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Golden Globe winner, multiple Emmy nominated, author, recording artist and now add, poet.  Actor David Duchovny joins Michael to discuss “About Time”, his poetry, and life. 

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So how much do I love David Duchovny. Let me,
let me let me I'm on vacation doing this.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Wow, let me ask you. Do you have in your
possession in your library the poetry of Phil Rizzuto.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
No, I don't. Is it good?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
It's he never wrote a poem, but these these crazy
authors kind of chose his most surreal chunks of announcing
and turned them into poetry. And it's it's wonderful. I
highly recommend that it's called it's called Holy Cow.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Oh, holy Cow. Well, we'll add that to the Bucky
Dent collection. I can't even give that title. Over the year.
You know how much do I love David du Coveney?
And I told my producer this, He's like, what are
you doing? It's your vacation because I've always wanted to
catch up with you and look you in the eye
and tell you one thing. If you asked me the
greatest actor in a scene I've ever witnessed in my life,

(00:59):
it's you, And return to me at the door with
the dog after your wife dies, David dukov I've seen everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
I mean, I could go back to.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
J Jimmy Cagney, I can go I can do anybody,
Tom Hank, anybody, de Niro. That was the best acting
I've ever seen in my life. I don't know how
you did it, but you should have wanted an oscar
just for that scene by the door.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
You were terrific.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Wow. I just you know, I don't remember it. I
don't remember it. It's a long time ago, but I
will say that I love that movie. And Bonnie Hunt,
who's the writer director of that, a Chicago native, is
just a wonderful, wonderful person and actor and writer and director.
And I'm always always wanting more of Bonnie Hunt. And

(01:42):
that's a you know, that's a little gem that movie.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
I think that's that's hard to do.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
You're probably standing around all day it's time to shoot
that scene and you have to bring grief, death, life,
lost to life. You should go back and watch it.
You were amazing, all right. So you a two time
Golden Globe Award winner, four time Emmy Award winner, five novels.
I was going through all three studio albums. I've gone
through all this, and you know, when it came to conclusion,
you had to do poems. That was all that was left.

(02:09):
That was it, right, The only thing you hadn't done yet.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
It wasn't gonna be pottery.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
That could be next. Don't speak.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
I love the cover too, By the way, where you changing,
that's what is that you supposedly looking like life is rough?
Jee up at your weather.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
That's what you're homeless.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Because I'm telling you something. You go to see me
in the morning, I'd scare them away.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
That was We took that picture a few years ago
when when I was on tour doing music and there
was a there was a guy who had wanted to
take my picture and he had an odd process that
I didn't quite understand. But I saw his other photos
and they were cool, just like this one. That's he
only did portraits, so I, uh, I asked to do it,

(02:50):
and you know, I wasn't. I was like that, you
know that that that looks real? You know?

Speaker 1 (02:56):
So that's why you know what I thought when I
saw it, looks like you're sitting on a stool in
your corner in the fourteenth round.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Of a championship fight. So I don't think you're winning.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
It just well, that's life, isn't it. I just knee
a little sweat.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
It's David the Company's joining us be probably known from
X Files, Californication. I just brought up Return to Me
out of the Blue. Terrific actor, author novels. I could
do all the little questions like they do in radio.
The difference the transition from acting to writing, or from
from novels to poetry. I don't care about anybody. This

(03:34):
is about life and whether you believe in God or not,
I do. But whatever He's shown you over the long
you know, journey, marathon of life or whatever life is
thrown at you. Because we're all right where we're at,
by the choices we made and our response to circumstances
that were out of our control.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
That's what's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
And the title, the double on todra of about time poems,
it really is this is about everything you've kind of witnessed, get,
don't get or not right?

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, I mean that's kind of what. When I sit
down to write a poem, it's really this idea that
I'm barely understanding something that's bothering me, that it keeps
on arising in some form the turn or phrase or whatever,
and so I write the poem to try to understand it,
and of course I never do, but I get this thing,

(04:25):
that's an attempt. And in the attempt, and again to
talk about failure in the attempt, in the failure to
say this thing which ultimately can't be said, there's beauty
in that and the almost the almost. It's like you
just like just like a lighter in the dark, you know,
I just get I think so. I mean, it's not

(04:47):
popular to say, because we live in a culture that says,
you know, you can have it all, and you can
understand it all, and you can you have it all
in your back pocket. But yeah, for me, it's all
about the attempt and keep on being curious, and to
keep on asking the questions, and to keep on marking
the changes because we change as people.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
I don't want to get at all over philosophical or political.
I think, well, I know, but it's just so thrilling
to be with you. But but the truth of the
matter is you probably had to resist. We live in
a culture right now that can google anything now, AI anything,
who knows what's next?

Speaker 3 (05:25):
David.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
The key to life, One of the keys to the
life I have found is curiosity. You can't achieve intelligence
without curiosity. You can't achieve humor without curiosity. You can't
achieve any lecture. Is curiosity going to be a threat
with all of this technology? Or how about this culture
where everybody has to have an immediate firm position either
on shirts or skins. Life is so not black and white.

(05:48):
It's so not shirts and skins. It's so not knowing
at all. It's realizing every day, just when you think
you know something, you know nothing.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Well, I think you know, just it's just a seize
on one thing that you said. I think it's dangerous
to have the phones and to have Google that has
the answers to everything. I think that that kills curiosity
a little bit, or it kills the desire to know
things right. And it's not just knowing facts and figures.

(06:17):
It's not just wrote memorization. But the more you know,
the more it gets jumbled up in your head, the
more it kind of it kind of plays off against
other things you know. So it's not the same. I know,
I know, I've got all the answers in my pocket
if I need them, but I take pride in actually
having them some of the answers in my head as well.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
One of the things you wrote, and this wasn't from
reading the actual copy they sent me. This was just
from like the pr piece. But yeah, poetry is not useful,
which is exactly why we need it.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Oh my gosh, put that one. Write that one right
on the wall, right over the wallpaper. What did you
mean by that? I mean, I think I get.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
It, but yeah, I mean it's it's kind of a
poetic line, I guess. So I don't know that I
know what I mean so specifically, but it's something in
the ballpark of you know, this is somebody once said
the best thing about writing poetry is that you can't
make money at it. You know, like nobody, nobody makes

(07:15):
money as a poet. So it's along those lines of
you know, this isn't in order to this isn't for something,
This is just something in and of itself. And I
go back, you know, you said you're a religious person,
and I go back to just the famous, the famous
line in the Bible about the lilies of the field.
You know, they don't work, They are just there, and

(07:36):
they are just beautiful because they are just there. They
toil not neither do they spend spinning me you know,
worry or you know, have anxiety. So that's kind of
what I see a poem as like a I don't
want to say like a flower because that sounds like
that's the kind of poems that I write, which is
they're not. I don't, But that's the idea.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
Is like the section that was reading where you're just
what is I mean? I don't. I mean the last
time I wrote poems was to woo my wife.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Well, right, I say that in the introduction.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, and like the dog that catches the car. I
don't write them anymore. But I always thought they had
to rhyme. They don't. There's no rhyme. There's no reason.
And after a while, once I let go of that,
there was something beautiful David in if you look at
like I mean, whoever looks opens up a book and
sees the chapter titles almost just look at the chapter

(08:24):
titles because I'm curious about you because I love your work.
I don't know you, but I love your work and
I want to know you. So I'm looking at those
titles in search of what's going on in David's heart,
what's going on in David's mind, what's happened to David's
life That isn't in tabloids, that's in the dark place,
And I mean the titles almost tell the story. Then
you read the stories. Then they don't go from point

(08:46):
A to B. Sometimes and sometimes just like our day
that starts with stubbing the toe and spilling the coffee.
Sometimes it was just and you're right, you have to
look at the entire about time poems and almost digest
it as one meal, because that's the beauty of it.
Does that make sense? Did I say anything that makes

(09:06):
sense whatsoever? Because I'm not a poet.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
It does. I mean, I take the titles very seriously.
I take them as almost like a key, like have
this key both in a door and a key in music,
Like okay, this is this is the key of this poem,
this title, this is. Just have that in your mind
as you begin reading it. As far as as reading

(09:30):
it as a as a whole meal, I think it's
hard to because it's not a narrative, and poems are dense,
you know, they take some work.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yeah, you would want to read them in pond.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
I'm just saying, but it's not over till it's over
and you've had it all, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yes, Yeah, I mean I hope it's a you know,
a coherent volume in that way.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, Yeah, because it's the opposite of the way we live,
which is to put on a mask in every situation
or to peer. We always have it understood and going on,
and we don't, and we're all you'll get the reality.
All of us are living somewhat in the dark, figuring
it out. Hopefully we don't get tired of figuring out.
Hopefully we don't get tired of failing and overcoming our failures.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, I think that's one of the you know, one
of the things that is scary to me to go
out with a book of poems, where it's not scary
to go out with another show or a film, is
it's sincere. You know, I'm sincerely trying to make sense

(10:29):
of things, and so sincerity is very dangerous feeling. You know,
it's not.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
Ironic about time a book of poems from a Golden
Globe actor, Emmy Award winning TV actor, he's already written
five novels.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Obviously as a.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yankee fan, I'm going to lead towards Bucky Dent and
now into poetry after albums. It does beg the question
what might be next?

Speaker 3 (10:51):
David Dukova, there's.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
Nothing else I can do. I mean, I like these
things that I do, and you know, they often come
back to words, you know, which was probably my first
impulse to love. Like you know, my dad was a writer,
and his dad was a writer. My mom was a teacher.
So I think it's really getting back to my roots.
When I'm writing, I.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
Want to see it back on the screen.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
I love what you bring.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
I got something in October coming out on Amazon called Malice,
and then you know, I'm still I don't know if
you saw the movie of Bucky. It's called Reverse the Curse.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yes, they changed the name.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, listen, I am. I am the least you could
run poetry by. And I enjoyed reading every single one
of them. And there's very few people. I don't even
know who else that on my vacation. I'm not missing
the opportunity. And I meant it, David when I said that,
I go back and watch that movie return to me.
Then Ensemble cast from from the Old Guys, which was

(11:50):
like a separate movie at.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Carl O'Connor, Robert.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
Those are all like a who's whoo that are gone? Now.
I know the movie is an absolute but actually Jim Belue.
She's charing. Oh my god, that's how I raised my kids.
That's what our house was like.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, you at you at the door after your wife's
death as one of the most brilliant pieces of actors.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
I'll go back and I'll look at that because I
haven't thought of that in years.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
You remember you remember the fat Italian that you did
an interview with that knew nothing about poetry but.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
Told you to go back.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
That was your greatest moment. You you really acted beautifully.
David du Covenany loved your work over a lifetime. People
are going to love your poetry. The name of the
book about Time Poems by David Duchovny. Thank you so
much for joining us.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
Thank you, thanks for interrupting your vacation for me.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
You're worth it.
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