Latest / Ridiculous History / Surprising Former Careers, Part III: Goldberg, Trudeau and Buscemi

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Surprising Former Careers, Part III: Goldberg, Trudeau and Buscemi · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. This is part three in a continuing
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  Speaker 1: series Surprising former careers. Because people have their breakthroughs for
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: certain things, and once they have that breakthrough, sometimes that's
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: all they're known for. We talked a lot about presidents,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: right that was of a special interest or super producer
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: mister Max Williams, But nol as we found they're a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people who did a lot of things before
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  Speaker 1: they ever became famous or public figures. Oh, no question
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  Speaker 1: about it. It's incredibly common. Today we are going to
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  Speaker 1: talk about several folks that you are definitely familiar with
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  Speaker 1: from their celebrity days, but perhaps had some more unassuming beginnings.
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  Speaker 1: Let's first talk about somebody that we all know and love.
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  Speaker 1: I think Whoopee Goldberg and an occupation that I was
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  Speaker 1: not aware of existed until this exact moment, The Nights Whisperer. Yes, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Whoopee Goldberg, most famous as being the alter ego of
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Guyden in Star Trek, at least to a young Ben
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  Speaker 1: Bullin turns out, was not always calling herself Whoopie Goldberg
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  Speaker 1: and was not always a very famous actor. She was
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  Speaker 1: born Karen Elaine Johnson in nineteen fifty five November thirteenth,
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  Speaker 1: in New York City, and now she has a huge,
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  Speaker 1: huge CV of all these different appearances. I remember her
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  Speaker 1: and sister act. My grandmother liked watching that movie. Yeah, yeah, huge,
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  Speaker 1: distinctly seeing in the theaters with my mom when I
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  Speaker 1: was a kid. So wholesome. And she also now I
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  Speaker 1: think is maybe most known as erstwhile co host of
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  Speaker 1: the TV talk show The View. She's such a big
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  Speaker 1: deal in Hollywood. First black woman to win the coveted
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  Speaker 1: Egott the Emmy Grammy oscar An Tony. We know a
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  Speaker 1: lot about her background. She was not born with in
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  Speaker 1: a silver spoon family. She grew up in a housing project,
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  Speaker 1: moved to California, found her home in the theater, and
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  Speaker 1: she made a lot of waves. Her Hollywood debut was
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  Speaker 1: in The Color Purple in nineteen eighty five, and it slapped.
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  Speaker 1: It was a great adaptation of the book. She performed
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  Speaker 1: a more and more films. But let's fast forward past
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  Speaker 1: all of that and go to some information we learned
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  Speaker 1: in a twenty eleven segment from Good Morning America, Nola.
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  Speaker 1: I love the euphemism night whisperer. That doesn't mean someone
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  Speaker 1: who goes out in the dark and says some asmr
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  Speaker 1: things to the moon, does it? Well, maybe not whispering exactly,
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  Speaker 1: but certainly a particular type of delivery, if you know
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  Speaker 1: what I mean. On the telephone. This is back in
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  Speaker 1: the days before the Internet, where if you wanted a little,
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  Speaker 1: a little some something, you might call a number with
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  Speaker 1: a nine in it. It's like a nine hundred number,
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  Speaker 1: or I think there was also like nine one seven.
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  Speaker 1: There was different ones, but they had a nine in
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  Speaker 1: them for someone, right, because nine hundred numbers were the
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  Speaker 1: ones you had to pay for. This segment on Morning
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  Speaker 1: America by Elizabeth Hasselback talks about a growing number of
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  Speaker 1: stay at home moms in twenty eleven who are earning
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  Speaker 1: income on the side as operators of phone sex lines.
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  Speaker 1: And now, you know, a lot of our fellow ridiculous
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  Speaker 1: historians listening today may not have seen a payphone, right,
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  Speaker 1: may have grown up with a smartphone. And back in
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  Speaker 1: the day when the pursuits of vice were far less evolved,
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  Speaker 1: people would call these lines, these nine hundred lines, or
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  Speaker 1: you know, various prefixes, and they would pay crazy amounts
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  Speaker 1: of money to have blue conversation with a stranger who
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  Speaker 1: would give them something we would call ASMR today very
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  Speaker 1: quiet storm until it wasn't. And the mom said, look
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  Speaker 1: this works for me. I'm making more money for the family,
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  Speaker 1: I'm able to spend time with my kids more often,
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  Speaker 1: and I just have to say some weird stuff on
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  Speaker 1: the phone. This was a big conversation, people like should
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  Speaker 1: this be off limits? And then that's when Whoopi Goldberg retorted, well,
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  Speaker 1: I was a phone sex operator. And then famously someone
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  Speaker 1: else on the show said, well, surely that's in your past.
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  Speaker 1: Whoopi Goldberg said, how do you know? You don't know
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  Speaker 1: what I do at home. Yeah, it's a good point.
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  Speaker 1: And another good point is that you know today her
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  Speaker 1: voice would be so recognized you she'd never get away
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  Speaker 1: with it. But there's a movie called I think it's
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  Speaker 1: called Girls six or something like that. There was a
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  Speaker 1: Spike Lee joint about phone sex operators. It's actually pretty
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  Speaker 1: cool if I don't remember correctly, but yeah, what an
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  Speaker 1: interesting subculture. And you know, today a SMR is probably
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  Speaker 1: the most modern equivalent, Like you said, Ben, but you know,
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  Speaker 1: back back in those days. I think phone sex lines
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  Speaker 1: probably still exist some niche kind of technological backlash, ludite
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  Speaker 1: kind of way um, but you know, back then they
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  Speaker 1: were big money makers too, because you got charged by
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  Speaker 1: the minute, and I'm gonna go ahead and cop to it.
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  Speaker 1: You could call the number and without actually speaking to
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  Speaker 1: a person, some kind of sultry interlude from a pre
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  Speaker 1: recorded lady. And we kept trying to do that when
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  Speaker 1: in boy Scouts we would sometimes walk I guess you
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  Speaker 1: could say trek for miles and miles to the center
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  Speaker 1: where there was a pay phone and probably whomever's parents
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  Speaker 1: had the worst relationship that kid would have the magazine
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  Speaker 1: that had the dirty numbers, and we would trying to
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  Speaker 1: call it see if we could talk to someone. And
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  Speaker 1: now that's you know, knowing that we obviously never got
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  Speaker 1: through and just heard those selacious interludes where somebody going,
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  Speaker 1: oh no, it seems like a strange, wholesome moment and
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  Speaker 1: a coming of age story. But it's really it's really
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  Speaker 1: weird that we were doing that. And also there are
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  Speaker 1: still a lot of a lot of people who do
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  Speaker 1: this as a part or full time job, and I
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  Speaker 1: think that does that can count as sex work, and
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  Speaker 1: that's real work. So to be clear, we're absolutely not
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  Speaker 1: at all diminishing what people are doing here. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: it takes a lot of creativity when you think about it.
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  Speaker 1: You got to be able to act, you have to
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  Speaker 1: be able to improvise, you have to be able to
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  Speaker 1: kind of paint a scene with nothing but your voice. Really,
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  Speaker 1: if you think about it, you could say podcasting owes
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  Speaker 1: a little a little bit of these phone operators, baby, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: because I mean a lot of people talk about podcasts
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  Speaker 1: being a way of kind of keeping them company. You're
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  Speaker 1: having a little bit of a companionship or sort of
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  Speaker 1: like a stand in for a friend. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: there certainly were people who maybe were shut ends who
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  Speaker 1: would use these phone sex lines to just just a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of a talk human contacts, you know. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and that's a that's again, that's a very human point.
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  Speaker 1: This was not this was the former career would be Goldberg,
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  Speaker 1: We're not sure for how long, but it was not
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  Speaker 1: the former career of politician Justin Trudeau. That would have
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  Speaker 1: been a little bit more of a story, I think
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  Speaker 1: if he was a former phone sex operator. But Justin
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  Speaker 1: Pierre James Trudeau board in nineteen seventy one in Ontario, Canada.
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  Speaker 1: Is a Canadian politician. He's all right being a politician,
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  Speaker 1: you could say, because he is the Prime Minister of Canada.
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  Speaker 1: He is the leader of the Liberal Party. He's a
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  Speaker 1: bit of a you know, people don't like the term,
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  Speaker 1: but he has been a bidding from name recognition, if
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  Speaker 1: not nepotism, because he's the son of former four time
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  Speaker 1: prime minister Pierre Trudeau, and so he was always viewed
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  Speaker 1: as having these, you know, frankly unfair advantages because of
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  Speaker 1: his childhood and because of the family came from. But
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  Speaker 1: he didn't do a straight shot, you know, like from
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  Speaker 1: college to politics. He actually had a kind of rough
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: childhood because his parents divorced when he was just six.
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  Speaker 1: That's right. Margaret, who was twenty nine years younger than
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  Speaker 1: Trudeau's father, was the daughter of Liberal MP James Sinclair
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  Speaker 1: and was kind of a fixation of tabloids who accused
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  Speaker 1: her of having dolliances, let's say, with rock stars and
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  Speaker 1: other celebrities. Finally, I guess this proved to be too
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  Speaker 1: much for the couple to take and she moved out.
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  Speaker 1: So Trudeau has two of your brothers were raised by
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  Speaker 1: their father, who Maine in politics for fifteen years. M Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And after studying at a private French language Jesuit school
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  Speaker 1: in Montreal, the same when his father went to Justin,
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  Speaker 1: Trudeaux earned a degree in English from McGill University, and
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  Speaker 1: instead of going straight into politics, he worked as a
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: snowboard instructor. Uh. Yeah, he was. He was one of
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  Speaker 1: those guys. He was a snowbro. And I'm sure was
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  Speaker 1: he like one of the bad boy kind of bully
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  Speaker 1: snowboarders that messed with the nerds and the ski lodge
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  Speaker 1: and we're always looking up with the hot ski bunnies,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you know. I hope, you know, I hope not. I
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  Speaker 1: hope he was more wholesome. But I am certain his
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: pants were too large and had a ton of pockets,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: you know, like maybe he had some Jinkos when he
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: was not bording. Let's see, this would have been the nineties, right,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: wasn't that Jico territory? Yeah? Yeah, okay, so he and
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  Speaker 1: let's hope maybe you have one of those lives and
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  Speaker 1: the longest of chain wallet, the longest chain wallet you
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  Speaker 1: can stay. And he did this while he was getting
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: a degree in education for the University of British Columbia,
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  Speaker 1: and then for a while he taught high school French
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  Speaker 1: and elementary school math, which makes you wonder, right, and
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  Speaker 1: things change. In two thousand, he's still very young, he's
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  Speaker 1: twenty eight years old, and he is at his father's
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  Speaker 1: funeral and the eulogy he delivers puts him back in
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  Speaker 1: the national spotlight, and this opens the door for him
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  Speaker 1: to enter politics. And a lot of people love his father,
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  Speaker 1: and given the tragedy, they're saying no, Like even the
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  Speaker 1: Prime Minister at the time says, there is a place
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  Speaker 1: for you justin in the Liberal Party, which is not
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: not what the average person gets. The average person doesn't
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: get the prime minister or president of their country reaching
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  Speaker 1: out and saying, hey, you're twenty eight you want to
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  Speaker 1: go into politics with us, especially after being a snowboarder,
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  Speaker 1: teaching math and French. Yeah, why don't you grind the
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: powder of policy justin? You know, nothing like that. It's
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  Speaker 1: kind of weird, right, But he doesn't enter politics for
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  Speaker 1: eight years. I think no, But presumably he's kind of
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  Speaker 1: being groomed during this time, right, Yeah, that's a good call.
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  Speaker 1: Is this before or after that embarrassing photo of him
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  Speaker 1: was taken where he was dressed in blackface. I got
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  Speaker 1: a picture. It was around this time, because that seems
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  Speaker 1: like the kind of move that a snowboard bully would pull,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: thinking that was real clever at one of those fancy
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Aspen parties. I'm guessing before I'm guessing this is one.
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  Speaker 1: It was in colleges. It was in two thousand and one.
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  Speaker 1: Oh so right now the story right now, in this story,
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  Speaker 1: and but this is after. This is after he was
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  Speaker 1: no longer teaching snowboarding. So now, man, you could take
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  Speaker 1: the bully off the slopes. You can't take the slopes
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  Speaker 1: out of the bully. Okay, Yeah, that's all right, dude.
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  Speaker 1: I have to taking it through. I'm thinking it through.
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  Speaker 1: So so so he does this black face photo, very
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  Speaker 1: very bone headed and offensive thing to do. He goes
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  Speaker 1: back to Quebec in two thousand and two. He starts
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: studying to be an engineer and he abandons it. And
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: then he starts studying environmental geography and does not complete it.
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  Speaker 1: And while he's doing all of that, he's working at
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  Speaker 1: a radio station in Montreal. He covers the two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and four Olympic Games. He gets a gig in a
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  Speaker 1: TV miniseries The Great War. He becomes a spokesperson for
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  Speaker 1: Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society unpaid, and then he serves
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  Speaker 1: as the chairman of the board of directors at a
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  Speaker 1: volunteer organization his father established. He did a lot before
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: he became Prime Minister and entered politics. I think the
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: press appreciates that he's pretty open about his past jobs.
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  Speaker 1: He did a interview with Laura Logan in sixty Minutes
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  Speaker 1: where he listed even more jobs, and we have the
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  Speaker 1: quote for you here. Some of the other ones might
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  Speaker 1: surprise you, folks. Indeed. Well, I was a snowboard instructor.
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  Speaker 1: I was a bouncer in a nightclub. I was a
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  Speaker 1: Whitewater river guide. Hey, that's in the other eighties movie
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: where he's the Whitewater river guide bully. I worked as
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  Speaker 1: a teacher. Okay, okay. I made no apologies for a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: very varied set of life experiences. Right on, man, I
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: appreciate that. Don't make an apologies, though, maybe apologize for
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the black face thing he did. He didn't just he did.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: He did a pretty good job. He didn't just apologize
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  Speaker 1: for the two thousand and one brown face he also
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: apologized for the black face he wore in high school.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: That's right, he did it more than once. And his
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: one of his statements that will will end it here
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: is this. The fact of the matter is that I've always,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and you'll know this, been more enthusiastic about costumes than
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: is sometimes appropriate. I don't love it. Do you guys
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: know about his special skill he has? Oh? What is it?
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I don't like the son? Yeah, you did for everybody it.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Max did some air quotes. Well. I learned about this
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: because when he was first running to be prime minister,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: John Oliver did a segment about him and the other
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: person who's running for prime minister, and uh, the way
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: he talks about you know, was he's like he's a
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: little he's a little aloof and he has this skill,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: his party trick he does where he falls down the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: flights of stairs. He's sort of like a fletched type figure. Yeah,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: sort of a Chevy Chase. Is it? Is it really
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: a trick like he is purposely doing Pratt falls? Yep, yeah,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: yeah he does. He doesn't for the person doing the interview,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: like they had a clip of him just falling down
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: a flight of stairs to get Stuffing's like, I'm fine,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I love that, I would I do that. That sounds
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: like fun, but he also real facts he did. He
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: did also profusely apologize he was able to save his
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: political career. But speaking of saving things, we have saved
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the best for the last. In this episode of Surprising
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Former Careers, it's the man, the myth, the legend, the Eyes,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Peter lore Eyes, one of our favorite most distinctively faced actors.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: You know him from what Khan Air? Probably Reservoir Dogs,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Cohn Air, Yeah, stealing, maybe that matters. Also caught airy
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Steve Steve Bushey, who seems like a really good dude
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: off screen, right, he totally does. And I think I
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: think this one some folks might know about this one. Um,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: we're gonna give you a little more detail. Steve BUSHEMI
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: actually was kind of a real life hero. He was
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: a firefighter before becoming the quirky, amazing character actor that
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: we know and love today. He was a New York
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: City firefighter and then actually came back and volunteered as
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: a firefighter again after September eleventh to how you know,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: his former brethren, you know and the NYFD, Yes exactly,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And he talks about this. He says, my dad was
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: a sanitation worker for New York City. His message to
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: me and my brothers was, when you turn eighteen, take
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: whatever civil service test is available. Lucky for me it
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: was the fire departments. I didn't yet know what I
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: wanted to do for a career, but at Engine fifty
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: five and Lower Manhattan I found something even better. Brotherhood.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Steve Bushemi was not born into wealth and aristocracy. He
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: was born to working class parents in Brooklyn in nineteen
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: fifty seven. They eventually moved out to Long Island, and
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: this guy was, you know, your average kid. He was
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: good at wrestling, soccer, he liked doing theater, but he
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't confident enough. I think at this time maybe he
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: didn't see it as an attainable job. So he takes
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: his civil service exam and he goes on a couple
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: of years of odd jobs while he's waiting to get
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: a chance to work at the Fire Department of New York.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: He he is a gas station attendant. He drives an
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: ice cream truck, which now seems really creepy for Steve
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Brushemi given some of his other roles. That's a really
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: good point. I mean, look, the man is a legend.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: He is absolutely uh and one of my favorite actors
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I think of all time. He's got a look that
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: he does a bit of a crypt keepery type vibe
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: and in a in a in a you know, in
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: those ice cream man whites rolling around beckoning young children
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: come hither. That's a little on the creepy side. I
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: mean he doesn't he doesn't have a trust me to
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: sell ice cream face, you know what I mean? Like
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: if I if I saw him roll and we should
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: do a thing a history of ice cream trucks too,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: because that gets sketchy pretty quickly. Uh. Yeah. So while
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: he's doing this, he's feeling somenwie. It's kind of aimless existence.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: We've all been there when life feels a little too
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: much like a waiting room. He spends these what are
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: called empty nights at a local bar. This becomes the
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: basis for a film he makes in nineteen ninety seven
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: called Trees Lounge. And before all that happens years before,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: he finally summons up the nerve to go into an
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: acting class at the Lee Strasbourg Institute in Manhattan, and
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: we can go into depth about all the stuff he
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: was trying to do. He didn't have an easy time
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: coming around to it, but eventually he gets involved. He
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: starts doing stand up comedy, He starts making some inroads
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: in the somewhat insular downtown theater communities. In nineteen eighty
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: he gets the top of the New York Fire Department list,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and so that's when he signs up to work at
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Engine number fifty five in Soho. And originally he's just
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: treating this like a job, you know what I mean
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: That acting, the performing stuff, that's a hobby. He thinks
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: of himself professionally as a firefighter, But when he goes
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to parties with his co workers, he starts doing some
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: stand up for his fellow firefighters. I hope it's very
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: firefighter specific comedy too, Like how Fred Armison did that
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: stand up for drummers? Do you guys remember that? Oh? Yeah, no, no,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: it's super cool. I haven't seen them live, but I've
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: definitely seen some clips from it. And that guy's genuine
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: incredible musician and has a lot of history with excellent bands,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: like he's friends with Carry Brownstein because he was actually
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: in bands that played with Lear Kenney and a lot
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: of those you know, legendary Seattle bands from the nineties. Yeah,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: and so Steve eventually is thinking, you know, I want
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: to focus more and more on acting, and so he
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: starts to doing more and more comedy, and over the
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: next eight years he performs with a comedy duo they
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: call himself Stephen Mark him and a guy named Mark
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Boone Junior, and they get love from The New York Times.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: They start producing entirely new shows every week, which has
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of work, and now the guys starting to
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: feel sort of torn between two worlds. Am I an actor?
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Am I a firefighter? Yeah? And I mean he was
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: look this all this speaks to this Steve Bishiming having
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: an absolute heart of gold because he was able to
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: kind of answer that question, and I think he's both,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: you know, the firefighter kind of spirit never really left him,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and he was able to truly lend a hand, not
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: just with his select pretty but an actual hand, you know,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: helping clear debris and do all kinds of things of
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the you know, I mean of all of the mean.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: I know, the NYPD was hugely helpful as well, but
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: it was really the fire Department that kind of came
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: out as the true Heroes of nine to eleven. Yeah,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: so he had he was one of them. Yeah, he
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: had left the fire department. He told himself, you know,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not quitting my job. I'm taking a leave of
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: absence and I'll be back when I'm done with this
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: movie and this play I'm working on. But when he leaves,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: it takes like seventeen years pass. He is in Miller's Crossing,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Barton Fink, Fargo, Big Lebowski, pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: of course, most famously, the seminal work, the cinema work
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: of cinema call a Air. Yes, yes, right, I mean,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: look at the very least it generated one of the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: most incredible gifts of all time, which is just Nicholas
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Cage with his fake flowing locks, just like Fabio blowing
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: in the wind. You know. Oh yeah, that was That
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: was a crazy time for film too. You know The
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Rock was right around that time as well, with Sean Connery. Anyway,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: do you know The Rock has a Criterion Collection edition? Yes, yeah,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I don't don't think Khair does. But The Rock for
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: some reason was worthy of that of to be included
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: in the Cannon. You know, well, I mean Kahn Air
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: is on the level of Jeff Goldbloom and Cindy Lauper's vibes,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like it's Criterion has to
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: earn enough prestige to be able to issue a collection
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: with those or an addition with those, and you know,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: maybe they'll get there one day, because Steve Bushemy became
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: a world class actor, so maybe one day Criterion can
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: afford the rights to Khanair. Oh. You know what I'm
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: realizing again this is I love Steve Bishemy and he
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: his look as a person is not the issue here.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: I think what's happening is I'm remembering his character in Khane, Right,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: that's what does a child molester, you know, just right?
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Or a serial killer, not a child serial killer, but
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: also potential child There's there's serious MOLESTI vibes where there's
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: like a girl in a in an empty swimming pool
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: or something and he's just kind of really leering and this,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: you know, like I'm not letting go of vibes. You know,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I really think Criterion Channel should consider it. I completely agree.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Vibes has vibes for days. Yes, yeah, yeah, an old
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: bloomiest gold Bloom performance you'll ever see very much so,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, good luck to you criterion. So
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Boushimi does like you said, No, this is a heart
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: of gold moment. Bushiman does return to service as a firefighter.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: He wins an a list actor because he says the following.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: One of the strongest sensations that flooded over me on
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: September eleven, two thousand and one was that feeling of
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: connection referring to that firefighter brotherhood. The next morning, I
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: grabbed my old gear, got a lift to the site,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: found a place on a bucket brigade. Instead of water
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: going up, it was rubbled coming down. Once in a while,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: a body bag was passed, though none weighed much at all,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: was disturbing the dust. It was more of a nuisance.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Pulverized concrete and who knows what the clogged to face
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: mask so fast you worked better without one. Somebody'd say
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: this is probably going to kill us in twenty years.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: It actually felt good to be there. I was on
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the site for less than a week, but it wasn't
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: until I got home the magnitude of it all caught
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: up with me. I was already seeing a therapist and
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: thought it was almost impossible to process the enormity of
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: what had happened. Just having someone with whom to sit
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: with all the feelings was a consolation, not something first
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: responders usually get. Announcing vulnerability is a hard thing for anyone,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: but especially for people whose primary identity is as a protector.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: And that's where we're going to pause today. This is
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: not the end of Former Careers, which seems like one
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: long episode, but we do hope you enjoyed it. And
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: as always, the moral of this story, if moral there be,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: is that people contain multitudes, and some of your favorite
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: or most hated prominent historical and public figures have been
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of other things before the spotlight ever turned
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: to them. And you know who knows, looking back through
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: the decades or the centuries, maybe one day future historians
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: will say, funny thing about those guys is they used
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: to host a podcast. Indeed, Also, I just want to ask,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: what is y'all's most ridiculous former career. I don't think
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: we've done this before on these Oh yeah, I think
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I know, Maybe I know yours, bem. You might always
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: surprised me. Mine would probably be I worked at a
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: science center doing like science shows for kids, school groups,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: things where you like, you know, rub the boon on
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: your hair and make static and we had like one
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: of those plasma balls and things like that. It was
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. It actually honestly was a It prepared me
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: for you know, public speaking and this kind of stuff.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: It was kind of fun. Ben. I think I might
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: know ears, but but give it to us. What's what
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: would you say yourars might be. I'm trying to I'm
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: trying to think through it. No, Um, I would need
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: to defer. Max. You can you vamp some stage time
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: for me? What about you? But unless you can guess
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: because I'm having a hard time thinking which one was
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: the weirdest? I know you wrote for a golf magazine,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: which is kind of just so out of character for
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: you that I just always will remember that as long
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: as I live. That was That was one. I don't
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: know if it's the strangest, but yeah, thank you. I
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: totally forgot about that. He brought it up. It was
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: a weird drift, all right, you, mister Williams. Yeah, so
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: it wasn't selling Windows store at or but that was
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: pretty bad and weird one. It was working this place
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: called Zamba fun Land, which was um the way we
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: described it was if Chuck E Cheese kind of fell
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: on a hard time, this is the place he would have. Yeah,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: and I mean Chucky Cheese already feels like if Chuck
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: e Cheese fell in a hard time. Yeah, Chucky Geese
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: harder is like hanging on by the fingernails of life. Right. Wait,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: So Zamba Zamba Zamba fun. It was a privately owned
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: play area in Dunwoody. I was like nineteen freshman in
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: college and I was that technician, so I had to
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: fix the animatronics. They did not know unfortunately now, but
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: they did have you know, ski ball, and they have
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: that one of the light spins around the time it right,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: and you know, kids are coming up shoving tokens in it.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: It was a very strange place I found out. Eventually,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: my friend Ryland got me the job there so he
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: could have someone else work with him, so he could
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: just go outside and get high. Oh yeah, no, I
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: always assumed that a lot of people. How else would
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you get through the day working in some of those things? Uh?
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Surprising former careers. Indeed, I'm still trying to think what
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: the weirdest legal job I had was. Uh, well, this
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: is a story for maybe another day. But uh, but no,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I do have to reply like you are right. I did.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I did write some stuff for golf magazines and the
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: person who hired me said that I didn't have to
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: visit the courses and they were they were fine with
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: being not a knowing much about golf or be being
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: interested in it. So that's so read Golf Magazines with
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: the grain assault. In the meantime, we can't wait for
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: you to join us for some future episodes. Folks. We
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: got a lot of cool stuff on the way. We're
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: gonna call it a day here. Thanks as always to
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: our superproducer mister Max Williams, Thanks to Zamba fun Land,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: thanks to the Science Museum Noel that you worked at,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Alex Williams who composed this track, and thanks
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: to everybody who's had a really weird job in the past.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: I think they're formative for people's character, you know what
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: I mean? Completely agree and thanks again. It's a super
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: producer and research associates, Max Williams for rolling out another
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: banger of a research brief. This is a fun one.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: I look forward to continuing this occasional ongoing series. Yes, yes, yes,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: and here's two continuing our surprising current career. We'll see
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: you next time, folks. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.