Uh 16 years from today, Greg Gerstner will finally land the perfect cannonball. FX Splash. Unsuspecting Friends. A work of art only possible because Greg is already meeting all these same people at AARP volunteer and community events that keep him active and involved and help make sure his happiness lives as long as he does. That's why the younger you are, the more you need AARP.
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We all define our personalities in certain ways. We're introverts or extroverts, messy or neat. uptight or easy going. But what's a person to do if you don't like the way you are? Susan Spencer takes on a provocative question.
Is it possible to go back to the drawing board and design a new you? Oh, I was supposed to write about why people are generally good. Four years ago, journalist Olga Kazan did something radical. She set out to redesign her personality. I was not very happy.
So you didn't like you very much.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think I just saw that I was kind of standing in my own way. The science of personality design. ahead on Sunday morning.
She is an Oscar, Emmy, and Golden Globe winner.
Now, Kathy Bates has a new entry on her resume. Star of a hit TV show. Ben Mankowitz catches up with the woman behind Matlock. I feed you, I clean you, I dress you, and what thanks do I get? Kathy Bates pours herself into every role she plays.
Her performances are memorable. I would like to say thank you. As was the moment she told us about her mother. And winning the ostrich. I forgot to thank her that night.
You know, you did thank you. At the end of your speech, you thank her. No, I did not. I did not. You go back and look at it.
I didn't. Kathy Bates. Later. Oh, this is. On Sunday morning.
I named her. For decades now, Keith McNally's New York restaurants have been the places to see and be seen. The food's pretty good, too. The famed restaurateur has written a new memoir, and he's talking with Mo Rocca. Ever since his stroke in 2016, restaurant owner Keith McNally has been reflecting on his life.
Do you remember the first time you went into a restaurant? Yeah, I didn't know how to eat properly. I didn't know which fork to use and remember which knife. Nightmare. Coming up on Sunday morning.
Keith McNally tells his story. Luke Burbank this morning also spends time in Manhattan, Manhattan, Kansas, that is, hometown of the multi-talented Bridget Everett, and the setting of her critically acclaimed series, Somebody, Somewhere. Seth Doan takes us to Italy, where they're keeping a close eye on what's been called Europe's most dangerous volcano. Faith Saley uncovers one of Washington's hidden gems, the Claribarton Missing Soldier's Office Museum. Plus Martha Teischner with a noted conductor, who, at age ninety eight, is still the maestro.
A story from Steve Hartman. It's a Sunday morning for the twentieth of July, twenty twenty five. And we'll be back. We begin this morning with Susan Spencer. who goes in search of a new you.
For years, Olga Kazan, a Virginia-based staff writer at the Atlantic, knew she had a big problem. She hated much of her own personality. I was constantly worried about everything, just never living in the moment. And I didn't really like doing anything fun with. Other people just wasn't my thing.
Fun wasn't your thing? No, no.
So, if you went to a party, how would you function? I would kind of. stand off to myself and I'm Honestly, sometimes just like read articles on my phone or just basically not engage. Not surprisingly, a lot of folks didn't want to engage with Olga either. One person called me a uh pressure addict, that I was sort of obsessed with working and just doing as much work as possible and never taking a minute to appreciate life.
One person told me that she was kind of afraid of me when we worked together. Predictably, when she took a personality test four years ago, she was off the charts, way off, in neuroticism or negative emotions. Not that she hadn't tried to find help. This whole time I've been in therapy, I had taken different medications. I did yoga and I did all the self-care things.
So nothing was working? Nothing was truly working, no. Frustrated, Olga set out to do something much more radical. I decided to spend a year trying to change my personality traits. She vowed to redesign her whole personality.
Personality is your characteristic way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. It's how you think about your behavior and how you act. I always assumed that once you had. Reached a certain age, your personality was your personality. Yeah, so that really is, I think, the prevailing way to think about personality, but it doesn't line up with our science.
There's a huge culture of self-improvement. Personality science is Professor Shannon Sauer-Zavala's specialty, and her research at the University of Kentucky could be a game changer for how we approach mental health issues. Is it possible to scientifically change your personality? That's what our data tell us. She says with the right intervention, introverts can become extroverts.
Sloppy people can get neater. Slackers can gain ambition by And anxious people can learn to be calm. In my almost 20 years of treating people with anxiety disorders, I've seen dramatic changes in 12, 16, 20 weeks.
So, what kind of questions do we have here? Step one is a baseline personality test. I sometimes manipulate people into doing what I want. People say yes to that? The next step is forcing yourself to act the opposite of how you normally would.
If you're shy, make conversations. If you're messy, make the bed. When we make intentional changes to our thinking, our feeling, and our behaviors, and we maintain those changes over time, then we're essentially shifting our personality. We're changing the way we're gonna fill out those bubbles on the personality questionnaire. consciously adopt the behavior of the Personality that you think you want.
Exactly. You make it sound easy. It's not easy. The principles are simple, but the execution is difficult. It wasn't easy for Olga, the lifelong introvert.
Among other strategies to tackle her social anxiety, she enrolled in an improv class with total strangers, something completely outside her comfort zone. I was very, very scared. Probably for the first three or four months that I did it, my heart was really beating in my chest and I was deeply uncomfortable. What about it scared you? I didn't like looking silly.
Oh, that's all they do is look silly. That's all they do. For me, doing improv was a life-changing thing. I opened up socially. I became a better listener, a better collaborator.
Murphy McHugh was Olga's improv teacher. As Olga continued coming to class, did you notice any change in her? Sure. Relaxing, a little bit less of the cross-armed body language. And you see someone relax, you see their shoulders drop, you see them laughing, coming into scenes with an idea.
Along with improv, Olga meditated, went sailing, took conversation classes. Oh, I was supposed to write about why people are generally good in order to increase my agreeableness. And kept a journal, as she describes in a new book.
So journaling kind of helps you focus on some of the more positive elements of your life that if you're very neurotic, you tend to kind of gloss over or forget. Is this a case of fake it till you make it? Yeah, it is fake it till you make it. Because if you think about it, anything is going to feel fake if it feels new, right? Anything that you're not accustomed to doing is going to feel really unnatural.
But the only way to make it natural is to do it over and over and over again. And just incorporate it in who you are. Exactly. Today, Olga is happily married with a 14-month-old baby. As for that personality she once so disliked, do you feel like you have successfully redesigned your personality?
I do. I feel like I am a different person today than I was three years ago. A different person? That says a lot. Yeah, I think I genuinely have a different way of living my life and approaching problems than I did before.
For all of the people sitting out there watching this with their completely unsatisfactory personalities, what advice do you give them? Not to get stuck in a personality type box. Think about the life that you want to have and then know that you can intentionally develop the traits that will facilitate that journey for you. Are you ready to dairy-free your mind? This summer, melt away your dairy-free expectations with So Delicious dairy-free frozen desserts.
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Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com. From Seth Doan in Italy.
Some notes from the Underground. The displays at this nerve center may rattle a few as they monitor the increasing volcanic activity around Naples, Italy, including a magnitude 4.0 just two days ago. The red is all earthquakes. These are all earthquakes of last week. We were there in March.
There had been around 2,000 earthquakes in February alone. Most are so small they do not make news. The sensitivity of our network is very, very high. But still warned the attention of National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology director Mauro DeVito. Is my telephone?
Generally during night. Among the volcanoes within Izrimit is one with quite a reputation, Mount Vesuvius, that of course infamously covered the city of Pompeii in ash nearly two thousand years ago. And here you see with Vesuvius everything is in one. It's concentrated in the central, in the crater area. But just 30 miles from Vesuvius, there's a much more complex volcanic structure, which today is demanding more attention.
Campi Fligre stretches 125 miles under urban areas and out into the Bay of Naples. It's often called Europe's most dangerous volcano. The risk is very high due to the high density of population here. Population within the caldera. It's literally like living.
Living all. On a volcano. Yes, sir. In a volcano. How can that be?
How can people be permitted to live in a volcano. We can find traces of the life from 10,000 years. In modern times, about half a million people live in the red zone, which is most at risk of eruption. This fuming area is the center of it, called Solfitara, which government scientist Giovanni Macciadonio reminded us is now off-limits to visitors. You see the steam, you can smell the sulfur, and this tells you it's not so calm, not so tranquil under the ground.
Yeah, we know that under the ground there is a place, a volume, that is heated from fluids that come from below, from the magma chamber. While magma under Mount Vesuvius has a more predictable path to the surface, Campe Fligre has a more complex plumbing system. Deep underground, it's a snarl after massive eruptions thousands of years ago mangled the Earth's crust. There are huge pools of magma and hundreds of pathways to the surface. What's happening here is a geological phenomenon called bradyseism, which is also seen at Yellowstone, a national park, not an urban area.
So the the land is actually moving up and up. To see this cyclical rise and fall caused by volcanic activity, Macedonio took us to the port of Puzzuoli. This is not the tide changing, this is the land lifting. The land lifted about more than two meters here. Marco Morota has a restaurant here.
Until five, six years ago, the water level was much higher, he told us. Yes, really different, he said. Before there were boats, there were fishermen.
Now it's no longer a port, it's become a pond. It's the opposite effect from centuries ago when this area was slowly sinking. To see that, we suited up a while back for 60 minutes plus. to dive down and explore the now sunken ancient city of Baia. It had been a seaside retreat for the wealthiest Romans.
These stairs once likely led to the water. Today, they're submerged and underwater archaeologists are working to restore mosaics. We see gas, water and all these generates these rivers of mud that we can see from here. Today the opposite is happening, an uplift, as Giovanni Macciadonio explained. During the sinking there is very few gas activity.
And the contrary, when there is uplift, we see earthquakes and also increasing in the gassing. That degassing is one potential warning sign. Italy's government is monitoring the smallest of movements. This is the passage of a train. Which means more phone calls.
Ah, so tomorrow divito. When I see increase. in the activity earthquakes, increase of gas emission, of course, those are important parameters. Potential warning signs. Yes.
But something can change tomorrow. My feeling is, of course, that the the volcano is Ina eh. An increasing unrest. Increasing unrest. Increasing unrest.
Now, today. But these can also finish. But now we do not have evidences. of the possible eruption. It's not possible to predict an eruption, so they're monitoring gases and watching for warning signs which would trigger evacuation orders.
For now, the many tiny earthquakes are just a reminder of the power bubbling below. In a city rich with museums, Faith Saley has discovered one of Washington's hidden gems, the one-time office of Civil War nurse Clara Barton, the woman they called the angel of the battlefield. If you don't know to look for it, you might pass it by. This ordinary address between the fast casual Korean and Red Sauce Italian restaurants in downtown Washington, D.C. But a sign out front hints at the remarkable story this building has to tell.
When people hear that there's something called the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Museum, what's their reaction? Usually, what? It's almost like you're stepping back in time as you step up. David Price oversees a museum that honors the lesser-known contributions of one of this country's greatest humanitarians. And one woman, Clara Barton.
would carve for herself a unique place in the annals of service to mankind. Before gaining fame as founder of the American Red Cross, Barton made her name as a Civil War nurse who brought badly needed aid to a Union front line low on provisions and morale. They are without supplies. They're using corn husks to wrap wounds. And here is Clara Barton showing up with three wagon loads of supplies.
You name it, she had it. She had some close calls on the battlefield. She's giving a man a drink of water. And a shot is fired and goes through the sleeve of her dress, and it instantly kills him. There was no more to be done for him, and I left him to his rest.
I have never mended that hole in my sleeve. In eighteen sixty five, with the war nearing its end, Barton saw another unfulfilled need, and characteristically stepped up to help. The government woefully unprepared for the repercussions of war. No dog tags. No official procedure for informing the survivors that your loved one has died and she cares about.
Those left behind. Barton successfully petitioned President Lincoln for permission to start a missing soldier's office. and her mail slot was soon flooded with inquiries from wives and mothers desperate to learn the fates of their enlisted loved ones. she and a small staff meticulously compiled the names of the missing on to large rolls, which were then reprinted in local newspapers. This is a clipping from the New York Tribune.
All those names. Just hundreds and hundreds of names. This is a way of not only acknowledging that someone was looking for them, but also in an endeavor to try to find any information. You're still getting things. Oh, absolutely.
Michelle Crowell works in the Library of Congress's manuscript division, which houses Barton's papers. including some of the anguished letters she received. This was the mother of a soldier. The first that we knew of him was to find his name among the dead at Salisbury. I still cherish a hope that this news may not prove true.
Will you aid me in ascertaining the truth of this report? The natural longings of a mother's heart to know something of her dear boy who died in the hands of such an enemy prompts me to write to a stranger. Oh, God, it's heartbreaking. And to think she received Thousands of letters like that. Often Barton found that the soldiers she was searching for had died.
but for their next of kin that knowledge provided much needed closure. Add that to the fact that the only way The survivors could get a pension is if there is an official disposition of them. being killed. Three years after opening the office, Barton submitted a final report to Congress. By her count she had received over sixty three thousand pieces of correspondence.
and determine the fate of some twenty two thousand missing men. Finally, dependents could claim benefits and families could grieve. The building itself might have been lost too. After Barton's death at ninety in nineteen twelve it became a shoe store. In the nineteen nineties it was purchased by the government and slated for demolition.
When a carpenter named Richard Lyons conducted a routine inspection of the dilapidated third floor. he noticed a hole in the ceiling and pulled himself up. as he recounted in an interview before his death in 2023. I was on my hands and knees. I took my flashlight shine around.
I put my hand on a piece of metal. I went to move it out of my way. And when I moved it, I turned it over and it was the soldier's office. Lyons had stumbled upon a time capsule of Barton's work. The building was spared and, after a lengthy renovation, Opened to the public as a museum in 2015, ten years ago this month.
What do you think Clara Barton's legacy is? It all adds up to Take action. and care for your fellow man. her efforts physically and mentally wore her out. She gave it her all.
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You know that one friend who somehow knows everything about money? Yeah, now imagine they live in your phone. Say hey to Xperian, your big financial friend. It's the app that helps you check your FICO score, find ways to save, and basically feel like a financial genius. And guess what?
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So go on, download the Xperian app. Trust me, having a BFF like this is a total game changer. This episode is brought to you by Avid Reader Press. Legendary investor Ray Dalio's new book, How Countries Go Broke the Big Cycle, explains the mechanics behind big debt crises. Larry Summer says Dalio's brilliant iconoclastic approach is an invaluable resource, and Hank Paulson says it provides a solution to what is the biggest and most certain threat to our prosperity.
Read it to understand the greatest economic issue of our time. Available now wherever books are sold. Famed restaurateur Keith McNally once observed: like plays and films, restaurants work best when they create their own universe. Today the man behind some of Manhattan's most celebrated eateries is on our menu and in conversation with Mo Raka. Do you really hate New Year's Eve?
Yes. Why? Because I'm don't I like to be forced to enjoy myself.
So you don't like being told to have a good time. No, no, no, no, no. It just is the opposite. Keith McNally calls himself the least hospitable man in hospitality. And you're not a big smiler either.
Inside. It doesn't seem to have hurt. Over 40 years, he's opened some of New York City's most popular restaurants. Among them, the Odeon, Balthazar, Pastis. Institutions almost as well known as some of the bold-based names that frequent them.
but McNally himself has never been much of a publicity hound. even less so after suffering a stroke in 2016. Naturally, I'm a bit embarrassed to be on TV talking like this. Who wouldn't be? But it's good for me to do it because it gets me free of my embarrassment.
Actually, I'm embarrassed talking about embarrassment. But the British-born McNally has largely overcome his embarrassment in a new memoir. The drawback for me with most memoirs, if you're not. Embarrassing by what you write, it's probably not the truth. Joe cringe, every word is not the truth.
What was the hardest part of the book for you to write? The hardest thing was my suicide because my kids, our mothers, didn't want to leave them at all. That suicide attempt was two years after his stroke. And your boy, your younger boy George, is the one who found you. He was uh supposed to not find me.
And like most teenagers, he wouldn't have slept until noon. But that day he wake up early at eight o'clock. You expected him to be sleeping later. He woke up early. He saw you.
Yeah, the bastard just said, saving my life. McNally might joke about it now, but the father of five was suffering with an immobile right arm he was right handed back pain, aphasia which causes his slurred speech. and his second marriage was falling apart. But, as McNally writes, some sobering words from a doctor made him reflect. He said that children who lose a parent to suicide were far more likely to kill themselves than the children of parents who don't.
That stopped me in my tracks. Because he had such trouble communicating verbally after his stroke, McNally began using social media. And I was uh so embarrassed by my speech and uh the way I looked, I w didn't go to my restaurant one we for one year. I was a shame, but Eventually I realised that nothing ba ba uh to be ashamed about.
So and not only did I admit it wasn't a bad thing, but I went in on Instagram. McNally went viral in twenty twenty two with a post criticizing former late night host James Corden for allegedly being rude to the wait staff at Balthazar. But now, McNally confesses in his book, he isn't so sure calling out Corden was fair. You wrote, for someone who's hyper-conscious of humiliation since suffering a stroke, it now seems monstrous that I didn't consider the humiliation I was subjecting Horden to. I felt like I'd hit the jackpot of a slot machine and thousands of gold coins were spilling out in front of me.
That night I ended up with over 90,000 followers. I was intoxicated with self-righteousness. But afterwards, it felt really bad. Cordon later apologized. But the seventy three year old McNally has continued creating a stir online.
Take this recent post he wrote about his friend, ABC News's Diane Sawyer, describing a week long affair the two had in the nineteen seventies. The story made news, except that it was completely made up.
Some people believed it. Most people believe it. Yeah, well, right.
Some people say, listen, Keith, it's really not cool for you to be sharing this. And so, did you enjoy that back and forth? I'm crazy about it. And I wonder, do you think? That the that the stroke I don't know.
Is that the well is it that you feel a little trapped inside of yourself? No, no, really. No. I've always been a little in this inside, but the same thing I spoke and uh and now on the outside. McNally grew up in the east end of London, one of four children born to Jack, a dock worker, and Joyce, a house and office cleaner.
the family had little money. I got angry inside at my parents because we had no books in the house, no pictures on the walls. But they couldn't help it. They wasn't working class, they grew up with nothing. McNally says he didn't eat in a restaurant until he was 17.
Most of the time we were on a holiday we would go to the restaurant, they would look at the price of that, then you go not for us. And yet, when McNally moved to New York City in 1975 as an aspiring filmmaker, he made ends meet by working in restaurants. I didn't asparagus until I came here. And the next day I went to the doctor because I couldn't under the smell the smell of my sick. You thought you were.
You've got to put that in the paper back. McNally opened his own restaurant, the Odeon, in the neighborhood of Tribeca, in what had been a no man's land, in nineteen eighty. In immediate sensation it established certain McNally musts. Why is it important to have a hamburger on the menu? Because I don't like hamburgers much myself.
But to me, it's a sign of snobbery, not to have hamburgers. It's a sign of snobbery to not offer a hamburger. McNally prides himself on putting his staff above even his diners.
Some of his employees have been with him for over 30 years. And ever since returning to work post-stroke, Keith McNally has come to appreciate how they feel about him. I had to search all to myself. And were really nervous and about they were really kind. In the end, kindness is very essential.
Lifted the veil on what they thought of you. They made me certain people good. They made you feel good. They say you can't go home again, but the multi-talented performer Bridget Everett is most certainly the exception to that rule, Luke Burbank explains. I just love that it still feels like small town America.
I come back quite a bit and I visit the same spots. Bridget Everett will try to tell you she is not a celebrity in Manhattan, Kansas, but don't believe her. Thank you. No, please. I mean, I guess it happens from time to time.
She's my sunflower, and I know. CVS Sunday morning, there we go. Yes, she did grow up here, one of six kids, so there's that. But it was when her HBO show, Somebody Somewhere, was set here in Manhattan that Everett became a bona fide local legend. I'm gonna get the crab cake benedict.
Now I'm getting the Florentine Protado. The show follows Sam Miller, played by Everett, who moves back to her hometown in her 40s, trying to figure out herself and life after the death of her sister. I lost my sister six months ago, so I'm a little. I know. I'm so sorry about Holly.
Everett was a writer, producer, and lead actor in the semi-autobiographical series. I was like, is anybody gonna watch this? This is not a cool show. You know, like. It's about friendship.
We're all kind of like.
Well, I'm not a top model, you know, I don't want to speak for anybody else in the cast, but Um But I think that's exactly kind of why it works. Are we doing French toast for the table? Absolutely. No, no, no. Oh good.
No, no, please bring it. Unlike her character on the show, who returns home to Manhattan, Kansas. Oh, I really wish tonight wasn't a designated on Drinkin' Night. What are you talking about? We just had two DN DNs in a row.
We did? Yeah, it's definitely time for a DN, unless you cheated. Joe, I would never. Everett stayed in Manhattan, New York for years, working mostly as a waitress and using, believe it or not, karaoke as her main creative outlet. My way of connecting with people is through singing.
It kind of always has been. And it's easier for me to unlock and kind of be who I really want to be when I'm singing. Face. About a hundred times. Those karaoke performances led to her own, now legendary, cabaret shows at the famed Joe's Pub in New York.
Everett's performances are sort of unlike anything you've seen. And so risque, we can't show you much of it here on Sunday morning. Jade and Polly, back to you. What's interesting to me is like learning about people and Why am I up there with... no bra and a low cut thing with everything flying around like It's part of who I am.
And I also kind of do it to understand myself, honestly. Like, I. I like to talk about My family in this way because my family and I don't talk about it, I don't see a mental health care professional. And that's the amazing part. Everett's cabaret shows somehow end up being, in part anyway, a meditation on life and grief.
When I'm here... And when I'm singing, I know that they're here. Including saying goodbye to her father. as well as the loss of her mother, sister, and her beloved dog, Poppy. You've said that your dog Poppy was the love of your life.
Do people have a hard time understanding what you mean when you say that? For a while, I felt a little bit of shame saying that because romantic love is kind of what most people aspire to. My life is driven in a different way. She just taught me how to love, and she just. cracked my heart open in a way that like no other person could.
You've never been in love?
Now why would I do that to myself? In fact, it was this side of Everett that HBO and the show's creators wanted to highlight. You know? I don't think we have to Keep doing that to ourselves. The way we can feel both strong and broken and hopeless and hopeful, all in the same moment.
On the time. Once in a year. say she's out of reach drifted away Everett, who writes and performs multiple original songs on the show, says she got her love of music from her mother, Freddie. Your mom liked this place, huh? Yeah, she loved it.
She also got her sense of humor from her mom, as well as her siblings, including Brock. Brian and Brad. who we met at the Chef Cafe in Manhattan, Kansas, a central location for the TV show. Did one of you give the piece of feedback to Bridget that her acting was improving? Did that feel in your mind like constructive feedback when you sent it?
I was. I was being honest. It was just her acting, especially towards the end, I thought was. Was authentic. I even teared up on some of that, which is difficult to do when you know it's your sibling that's acting.
So you need to separate who you know and then see her in a character and have it move you. I think it's a great compliment to her.
So, thank you. You could have just said that in the text instead of the HBO show features a number of Everett's actual friends and collaborators from New York, including Murray Hill. Mary Katherine Garrison. I know you are. And in a star turn, the Just Emmy nominated Jeff Hiller as her best friend, Joel.
That might be the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me. Though HBO chose not to renew Somebody Somewhere for a fourth season, it did win a prestigious Peabody Award and also picked up an Emmy nomination this season for writing for a comedy series. I can no more see it That dream I'm dreaming Everett says the whole thing feels a little surreal. The journey from being somebody somewhere to somebody. who is right where she's supposed to be.
Nothing will ever match this and it couldn't, but that's okay. A lot of people don't get the opportunity to have a TV show, to live a life beyond their wildest dreams, and then to get to do it with the people I love. It's why it's taken so long for me to move on and kind of let go, but now I'm just trying to celebrate that I got to do it all. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two-factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected.
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Terms apply. Get ready to laugh until it hurts. You're gonna love this. Novocaine is now streaming on Paramount Plus. I got this condition.
I don't feel pain. You're a superhero. Yeah. It's an adrenaline rush of fun. This is the best.
And a bloody good time. Almost got the best car. It's the first great action comedy of the year. Let the magic happen. That's good.
Looking forward to it. Novocaine, rated R, now streaming on Paramount Plus. Steve Hartman this morning introduces us to a man who's truly come full circle. During the height of the Vietnam War, if you were stationed here at Marine Outpost Con Tien, it was like a death sentence. Emergency men in fact gave that.
Was there a worse place you could have been? Not then. It just seemed like a matter of time for everybody. Scott Harrison, then a 19-year-old corporal, says he got through those dark days thanks in no small part. to a music box like this one.
His sister sent it to him, and during breaks in the fighting, he used to hold it tight to his ear. And I would close my eyes and I would think of Okay. Carousel in a mountain meadow. A carousel in a mountain. A carousel in a mountain meadow.
An image totally opposite of where people are trying to kill each other. And it was always the same image? Yeah. Over and over. Yeah.
Scott says that delicate tinkling of a simpler time. lowered his adrenaline. and tempered the brutality. Eventually, he was wounded, evacuated, and reintegrated into civilian life. Scott left Vietnam in 1968, but the war never left him.
He battled PTSD with alcohol, tried living alone on a boat in the ocean. But nothing worked. And that's when he circled back to that carousel vision. that one he conjured, So long ago. I thought that if I could start actually making that vision come true.
it would keep me on an even keel. and make me happier.
So he bought a broken-down carousel, and for the next 26 years, carved brand new animals for it. Today, here in Nederland, Colorado, in a mountain valley just like the one he envisioned, you'll find a carousel. like none you've ever seen. The Carousel of Happiness is a non-profit, and over the past 15 years, it has delighted more than a million people. and profoundly changed.
At least one. Just to go to that carousel and see everybody having such a great time is good medicine for me. Because I started out trying to treat myself. And then it just changed into something that I can do for others. The healing power of compassion.
It's what makes the world. Go round. What's the she ling? twenty three million. Which means I just made you $4 million.
Do I still need a two-week trial? It's official. Kathy Bates, as a savvy lawyer in the CBS reboot of Matlock, is a hit. With the Oscar-winning actor receiving an Emmy nomination this week, it's her turn to take the stand with Ben Mankowitz.
So, welcome to Jacobson Moore. This is the litigation floor where Maddie sneaks in. Jacobson Moore is not a real law firm. Here's my chair over there. But make no mistake, this is real work for Kathy Bates.
The Star of Madlock. to hit CBS show with a surprise twist. and a sly wink to the original Matlock. which starred Andy Griffith. I'm Maddie, informally.
Formerly Madeline Matlock. Yes, Matlock, like the old T V show.
Well, you see, there's this funny thing that happens when women age. We become damn near invisible. Nobody sees us coming. I think it's going to resonate with the with a lot of people. Yeah, I think a lot of us feel invisible.
this day and age. Even you. Yep, I do. I mean, they have trams with tourists who come here, and sometimes I have to stand in front of the trams and just say, hey, hey, don't look at that stage over here. Look at me.
Truth is, we've been looking at Kathy Bates for a long time. Like the other great actors of her generation, Bates does more than play characters. She absorbs them. Then Richard Jewell about Schmidt and primary colors. fried green tomatoes.
He died. Even the water boy. Yeah. In misery, James Cond said being terrified of Kathy Bates came easily. I just wanted to be the best I could be, and that's still who I am.
And I love that. That's how I recognize it because I have to dig deep.
So it can look easy. Born in Memphis, Bates began pouring herself into her parts as soon as she took a theater class at Southern Methodist University. Seeing the actors that were there that first My first freshman year. I had Sure. This moment in my solar plexus.
I'll do anything I have to do to be part of this. Her parents, Langdon, an engineer, and Bertie, a housewife, supported her. They paid her tuition. and put off retirement. My father literally had a heart attack.
Um after two or three years of giving up he had to spend a fortune that we didn't have, sending me to Southern Methodist University. And went to work when he was in his 70s. They gave up so much. I was born into a world She made her movie debut in 1971 at 22 in Taking Off. It was such a personal song I wrote in Backyard Swing.
You wrote that song when you were 16? Mm-hmm. To be It took seven years to land her next movie and first speaking part. in straight time, starring Dustin Hoffman. I just don't think it's good that he see you right now.
By the early eighties she was earning raves on Broadway, playing a deeply depressed daughter in the play Night Mother. Bates got a Tony nomination. But the part in the Hollywood version Went to Czech spacing. It's in a drink on to. We had spent two years working on those roles.
How fascinating it would have been to see that on film. That was a great loss. Losing out on the part lit a fire under Bates. She moved to Los Angeles, putting her in a position to land the roll of a lifetime. You're not good.
You're just another lying old dirty birdie. And I don't think I'd better be around you for Annie Wilkes. who kidnaps and tortures her favorite novelist in misery. God's sake! It's for the best.
You gave her this humanity. You said Annie Wilkes is not a movie monster, she's a human being. She was always reaching for something she couldn't have. She wanted to be a hero. totally misguided, of course.
But she wanted to nurture people, take care of people, be worshipped, and And this became totally obsessed with this guy. And I gotta tell you. I have that side to me. I certainly know what that feels like. She'd win the Oscar.
and remembers exactly how her mother reacted. When I won the Oscar for Misery, she said, I don't know what all the excitement about. You didn't discover the cure for cancer. I forgot to thank her that night. You know, you did thank him.
At the end of your speech, you thank her. No, I did not. I did not. You go back and look at it. I didn't.
We did go back and look. And we show it. my family, my friends, my mom at home. And my dad. who I hope is watching somewhere.
What do you think of them? Thank you. Why did I think I didn't thank her? Oh auto relief. Why does that mean so much to you?
Cause she should have had my life. When she died, As it comes into me, I wanted her spirit to come into me. Even though we had so many difficulties. I wanted her spirit to come into me. and enjoy everything I was hitting I was enjoying because of what she had given up.
Wow, thank you so much for that. At 77 years old, Kathy Bates says she's never been happier. She's now an Emmy nominee for Matlock, becoming the oldest nominee ever for lead actress in a drama series. She's also a two-time cancer survivor. and happily addresses her dramatic weight loss.
It's only recently that I've solved that problem in my life and shed a hundred pounds and it's taken years to do it and I did it With mindfulness on my own and with determination, and I was able to go to Armani and buy a gorgeous dress for the Emmys and walk out in a size 10. just luxuriating in all of those moments. But maybe I'm overthinking. And Matlock has brought Bates nothing but joy. It has restored her faith in the business after a movie she made, she won't say which one.
reminded her of what's wrong with Hollywood. I think when you feel that kind of betrayal, it It really devastates.
So that's where the retirement talk came from. And then you're shooting the show that you're incredibly proud of, and you're like, okay, I'm not retiring. It can be great. It's fantastic. It's one of the most wonderful roles I've ever had to play.
You can feel the joy on the set, and you can feel how you can. We've all come together.
So to be clear, not retiring. Not retiring. I'd love to stay with the show as long as it runs, and I hope it runs a very long time. Martha Teischner now on a man who lives. and lives for music.
Browns. The First Symphony Performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. still conducting major orchestras around the world. at the age of 98. It fills me, you know, to 100%.
And ideally it fills also the orchestra, each member. And when I feel that they are with me and I am with them, it says it's a fantastic unifying force. Watch at the end. This is much more than the usual conductor's acknowledgment of the orchestra. The bond is personal.
We make music together. Every bar, every note is shared by us. And uh it it's a ver very intense communication. It's like in int intense sex. Intense sex.
Extremely uh tight relation. Many conductors believe that the conductor is. an autocrat. You talk about a give and take as opposed to I'm the boss. Yeah.
No, I hate that. I hate that. He never stops studying scores, even if he's known them by heart for decades. He conducts using only his hands, not a baton. Yeah.
When the hands go up like this and wait Nobody can pray until we go down. Of course it's the same with the stick, but the stick is much more... neutral but much more material. This is more spiritual. Spirituality matters to Herbert Blomstadt.
He is a lifelong Seventh-day Adventist, the son of an Adventist pastor. To this day, he refuses to rehearse on the Sabbath, but decided early in his career. He would perform taking the advice of a colleague. He said, but if you do make music to the glory of God, Would you not do it also on Sabbath? And I thought he was right.
Born in Massachusetts, Blumstadt was two when his family moved back home to Sweden. They were all musicians. Herbert, a violinist, fell in love with conducting during his conservatory days in Stockholm, but he spent a year studying in the United States, including with the late Leonard Bernstein. Their conducting styles couldn't have been more different. Bernstein was flamboyant.
Emotional. He was a showman. Yeah. Blumstadt is understated. He manages big sounds with the smallest of gestures.
which has served him well as he's aged through his seven-decade career. Midway through it, his 10 years as music director of the San Francisco Symphony. Herbert Lumstadt is a man who seems to have cheated time.
Now he's helped to the podium, where he sits rather than stands. Good morning. He tends to conduct only the music he loves best and wears a hearing aid. but otherwise resists compromises. And night tide.
Because every time I stand in front of the orchestra, it's like a flame starts to sparkle again. The moment I hear the sound of the orchestra, it transforms me. There have been health scares, falls in twenty twenty two and twenty three, predictions that his career was over, but he's always bounced back. Then in February, he developed infections in both ears. Because my uh hearing problem since a couple of days.
I have problems in hearing the the the flute in the beginning. On the day before we interviewed him at Carnegie Hall in New York City, Blumerstadt had to cancel his scheduled concerts with the New York Philharmonic. because he couldn't hear. We had to amplify my question because that must be very upsetting for you. But it's temporary.
And so it proved to be. On april third, there he was, back at the podium, in Leipzig, Germany. Herbert Blomstadt has bookings past his 100th birthday. He considers it his obligation to continue. Until he can't.
Every day is a gift. I cannot take for granted that I live tomorrow. Man has duties. Duties. I have duties.
I don't have any rights. But I have gifts that I have to live up to. What would you like your legacy to be as a conductor and as a human being? Modest? But truthful.
And genuine. Oh. Author David Litt, whose new book is called It's Only Drowning, knows plenty about the ways of Washington. and the workings of human nature. He shares some thoughts.
What happens when a former Obama speechwriter and a Joe Rogan Super fan start surfing together?
Well, if you're me, and the Super fan is my brother-in-law Matt, What happens is this. You learn that in our divided country, Common ground is even harder to find than you thought. but neutral ground. is more important than you imagined. For a long time Matt and I had basically nothing in common.
He's an electrician who owns a pickup truck for work. I'm a writer who owns two computer monitors for work. He listens to Death Metal, I listen to Stephen Sondheim. Matt wants throughout his back training to be a mixed martial arts fighter. and I once threw out my back picking up a bag of cat litter.
Yeah. But Matt's a surfer, and during the pandemic, I started surfing too. We began spending time together in the water and even set our sights on a trip to Oahu's famously dangerous north shore. I imagined that our journey would reveal the common ground you hear so much about these days. Nope.
we still have basically nothing in common. We disagree about little stuff like music and food. We disagree about big stuff, like voting and vaccines. But what we discovered is that our disagreements don't have to mean everything. The ocean became our neutral ground.
a place where we could spend time together focused on something other than our differences. we learned from each other, we broadened each other's horizons, we became friends. And that friendship has led to real discussions, not just debates or arguments, on issues where we don't see eye to eye. That's more important than ever. As my old boss used to say, we have to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.
So if there's someone in your life who you're afraid to talk with about political stuff, And these days everything seems like political stuff. Here's my advice. Find your neutral ground. Be open to unlikely friendships. Be willing to learn from someone, even if it's someone you don't fully understand.
And also, If you're picking up a bag of cat litter, lift with your legs. Not your back. Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning.
Now streaming. Hi again! TV's quirkiest crime solver. I'm Elsbeth Tassioni. I work with the police.
It's on the case. I like my outlandish theories with a heavy dose of evidence. And ready to go toe-to-toe with a cavalcade of guest stars. Are you saying that this is now a murder investigation? It's starting to look that way.
Don't miss a moment of the critically acclaimed hit Elsbeth, all episodes now streaming on Paramount Plus and return CBS Fall. That sounds like fun. Obviously, murder's not fun. The first season of CBS's new hit, NCIS Origins. is now streaming.
NIS? The hell's that? Naval Investigative Service. We go where the evidence takes us. We got this.
88% fresh on rotten tomatoes. You don't see folks trying to affect change, but here you are. Ready to go. Got a body waiting for us. Give us.
Welcome to the team. NCIS Origins Season 1, now streaming on Paramount Plus.
