Latest / Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer Show / Let's dance: Albie Selznick’s Lifelong Quest to Work With David Bowie

Transcript

Let's dance: Albie Selznick’s Lifelong Quest to Work With David Bowie · Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer Show

• 0:00
  Welcome to Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer Show.
• 0:01
  I'm Ted Bonnitt.
• 0:02
  Hey, Phil, how are you?
• 0:04
  Oh, how are.
• 0:05
  More important, where am I?
• 0:08
  I am.
• 0:08
  I'm in beautiful Lewis, Delaware, under a cloudless sky with turkey vultures circling overhead.
• 0:15
  Oh, I hope they're not hungry.
• 0:17
  Yeah.
• 0:18
  We're going to talk about a subject that is dear to my heart, David Bowie.
• 0:21
  And the question we're asking today is, who says working with David Bowie is impossible?
• 0:27
  Not our guest, Alby Selznick.
• 0:29
  Welcome.
• 0:29
  Thank you for having me on.
• 0:31
  Hiya there, Alby.
• 0:32
  Hi.
• 0:33
  You are doing a one man show in Santa Monica at the Santa Monica Playhouse.
• 0:36
  It's called Letter from David.
• 0:38
  It is about your lifelong interest in David Bowie and your lifelong quest to work with him.
• 0:46
  Yeah, it all kind of came out of tragedy.
• 0:48
  When you were nine, you lost your dad.
• 0:50
  Yeah, suddenly.
• 0:52
  Suddenly my mom lost her father suddenly.
• 0:56
  And then a few days after that, she gets a call from the doctor saying, I'm so sorry to tell you your husband died.
• 1:02
  And she's like, oh, no, sorry, you mean my father.
• 1:04
  No, your husband.
• 1:05
  No, no, there's a mistake.
• 1:06
  So her husband also died a couple of days after that.
• 1:09
  So my house was.
• 1:11
  I remember just playing.
• 1:12
  My mom was playing Simon at Garfunkel all the time and people were there all the time.
• 1:15
  And it was just.
• 1:16
  It was really sad and depressing and when I was instinctively looking for another way out and I got into magic and to me magic was happy and mystical and there's more to life.
• 1:30
  Maybe my dad isn't really dead, he'll come back.
• 1:32
  And I used to look at UFOs and go, oh, I want to be taken away by UFOs.
• 1:37
  Everything was to avoid the depression of being like in this kind of sad world.
• 1:41
  And so as a 10 year old.
• 1:43
  Yeah, as a 10 year old, so I got into magic and it became kind of my.
• 1:47
  My way out.
• 1:48
  And then my.
• 1:49
  My magic partner when I was 12, handed me a David Bowie album.
• 1:52
  It was Ziggy Stardust.
• 1:54
  And I was like, oh my God, he's an alien.
• 1:59
  He's gonna come from outer space and I'm gonna be his best friend and David Bowie's gonna come take me away.
• 2:06
  And so I became this David Bowie fan when I was 12.
• 2:10
  And my magic partner and I were doing like birthday party magic shows and we were like doing all the kids birthday parties in the west of the 405.
• 2:18
  I say, cause my mom ran a nursery school and she had all these.
• 2:21
  She knew all the parents and everything.
• 2:23
  And all the directors at other nursery schools.
• 2:24
  So she kind of hooked us up.
• 2:26
  We were doing all the birthday parties.
• 2:27
  And then when I got the David Bowie album, we decided to write a glam rock act that we called the Glitter Mystics.
• 2:33
  And it was like these 12 year olds in glam rock makeup and costumes doing her magic act.
• 2:39
  And then when I went and saw Diamond Dogs, which was the first Dave of OJ concert I saw, I walked out of the concert and I just thought, I.
• 2:47
  I'm gonna work with that guy.
• 2:48
  I'm gonna become like David Bowie's partner.
• 2:51
  And so I decided to work with David Bowie.
• 2:53
  And that's what the show's about.
• 2:54
  Back then, it wasn't an uncommon feeling.
• 2:56
  People would go through the Bowie phase.
• 2:58
  I was introduced to David Bowie happenstance.
• 3:01
  I just went to see man of Earth, the movie.
• 3:04
  Yeah.
• 3:04
  And I was completely blown away.
• 3:07
  And his whole act was about alienation.
• 3:10
  Yeah.
• 3:10
  So then he gets to literally play an alien and.
• 3:13
  And his look, because of the damaged eyeball, he had different colored eyes, one size bigger pupil than the other.
• 3:20
  He had this otherworldly effect.
• 3:22
  And he played it to the hilt in all his performance.
• 3:25
  And he was a mime.
• 3:26
  He knew movement, the whole thing.
• 3:28
  So he was very charismatic.
• 3:30
  He was a magician in his own mood.
• 3:33
  All the hot young women were into Bowie as well, so that didn't hurt.
• 3:38
  And also, Bowie was like, for someone that me, I didn't feel like I fit in.
• 3:41
  I wasn't really part of the cliques in elementary school and stuff.
• 3:46
  So, like, if you felt like you didn't belong, David Bowie also didn't belong.
• 3:50
  He was like, you know, come with me, you know, come on my train.
• 3:53
  I think he opened that up for a lot of people.
• 3:54
  They felt not so alone.
• 3:56
  And he was always about two, three.
• 3:57
  Steps ahead, culturally constant and constantly changing.
• 4:00
  You know, just when you thought you caught up with him, he did something else.
• 4:03
  Zig.
• 4:04
  He zigged.
• 4:04
  Just when you were like, zagging and you're like, what are you doing?
• 4:08
  That's not.
• 4:08
  I don't want.
• 4:09
  I like the last album.
• 4:10
  And then suddenly this one would become your favorite.
• 4:12
  And then you do it again.
• 4:13
  You're like, what are you doing this time?
• 4:14
  And then, oh, my God.
• 4:16
  You said Low is your favorite.
• 4:18
  That's how I got into Bowie, because I went to see man on Fell to Earth and that was when the Low album came out.
• 4:23
  And actually the artwork was from man of Fell to Earth.
• 4:26
  And then I stumbled on to Brian Eno's before and After Science Record which is another incredible record.
• 4:32
  And the two of them were collaborating on the trilogy at that point.
• 4:35
  Low Heroes, Lodger, the Berlin trilogy, which.
• 4:39
  Is what Bowie fled L.
• 4:40
  A to survive his cocaine ha and went to Berlin and lived above a auto body shop with Iggy Pop.
• 4:46
  The Turkish community.
• 4:47
  Yeah.
• 4:49
  And cleaned up their act.
• 4:50
  Yeah.
• 4:50
  I performed in a little transvestite bar, they called it, that Bowie apparently went to.
• 4:55
  When I was 17, I went to Europe with my friend and we were as part of the Festival of Fools, which was a clown festival.
• 5:00
  And we traveled all over Europe and we ended up in Berlin trying to find David Bowie performed in one of his.
• 5:08
  This little weird place that apparently Bowie went to all the time.
• 5:11
  And I guess that's what he did.
• 5:12
  He liked being kind of anonymous and hanging out and darting over.
• 5:15
  Can I say something about Manufacture Earth, please?
• 5:17
  Because I have a little secret.
• 5:19
  Not really secret, but I don't know if a lot of people know about this, but there's a sequel that they made on Showtime with Shigetor.
• 5:26
  How do you say his name?
• 5:27
  Chiwetel Igofor.
• 5:29
  Fantastic actor here.
• 5:31
  This is how you say it.
• 5:31
  Yeah.
• 5:31
  Chiwetel Ejiofor.
• 5:34
  And he plays a guy from David Bowie's planet who comes to Earth to find out whatever happened to Thomas Newton, who in the series is played by Bill Nighy.
• 5:45
  Really?
• 5:46
  Yeah.
• 5:46
  Wow.
• 5:47
  Yeah.
• 5:47
  And it's a fantastic series.
• 5:50
  I think they just did one season of it, but I thought it was incredible.
• 5:52
  And the Walter Tevis novel the man who Fell to Earth, which was the basis of the movie, is even better.
• 5:57
  Wow.
• 5:58
  And the Chess movie that was big hit just a few years ago.
• 6:01
  Queen's Gambit.
• 6:02
  Queen's Gambit.
• 6:03
  I was watching that, I loved it and I thought this is really like.
• 6:07
  This reminds me of man of Fell to Earth and it was based on a Walter Tevis book.
• 6:10
  Wow.
• 6:11
  His themes were about lost souls and alcoholism.
• 6:14
  Isn't it funny how like adversity brings out creativity?
• 6:18
  Let's talk about your show.
• 6:19
  So you have an interesting acting career, a really interesting background, but this Bowie theme throughout your whole life carries on and on.
• 6:27
  And I don't want to give away the remarkable twists and turns of your show because it's pretty spectacular.
• 6:34
  I can't believe it myself.
• 6:35
  You had these brushes with going to meet him and one involved when he was playing out here.
• 6:41
  They wanted to have the after party at your parents house.
• 6:45
  Yeah.
• 6:45
  My dance teacher Russell Clark had worked with David Bowie and it was his.
• 6:49
  One of one of his shows, 1984 show.
• 6:52
  It was called.
• 6:53
  And he had knew.
• 6:54
  He.
• 6:54
  So he knew David Bowie.
• 6:56
  And that, of course, made me want to take his dance class.
• 6:58
  And I met him at.
• 6:59
  We were having these tightrope lessons.
• 7:01
  Kenny Ortega, who was a choreographer for the Tubes back then, who now does everything.
• 7:07
  He's gigantic.
• 7:08
  And he taught me how to tightrope walk.
• 7:10
  And we'd have these little parties at the park, and we would all learn how to tightrope walk.
• 7:13
  And he introduced me to Russell.
• 7:15
  And so I started taking Russell's dance class all the time because David was friends of his.
• 7:20
  So Iggy Pop is playing at the Santa Monica Civic, and David Bowie, who at this part is a huge rock star, is gonna go along and play piano for Iggy Pop.
• 7:29
  So Russell calls me.
• 7:31
  He's like, yeah, David's gonna play piano with Iggy at the Civic.
• 7:34
  And I live right down the street from the Civic.
• 7:36
  And he's like, why don't we just have a little party for David and his friends after the concert at your mom's house?
• 7:44
  And I'm like, this little kid, and I'm just like.
• 7:46
  I'm, like 15 or something, and I'm like, okay.
• 7:50
  And so.
• 7:51
  And he.
• 7:52
  Russell told me not to tell any of my friends because we didn't want it to be just a tiny party with David and a few of his friends.
• 7:58
  So I told none of my friends, and we go to the concert.
• 8:01
  And somehow, as I'm driving back from the concert, there's cars all over the street.
• 8:08
  Like, up and down the street and all over our driveway.
• 8:11
  It's just full of cars.
• 8:12
  I'm like, what's going on here?
• 8:13
  And I walk in, and you know who Rodney Bingenheimer was?
• 8:16
  Sure.
• 8:16
  The KROC DJ who was the first person ever to play Bowie on LA radio, answers my front door.
• 8:23
  I'm like, hello.
• 8:24
  He's like, hi.
• 8:25
  And there's a zillion people in my house, gazillion people, and they're all dressed up.
• 8:29
  Back then, it was like the New Romantic was starting.
• 8:31
  And everybody had makeup and goth look and everything.
• 8:34
  And, like, everybody came to the party.
• 8:35
  Like, everybody except for my friends.
• 8:37
  And.
• 8:38
  Because I hadn't told them.
• 8:39
  And now you're excited because you're gonna meet Bowie.
• 8:41
  I'm finally.
• 8:42
  I'm so excited.
• 8:43
  And then at your mom's house.
• 8:45
  At my mom's house, who would lock herself in her bedroom?
• 8:49
  And I can't tell you anymore until you come see the show.
• 8:51
  A tease.
• 8:52
  Just the thought that Bowie's coming to your mom's house.
• 8:55
  And I had my giant Diamond Dogs poster on my wall in my bedroom.
• 8:59
  And I remember just at the last second, pulling it off the wall, going, phew.
• 9:02
  I want David to see that.
• 9:05
  It would have been embarrassing.
• 9:06
  So this goes on and on and on through your career.
• 9:10
  So many different sort of intersections.
• 9:11
  Yeah.
• 9:12
  Bowie was known as somebody who had no qualms about borrowing people's material.
• 9:17
  He was an artistic.
• 9:19
  Yeah, but he also gave back, like I was saying, that he would.
• 9:23
  He championed a lot of those people that he stole from, you know, like craftwork.
• 9:28
  And he would use these people that were obscure, and then because they worked with Bowie, they started becoming famous.
• 9:33
  And then he would champion them and help them get record deals and stuff like that.
• 9:37
  He was really a good, helpful person to them.
• 9:41
  So, yeah, he stole a lot of stuff, but he also helped people.
• 9:43
  It was legend that he hung out with Brian Ferry from Roxy Music, and Brian mentioned that he was going to do a covers album.
• 9:50
  Oh, yeah.
• 9:50
  And then Bowie did pinups.
• 9:51
  And then Bowie did pinups before he had a chance to do it.
• 9:54
  Well, Mick Jagger famously said, never wear a new pair of shoes in front of Bowie because he showed Bowie the artist that he was gonna use for the It's Only a Rock and Roll album cover.
• 10:01
  And then David used him for his Diamond Dogs album cover, which just came out before it.
• 10:05
  You're listening to the Sexy Boomer Show.
• 10:07
  Our guest today is magician actor Al B.
• 10:10
  Selznick.
• 10:10
  His solo show, Letter From David is the story of a teenage magician who set out to work with David Bowie.
• 10:16
  It plays Sunday evenings at the Santa Monica Playhouse.
• 10:19
  It's a really fun and funny show.
• 10:22
  Incredible twists, highly recommended.
• 10:24
  How long is it playing?
• 10:25
  It's going to play till December 20, every Sunday night at 7.
• 10:28
  And by the way, for this audience, I'll give you a code, Bowie.
• 10:32
  You get a little discount.
• 10:34
  Thank you.
• 10:35
  Hey, Phil, you there?
• 10:36
  Yeah.
• 10:37
  There you are.
• 10:37
  I am.
• 10:38
  I'm so glad you finally acknowledging me over here.
• 10:42
  When I'm in the studio, I can yell and point at my head and say, I'm going to say something.
• 10:47
  You've been awfully quiet.
• 10:49
  I've been learning a great deal.
• 10:50
  Up to today, the only thing I knew about Bowie was his knife.
• 10:57
  Yeah, the knife.
• 10:58
  He invented the knife.
• 10:59
  He invented champagne.
• 11:01
  Anyway, that's why he had to do that, because Davy Jones, his real name, was taken by the Monkeys.
• 11:06
  Oh, that's right.
• 11:07
  And then I heard he was going to change it to Tom Jones, and then that was.
• 11:11
  Well, I played at Yale by the Way in a musical comedy written by Austin Pendleton.
• 11:17
  One of the real parallels to me is the Fireside Theater was happening during this era as well.
• 11:23
  And it was really a very creative time for society and for art.
• 11:28
  And I think what we admired most about Bowie was his chameleon nature.
• 11:34
  You never knew what he was going to come up with next.
• 11:37
  That inspired the Firestine Theater very much like the Beatles did, because we never knew what they were going to come up with next.
• 11:44
  So we tried to emulate that in the work that we did.
• 11:47
  But I have a very important question for you.
• 11:49
  How do you learn how to walk on a tightrope?
• 11:54
  Does it start with a piece of rope laying on the ground?
• 11:58
  No.
• 11:58
  It's funny you should mention that.
• 11:59
  I actually give a lesson in my show of how to tightrope walk.
• 12:03
  We would set it up between two trees at any park.
• 12:07
  We have a little come along to tighten it so it's tight, and then maybe three or four feet off the ground.
• 12:13
  And then you hold on to somebody's hand, you step on with one foot, and the other foot you leave off as kind of a counterbalance along with your arms.
• 12:19
  And we used a parasol because it actually really cups the air and really helps a lot.
• 12:24
  And then you try to let go for a few minutes while you try to.
• 12:27
  A few seconds while you try to find the balance.
• 12:29
  And it takes a really long time, but because you start shaking, like, uncontrollably shaking when you get on the rope.
• 12:37
  But if you learn to control that, it's like.
• 12:39
  It's like riding a bike.
• 12:40
  Once you get it, you're like, oh, now I can do it.
• 12:42
  And it's phenomenal.
• 12:43
  But until then, you're just, like, all over the place.
• 12:45
  You're like, I hate this.
• 12:46
  I can't do it.
• 12:47
  And then you finally.
• 12:48
  It clicks in and you're like, I got it.
• 12:50
  And then I was laying down, doing splits, doing jumping off it, backflips off the rope.
• 12:55
  Oh, wow.
• 12:56
  Yeah.
• 12:56
  That's wild.
• 12:57
  Now they have these little sort of straps that they put on and they walk on, which I think are easier than ropes, because ropes are round and, like, flat.
• 13:04
  But it's a really great thing to your concentration and your.
• 13:07
  It kind of centers you when you get it.
• 13:09
  And you're just like.
• 13:10
  It's like a meditative.
• 13:11
  Yeah, that's what was clear in the show.
• 13:13
  It's mind over matter.
• 13:14
  Yeah.
• 13:15
  And I'm like, such an anxious guy that getting on the rope was a really good way for me to kind of.
• 13:19
  It's like yoga.
• 13:20
  Yeah.
• 13:20
  Just calms me down.
• 13:22
  I found that when I was a kid, I also was attracted to magic.
• 13:26
  I think many, many performers started their relationship with an audience, maybe with the family first and then branching out.
• 13:34
  Oh, mom, look at this.
• 13:35
  Mom, look at this.
• 13:36
  Yeah, look.
• 13:36
  Pick a card, any card.
• 13:38
  And.
• 13:38
  And also, you were in control of the effect of what you were doing.
• 13:43
  So magic was a wonderful entree for all of us.
• 13:47
  I still love it.
• 13:48
  I'm also a lifetime member of the Magic Castle.
• 13:50
  Oh, good.
• 13:51
  Yeah, me too.
• 13:51
  All right, great.
• 13:52
  And I know you are, and you must let me know the next time you're performing there.
• 13:56
  Okay.
• 13:56
  And if I'm in town, I'll be there.
• 13:59
  I'll be there for you.
• 14:01
  I'll be there.
• 14:03
  Let's get back to your quest of working with David Bowie.
• 14:06
  You had another opportunity to get into his orbit, of all things, with his first wife, Angie Bowie.
• 14:13
  Oh, yeah, Russell again.
• 14:15
  Russell knew Angie, and pretty soon after the Bowie party, he calls me.
• 14:20
  He's like, angie's coming to town and she's going to stay with me.
• 14:24
  And I'm like, oh, wow.
• 14:25
  And he goes, and I'm going to be busy teaching dance class.
• 14:28
  Can you pick her up at the airport?
• 14:30
  And again, I'm like, I just got my driver's license, and I'm, like, asked to go.
• 14:34
  So I was going to.
• 14:36
  Actually, I was going to Cal State Northridge.
• 14:37
  So I guess I was.
• 14:38
  I had my life.
• 14:39
  I guess I was, like, 17 at that point.
• 14:40
  And so I grabbed my friend because I was too nervous to go by myself.
• 14:44
  After class, we hopped into my little Dodge Dart convertible, drove over to the Burbank airport, and we picked up Angie Bowie.
• 14:52
  And then a couple nights later, we went in a green limousine to see the opening night of Star wars at the Chinese Theater.
• 15:00
  Wow.
• 15:01
  77 in.
• 15:02
  77.
• 15:03
  Yeah.
• 15:03
  And it was the first time, and one of the only times I have to say that I tried acid.
• 15:08
  And so I met Star wars an opening night with Angie Bowie on acid, like, completely freaking out, going, like, I don't know what's going on here, but I feel really cool.
• 15:18
  Angie wasn't terribly grounded.
• 15:20
  No, she wasn't.
• 15:21
  No, she was a.
• 15:22
  She was very different than David Bowie.
• 15:23
  She's American and just wild.
• 15:28
  Complete opposite of David Bowie in a lot of ways.
• 15:30
  But, yeah, it was kind of.
• 15:32
  When I was hanging out with her, it made me feel like maybe I could work with David Bowie.
• 15:36
  You didn't meet him there either?
• 15:38
  No.
• 15:38
  Okay.
• 15:39
  The quest continues.
• 15:40
  The mums this Magic juggling act.
• 15:44
  Yeah, we went all over the world.
• 15:46
  Did you ever see Phil?
• 15:47
  Did you ever get to see the Mums?
• 15:49
  Yes, I believe I did.
• 15:50
  And I was knocked out again.
• 15:53
  You guys were an iteration of Flying Karamazov.
• 15:56
  Yeah, but with your own very distinctive.
• 15:59
  Oh, yeah, we were darker, intimate feeling.
• 16:01
  Yeah, you were definitely darker, but you also involved the audience.
• 16:06
  It had that aspect of magic to it, a fascination.
• 16:10
  What's going to happen?
• 16:11
  How are they?
• 16:12
  How much magic did you integrate into?
• 16:15
  They were the two jugglers and they taught me how to juggle clubs.
• 16:18
  So we had the three man juggling club jug, but also the magician.
• 16:22
  I would produce birds in between the juggling that would fly out around the audience and come back to a light I had on stage, which is pretty cool.
• 16:29
  In fact, I invented.
• 16:30
  I don't know if anyone else does it the same way I did, how to make my birds fly back to me.
• 16:34
  And it wasn't like I starved them or anything.
• 16:37
  They were really well taken care of.
• 16:39
  But I figured out a way that if I.
• 16:41
  For them to fly to a certain light that I had.
• 16:43
  And so I produced birds at the Universal Amphitheater and at the Forum, these.
• 16:48
  And he would still fly all over the audience and still come back to the stage.
• 16:50
  So I do that in between the juggling.
• 16:52
  And then I would eat razor blades and then swallow a string and pull the razor blades back out of my mouth.
• 16:56
  And then, oh, yeah, one of my birds, I would take the head off and I'd pour wine out of it and then pour it into a little glass and my partner would drink the wine and then scarves would
• 17:04
  come out of his mouth and we'd juggle those.
• 17:06
  And so we did all crazy and we had dark.
• 17:09
  We had Brian Eno, Third uncle music and on Merv Griffin.
• 17:12
  And it's this obscure cut from 801.
• 17:14
  Yeah, I don't know how I was telling you.
• 17:16
  I don't know how Merv Griffin got the rights to be able to show us playing third uncle.
• 17:20
  But I met Eno at ucla.
• 17:22
  He was doing a lecture and I brought him a DVD of us doing our juggling act with his music.
• 17:28
  And I don't know if he ever saw it, but I gave it to.
• 17:30
  Him as I was leaving the mums, this hip, punk mini circus act with juggling.
• 17:34
  And, yeah, we were opening for Devo.
• 17:36
  This was your scheme, was that to create an act that would be appropriate for concept rock bands as an opening act?
• 17:42
  Exactly.
• 17:43
  And it worked because you ended up open Devo And Duran Duran and Berlin and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
• 17:51
  Saw them in New York.
• 17:52
  And once, by the way, they didn't.
• 17:55
  At least on our show, they didn't really play their instrument or sing.
• 17:58
  It was all lip synced.
• 17:59
  Yeah, it was faked.
• 18:00
  It was really weird.
• 18:01
  Really mean to us.
• 18:03
  How many years was that career with the moms?
• 18:05
  25 years.
• 18:05
  Oh, wow.
• 18:06
  Wow.
• 18:07
  You had this great moment with the Mums.
• 18:09
  What brought you to Andy Warhol's Factory?
• 18:11
  Oh, okay.
• 18:12
  This is a great story.
• 18:13
  So we were working for Nike.
• 18:16
  We were supposed to be in a show that Robert Wilson was doing for the Olympic Arts Festival.
• 18:21
  And I'd say in my show, it ended up not happening in a very spectacular way.
• 18:25
  But so we were able to work for Nike for the 1984 Olympics.
• 18:29
  And they flew us all over the country.
• 18:31
  And a lot of the shows were in New York City.
• 18:33
  So we were in New York, staying at the Essex House, and we had a limousine at our disposal.
• 18:39
  And we performed for, like, these parties for Nike at Studio 54 and everything, like, for months.
• 18:45
  And while we were there doing kind of our fun, happy show in the day, at night, we would do kind of our dark punk show at night at the different.
• 18:52
  Like, you were talking about Danceateria, the Limelight, the Cat Club.
• 18:56
  And while we were doing that at night.
• 18:57
  And then one day, Roy, my partner, who just knew everybody somehow, was having lunch with somebody who brought Paige Powell.
• 19:06
  Was it Paige Powell, who was the associate producer of.
• 19:09
  Associate publisher of Andy Warhol's Interview magazine?
• 19:12
  And they were having lunch.
• 19:12
  She said, it's Andy's birthday the next day.
• 19:15
  Hey, do you guys want to maybe do a surprise performance for him at the Factory?
• 19:19
  Oh, wow.
• 19:20
  And Roy comes back and tells me.
• 19:23
  I'm like, oh, my God, this is amazing.
• 19:24
  And we run into Nate's room.
• 19:25
  Nate was the third mum.
• 19:27
  And he's like, oh, I can't.
• 19:28
  I'm visiting my friend Alan in Connecticut tomorrow.
• 19:32
  We had to really work to convince him, no, we have to do Andy Warhol's birthday party tomorrow.
• 19:37
  And so we did the Factory.
• 19:39
  We ran.
• 19:40
  And there was only six people.
• 19:41
  Rick O.
• 19:41
  Kasich from the band the Cars, Andy and a couple of other people.
• 19:45
  And we performed for him.
• 19:46
  And our finale was fire juggling.
• 19:49
  And we were done.
• 19:50
  Andy was, like, nowhere to be found.
• 19:52
  And then I saw him kind of hiding behind a curtain.
• 19:55
  He was afraid of fire, apparently.
• 19:59
  And you come in juggling flaming.
• 20:02
  Yeah, Nine torches.
• 20:03
  Nine flaming torches around all his artwork.
• 20:05
  Yeah, yeah.
• 20:06
  In his studio.
• 20:09
  Crazy prices, pieces of Art, Yeah.
• 20:11
  I don't know why we did that, but we did stupid things like that.
• 20:14
  You take risks.
• 20:15
  Sure.
• 20:16
  And in fact, around that time when David Bowie was doing Scary Monsters, I thought it would be really cool if he did a circus because he was dressed as Pierrot the French clown.
• 20:26
  And I thought he should do a circus as his next tour.
• 20:30
  And so I wrote him this letter and I figured out a really clever way to get it to him.
• 20:34
  And I'm just like 20 year old guy from West LA.
• 20:39
  And I send this letter and I don't want to tell you because it's all in my show.
• 20:43
  But again, he writes me back and so I had in his own handwriting.
• 20:46
  So I have.
• 20:47
  And he said he was excited about this idea.
• 20:50
  So I have three letters from David that are actually on my wall that are.
• 20:55
  I did not take good care of them, I have to say.
• 20:57
  There's like coffee spilled all on them and stuff.
• 20:59
  It's really.
• 20:59
  But for me to get a letter from David Bowie, that's why it's called Letter From David.
• 21:03
  This was the beginning.
• 21:04
  This letter from David was the beginning of what kind of led to the future of what you'll find out when you come see my show.
• 21:12
  This show is at the Santa Monica Playhouse.
• 21:15
  It's called Letters From David.
• 21:17
  It's Sundays at 7pm at Santa Monica Playhouse now.
• 21:21
  The Mums eventually disbanded.
• 21:24
  What happened was actually I got into acting and it was just hard for me to kind of do both.
• 21:28
  So Roy and Nate kind of went on without me.
• 21:31
  And they were able to slide in other people to kind of take my place, but never that well.
• 21:39
  But Roy and Nate, they're still really good friends.
• 21:41
  In fact, they both come to see my show and I thank them in my program, of course.
• 21:46
  And when you see the show, there's a lot of videos and stuff of the Mums.
• 21:49
  You did another show called Smoke and Mirrors in town.
• 21:52
  Oh, yeah.
• 21:53
  Did you see that?
• 21:55
  I did, yeah.
• 21:57
  You did an incredible mind reading thing with the audience.
• 22:00
  Yeah, I had a giant projection of a face on a gigantic beach ball and it was live.
• 22:06
  So he was able to read the audience's members, their fears.
• 22:11
  Everybody wrote their little fears on a card and then we pick one randomly and he would go in.
• 22:16
  It was really.
• 22:17
  At the time, it was actually pretty cool because the guy playing the big face was able to go on to LinkedIn and all that and find out about the people so you could tell them all this spooky stuff
• 22:28
  and people were like freaking out.
• 22:30
  It was wonderful.
• 22:31
  It was Great, great fun.
• 22:33
  Yeah.
• 22:33
  My show Smokey Mirrors was about.
• 22:35
  I got about me getting into magic after my dad died.
• 22:37
  And it was a really, really good story, I thought.
• 22:40
  And I did magic all the way through it for an hour and a half.
• 22:43
  And I had.
• 22:44
  I kept making, adding more and more tricks, and the show got bigger and bigger.
• 22:48
  I had trunk escapes and levitation and a billion birds and everything.
• 22:51
  And so finally when I was done with Smoking Mirrors, I was like, I'm not gonna do another show with props ever again.
• 22:59
  So that's why this show is kind of.
• 23:00
  There's only a few props in this show, and I'm really enjoying not have to worry about all the birds tucked into my coat.
• 23:06
  You've had a lengthy career as an actor.
• 23:09
  You've been guest starred on more than 80 TV shows.
• 23:12
  Yeah.
• 23:12
  And you're perhaps best known for portraying.
• 23:15
  Rabbi Ben on Suddenly Susan.
• 23:18
  Actually, if you see the movie Michael, the Michael Jackson movie, I'm in that.
• 23:23
  Which is funny because people keep.
• 23:25
  I play as plastic surgeon.
• 23:26
  People keep sending me.
• 23:27
  It's you.
• 23:27
  Yeah.
• 23:28
  It was you that lost his nose.
• 23:29
  I did.
• 23:30
  I got rid of his nose.
• 23:30
  Yeah.
• 23:31
  And I have all these pictures.
• 23:32
  I just got one today of people on an airplane sending me pictures of me on their headrest.
• 23:38
  Because they're showing Michael on all the airplanes right now.
• 23:41
  Hey, that's where I saw you.
• 23:43
  Yes, I watched the movie on an airplane.
• 23:46
  Everybody's watching on airplanes.
• 23:48
  Hey, I know that guy.
• 23:49
  Funny.
• 23:50
  Wow.
• 23:51
  When I got that part, I didn't even know what it was they did.
• 23:54
  It was all secret.
• 23:55
  I had to sign an NDA.
• 23:56
  They didn't tell me it wasn't Michael.
• 23:58
  It was someone else's name on the script.
• 24:00
  And then when I got there, I looked around, I was like, is this the movie Michael?
• 24:04
  They're like, yeah, you're Michael's plastic surgeon.
• 24:07
  And then I did it in half a day, and then I'm done.
• 24:10
  They're like, you can go home now.
• 24:12
  And then I never heard anything at all for a year until somebody called me and said, oh, you saw you in the movie, Michael?
• 24:19
  That's nice.
• 24:19
  You didn't get to go to the cast.
• 24:21
  No crew screening.
• 24:24
  Really?
• 24:24
  Yeah.
• 24:25
  I worked with Michael on his History album.
• 24:28
  Do you know Kenny Ortega worked on that?
• 24:31
  Yeah, yeah.
• 24:32
  And I remember when we went into the studio, there was a contract sitting in front of the microphone.
• 24:39
  It was about, oh, 20, 30 pages, something like that.
• 24:43
  And it had all this stuff about if you mentioned his name or that you were working here or anything, you'd be charged a million dollars.
• 24:51
  We'd sue you.
• 24:51
  We'd take.
• 24:52
  It was the craziest thing I ever saw in my life.
• 24:55
  And I signed it.
• 24:56
  Of course.
• 24:56
  Of course I signed it.
• 24:57
  Marlon Brando.
• 24:59
  You were on Young and Restless.
• 25:00
  Yeah, I was on that for two years.
• 25:02
  It was weird.
• 25:02
  They auditioned for one little part and then I didn't get it.
• 25:05
  And then six months later, call me in to be the assistant DA in this one little scene, and I do it and then they call me back and they're like, I guess the DA guy couldn't do it.
• 25:15
  So I became the DA and I did it for.
• 25:18
  I did 60.
• 25:19
  60 performances, 60 episodes.
• 25:21
  And at one point, I'm searching for this bad guy and he's.
• 25:25
  I'm also a lawyer and an AD at the same time.
• 25:28
  There's a lot of courtroom stuff and I'm searching for the bad guy.
• 25:31
  And then I wanted to get my script and I find out I'm the bad guy.
• 25:37
  I had a similar experience.
• 25:39
  My first job out of Yale, I was still in Yale as a senior was the Edge of Night.
• 25:45
  Oh, wow.
• 25:46
  So soap opera.
• 25:47
  Yeah.
• 25:47
  And I was I getting the part and everything is a great story.
• 25:51
  You can read it in my book, where's my Fortune Cookie?
• 25:54
  Not my one man show.
• 25:56
  And.
• 25:56
  But anyway, the.
• 25:57
  The writer came up to me finally, after I've been doing a month or so of the show, said, we got a storyline for you, Phil.
• 26:05
  I said, oh, that's great.
• 26:06
  You're going to get murdered.
• 26:08
  Yep.
• 26:09
  And sure enough, I was murdered.
• 26:11
  Yeah.
• 26:12
  But he said, don't worry, you'll come back in the court, in the courtroom, when they try to discover who killed you.
• 26:19
  Which I did.
• 26:20
  But, yes, it could be a blessing or a curse.
• 26:23
  But the soaps sure are fun, aren't they?
• 26:25
  Oh, yeah.
• 26:26
  Speaking of, when I was at Suddenly Susan, after 20 episodes, they told me that I was gonna die.
• 26:32
  And so I was like, okay.
• 26:34
  So I kind of made peace with it.
• 26:35
  But then the producer said, but they really liked me, so they were gonna bring me back as a ghost.
• 26:40
  So I did one episode as a ghost, and then, yeah, it was so fun.
• 26:45
  But then at that point, one of the actors, David Strickland, who was brilliant, actually committed suicide.
• 26:50
  And that was how Suddenly Susan ended.
• 26:53
  They had new cast come in, and it didn't really.
• 26:55
  It ended suddenly.
• 26:57
  Wow.
• 26:59
  And so the idea of me coming back as a ghost kind of didn't work out at that point.
• 27:02
  Now we're not gonna touch that anymore.
• 27:04
  Between acting jobs and doing A one man show about your life.
• 27:07
  Excuse me.
• 27:08
  I've heard about art imitating life.
• 27:10
  This is art imitating death.
• 27:12
  Yeah, please go ahead.
• 27:14
  Sorry.
• 27:14
  Ted, the difference between an acting gig and doing a one man show about your life, how raw is that?
• 27:20
  And I know that your wife, Laura Maccabee.
• 27:23
  Thank you for saying that.
• 27:24
  Being your partner on this project.
• 27:26
  Laura is brilliant.
• 27:27
  And she was working on this, and she started kind of helping me because I needed some help, and she helped me.
• 27:33
  She was like, okay, you got this.
• 27:35
  Amazing stories.
• 27:36
  All these incredible stories and how they all fit together and everything.
• 27:39
  It needs to be a show.
• 27:40
  But what is your arc?
• 27:42
  And I was like, I don't know.
• 27:43
  And so she started working with me, and I was like, oh, yeah, I have an arc, too.
• 27:46
  Wow.
• 27:46
  And so she started working with me.
• 27:48
  She started crafting this show with me, and she would give me all these great lines, and I was like, why don't you just write this with me?
• 27:55
  And she's like, okay.
• 27:56
  And she was like, she's doing a film and she's in the middle of writing her film, but she took it off to help me with this show.
• 28:00
  And she's also directing the show, and she's just brilliant.
• 28:03
  I couldn't be happier.
• 28:05
  We're both on the same page.
• 28:06
  And she's got incredible taste.
• 28:07
  She's always trying to get me to living with somebody.
• 28:11
  And you're doing a show.
• 28:12
  It's like we're rehearsing all the time.
• 28:14
  Yeah.
• 28:15
  And it could go really well.
• 28:16
  Or not.
• 28:17
  Yeah, it could.
• 28:18
  We could have broken up.
• 28:19
  You know, it could have been the opposite.
• 28:20
  My.
• 28:20
  My late wife, Melinda Peterson, and I had a very similar relationship.
• 28:24
  And that is.
• 28:26
  It's a blessing.
• 28:27
  It really is.
• 28:28
  It keeps you on your toes.
• 28:29
  It must have been helpful, too, because you're going inside to tell your story.
• 28:35
  So was it difficult for you to say?
• 28:36
  What's interesting to me, is this really going to translate?
• 28:39
  That's why you have a good partner you could bounce off of.
• 28:42
  She'll say, no, that's not good.
• 28:44
  Or, yeah, okay, yeah, do this.
• 28:46
  And so many things she would get me to do that I didn't want to do, and then I would do them.
• 28:50
  And I did a whole bunch of workshops of this show.
• 28:53
  Like, tons and tons of workshops.
• 28:54
  She inevitably would always be right.
• 28:56
  So I was like, okay, that's helpful.
• 28:58
  Yeah.
• 28:59
  So I just shut up and let her tell me what to do.
• 29:02
  Good.
• 29:02
  It was the Hollywood Fringe Planners pick nomination.
• 29:06
  Oh, yeah.
• 29:06
  You've really been working at this.
• 29:08
  And it's been acclaimed.
• 29:09
  Yeah, we did it at the Fringe Festival, and it was.
• 29:11
  It went really well, Better than I even expected.
• 29:13
  And we did it for five performances, and people really liked it.
• 29:16
  I was like, I did Smoke and Mirrors for five years, and I kept working on it.
• 29:21
  I never stopped working on it.
• 29:23
  And so I'm like, schenectady, New York.
• 29:25
  Is that the name of that movie where he's constantly working, never puts it up, he just keeps working on it.
• 29:29
  And so I thought, after five performances, I'm like, I'm not done.
• 29:32
  I'm just getting started.
• 29:33
  So we kept working on it more and more.
• 29:35
  And then I love the Santa Monica Playhouse.
• 29:37
  It's like a.
• 29:38
  You're like, in somebody's Victorian living room.
• 29:40
  It's just beautiful.
• 29:41
  And the feeling there is so great.
• 29:43
  I done a bunch of plays there, and I did Smoke and Mirrors originally there.
• 29:46
  And then for five years, I did Magic Monday, where I got a bunch of magicians from the Magic Castle to come down every Monday, rotating list and perform.
• 29:54
  And that went on really well until the pandemic, like, everything stopped.
• 29:57
  And I've been to the Santa Monica house for years, and so I asked them if I could do this show there, and they were super great.
• 30:02
  And so they're producing the show with me, the playoffs.
• 30:05
  And I love that space so much.
• 30:06
  I just think it's like a.
• 30:08
  You just walk in, you just feel like, oh, I'm in a great place.
• 30:10
  Yeah.
• 30:11
  Talking about Bowie because he's the through line on this whole story.
• 30:15
  How shocking was it to you when you woke up that morning?
• 30:17
  We found out that he'd passed away.
• 30:19
  Oh, listen to this.
• 30:20
  We were in Hawaii.
• 30:21
  I just finished Smoke and mirrors.
• 30:22
  It was 2016, and I went there to take a vacation.
• 30:26
  And I was.
• 30:27
  The day we got there, I was, like, really depressed, and I couldn't figure out.
• 30:32
  I guess it's because I don't have a show.
• 30:34
  I like having a show.
• 30:35
  I like to.
• 30:36
  And then I get this alert on my phone saying, david Bowie died.
• 30:39
  And it was just like.
• 30:40
  It's like the nail in the coffin.
• 30:41
  Yeah.
• 30:42
  And then I thought, we can't really be dead.
• 30:44
  I says, david is pulling an Elvis.
• 30:47
  He just wants to, like, be anonymous.
• 30:50
  And so.
• 30:51
  But his album Black Star had just come out, which was two days earlier.
• 30:55
  Yeah.
• 30:55
  And I just.
• 30:56
  When I heard that album, it was just so melancholy.
• 30:59
  Yeah.
• 31:00
  And sad and otherworldly.
• 31:02
  It really was.
• 31:03
  That video, the Blackstar video, is just phenomenal.
• 31:07
  He's got Major Tom, which he used in a whole Bunch of songs as a motif.
• 31:12
  And in the video, he's in a.
• 31:14
  He's in a spacesuit and he's a skull with encrusted jewels.
• 31:18
  And someone kind of takes the skull out of the thing and takes it to some kind of a ritual with this woman with a tail is her life on Mars.
• 31:25
  And yeah, it was after that album came out and then he died.
• 31:28
  You're like, wow, that was like a farewell album.
• 31:30
  Yeah.
• 31:31
  I remember listening to the record a day or two before he died and I was unsettled by it.
• 31:36
  Yeah.
• 31:36
  Yeah.
• 31:36
  I felt.
• 31:37
  I don't know if I like this.
• 31:38
  It's very down.
• 31:39
  It's very.
• 31:39
  It's not like him.
• 31:40
  It's depressing and scary.
• 31:43
  Yeah.
• 31:43
  I didn't get it.
• 31:44
  And then he died and everything made sense.
• 31:48
  Yeah.
• 31:48
  He actually wrote his farewell.
• 31:50
  Yeah.
• 31:50
  And it made perfect sense.
• 31:52
  And it's beautiful.
• 31:52
  It's not something I listen to much because it's sad.
• 31:56
  Yeah.
• 31:57
  Was it an LP or a cd?
• 31:58
  Oh, it was a cd.
• 32:00
  The reason I'm asking is if it had been an lp, you could have been listening to the other side.
• 32:09
  Albeit Selznick.
• 32:10
  His one man show Letter from David is playing now at the Santa Monica Playhouse on Sunday evenings.
• 32:17
  You can find out more@letterfromdavid.com and if you buy your ticket, use code Bowie for a discount.
• 32:25
  You will get the stories, the completed stories that we're teasing you about.
• 32:30
  And it's a delight if you're.
• 32:31
  You don't even have to be a Bowie fan, but if you are, you're in for a real treat.
• 32:34
  Especially if you were down in the club scene at that time, because your references, every show you mentioned, everything you talked about, I was there.
• 32:42
  Wow, that's incredible.
• 32:43
  Yeah, I know.
• 32:44
  I saw you after the show and you were just beaming.
• 32:46
  I was like, oh, my God.
• 32:47
  Ultravox.
• 32:48
  Yeah.
• 32:48
  Who talks about Ultravox?
• 32:50
  And if you come to the show, you can get a T shirt, which won't mean anything now, but when you see the show, it will.
• 32:54
  Okay, thank you.
• 32:55
  Yeah.
• 32:56
  See the show.
• 32:56
  Thank you.
• 32:57
  Phil.
• 32:57
  Nice.
• 32:57
  It's nice to meet you.
• 32:58
  I'm Ted Bonnitt.
• 32:59
  I'm still Phil Proctor.
• 33:01
  No matter where I am.