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Resilience and Reinvention In Hollywood: Charlie Mattera Chooses Life Part 1 · All About The Joy

• 0:09
  Carmen Lezeth: You have such great reception, wherever you are Well you're going to stand like that the whole time.
• 0:15
  Charlie Mattera: Hey, I was going to walk around the neighborhood.
• 0:18
  Carmen Lezeth: I love this, for us this is Chase Bank.
• 0:21
  Carmen Lezeth: Ok, but you're not going to get tired because you know we're going to talk about some stuff.
• 0:25
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't care, ok, so first, let me just say welcome to the private lounge, charlie Matera.
• 0:30
  Carmen Lezeth: I created this for people like you who never are able to meet with me on Thursday night, so I appreciate you doing this.
• 0:37
  Carmen Lezeth: I do.
• 0:38
  Charlie Mattera: Well, you know I'm working all week and then you know I'm having the nonstop disappointments of whatever audition or thing you didn't get, or whatever callback you didn't get, or whatever it might be.
• 0:49
  Charlie Mattera: So that's just like oh no no, it's not.
• 0:53
  Carmen Lezeth: That's what I'm saying.
• 0:53
  Carmen Lezeth: We all are in that boat, so I don't want to turn around and make it like you know what I mean.
• 0:57
  Carmen Lezeth: I was trying to make it easier for people.
• 0:59
  Carmen Lezeth: So I love this for us and I'm glad you're doing this for me.
• 1:02
  Carmen Lezeth: I appreciate you being so supportive, but so Well, you're such a New Yorker with the, with the chewing gum.
• 1:11
  Charlie Mattera: Because I remember, I know that O'Neill used to say to me he goes, look at this guy.
• 1:15
  Charlie Mattera: We're like watching a movie.
• 1:16
  Charlie Mattera: He'd go, look at this.
• 1:17
  Charlie Mattera: He'd say who's the director?
• 1:19
  Charlie Mattera: I go.
• 1:20
  Charlie Mattera: What?
• 1:20
  Charlie Mattera: He goes?
• 1:21
  Charlie Mattera: Who's the?
• 1:22
  Charlie Mattera: Who's the unit production manager?
• 1:24
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 1:24
  Charlie Mattera: You guys freaking chewing gum in the movie.
• 1:27
  Charlie Mattera: Figuring is not to get that out of there.
• 1:31
  Charlie Mattera: Ok, wait.
• 1:32
  Carmen Lezeth: So do you want to talk about Ryan?
• 1:34
  Carmen Lezeth: And then that could be a conversation.
• 1:37
  Charlie Mattera: I don't mind.
• 1:38
  Charlie Mattera: I could talk about everything, but I could talk about Ryan.
• 1:40
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, no, no, I mean because we lost him in December and I know you and Ryan O'Neill were pretty close.
• 1:46
  Charlie Mattera: Let me tell you something, probably one of the funniest, craziest people I've ever met in my whole life.
• 1:53
  Charlie Mattera: I had a lot of laughs with him.
• 1:55
  Charlie Mattera: You know there were times I wanted to.
• 1:56
  Charlie Mattera: You know I wanted to geeky, geeky and look at a chocom, you know.
• 1:59
  Charlie Mattera: But you know most of the time he was the big brother I really never had.
• 2:06
  Charlie Mattera: You know.
• 2:07
  Carmen Lezeth: How did you guys meet?
• 2:08
  Carmen Lezeth: I never heard the story of how you guys met.
• 2:11
  Charlie Mattera: I walked into his gym.
• 2:12
  Charlie Mattera: He used to have the gym in the club.
• 2:15
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my god yes, in San Vicente, Not San.
• 2:18
  Charlie Mattera: Vicente.
• 2:18
  Carmen Lezeth: It was off of Montana right.
• 2:21
  Charlie Mattera: Remember it was called Pro Gym.
• 2:22
  Charlie Mattera: You know what that means.
• 2:24
  Charlie Mattera: Yep, wait, I'm sorry.
• 2:25
  Charlie Mattera: Volume OK, ok, I'm losing you.
• 2:29
  Carmen Lezeth: You're going in and out a bit.
• 2:30
  Carmen Lezeth: Maybe you should go back in your car.
• 2:31
  Carmen Lezeth: You're going in and out now.
• 2:33
  Charlie Mattera: That meant Patrick Ryan O'Neill Pro Gym.
• 2:39
  Carmen Lezeth: Can I just tell you I was sitting there trying to figure out how I met him.
• 2:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I could not remember how I had met him, and that's right.
• 2:47
  Carmen Lezeth: I was a member of the gym for like a minute.
• 2:53
  Charlie Mattera: Well, everybody, and his mama was in that gym.
• 2:56
  Charlie Mattera: You know what I mean.
• 2:57
  Charlie Mattera: You'd walk in there to go work out and there was Cindy Crawford.
• 3:01
  Charlie Mattera: It was like Caleb Deschanel.
• 3:06
  Charlie Mattera: There would be the guy I forget his name, Kate Beckinsfield.
• 3:11
  Charlie Mattera: There would be a heart-pounding, the door.
• 3:12
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, because it's the neighborhood.
• 3:13
  Carmen Lezeth: It's the neighborhood we live in.
• 3:15
  Charlie Mattera: Well, no, not only that, that gym was sort of a sanctuary for the entertainment crowd, because they knew they could go there and it wasn't a hassle and, truthfully, they would be around their own kind in a lot of ways and everybody was kind of wouldn't.
• 3:33
  Charlie Mattera: It was like you didn't mention it.
• 3:34
  Charlie Mattera: It was the funniest thing, because when I used to work out in there, the bigger the star you were, the more I would just like I would see you.
• 3:41
  Charlie Mattera: I'd be working out at the gym and I'd look over and I'd see you, or I'd walk past you and I'd go and they think I was going to go like hey, you know, hey, you want to give me that 20 pounder, right, I'd walk past them like they were ghosts.
• 3:55
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what's so funny?
• 3:56
  Carmen Lezeth: I really did forget that he had it just hit me when you just said that, but I forgot that that's where I had met him.
• 4:03
  Carmen Lezeth: So weird.
• 4:05
  Charlie Mattera: I remember I went and I went in that gym thinking, you know, maybe I might run into somebody with the fuck, you know, sell the screenplay, get a gig, you know.
• 4:14
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't know.
• 4:14
  Carmen Lezeth: Are you serious?
• 4:15
  Carmen Lezeth: Why are you joined?
• 4:17
  Charlie Mattera: Well, I lived right there and I said you know, if I'm trying to get working the entertainment business, wow, and I just go join that gym.
• 4:23
  Charlie Mattera: Everybody and his mom is in there.
• 4:25
  Charlie Mattera: You know, fuck, trying to get, I never spoke to anybody in our neighborhood?
• 4:30
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't ever, you know how you did it.
• 4:32
  Charlie Mattera: You know my boy, todd, who I write with Todd Newman.
• 4:34
  Charlie Mattera: He's very talented director.
• 4:36
  Charlie Mattera: He directed the documentary about Dave Navarro called Morning Son.
• 4:41
  Charlie Mattera: You know the guitar player Dave Navarro.
• 4:43
  Charlie Mattera: Rock and roll guy.
• 4:44
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 4:45
  Charlie Mattera: It's a hell of a picture called Morning Son, about his life and what he went through growing up and tragedy and holy shit.
• 4:52
  Charlie Mattera: I don't know how the guy functions after what he went through as a kid His mom got killed by a boyfriend of hers, his mom and his mom's best friend and he was literally in school and came home to this.
• 5:05
  Charlie Mattera: You know, and he knew the guy, he was very freaky, yeah, so the documentary talks about that and then he actually goes to San Quentin this guy's on death row and goes and visits him and faces him.
• 5:17
  Charlie Mattera: You know, for the first time in like 20 something years, the guy who killed his mother.
• 5:22
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh my.
• 5:23
  Carmen Lezeth: God.
• 5:24
  Carmen Lezeth: Ok, I do have to watch that.
• 5:26
  Charlie Mattera: I told him I was like Dave, God bless me.
• 5:29
  Charlie Mattera: I don't know how you do that, but you know, great guy, great guy.
• 5:33
  Charlie Mattera: It's funny because a lot of people are who are enamored of celebrities and when you meet them, a lot of them are just, you know, just regular people.
• 5:44
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, they're just banging nails.
• 5:46
  Charlie Mattera: You know, it's just a job.
• 5:47
  Charlie Mattera: And if they the best ones, the best ones.
• 5:52
  Charlie Mattera: I think the most talented ones seem to have been people before they ever got into the business.
• 5:57
  Charlie Mattera: Of course they had real jobs, Right, Right, you know I met one guy I'm not going to say his name, but he's a big star now and this guy was literally working to destruction.
• 6:07
  Charlie Mattera: You know, with me up on a roof.
• 6:09
  Carmen Lezeth: Right Somewhere.
• 6:10
  Charlie Mattera: Until one day I was doing some bullshit horror movie, this crazy horror movie, and Ryan was going to do it with me.
• 6:20
  Charlie Mattera: He wanted to do it with me.
• 6:21
  Charlie Mattera: No, the only reason why he wanted to do it with me?
• 6:23
  Charlie Mattera: Because he didn't want to stay home.
• 6:25
  Charlie Mattera: He goes what are you doing?
• 6:26
  Charlie Mattera: I said I want to do this horror movie.
• 6:27
  Charlie Mattera: He goes well, they need some.
• 6:29
  Charlie Mattera: I said wait, wait, give me.
• 6:30
  Charlie Mattera: He said you know it's a million dollar price.
• 6:32
  Charlie Mattera: He goes what the fuck?
• 6:33
  Charlie Mattera: We'll go, hang out.
• 6:33
  Charlie Mattera: They'll pay us.
• 6:34
  Charlie Mattera: You know he goes we'll chill out.
• 6:36
  Charlie Mattera: You know we'll smoke.
• 6:37
  Charlie Mattera: See, he was so cool like that he was so cool, so you know how great it was.
• 6:42
  Charlie Mattera: Like I would be on the set of a film and they go.
• 6:45
  Charlie Mattera: God, we need to die in his 60s, got a good look, was cool, was good acting I would say I got a guy for that.
• 6:53
  Charlie Mattera: And they go Charlie, come on, get the fuck out of here.
• 6:55
  Charlie Mattera: I go, wait, wait, let me make a phone call and I reach out to her.
• 6:57
  Charlie Mattera: He goes hey, ryan, you want to work?
• 6:59
  Charlie Mattera: And he goes Ryan, what are you doing?
• 7:00
  Charlie Mattera: And they go this is it.
• 7:01
  Charlie Mattera: And they would go, ryan, who?
• 7:02
  Charlie Mattera: I go Ryan O'Neill.
• 7:04
  Charlie Mattera: And they go what I go?
• 7:05
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, yeah, I said Ryan, I'll tell you what.
• 7:08
  Charlie Mattera: I'll have him send the car by the house, small, right, pick you up, I'll be in it, me, and you will go.
• 7:12
  Charlie Mattera: We'll go have some fun, shut the fuck up.
• 7:14
  Charlie Mattera: And they get off the phone, these guys.
• 7:16
  Charlie Mattera: And they go.
• 7:18
  Charlie Mattera: Man, how are we going to pay him?
• 7:19
  Charlie Mattera: It's Ryan O'Neill.
• 7:20
  Charlie Mattera: I said I already spoke to him about that.
• 7:22
  Charlie Mattera: He said take the money and give it to the old actors home.
• 7:24
  Charlie Mattera: You know this is what he would do and he would come work with me for like two, three days and we would literally be in tears, correct, the whole time.
• 7:37
  Charlie Mattera: Even in it he was one of those guys.
• 7:40
  Charlie Mattera: This is what's great about movies you can watch a shit movie.
• 7:44
  Charlie Mattera: You can watch any shit movie and you look in the background not just the 56th guy in the back and you go.
• 7:52
  Charlie Mattera: You know what this movie sucks, but that guy is awesome, he's got something.
• 7:57
  Charlie Mattera: That guy's worked.
• 7:58
  Charlie Mattera: He's going to go somewhere and we would always have fun finding that guy.
• 8:05
  Charlie Mattera: And we would always have fun finding that guy that, whatever in the film world that we would do, and I go, I'd say, right, he go, you're not kids, not bad, I go, he's pretty good.
• 8:13
  Charlie Mattera: Huh, he goes.
• 8:14
  Charlie Mattera: Hey, come to come on in here some coffee with us, you know, and this is what I would do and come in.
• 8:20
  Charlie Mattera: Oh, she's Mr O'Neill, you know he goes first.
• 8:23
  Charlie Mattera: Look, take a picture with me, show it to your mom.
• 8:25
  Charlie Mattera: I'm sure your mom will freak out.
• 8:26
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 8:29
  Charlie Mattera: My back color.
• 8:31
  Charlie Mattera: Oh he's cool, you're not right.
• 8:33
  Charlie Mattera: You know, man, believe me, nobody else wants to be me right now, like my friend Kimmy.
• 8:40
  Charlie Mattera: My buddy, Kimmy Talbot, is a Boston, southie guy and we would do in love letters, me, Rye and Ali, like 11 cities and we go to Boston and I go a ride.
• 8:57
  Charlie Mattera: No, he said to me.
• 8:58
  Charlie Mattera: He said to me it was your boy, timmy Talbot.
• 9:01
  Charlie Mattera: Isn't he up here?
• 9:02
  Charlie Mattera: He goes, the guy you said.
• 9:04
  Charlie Mattera: I said, yeah, yeah, timmy's here.
• 9:05
  Charlie Mattera: I said he said, come up.
• 9:06
  Charlie Mattera: So I called Timmy, I left you and I spoke to him in like a year and a half, two years.
• 9:10
  Charlie Mattera: He's like hey, charlie, how's it going?
• 9:12
  Charlie Mattera: I go, I go.
• 9:14
  Charlie Mattera: I go.
• 9:14
  Charlie Mattera: Well, you're hanging out with Dooley Patty, you know.
• 9:19
  Charlie Mattera: And he starts laughing and he goes no, it's not.
• 9:21
  Charlie Mattera: I go.
• 9:22
  Charlie Mattera: You know we're doing the play right.
• 9:23
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 9:23
  Charlie Mattera: I saw the posters all over town.
• 9:25
  Charlie Mattera: I said, well, right here, and he's like hey.
• 9:28
  Charlie Mattera: Timmy and then Jimmy, he goes.
• 9:31
  Charlie Mattera: Get your mom, get your aunt, get the whole crew together.
• 9:35
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 9:35
  Charlie Mattera: I'm a kid, this 10, the dozen of them.
• 9:37
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 9:38
  Charlie Mattera: Hook it up with Charlie, get some tickets and show he's a show up early.
• 9:41
  Charlie Mattera: You come in the back, meet Ali with your mom and the ladies and we'll get some laughs in and he goes.
• 9:48
  Charlie Mattera: And then, you know, go check out the show.
• 9:50
  Charlie Mattera: He goes in.
• 9:50
  Charlie Mattera: Then after we'll all go get something.
• 9:52
  Charlie Mattera: You know he's me and your whole family and Ali.
• 9:55
  Charlie Mattera: He was just the real deal, he was well, you know it's, then they're not around anymore.
• 10:01
  Charlie Mattera: You know, the only other guy I hung out with who's like that was Pierce Brosnan.
• 10:06
  Charlie Mattera: Just years ago I had lunch with him at that place, in the grill in Beverly Hills.
• 10:14
  Charlie Mattera: You know, forget about.
• 10:15
  Carmen Lezeth: So here's my question.
• 10:16
  Carmen Lezeth: I wanted to ask you if you were okay.
• 10:18
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, I know you did a whole movie about this, but, um, because I think that's them, I can't find that movie anywhere either.
• 10:25
  Carmen Lezeth: What is it?
• 10:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, yeah, I know I owned it for some reason.
• 10:29
  Charlie Mattera: I know I you know what if I would have made that movie myself.
• 10:33
  Charlie Mattera: Jordan's a great guy and me you want to see a better movie.
• 10:36
  Charlie Mattera: The better movie is.
• 10:38
  Charlie Mattera: The first one is a black and white film called love and happiness.
• 10:41
  Charlie Mattera: Jordan Allen, who made terminal bliss Okay with, was Lou Perry and I think who else is in there.
• 10:50
  Charlie Mattera: There was some big kids who became big.
• 10:53
  Charlie Mattera: It was sort of like his lesson zero Okay do you?
• 10:56
  Carmen Lezeth: need to attach your your phone to your whatever I don't have a thing with attached.
• 11:01
  Charlie Mattera: Oh, I'm low-tech.
• 11:04
  Carmen Lezeth: It's not about low-tech, that's just the thing you buy and it holds you phone, oh.
• 11:09
  Charlie Mattera: I think I bought they all suck.
• 11:11
  Carmen Lezeth: I've yet to find one that's really any, yeah, no, I just go back is.
• 11:13
  Charlie Mattera: I don't want to get tired anything, they keep falling out of the air conditioning, you know, and especially when you're driving you know I look at, I never use my phone in my car, so I just don't want you to be uncomfortable.
• 11:27
  Carmen Lezeth: No, I'm.
• 11:28
  Carmen Lezeth: So.
• 11:29
  Carmen Lezeth: Here's my question, because I think one of the things I found surprising about you because you, you were incarcerated and I didn't know if you wanted to talk about that or share that information.
• 11:37
  Carmen Lezeth: I I find that to be one of the most amazing things about you.
• 11:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Not because you were, you became.
• 11:46
  Charlie Mattera: I am no problem.
• 11:46
  Charlie Mattera: I have no problem with that.
• 11:48
  Charlie Mattera: Hey look, you do stupid stuff.
• 11:51
  Charlie Mattera: You want to be a gangster, you better be prepared to get locked up.
• 11:55
  Charlie Mattera: That's just part of them.
• 11:56
  Charlie Mattera: That's part of the job.
• 11:58
  Charlie Mattera: Right, you know.
• 11:59
  Charlie Mattera: Right, you got a guy where you keep money.
• 12:01
  Charlie Mattera: Just for that reason, bail bondsman money.
• 12:05
  Charlie Mattera: You know you got to prepare.
• 12:06
  Charlie Mattera: You don't walk out of the house.
• 12:07
  Charlie Mattera: You're gonna be a burglar.
• 12:08
  Charlie Mattera: You don't walk out of the house without your tools.
• 12:10
  Charlie Mattera: You're gonna be a carpenter.
• 12:13
  Carmen Lezeth: You're gonna have a ham right a couple of things, but you never thought you were gonna get caught.
• 12:20
  Charlie Mattera: No, you know what the back of my mind, I knew I always get caught well, do you want?
• 12:24
  Charlie Mattera: To tell people what you actually know people are curious, you know, because remember when I got caught.
• 12:29
  Charlie Mattera: When I got caught Literally, and I was sitting where I was sitting, I breathe the sigh relief I was but what did you do?
• 12:38
  Carmen Lezeth: You need to explain to people what you did I.
• 12:41
  Charlie Mattera: Did everything the robbed, I stole a lie that cheated.
• 12:46
  Carmen Lezeth: But is it the movie the gentleman?
• 12:47
  Carmen Lezeth: What is it?
• 12:48
  Carmen Lezeth: The gentleman Disorder based on this whole kind of?
• 12:53
  Charlie Mattera: Oh, it's all bullshit.
• 12:55
  Charlie Mattera: It's the only thing.
• 12:56
  Charlie Mattera: It's all bullshit.
• 12:57
  Charlie Mattera: The only thing real is is that I went out of my way to screw my life up.
• 13:03
  Charlie Mattera: Really, you know, and if you had, if you had something and I wanted it, it was only a matter of time.
• 13:09
  Charlie Mattera: I need to shit who you were.
• 13:10
  Charlie Mattera: I was gonna get it, you know okay but that was just.
• 13:15
  Charlie Mattera: I saw rich people with stuff and cars and Not jewelry, but just look beautiful in the clothes and I had nothing, man.
• 13:24
  Charlie Mattera: You know, I had no old man around, straight me out.
• 13:27
  Charlie Mattera: He was more concerned.
• 13:28
  Charlie Mattera: We get laid right and and, and my mother was so mad at him that I was just the evil man you know that to be destroyed, especially because I looked exactly like her right so.
• 13:42
  Charlie Mattera: I think more her trying to hurt herself instead of me, and I had a crazy sister I Considered a mother or sister, you know, and and I represented all the men that left them.
• 13:57
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 13:58
  Charlie Mattera: You know you're a tough childhood.
• 14:00
  Carmen Lezeth: You did not have an easy childhood.
• 14:03
  Charlie Mattera: No, I was not what I would call some Norman Rockwell shit.
• 14:07
  Charlie Mattera: It was the absolute opposite right.
• 14:10
  Charlie Mattera: But you know what?
• 14:13
  Charlie Mattera: I the worst things that have happened to me in my life.
• 14:17
  Charlie Mattera: I made it my job to take those and Make myself a better person.
• 14:22
  Charlie Mattera: Right, because I truly believe if those things didn't happen.
• 14:28
  Charlie Mattera: I wouldn't be the guy I am now.
• 14:29
  Charlie Mattera: I mean, I'm in the last part of my my, my life, you know the last 20 to last quarter.
• 14:37
  Charlie Mattera: But you would have, and you know I'm happier now Then I ever was.
• 14:43
  Charlie Mattera: Before I had plenty of fun.
• 14:45
  Charlie Mattera: You know I had false fun and then I had genuine when I met you in like 2002 or something.
• 14:52
  Charlie Mattera: Something like that.
• 14:54
  Charlie Mattera: I came to California in like 1990, right.
• 14:57
  Charlie Mattera: I must end in you.
• 14:58
  Charlie Mattera: I don't know about 98, 99 right in there 2000 something.
• 15:02
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean 2002, when I met you.
• 15:04
  Carmen Lezeth: I thought you were amazing.
• 15:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Then you were.
• 15:06
  Carmen Lezeth: You were already living your best life in an authentic way.
• 15:11
  Charlie Mattera: Well, I was doing the thing you know with the screenplays and I was like I was getting work.
• 15:16
  Charlie Mattera: I got in the union, I got you know, I was like you were amazing.
• 15:21
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, wait, wait, here's something you don't remember.
• 15:23
  Carmen Lezeth: So you know I grew up with a lot of people and I know a lot of people who went to prison a lot, but when a friend of mine's kid ended up in trouble I don't think you remember this I called you, and I called you because you were one of the few people you're one of three people I know that were in in prison, got out of prison and made their lives Better.
• 15:45
  Carmen Lezeth: You didn't go back to all the bad stuff.
• 15:49
  Charlie Mattera: That would have been easy.
• 15:51
  Carmen Lezeth: I Love that.
• 15:52
  Charlie Mattera: That was easy because when I'm a New York guy who's got some scars, comes out the LA.
• 16:00
  Charlie Mattera: These people are so fucking soft out here they're very lucky.
• 16:04
  Charlie Mattera: They have no idea that if the right four or five guys came out here you could take the whole state.
• 16:09
  Charlie Mattera: I mean literally they don't get it.
• 16:13
  Charlie Mattera: You know they're not California.
• 16:16
  Charlie Mattera: People are non confrontational.
• 16:19
  Charlie Mattera: That's right, they do not like being called under bullshit behavior.
• 16:22
  Charlie Mattera: Right, they do not like being confronted and they are extremely Fear.
• 16:29
  Charlie Mattera: They fear everything.
• 16:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 16:31
  Charlie Mattera: I'm sorry.
• 16:32
  Charlie Mattera: I mean I met some great people out here, but you know this is not a state loaded with balls, you know it's just, it's never has wait wait, you're talking about Hollywood people, right?
• 16:45
  Carmen Lezeth: You're not actually talking about the whole state of.
• 16:46
  Charlie Mattera: California.
• 16:48
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, I'm talking about Hollywood people, the street people I've met out here a Rock, right you know, to surf guys, the beach bombs, they got nothing to hide, they were all genuine.
• 16:59
  Charlie Mattera: I can hang out with anybody.
• 17:01
  Charlie Mattera: I could talk to anybody, always did.
• 17:03
  Charlie Mattera: You know?
• 17:04
  Charlie Mattera: I've been places, man, you would, you would never walk in a million years.
• 17:08
  Charlie Mattera: And my wife would say to me you know, is this anyway, we need to be right now.
• 17:14
  Charlie Mattera: You know, oh, the way, by the way, but it's so cool.
• 17:17
  Charlie Mattera: And then run into like sketchy crew and all sudden wanted a people out of the to go.
• 17:21
  Charlie Mattera: So and she goes.
• 17:27
  Charlie Mattera: You know, these people, I go again.
• 17:28
  Charlie Mattera: Those people, friends of mine, man, these are the guys.
• 17:30
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, trivenals, they're bad guys.
• 17:33
  Charlie Mattera: I go to other people.
• 17:35
  Charlie Mattera: They're very guys.
• 17:35
  Charlie Mattera: For me they're not big yeah, I think that's.
• 17:37
  Carmen Lezeth: What people don't understand is that you can have a past and have moments where things didn't work out.
• 17:42
  Carmen Lezeth: That doesn't mean you're a bad person.
• 17:44
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, like everyone does the best.
• 17:49
  Charlie Mattera: I look at it this way I paid for my that's right two thousand tons, nobody else, just paid for that.
• 17:55
  Carmen Lezeth: That's right.
• 17:56
  Charlie Mattera: You have no idea.
• 17:57
  Charlie Mattera: You know I look at this way not to be religious because I'm not a religious guy.
• 18:00
  Charlie Mattera: But whatever the grand poob are, mystic, majestic ruler up there, the Toronto things, or is, george Carlin would say, the giant, or you know.
• 18:11
  Charlie Mattera: Whatever it is, you know it has way of Cutting your space off.
• 18:20
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah if you're too fucking out of control.
• 18:23
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah and what it does is, if you're really out of control.
• 18:26
  Charlie Mattera: It puts you in a room the size of a friggin closet, about eight by six.
• 18:33
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah and then you have no Alternative but to look at you, okay, and figure out what is it about you that brought you to this, to find your fucking self, do you?
• 18:47
  Carmen Lezeth: regret that that had to happen, or are you saying no, I thank God for that.
• 18:53
  Charlie Mattera: I thank God they locked me up.
• 18:54
  Charlie Mattera: I needed it.
• 18:55
  Charlie Mattera: If they wouldn't lock me up, I'd be dead how long?
• 18:57
  Carmen Lezeth: how long were you locked up for?
• 19:00
  Charlie Mattera: long fucking time.
• 19:01
  Charlie Mattera: Okay yeah, high school, high school in college Wow, in one stretch.
• 19:10
  Carmen Lezeth: Wow.
• 19:11
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, almost eight years, wow, buddy and change, and I'm glad they did it.
• 19:17
  Charlie Mattera: I'm glad they did it cuz they saved my life.
• 19:20
  Carmen Lezeth: They really that's, that's how my Very different people understand you get locked up.
• 19:26
  Charlie Mattera: You are with some real evil villains man.
• 19:29
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, I mean, these guys are arched criminal villains and everybody is there to be victimized and picked off and torture if you let yeah, people have no idea.
• 19:42
  Charlie Mattera: You know they think you go get locked up and you're gonna learn a lesson.
• 19:46
  Charlie Mattera: You know you got cops there.
• 19:48
  Charlie Mattera: They're supposed to protect you and protect everybody.
• 19:52
  Carmen Lezeth: They don't care, you're on your own.
• 19:54
  Carmen Lezeth: That's in real life too.
• 19:55
  Charlie Mattera: That's not even.
• 19:56
  Charlie Mattera: You gotta get a garbage pail top and I'm offering a handle.
• 19:59
  Charlie Mattera: Man, it's gladiated, school, it's on.
• 20:03
  Carmen Lezeth: When did you decide in prison or out?
• 20:06
  Carmen Lezeth: Maybe it's when you left that you were gonna change your life like when did that happen?
• 20:12
  Charlie Mattera: I was in, I think like about it, it was like two, it was about two years, maybe year and a half years, and I'm sitting in the center of this dorm, right, you know where?
• 20:24
  Charlie Mattera: They had like four, you know, a, b, c, d, and then a control room and they had a center grass area with some tables when the animals could sit and have a picnic.
• 20:33
  Charlie Mattera: You know, whatever we wanted to when they weren't torturing us, you know, and and uh, I was sitting out there in a pair of boxy shorts, high-top sneakers and a t-shirt.
• 20:45
  Charlie Mattera: That's the uniform at night Okay you always gotta, always gotta, have rubber on your feet, man.
• 20:51
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, and I don't mean flip-flops.
• 20:53
  Charlie Mattera: You gotta be back there ready to ride at any moment.
• 20:56
  Charlie Mattera: I think you go down, and you might as well go down swinging, because you're going down.
• 21:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 21:02
  Charlie Mattera: So this is in jail.
• 21:04
  Charlie Mattera: This is at night, you're no, this is joint jail's different this is Hell, is the state.
• 21:10
  Carmen Lezeth: The joint is federal right.
• 21:13
  Charlie Mattera: No, the joint is you got state and you got federal, two different things.
• 21:17
  Charlie Mattera: When you go to jail.
• 21:20
  Carmen Lezeth: Jail is the county.
• 21:22
  Charlie Mattera: You're an inmate now.
• 21:23
  Charlie Mattera: You're not a convict yet right Okay you know when you get sentenced and you get sent to prison.
• 21:29
  Charlie Mattera: Now you belong to the department of corrections.
• 21:31
  Charlie Mattera: You are in prison.
• 21:32
  Charlie Mattera: This is a different story.
• 21:34
  Carmen Lezeth: So that's where we're in the joint.
• 21:36
  Charlie Mattera: It's a, it's a village, where people, a thousand people, and everybody in there is the fucking straight out criminal.
• 21:43
  Charlie Mattera: Okay, well, I didn't do it, I'm not guilty, I've been some travesty.
• 21:48
  Charlie Mattera: No, no, everybody.
• 21:50
  Charlie Mattera: Yes, you did it, you did it, you did it and you get it do it again I mean, I saw guys get out, come back, get out, come back, get out and come back again, and I was still there and I hadn't gotten out yet and I used to ask the way you like the food?
• 22:04
  Charlie Mattera: What's wrong with you?
• 22:06
  Charlie Mattera: Right, why are you keep coming back?
• 22:08
  Carmen Lezeth: So wait.
• 22:09
  Charlie Mattera: So two years in, you're sitting in this I'm sitting on the table and I'm, and the sky is clear, it's blackest night and the stars everywhere.
• 22:17
  Charlie Mattera: And I literally said to myself I said, oh, what the fuck?
• 22:26
  Charlie Mattera: I'm not getting out of here for a while?
• 22:29
  Charlie Mattera: These people are fucking animals.
• 22:31
  Charlie Mattera: What am I gonna do?
• 22:32
  Charlie Mattera: I'm fucking a kid.
• 22:34
  Charlie Mattera: What am I gonna do?
• 22:35
  Charlie Mattera: I'm not going anywhere.
• 22:36
  Charlie Mattera: This is it.
• 22:37
  Charlie Mattera: And I said you know, well, I could be one of the animals you know, just like everybody else, but I've never been like everybody else.
• 22:48
  Charlie Mattera: Did you know what?
• 22:49
  Charlie Mattera: I'm gonna go to that library and I'm gonna read every fucking book in there the law books, the regular books.
• 22:57
  Charlie Mattera: I'm gonna educate myself.
• 22:59
  Charlie Mattera: I might as well.
• 23:00
  Charlie Mattera: I ain't got nothing else to do.
• 23:01
  Charlie Mattera: I ain't fucking going anywhere, that's for sure.
• 23:03
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, I ain't gonna like.
• 23:05
  Charlie Mattera: Oh, by the way, we made a mistake.
• 23:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 23:09
  Charlie Mattera: We're gonna let you go home.
• 23:10
  Charlie Mattera: I'm afraid there's a car waiting to take you over and use some money.
• 23:13
  Charlie Mattera: No, I knew.
• 23:14
  Charlie Mattera: I knew that wasn't gonna happen, so I decided to just make the best of a bad situation, you know.
• 23:21
  Carmen Lezeth: You knew you had to do the hustle in order to start changing your life.
• 23:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Reading book Well, nobody was sending me any money in there.
• 23:28
  Charlie Mattera: You gotta survive.
• 23:29
  Charlie Mattera: You know you need some smoke to eat the barter.
• 23:31
  Charlie Mattera: You need to get things done.
• 23:33
  Charlie Mattera: You need to juice people.
• 23:34
  Charlie Mattera: You know that's the way.
• 23:36
  Charlie Mattera: You know you need to the child.
• 23:37
  Charlie Mattera: You want to go guys regular in the chow hall.
• 23:39
  Charlie Mattera: You want to jump the line.
• 23:40
  Charlie Mattera: Know the guy up front.
• 23:41
  Charlie Mattera: You know if you can give him a pack of cigarettes now you juice the line for the next week.
• 23:46
  Carmen Lezeth: You know you were preparing yourself to get out of there by surviving.
• 23:52
  Charlie Mattera: I met a guy in there who was a way for life, my friend Ricky D.
• 23:56
  Charlie Mattera: He was older, older Italian guy and he came over to me one day and he said to me he said you're gonna be a low life your whole life.
• 24:06
  Carmen Lezeth: Wow.
• 24:07
  Charlie Mattera: Like what the fuck, ricky?
• 24:09
  Charlie Mattera: I said it's depressing enough in here.
• 24:11
  Charlie Mattera: You know he goes.
• 24:13
  Charlie Mattera: I'm being serious.
• 24:14
  Charlie Mattera: He says you're a good-looking guy, you got your shit together, sort of like he goes.
• 24:18
  Charlie Mattera: But you're a fucking asshole.
• 24:19
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 24:19
  Charlie Mattera: I watch it.
• 24:20
  Charlie Mattera: You're all over the fucking place he goes.
• 24:23
  Charlie Mattera: You're gonna get killed in here, man.
• 24:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Was he right.
• 24:27
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah.
• 24:27
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 24:28
  Charlie Mattera: I was up to fucking old guys, it's it.
• 24:30
  Charlie Mattera: So he says you're gonna get whacked out in here.
• 24:32
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 24:33
  Charlie Mattera: But you everybody loves it, man.
• 24:35
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 24:36
  Charlie Mattera: You make people laugh.
• 24:37
  Charlie Mattera: You know you're up to something every day to screw the cops.
• 24:41
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 24:41
  Charlie Mattera: I like that.
• 24:42
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 24:44
  Charlie Mattera: But it's time for you to educate yourself.
• 24:47
  Charlie Mattera: He goes, you get out of here.
• 24:49
  Charlie Mattera: You need to class yourself up.
• 24:50
  Charlie Mattera: He's just Charlie.
• 24:51
  Charlie Mattera: You know you're only gonna be considered who you are by the crowd You're seen with right.
• 24:59
  Charlie Mattera: And you stick out like a sore thumb.
• 25:00
  Charlie Mattera: He goes you're the biggest little guy I know.
• 25:02
  Charlie Mattera: He goes, you need to get it together.
• 25:06
  Charlie Mattera: He goes I got something for you to read.
• 25:08
  Charlie Mattera: I said okay.
• 25:10
  Charlie Mattera: He says come by over there and I'll let you have it.
• 25:14
  Charlie Mattera: I'll see you later.
• 25:14
  Charlie Mattera: So I go over there and they sit me down and ricky slides me a book across the table.
• 25:19
  Charlie Mattera: I said what's this?
• 25:20
  Charlie Mattera: He says I want you to read this book.
• 25:22
  Charlie Mattera: He says and I'm gonna ask you questions about it he goes, cover to cover.
• 25:24
  Charlie Mattera: I want you to know this book.
• 25:25
  Charlie Mattera: You know what he gives me.
• 25:27
  Charlie Mattera: He gives me the emily post book of etiquette Shut up.
• 25:32
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:33
  Charlie Mattera: And I was like well, the fuck is this?
• 25:36
  Charlie Mattera: He goes you need this book, cover to cover.
• 25:39
  Charlie Mattera: He goes you'll know how to behave in life.
• 25:42
  Charlie Mattera: He goes rich people, poor people, they'll all understand that you have a way about you.
• 25:49
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 25:50
  Charlie Mattera: It may be over the top, he goes, but it's something to know.
• 25:54
  Charlie Mattera: It's information.
• 25:56
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 25:57
  Charlie Mattera: What you do with it is on you.
• 25:59
  Charlie Mattera: He goes, but, like I told you, he says you have the ability and the talent to be and go wherever you want.
• 26:06
  Charlie Mattera: He says put you lack the initiative man.
• 26:09
  Charlie Mattera: He goes I could have had a whole life.
• 26:12
  Charlie Mattera: He goes I fucked up.
• 26:13
  Charlie Mattera: I'm here forever.
• 26:15
  Charlie Mattera: He says you're going home Some point at some time.
• 26:19
  Charlie Mattera: You better be fucking ready.
• 26:23
  Charlie Mattera: He goes you're all that in the bag of chips in here.
• 26:26
  Charlie Mattera: He goes out there.
• 26:27
  Charlie Mattera: You're just another ex convict fucking scumbag that nobody wants to give a job to you ever.
• 26:35
  Charlie Mattera: He says you can never tell him who you are.
• 26:38
  Charlie Mattera: Right, he's the only thing.
• 26:41
  Charlie Mattera: So you have to be something they all want to be around.
• 26:44
  Charlie Mattera: He goes, and these books and these lessons will help you do that.
• 26:50
  Charlie Mattera: Nobody cares where you've been or what you are, only care about who you are now, in this moment.
• 26:58
  Charlie Mattera: He goes you could be a bad guy, but what are you gonna do now, right in this moment in time?
• 27:05
  Charlie Mattera: Who are you gonna be?
• 27:06
  Charlie Mattera: So I left them guys.
• 27:08
  Charlie Mattera: My fucking head was hurting for like two days, but you read that damn book.
• 27:14
  Charlie Mattera: I sure did.
• 27:15
  Charlie Mattera: I read everything.
• 27:16
  Charlie Mattera: I read the Holy Bible as a dot book, I read some of the Quran, I read the Torah, whatever, all of it, whatever I can get my hands or whatever they had you know.
• 27:29
  Charlie Mattera: And when I finally got out, my stepfather came to get me and I was.
• 27:37
  Charlie Mattera: I was finished.
• 27:38
  Charlie Mattera: Expiration of sentence, no parole, no probation or nothing.
• 27:41
  Charlie Mattera: Day for day I walked out.
• 27:44
  Charlie Mattera: It was like no, I didn't have to report anybody, nothing.
• 27:48
  Charlie Mattera: Okay and I remember I was banging on the window in the morning, 8 am, but at the control room I was wearing a pair inside.
• 27:58
  Carmen Lezeth: I was.
• 27:58
  Charlie Mattera: you're about to be let go, okay, I thought I got this box with all my shit and the cops are like what, what you want material?
• 28:05
  Charlie Mattera: I was like dude, you're on my time now, right, free man, right now.
• 28:12
  Charlie Mattera: I said no parole, no probation, expiration, sense, open the fucking door.
• 28:18
  Charlie Mattera: And they look at me like, well, you know, we're all.
• 28:21
  Charlie Mattera: I still got property and I was like my friends.
• 28:26
  Carmen Lezeth: I was like take it.
• 28:28
  Charlie Mattera: He was like I said Mike.
• 28:29
  Charlie Mattera: I said the old man's out there right now to get me in the car.
• 28:32
  Charlie Mattera: I said all you gotta do is let me sign and let me get the fuck out of this.
• 28:36
  Charlie Mattera: They don't make me, and I'm big as a house.
• 28:39
  Charlie Mattera: I mean working out dark as a teakwood table my hair was like lemon yellow.
• 28:50
  Charlie Mattera: I mean, people don't look like this in the free world and I remember he brought me.
• 28:58
  Charlie Mattera: He says let's go take a ride because we're checking to a hotel hang out for a couple of days.
• 29:02
  Charlie Mattera: So right away I know what's going on.
• 29:04
  Charlie Mattera: So I said, okay, sure, sure, you know.
• 29:07
  Charlie Mattera: And we're driving around, I'm looking at everything outside, people, cars, we don't see shit.
• 29:13
  Charlie Mattera: I mean, we see television, we don't see shit.
• 29:15
  Charlie Mattera: And I see, in 1987, we're just we're.
• 29:21
  Charlie Mattera: She takes me to the mall.
• 29:22
  Charlie Mattera: I wanted to get some clothes, I wanted to get a new pair of sneaks and walk her to the mall.
• 29:26
  Charlie Mattera: I see, I mean I'm big as a fucking house Damn shit, looking handsome as hell, and People just looking at me.
• 29:38
  Charlie Mattera: And I looked at the old man.
• 29:39
  Charlie Mattera: I said what the fuck do?
• 29:41
  Charlie Mattera: I got like conflict stapled on my fire, I don't know.
• 29:43
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh yeah, you were taking it the wrong way.
• 29:46
  Charlie Mattera: I had seen a mirror in in eight years.
• 29:49
  Charlie Mattera: We don't got mirrors in there, we got bent up pieces of metal.
• 29:51
  Charlie Mattera: You know, oh wow, you don't even know what you look like.
• 29:55
  Charlie Mattera: You go in there you 20.
• 29:56
  Charlie Mattera: You come home you 28.
• 29:57
  Charlie Mattera: You don't know what you look like anymore.
• 29:59
  Charlie Mattera: Who's that fucking guy?
• 30:02
  Carmen Lezeth: You know.
• 30:02
  Carmen Lezeth: So you were.
• 30:02
  Carmen Lezeth: You were being self-conscious, whereas everybody else was looking at you.
• 30:07
  Charlie Mattera: Do I fit in right?
• 30:08
  Charlie Mattera: Do I not look like a fucking crazy person, criminal?
• 30:12
  Charlie Mattera: You know that these people have any idea that.
• 30:15
  Charlie Mattera: I just Fell into the planet Earth.
• 30:17
  Charlie Mattera: I've been in another planet for eight years, you know.
• 30:22
  Charlie Mattera: You know I see women.
• 30:23
  Charlie Mattera: I could fucking smell them 200 feet away.
• 30:26
  Charlie Mattera: You know, you smell, smells.
• 30:31
  Charlie Mattera: This food is everything.
• 30:33
  Charlie Mattera: You know.
• 30:34
  Charlie Mattera: Perfume, you know, beautiful scented lotion we don't smell that.
• 30:39
  Charlie Mattera: We're all state-raising animals, you know.
• 30:41
  Charlie Mattera: Oh well, I've been smelling this button feet for like eight years, you know, and now there it is, you know, and they're beautiful and they're looking at me and I'm looking at them, you know, and I could see their faces.
• 30:56
  Charlie Mattera: They're like wow.
• 30:58
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, I was like no drugs.
• 31:01
  Charlie Mattera: Don't know, you know and you know you come out.
• 31:04
  Charlie Mattera: You're a gladiator man, you're a warrior.
• 31:06
  Charlie Mattera: You've been, you've been to school and, and I remember the old man.
• 31:11
  Carmen Lezeth: Were you scared, were you scared.
• 31:14
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, I was terrified of the world.
• 31:17
  Charlie Mattera: I was like, oh man, what the?
• 31:18
  Charlie Mattera: And a million thoughts are going on my mind.
• 31:20
  Charlie Mattera: What am I gonna do?
• 31:21
  Charlie Mattera: I'm like gonna survive.
• 31:22
  Charlie Mattera: Where am I gonna live?
• 31:23
  Charlie Mattera: I'm gonna get by.
• 31:25
  Charlie Mattera: You know, I don't know anyone.
• 31:26
  Charlie Mattera: I don't have any friends.
• 31:27
  Charlie Mattera: My friends are gone, or dead or Back there in jail right.
• 31:33
  Charlie Mattera: Who are put those people's?
• 31:34
  Charlie Mattera: The only friends I had, my friends, were killers, you know, oh, burglars, diamond thieves, you know, gangsters, real ones, not like these fucking punks.
• 31:46
  Charlie Mattera: I see on the street these guys with fucking bad guys, but they were my friends, we, whatever, anybody was away for you get past it.
• 31:54
  Charlie Mattera: And I remember.
• 31:56
  Charlie Mattera: So we checked into the Howard Johnson's Hotel in Fort Lauderdale.
• 32:01
  Carmen Lezeth: This is you and your stepdad after yeah, I mean it's cool.
• 32:05
  Charlie Mattera: You know we're all right.
• 32:06
  Charlie Mattera: You know, and he was a knock-around guy, you know I'm tying guy.
• 32:10
  Charlie Mattera: So we get into the hotel, we walk past the pool and I see all the bikinis.
• 32:14
  Charlie Mattera: And I see guys wearing those fucking speedos and I'm like With the crazy mullet, like the atomic mullet, oh, yeah, I guess it's 1980s.
• 32:26
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, fuck you know the old man she's.
• 32:28
  Charlie Mattera: They could say we're good, though.
• 32:29
  Charlie Mattera: I Said what's up with that?
• 32:34
  Charlie Mattera: He goes, hey, you've been away a long time.
• 32:36
  Charlie Mattera: I said I can't tell who's who over here.
• 32:37
  Charlie Mattera: He goes, don't worry, nobody else can either.
• 32:39
  Charlie Mattera: It's alright, this is what he says to me.
• 32:41
  Charlie Mattera: So I said okay, we check in.
• 32:43
  Charlie Mattera: We go upstairs to the hotel room and he's like taking his shoes off.
• 32:47
  Charlie Mattera: He goes hey, I'm gonna take a snap.
• 32:48
  Charlie Mattera: I'm fucking exhausted.
• 32:49
  Charlie Mattera: So I says to him and I'm staring in the middle room, I look to myself.
• 32:54
  Charlie Mattera: I said to him you know what I said I'm gonna go take a walk.
• 32:58
  Charlie Mattera: Let me go to the beach.
• 32:59
  Charlie Mattera: All right, he goes to me.
• 33:00
  Charlie Mattera: What the fuck you asking me for ain't the warden?
• 33:03
  Charlie Mattera: I said no, I'm just saying you know.
• 33:05
  Charlie Mattera: I said he says fuck, dude, you're free.
• 33:07
  Charlie Mattera: Whatever you want, man.
• 33:10
  Charlie Mattera: He goes in.
• 33:11
  Charlie Mattera: He's some scratch.
• 33:11
  Charlie Mattera: He reaches his pocket and pulls out a couple of hundred.
• 33:14
  Charlie Mattera: He goes here yeah, go to fucking go get, go have a sandwich, whatever.
• 33:18
  Charlie Mattera: Take a stroll, whatever.
• 33:19
  Charlie Mattera: Here's the room key.
• 33:20
  Charlie Mattera: He goes yeah, I'm gonna sleep for a few hours.
• 33:22
  Charlie Mattera: I said all right.
• 33:23
  Charlie Mattera: So I go outside and I walk across a 1a to the beach and I see this old couple and I go over to and I scared them too, cuz that took a shirt off.
• 33:36
  Charlie Mattera: I look like miles, I look like Miles O'Keefe and Tarzan and and my hair's, you know, short and just her.
• 33:48
  Charlie Mattera: Everything was perfect.
• 33:49
  Charlie Mattera: And I looked at me.
• 33:50
  Charlie Mattera: Could you guys and watch my stuff?
• 33:51
  Charlie Mattera: I just want to take this one.
• 33:52
  Charlie Mattera: I hadn't been in the water in a million years.
• 33:55
  Charlie Mattera: Oh my god, that's right.
• 33:57
  Charlie Mattera: So I took my stuff and they were like, yeah, sure, no problem.
• 34:00
  Charlie Mattera: So I said thank you very much, you know.
• 34:01
  Charlie Mattera: They're like, oh, you knew, yeah, I live from Jersey.
• 34:03
  Charlie Mattera: I said, oh, thanks, I really appreciate it you know and I Go into the water.
• 34:10
  Charlie Mattera: I got about waist deep.
• 34:12
  Charlie Mattera: And I dove in and I just started swimming and I'm strong as a fucking ox.
• 34:18
  Charlie Mattera: I'm cutting through the water like it's Not and I get out there most.
• 34:23
  Charlie Mattera: I spin around and I look back at the beach and you know I am, I'm floating in the ocean and it was like it was just wondrous you know, the co-chair.
• 34:36
  Charlie Mattera: Maybe I am free, you know, just maybe I'm like I'm waiting for, I'm waiting to see it, like you know we made a mistake.
• 34:45
  Charlie Mattera: Come on, go back.
• 34:49
  Charlie Mattera: You know I'm waiting for it.
• 34:50
  Charlie Mattera: And I remember I swim back in and I'm coming out of the water, like slowly coming out of the water, and I look to the left and there's like four girls walking down the beach and I'm coming out of the water like like Godzilla and I'm soaking wet and I got the bathing suit on and I am fucking nails and I remember that's when I realized, oh, I guess I'm something to look at you know.
• 35:19
  Charlie Mattera: And then I saw a little baby running, little baby like one and a half or so, with a bucket, just laughing his ass off.
• 35:26
  Charlie Mattera: I almost want that.
• 35:27
  Charlie Mattera: I wish I could have put a wire in my head and to his to let him know what could happen, what moves not to make.
• 35:35
  Charlie Mattera: Just don't be like me, be like Mike.
• 35:39
  Charlie Mattera: You know.
• 35:40
  Charlie Mattera: I never forgot it.
• 35:43
  Charlie Mattera: So then the old man takes me to dinner that night.
• 35:46
  Carmen Lezeth: He goes, wait a minute.
• 35:47
  Charlie Mattera: I said there's this place over here, over there, over here by the intercoastal waterway, whatever, come on.
• 35:52
  Charlie Mattera: So we go over there and we have a cup of drinks sitting at the bar and I'm having a beer and we just sitting there quietly and I'm looking all around, I'm casing the place and he looks at me.
• 36:04
  Charlie Mattera: He goes you robbed this place, didn't you?
• 36:07
  Charlie Mattera: I said yeah, it's a long time ago.
• 36:13
  Charlie Mattera: I said this place, the place next door, the place over there across the water, the one down there, you know, and he said Jesus Christ, what the fuck were you thinking?
• 36:27
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, he goes.
• 36:28
  Charlie Mattera: What was going through your head?
• 36:29
  Charlie Mattera: He says you're running around with a gun like a crazy person.
• 36:31
  Charlie Mattera: I said I guess I just couldn't give a fuck.
• 36:37
  Charlie Mattera: I wanted to.
• 36:38
  Charlie Mattera: I didn't care about anybody or anything.
• 36:40
  Charlie Mattera: I said but I'm glad everything happened.
• 36:42
  Charlie Mattera: I'm glad it happened the way it did.
• 36:43
  Charlie Mattera: You never killed anybody, you just you went through this feeling just to be clear.
• 36:48
  Carmen Lezeth: You stole a lot of money.
• 36:50
  Charlie Mattera: I heard a lot of feelings.
• 36:51
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, that's what I did.
• 36:54
  Charlie Mattera: Okay, so now I mean, I feel, I said you want to laugh, you want to die laughing.
• 36:59
  Charlie Mattera: So I said to I said what happened?
• 37:02
  Charlie Mattera: I said mom sent you down here.
• 37:04
  Charlie Mattera: I said if you see, if I'm gay or I'm fucking crazy, and I lost my mind.
• 37:11
  Charlie Mattera: And I said she gave me a pocket full of money and if any of those was true, you're supposed to hand it to me and tell me to go on my marry way.
• 37:18
  Charlie Mattera: I said but if I'm okay and I'm done and I'm finished, I could come home.
• 37:24
  Charlie Mattera: I said that's what I'm here, right?
• 37:26
  Charlie Mattera: He does.
• 37:28
  Charlie Mattera: He turns his head and he takes his sandwich drinking, he goes, he just looks up and he goes.
• 37:32
  Charlie Mattera: Boy, you know your mother, man, you good, you know your mom?
• 37:37
  Charlie Mattera: Of course I do.
• 37:37
  Charlie Mattera: I said I know exactly what she's thinking all the time.
• 37:41
  Carmen Lezeth: But you didn't go home, did you?
• 37:43
  Charlie Mattera: I went back to New York.
• 37:44
  Charlie Mattera: I didn't go back to their home.
• 37:46
  Charlie Mattera: He was saying that I could come back to New York.
• 37:48
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 37:50
  Charlie Mattera: And he let me know that everybody had said back in New York I could come home, because if they said I couldn't come back I wouldn't be able to go back there.
• 37:58
  Charlie Mattera: I went back for a little while I worked at night clubs and everything.
• 38:01
  Charlie Mattera: And then I got involved in all of that fucking shit.
• 38:04
  Charlie Mattera: Everybody was getting high and drinking.
• 38:06
  Charlie Mattera: And then in the middle of the night one night I got it in my head.
• 38:09
  Charlie Mattera: I packed my bags.
• 38:10
  Charlie Mattera: I met a guy in the nightclubs.
• 38:14
  Charlie Mattera: He used to hang out at all the clubs outside watching me carry on with the crowd and he said you ought to be an actor.
• 38:21
  Charlie Mattera: I was like, yeah, OK, be an actor.
• 38:23
  Charlie Mattera: I need a real fucking job.
• 38:25
  Charlie Mattera: Man, I got money, I got to pick bills.
• 38:28
  Charlie Mattera: I go those people are fucking.
• 38:31
  Charlie Mattera: I said I'm a real person.
• 38:32
  Charlie Mattera: He goes this is what I'm talking about.
• 38:36
  Charlie Mattera: He said you would kill it.
• 38:37
  Charlie Mattera: He says if you could be what you are here, there he goes.
• 38:41
  Charlie Mattera: I don't think you'd have a problem.
• 38:44
  Carmen Lezeth: OK, but you were just saying it was really.
• 38:45
  Carmen Lezeth: It was hard for you to deal with people who aren't.
• 38:48
  Charlie Mattera: Because people could say anything to you out here, especially in the entertainment business.
• 38:53
  Charlie Mattera: Hey, I'll get back to you.
• 38:54
  Charlie Mattera: That means fuck you, nothing, nothing.
• 38:56
  Charlie Mattera: Hey, I'll read that to you.
• 38:58
  Charlie Mattera: You're not going to read anything.
• 38:59
  Charlie Mattera: Right, people make instead of reading a script.
• 39:02
  Charlie Mattera: You got coverage.
• 39:03
  Charlie Mattera: She's taken halfway through the coverage, you know what I mean.
• 39:07
  Charlie Mattera: How are you going to make million dollar decisions if you don't read what you're you got to read?
• 39:14
  Carmen Lezeth: So people here say they're going to do something but they don't follow through on it because it's all cheesy.
• 39:19
  Carmen Lezeth: But when you're incarcerated?
• 39:22
  Charlie Mattera: what they're going to say.
• 39:24
  Charlie Mattera: They're not going to read it unless they see you walking down the street one day and you're with Jim Cameron.
• 39:30
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 39:31
  Charlie Mattera: Or you're walking with Robert DeNiro one day and they see you having lunch with Ryan O'Neill and they're like is that, charlie, who has been read the script Right?
• 39:37
  Charlie Mattera: Get to Ryan O'Neill for six months I can't even get near.
• 39:40
  Charlie Mattera: Oh, charlie works for him.
• 39:41
  Charlie Mattera: What?
• 39:42
  Charlie Mattera: Hey, charlie?
• 39:43
  Carmen Lezeth: Hey, beth Bepperson, here I was thinking about you don't meet Todd Bradford, ok, but I'm going to say something that's going to make you feel like you're going to yell at me.
• 39:52
  Carmen Lezeth: It's not just Hollywood, that's in every industry.
• 39:55
  Carmen Lezeth: No, no, yeah, and it's all about the networking, both literally.
• 39:59
  Charlie Mattera: I'll get back to you.
• 40:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, it's all the bullshit.
• 40:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Ok, wait, let's not skip.
• 40:03
  Carmen Lezeth: You get out of prison.
• 40:04
  Carmen Lezeth: You go back to New York.
• 40:06
  Charlie Mattera: You decide you were just going to tell me how you came to LA.
• 40:09
  Charlie Mattera: How did you come?
• 40:10
  Charlie Mattera: The guy who asked and told me I should be an actor.
• 40:13
  Charlie Mattera: He said why don't you try being a writer?
• 40:15
  Charlie Mattera: I said well, he goes.
• 40:17
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, you're bullshit.
• 40:18
  Charlie Mattera: You could do characters all day long.
• 40:20
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 40:21
  Charlie Mattera: I'll show you how to do it.
• 40:22
  Charlie Mattera: He goes.
• 40:24
  Charlie Mattera: I go to his house one day and this is the weirdest thing he flipped on the computer and it was the little one.
• 40:31
  Charlie Mattera: Remember the little square one with the floppy gems.
• 40:35
  Carmen Lezeth: And the little screen.
• 40:36
  Charlie Mattera: It looked like the little TV, like the old one.
• 40:38
  Charlie Mattera: And I saw some stuff he had on the screen and it was like Bill and John went there there, there and I was like what the fuck?
• 40:46
  Charlie Mattera: That doesn't sound like people.
• 40:49
  Charlie Mattera: I'm not even interested.
• 40:51
  Charlie Mattera: He goes what do you mean?
• 40:52
  Charlie Mattera: I said look, do like a dog street.
• 40:55
  Charlie Mattera: I said the light from the street shines in the car.
• 40:59
  Charlie Mattera: A match is struck.
• 41:01
  Charlie Mattera: It lights a cigarette.
• 41:03
  Charlie Mattera: We followed a smoke up to a balcony where a guy is hanging.
• 41:08
  Charlie Mattera: I said he's looking through a single eyepiece of two guys down the street in the car and they're talking.
• 41:14
  Charlie Mattera: I said now we cut to the car and he goes.
• 41:16
  Charlie Mattera: And the guy says Bill, what?
• 41:18
  Charlie Mattera: I said no, no, no.
• 41:19
  Charlie Mattera: The guy says what the fuck are you doing?
• 41:22
  Charlie Mattera: You fucking idiot?
• 41:24
  Charlie Mattera: I've been waiting for you for three hours.
• 41:26
  Charlie Mattera: We're supposed to clip this fuck and you're dicking around eating a sandwich in some fucking restaurant.
• 41:31
  Charlie Mattera: What's wrong with you?
• 41:31
  Charlie Mattera: And I saw the guy's eyes light up.
• 41:33
  Charlie Mattera: I said I want to know.
• 41:35
  Charlie Mattera: I said I want to know.
• 41:37
  Charlie Mattera: I said the information's got to be happening.
• 41:39
  Charlie Mattera: I said I watch a movie.
• 41:41
  Charlie Mattera: Because I watch movies to be in lockdown.
• 41:44
  Charlie Mattera: I was the guy who used to put the movies on the car.
• 41:46
  Charlie Mattera: We used to see movies every week.
• 41:47
  Charlie Mattera: We used to order them.
• 41:49
  Charlie Mattera: So I've seen every black and white movie, every movie you can imagine, every TV show.
• 41:54
  Charlie Mattera: I was raised by television so I've seen them all and I know what's good and I know what's bad.
• 42:01
  Charlie Mattera: So I said, just because of being a kid.
• 42:04
  Charlie Mattera: And I said to him I got to hear the music.
• 42:07
  Charlie Mattera: See, sister Bee, what do you mean?
• 42:09
  Charlie Mattera: I said I got to hear the.
• 42:10
  Charlie Mattera: I said I said now I'm in, I want to know what the fuck's going on.
• 42:16
  Charlie Mattera: I said the moment the music goes, I said I'm fucking lost, I'm over it.
• 42:24
  Charlie Mattera: I said every scene we write starts in the middle, not, I said, the part we don't see.
• 42:31
  Charlie Mattera: That's the beginning.
• 42:32
  Charlie Mattera: We're in the.
• 42:34
  Charlie Mattera: They're at it when we go in.
• 42:36
  Charlie Mattera: Somebody's like you gonna eat this fucking sandwich.
• 42:38
  Charlie Mattera: I said that's how you start seeing the guy hoax up a front and put on your Sims.
• 42:42
  Charlie Mattera: You're gonna fucking eat this.
• 42:43
  Charlie Mattera: You want mustard on this or what I go to me?
• 42:45
  Charlie Mattera: I'm interested.
• 42:46
  Charlie Mattera: Is he gonna put mustard on it?
• 42:47
  Charlie Mattera: Does he have a bit to get the coleslaw?
• 42:50
  Charlie Mattera: Now I'm in.
• 42:52
  Carmen Lezeth: So when did you move to LA?
• 42:54
  Carmen Lezeth: When did you make the decision?
• 42:55
  Charlie Mattera: So, with this guy.
• 42:57
  Charlie Mattera: I, we wrote like, we literally Wrote three scripts in New York like this I was writing 20 pages, 30 pages dialogue a day, and I could still do it.
• 43:11
  Charlie Mattera: You know, because I knew how people spoke.
• 43:14
  Charlie Mattera: You know, I knew how to Latin.
• 43:15
  Charlie Mattera: They see it.
• 43:16
  Charlie Mattera: You know say, I knew I had it all.
• 43:19
  Charlie Mattera: You know, I knew how the brothers taught them.
• 43:20
  Charlie Mattera: You know how the crazy chicks taught they do have the elegant.
• 43:24
  Charlie Mattera: You know.
• 43:25
  Charlie Mattera: You know bitch fuck.
• 43:26
  Charlie Mattera: You know the swells.
• 43:28
  Charlie Mattera: I knew how the swells talked.
• 43:29
  Charlie Mattera: You know, I've been around them, you know, and so it was easy for me.
• 43:34
  Charlie Mattera: And on a fluke, we sent a script to some Agent in LA and I don't know where.
• 43:41
  Charlie Mattera: We get a call.
• 43:41
  Charlie Mattera: Hey, I'd like to represent you.
• 43:45
  Charlie Mattera: I'm fucking a Hollywood agent.
• 43:47
  Charlie Mattera: And the reason why I said yes was because she was a woman.
• 43:49
  Charlie Mattera: It was this kid named Wesley strict who wrote wolf.
• 43:53
  Charlie Mattera: He wrote a bunch of stuff.
• 43:55
  Charlie Mattera: He's a big screenwriter wrestling Wesley strict and his mom, shirley strict, was an agent.
• 44:02
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh.
• 44:02
  Carmen Lezeth: Very agent, another name yeah.
• 44:04
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, yeah, she wanted to represent us.
• 44:06
  Charlie Mattera: So all of a sudden I'm like, oh shit, you know we gotta get out there and my writing partner?
• 44:13
  Charlie Mattera: He didn't.
• 44:13
  Charlie Mattera: I just took off, I ran out there with it.
• 44:16
  Carmen Lezeth: When did you come out here?
• 44:17
  Carmen Lezeth: When did you come out to LA?
• 44:19
  Charlie Mattera: 1990, I think, I had a double bag full of clothes, 500 bucks cash in my pocket and I Befriended Jason Bateman in New York and he told me come to fucking LA man, I got it.
• 44:34
  Charlie Mattera: You come sleep upstairs, don't worry about it.
• 44:35
  Charlie Mattera: You got you killing yourself out here.
• 44:38
  Charlie Mattera: So I came, I was living with Jason down in Santa Monica.
• 44:41
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah and every day I would get on the bus and ride to my writing partners place.
• 44:47
  Charlie Mattera: He came out because I found a manager, this crazy girl.
• 44:51
  Charlie Mattera: She brought a script of mine, a prison script, into Roger Corman.
• 44:55
  Charlie Mattera: Oh yeah, okay, boom, I'm here.
• 44:58
  Charlie Mattera: Three weeks Self-script.
• 45:00
  Charlie Mattera: That's crazy, I love that people come to LA to sell the script.
• 45:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Millions, man, and now Roger Corman years and it's years and they don't get that.
• 45:10
  Carmen Lezeth: They don't get.
• 45:11
  Charlie Mattera: Roger Corman says to me, says I'll give you extra amount of dollars for the screenplay or I'll give you this much less and you could direct it.
• 45:18
  Charlie Mattera: I should give me the city, you direct it, give me the money.
• 45:21
  Charlie Mattera: Give me the money that was our first sale, which turned out to be it was a serious prison drama based on race relations in prison Wow.
• 45:32
  Charlie Mattera: And turned out to be blood fist three for With Don the dragon Wilson.
• 45:39
  Carmen Lezeth: That's awesome.
• 45:40
  Charlie Mattera: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:41
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh.
• 45:41
  Charlie Mattera: So and and starring Richard roundtree and I got to hang out.
• 45:48
  Charlie Mattera: Richard Rousey was the coolest night.
• 45:52
  Carmen Lezeth: Thanks for stopping by.
• 45:53
  Carmen Lezeth: All about the joy be better and stay beautiful.
• 45:56
  Carmen Lezeth: Folks.
• 45:56
  Carmen Lezeth: Have a sweet day.