September 10, 2021 • 39 mins
In his return to full length interviews, host Geoffrey Zakarian speaks with the iconic actor Matthew McConaughey. The two share a delightful conversation which covers Matthew's childhood, the beginning of his acting career, his personal philosophy, and of course they talk home cooking.
For more information on Matthew McConaughey's book "Greenlights", check out the website here: https://greenlights.com/
For more information on "Four Courses With Geoffrey Zakarian" follow Geoffrey on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/geoffreyzakarian
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
My name is Jeffrey Z Carrian, and you're listening to
four Courses with Jeffrey Z Carrian from my Heart Radio.
In four courses, I'll be taking you along for the
ride while I talked with the top talent of our time.
In each conversation, I focused on four different areas from
my guests life and career. And during those four courses,
(00:23):
I'm gonna dig deep and uncover new insights and inspirations
that we can all use to fuel ourselves to push forward.
My guest for this episode is an actor best known
for his leading roles in blockbuster romantic comedies. More recently,
he's picked up films with more drama and depth, one
of which won him an Oscar in two thousand fourteen.
(00:45):
He also just came out with a wonderful book called
Green Lights. Without further delay, let's get into my conversation
with the charming and insightful Matthew McConaughey. For our first course,
I wanted to learn more about the foods and flavors
that stand out from Matthew's childhood in South Texas. It
turns out that those lessons influence how he and his
(01:08):
wife Camilla cook with their own kids today. When you
were growing up, what was the smell of food, what
was the cooking going on? What was that? Oh my god,
I smelled up. I smelled the bacon in the walls,
because I have that myself. What was that for you?
You know? The We lived in South Texas and New
Vality when I was my first ten years, So we're
(01:29):
gonna talk about that. Those early times. There was the
countrees and the grass was st augustine, and I had
to play in the yard, and I remember being in
my diapers, and in those hot summer days, I remember
the smell of the pecan tree, and then the fact
that no matter how hot it was outside, if I
(01:49):
would I was always barefoot. If I could nestle my
toes down into the roots of the st. Augustine grass,
it was always cool and it was like a little
air condition that came up and cooled me. Mom wasn't
a great cook, so I don't have many of those
toys she did of me, though she did a spaghetti
bill at this but it was usually Sarah Lee, so
she would find the box, we'd find the box, or
she go I made the pumpkin pie, and you'd go
(02:11):
find the Sarah Lee box did. She was the woman.
She was the mother that you know you got one
great bottle of peter Pan or one bottle of Hinds
catch up. And then after that you'd like, I don't
think this peter Pan because yes it is, look at
it's on it's on the outside there it is. What
else would it be? And she'd go get some cheaper
brand and put it in there. Then she started to
(02:31):
put the Delmonti tomato sauce in the hind bottle and
you tip the Hindes bottle into pour it like water.
You're like, Mom, this is not hind She goes it
is to look at the look at the label. So
I didn't have many food things. What I do remember
food wise, is Dad in his gumbo. Because Dad was
from Patterson, Misissippi, but grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana,
and he once a year run Super Bowl would do
(02:53):
a gumbo and he would be a three day process,
and the smell of the gumbo and him cooking the
gumbo was something, and it was it was a very
anticipatory smell because you can smell the rue early and
you're coming up on it and three days later and
you sneak by, and he wouldn't give you a little taste,
wouldn't let you have much because you had to wait,
and the anticipation, the bill to eating the memory then
(03:13):
also to go to New Orleans at his mother's house,
where we would go every year for the blessing of
the fleets. They cooked great meals, but it was the
smell of the in wall a c that's making sound
and dripping a little bit. You smell the moisture and
the wood. You could smell the humidity in the wood
down there in the household, and that was always incredibly
(03:33):
comforting smell mixed with gumbo. Yeah, and so did you did?
So your mom didn't cook, your dad cooked ritually, but
you sort of you just sort of took what you
could and made it all okay. It was okay, it
was yeah, it was you know, you got you got
one throw up vegetable in my m my family, and
(03:55):
mine was boil squash. And in hinds boiled squash. Boiled
mom boiled squash. Whole family ate it, I found out,
since nobody liked it. It's just straight boiled with with
a pinch of salt. She also boiled okrah, that, in
hindsight is the one I wish I would have said
was my throat because it was straight bulled ochre and
(04:16):
it was like throwing an oyster, green slimy oyster on
your plate. And the only thing I could do is
cover that damn thing with catch up, just to in
hold mind I was and put it down because if
I didn't eat it for dinner, it was it was
next to my scrambled eggs for breakfast and to start
the day to go to school. That was not very fun. Yeah,
she wasn't a great cook. Dad was a great cook
(04:37):
when he cooked, but that was sort of our We
did eat dinner together every single night, though seven days
a week. We ate dinner at the table with a
lazy Susan in the middle. I have three kids, like you,
and I think that I always tell the parents that
they say, what's the most important experience? I'm like, you
gotta eat dinner with your kids all the time, even
if they say nothing, even if they bitch and moan,
(05:00):
even if they criticize you, even if they are throw food,
You're doing it together, and that bonding experiences it's like
d n A. It does not leave you and it
doesn't leave. The children will figure it out that that
is part of life, That is part of the vessel
of nurturing and responsibility that you have for your family. Yea,
(05:21):
it's something I've been thinking about lately with someone brought up.
You know, I was talking with different fathers about, Hey,
let are from raising your kids tips, what do you
do here? And we've had my mom with us because
code for eighteen months, she's been with us, live with us.
And my buddy reminded me, he is, like, would you
know the example you're setting for your kids about how
to help take care of their elders. Right now they're
seeing it, they'll remember she was with you for that
(05:43):
time saying what I hear you saying about having the
family dinner, even if nobody says a damn word, it's
about sundown. Hey, why don't we all sit down together?
Because that was a habit and boy, it's a good
one and I wish more people did it. I think it.
I think it would be helpful for society and large
a large I believe strongly in that. You know, every
time you break bread together is a magical time and
(06:04):
I would I wouldn't trade it for anything. And it's
almost like it's a ritual. But I love that ritual.
Like we all think, it's like, you gotta read this,
you gotta listen to this podcast, you gotta do this,
you read this book. No, no, just cook a meal
together and open beans, cut potatoes together, get you know,
do something. Each one has a job. It becomes a
(06:25):
collective strength building exercise for the family. And what an
easy congregate. You know, it's an it's an easy church,
it's an easy meditated it's an easy and the actual
cooking of it together is so much fun as you
bring up. Kamille and I have a foundation. One of
the things that we have is a nutrition project where
(06:46):
we'll find the mother who's maybe cooking, I don't know,
picking up burgers like five nights, four nights a week
for the kids. We're not that's fine, we love burgers.
But how about we take that forty seven dollars that
you spend and we go to local supermarket and we
go get some produce, we get some beans, maybe a
little bit of meat. We come home for the same
amount of money, healthier meal and you get to cook
(07:08):
it with your kiddos. And that's the part that they
end up loving the most, and the kids love the most.
They go, oh, it's the hour I got to spend
with mom in the kitchen and the preparing of it
that helped us come together. And then you see, you know,
I mean, the relationship between the kids that we work
with and their parents improved. They had conversations that they
(07:29):
weren't having before. Because it's also it takes away the
formality of like, well, now let's go sit down and
talk about things. Or you're you're cooking, you're doing something,
you're taste. Oh that's good, dude, try this who I've
over did over cooked as well, let's try it again.
And then you get the meal and someone says, oh,
I really like this one. Who did this one? Who
did this dish? Who did that dish? Somebody gets better
at one area. What did you guys do during COVID?
(07:51):
I know, I was obviously home to and I have
three kids this exact same age as yours, except my
youngest is seven, and it was like a feast every day.
I mean, we it is fantastic just to cook and
eat and share together. Who did the cookie at your house?
We all did? LEVI my eldest he would take charge
some days. The thing with him is he gives small portions,
(08:13):
but always like could you just do it because you
made a little larger portions. But he's really loves presentation.
He really loves finding the piece of the parts there
there's something and just setting it up. And he loves
the choreography of the play. Really loves it. And he's
got a really good he's got really good taste buds
almost too good. Sometimes. You know, our daughter right now
is really into desserts. Baking is her goat. She loves it.
(08:35):
I'll get up at seven am and she's been baking
for an hour, loves it. And then Camilla and I'll
get good giving in there. I'm you know, we try
to eat healthy. I'm big into salads, big in the lagoons.
I'm the guy who makes tuna ficient faunily Now, I'm
a guy who loves tuna fish salad, and I believe
tuna fish salad. If there's one dish that you go
(08:55):
to somebody, if you want to find out a lot
about that person, you give them all the ingredients in
the world and say you make the tuna fish out
and see what kind of tuna fish subadamic. Everyone will
make a completely different tuna fish sound, but it tells
you a lot about that person. But the great thing
about tuna is don't you feel like when you eat tuna,
you're you're exceptionally full, Like you're not hungry for six hours.
(09:16):
I get exceptionally full, and I think as I'm eating,
I'm getting more lean something about tuna fish. I can
eat as much as I want, and I'm going like,
I think you lost a couple. I noticed that Camilla
is on the on the airwaves making salmon. I'm watching.
I watched her cooking and she seems very confident in
(09:37):
her ability to make something out of nothing and really
make it happen and put the love into it. Her
mother taught us the thing, and she calls it machito.
And it's usually our Sunday night richell, which is, hey,
we prepared meals all week. Now Sunday night, let's clean
out the fridge and see what meal can be made.
Let's pull out every single left over the bottom of
any bottle. Let's see what we can use. And it's
(09:59):
gonna be different every time, and it's fun because it
ends up being a magic trick. Now, you know, we
get the music going, a glass of wine and Camilla
gets it, gets that Brazilian rhythm going, and and and again.
That's another thing about cooking, you know, it's it's it's
also where's your head out when you're cooking? If I'm
feeling musical and I'm in a good mood, I promise
you my tuna fish is gonna taste better to everybody.
(10:21):
Then if I'm like, I gotta go make it, I
won't even go cook. If I'm like, I gotta go cook,
and it won't taste as good. But if I'm like,
here we go, let's have some funny, it always tastes better.
It may even be the same damn ingredients, but I
promise you, it tastes better to everybody if the cook
is having a good time cooking it. Jeez, I love
hearing that the little bossa nova, little Milton, no simento,
A couple of glasses of wine. What's better than that?
(10:43):
I mean, I want to come over and watch you
make tuna, just any kind of tuna, a cleanout tuna.
It's it's about a forty five minute to an hour process.
In our second course, I wanted to get into Matthew's
origin story as an actor, which began in earnest when
he landed All and then now classic film Dazed and Confused.
It all started when he approached casting director Don Phillips
(11:07):
at a bar. I didn't go down there to make
a new friend. I knew he was in down as
a movie producer, and I wanted to be in the
movie business. I was studying that, so it was a
deliberate opportunistic move. Mind you, I didn't play that hand.
I didn't act over needy. I was hanging out being
a cool guy, having to vodka tonics with him until
we got kicked out of the bar from being two rally.
Only then did he go, have you ever done any acting? Alright, No,
(11:30):
not really. I was in a middle life marsial for
this songs like he might be right for this part.
Come down to this address, pick up the script. Well
there was that script. Three lines. I look at those
three lines. Wow, man, I could get this part. This
is great. I worked on those three lines for two weeks.
Who was the guy? Well, he reminds me of my brother.
I remember seeing my brother when I was nine years old,
leaning against the wall in the smoking section at Longview
(11:52):
High School with his left leg boot heel up against
the brick wall that he was leaning against, his flimsy
little hand holding that cigarette, and I was like, it
was from a hundred yards away. And in my ten
year old eyes, his silhouette was the coolest thing in
the world. He was my hero. He was nine ft tall,
his zy that he would wake me up when he
get home at midnight after his curfew and pull me
(12:15):
out of bed, and I'd come out of my tidy
white he's and sitting in the driveway and he played
turned me onto John Mellencamp and Judas Priests were rock
and roll in his Z twenty eight and the driveway
till five in the morning. No stereo has ever sounded
better than it did on those nights. I've heard a
lot of stereos that cost more and more better quality,
but to my ten year old ears, nothing's ever sounded better,
(12:35):
Nobody was ever cooler. And I was like, well, that's Waterson,
that's this character. So then the fact that I show
up and I'm not supposed to work, and I got
three lines, three lines turning in three weeks work, I
keep getting invited back to set. I'm just kind of
improvising because I know my man, and all of a sudden,
I'm in the movie and I'm a main character that
I still go back to as going like that example
(12:58):
is not going to be topped. I didn't know what
I was doing, but I had instincts for it, you know,
but I was and I and I was confident enough
to go and the camerazon would just be this, be
this character. So I had instincts for it, and I
go back. There's a purity of that that I've tried
to maintain along the way as I've gotten smarter, as
I've learned my craft, and you know that, you know,
there's that awkward time where if you have great instincts
(13:20):
for something and then all of a sudden you go
to school on it and now it's time to learn it.
There's an awkward period there where now you're getting intellectualizing
something that you didn't even used to think about. He said,
instincts for it, And I had an awkward couple of
years there. I was like, I'm not this. I'm my
acting is going backwards. I'm not doing as good. I
know too much now that I'm conscious of what the
(13:42):
hell I was doing I'm not doing it as well.
I'm thinking, Well, I stuck with it and got past it.
And once I was past it, yes, I lowered my
handicap in acting. My handicap went down because I went
through the learning process and that gave me great power.
I knew what to do when I was in they drove,
and I also learned what to do when I was
(14:03):
in rut. I learned how to deal with I'm stuck.
Who I've got tension? Oh, that's my enemy right now?
As an actor, I gotta I knew what I knew
how to handle when there was when I'd run into
a dead end to acting or get or get stuck
that I didn't know beforehand. So the load of the
handicap coming out of that. But that was I would say,
days confused. I don't have a better story or or
(14:24):
story it was. That was the first green light and
the one that still illuminates to this day of how
to do it for me? For our third course, I
asked Matthew about his process of putting together his new
memoir green Lights. It's a personal, raw reflection built upon
(14:47):
years and years of journals from his life. The book
had just broken two million copies and sales when we chatted,
which she said came as a huge, happy surprise, especially
as a first time author. It just did two point
I was told this morning two poor two point four
million in North America, and yeah, I don't know what
(15:08):
you know. I didn't It's my first book. I didn't
have an expectation. I sort of synonymized it with what
I know about the box office. A movie you want
to you want to have a good opening weekend. Uh,
and then after that, if you get fortunate, you can
have some word of mouth, because you can't do just
press for a movie all the time. And we had
a good opening weekend. We opened up at number one
(15:31):
New York Times Bestsellers, So I was like, okay, check
that means we had a great weekend opening weekend. And
then after that it was you know, I've been on
the road hammering and talking about it for a long time.
But it's really cool that it's living on its own.
People are without me saying anything or passing, it's getting
a life of its own, and that is awesome, which
(15:53):
I had no idea would happened. The book is like
a lovely soliloquy. I know, elite motif. It's the string
of pearl sort of like experiences. But really it's hard
to put that together in a way that actually can
like you know, move someone to get sort of like
a lesson from something, because most of people just regurgitate.
So I really enjoy that. I think there's a lot
(16:14):
of things in your book that you mentioned that you
did early on. You had no idea like waiting twenty
years would make it, you know, it would be like
you were never in the you were in a little
bit of a comfort zone. But you waited twenty years
and then it just all made sense, like you were
exactly who you were supposed to be at any given
moment moment in time. And I think that's like food
(16:35):
and life are very similar to that. And that's what
I get out of this book, Like you were who
you were and and that's what I got out of that. Ah, well,
thank you. I mean, I've tried to unpack that because
there were times I thought, oh my gosh, I'm in
a rut. Is this it is this my existence? There
were times I thought that, but I would always fight
that thought and go no, trust, trust, this is a phase. Trust,
(17:00):
forgive yourself for that bogey, this is a stop, not
a stay. Trust that this is gonna pass. And happily
most of those things where I was maybe not who
I looking back who I, or at the time even
who I, I wasn't being who I wanted to be
or the best version of myself. I trusted that I
wasn't gonna get stuck there and either did something about
(17:21):
it to change it, created new habits, or said I'm
gonna forgive you on this one. Let you slide. Which
is it? I mean, that's a big old balance in
life seems, it seems to me, is what do we
let ourselves slide on? And what do we say now,
I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Let's
let's move on. You know, well, you moved on well,
and I love that you. You collected all these these things.
(17:43):
You just wrote stuff down, which it's very commendable to
write stuff down and be able to piece it together.
But it seems to me that you're always trying to
sort of live with integrity. That's what I got out
of this. I'm like this, this gentleman, he's really trying
his hardest to stay in the path of goodness. I
think that it's like we just kind of make shut
(18:04):
up all the time, and if you have a good heart,
it can't turn out bad. Right. It seems to me
that that's what you sort of did a lot in
a very successful way. I maybe, I think, I mean,
I think so. I look, I I pulled some things off.
I've done some stunts where I was like, I don't know, man,
this is gonna work. I'm just gonna try and pull
(18:25):
it off. I don't have any mortals about it. I
just want to see if I can get away with it.
I got plenty of those in my quiver. But I
kind of, I mean, I trusted, and I knew early
on that I'm not a tyrant. I knew early on that.
I was like, hey, you may not be the best
you can maybe a bad boy here, you may misbehave
you may not you know, make your a in that relationship,
(18:46):
and you could have done that better. But I was like,
I'm not ugly, and I'm not ugly at people, and
I don't want to be. I just don't have it.
It's not in my constitution. I've never I've never felt
more or felt victory in in pointing someone else's failure.
I've never wanted. Oh if I put you down, I'll
feel I'll feel better. I just never had it in me.
(19:06):
Um for whatever reason, never never gave me residual, never
never made me really feel worth the damn. So I've i've, i've,
I knew I wasn't. I didn't have being a tyrant
in me, and that gave me some trust that Okay,
when I'm maybe not my best, well, hell was it fun.
Let's give ourselves a pass on that one, you know
what I mean. And everyone needs a Saturday night and
under their belt. I hope a lot of people read
(19:26):
the book and you were very good communicated where I
whether I think you knew it or not at the time.
And that's sort of a profound way writing this book.
It's like you're just being You're letting yourself like be Okay, yeah,
look I I I dared myself to go back and
look at thirty five years of my writings and make
(19:47):
a book out of it and share. I dared myself
to it for years and never had the courage or
bass to do. It's like, you know what, Camilla, when
I died, she'll maybe look back and do something with
that or my best friend and he'll look back and
I have as I was copping out, and then I
was like, well, who do you think you are to
think what you've been writing down and going through your
mind and heart's worth sharing? Like ah well, and then
(20:07):
I was like, well, let's go, let's go see. And
part of the writing of it for me was incredible
freedom because I was looking back going I was afraid
to go look back. I was like, ah, man, I'm
not gonna like who. I was gonna be embarrassed, and
I was when I look back. But all of a sudden,
when I noticed that, I started laughing at myself at times,
(20:27):
going dumb mass you know, or whatever it was. And
laughter is a former forgiveness. And also I was like, oh,
I'm glad you did that. That's a really randy, racy story.
And you got away with that one. How did you
come out of that with that drawing blood? Or you
did draw blood on that one, but you made it
out the other side, you know. I realized this on
day four writing, because I came into writing this thing
(20:50):
thinking I knew what the book would be, and I
thought it was gonna be very academic. Well, I started
looking at stuff I written, and all a sudden, after
day four, I was like, this ain't academic. This is
more philosophical, folk stories, storytelling, statesmanship and you know, poetry
and song. That it is academics, not academic at all.
And so I had to rearrange and I was like, look,
(21:11):
let's just look at what you have and let it
tell you what it is. And the more I found
this out, the more personal I got, The more I
started to realize, oh, I think more people, the more
amount of people will be able to see themselves in
my stories if I the more personal I get. And
I remember at the time thinking that was ironic. I
was like, well, how does that work? And I was like, well, duh,
that's what any good art does. That's what it got.
(21:33):
A great meal does if you're really cooking it for you,
and you're like, that's exactly what I wanted to cook
right there. More people are most likely gonna love that
if you're cooking it only for them, though, and they're going,
I don't like it. People aren't gonna like I was
writing it for me, and I kept reminding myself, write
it for you, and if other people see see themselves
in it, great which is what is unfortunately and kindly happened. Yeah,
(21:57):
and also this, and you know when we when I
roasted chicken, I tell people all the time, I broke
it a million, eight hundred thousand, a million chickens. Every
one of them is different, every single one of them
is different. It's the same chicken, the same temper saying,
but it's a taste different every time. And you have
to you have to let let that happen to you
in life. So I have this picture of you with
(22:19):
a giant table with all these writings around, trying to
like put him in columns. How did you? How did
you get this book to sort of at least behave
a bit? Well, like I've been collecting journals and and
my Treasure Chester journals went from this size to this
size to this size, and now it's overflowing. And it
was about do I dare take that away to open
up and see what's in there? So I went away
(22:41):
to the desert to a place and didn't have any electricity.
I want to go to a place where I had
no cell service, no nothing, where I was forced to
be with me and who the hell I've been the
last fifty years? And if I got bored, well you
got one place to go entertain yourself by looking back
at who the hell you've been. And that process was
just going through and going yep, let's pull that, let's
(23:03):
highlight that, let's put that page. And so I went
through everything and said, I think I found there's some
certain themes going through here. And then I started to
stack columns and I found themes. There were people, places, prescribes, poems, prayers,
and a whole lot of bumper stickers. That was my stacks,
and I was like, okay, well there are my pillars
(23:23):
of where things that I've been thinking about writing down
for thirty five years fall into those columns. And then
I was like, okay, well, let me look at those
seven and see if I can find a central theme
of that. And that's where green lights came from, because
I noticed what you were saying. Boy, I've had screw ups, crisis, hardships, death, sicknesses,
et cetera, failures in my life that were red and
(23:45):
yellow lights. And I've had times of introfection, yellow lights
going away where I'm gonna put on a backpack and
go off and be with myself and be introspective but
every one of them turned out to be a green light.
Even the death of my dad had valuable, valuable lessening
gave me. I'm so I noticed. Oh, I'm not denying
the red light of the of my father's death, but
(24:05):
I'm I don't even think i'd be the man I
am unless he had moved on. Is that being? Is
that discrediting his death, the hardship of that. No, it's
just saying an outcome of that was something that I
can take and learn, And I think it's something that
we can all do in those hardships when we go, yep,
I'm in it now it happened. Well, I've got two
(24:27):
choices where I can try and find something I can
use out of it that's constructive unless it learned, or
I can sit here and go I'm a complete victim
of that situation, and I do. There's just no residuals
that the second one. The second one is no fun.
The second one is like, no, it's it's wallowing. I
just like so pure for purely selfish reasons. I think
I've tried to look at an approach life that way
(24:49):
and not be callous, hopefully not be callous, hopefully not
be arrogant, which I can be at times, but look
at those things. It's like, yeah, there, Well, you've got
two choices. One at least could be fun and constructive.
The other one just has no residuals. There's no R
O I in it. It sucks. Well, shoot, let's pick
the first one. And for our fourth and final course,
(25:17):
I knew that Matthew would have interesting reflections on politics
and philosophy. Together, we explored the dangers of instant gratification
and reflected on some ideas of a psychologist and thought
leader we both admire. I know you're passionate about a
lot of things. You're passionate about politics, and I do
sort of read quite a bit about it because you
and I follow someone that we I respect very much,
(25:39):
Jordan Peterson. I live by a lot of his books.
I try to and uh, I love his stuff. But
you're very passionate about your state and your the way
you describe how it is that we can live but
yet we can still take care of each other. But
we need to have they need to be some rules
(26:00):
for life, so to speak, and you're very passionate about that.
You don't preach to people, which I love you just say, look,
this is what it is. Anybody needs to go through this.
And this is not about like splitting hairs. This is
about like what the human condition is. And I think
it's fascinating the way what you're doing it. You know,
you can get skewered very easily. Yeah, and those skiers
(26:22):
are where it goes sideways. I mean, you know, Jordan
talks a lot about responsibility. We don't talk about consequences enough.
Consequences are usually thrown over there like oh bad, No,
let's remember consequent. They are good consequences. There's upside, there's game,
there's r o I give credit to the consequence is
not a bad word. It just cuts both ways. The
one perspective that he has that I think is the
(26:46):
honeyhell that I think is that the real nectar. Let's
forget politics, Let's forget these titles of things for a minute.
What do we need to do? Build better people? Build
better people? And who's that on? That's on me, and
that's on you? And who am I supposed to look
after me? Who are you supposed to look after you?
I think we're all and I'm guilty of it too.
(27:08):
We have a certain sense of entitlement. We are showing
this last year and a half that we give more
credence to our privileges than our principles. It's short term beliefs,
it's immediate gratification. Yet we have trouble seeing that long view.
We have trouble seeing. No. Actually, I'm betting on the
bigger prize later, that immortal finish line. And a lot
(27:31):
of that for me comes from a faith in a
belief that this is knit, this life is knit. And again,
even if it is it, I'm gonna keep on believing
it's not it, just just at least for the fun
of it. So but even if you're not a believer,
if you're an agnosticate what I mean, just project a
little bit if you're doing it for you, Because every
(27:54):
decision I believe is has to be extremely personal. We
proved that we don't do ship unless it's personal. So
instead of saying you shouldn't be selfish or you're you
got too big of an eagle, I'm like, no, be
more selfish, have a bigger ego. But with that comes responsibility,
and there's a place where you can serve yourself and
actually serve the most amount of people. If you believe
(28:16):
in the delayed gratification that there is. It's all an
individual experience in the collective. But I think it starts
with each one of us in the mirror. And I do,
honestly and sincerely believe in the capacity for each one
of us to self determine and do better at taking
care of our minds, heart, spirits and bodies than we
do at present. We got so much to go, and
(28:38):
we we don't like sacrifice. We don't like to break
a sweat, we don't like the hard work that is
life because we don't want to trust that that can
bring a greater reward. But it does. And if we
could just remember that and say, I'm gonna invest in me,
and investing in me respecting myself more means I'm gonna
be able to respect you more. If I invest to me,
(29:01):
I'm investing in my daughter's future, I'm investing in your
son's future. I'm a shared story. It's a shared story,
and it's a paradox, not a contradiction. So I think
politics right now is in such a contradictory phase that
it's actually kind of small thinking. We're right now we
just have two parties that are they're they're not is
to preserve their party. Isn't that non democratic? You're not
(29:26):
serving of the people of the existence that we're all in.
If your sole purposes, I don't care. I'm not gonna
listen to logic. We're not gonna conversate about this. My
job is to preserve my party. Wait a minute. Your
job is not to to just preserve your party. Your
job is to make the best choice for the people,
to serve the people under that umbrella. You can say
(29:49):
we got two camps that have a different little ideology.
My purchase would be That's why I would call myself
more aggressively centric. Is that there are some people on
the right that are the right person for the job
at hand at this certain time. There's certain people on
the left that are the right person for a certain
job at this time. And if you're in the middle,
like a free safety, you've got the agility to go
(30:10):
left or right when you need to and uh, right
now that it's just you know that old I heard
this quote said to me, Oh yeah, the middle of
the road ain't nothing the middle of the road but
dead armor, delos and yellows, yellow lines. I remember telling
the guy was like, dude, I'm walking down the middle
road right now. Let me tell you there ain't no
dead armadillos. You know why they're all running freely because
(30:33):
the left and the right are so far left and
right there, rubber ain't even on this pavement anymore. So
it's free there. It's free over here. And I actually
think the center is a dare now. I think it's
a courageous sort of it's the place where the outlaws
can live? Is it me? That is? It also seems
that if we can't, if we've lost the ability to
(30:54):
you know, when you go to law school, you were
going to be a lawyer. You go sit on the side,
and you like, you argue one side and then you
have to go to the other chair and argue the
other side, and if you can't argue both to completion,
you fail. Where is that what what happened? Just saying, I, uh,
with all due respect, I completely disagree with you. Here
(31:15):
are the facts in my side. There's none of this discourse.
It seems that we have we cannot get away from
the emotional and just go with the facts and talk
about something whereby we might both sort of like tell
each other something we actually, for christ sake, you might
like actually learned something, you idiot. You know, it's like,
I'm shocked when these politicians talk. It's like it's it's
(31:39):
it's blame. It's a victim. Blame, blame the victim, Blame
that victim. You blame this victim. Oh, we're gonna pull
out a victim of blame. And I'm like, it's so
anti intellectual it's almost hard to watch. To the point,
is I shut it off? I hear you. Well, look
I was right in the other day. The biggest underdog
I know of right now and in our lives it's facts,
(31:59):
facts Saturday going right, Oh those And so it's a
dangerous place when we are being fed and we're drinking
the kool aid of fiction as reality. And I'm for dreaming.
I'm in the dream business. I'm a storyteller, right, I
get it. But art emulates life. Fiction is based off
(32:21):
of nonfiction. Fiction is the dream that we make of
the read the rhyme we make of the reason. But
reason and logic are right, there can be a parent there.
Actual We've got to give that credit. And if we've
given that actual facts credit, Oh, we're in trouble, which
I think we're in somewhat trouble right now, Here's where
I think it's gone. I think it's gone twofold away
(32:43):
from where you're talking about prosecute, defend. Have a conversation here,
step in the other seat to have that conversation. So
we're no, we're not there, So where do we go? First?
We went first to no. I believe, in my eyes
side so much so right that I can't even hear yours.
But I'm not condemning yours. I'm just saying, and mine
is right. It's totalitarianism. That's it. That's where we believe. Well,
(33:04):
we've gone a step further than that. We're not even
arguing off of our own belief we're just arguing off
of I know. It's not that I know what, it's
just the opposite of whatever he says. Yeah, because he's
that guy like he can't be he can't be right.
Don't don't worry. I don't know what I believe. I
just know I don't believe that. That's we've gone two
folds away from the conversation without a combination. We've gone
(33:27):
two fold, one fold away from even believing in what
we're selling. We've just gone to I if I'm anti
whatever called opposite is, I don't know what I'm about,
but I know him not that, and that's there's no
answer in that. Where's the construction? And you know it's
so it's so construed. When you talk to someone, it
(33:47):
has to turn political and they'll say, so, I don't know,
I'm making this up, Like what are you doing? Well,
I had the kids down here, so oh so, so
you living in Florida. It's just like, yeah, it's like
this gotta be something wrong with you because you're living
in Florida. I'm like, there's twenty six million people here.
I'm okay. They pick one thing and if they can
get that judgment, they grabbed that hook and the fishing,
(34:09):
and that's it. They know you. You're this, You're that,
You're that, You're discarded. I'm never talking to you. It's
like shocking to the point, sadly, but there's no discourse.
I don't even say anything. I hardly I don't tweet this,
tweet that. I don't give my opinions because I'll be crucified.
What you're bringing up is right now there. It can
be dire consequences for that, yes, now, And look, we
(34:30):
all know the propaganda of good ideas of truth propably.
Truth is a probable propaganda right now. And the way
that I said facts are under the truth is propaganda.
All right. So what I'm gonna common say, I'm for
that propaganda. Okay, but let's admit that all of us can,
as you're talking about a Mr. Peterson said, tell the
(34:52):
truth and deal with consequences. I mean again, if we're there,
you know, some comes along or the parts of each
one of us come along in this life that oh,
I'm not playing this mortal finish line game. I'm onto
a bigger game that that that part of us will
come out and then speak, speak the truth and deal
with the confidence. Because we're going, like, I'm not talking
(35:12):
about wins and losses here on earth right now, I'm
talking about big wins. And if I believe this is
the truth, then more of us start to speak that
and live that way. That's the bravery and the courage
that I think we're gonna need. It's just how do
you know, you know packaging? I know packaging. It has
to be said the right way. You don't want to
say it in the wrong place. What will people get,
(35:33):
you know, what will people put in boldprint? How will
you be completely condemned? Why would you want to open
up to have someone sabotage and completely trespass and steal
and kidnap everything you've built, which has great credence and
worth and currency. Don't want to be foolish with it.
I hear you don't be foolish with it. But I
think that's the profit in all of us, or a
profit that we haven't may yet. That's the version though,
(35:55):
that's gonna gonna come forward and gonna sober everyone up.
I believe you're right because it actually there's no choice.
There's no choice but not to live with the media gratification.
And we've all gotten so drunk on it that it's
very hard to look past the long term. And another
Peterson thing that I love is he says you, whatever
(36:17):
you do, you're gonna pay a price. Just pick You're
gonna pay a price. It's whether it's left right, wrong, bad,
and out there's a price to it. Get ready to
pay the price, but determined to sort of like tell
the truth as well. You've got to pay the price
that there's no getting out of this world. It's angry
and it's unfair. Every choice has to cost you. And
(36:39):
you know what, when you're really turned on and on fire,
it costs you more one way or the other. But
it's got to cost you. And know that it costs you.
And I think that's part of it is we don't
we go whoa, wait a minute, I'm gonna stick over here.
Let me just keep Let me keep dancing at the
dollar store, all right, because that cost doesn't really mess
with my my livelihood. I don't want to go in
vest and something. Let me just rent. I don't want
(37:01):
to own who what? Let me just rent my way
around the dollar stools of the world and ideas and
who I'm going to be. It's we don't want to
pay the costs. We're we're afraid to to lose what
we might lose, and we're damn sure afraid to gain
what we might gain. I think of individuals and the
same way I think of like America as an aspiration.
(37:23):
It's it's we got this capacity we were talking about
to be better if we've got the potential. I know
people throw that word about, so I don't talk to
me about potential. Wait a minute come on. Potential is
where hope is, and you gotta have hope to move forward,
and then hopefully, under hope, you have a constructive understanding
about how to maybe get that make that hope come true.
I think our our biggest voible, our biggest problem, is
(37:46):
that we think we're gonna get to the that there's
an ending, that there's an aha moment where we go Todd,
I did it. We did it. We finally define justice,
we finally defined equality, we finally defined fairness. No, we're not.
That's the point. If we can just evolve the definitions
(38:09):
a little bit for ourselves and for each other, it's
just we don't. You don't get to the top of
the staircase when you leave this life. What you can
do is look back and go, how many did I climb?
And that's as good as it gets, as far as
I can tell. And if we can go, that's that's good.
That's the aspiration. We never get there. I say this,
I'm chasing a central truth. I know I'm never gonna
(38:32):
find it, but I believe I am so. I just
I'm playing a trick on myself. Thanks very much for
listening to four Courses with Jeffrey Zacrion, a production of
I Heart Radio and Corner Table Entertainment. Four Courses is
created by Jeffrey Zacarrion, Margaret Secarrion, Jared Keller, and Tara Helper.
(38:54):
Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis. Four Courses is produced
by Jonathan haw As Dressler our research. It's conducted by
Jesselyn Shields. Our talent booking is by Pamela Bauer at
Dogtown Talent. This episode was edited and written by Priya
Matavan and mixed by Joe Tistle. Special thanks to Katie
(39:14):
Fellman and Matthew mcconnie for help as recording engineers. For
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
My name is Jeffrey Z Carrian, and you're listening to
four Courses with Jeffrey Z Carrian from my Heart Radio.
In four courses, I'll be taking you along for the
ride while I talked with the top talent of our time.
In each conversation, I focused on four different areas from
my guests life and career. And during those four courses,
(00:23):
I'm gonna dig deep and uncover new insights and inspirations
that we can all use to fuel ourselves to push forward.
My guest for this episode is an actor best known
for his leading roles in blockbuster romantic comedies. More recently,
he's picked up films with more drama and depth, one
of which won him an Oscar in two thousand fourteen.
(00:45):
He also just came out with a wonderful book called
Green Lights. Without further delay, let's get into my conversation
with the charming and insightful Matthew McConaughey. For our first course,
I wanted to learn more about the foods and flavors
that stand out from Matthew's childhood in South Texas. It
turns out that those lessons influence how he and his
(01:08):
wife Camilla cook with their own kids today. When you
were growing up, what was the smell of food, what
was the cooking going on? What was that? Oh my god,
I smelled up. I smelled the bacon in the walls,
because I have that myself. What was that for you?
You know? The We lived in South Texas and New
Vality when I was my first ten years, So we're
(01:29):
gonna talk about that. Those early times. There was the
countrees and the grass was st augustine, and I had
to play in the yard, and I remember being in
my diapers, and in those hot summer days, I remember
the smell of the pecan tree, and then the fact
that no matter how hot it was outside, if I
(01:49):
would I was always barefoot. If I could nestle my
toes down into the roots of the st. Augustine grass,
it was always cool and it was like a little
air condition that came up and cooled me. Mom wasn't
a great cook, so I don't have many of those
toys she did of me, though she did a spaghetti
bill at this but it was usually Sarah Lee, so
she would find the box, we'd find the box, or
she go I made the pumpkin pie, and you'd go
(02:11):
find the Sarah Lee box did. She was the woman.
She was the mother that you know you got one
great bottle of peter Pan or one bottle of Hinds
catch up. And then after that you'd like, I don't
think this peter Pan because yes it is, look at
it's on it's on the outside there it is. What
else would it be? And she'd go get some cheaper
brand and put it in there. Then she started to
(02:31):
put the Delmonti tomato sauce in the hind bottle and
you tip the Hindes bottle into pour it like water.
You're like, Mom, this is not hind She goes it
is to look at the look at the label. So
I didn't have many food things. What I do remember
food wise, is Dad in his gumbo. Because Dad was
from Patterson, Misissippi, but grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana,
and he once a year run Super Bowl would do
(02:53):
a gumbo and he would be a three day process,
and the smell of the gumbo and him cooking the
gumbo was something, and it was it was a very
anticipatory smell because you can smell the rue early and
you're coming up on it and three days later and
you sneak by, and he wouldn't give you a little taste,
wouldn't let you have much because you had to wait,
and the anticipation, the bill to eating the memory then
(03:13):
also to go to New Orleans at his mother's house,
where we would go every year for the blessing of
the fleets. They cooked great meals, but it was the
smell of the in wall a c that's making sound
and dripping a little bit. You smell the moisture and
the wood. You could smell the humidity in the wood
down there in the household, and that was always incredibly
(03:33):
comforting smell mixed with gumbo. Yeah, and so did you did?
So your mom didn't cook, your dad cooked ritually, but
you sort of you just sort of took what you
could and made it all okay. It was okay, it
was yeah, it was you know, you got you got
one throw up vegetable in my m my family, and
(03:55):
mine was boil squash. And in hinds boiled squash. Boiled
mom boiled squash. Whole family ate it, I found out,
since nobody liked it. It's just straight boiled with with
a pinch of salt. She also boiled okrah, that, in
hindsight is the one I wish I would have said
was my throat because it was straight bulled ochre and
(04:16):
it was like throwing an oyster, green slimy oyster on
your plate. And the only thing I could do is
cover that damn thing with catch up, just to in
hold mind I was and put it down because if
I didn't eat it for dinner, it was it was
next to my scrambled eggs for breakfast and to start
the day to go to school. That was not very fun. Yeah,
she wasn't a great cook. Dad was a great cook
(04:37):
when he cooked, but that was sort of our We
did eat dinner together every single night, though seven days
a week. We ate dinner at the table with a
lazy Susan in the middle. I have three kids, like you,
and I think that I always tell the parents that
they say, what's the most important experience? I'm like, you
gotta eat dinner with your kids all the time, even
if they say nothing, even if they bitch and moan,
(05:00):
even if they criticize you, even if they are throw food,
You're doing it together, and that bonding experiences it's like
d n A. It does not leave you and it
doesn't leave. The children will figure it out that that
is part of life, That is part of the vessel
of nurturing and responsibility that you have for your family. Yea,
(05:21):
it's something I've been thinking about lately with someone brought up.
You know, I was talking with different fathers about, Hey,
let are from raising your kids tips, what do you
do here? And we've had my mom with us because
code for eighteen months, she's been with us, live with us.
And my buddy reminded me, he is, like, would you
know the example you're setting for your kids about how
to help take care of their elders. Right now they're
seeing it, they'll remember she was with you for that
(05:43):
time saying what I hear you saying about having the
family dinner, even if nobody says a damn word, it's
about sundown. Hey, why don't we all sit down together?
Because that was a habit and boy, it's a good
one and I wish more people did it. I think it.
I think it would be helpful for society and large
a large I believe strongly in that. You know, every
time you break bread together is a magical time and
(06:04):
I would I wouldn't trade it for anything. And it's
almost like it's a ritual. But I love that ritual.
Like we all think, it's like, you gotta read this,
you gotta listen to this podcast, you gotta do this,
you read this book. No, no, just cook a meal
together and open beans, cut potatoes together, get you know,
do something. Each one has a job. It becomes a
(06:25):
collective strength building exercise for the family. And what an
easy congregate. You know, it's an it's an easy church,
it's an easy meditated it's an easy and the actual
cooking of it together is so much fun as you
bring up. Kamille and I have a foundation. One of
the things that we have is a nutrition project where
(06:46):
we'll find the mother who's maybe cooking, I don't know,
picking up burgers like five nights, four nights a week
for the kids. We're not that's fine, we love burgers.
But how about we take that forty seven dollars that
you spend and we go to local supermarket and we
go get some produce, we get some beans, maybe a
little bit of meat. We come home for the same
amount of money, healthier meal and you get to cook
(07:08):
it with your kiddos. And that's the part that they
end up loving the most, and the kids love the most.
They go, oh, it's the hour I got to spend
with mom in the kitchen and the preparing of it
that helped us come together. And then you see, you know,
I mean, the relationship between the kids that we work
with and their parents improved. They had conversations that they
(07:29):
weren't having before. Because it's also it takes away the
formality of like, well, now let's go sit down and
talk about things. Or you're you're cooking, you're doing something,
you're taste. Oh that's good, dude, try this who I've
over did over cooked as well, let's try it again.
And then you get the meal and someone says, oh,
I really like this one. Who did this one? Who
did this dish? Who did that dish? Somebody gets better
at one area. What did you guys do during COVID?
(07:51):
I know, I was obviously home to and I have
three kids this exact same age as yours, except my
youngest is seven, and it was like a feast every day.
I mean, we it is fantastic just to cook and
eat and share together. Who did the cookie at your house?
We all did? LEVI my eldest he would take charge
some days. The thing with him is he gives small portions,
(08:13):
but always like could you just do it because you
made a little larger portions. But he's really loves presentation.
He really loves finding the piece of the parts there
there's something and just setting it up. And he loves
the choreography of the play. Really loves it. And he's
got a really good he's got really good taste buds
almost too good. Sometimes. You know, our daughter right now
is really into desserts. Baking is her goat. She loves it.
(08:35):
I'll get up at seven am and she's been baking
for an hour, loves it. And then Camilla and I'll
get good giving in there. I'm you know, we try
to eat healthy. I'm big into salads, big in the lagoons.
I'm the guy who makes tuna ficient faunily Now, I'm
a guy who loves tuna fish salad, and I believe
tuna fish salad. If there's one dish that you go
(08:55):
to somebody, if you want to find out a lot
about that person, you give them all the ingredients in
the world and say you make the tuna fish out
and see what kind of tuna fish subadamic. Everyone will
make a completely different tuna fish sound, but it tells
you a lot about that person. But the great thing
about tuna is don't you feel like when you eat tuna,
you're you're exceptionally full, Like you're not hungry for six hours.
(09:16):
I get exceptionally full, and I think as I'm eating,
I'm getting more lean something about tuna fish. I can
eat as much as I want, and I'm going like,
I think you lost a couple. I noticed that Camilla
is on the on the airwaves making salmon. I'm watching.
I watched her cooking and she seems very confident in
(09:37):
her ability to make something out of nothing and really
make it happen and put the love into it. Her
mother taught us the thing, and she calls it machito.
And it's usually our Sunday night richell, which is, hey,
we prepared meals all week. Now Sunday night, let's clean
out the fridge and see what meal can be made.
Let's pull out every single left over the bottom of
any bottle. Let's see what we can use. And it's
(09:59):
gonna be different every time, and it's fun because it
ends up being a magic trick. Now, you know, we
get the music going, a glass of wine and Camilla
gets it, gets that Brazilian rhythm going, and and and again.
That's another thing about cooking, you know, it's it's it's
also where's your head out when you're cooking? If I'm
feeling musical and I'm in a good mood, I promise
you my tuna fish is gonna taste better to everybody.
(10:21):
Then if I'm like, I gotta go make it, I
won't even go cook. If I'm like, I gotta go cook,
and it won't taste as good. But if I'm like,
here we go, let's have some funny, it always tastes better.
It may even be the same damn ingredients, but I
promise you, it tastes better to everybody if the cook
is having a good time cooking it. Jeez, I love
hearing that the little bossa nova, little Milton, no simento,
A couple of glasses of wine. What's better than that?
(10:43):
I mean, I want to come over and watch you
make tuna, just any kind of tuna, a cleanout tuna.
It's it's about a forty five minute to an hour process.
In our second course, I wanted to get into Matthew's
origin story as an actor, which began in earnest when
he landed All and then now classic film Dazed and Confused.
It all started when he approached casting director Don Phillips
(11:07):
at a bar. I didn't go down there to make
a new friend. I knew he was in down as
a movie producer, and I wanted to be in the
movie business. I was studying that, so it was a
deliberate opportunistic move. Mind you, I didn't play that hand.
I didn't act over needy. I was hanging out being
a cool guy, having to vodka tonics with him until
we got kicked out of the bar from being two rally.
Only then did he go, have you ever done any acting? Alright, No,
(11:30):
not really. I was in a middle life marsial for
this songs like he might be right for this part.
Come down to this address, pick up the script. Well
there was that script. Three lines. I look at those
three lines. Wow, man, I could get this part. This
is great. I worked on those three lines for two weeks.
Who was the guy? Well, he reminds me of my brother.
I remember seeing my brother when I was nine years old,
leaning against the wall in the smoking section at Longview
(11:52):
High School with his left leg boot heel up against
the brick wall that he was leaning against, his flimsy
little hand holding that cigarette, and I was like, it
was from a hundred yards away. And in my ten
year old eyes, his silhouette was the coolest thing in
the world. He was my hero. He was nine ft tall,
his zy that he would wake me up when he
get home at midnight after his curfew and pull me
(12:15):
out of bed, and I'd come out of my tidy
white he's and sitting in the driveway and he played
turned me onto John Mellencamp and Judas Priests were rock
and roll in his Z twenty eight and the driveway
till five in the morning. No stereo has ever sounded
better than it did on those nights. I've heard a
lot of stereos that cost more and more better quality,
but to my ten year old ears, nothing's ever sounded better,
(12:35):
Nobody was ever cooler. And I was like, well, that's Waterson,
that's this character. So then the fact that I show
up and I'm not supposed to work, and I got
three lines, three lines turning in three weeks work, I
keep getting invited back to set. I'm just kind of
improvising because I know my man, and all of a sudden,
I'm in the movie and I'm a main character that
I still go back to as going like that example
(12:58):
is not going to be topped. I didn't know what
I was doing, but I had instincts for it, you know,
but I was and I and I was confident enough
to go and the camerazon would just be this, be
this character. So I had instincts for it, and I
go back. There's a purity of that that I've tried
to maintain along the way as I've gotten smarter, as
I've learned my craft, and you know that, you know,
there's that awkward time where if you have great instincts
(13:20):
for something and then all of a sudden you go
to school on it and now it's time to learn it.
There's an awkward period there where now you're getting intellectualizing
something that you didn't even used to think about. He said,
instincts for it, And I had an awkward couple of
years there. I was like, I'm not this. I'm my
acting is going backwards. I'm not doing as good. I
know too much now that I'm conscious of what the
(13:42):
hell I was doing I'm not doing it as well.
I'm thinking, Well, I stuck with it and got past it.
And once I was past it, yes, I lowered my
handicap in acting. My handicap went down because I went
through the learning process and that gave me great power.
I knew what to do when I was in they drove,
and I also learned what to do when I was
(14:03):
in rut. I learned how to deal with I'm stuck.
Who I've got tension? Oh, that's my enemy right now?
As an actor, I gotta I knew what I knew
how to handle when there was when I'd run into
a dead end to acting or get or get stuck
that I didn't know beforehand. So the load of the
handicap coming out of that. But that was I would say,
days confused. I don't have a better story or or
(14:24):
story it was. That was the first green light and
the one that still illuminates to this day of how
to do it for me? For our third course, I
asked Matthew about his process of putting together his new
memoir green Lights. It's a personal, raw reflection built upon
(14:47):
years and years of journals from his life. The book
had just broken two million copies and sales when we chatted,
which she said came as a huge, happy surprise, especially
as a first time author. It just did two point
I was told this morning two poor two point four
million in North America, and yeah, I don't know what
(15:08):
you know. I didn't It's my first book. I didn't
have an expectation. I sort of synonymized it with what
I know about the box office. A movie you want
to you want to have a good opening weekend. Uh,
and then after that, if you get fortunate, you can
have some word of mouth, because you can't do just
press for a movie all the time. And we had
a good opening weekend. We opened up at number one
(15:31):
New York Times Bestsellers, So I was like, okay, check
that means we had a great weekend opening weekend. And
then after that it was you know, I've been on
the road hammering and talking about it for a long time.
But it's really cool that it's living on its own.
People are without me saying anything or passing, it's getting
a life of its own, and that is awesome, which
(15:53):
I had no idea would happened. The book is like
a lovely soliloquy. I know, elite motif. It's the string
of pearl sort of like experiences. But really it's hard
to put that together in a way that actually can
like you know, move someone to get sort of like
a lesson from something, because most of people just regurgitate.
So I really enjoy that. I think there's a lot
(16:14):
of things in your book that you mentioned that you
did early on. You had no idea like waiting twenty
years would make it, you know, it would be like
you were never in the you were in a little
bit of a comfort zone. But you waited twenty years
and then it just all made sense, like you were
exactly who you were supposed to be at any given
moment moment in time. And I think that's like food
(16:35):
and life are very similar to that. And that's what
I get out of this book, Like you were who
you were and and that's what I got out of that. Ah, well,
thank you. I mean, I've tried to unpack that because
there were times I thought, oh my gosh, I'm in
a rut. Is this it is this my existence? There
were times I thought that, but I would always fight
that thought and go no, trust, trust, this is a phase. Trust,
(17:00):
forgive yourself for that bogey, this is a stop, not
a stay. Trust that this is gonna pass. And happily
most of those things where I was maybe not who
I looking back who I, or at the time even
who I, I wasn't being who I wanted to be
or the best version of myself. I trusted that I
wasn't gonna get stuck there and either did something about
(17:21):
it to change it, created new habits, or said I'm
gonna forgive you on this one. Let you slide. Which
is it? I mean, that's a big old balance in
life seems, it seems to me, is what do we
let ourselves slide on? And what do we say now,
I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Let's
let's move on. You know, well, you moved on well,
and I love that you. You collected all these these things.
(17:43):
You just wrote stuff down, which it's very commendable to
write stuff down and be able to piece it together.
But it seems to me that you're always trying to
sort of live with integrity. That's what I got out
of this. I'm like this, this gentleman, he's really trying
his hardest to stay in the path of goodness. I
think that it's like we just kind of make shut
(18:04):
up all the time, and if you have a good heart,
it can't turn out bad. Right. It seems to me
that that's what you sort of did a lot in
a very successful way. I maybe, I think, I mean,
I think so. I look, I I pulled some things off.
I've done some stunts where I was like, I don't know, man,
this is gonna work. I'm just gonna try and pull
(18:25):
it off. I don't have any mortals about it. I
just want to see if I can get away with it.
I got plenty of those in my quiver. But I
kind of, I mean, I trusted, and I knew early
on that I'm not a tyrant. I knew early on that.
I was like, hey, you may not be the best
you can maybe a bad boy here, you may misbehave
you may not you know, make your a in that relationship,
(18:46):
and you could have done that better. But I was like,
I'm not ugly, and I'm not ugly at people, and
I don't want to be. I just don't have it.
It's not in my constitution. I've never I've never felt
more or felt victory in in pointing someone else's failure.
I've never wanted. Oh if I put you down, I'll
feel I'll feel better. I just never had it in me.
(19:06):
Um for whatever reason, never never gave me residual, never
never made me really feel worth the damn. So I've i've, i've,
I knew I wasn't. I didn't have being a tyrant
in me, and that gave me some trust that Okay,
when I'm maybe not my best, well, hell was it fun.
Let's give ourselves a pass on that one, you know
what I mean. And everyone needs a Saturday night and
under their belt. I hope a lot of people read
(19:26):
the book and you were very good communicated where I
whether I think you knew it or not at the time.
And that's sort of a profound way writing this book.
It's like you're just being You're letting yourself like be Okay, yeah,
look I I I dared myself to go back and
look at thirty five years of my writings and make
(19:47):
a book out of it and share. I dared myself
to it for years and never had the courage or
bass to do. It's like, you know what, Camilla, when
I died, she'll maybe look back and do something with
that or my best friend and he'll look back and
I have as I was copping out, and then I
was like, well, who do you think you are to
think what you've been writing down and going through your
mind and heart's worth sharing? Like ah well, and then
(20:07):
I was like, well, let's go, let's go see. And
part of the writing of it for me was incredible
freedom because I was looking back going I was afraid
to go look back. I was like, ah, man, I'm
not gonna like who. I was gonna be embarrassed, and
I was when I look back. But all of a sudden,
when I noticed that, I started laughing at myself at times,
(20:27):
going dumb mass you know, or whatever it was. And
laughter is a former forgiveness. And also I was like, oh,
I'm glad you did that. That's a really randy, racy story.
And you got away with that one. How did you
come out of that with that drawing blood? Or you
did draw blood on that one, but you made it
out the other side, you know. I realized this on
day four writing, because I came into writing this thing
(20:50):
thinking I knew what the book would be, and I
thought it was gonna be very academic. Well, I started
looking at stuff I written, and all a sudden, after
day four, I was like, this ain't academic. This is
more philosophical, folk stories, storytelling, statesmanship and you know, poetry
and song. That it is academics, not academic at all.
And so I had to rearrange and I was like, look,
(21:11):
let's just look at what you have and let it
tell you what it is. And the more I found
this out, the more personal I got, The more I
started to realize, oh, I think more people, the more
amount of people will be able to see themselves in
my stories if I the more personal I get. And
I remember at the time thinking that was ironic. I
was like, well, how does that work? And I was like, well, duh,
that's what any good art does. That's what it got.
(21:33):
A great meal does if you're really cooking it for you,
and you're like, that's exactly what I wanted to cook
right there. More people are most likely gonna love that
if you're cooking it only for them, though, and they're going,
I don't like it. People aren't gonna like I was
writing it for me, and I kept reminding myself, write
it for you, and if other people see see themselves
in it, great which is what is unfortunately and kindly happened. Yeah,
(21:57):
and also this, and you know when we when I
roasted chicken, I tell people all the time, I broke
it a million, eight hundred thousand, a million chickens. Every
one of them is different, every single one of them
is different. It's the same chicken, the same temper saying,
but it's a taste different every time. And you have
to you have to let let that happen to you
in life. So I have this picture of you with
(22:19):
a giant table with all these writings around, trying to
like put him in columns. How did you? How did
you get this book to sort of at least behave
a bit? Well, like I've been collecting journals and and
my Treasure Chester journals went from this size to this
size to this size, and now it's overflowing. And it
was about do I dare take that away to open
up and see what's in there? So I went away
(22:41):
to the desert to a place and didn't have any electricity.
I want to go to a place where I had
no cell service, no nothing, where I was forced to
be with me and who the hell I've been the
last fifty years? And if I got bored, well you
got one place to go entertain yourself by looking back
at who the hell you've been. And that process was
just going through and going yep, let's pull that, let's
(23:03):
highlight that, let's put that page. And so I went
through everything and said, I think I found there's some
certain themes going through here. And then I started to
stack columns and I found themes. There were people, places, prescribes, poems, prayers,
and a whole lot of bumper stickers. That was my stacks,
and I was like, okay, well there are my pillars
(23:23):
of where things that I've been thinking about writing down
for thirty five years fall into those columns. And then
I was like, okay, well, let me look at those
seven and see if I can find a central theme
of that. And that's where green lights came from, because
I noticed what you were saying. Boy, I've had screw ups, crisis, hardships, death, sicknesses,
et cetera, failures in my life that were red and
(23:45):
yellow lights. And I've had times of introfection, yellow lights
going away where I'm gonna put on a backpack and
go off and be with myself and be introspective but
every one of them turned out to be a green light.
Even the death of my dad had valuable, valuable lessening
gave me. I'm so I noticed. Oh, I'm not denying
the red light of the of my father's death, but
(24:05):
I'm I don't even think i'd be the man I
am unless he had moved on. Is that being? Is
that discrediting his death, the hardship of that. No, it's
just saying an outcome of that was something that I
can take and learn, And I think it's something that
we can all do in those hardships when we go, yep,
I'm in it now it happened. Well, I've got two
(24:27):
choices where I can try and find something I can
use out of it that's constructive unless it learned, or
I can sit here and go I'm a complete victim
of that situation, and I do. There's just no residuals
that the second one. The second one is no fun.
The second one is like, no, it's it's wallowing. I
just like so pure for purely selfish reasons. I think
I've tried to look at an approach life that way
(24:49):
and not be callous, hopefully not be callous, hopefully not
be arrogant, which I can be at times, but look
at those things. It's like, yeah, there, Well, you've got
two choices. One at least could be fun and constructive.
The other one just has no residuals. There's no R
O I in it. It sucks. Well, shoot, let's pick
the first one. And for our fourth and final course,
(25:17):
I knew that Matthew would have interesting reflections on politics
and philosophy. Together, we explored the dangers of instant gratification
and reflected on some ideas of a psychologist and thought
leader we both admire. I know you're passionate about a
lot of things. You're passionate about politics, and I do
sort of read quite a bit about it because you
and I follow someone that we I respect very much,
(25:39):
Jordan Peterson. I live by a lot of his books.
I try to and uh, I love his stuff. But
you're very passionate about your state and your the way
you describe how it is that we can live but
yet we can still take care of each other. But
we need to have they need to be some rules
(26:00):
for life, so to speak, and you're very passionate about that.
You don't preach to people, which I love you just say, look,
this is what it is. Anybody needs to go through this.
And this is not about like splitting hairs. This is
about like what the human condition is. And I think
it's fascinating the way what you're doing it. You know,
you can get skewered very easily. Yeah, and those skiers
(26:22):
are where it goes sideways. I mean, you know, Jordan
talks a lot about responsibility. We don't talk about consequences enough.
Consequences are usually thrown over there like oh bad, No,
let's remember consequent. They are good consequences. There's upside, there's game,
there's r o I give credit to the consequence is
not a bad word. It just cuts both ways. The
one perspective that he has that I think is the
(26:46):
honeyhell that I think is that the real nectar. Let's
forget politics, Let's forget these titles of things for a minute.
What do we need to do? Build better people? Build
better people? And who's that on? That's on me, and
that's on you? And who am I supposed to look
after me? Who are you supposed to look after you?
I think we're all and I'm guilty of it too.
(27:08):
We have a certain sense of entitlement. We are showing
this last year and a half that we give more
credence to our privileges than our principles. It's short term beliefs,
it's immediate gratification. Yet we have trouble seeing that long view.
We have trouble seeing. No. Actually, I'm betting on the
bigger prize later, that immortal finish line. And a lot
(27:31):
of that for me comes from a faith in a
belief that this is knit, this life is knit. And again,
even if it is it, I'm gonna keep on believing
it's not it, just just at least for the fun
of it. So but even if you're not a believer,
if you're an agnosticate what I mean, just project a
little bit if you're doing it for you, Because every
(27:54):
decision I believe is has to be extremely personal. We
proved that we don't do ship unless it's personal. So
instead of saying you shouldn't be selfish or you're you
got too big of an eagle, I'm like, no, be
more selfish, have a bigger ego. But with that comes responsibility,
and there's a place where you can serve yourself and
actually serve the most amount of people. If you believe
(28:16):
in the delayed gratification that there is. It's all an
individual experience in the collective. But I think it starts
with each one of us in the mirror. And I do,
honestly and sincerely believe in the capacity for each one
of us to self determine and do better at taking
care of our minds, heart, spirits and bodies than we
do at present. We got so much to go, and
(28:38):
we we don't like sacrifice. We don't like to break
a sweat, we don't like the hard work that is
life because we don't want to trust that that can
bring a greater reward. But it does. And if we
could just remember that and say, I'm gonna invest in me,
and investing in me respecting myself more means I'm gonna
be able to respect you more. If I invest to me,
(29:01):
I'm investing in my daughter's future, I'm investing in your
son's future. I'm a shared story. It's a shared story,
and it's a paradox, not a contradiction. So I think
politics right now is in such a contradictory phase that
it's actually kind of small thinking. We're right now we
just have two parties that are they're they're not is
to preserve their party. Isn't that non democratic? You're not
(29:26):
serving of the people of the existence that we're all in.
If your sole purposes, I don't care. I'm not gonna
listen to logic. We're not gonna conversate about this. My
job is to preserve my party. Wait a minute. Your
job is not to to just preserve your party. Your
job is to make the best choice for the people,
to serve the people under that umbrella. You can say
(29:49):
we got two camps that have a different little ideology.
My purchase would be That's why I would call myself
more aggressively centric. Is that there are some people on
the right that are the right person for the job
at hand at this certain time. There's certain people on
the left that are the right person for a certain
job at this time. And if you're in the middle,
like a free safety, you've got the agility to go
(30:10):
left or right when you need to and uh, right
now that it's just you know that old I heard
this quote said to me, Oh yeah, the middle of
the road ain't nothing the middle of the road but
dead armor, delos and yellows, yellow lines. I remember telling
the guy was like, dude, I'm walking down the middle
road right now. Let me tell you there ain't no
dead armadillos. You know why they're all running freely because
(30:33):
the left and the right are so far left and
right there, rubber ain't even on this pavement anymore. So
it's free there. It's free over here. And I actually
think the center is a dare now. I think it's
a courageous sort of it's the place where the outlaws
can live? Is it me? That is? It also seems
that if we can't, if we've lost the ability to
(30:54):
you know, when you go to law school, you were
going to be a lawyer. You go sit on the side,
and you like, you argue one side and then you
have to go to the other chair and argue the
other side, and if you can't argue both to completion,
you fail. Where is that what what happened? Just saying, I, uh,
with all due respect, I completely disagree with you. Here
(31:15):
are the facts in my side. There's none of this discourse.
It seems that we have we cannot get away from
the emotional and just go with the facts and talk
about something whereby we might both sort of like tell
each other something we actually, for christ sake, you might
like actually learned something, you idiot. You know, it's like,
I'm shocked when these politicians talk. It's like it's it's
(31:39):
it's blame. It's a victim. Blame, blame the victim, Blame
that victim. You blame this victim. Oh, we're gonna pull
out a victim of blame. And I'm like, it's so
anti intellectual it's almost hard to watch. To the point,
is I shut it off? I hear you. Well, look
I was right in the other day. The biggest underdog
I know of right now and in our lives it's facts,
(31:59):
facts Saturday going right, Oh those And so it's a
dangerous place when we are being fed and we're drinking
the kool aid of fiction as reality. And I'm for dreaming.
I'm in the dream business. I'm a storyteller, right, I
get it. But art emulates life. Fiction is based off
(32:21):
of nonfiction. Fiction is the dream that we make of
the read the rhyme we make of the reason. But
reason and logic are right, there can be a parent there.
Actual We've got to give that credit. And if we've
given that actual facts credit, Oh, we're in trouble, which
I think we're in somewhat trouble right now, Here's where
I think it's gone. I think it's gone twofold away
(32:43):
from where you're talking about prosecute, defend. Have a conversation here,
step in the other seat to have that conversation. So
we're no, we're not there, So where do we go? First?
We went first to no. I believe, in my eyes
side so much so right that I can't even hear yours.
But I'm not condemning yours. I'm just saying, and mine
is right. It's totalitarianism. That's it. That's where we believe. Well,
(33:04):
we've gone a step further than that. We're not even
arguing off of our own belief we're just arguing off
of I know. It's not that I know what, it's
just the opposite of whatever he says. Yeah, because he's
that guy like he can't be he can't be right.
Don't don't worry. I don't know what I believe. I
just know I don't believe that. That's we've gone two
folds away from the conversation without a combination. We've gone
(33:27):
two fold, one fold away from even believing in what
we're selling. We've just gone to I if I'm anti
whatever called opposite is, I don't know what I'm about,
but I know him not that, and that's there's no
answer in that. Where's the construction? And you know it's
so it's so construed. When you talk to someone, it
(33:47):
has to turn political and they'll say, so, I don't know,
I'm making this up, Like what are you doing? Well,
I had the kids down here, so oh so, so
you living in Florida. It's just like, yeah, it's like
this gotta be something wrong with you because you're living
in Florida. I'm like, there's twenty six million people here.
I'm okay. They pick one thing and if they can
get that judgment, they grabbed that hook and the fishing,
(34:09):
and that's it. They know you. You're this, You're that,
You're that, You're discarded. I'm never talking to you. It's
like shocking to the point, sadly, but there's no discourse.
I don't even say anything. I hardly I don't tweet this,
tweet that. I don't give my opinions because I'll be crucified.
What you're bringing up is right now there. It can
be dire consequences for that, yes, now, And look, we
(34:30):
all know the propaganda of good ideas of truth propably.
Truth is a probable propaganda right now. And the way
that I said facts are under the truth is propaganda.
All right. So what I'm gonna common say, I'm for
that propaganda. Okay, but let's admit that all of us can,
as you're talking about a Mr. Peterson said, tell the
(34:52):
truth and deal with consequences. I mean again, if we're there,
you know, some comes along or the parts of each
one of us come along in this life that oh,
I'm not playing this mortal finish line game. I'm onto
a bigger game that that that part of us will
come out and then speak, speak the truth and deal
with the confidence. Because we're going, like, I'm not talking
(35:12):
about wins and losses here on earth right now, I'm
talking about big wins. And if I believe this is
the truth, then more of us start to speak that
and live that way. That's the bravery and the courage
that I think we're gonna need. It's just how do
you know, you know packaging? I know packaging. It has
to be said the right way. You don't want to
say it in the wrong place. What will people get,
(35:33):
you know, what will people put in boldprint? How will
you be completely condemned? Why would you want to open
up to have someone sabotage and completely trespass and steal
and kidnap everything you've built, which has great credence and
worth and currency. Don't want to be foolish with it.
I hear you don't be foolish with it. But I
think that's the profit in all of us, or a
profit that we haven't may yet. That's the version though,
(35:55):
that's gonna gonna come forward and gonna sober everyone up.
I believe you're right because it actually there's no choice.
There's no choice but not to live with the media gratification.
And we've all gotten so drunk on it that it's
very hard to look past the long term. And another
Peterson thing that I love is he says you, whatever
(36:17):
you do, you're gonna pay a price. Just pick You're
gonna pay a price. It's whether it's left right, wrong, bad,
and out there's a price to it. Get ready to
pay the price, but determined to sort of like tell
the truth as well. You've got to pay the price
that there's no getting out of this world. It's angry
and it's unfair. Every choice has to cost you. And
(36:39):
you know what, when you're really turned on and on fire,
it costs you more one way or the other. But
it's got to cost you. And know that it costs you.
And I think that's part of it is we don't
we go whoa, wait a minute, I'm gonna stick over here.
Let me just keep Let me keep dancing at the
dollar store, all right, because that cost doesn't really mess
with my my livelihood. I don't want to go in
vest and something. Let me just rent. I don't want
(37:01):
to own who what? Let me just rent my way
around the dollar stools of the world and ideas and
who I'm going to be. It's we don't want to
pay the costs. We're we're afraid to to lose what
we might lose, and we're damn sure afraid to gain
what we might gain. I think of individuals and the
same way I think of like America as an aspiration.
(37:23):
It's it's we got this capacity we were talking about
to be better if we've got the potential. I know
people throw that word about, so I don't talk to
me about potential. Wait a minute come on. Potential is
where hope is, and you gotta have hope to move forward,
and then hopefully, under hope, you have a constructive understanding
about how to maybe get that make that hope come true.
I think our our biggest voible, our biggest problem, is
(37:46):
that we think we're gonna get to the that there's
an ending, that there's an aha moment where we go Todd,
I did it. We did it. We finally define justice,
we finally defined equality, we finally defined fairness. No, we're not.
That's the point. If we can just evolve the definitions
(38:09):
a little bit for ourselves and for each other, it's
just we don't. You don't get to the top of
the staircase when you leave this life. What you can
do is look back and go, how many did I climb?
And that's as good as it gets, as far as
I can tell. And if we can go, that's that's good.
That's the aspiration. We never get there. I say this,
I'm chasing a central truth. I know I'm never gonna
(38:32):
find it, but I believe I am so. I just
I'm playing a trick on myself. Thanks very much for
listening to four Courses with Jeffrey Zacrion, a production of
I Heart Radio and Corner Table Entertainment. Four Courses is
created by Jeffrey Zacarrion, Margaret Secarrion, Jared Keller, and Tara Helper.
(38:54):
Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis. Four Courses is produced
by Jonathan haw As Dressler our research. It's conducted by
Jesselyn Shields. Our talent booking is by Pamela Bauer at
Dogtown Talent. This episode was edited and written by Priya
Matavan and mixed by Joe Tistle. Special thanks to Katie
(39:14):
Fellman and Matthew mcconnie for help as recording engineers. For
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
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