're very diverse. There's jazz, there's orchestra, orchestra, there's
a beautiful harmonica with strength. I mean, there's the diversity
of his musical palette is pretty wide and uh, in fact,
kind of fascinating. And I imagine as a father. I
(57:27):
mean I listened to it one way, but I'm sure
as a dad you listen to it and go wow.
I didn't realize that he had that in him, or
I didn't know he had he felt that, because I mean,
it's a wash of feeling.
Speaker 2 (57:40):
That's really what this is. It's an album is a
wash of feelings.
Speaker 4 (57:43):
And yeah, some of the stuff I discovered was I
was totally just like, wow, why didn't he ever?
Speaker 2 (57:49):
Why didn't he play that for me? It's so beautiful.
Speaker 4 (57:53):
There's a song called just for Now on it that
he did all on his computer programs. A lot of
the stuff he would write, you know, on his programs,
like just for Now, he did everything on his programs.
We took the just renowned track that Mac created with
the original vocals and everything like that. We added some
strings on top of some some of it, just just
(58:17):
to give it a little more. But the track could
have been put on the record all by itself because Mac.
Speaker 2 (58:24):
Mack did it. It's just a beautiful song.
Speaker 4 (58:27):
His friend from college, Lou Roy, sings on it. She's
got a beautiful voice. She sings on three of the
songs on the record. There's other other music on the
record that Mac did all by himself. There's a cover
of nature Boy, the old song by Natkin col.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (58:46):
Mac does a version of nature Boy where he plays
all the instruments and he sings, and he recorded everything.
Speaker 2 (58:52):
And he had that all on the computer. Where was this?
Speaker 4 (58:54):
That was?
Speaker 2 (58:55):
That was in his files?
Speaker 4 (58:56):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (58:57):
In his file?
Speaker 1 (58:57):
What do you think he would say if he saw
this part to What would he say to you?
Speaker 2 (59:05):
What would he say to me? I hope you'd say,
let's do part three?
Speaker 1 (59:13):
He may he may give a g yet, Gary, Okay,
there's a there's a string of questions I ask every
I call this my royal Grande questionnaire.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
So now you're going to be subjected to it.
Speaker 1 (59:23):
These are fast you don't have to spend much time
on these, but I'm warning you they are deadly questions.
You're right, who's the person you most admire? Jesus Hm,
who do you most attest?
Speaker 3 (59:38):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (59:38):
I can't say that, Come on, I can't. Everybody tries
to dodge on you right now.
Speaker 1 (59:43):
Thank you yeah for asking that question, you awful person.
Speaker 2 (59:46):
What is your best feature?
Speaker 4 (59:52):
I don't know. Maybe mmm, hard to say. Persistence, maybe persistence.
Speaker 2 (59:58):
What's your worst? Your worst feature? Maybe persistence, the double
edged sort of persistence.
Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Well, you don't build a foundation and call it the
Gary Sneze foundation without a little persistent Your favorite meal, Gary.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Oh, dear gosh.
Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
Maybe one of my favorite meals is chicken pacata.
Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Chicken pacata. Yeah, well, I see, I evade.
Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
I like anything Italian, So my favorite meal is one
I get to eat with.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Family or friends. That's my favorite, Well, like the one
I had last night with somebody.
Speaker 4 (01:00:34):
But my dad used to make chicken pecata and that's
a good man.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
But I like a lot of food.
Speaker 4 (01:00:40):
What do you fear, Gary, Failure? Maybe maybe loss?
Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Your greatest virtue is what? What do you what do
you consider the greatest virtue? Not your greatest virtue, but
what do you consider the greatest virtue?
Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Honesty? Maybe honesty?
Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
Why? Well, if you're if you're not honest, you know,
and nobody's gonna trust you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
What's that old line? My great grandmother had a line.
If you lie, you cheat, If you cheat, you steal.
If you steal, you're no good. I guess that's I
guess that's true. What could you not live without? Mm air? Well,
(01:01:41):
that's a good answer. I guess that's that's kind of universal,
Gary Oxygen. What is your biggest regret?
Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
Oh gosh, you know, I I've thought about this with
regards to Mac and just wishing that I had in
those final days I had asked him if he was
afraid and and let him talk to me a little
(01:02:13):
bit more.
Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
But neither of us wanted to go there.
Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
You know, I don't know if that's my biggest regret,
but when I think of it, I wished i'd before
he was unable to speak again, you know, because he
lost that capacity with what was going on with his lungs.
(01:02:39):
It went so quickly that I wished that I had
spent more time in those last days having you know,
having that having some kind of more in depth conversation
with him about his feelings, what he what he'd been
(01:02:59):
through and what he was going going through. But again,
like I said, I never wanted to feel like I
was given up and you.
Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
Were in the fight.
Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
And I would argue, if you'll permit me, you helped
fill his last year and those last days with great
joy and accomplishment for Mac. I mean I saw that
from the little piece we did after Christmas, just on
(01:03:27):
the cusp of the new year, the reaction he had
to that, and the pride he had in that showing
it to other people, and that was all you're doing
so and it was the culmination of his work.
Speaker 4 (01:03:40):
And yeah, and his mom and his two sisters. He
loved them so much, and they loved him so much,
and you know, we all pulled together, and they were
a big part of everything, no question. Without their support,
(01:04:00):
I couldn't have you know, I couldn't have gone gone
through everything I was doing. And they were helping Mac
in so many ways, so many beautiful ways.
Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
What is the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Speaker 4 (01:04:14):
I always I always give this one to like young
actors who asked me for advice, and I save your money?
Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Is that the best piece?
Speaker 4 (01:04:25):
Gary?
Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Save your money? That's all the broke actors out there.
Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
I know the feeling, right SA saving good things are
good today, but they might not be good tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
Save your money, Okay, I.
Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Guess it's good advice if you could not do what
you're doing. Now, what would you like to do?
Speaker 4 (01:04:44):
These are these are difficult questions because I don't I
don't ever think about that. You know, I'm I'm fairly
at you know, I'm at peace with what I'm doing.
I've done a lot of things in my life with
the and I've got a great family.
Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
My family is it's great.
Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
May maybe spend more and more time with my family,
you know, I'm still trying to accomplish a lot with
the foundation work and the band and supporting the troops,
and that takes me away sometimes. And you know, my
wife is just the best person I know, and you know,
(01:05:26):
and I look at how she has sacrificed for this
mission that I've been on, because she spent a lot
of time without me there because I've been going somewhere
to do something, and she's she's a real she's a
real hero and my biggest champion. You know, her brother
(01:05:49):
served in Vietnam, and she always wanted me to go
out there and try to make sure that our service
members know they're appreciated because her brothers didn't get that
when they came home. And so she's been backing me
up every step in the way. So just you to
spend in more time with them, and that you know,
that's the important thing, and the grandkids and all.
Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
That final question what happens when this is over, not
the interview, this life.
Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
Well, I hope I'll be welcomed.
Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
And Lord will say good job.
Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
I think you'll not only be welcomed, you'll hear familiar music, music,
maybe Arctic circles played when you get there, my friend.
Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
So great to see you. God, bless you, thank you,
thank you, thank you. Rim here's the whole.
Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
Gary is a wonderful reminder that we receive calls to
action when we least expect them. Through providential events and moments.
Were sometimes called to leave something behind and do something
new for others. For Gary, his acting legacy gave him
the visibility to help veterans, and he would devote his
life to them. Then, when his son and his wife
(01:07:08):
face cancer, his mission changed again. And now he's extending
and spreading Max music in incredible ways. If you haven't
heard Maxnice's Resurrection and Revival, go to his YouTube page
and order copies at Gary Sinisefoundation dot org.
Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
I hope you'll support their good work.
Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
I know I do, and I'm so glad you spent
time with us today. Why live a dry, narrow, constricted
life when if you fill it with good things, it
can flow into a broad, thriving Arroyo Grande.
Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
I'm Raymond Arroyo.
Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
Make sure you subscribe, like this episode, come back for more,
Thanks for diving in, and we'll see you next time.
Arroyo Grande is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and
is available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
Spokust Perkastans Expence and spokes Constans
Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
Spokus Perkistans
Host
Raymond Arroyo
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