February 15, 2023 • 38 mins
#Storytime is finally back for Season Four! First up, we’ve got everyone's favorite heartthrob, RIDER STRONG, sharing a funny, spooky, and heartfelt first-big-role story that made for some incredible A.I. artwork prompts. Head to our Instagram to gaze upon them and check out Rider's podcasts Literary Disco and Pod Meets World!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
There was a girl who called my house um and
asked for me how you and I was stoked, man
like some girl, So I actually met up with her
and went on a day. Now, if you were to
(00:35):
travel back in time too, when I was in seventh
grade and visit me in my bedroom into paying a
canyon and tell me that one day I'd be chatting
it up with teen heartthrob right or Strong, I'd say,
who the hell are you? Get out of my bedroom,
you pervert. I'm trying to finish my history of paper
from Mr Hamish's class. But you would be right, because
we are kicking off season four Strong, right or Strong? Baby? Now?
(00:57):
If you're new here, welcome, Here's the GIT. This is
a podcast where I bring on fascinating people I'm loosely
acquainted with and listen to them share an intimate story
from their life. It's kind of like perpetually being on
a first date that always goes really well but never
leads to a second date or sex. I'm your host,
Will Tiger Beat McFadden. Also, I every episode, I give
myself a new middle name that's relevant to the guest
(01:20):
or the topic of the episode. It's a bit I've
been doing it for four seasons. Now you'll just you'll
get used to it. Now. You probably know today's guests
from his popular podcast, Pod Meets World, or the show
that the podcast is based on, Boy Meets World. It
would be weird if you listen to Pod Meets World
and didn't watch Boy Meets World. You're doing it wrong.
But you most likely know right or strong as a
(01:40):
child start. What many of you don't know is that
I was also a child star, just a far less
successful one. But I'm sure some of you have seen
the straight to home video romantic comedy Only You, starring
Helen Hunt, Andrew McCarthy and Kelly Preston. Yeah, I was
the kid who got the weggy at the target at
the end of the film. I still remember my line was,
(02:00):
whoa mom? Larry gave me a wedgy? Seen now. Even
though our careers took very different trajectories, we both ended
up here on the amazing podcast you're about to listen to.
This is hashtag Storytime, brought to you by I Heart
Radio nineteen eighty nine. When I was starting out as
(02:21):
an actor as a kid, I was nine years old,
eight nine years old, and I started doing plays when
I was like six or seven, and for some reason,
and I don't know if this is still true like
for kid actors now, especially kid boy actors now, but
it was certainly true then. I was. I was always
an urchin. I was always like, uh, an orphan or
(02:44):
an urchin. I was always wearing like those page boy hats,
you know, like lots of the stage dirt smudged on
your the stage dirt just kicking me for everything, Like
all every audition I had, I was like I was
up from the movie news He's at one point, you know,
And I was always like dancing and singing and being
a street urchin Urchin number two. Which it's just such
(03:06):
a weird thing. Like I have thought about this with
hobos too, like why are hobo's cool? Right, Like it's
kind of like a crappy lifestyle. It's mostly desperation, but
it's you know, there's like this romanticized version of poverty
and of homelessness. The street urchin is one of them.
There's a certain freedom that hobo's had. I feel like
(03:26):
that we don't we don't romanticize with with current unhoused people,
you know, the hobo lifestyle I think of like oh,
hopping on trains and like stealing pies from window sills,
and and like camping out and having to work right
just living on the edge of the forest. And but
you know, there's there's definitely probably some alcoholism and desperation
(03:48):
and a lot of hungry nights and people freezing to
death on those trains. So definitely like some children that
they are not taken care of somewhere exactly exactly. Um So,
my first real big job, my first big acting gig,
was Lame as Rob. I got cast as Gavroche and
(04:09):
the pups all grown up, yes, exactly. So this was
my this is my big break, as you know, as
a kid, and it's still to this day, probably the
most fun job I've ever had. My first, my first
job and the most fun. Um what it meant? Yeah,
after that, it was just you know, but so it
was I was. I grew up in the woods. I
(04:31):
grew up outside of Sebastopol, California, Sonoma County, out in
the redwoods, and my parents built the house I grew
up in. They were very back to nature. So this job,
which I got by by driving into San Francisco and
just auditioned in the cattle call audition with all these
other kids, and I got it. What meant that I
was having to go into San Francisco six days a
week to be in this play, which was a big deal,
(04:54):
like my you know, in retrospect, especially from my parents.
My my mom had to drive me and were and
a half every day to deliver me to do this play.
And we were doing a performances a week, and I
alternated with another boy. We both you know, they had
double cast it, so there's two coverages. And then there
were the two girls who played Young Epanning and Young Cosette,
(05:15):
and they also alternated roles. One of them was Larissa Atlantic,
who have since worked with a bunch. She's gone on
to be a fabulous actress and still works to this day.
She was in Ten Things I Hate About You and
um She's yeah, she's She was on the show called
Alex mac The Secret World of Alex Mackeloe. Anyway, remember
so this is both of our first gig. So what
was happening is my mom would drive me down and
dropped me off at the theater. I would get a
(05:37):
ride back because it turned out there was a costumer
who lived kind of near us too, so I would
get you know, we we'd figure out a driving situation.
But for us kids, we would be there at the
theater in San Francisco, and we would on days where
we would have Mattinee's or during rehearsals, which rehearsals for
four weeks long, and then Dave's where we would have Mattinee's.
We would have lunch breaks, and we would have a
teacher studio teacher that was paid to be there, like
(05:59):
a welfare worker. And then usually there would be one
of the parents of the kids would take us to launch.
So one of our parents would show up and take
us out. But so the theater, the current theater in
San Francisco is in on Geary Street, which is right
by the Tenderline, which is not the greatest neighborhood. And
this is in the eighties, you know, when Reagan wonderful
(06:24):
Reagan policies and had emptied out the California hospitals and
there was a huge homeless population, used population, you would say, now,
and we got to know our neighborhood. This is how
we would spend our time running around outside of the
theater and it was this weird thing where we got
(06:45):
to know everybody on our street. We got to know,
you know, all the panhandlers, all the people who built
their little box houses, and at our age, you know,
we just thought that they were just people like we
and if anything, they were kind of our friends, like
because they knew us that we would be going out
and we'd walk onto Geary Street every day we lunch
(07:07):
and they were you in costume during this with your smile. No,
but they would leave dirt makeup on our face because
if we did a mattenee and we had to do
a show that night, they didn't want have to you know,
we didn't have to read it. So we would just
be these dirty kids in like eighties denim jackets. Uh
and like you know, I would wear like a layman's shirt.
But but yeah, like it was just, you know, we
(07:27):
just got to know the neighborhood and we were very
unaware that, you know, these people lived a life very
different than us. Uh, you know, to a certain degree,
there was this cluelessness that was kind of beautiful in
some ways maybe, but certainly clueless. And I remember our
parents sort of like you know, tugging our arms and
telling us to keep going and let's go get food
(07:48):
and go back to the theater and trying to keep us,
you know, sheltered. But we loved it. And of course
that I'm here with any of you guys like this
is my method, like my method, and I'm like, but
that's when I think about it now. It's so funny
that I don't think it ever occurred to me. But
every night as Gavroge, especially the opening scene of Garages,
(08:09):
him running around in the street with all these homeless people,
like beggars, and he's saying like I think you're poor,
think you're free, following me. He's like the leader of
these street urchin kids. And they had like there were
there were two women in the cast who would pretend
to be street urchins and dressed and they were like
Gavroche's gang. And every day it was the best. This
is why the job was so fun is that they
(08:30):
didn't care what I did on stage, So every night
was different. And we you know, when we weren't singing
and we weren't hitting our marks, we were just running
around the state and we would be like pretend, you know,
I'd be acting because I it was like make believe.
So every night we are make believing being street urchins
and then in reality walking out to Geary Street in
San Francisco and like hanging out with the street people.
(08:52):
This was so it was like there was no there
was no line between reality and the and the show.
Um and you know, we were just kids, so we
didn't think about him anyway this one night. I had
been raised a vegetarian, so one of the opportunities that
being in San Francisco and doing a play offered me
was that I could go eat meat on our lunch breaks.
And my parents went around and they weren't serving the food.
(09:14):
So across the street was Jack in the Box, and
this was my favorite place to go. I was obsessed.
So whenever we were like where are we gonna go
for dinner, you know, kids or whatever, I was always like,
We're going to Jack in the Box because chicken, bacon,
sour dough, whatever, like just meat on meat on meat,
because I was like, I'm not home, and so it
was it was just the like just when I think
(09:36):
about this now, I mean I don't think I've had
Jack in the Box since. Yeah, I'm not a big
fast food guy. But it was just just the greasiest,
dirtiest Jack in the box you've ever seen? And yeah, exactly.
So we were in there one time and we had
a female social worker watching us that day, and I
was like a babysitter or something, and I said, you know,
(09:58):
I have to go to the bathroom. So I had
to go to the bathroom. I went to the bathroom
by myself, nine years old, and I'm in the stall
and um, I hear like this crashing noise and I
look down and I can see the bottom of a
wheelchair um in the stall next to me. And I
hear like this banging and the smashing, and I'm like,
what is going on? You know, my heart's raising And
(10:20):
this guy is in the wheelchair and starts screaming and
I'm like terrified. And he comes up to the stall
and sticks his eye through the stall, staring at me
and is having a mental breakdown, Like this is, you know,
a man in crisis. But all I think at nine
years old is that somebody is going to attack me.
(10:40):
Somebody's going to yell at me and screaming at me,
and basically like, you know, what's would you? What about you? Motherfucker?
You know, blah blah blah, And I'm just like, uh,
you know, shipping my pants. But luckily I'm on the toilet,
so it's okay, and it's like I'm you know, it
was you know, a genuinely I didn't, and luckily that
I had the door closed, and you know, but I
(11:02):
had gone from this moment of like sympathy for somebody
having an issue with their wheelchair, now like, oh my god,
I'm being screamed at by an angry person. And anyway,
it was a quick question, were you in the handicap stall? No? No, No,
he was in the handicap I don't even know if
there was a handicap stall. I don't know that regulations.
He was in the stall next to me. So he's
(11:23):
screaming at me, clearly just having a breakdown. You know,
in retrospect, I can say like this was a person
on drugs or just having you know, a schizophrenic break
or whatever. But at the time I thought it was
about me. I thought this person was going to attack
me and kill me. So of course, like after he
leaves and I'm balling, and I run outside and I
go to the other kids, and he's not nowhere to
be seen. He's like left the jack in the box.
(11:44):
So now he's out, and like, I begin to have
nightmares every night, and I not only have these personal
nightmares about the wheelchair man, that expands into this like
mythological you know. I start drawing pictures, I start writing stories.
I start sharing this with all the other kids, the
(12:05):
other the other kids, so they're terrified now of the wheelchairman,
and he becomes like this boogeyman, and I'm not able
to sleep at night. I'm terrified now of walking the
streets of San Francisco, which we have to do as
part of you know, we're there, we're going to and
we begin to see him every once in a while
(12:27):
because he's in the area, and what used to be
this sort of like safe playground for us suddenly has
this like horrifying, dark boogeyman feeling. Um. I remember Ian,
the other kid who played the other Gavage. We at
one point we were getting dropped off for work and
or you know, we were late to our one of
(12:48):
our moms dropped us off and then we had to
like run the you know, ten ft to the theater
and all the people are coming in to get into
the theater to come see the play, and we get
we get separated in the crowd, and then it's like,
you know, the people part, and there he is. I
can see the wheelchair Man and at this point he
has like this other worldly quality to me. I mean,
I'm I literally see a monster. You know. It's like
(13:10):
I in my mind, I can see his face and
it's like it's inhuman, you know, it's like a Michael
Myer's mask. This guy is like in this moment and
I can't and I can't talk, and I instantly start
screaming to Ian, who's made it to the theater ahead
of me, and I can't see him, and now I'm
alone on the streets. And it was just this like
horrific period where I went from being like this happy,
(13:32):
go lucky kid to like genuinely terrified of a person
on the streets that I had previously felt very comfortable at.
I think the pup grew up in that moment. The
pup grew up right right after several months of creating
(13:52):
the mythology of the Wheelchairman and scaring the crap out
of my fellow cot my fellow kid actors, scaring the
crap out of myself, we we had this one babysitter
for Larissa Atlantics babysitter actually, so in retrospect, she could
have only been like or twenty six at most. She
hears us talking about the wheelchairman. She hears, you know,
this sort of story happening. And I don't know who
(14:17):
this woman was. I should actually ask Larissa she's because
she was so wonderful. She took me and the other
kids and said, let's go find him, and we were like, no, no,
And she took us out of the theater and walked
us around the streets, you know, and and we saw
the normal, all the normal unhoused people that we had
(14:39):
seen new and she was like saying hi to everybody.
But she's like asking around until we found the wheelchairman
and she gave us money and said, go go give
him money. And I couldn't. I was paralyzed. I was
absolutely paralyzed. But she went up to him and talked
to him and gave him money, and I watched, and
(15:01):
of course, in this moment, you know, confronting this this boogeyman,
I became suddenly very aware that he was sick, he
was disabled, couldn't walk, and he was a Vietnam vet
and my dad had fought in Vietnam, and I was
very aware of you know, my dad actually, you know,
(15:21):
came back for Vietnam, was very anti war, and you know,
I was just I was just very that suddenly this
person flipped. It's like they went exactly and I could
see that there was a story, there was a sadness,
and this babysitter basically completely broke this mythology that I
(15:44):
had been building for months. And I realized that in
some ways I had kind of wanted to be scared
of him, you know what I mean, Like it made
it easier, it was something kind of fun, but it
was obviously dehumanizing. And and I guess I think about
this cycle of that period of romanticizing homelessness, thinking it's
(16:04):
like fun in games and not that big of a deal,
to then vilifying it to a degree that was stabilitating
for me, but also you know, sort of fun and
exciting to then having to acknowledge this person's entire humanity
and that that there was something that you know, connected
somebody like that to my father, you know. And I
(16:25):
feel like we still go through these cycles, you know,
even though I was a nine year old kid, actor
I feel like the public conversation is kind of still
doing the same thing. It's like we're always falling on
one side of this spectrum. You often hear people over
romanticizing the hun house situation and then you know, as
as like we're saying freedom or like dropping out or
(16:45):
just and then you the gutter punk tradition for instance.
Now it's like the current version of the hobo situation, right,
and then you have like the sort of vilification of
course is going on constantly. And then I just think
about that, that the course of that several months in
my life, and how I actually can think of Geary Street.
I mean, it's such an indelible part of my brain.
(17:06):
This this this one block or the several blocks of
the street. Um, and like when I still when I
go there now it's so funny to see like it's
just the street, you know, it's just like just another
city street. But for me, it was the entire world.
And how it could change in a moment. You know,
it could be this like playground, and then it can
be this haunted house, and then it can just be
(17:27):
the street. You know it sounds you know at such
a young age you had you know, you went through
those kind of three phases that you were talking about,
like of it being romanticized and then being villainized, but
then you made it to the third stage of being humanized.
And I feel like, especially in the current conversation, even
(17:48):
most adults haven't made it to that third stage of
seeing because people as humans, you know, they're still in
villain villain mode. Yeah. But and it's hard because I
think we all can have moments where we do all
three versions, right, because to take somebody on as a
human requires work, It requires actually talking to them or
you know, getting to know them or you know. And
(18:09):
instead it's so much easier to sort of just flip
a switch and be like, oh, you know, that person
is choosing to be homeless, they're a drug addict there whatever,
or that person is a monster I need to stay
away from, or you know, whatever it is to not
see them as human beings, you know. And I still
find myself falling into that habit, you know. Um, And
I think it's something that we all need to kind
(18:30):
of remember and work on. And then it's certainly in
the level of policy, it's like to not oversimplify and
in either direction. Um. But yeah, if you were also
kind of accosted at maybe your most vulnerable moment. You
know that when you're on the toilet is you're in
an incredibly vulnerable state. That's why dogs when they're taking
(18:53):
a ship they look at you in the eye because
they're like, what, watch my back? You know that's yes,
at that moment for you to then be accosted, I
can imagine that the trauma being so also, I mean
the little gap between the stall doors, just to see
an eye pop into that that is yes, in that
(19:16):
done in horror films. Yeah, I know, it's perfect. I'm
gonna definitely put it into something I write for the
rest of you know, it'll end up in one of
my movies. Someday's Cabinet of Curiosity. The next episode is
just going to be called the bathroom Stall and the
Wheelchairman in the Eye and the Stall. Yeah. I guess
if you could sum it all up as to what
(19:37):
what the what the takeaway, the main takeaway, the main
moral of that story, what would you what would you say? Yeah,
I mean just about humanizing, you know, to to not
let your fear drive you, right, Like, even if you
have a scary experience with a person, you know, to
not put somebody, another human being into just a monster category,
(19:58):
but then also not to like romanticize and be like, oh,
they're perfectly fine, because a lot of times they're they're not.
Like people have their own stuff, they have mental breakdowns,
they have you know, issues, and like, obviously, if he
had actually attacked a nine year old in a bathroom,
that would be criminal, right, so um, that would be bad. Um.
And like he should not have been yelling at a
(20:19):
nine year old in the bathroom, So there is that
there is something to be recognized of truly not good behavior.
And I guess for me, like thinking about this moment
in my life, like I've had to revise it over
and over again, and I still think about it, right,
and I'm and I think that I think revising the
meaning of the story in a way is kind of
(20:40):
the best way to approach it. You know. It's like
is to not settle into one easy interpretation of like
this person was a bad person or this person was
a victim only or whatever, but instead to see the
complexity of all that, that that the wheelchairman was all
of those things, and that you know, it would be
even even for me to over romanticize like his veteran status,
(21:02):
you know, and to say like, oh, because you know
that that excuses yelling at a nine year old not
really like no, like he probably needed help and probably
needed help very serious, you know. And so I guess
that's why this, you know, I don't really know how
to feel about the story other than tell it because
I think that, you know, I don't want to settle
(21:23):
easily into one category, you know, um, And I think
that like when you hear people talking about homeless populations,
it's like there's the image of, um, you know, the
mom who just lost your job and is living out
of a van, and it's like, yes, that that does happen, right,
That is a significant number of unhoused people. But then
you also have unhoused people who are drug addicts or
(21:45):
have mental problems. And then there are unhoused people who
are true criminals, right, And it's like you it's arranged
and it's not. You can't say it's all one category
of person. And it's that's why it's such a complicated issue,
is that we have to approach it with nuance and
constantly be revising it and trying to deal with these
people on human terms, and I think that that's you know,
(22:07):
if anything, that's the moral I take away is, like,
you know, whenever I hear people talking about these issues,
I feel like it's so easy to just slip into
it categorization, not to get too political with my story
that I would say, and you know, vote, that would
be the last right exactly. Hopefully we can get this
episode out before I don't know if that's gonna happen,
(22:29):
but hopefully you if you listen to this episode, you voted,
and we've voted, we've solved the vote again, the homelessness
crisis and Los Angeles by the time that's episode air. No, no, Well,
you know, it's so interesting because it's sort of like
I think about this with education all the time, right,
Like people are always complaining about the state of public
education in America and like how it's it's failing these
(22:51):
this many kids, and and I'm always like, yeah, but
education is an ongoing process, Like there is no one solution, right,
It's always going to be a struggle. That's the point.
So the fact that we spend a lot of money
on public education and that public education fails a significant
amount of kids, that is a challenge that it's not
(23:11):
like there's ever gonna be a time and we're like, well,
with solved that kids are just learned. We did it,
We taught them all and we did it well. It's like, no,
it's always going to be a struggle because you're dealing
with kids from all different backgrounds, with all different brains
and lifestyles, and that's a hugely complicated mess. It's going
to be a mess and it's going to be a
challenge and it's never like it's never going to fall
(23:33):
into an easy it's done, it's happy, and so I
think that's why, you know, it's so easy too for
politicians especially to capitalize on like the bureaucracy of education
and to like dismiss it. It's like, but it has
to be that complicated, has to be that bureaucratic or
like you know, on homelessness is it's it's always going
to be somewhat of an issue because we're dealing with
(23:54):
millions of people and we want to take care of
each other. We all want to have places to live.
We all can't you know, live in perfect houses. Like
it's going to be varied and there's I don't know,
you know, I guess it's like thinking of the challenge
is like not something with an end completely like one
end solution, but instead like an ongoing process that we
have to keep engaging with him. That that's not necessarily
(24:15):
it's going to be a challenge and it's going to
take work, but it's not a problem that it's an
ongoing situation. Well said, I've got nothing to do to
add to that. Okay, that was I mean, that was
a fantastic, fantastic story. Let's let's do a little bit
(24:39):
of first, first, worst, best, last, if you've got time. Okay, so,
have you had jobs other than acting or have you
been a performer your whole life? Like if you ever
work writing, writing and directing? No, writing and directing. I mean,
now I'm teaching, so I am a I am a
(25:00):
fessor now. Um, but yeah, that I think that And
that's just this last semester is my first full time
job in that area. And um, and I think that
is the first non entertainment industry job. Welcome, welcome. I
mean also you, I mean you also host like how
many of the two three podcasts? Two podcasts? Podcast? Yeah,
(25:23):
but that's all entertainment, right because writing directing, acting, voice over.
I've never had Yeah, no, I've never had like a
real jobby job. I mean those those are hard guys,
those are jobs. Yeah. No, I'm just saying, you're you're
you're a blessed man. You're a lucky lucky to get
to do those one or nothing. Definitely fan interactions. I
thought maybe one first fan in like the first time
(25:45):
you were recognized, you know, are the last time, the
best time, the worst time? Um? And then I also
wrote breakup, So first breakup, break up, best breakup? Yeah,
how do you do the best breakup? I don't know.
Some of them are kind of pay listen, you know.
I was just like, yeah, it was totally we were
like there was a handshake and we were like, all right,
(26:06):
well done. No, I feel like breakups would be pretty bored.
And I definitely been broken up with twice over the
phone though that's the worst I've had that. I guess
it's better than text I've been I've been with I've
been with my wife since like two thousand and six,
so we sort of missed the like texting breaking up
stage of you know, dating, And I'm so thankful, Oh
(26:26):
my god, I had next girlfriend break up with me
over the phone on her lunch break while she was
ordering soup. She was like, yeah, I just, I just,
I mean, I don't think I can do this. Hold on,
can I get the tomato bisque? Tomato bisque and with
the bread bowl? So and I was like, are you
ordering fucking soup right now? How dare you crying? Yeah?
(26:52):
So I don't know. I guess maybe fan interactions would
probably be I love that. Yeah, alright, alright, okay, so
what was the Let's start with the first. The first
time you can ever remember being kind of recognized or
or that you had a fan interaction, you were like,
it was the wheelchair man. Yeah, he just he was
a huge fan of name is and he wanted to congratulate.
(27:14):
We would have people wait for us after that at
the stage door. Um, you know, because we were the
kids in the show. So um. We would always have
fans like, you know, especially families if they had brought
their kids to come see the play. They would love
us the most, so they would like us sign a program.
So we signed programs. I'm sure they're signed Lamaserab programs
out there. And I loved that. I loved coming out,
(27:37):
you know, back then, um, getting recognized was I don't know,
it felt it felt like an extension of applause. You know.
It was like we we had we had had our
state curtain call and bow, and then you come out
and people are actually excited to meet you and talk
to you. And I think it gets different when it's
on television or movies because separated from the actual performance,
(27:58):
it's like it happened years ago or you know, even
you know, weeks ago, and now this person is talking
to you and you're never sure, like they know that
you're not the character that can get tricky. Um. So yeah,
I mean I would definitely would have to have been
during LAMS and it was always a super positive experience.
I remember because I did an episode of Home Improvement
(28:20):
when I was um like eleven, and that was like
the biggest show in the country. I was. I was
friends with Tara no Smith. He grew up on the side. Okay,
all right, that's crazy. Yeah. So I was in a
Halloween episode of that show, and I don't think I
had realized like I had already been acting, but I
had done like La Miss, I've done plays and then
(28:41):
I had done guest stars on some other TV shows,
but none of them as big as Home Improvement. And
when I was on Home Improvement, it was the first
time everybody knew and the amount of like in my
small town. I mean I grew up in a town
of six thousand people, so like everybody in the town
suddenly like everywhere I went, everyone knew. I had just
(29:01):
been on television. And I had my my first stalker,
which was, um, just a girl, I mean, you know,
but my phone number was in like my family's name
was in the phone book. Still, so there was a
girl who called my house um and asked for me,
how old are you? Yeah, And I was stoked, man,
(29:25):
like some girl. So I actually met up with her
and went on a date. There was a local arcade
called uh and like that was where you know, eleven
year olds went for a date, I guess or a
good time. So I totally met her. Her mom like
dropped her off. My mom dropped mind me on and
like in retrospect, like you know, it just goes to
(29:46):
show like how little you know about fan interactions, especially
as a kid, you know, Like I I just thought, like, oh,
this girl saw me on TV and she likes me,
so I'll meet her. I mean, she could have been
a forty five year old man at that point for
all I knew, just doing a good voice. But two
things come up for me on that. One is that
she's somewhere probably still telling that story that she stopped to.
(30:08):
You went on a day and then she was the
idea of YouTube, being at the arcade and you just
like beating the crap out of her at Mortal Kombat
or something. Yeah, yeah, no, I remember we we played
Terminator to the like machine gun game like this was
this was a good idea to romantic girl writer. First
of all, just yeah, it's oh my god, Yeah, it's amazing.
(30:33):
All right, So that might be first, and you never
got better than that. It was a pretty bored day.
I don't think I ever talked to her again. But
you know, I don't know what a good day at
eleven is like anyway. Um yeah, so worst, that's probably yeah,
we could do last or worst, the most recent one
(30:53):
or the worst one. Most let's end with the worst one,
because worst ones are usually the actually the best. I
actually I'm trying to think with the worst fan interactions,
I don't get recognized as much anymore, just because I'm old,
um and uh so I think the last fan interaction
would have been, um, one of my students, um now
(31:16):
that I'm teaching, and it's just funny because you know,
they're eight, they're college kids, so twenty twenty two, and
I just assume they have no idea who I am. UM.
But one of my students brought a friend to come
meet me. It's like, we're huge fans. I'm like, how
how the show started thirty years ago? What are you
talking about? But you know, they the show is still
(31:39):
in reruns and I can't believe it. It's still Um,
it's still you know, and they were super nice and
it was very cute. Um. But yeah, so that would
have been my most recent fan interaction. I'm nowadays, you know,
I don't Yeah, I don't get recognized in the street anymore,
which I have to say is very nice. Umah. I
definitely never liked the lack of you know, privacy or
(31:59):
just a nimity. Like I really appreciate being able to
like walk into a restaurant and sit down and not
feel like everyone's watching you, were talking about you, which
for a while there, you know, in my twenties, that
was like a big. That was the thing. Yeah, I know, yeah,
I mean I I was at lunch one time in
Culver City and a woman approached me and interrupted lunch
and she was like, I'm so sorry, but are you
(32:22):
Derek Huff? And I was like, no, what, absolutely not.
Have you seen Derek Huffy is a very attractive man.
He's an excellent physical condition, and it was like mid
Burrito when I didn't have a beard. Jason Ritter and
I look almost identical, and so I went to I
(32:44):
went to school all the time. Okay, I look. So
I mean, I don't know if this is still the
case because I haven't seen him for a while, but
like we did it. We did a play reading together
once and it was hysterical. We were cast as boyfriends actually,
and I was like, we kind of wait and I
asked her. I was like, I was like, have you
been And he's like, oh, dude, I just used to
just sign your autograph all the time. He was like,
(33:05):
I would just people would recognize me as you because before,
you know, he wasn't. He didn't really work as an
actor until after college. You so before that, I was
definitely the more famous of the two of us, and
so he would just have to sign my autograph and
then for me like after in our late twenties, everybody
would stop me and be like I love you on
Paranu and I'm like, not mean though, Clu Carly Ritter
(33:30):
his sister was was one of was like my first
girlfriend in preschool. No, you go way back. Yeah, okay,
So then what would be the worst fan interaction, you know?
I mean, I've definitely had some stalker situations. Um. And
of course, interestingly all men women tend to stalk to
(33:50):
the same degree. Men really take the cake when really
they take it to the next level. They take they
take their stalking seriously. It's a job, you know. Yeah,
And I don't really know if it's worth getting into
much more than like being followed and having people waiting
for me outside of places. And you know, it's never
gotten bad, it's never you know, um, but that you know,
(34:12):
there's definitely a moment when it gets scary when you're
when you you're getting weird letters and messages, and I
think you know, early on with like social media, it
was this sort of you know wild West of people
sending messages through like my Space and whatnot. Um, there's
a way that and like if you read it, it
(34:33):
would tell them that you had read the message. Um.
And so like there were you know, there was just
these little loopholes where people would suddenly be like, oh
you know, I'm I'm getting I'm getting your message writer.
I know that you can't answer me, but we've received
the message, and like no, no, no, no, no, no,
oh my god, no I'm not secretly talking to you,
you know my space conspiratorial um thinking, uh yeah, So
(34:56):
there were a couple of scary instances like that. Um.
But you know, I always I feel like I don't
have it as bad as women. You know, female actors,
I think have it the worst. I can't imagine how
much how you know, I know, like Daniel Fish, who
played to Panga, has dealt with a lot of letters
from prison and scary men. Um. But yeah, you know,
(35:19):
I'd rather than think I'm trying to think of it
just an awkward fan experience. Definitely had plenty of awkward
fan experiences. Oh you know, oh god, here's one and
this is this is on me. I have like a
level of face blindness. And that's part of the reason
why I hate being famous, is because I can never
tell if somebody recognizes me or you know, you know,
(35:41):
uh yes, and so I have consistently had this mistake.
And the worst was I got invited to this gathering.
I think it was a super Bowl party, and um, yeah,
it was a super Bowl party, and I I'm not
a super Bowl fan, so it didn't you know, couldn't
tell you anything about the sport. But I walked into
this party and where where I walked in was right
(36:03):
next to the TV. So I suddenly walk in, I'm
standing in front of forty fifty people, and you know,
I know, like I think I know like maybe ten
people at this gathering, but I'm not sure. And I
walk in and all these people are suddenly staring at me,
and this woman next to me goes, oh hey, and
I'm like hi, and she's like and we're suddenly like hugging,
(36:25):
and she's like, oh my god, it's so good to
see you. And I just play along like yeah, you know,
so and so it's been a while, and I just
keep going and then she finally, in front of everybody,
was like, well, we don't actually know each other. I
don't know you. I just recognize you from television. I
was like great. I'm just gonna leave now, I'm gonna
(36:48):
hang out by that. I just I just gone along
as much as I could five minutes and you know
how you and the last time I saw you was
you know where I'm trying to h so that like
by far the worst for me. It's just sticking my
own flip in my mouth, but acting, you know what
I mean? That was the usually put on a performance
for that whole super Bowl party. That was probably the
(37:09):
best acting I've done in my entire life. Well, writer,
thank you so much for for being on the podcast
and for sharing your stories. I really appreciate it. Yeah,
thanks for having me. Thank you so much for listening
to hashtag storytime. Just want to give another big thanks
to right Or Strong for being on today's episode. If
you haven't listened to his podcast, pod meets World, go
(37:30):
check it out. You can get it wherever you get
your podcasts. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't
miss next week's episode featuring Matt Frederick from one of
my favorite podcasts. Stuff they don't want you to know.
Imagine Nick Cannon's drumline without the style. Okay and that
was us? Does that make sense? Like zero style, just
a bunch of kids in forsythe County. You just upright
(37:50):
in our outfits, just oh so serious and like crab stepping.
If you're enjoying the podcast, if it made you chuckle
or think about life, leave us a review. It helps
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(38:10):
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You can find the links in the description hashtag. Storytime
is produced by I Heart Radio and Curativity Productions. Hosted
by Will McFadden. Sound designed by Tony Maddix, written by
Will McFadden and Jason Shapiro, Produced by Jason Shapiro, daniel
Le Mora and Jordan Elijah Michael. Theme song by Scott Simmons.
There was a girl who called my house um and
asked for me how you and I was stoked, man
like some girl, So I actually met up with her
and went on a day. Now, if you were to
(00:35):
travel back in time too, when I was in seventh
grade and visit me in my bedroom into paying a
canyon and tell me that one day I'd be chatting
it up with teen heartthrob right or Strong, I'd say,
who the hell are you? Get out of my bedroom,
you pervert. I'm trying to finish my history of paper
from Mr Hamish's class. But you would be right, because
we are kicking off season four Strong, right or Strong? Baby? Now?
(00:57):
If you're new here, welcome, Here's the GIT. This is
a podcast where I bring on fascinating people I'm loosely
acquainted with and listen to them share an intimate story
from their life. It's kind of like perpetually being on
a first date that always goes really well but never
leads to a second date or sex. I'm your host,
Will Tiger Beat McFadden. Also, I every episode, I give
myself a new middle name that's relevant to the guest
(01:20):
or the topic of the episode. It's a bit I've
been doing it for four seasons. Now you'll just you'll
get used to it. Now. You probably know today's guests
from his popular podcast, Pod Meets World, or the show
that the podcast is based on, Boy Meets World. It
would be weird if you listen to Pod Meets World
and didn't watch Boy Meets World. You're doing it wrong.
But you most likely know right or strong as a
(01:40):
child start. What many of you don't know is that
I was also a child star, just a far less
successful one. But I'm sure some of you have seen
the straight to home video romantic comedy Only You, starring
Helen Hunt, Andrew McCarthy and Kelly Preston. Yeah, I was
the kid who got the weggy at the target at
the end of the film. I still remember my line was,
(02:00):
whoa mom? Larry gave me a wedgy? Seen now. Even
though our careers took very different trajectories, we both ended
up here on the amazing podcast you're about to listen to.
This is hashtag Storytime, brought to you by I Heart
Radio nineteen eighty nine. When I was starting out as
(02:21):
an actor as a kid, I was nine years old,
eight nine years old, and I started doing plays when
I was like six or seven, and for some reason,
and I don't know if this is still true like
for kid actors now, especially kid boy actors now, but
it was certainly true then. I was. I was always
an urchin. I was always like, uh, an orphan or
(02:44):
an urchin. I was always wearing like those page boy hats,
you know, like lots of the stage dirt smudged on
your the stage dirt just kicking me for everything, Like
all every audition I had, I was like I was
up from the movie news He's at one point, you know,
And I was always like dancing and singing and being
a street urchin Urchin number two. Which it's just such
(03:06):
a weird thing. Like I have thought about this with
hobos too, like why are hobo's cool? Right, Like it's
kind of like a crappy lifestyle. It's mostly desperation, but
it's you know, there's like this romanticized version of poverty
and of homelessness. The street urchin is one of them.
There's a certain freedom that hobo's had. I feel like
(03:26):
that we don't we don't romanticize with with current unhoused people,
you know, the hobo lifestyle I think of like oh,
hopping on trains and like stealing pies from window sills,
and and like camping out and having to work right
just living on the edge of the forest. And but
you know, there's there's definitely probably some alcoholism and desperation
(03:48):
and a lot of hungry nights and people freezing to
death on those trains. So definitely like some children that
they are not taken care of somewhere exactly exactly. Um So,
my first real big job, my first big acting gig,
was Lame as Rob. I got cast as Gavroche and
(04:09):
the pups all grown up, yes, exactly. So this was
my this is my big break, as you know, as
a kid, and it's still to this day, probably the
most fun job I've ever had. My first, my first
job and the most fun. Um what it meant? Yeah,
after that, it was just you know, but so it
was I was. I grew up in the woods. I
(04:31):
grew up outside of Sebastopol, California, Sonoma County, out in
the redwoods, and my parents built the house I grew
up in. They were very back to nature. So this job,
which I got by by driving into San Francisco and
just auditioned in the cattle call audition with all these
other kids, and I got it. What meant that I
was having to go into San Francisco six days a
week to be in this play, which was a big deal,
(04:54):
like my you know, in retrospect, especially from my parents.
My my mom had to drive me and were and
a half every day to deliver me to do this play.
And we were doing a performances a week, and I
alternated with another boy. We both you know, they had
double cast it, so there's two coverages. And then there
were the two girls who played Young Epanning and Young Cosette,
(05:15):
and they also alternated roles. One of them was Larissa Atlantic,
who have since worked with a bunch. She's gone on
to be a fabulous actress and still works to this day.
She was in Ten Things I Hate About You and
um She's yeah, she's She was on the show called
Alex mac The Secret World of Alex Mackeloe. Anyway, remember
so this is both of our first gig. So what
was happening is my mom would drive me down and
dropped me off at the theater. I would get a
(05:37):
ride back because it turned out there was a costumer
who lived kind of near us too, so I would
get you know, we we'd figure out a driving situation.
But for us kids, we would be there at the
theater in San Francisco, and we would on days where
we would have Mattinee's or during rehearsals, which rehearsals for
four weeks long, and then Dave's where we would have Mattinee's.
We would have lunch breaks, and we would have a
teacher studio teacher that was paid to be there, like
(05:59):
a welfare worker. And then usually there would be one
of the parents of the kids would take us to launch.
So one of our parents would show up and take
us out. But so the theater, the current theater in
San Francisco is in on Geary Street, which is right
by the Tenderline, which is not the greatest neighborhood. And
this is in the eighties, you know, when Reagan wonderful
(06:24):
Reagan policies and had emptied out the California hospitals and
there was a huge homeless population, used population, you would say, now,
and we got to know our neighborhood. This is how
we would spend our time running around outside of the
theater and it was this weird thing where we got
(06:45):
to know everybody on our street. We got to know,
you know, all the panhandlers, all the people who built
their little box houses, and at our age, you know,
we just thought that they were just people like we
and if anything, they were kind of our friends, like
because they knew us that we would be going out
and we'd walk onto Geary Street every day we lunch
(07:07):
and they were you in costume during this with your smile. No,
but they would leave dirt makeup on our face because
if we did a mattenee and we had to do
a show that night, they didn't want have to you know,
we didn't have to read it. So we would just
be these dirty kids in like eighties denim jackets. Uh
and like you know, I would wear like a layman's shirt.
But but yeah, like it was just, you know, we
(07:27):
just got to know the neighborhood and we were very
unaware that, you know, these people lived a life very
different than us. Uh, you know, to a certain degree,
there was this cluelessness that was kind of beautiful in
some ways maybe, but certainly clueless. And I remember our
parents sort of like you know, tugging our arms and
telling us to keep going and let's go get food
(07:48):
and go back to the theater and trying to keep us,
you know, sheltered. But we loved it. And of course
that I'm here with any of you guys like this
is my method, like my method, and I'm like, but
that's when I think about it now. It's so funny
that I don't think it ever occurred to me. But
every night as Gavroge, especially the opening scene of Garages,
(08:09):
him running around in the street with all these homeless people,
like beggars, and he's saying like I think you're poor,
think you're free, following me. He's like the leader of
these street urchin kids. And they had like there were
there were two women in the cast who would pretend
to be street urchins and dressed and they were like
Gavroche's gang. And every day it was the best. This
is why the job was so fun is that they
(08:30):
didn't care what I did on stage, So every night
was different. And we you know, when we weren't singing
and we weren't hitting our marks, we were just running
around the state and we would be like pretend, you know,
I'd be acting because I it was like make believe.
So every night we are make believing being street urchins
and then in reality walking out to Geary Street in
San Francisco and like hanging out with the street people.
(08:52):
This was so it was like there was no there
was no line between reality and the and the show.
Um and you know, we were just kids, so we
didn't think about him anyway this one night. I had
been raised a vegetarian, so one of the opportunities that
being in San Francisco and doing a play offered me
was that I could go eat meat on our lunch breaks.
And my parents went around and they weren't serving the food.
(09:14):
So across the street was Jack in the Box, and
this was my favorite place to go. I was obsessed.
So whenever we were like where are we gonna go
for dinner, you know, kids or whatever, I was always like,
We're going to Jack in the Box because chicken, bacon,
sour dough, whatever, like just meat on meat on meat,
because I was like, I'm not home, and so it
was it was just the like just when I think
(09:36):
about this now, I mean I don't think I've had
Jack in the Box since. Yeah, I'm not a big
fast food guy. But it was just just the greasiest,
dirtiest Jack in the box you've ever seen? And yeah, exactly.
So we were in there one time and we had
a female social worker watching us that day, and I
was like a babysitter or something, and I said, you know,
(09:58):
I have to go to the bathroom. So I had
to go to the bathroom. I went to the bathroom
by myself, nine years old, and I'm in the stall
and um, I hear like this crashing noise and I
look down and I can see the bottom of a
wheelchair um in the stall next to me. And I
hear like this banging and the smashing, and I'm like,
what is going on? You know, my heart's raising And
(10:20):
this guy is in the wheelchair and starts screaming and
I'm like terrified. And he comes up to the stall
and sticks his eye through the stall, staring at me
and is having a mental breakdown, Like this is, you know,
a man in crisis. But all I think at nine
years old is that somebody is going to attack me.
(10:40):
Somebody's going to yell at me and screaming at me,
and basically like, you know, what's would you? What about you? Motherfucker?
You know, blah blah blah, And I'm just like, uh,
you know, shipping my pants. But luckily I'm on the toilet,
so it's okay, and it's like I'm you know, it
was you know, a genuinely I didn't, and luckily that
I had the door closed, and you know, but I
(11:02):
had gone from this moment of like sympathy for somebody
having an issue with their wheelchair, now like, oh my god,
I'm being screamed at by an angry person. And anyway,
it was a quick question, were you in the handicap stall? No? No, No,
he was in the handicap I don't even know if
there was a handicap stall. I don't know that regulations.
He was in the stall next to me. So he's
(11:23):
screaming at me, clearly just having a breakdown. You know,
in retrospect, I can say like this was a person
on drugs or just having you know, a schizophrenic break
or whatever. But at the time I thought it was
about me. I thought this person was going to attack
me and kill me. So of course, like after he
leaves and I'm balling, and I run outside and I
go to the other kids, and he's not nowhere to
be seen. He's like left the jack in the box.
(11:44):
So now he's out, and like, I begin to have
nightmares every night, and I not only have these personal
nightmares about the wheelchair man, that expands into this like
mythological you know. I start drawing pictures, I start writing stories.
I start sharing this with all the other kids, the
(12:05):
other the other kids, so they're terrified now of the wheelchairman,
and he becomes like this boogeyman, and I'm not able
to sleep at night. I'm terrified now of walking the
streets of San Francisco, which we have to do as
part of you know, we're there, we're going to and
we begin to see him every once in a while
(12:27):
because he's in the area, and what used to be
this sort of like safe playground for us suddenly has
this like horrifying, dark boogeyman feeling. Um. I remember Ian,
the other kid who played the other Gavage. We at
one point we were getting dropped off for work and
or you know, we were late to our one of
(12:48):
our moms dropped us off and then we had to
like run the you know, ten ft to the theater
and all the people are coming in to get into
the theater to come see the play, and we get
we get separated in the crowd, and then it's like,
you know, the people part, and there he is. I
can see the wheelchair Man and at this point he
has like this other worldly quality to me. I mean,
I'm I literally see a monster. You know. It's like
(13:10):
I in my mind, I can see his face and
it's like it's inhuman, you know, it's like a Michael
Myer's mask. This guy is like in this moment and
I can't and I can't talk, and I instantly start
screaming to Ian, who's made it to the theater ahead
of me, and I can't see him, and now I'm
alone on the streets. And it was just this like
horrific period where I went from being like this happy,
(13:32):
go lucky kid to like genuinely terrified of a person
on the streets that I had previously felt very comfortable at.
I think the pup grew up in that moment. The
pup grew up right right after several months of creating
(13:52):
the mythology of the Wheelchairman and scaring the crap out
of my fellow cot my fellow kid actors, scaring the
crap out of myself, we we had this one babysitter
for Larissa Atlantics babysitter actually, so in retrospect, she could
have only been like or twenty six at most. She
hears us talking about the wheelchairman. She hears, you know,
this sort of story happening. And I don't know who
(14:17):
this woman was. I should actually ask Larissa she's because
she was so wonderful. She took me and the other
kids and said, let's go find him, and we were like, no, no,
And she took us out of the theater and walked
us around the streets, you know, and and we saw
the normal, all the normal unhoused people that we had
(14:39):
seen new and she was like saying hi to everybody.
But she's like asking around until we found the wheelchairman
and she gave us money and said, go go give
him money. And I couldn't. I was paralyzed. I was
absolutely paralyzed. But she went up to him and talked
to him and gave him money, and I watched, and
(15:01):
of course, in this moment, you know, confronting this this boogeyman,
I became suddenly very aware that he was sick, he
was disabled, couldn't walk, and he was a Vietnam vet
and my dad had fought in Vietnam, and I was
very aware of you know, my dad actually, you know,
(15:21):
came back for Vietnam, was very anti war, and you know,
I was just I was just very that suddenly this
person flipped. It's like they went exactly and I could
see that there was a story, there was a sadness,
and this babysitter basically completely broke this mythology that I
(15:44):
had been building for months. And I realized that in
some ways I had kind of wanted to be scared
of him, you know what I mean, Like it made
it easier, it was something kind of fun, but it
was obviously dehumanizing. And and I guess I think about
this cycle of that period of romanticizing homelessness, thinking it's
(16:04):
like fun in games and not that big of a deal,
to then vilifying it to a degree that was stabilitating
for me, but also you know, sort of fun and
exciting to then having to acknowledge this person's entire humanity
and that that there was something that you know, connected
somebody like that to my father, you know. And I
(16:25):
feel like we still go through these cycles, you know,
even though I was a nine year old kid, actor
I feel like the public conversation is kind of still
doing the same thing. It's like we're always falling on
one side of this spectrum. You often hear people over
romanticizing the hun house situation and then you know, as
as like we're saying freedom or like dropping out or
(16:45):
just and then you the gutter punk tradition for instance.
Now it's like the current version of the hobo situation, right,
and then you have like the sort of vilification of
course is going on constantly. And then I just think
about that, that the course of that several months in
my life, and how I actually can think of Geary Street.
I mean, it's such an indelible part of my brain.
(17:06):
This this this one block or the several blocks of
the street. Um, and like when I still when I
go there now it's so funny to see like it's
just the street, you know, it's just like just another
city street. But for me, it was the entire world.
And how it could change in a moment. You know,
it could be this like playground, and then it can
be this haunted house, and then it can just be
(17:27):
the street. You know it sounds you know at such
a young age you had you know, you went through
those kind of three phases that you were talking about,
like of it being romanticized and then being villainized, but
then you made it to the third stage of being humanized.
And I feel like, especially in the current conversation, even
(17:48):
most adults haven't made it to that third stage of
seeing because people as humans, you know, they're still in
villain villain mode. Yeah. But and it's hard because I
think we all can have moments where we do all
three versions, right, because to take somebody on as a
human requires work, It requires actually talking to them or
you know, getting to know them or you know. And
(18:09):
instead it's so much easier to sort of just flip
a switch and be like, oh, you know, that person
is choosing to be homeless, they're a drug addict there whatever,
or that person is a monster I need to stay
away from, or you know, whatever it is to not
see them as human beings, you know. And I still
find myself falling into that habit, you know. Um, And
I think it's something that we all need to kind
(18:30):
of remember and work on. And then it's certainly in
the level of policy, it's like to not oversimplify and
in either direction. Um. But yeah, if you were also
kind of accosted at maybe your most vulnerable moment. You
know that when you're on the toilet is you're in
an incredibly vulnerable state. That's why dogs when they're taking
(18:53):
a ship they look at you in the eye because
they're like, what, watch my back? You know that's yes,
at that moment for you to then be accosted, I
can imagine that the trauma being so also, I mean
the little gap between the stall doors, just to see
an eye pop into that that is yes, in that
(19:16):
done in horror films. Yeah, I know, it's perfect. I'm
gonna definitely put it into something I write for the
rest of you know, it'll end up in one of
my movies. Someday's Cabinet of Curiosity. The next episode is
just going to be called the bathroom Stall and the
Wheelchairman in the Eye and the Stall. Yeah. I guess
if you could sum it all up as to what
(19:37):
what the what the takeaway, the main takeaway, the main
moral of that story, what would you what would you say? Yeah,
I mean just about humanizing, you know, to to not
let your fear drive you, right, Like, even if you
have a scary experience with a person, you know, to
not put somebody, another human being into just a monster category,
(19:58):
but then also not to like romanticize and be like, oh,
they're perfectly fine, because a lot of times they're they're not.
Like people have their own stuff, they have mental breakdowns,
they have you know, issues, and like, obviously, if he
had actually attacked a nine year old in a bathroom,
that would be criminal, right, so um, that would be bad. Um.
And like he should not have been yelling at a
(20:19):
nine year old in the bathroom, So there is that
there is something to be recognized of truly not good behavior.
And I guess for me, like thinking about this moment
in my life, like I've had to revise it over
and over again, and I still think about it, right,
and I'm and I think that I think revising the
meaning of the story in a way is kind of
(20:40):
the best way to approach it. You know. It's like
is to not settle into one easy interpretation of like
this person was a bad person or this person was
a victim only or whatever, but instead to see the
complexity of all that, that that the wheelchairman was all
of those things, and that you know, it would be
even even for me to over romanticize like his veteran status,
(21:02):
you know, and to say like, oh, because you know
that that excuses yelling at a nine year old not
really like no, like he probably needed help and probably
needed help very serious, you know. And so I guess
that's why this, you know, I don't really know how
to feel about the story other than tell it because
I think that, you know, I don't want to settle
(21:23):
easily into one category, you know, um, And I think
that like when you hear people talking about homeless populations,
it's like there's the image of, um, you know, the
mom who just lost your job and is living out
of a van, and it's like, yes, that that does happen, right,
That is a significant number of unhoused people. But then
you also have unhoused people who are drug addicts or
(21:45):
have mental problems. And then there are unhoused people who
are true criminals, right, And it's like you it's arranged
and it's not. You can't say it's all one category
of person. And it's that's why it's such a complicated issue,
is that we have to approach it with nuance and
constantly be revising it and trying to deal with these
people on human terms, and I think that that's you know,
(22:07):
if anything, that's the moral I take away is, like,
you know, whenever I hear people talking about these issues,
I feel like it's so easy to just slip into
it categorization, not to get too political with my story
that I would say, and you know, vote, that would
be the last right exactly. Hopefully we can get this
episode out before I don't know if that's gonna happen,
(22:29):
but hopefully you if you listen to this episode, you voted,
and we've voted, we've solved the vote again, the homelessness
crisis and Los Angeles by the time that's episode air. No, no, Well,
you know, it's so interesting because it's sort of like
I think about this with education all the time, right,
Like people are always complaining about the state of public
education in America and like how it's it's failing these
(22:51):
this many kids, and and I'm always like, yeah, but
education is an ongoing process, Like there is no one solution, right,
It's always going to be a struggle. That's the point.
So the fact that we spend a lot of money
on public education and that public education fails a significant
amount of kids, that is a challenge that it's not
(23:11):
like there's ever gonna be a time and we're like, well,
with solved that kids are just learned. We did it,
We taught them all and we did it well. It's like, no,
it's always going to be a struggle because you're dealing
with kids from all different backgrounds, with all different brains
and lifestyles, and that's a hugely complicated mess. It's going
to be a mess and it's going to be a
challenge and it's never like it's never going to fall
(23:33):
into an easy it's done, it's happy, and so I
think that's why, you know, it's so easy too for
politicians especially to capitalize on like the bureaucracy of education
and to like dismiss it. It's like, but it has
to be that complicated, has to be that bureaucratic or
like you know, on homelessness is it's it's always going
to be somewhat of an issue because we're dealing with
(23:54):
millions of people and we want to take care of
each other. We all want to have places to live.
We all can't you know, live in perfect houses. Like
it's going to be varied and there's I don't know,
you know, I guess it's like thinking of the challenge
is like not something with an end completely like one
end solution, but instead like an ongoing process that we
have to keep engaging with him. That that's not necessarily
(24:15):
it's going to be a challenge and it's going to
take work, but it's not a problem that it's an
ongoing situation. Well said, I've got nothing to do to
add to that. Okay, that was I mean, that was
a fantastic, fantastic story. Let's let's do a little bit
(24:39):
of first, first, worst, best, last, if you've got time. Okay, so,
have you had jobs other than acting or have you
been a performer your whole life? Like if you ever
work writing, writing and directing? No, writing and directing. I mean,
now I'm teaching, so I am a I am a
(25:00):
fessor now. Um, but yeah, that I think that And
that's just this last semester is my first full time
job in that area. And um, and I think that
is the first non entertainment industry job. Welcome, welcome. I
mean also you, I mean you also host like how
many of the two three podcasts? Two podcasts? Podcast? Yeah,
(25:23):
but that's all entertainment, right because writing directing, acting, voice over.
I've never had Yeah, no, I've never had like a
real jobby job. I mean those those are hard guys,
those are jobs. Yeah. No, I'm just saying, you're you're
you're a blessed man. You're a lucky lucky to get
to do those one or nothing. Definitely fan interactions. I
thought maybe one first fan in like the first time
(25:45):
you were recognized, you know, are the last time, the
best time, the worst time? Um? And then I also
wrote breakup, So first breakup, break up, best breakup? Yeah,
how do you do the best breakup? I don't know.
Some of them are kind of pay listen, you know.
I was just like, yeah, it was totally we were
like there was a handshake and we were like, all right,
(26:06):
well done. No, I feel like breakups would be pretty bored.
And I definitely been broken up with twice over the
phone though that's the worst I've had that. I guess
it's better than text I've been I've been with I've
been with my wife since like two thousand and six,
so we sort of missed the like texting breaking up
stage of you know, dating, And I'm so thankful, Oh
(26:26):
my god, I had next girlfriend break up with me
over the phone on her lunch break while she was
ordering soup. She was like, yeah, I just, I just,
I mean, I don't think I can do this. Hold on,
can I get the tomato bisque? Tomato bisque and with
the bread bowl? So and I was like, are you
ordering fucking soup right now? How dare you crying? Yeah?
(26:52):
So I don't know. I guess maybe fan interactions would
probably be I love that. Yeah, alright, alright, okay, so
what was the Let's start with the first. The first
time you can ever remember being kind of recognized or
or that you had a fan interaction, you were like,
it was the wheelchair man. Yeah, he just he was
a huge fan of name is and he wanted to congratulate.
(27:14):
We would have people wait for us after that at
the stage door. Um, you know, because we were the
kids in the show. So um. We would always have
fans like, you know, especially families if they had brought
their kids to come see the play. They would love
us the most, so they would like us sign a program.
So we signed programs. I'm sure they're signed Lamaserab programs
out there. And I loved that. I loved coming out,
(27:37):
you know, back then, um, getting recognized was I don't know,
it felt it felt like an extension of applause. You know.
It was like we we had we had had our
state curtain call and bow, and then you come out
and people are actually excited to meet you and talk
to you. And I think it gets different when it's
on television or movies because separated from the actual performance,
(27:58):
it's like it happened years ago or you know, even
you know, weeks ago, and now this person is talking
to you and you're never sure, like they know that
you're not the character that can get tricky. Um. So yeah,
I mean I would definitely would have to have been
during LAMS and it was always a super positive experience.
I remember because I did an episode of Home Improvement
(28:20):
when I was um like eleven, and that was like
the biggest show in the country. I was. I was
friends with Tara no Smith. He grew up on the side. Okay,
all right, that's crazy. Yeah. So I was in a
Halloween episode of that show, and I don't think I
had realized like I had already been acting, but I
had done like La Miss, I've done plays and then
(28:41):
I had done guest stars on some other TV shows,
but none of them as big as Home Improvement. And
when I was on Home Improvement, it was the first
time everybody knew and the amount of like in my
small town. I mean I grew up in a town
of six thousand people, so like everybody in the town
suddenly like everywhere I went, everyone knew. I had just
(29:01):
been on television. And I had my my first stalker,
which was, um, just a girl, I mean, you know,
but my phone number was in like my family's name
was in the phone book. Still, so there was a
girl who called my house um and asked for me,
how old are you? Yeah, And I was stoked, man,
(29:25):
like some girl. So I actually met up with her
and went on a date. There was a local arcade
called uh and like that was where you know, eleven
year olds went for a date, I guess or a
good time. So I totally met her. Her mom like
dropped her off. My mom dropped mind me on and
like in retrospect, like you know, it just goes to
(29:46):
show like how little you know about fan interactions, especially
as a kid, you know, Like I I just thought, like, oh,
this girl saw me on TV and she likes me,
so I'll meet her. I mean, she could have been
a forty five year old man at that point for
all I knew, just doing a good voice. But two
things come up for me on that. One is that
she's somewhere probably still telling that story that she stopped to.
(30:08):
You went on a day and then she was the
idea of YouTube, being at the arcade and you just
like beating the crap out of her at Mortal Kombat
or something. Yeah, yeah, no, I remember we we played
Terminator to the like machine gun game like this was
this was a good idea to romantic girl writer. First
of all, just yeah, it's oh my god, Yeah, it's amazing.
(30:33):
All right, So that might be first, and you never
got better than that. It was a pretty bored day.
I don't think I ever talked to her again. But
you know, I don't know what a good day at
eleven is like anyway. Um yeah, so worst, that's probably yeah,
we could do last or worst, the most recent one
(30:53):
or the worst one. Most let's end with the worst one,
because worst ones are usually the actually the best. I
actually I'm trying to think with the worst fan interactions,
I don't get recognized as much anymore, just because I'm old,
um and uh so I think the last fan interaction
would have been, um, one of my students, um now
(31:16):
that I'm teaching, and it's just funny because you know,
they're eight, they're college kids, so twenty twenty two, and
I just assume they have no idea who I am. UM.
But one of my students brought a friend to come
meet me. It's like, we're huge fans. I'm like, how
how the show started thirty years ago? What are you
talking about? But you know, they the show is still
(31:39):
in reruns and I can't believe it. It's still Um,
it's still you know, and they were super nice and
it was very cute. Um. But yeah, so that would
have been my most recent fan interaction. I'm nowadays, you know,
I don't Yeah, I don't get recognized in the street anymore,
which I have to say is very nice. Umah. I
definitely never liked the lack of you know, privacy or
(31:59):
just a nimity. Like I really appreciate being able to
like walk into a restaurant and sit down and not
feel like everyone's watching you, were talking about you, which
for a while there, you know, in my twenties, that
was like a big. That was the thing. Yeah, I know, yeah,
I mean I I was at lunch one time in
Culver City and a woman approached me and interrupted lunch
and she was like, I'm so sorry, but are you
(32:22):
Derek Huff? And I was like, no, what, absolutely not.
Have you seen Derek Huffy is a very attractive man.
He's an excellent physical condition, and it was like mid
Burrito when I didn't have a beard. Jason Ritter and
I look almost identical, and so I went to I
(32:44):
went to school all the time. Okay, I look. So
I mean, I don't know if this is still the
case because I haven't seen him for a while, but
like we did it. We did a play reading together
once and it was hysterical. We were cast as boyfriends actually,
and I was like, we kind of wait and I
asked her. I was like, I was like, have you
been And he's like, oh, dude, I just used to
just sign your autograph all the time. He was like,
(33:05):
I would just people would recognize me as you because before,
you know, he wasn't. He didn't really work as an
actor until after college. You so before that, I was
definitely the more famous of the two of us, and
so he would just have to sign my autograph and
then for me like after in our late twenties, everybody
would stop me and be like I love you on
Paranu and I'm like, not mean though, Clu Carly Ritter
(33:30):
his sister was was one of was like my first
girlfriend in preschool. No, you go way back. Yeah, okay,
So then what would be the worst fan interaction, you know?
I mean, I've definitely had some stalker situations. Um. And
of course, interestingly all men women tend to stalk to
(33:50):
the same degree. Men really take the cake when really
they take it to the next level. They take they
take their stalking seriously. It's a job, you know. Yeah,
And I don't really know if it's worth getting into
much more than like being followed and having people waiting
for me outside of places. And you know, it's never
gotten bad, it's never you know, um, but that you know,
(34:12):
there's definitely a moment when it gets scary when you're
when you you're getting weird letters and messages, and I
think you know, early on with like social media, it
was this sort of you know wild West of people
sending messages through like my Space and whatnot. Um, there's
a way that and like if you read it, it
(34:33):
would tell them that you had read the message. Um.
And so like there were you know, there was just
these little loopholes where people would suddenly be like, oh
you know, I'm I'm getting I'm getting your message writer.
I know that you can't answer me, but we've received
the message, and like no, no, no, no, no, no,
oh my god, no I'm not secretly talking to you,
you know my space conspiratorial um thinking, uh yeah, So
(34:56):
there were a couple of scary instances like that. Um.
But you know, I always I feel like I don't
have it as bad as women. You know, female actors,
I think have it the worst. I can't imagine how
much how you know, I know, like Daniel Fish, who
played to Panga, has dealt with a lot of letters
from prison and scary men. Um. But yeah, you know,
(35:19):
I'd rather than think I'm trying to think of it
just an awkward fan experience. Definitely had plenty of awkward
fan experiences. Oh you know, oh god, here's one and
this is this is on me. I have like a
level of face blindness. And that's part of the reason
why I hate being famous, is because I can never
tell if somebody recognizes me or you know, you know,
(35:41):
uh yes, and so I have consistently had this mistake.
And the worst was I got invited to this gathering.
I think it was a super Bowl party, and um, yeah,
it was a super Bowl party, and I I'm not
a super Bowl fan, so it didn't you know, couldn't
tell you anything about the sport. But I walked into
this party and where where I walked in was right
(36:03):
next to the TV. So I suddenly walk in, I'm
standing in front of forty fifty people, and you know,
I know, like I think I know like maybe ten
people at this gathering, but I'm not sure. And I
walk in and all these people are suddenly staring at me,
and this woman next to me goes, oh hey, and
I'm like hi, and she's like and we're suddenly like hugging,
(36:25):
and she's like, oh my god, it's so good to
see you. And I just play along like yeah, you know,
so and so it's been a while, and I just
keep going and then she finally, in front of everybody,
was like, well, we don't actually know each other. I
don't know you. I just recognize you from television. I
was like great. I'm just gonna leave now, I'm gonna
(36:48):
hang out by that. I just I just gone along
as much as I could five minutes and you know
how you and the last time I saw you was
you know where I'm trying to h so that like
by far the worst for me. It's just sticking my
own flip in my mouth, but acting, you know what
I mean? That was the usually put on a performance
for that whole super Bowl party. That was probably the
(37:09):
best acting I've done in my entire life. Well, writer,
thank you so much for for being on the podcast
and for sharing your stories. I really appreciate it. Yeah,
thanks for having me. Thank you so much for listening
to hashtag storytime. Just want to give another big thanks
to right Or Strong for being on today's episode. If
you haven't listened to his podcast, pod meets World, go
(37:30):
check it out. You can get it wherever you get
your podcasts. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't
miss next week's episode featuring Matt Frederick from one of
my favorite podcasts. Stuff they don't want you to know.
Imagine Nick Cannon's drumline without the style. Okay and that
was us? Does that make sense? Like zero style, just
a bunch of kids in forsythe County. You just upright
(37:50):
in our outfits, just oh so serious and like crab stepping.
If you're enjoying the podcast, if it made you chuckle
or think about life, leave us a review. It helps
us out a lot, and I literally read every single
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You can find the links in the description hashtag. Storytime
is produced by I Heart Radio and Curativity Productions. Hosted
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