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August 4, 2025 33 mins
Welcome back to the studio.  This is My Day of Play, where you’re taken into the real events and actions of how it happens long before the process of editing or cleaning up.  The original purpose of these episodes was to give my broadcasting students something to edit, to practice with and to call their own.  Then I realized that you are just as important.  Share the reality of how it really went.  We begin things with a real man’s man Jared Douglas from the TV show The Last Woodsman on Discovery.  It’s the most dangerous job in the world.  Then we’ll step into a conversation with the always amazing Clay Aiken whose music is not only timeless but fits perfectly into every season. Then we’ll wrap things up with Jim O’Heir from the TV show Parks and Recreation.  He’s giving us an unbelievable look at what it was really like creating on that set. This is My Day of Play.  Completely unedited in the way of meeting the wizard behind the curtain.  

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, welcome back to my studio. This is my day
of play, where you're taking into the really vincent actions
of how it really went down before the process of
editing or cleaning up. The original purpose of these episodes
was to give my broadcasting students something to edit, to
practice with, or to call their own. Then I realized, well,
you're just as important as they are. Share the reality
with you as well. We begin things with a real

(00:21):
man's man, Jared Douglas from the TV show The Last
Woodsman on Discovery. It's the most dangerous job in the world. Oh,
he's going to talk about it. Then we'll step into
a conversation with the always amazing Clay Aiken, whose music
is not only timeless, but it fits perfectly into every season.
And we'll wrap things up with Jim O'Hare from the
TV show Parks and Recreation. He's giving us an unbelievable

(00:44):
look at what it was really like to create on
that set. This is my day of play, completely unedited
in the way of meeting the wizard behind the curtain.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hey, hi, Jared, Oh, Hey.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Good morning, Jared. How are you doing today.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm doing pretty.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Good, absolutely fantastic and very excited. To share a conversation
with you because I totally believe in what you're doing.
I'm from the state of Montana and we've traveled so
many times up into Canada and over to Washington State.
I understand the importance of a show like this because
that would means so much to the construction of the world.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
It certainly does. It's a the greenest building product you
can use.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
You know, I grew up in being up there in Montana.
There was a there was a Canadian show that we
watched as kids, and I learned right away how how
these lumberjacks were. Basically they're treated like superheroes because it's
more than just business. It is about that building. But
I love the fact that you're bringing this to us
in the way of oh my god, the cameras are
right there.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
They certainly are. It's been a bit of an adjustment
for me and the crew, but it's been a lot
of fun.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
I was gonna ask you about that, Jared, how you
get because you know, a forest floor is not something
you can ever trust because it's got a lot of
secrets in it.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
We're the softest thing in the woods, and we go
to make sure that we keep everybody safe and yeah
it was. It was an experience, but we had a
lot of fun doing it. Everybody stayed safe and I'm
excited to show the world what we have to offer.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Don't you think that real hardcore teamwork has to be
a visible every set, you know, every step of the way.

Speaker 4 (02:21):
Yeah, I believe, Yeah, totally. I believe in teamwork. We
need to have a team. Everybody's looking out for each
other out there. It's key to just have there's no
I in team. We got to make sure that we're
all working together. That's that's definitely key, and hopefully we
can show that on our Rashal.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Listeners need to understand that it's almost like taking down
an elk. You can go back into those mountains as
far as you want to, but the question is how
are we going to get it out of here?

Speaker 5 (02:46):
Did you?

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Guys had to have done that too as well, with
with with even the camera.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Work, that's correct.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
Yeah, we we venture in deep, but we got to
make sure we can get those trees out. So definitely
lots to tune in to watch how we do that,
and yeah, there's a lot more episodes to tune in
every Friday night at nine pm on Discovery.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
That's the thing about it. That's what I love about Discovery,
is it man, I'll tell you what they really do,
bring out the realism of what it's like, and it
reminds me so much of micro who says, hey, look,
there are jobs in the world that we can't ever lose,
and this is one of them. We've got to continue
to inspire people to do what you guys are doing.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
For sure. We definitely need people to see our side
of the story and what.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
We do and how important it is and what's the
warmest building product we have.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Everybody needs wood. It's a commodity that's not.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
Going anywhere, so unfortunately it's just so hard and dangerous
to get to the marketplace.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Is it endangered like the dinosaur as well as some
birds and other animals.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
We work really hard with a lot of professionals to
make sure we're not disheartening any kind of habitat. And
we believe the Regida rated Forest is where the deer,
the bears and everything wants to live a lot of
the time.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
So what we're doing is responsible and it's just kind
of a way of life.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
So we kind of just get used to it and
be good for the rest of the world to see
what we're doing out here.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
I totally get what you mean when it comes to
for the other animals, because we planted seventeen hundred trees
in this forest in nineteen ninety seven, and this forest
is just filled with wildlife. And I mean, you'd probably
come here to this forest and go, oh dude, those
aren't trees, those are weeds. But the thing is is that,
I mean, the trees that you're doing are just I mean,
they're huge.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
In the show, if you tune in later in the season,
you're going to see a valley that we are working
in and the other side was plagued by a forest fire.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
You know.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
So what I kind of say is, you know, the
other we can log it and create jobs, economy and
beautiful building products for people homes, or we're just letting
it burn these days, and it's you know, it's such
a loss to see what the forest is due to
the ecosystem. So I believe what we're doing is mitigating

(05:11):
those risks. And you know, there's a lot of good people,
big hearted people that are doing it. That's the story
we want to tell. And that's the story that we
do tell, and I'm really excited about it.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Who's in charge of replenishing. Does the state come in
then and replenish that forest floor?

Speaker 4 (05:28):
Whatever forest company that we're working for will hire a
civil culture crew and they go out and do it all.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, but it is regulated by our laws up here.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
I actually call myself a forest farmer. And the reason
why is because when the trees, when it's time for
them to come down, I don't sell the wood. What
I do is I just look for people that need
the wood so they can put it in their fireplaces.
But I mean, but you guys are getting sixty to
seventy thousand dollars per tree.

Speaker 5 (05:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
For the bigger Western red cedars can become very profitable trees,
but they are hard to find and they are hard
on equipment to get out, so you know, there's a
lot of costs involved with that. But we can definitely
get some high value timber.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Interesting that you say cedar, because that's a tree that
struggles here in the Carolinas, and I think it's because
of the heat. I mean, for those cedars to be
so large up there, the cold plays a major part
of this, doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, that's correct.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
We've had heat spells that actually have you know, all
the needles will start falling off the seeds and they
you should die. So we definitely it's the climates change.
It's good to be able to harvest those trees and
make beautiful products out of them.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
One of the things that I found very inspiring was
something that I until I saw this, I thought it
was kind of stupid. But before I do any type
of cutting, I have to hear everybody's voices to make
sure where they are. Then we go into the tree.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
Yeah, that's right. You definitely people think it's easy cut
down a tree.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Well certainly not, and they'll see them. But you got
to make sure everybody's safe, and we call it out of.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
The bike And that's the number one role every day
is just to make sure everybody comes.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Home safe and that that's a that's a tough task
with falling timber.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
How much is climate warming kind of like digging into
your profits?

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Uh, you know, we we shut down due to when
it gets too hot.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
It kind of bounces around all the time, you know,
Like this last year, we've had a pretty good year
with a kind of a wet We've had a kind
of wet summer, so we got to alurk a little
bit more than the usual year. But when we get
shut down, you know, it costs a lot of money
to keep these cats going.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
We got to keep a watchman on.

Speaker 4 (07:46):
We've got to burn theese a little to create electricity, so
it's quite costly for us to shut down.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
Is there a side of your personality that does I
do something really kind of stupid when I go into
this force. Before I cut the tree, I have a
conversation with the tree and I say, I'm so so
sorry for doing this. Here's the reason why I'm doing this.

Speaker 5 (08:05):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
Yeah, I guess I don't really have a conversation with them,
but I think that it's kind of like when you
go hunting and you take an animal. Yeah, you kind
of have that, you know, remorse for it a little bit,
but you know, you're you're doing what you need to
do to create jobs. And uh, and it's just something
that's been around for the dawn of time. We've always

(08:26):
built with wood, and it's harder and harder to get
that wood these days.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
How do you prep before you go out? Because I mean,
I mean like I said before, I mean, when it
comes to a mountain side, you you have no idea
how tilted the hill is, how deep the holes are.
I mean, how do you physically prepare for something like this?

Speaker 4 (08:46):
A lot of times I'll take the woods foreman's and
we'll actually go walk the Yeah, we try.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
To walk every kind of kind of every inch of
it to find the dangers.

Speaker 4 (08:56):
You know, we'll catalog our dangers, uh, spots that you know,
limbs hanging in trees.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
We'll try to let bowlers know.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
We kind of we kind of have like a work
site safety plan and we will send all the dangers
down to every phase that's going to be in there.
So we walk a lot of the timber. It's up
and down the mountains, strap on the cork boots and.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Uh we'll walk a lot of it.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
You know, it gets tiring, that's for surely in the
hot summer. That was uh interesting trying to get the
camera guys to walk with us sometimes, but uh they
got into shape real quick.

Speaker 6 (09:33):
And we uh we get them all tuned up and uh,
you know, you get the bush legs we call them,
you know, like sailors will have sea legs.

Speaker 4 (09:45):
Well, we got bush legs, So uh, do a lot
of walking of the timber to make sure that everything's
gonna go well and see the dangers and the problems that.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
We're gonna have. There's always a problem. Loggers always have problems.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Oh so true, So true. I laughed because I can
relate that. Even though this is a tiny force, I
still understand because when you walk it, I mean you've
got to have these Your legs have got to be
able to adjust to anything at any given moment because
you don't know if you're going down or if you're
going to slip.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
Yeah, that's right. You never keep your hands in your poddet. No,
it's going to be ready to face the fall.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Now, when you talk about the dangers, do you what
about the animals? Do you run into bears? Do you
run into some feisty elk?

Speaker 4 (10:25):
Uh? Yeah, we've yeah, Actually we've had a login truck
we attacked by an elk, which was pretty pretty interesting.
That drivers stop the truck to let the elk buy
and they attack the front end of the fat truck,
which is quite interesting. I've never heard of that.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
But lots of bears.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
We venture into a new camp this season and it's
full of grizzly bears, which are you know.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
I've been chased by a few grisly bear you know,
you know, you're the bottom of the food chain, and
they're scary creatures, really scary.

Speaker 4 (10:57):
So I do not want my last days to be
I kind of always watch that Revelent movie where you
see him get attacked, and you know, I'm not scared
of much, but those grew leaders make the hair on
the back of my neck stand up.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
So those are the most dangerous. Black bears are also unpredictable.

Speaker 4 (11:16):
We have cougars in the woods as well, or mountain
lions some people will call them.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
So yeah, we got lots of wildlife dangerous. You know,
it's always.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Something you've got to come back to this show anytime
in the future. I totally embrace what you're doing and
I respect everything that you guys are doing to that
mountain side.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Well, thank you very much for that. It's good to hear.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
Will you be brilliant today? Okay, Jared, thank you, Please
do not move. Clay Aikin is coming up next. Hey,
thanks for coming back to my day of play. Let's
get into that talk with Clay Aikin'collins. There you are,
how are you doing? Step into that studio? Where are

(12:01):
you putting yourself? Because in radio they say who are
they talking to? How old are they? Do they have
any children? And I just feel like that that you
envision us being right there with you.

Speaker 7 (12:11):
Well, I consider myself more of a live singer, live
performer than a recording performer. So I always in the studio.
I mean, I have sometimes a challenge because I do
my best work when when there's an audience, when there's
a live audience, and so I have the challenge of

(12:33):
trying to put myself in that position, trying to imagine.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
That I'm in a theater with an audience.

Speaker 7 (12:40):
But when you as you know, you've got a microphone
in front of you every day, When you've got one
of these recording microphones in front of you, it's so
much more sensitive and you have to, you know, be
you have to you have to sing into it or
talking to it whoever. It is a little bit differently,
So I have to kind of split the difference between
performing like I am on stage and performing like I

(13:01):
am in the studio.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
But I do need to imagine.

Speaker 7 (13:04):
That there's an audience there in order for me to
do my best work, so to speak.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
I'll tell you the song that I want to hear
pouring through the radio this Christmas is Merry Christmas, Darling,
because you really bring your touch to it in the
way of you know, because people are going, oh, it's
too early for Christmas music, but when you hear this song, oh,
it's never going to be too early. It is right now,
thank you.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
It is.

Speaker 7 (13:27):
I grew up absolutely in awe of Karen Carpenter, and
I mean I'm still in awe of Karen Carpenter's voice,
and it's just you know, they're actually recordings that they released,
released recordings of her where if you listen carefully enough,
you can hear the page turn from her sheet music
as she's reading it in the studio, and the take

(13:49):
was just so good because she was so spot on
with she was one take wonder that they just kept it.
There was no reason to redo it because it was
just perfect as is, and they left the page turn.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
And her voice has always been just.

Speaker 7 (14:04):
The thing that I aspire to, right, So it was
sort of exciting to record Merry Christmas, Darling, but at
the same time, nerve racking because you know you're never
gonna sing it like Karen Carpenter.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
But this version is thanks to Ron Fair. I think
it is.

Speaker 7 (14:22):
True to the spirit of what the Carpenters recorded on
their Christmas album and really everything they did, but still
able to be my own version. I wanted to be
careful on this album, not to make things my own
too much.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
I think that a.

Speaker 7 (14:38):
Lot of times people do a Christmas album and they
they try to do too much to change the songs
or make them current. And I don't think you need
to make some of these Christmas songs current. I think
that what makes them wonderful is the classic sound, the
production from the fifties and the sixties and the seventies
for the Carpenters, and we want to to keep a

(15:00):
lot of that as close as possible to the original
because Christmas is about that familiarity, that nostalgia of being
around people who you know and love and listening to
things that you know and love, and that traditional element,
and so I think we kept that true for that

(15:20):
song and for all of them.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah, are you going to take this to like a
Broadway esque kind of a production, because I mean, I
would love to hear you sing? Do you hear what
I hear at the Bloomenthal or even Oven's auditorium, because
I think it has that essence about it of being
like I am in a theater with Clay Aiken.

Speaker 7 (15:35):
Yeah, that's I mean, that's the goal I did. I
did a Christmas album. This is the twentieth anniversary of
my first Christmas album, and I went on the road
with that. For goodness, five six seven years, I can't
even remember. We spent a long time, many years out
on the road every Christmas with that one. And the
idea of the goal for this is to do the
same thing, to be able to go out and perform,

(15:57):
because as I said before, that's where I feel most
comfortable is on the stage. So I was just I
was just at Bloomenthal or belk One with Ruben last
year with our twentieth anniversary Idol tour, and that's what
kind of got me back into the mood to perform again.
I had taken time off as my son was growing

(16:19):
up to be home as much as possible, and being
back on the road with Ruben made me realize I
missed it. My son is now at an age where
he's at sixteen. He's perfectly happy for me to not
be around very often, so I can leave now a
little bit more. And so it all has kind of
come together at the right time. So we'll be back

(16:40):
on the road with this next year for sure.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
When you take a song like Wonderful Christmas Time from
Paul McCartney, wow, I mean this right here is a
moment because we've heard Paul sing it so many times
and you give it that one touch that says I
still love this song.

Speaker 7 (16:57):
Yeah, well, this was the one, you know, that's the
one that we probably changed the most, only because obviously
Sir Paul's version is.

Speaker 5 (17:07):
Eighties.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
It was very it was very, very much.

Speaker 7 (17:10):
Of its time, and trying to make this album as
classic as possible. That song is a Christmas classic, but
we wanted to make it fit within the theme and
the genre of this particular album. So there's you know,
those baroque strings that they brooke is the style, but
people will think of the Bridgerton sort of strings and

(17:32):
trying We kind of took this one and instead of
doing what I said I don't love people doing, which
is trying to make things contemporary, we took that song
and we kind of did the reverse. We made it
a little older, we made it a little more classic,
which I think is an interesting spin on it. And
Ron Fair gets great credit for that, for having the
vision for it.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
So let me ask you, was the album cover already
done When you say that you made it classic, because
that album cover is classic, did you envision that while
you were, you know, putting these touches on Wonderful Christmas Time?

Speaker 7 (18:03):
No, we and we did the album cover first, actually
because I knew I knew what I wanted the album
to sound like. I knew that I wanted it to
be as familiar and classic and retro. Retro may not
be the word, but I wanted it to sound like
a Perry Como Andy Williams Christmas album. So we had
the Christmas art done first, not the title. I didn't

(18:25):
know what the titles of the album would be. And
I had this in the studio with me while I
was recording to kind of just kind of inspire us
to know, this is what we're this is where we're aiming,
this is this is what we want it to sound like.
We want it to sound like an album that was
put out in the time period where it would look
like this.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
I want to see you seeing album Maria live because
it sounds so personal on the album, and yet I
know that you will put such a touch on it
when it comes to making it so full and such an.

Speaker 7 (18:54):
Experience, it's a it's a you know that one also
is one we kept as traditional as possible. We did
a little bit something different with to do with just
me and the guitar. Instead of making it big, we
we because it's traditionally known as this very big, triumphant
song and do you Hear What I Hear is typically

(19:15):
known to be a little smaller, a little more intimate
and haunting. We flipped it and we put that haunting,
intimate vibe on Ave Maria, and we may do you
Hear What I Hear? A big, triumphant, cinematic type sounds.
So it still gives both of them the classic nostalgic

(19:35):
sound that folks are that the whole album's aiming for,
but just does it on different songs and it gives it.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
It gives me an opportunity to make.

Speaker 7 (19:44):
My own versions of each of them, but but still
stay true of what our goal was.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
Where can people go to find out more about you?
The potential of a tour and more about the album.

Speaker 7 (19:53):
Well, Klay aka dot com is always I think around.
I think it's around, so you can do that. But
I'm on all that, you know. The it's the weird
thing too, I was saying somebody else's before. There was
not social media. Last time I did an album, there
was not streaming services. But this album is available on
every streaming service there is, so Spotify, I've one of

(20:15):
the other ones, Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple Music and Napster.
I think is still around there. It's on all those things.
And you can find me at Clay Aiken on x
and Instagram and TikTok and all those places to do.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
I love it. Please come back to the show anytime
in the future. The door is always going to be
open for you.

Speaker 5 (20:33):
Clay.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Thank you very much. Ero, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Will you'd be brilliant, Okay, I will start trying.

Speaker 5 (20:39):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Thanks. Coming up next my Day of Play with actor
Jim O'Hare. Hey, thanks for coming back to My Day
of Play. Let's get into that talk with actor Jim
O'Hare from Parks and Recreation a errow. Okay, here you are,
what's going on?

Speaker 5 (20:56):
Man? All right?

Speaker 8 (20:57):
Hold on one second, Arrow, let me just take a
look at something here. Okay, So it looks like we
have a cancelation after you. So if you like, you
already had sixteen minutes, but you can go you can
go off until twenty twenty six.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Now if you want, I've got one at twenty six.
I've got one with twenty So you saw, I'm gonna
take it up to nineteen. Okay, that works. Jim, you
got a stand up take about and say thank you
very much because what you're delivering to fans of Park
and Rec, I mean, my god, I mean this is
this is exactly what we needed for this holiday season,
because it's something that is going to create a nice

(21:34):
warm spot for many years to come.

Speaker 9 (21:37):
Damn, Arrow, I need you to walk around with me.
That is a great that's a great prole.

Speaker 5 (21:42):
I love that. Thank you so much. Yeah, this I
really feel like, you know, for fans of the.

Speaker 9 (21:48):
Show, the timing is perfect because it is the holidays
and we're coming up and it's people keep using the
term stocking stuff. And if you love the show, there's
so much in this book that I promise you've never
heard before. And I can say it because I learned
things I've never heard before when I interviewed the different
creators and cast of the show.

Speaker 5 (22:05):
So this is really fun. But man, I need you
on my team.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
The way that you bring this whole entire project together,
I mean with the pictures, with the stories. I mean,
it's like it's almost like you sat right there in
front of a saying what would you like? What would
you like me to bring to you? Because I'll get
it for you.

Speaker 5 (22:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (22:22):
I'm going to use a term that makes me crazy,
aero because it's cringey, but it's what applies. This book
is a love letter to the cast and to the crew,
and to the writers and the creators. And I'm a
sixty two year old man using the term love letter,
but it really is.

Speaker 5 (22:38):
And I just wanted this to be something.

Speaker 9 (22:40):
That because it's been such a gift to me, and
I mean arks and recreation, it's a gift that keeps
on giving through whatever miracle. You know, we're still out there.
We're on television stations, we're on streaming. Most shows come
and go, you know, I've been on them. I've been
on a lot of shows over the years. They come
and go, never to be heard from again. And Parks

(23:00):
is still out there and it's still relevant. I was
doing a book signing yesterday and there was this These
two friends came up. There were fourteen and sixteen, and
they've just found the show. So it keeps getting found,
and so it's kind of beloved to cross the Ages,
and it just I don't know, I call myself just
one of the luckiest guys in the world because on

(23:22):
top of it doing well, it means it does well
for all of us as a cast, and it's opened
up so many doors.

Speaker 5 (23:29):
We have.

Speaker 9 (23:29):
One of our actors, Chris brad was one of the
biggest stars in the world, not like just locally, he's
like one of the biggest stars in the world because
he was known from Parks and Recreation. So yeah, I
just I want the fans to open this book and go,
oh my god, that warms my heart. This story warms
my heart. Oh that's how this person got hired. Oh
my god, I've never seen that picture before. I love

(23:50):
this picture. So yeah, that's what the book is for.
It's for the fans.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Well, the moment you open up the book, what happens
is you want to go back to the binge watch
and you want to start from episode one because you
were teaching us the lessons of what went on behind
the scenes, because we just got the final production of
it until this book. Now we get to understand it
even better.

Speaker 9 (24:09):
Yeah, and that's that was what I wanted. And when
this all began, like I said, it was based on
the tenth anniversary is coming up, and the people like
this might be a good time to do it. I
you know, I'm a very sentimental guy, always have been.

Speaker 5 (24:22):
You know.

Speaker 9 (24:22):
I was in New York recently and I'm in a
Broadway play and there's a fake elephant sick on stage
and I got a tear rolling down my face. It's
a fake elephant being by humans. So I'm an easy target.
So but I wanted this book. It's from the heart,
like these are my stories, these are my experiences. And

(24:42):
then I talked to the other people involved and they
gave their experiences.

Speaker 5 (24:46):
So yeah, I just want.

Speaker 9 (24:48):
People to walk away because this is going to sound crazy,
But I've been on a lot of shows and I
watched these late night shows and I see these guests
and they're always like, oh, we were like one big,
happy family, and that's lovely. But I'm at home thinking
I was on your show that was not one big
happy family. I don't know who you're talking to, but
the difference with Parks is it truly was one big

(25:09):
happy family and the cast we still have a thing
called the Parks Family Text, so we are still in
each other's lives all the time. A couple of weeks ago,
Chris Brad had a new baby, Baby Ford, and it
was all about that. So this wasn't just people brought
together and we did our job and never to see
each other again.

Speaker 5 (25:29):
This was the opposite of that.

Speaker 9 (25:31):
This Like the other day, I got a message from
Amy Poehler's father. Her father reached out to me to
congratulate me on the book. I mean, these are the
relationships that formed because of this show.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Wow. See, there's just so much magic, even in the
stories that you share here that I'm going to go
back into the book and see a different picture as well.
Now that we're having this conversation, it's like, Okay, I'm
going to go do it again because now I hear
your passion.

Speaker 5 (25:54):
Oh gosh, you get me.

Speaker 9 (25:56):
Started to talk about Parks because somebody said to me,
you know, is this a lot talking about this book
all the time I go, oh my god.

Speaker 5 (26:02):
You know, once I get started, I can go forever.

Speaker 9 (26:04):
I did a live event with Redda last night, who
played Don and Eagle on the show, and our plan
was to do forty five minutes. We did an hour
and forty five because when the two of us started talking,
we were telling stories about this guest star, you know,
Bill Murray was there, and Michelle Obama and you know,
Parker Posey and like all these amazing people. We just
start rambling and it was such an amazing time in

(26:27):
our lives that I could I know, I'm sure you
can hear it, but I could talk about Parks all
day long.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Are you going to go on a vocal tour? Because
I'm starting to see a lot of actors get together
in any of these theaters and they come and they
just talk about the show, and people are paying top
dollar for that.

Speaker 5 (26:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (26:45):
I have a couple of those events coming up. People
just want to hear because and they want to ask
their own questions.

Speaker 5 (26:50):
Yes, you know which is I love that.

Speaker 9 (26:52):
I love a Q and A because, as you could
probably tell, I don't shut up. So you put me
at a Q and A and give me a stage
to the microphone and I am a happy camper.

Speaker 5 (27:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (27:02):
No, I got a couple of those coming up, and
those are kind of my favorite thing to do because
those are the hardcore fans who have paid money to
come and see you and hear your stories.

Speaker 5 (27:12):
And that's why I'm so grateful.

Speaker 9 (27:13):
When people buy this book, it's just it's them saying
I love the show and I want to know more
about it.

Speaker 5 (27:20):
So that means the world to me.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
The show was already established before Rob Low got there.
How did everybody embrace him? And it didn't feel like
he was ever out of place. It just felt like, hey,
he's just part of the part of the family.

Speaker 9 (27:31):
Yeah, I will say in this there's no slight. You know,
Paul Schneider began on the show. He played a character
named Mark Brandanowitz. And I love Paul. He's an amazing actor,
so this is no slight to him. But when I
think of the show, I almost can't picture it without
Adam Scott and Roblo.

Speaker 5 (27:46):
Yes, they were just so part of it. Now.

Speaker 9 (27:49):
You know the big problem when they Rob came on,
they were afraid that people would confuse me and him,
you know, would people be able to look at us
and tell us apart, and it was tough. It was
there were some days that I couldn't tell the difference myself.
I'm sorry, something funny ear he is seemed to be
laughing at something that.

Speaker 5 (28:06):
Would be very hurtful to me if you were laughing.

Speaker 9 (28:09):
No, but no, But in our reality, I really I
don't remember the days without those guys. And you know Amy,
I did this thing with Amy recently and she said
to everybody, and I totally agree. They gave us this lift,
this really nice lift at the end of season two
that I think just then sort us into the rest

(28:29):
of our seasons. They were the perfect edition. And when
you have someone like Rob, as I say in the book,
Rob freaking Low, who everybody knows. He's been around forever.
He was in iconic films. And also I tell a
story in the book, Rob Low taught me how to
kiss on screen.

Speaker 5 (28:46):
And that is a fact.

Speaker 9 (28:47):
And when I had my first big kissing scene after Parks,
I was doing a movie called Middleman, and I'm laying
on top of this poor actress, Amy Dudeck, this lovely actress,
and all I'm thinking about is Rob Low, because I'm
trying to do exactly what he said for because you know,
you gotta there's ways to do it and you got
to be respectful and anyway. Yeah, so but Rob was

(29:07):
a one. Rob and Adam were perfect additions to the show.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
How did you sit down with all of these photos
and choose these to be in the book, because that,
to me is such a personal side.

Speaker 5 (29:19):
Yeah, that was That was so tough.

Speaker 9 (29:20):
And I can tell you that that's a fraction of
the photos I have, So to be honest, I had
to rely on I had to rely on publishers because
I said, you, guys, I'm creating a file with hundreds
of pictures.

Speaker 5 (29:33):
I said, I can't decide. I mean some some.

Speaker 9 (29:35):
I highlighted as these are a must for the book.
But a lot of the people who were involved with
this book at HarperCollins are huge fans of the show,
and so I knew that if they chose it, those
were special pictures that they would want. And then some
of the cast gave me their pictures from their phones
and so it just yeah, but so I definitely had

(29:56):
I had to have other outside sources because I have hundreds.
I really had not that thinking about this out loud,
I should do a book of just pictures behind the
scenes on parks and rec.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Dude, I could totally see that in a gallery, you know,
just people knocking through and seeing the photographs.

Speaker 5 (30:10):
Yeah, I'm loving that. Had great idea.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Wow, how did you guys master the facial expression? Because yeah,
sure you can have the greatest written lines in the world,
but those facial expressions help make this show as well.

Speaker 9 (30:22):
Well, you know, we are actors, as they say, and
we got to play around. That gave us so much freedom.
Ear oh, so much freedom. We did the thing after
every after every scene was done and it was wrapped.
We've been doing a thing called a fun run, and
that meant we could do whatever the hell we wanted
to do. We knew where the we knew where the
storyline had to go, but we could add to it,

(30:44):
we could take away from it. And I always say
it's one of the reasons we're all still so tight,
because that's called playing. We got to play together every day,
and a lot of us were improvisation.

Speaker 5 (30:55):
You know, we were trained.

Speaker 9 (30:56):
Amy Poehler's the Queen of improv I trained at Second City,
Nick and Aubrey, all of us. You know, we were improvisers,
so we got to do that every single day. So yeah,
but the facial expression is the look to the cameras.

Speaker 5 (31:09):
That's just called genius acting, Harol, and I'll take full
credit for that.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
When you've got someone like Amy Poehler and even Chris Pratt,
how does everybody stay so grounded or did you even know?
Because I mean for Amy Pohler, this was a first
step of a brand new beginning. We were used to
seeing her on SNL, not in a role like this.

Speaker 5 (31:28):
Yeah, this was totally different.

Speaker 9 (31:29):
I think Amy was you know, this was a scary
venture for her because you know SNL that's got its
own terrifying moment. You're live on camera every week, but
you're playing different characters and here this is her show.
This she is the lead in this show. And so
we all just you know. And Chris Pratt, a lot
of people didn't know this. He was not hired to
be on this show for any more than a couple

(31:50):
of episodes. Is going to be in and gone. He
was supposed to fall into a.

Speaker 5 (31:54):
Pit, be Rashida's boyfriend and then move on.

Speaker 9 (31:57):
But they quickly realized what they had and Mike Sure
He talks about it in the book they were like,
where is this guy been? Like how is he already
not being taken on another show? So they signed him
up pretty quick. So yeah, it was just you know,
Amy called it lightning in a bottle, that you could
bring all of us together. We never had any egos.

(32:17):
There was never any craziness amongst actors. And I give
all that credit to Amy because when you're number one
on the call sheet, your lead on a show walks
on set every day with a smile on her face,
no matter what's happening out in the world, and you know,
life happens, stuff happens every day. And she had a
smile on her face. And you know, I've been on
shows where if your character gets a laugh the next

(32:38):
day it could be gone because the lead character all
of a sudden has that laugh, like they move it over.
Amy's thought was there's plenty to go around. And that's
that's how she was the mother of the set. She
took such good careacters. I'm not eight or nine years
older than Amy.

Speaker 5 (32:53):
She was the mom on set.

Speaker 9 (32:54):
She would check in with me, how are you doing
is this because you know, Jerry was the punching bag,
and she'd make sure I was okay with that. And
she's just so smart. She's just just a smart, smart,
smart lady. I love her to death.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
You got to come back to this show in the future, Jim.
I love where your heart is.

Speaker 5 (33:11):
Oh you're sweet. I could talk about this show.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
All day, will you'd be brilliant today.

Speaker 5 (33:16):
Okay, thank you Aero so much.
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