Good morning. Jane Pauley is off this weekend. I'm Lee Callan. And this is Sunday morning. For years, Americans have complained that Washington doesn't get much done.
Today, that frustration is reflected in the numbers. An astonishing 86% of us. disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job. Lawmakers have kept the government funded, but even that was a struggle. Major challenges from immigration reform to health care costs to Social Security financing still remain unresolved.
So why in this vital political moment is Congress struggling to act? We asked Robert Costa. to make some inquiries. I do think people are upset with Congress, and not much is getting done. The diagnosis for Congress is clear.
but cures are hard to come by. But you need big, broad, bipartisan majorities to get stuff done. And in a polarized America, that's really hard Ahead on Sunday morning. What's ailing Congress? Superstar Shania Twain is an artist who's helped bring country music into the mainstream.
paving the way for crossover stars like Taylor Swift.
Now at age 60, she's reflecting on the triumphs and the setbacks with our Seth Dome. Uh She sold more records than any other female country artist. Extraordinary success after a particularly rough childhood. You've said that songwriting is your diary, your therapy. What was the process like of writing this album?
It's the first album that I've ever written with this kind of reflection. We'll go along for the ride with Shania Twain later. this Sunday morning. After which, with Connor Knighton, we'll be watching the grass grow. Really?
At today's World Cup final. Yeah.
Soccer is often called the beautiful game. But to University of Tennessee Professor of Turfgrass Science John Sorakin, nothing is more beautiful than the grass it's played on. The number one thing is the pitches, right? We need to have a good surface, a good canvas for the players to play on. Beautiful!
Coming up on Sunday morning. The World Cup's Blades of Glory and the effort required to create the perfect pitch. Also ahead this Sunday morning. TED Danson, on the quest for happiness in our golden years. Luke Burbank goes behind the scenes of the latest spin-off of the TV mega-hit, The Big Bang Theory, with producer Chuck Laurie.
Dr. John LaPook introduces us to a federal judge who refuses to let multiple sclerosis. Keep him. from the bench. Plus, a story from Steve Hartman, commentary from author Barry Walters.
and more on this Sunday morning for july nineteenth, 2026. We'll be back in a moment. Bye. Congress has the power to address the nation's most pressing issues, but. Today, Most Americans believe it has failed to effectively use that power.
Correspondent Robert Costa starts us off this morning. Looking at what's behind. Washington's political gridlock. Inside the Capitol, statues memorialize distinguished Americans, including famed social commentator and actor Will Rogers, who once quipped about Congress. Every time they make a joke, it's a law.
And every time they make a law, it's a joke. Humor like that still rings true to the nearly 9 in 10 Americans who say they're unhappy with Congress. It's a great American pastime to hate Congress, right? But I do think there's a lot of frustration with Congress. Carl Hulse, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, has covered Capitol Hill since the Reagan administration.
You walk the halls of Congress every day. When you're in the inside, do you see a broken institution? Oh, yes, totally. I unfortunately have said to people, I've spent my career covering the decline of Congress. And yeah, they need to get it together.
And there's just very, very little cooperation between the parties. And you can't make things happen that way. I do think a lot of them want to do the right thing and they just can't quite get themselves there to do it. Do they read the Constitution and realize they actually have power? They have.
Article I is a real thing, right? I think what's happened with the Republicans in this Congress and ceding power to the administration has been a real mistake. on a lot of fronts, tariffs, right, war powers, the things that are actually enumerated in the Constitution, right? They're giving away the store. And once you give away some power, you never get it back.
And, you know, the Republicans might be looking at this and go, well, this was President Trump, our guy. We needed to do that. Trust me, the next Democratic president isn't going to turn around and say, you know, that was a big mistake letting Congress get so weak. We need to empower them again. No, it's not going to happen.
It goes for good. We had, as you know, many conversations with these days, Republicans control the Senate and House. The House rules resolution. And legislation often faces gridlock. And so far, the 119th Congress has passed fewer bills than many of its predecessors.
Some, though, have had real impact. A GOP mega bill that will cut taxes by $4.5 trillion over the next decade and a recently passed bipartisan housing bill. And it will be remembered for the partial government shutdown over funds for Homeland Security. Still, critics left and right want more to be done, be it raising or cutting Federal spending. And whatever its problems, President Trump routinely bypasses Congress altogether, be it on trade or war with Iran.
and pressures them to do his bidding, like urging an overhaul of federal voting rules this past week. Congress must pass the Save America Act. This is an especially uncertain time in the Senate. Former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized for weeks, and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham died suddenly this month. There was no bigger believer.
in America's role in the world. for all of our many and vehement disagreements. Senator Graham and I still found ways to work together. For Hulse, these disruptions underscore how Congress is grappling with age. and an increasingly grim political climate.
much more so than when I got here in 1985. 1985. Congress was different. A lot of World War II vets who had already experienced a lot of life.
So this was not a big difficult thing for them. They were trying to do the right thing. And now it's both parties much more aligned with the president. Hard to get things done. Margins are tight.
The districts are really gerrymandered. There's a lot wrong with Congress. 30 seconds. When I walked its halls this past week, both parties pointed the finger at the other for the mess.
Well, the Republicans don't control house. The place is chaos. Unfortunately, Democrats have chosen to play politics and put that over people time and time again under this administration. You've got the biggest voice in the room, Donald Trump. fighting against his own Congress.
If you had to describe Congress with one word, Which word would you choose? Struggling. Marginalized. For two scholars, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Sarah Binder. and American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Philip Wallach.
Congress's predicament is the result in part of an empowered presidency. What's the best way to understand what's happening with Congress? Is the institution broken or diminished?
Well, both. For sure, certainly diminished in the sense that it has enormous. authority under the Constitution. Power the purse. to declare war.
And yet oftentimes, not just under Trump, this current president, but reaching back decades, Congress cedes that authority to the president. All the authority on the table, but struggling to try to use it or even to try to get it back.
So, the muscle memory for how to make deals, how to legislate, how to solve problems, the muscles. They're there. But they've really atrophied. For me, what's changed is how the members themselves see their jobs. I think what we've lost is this sense that I'm sent here to solve the problems of the American people.
I have to find a way to do that. That means building coalitions. That means compromise. Compromise has too much become a dirty word in American politics today. There's a sense that if you're willing to compromise, you're not really holding true to your values.
Today, people see their job as supporting the White House when it's their ally there or fighting against them. In various ways, when it's the other party that has the presidency. Since Congress has, for decades, ceded so much authority to the executive branch. There's a sense among the members on Capitol Hill that's where the real action is in the executive branch, in the judiciary. In his current term, President Trump has issued a flurry of executive orders, over 260 so far.
and the two presidents before him issued many of their own, leaving many Americans wondering, What is Congress doing? Are the American people being too tough on Congress? I think the truth is, Congress doesn't need to be a very popular organization, even if it's working well. The old line about lawmaking and sausage making is there for a reason. There's something unseemly about the way legislative politics has to operate that makes it hard to be really popular as a Congress.
Yeah, I think the public should be hard on Congress. There's $30 trillion in public debt.
Social Security seemingly on the break if they don't act soon. We can go haul the whole host of issues and problems that we see around us, the cost of housing. People should be mad. At the same time, the public often does have quite unreasonable expectations of what's possible. You need big, broad, bipartisan majorities to get stuff done.
And in a polarized America with factions in each party, that's really hard. For Sarah Binder and Philip Wallach, today's Congress might be troubled. but it is as ever. a reflection of its times. and the people.
It represents. But when you look ahead, Are you hopeful about Congress or not? I am an internal Optimist. But I'm not that hopeful about Congress. Why not?
I think the problems and the roots of the problems we've been talking about are going to be with us. for a long time. And whenever Congress has difficulties trying to tackle problems, They kick them to the future. And that just means the challenges are going to get harder. I will say, taking the very long view about Congress makes me a little bit more hopeful.
Congress has looked a lot of different ways over our two centuries. Members have found ways to reform the institution, to make it act completely differently. And so I think at some point we're going to turn a corner. Congress has the power to regenerate itself, to put itself back at the center of the action, and I expect someday it may do that. After 103 games and six weeks of excitement, the final match of the World Cup.
Argentina versus Spain plays out this afternoon in New Jersey. Our Connor Knighton offers an appreciation of the engineering feat that lies beneath it all. Yeah.
This year's World Cup has been smashing viewership records. No! Hosting the tournament has prompted Americans to tune in and turn out for soccer like never before. The telecast for this afternoon's final match, Spain vs. Argentina, is expected to set another record.
But for one man in Tennessee, this whole tournament has been about as exciting as watching grass grow. which, for him, is high praise. The number one thing is the pitches, right? We need to have a good surface, a good canvas for the players to play on. Seven.
Twelve. Dr. John Sorakin is a distinguished professor in turfgrass science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He's a world-renowned leader in the field of fields. You look at the last men's world cup, one point eight billion people watched the final.
That's twenty percent of the world watched that and they enjoyed it. They didn't even think of the field, sadly. But there's so much that went into it, right? For the past five years, the University of Tennessee, in collaboration with Michigan State University, has been working on the FIFA Pitch Research Project. Pitch is the more globally used term for field.
Look at this pitch. You couldn't ask for better conditions to play on. They're out there combing the grass. This year's World Cup, with 104 matches held in 16 stadiums across three countries, is the largest in history. And all of those matches, per FIFA's mandate, must be played on high-quality natural grass.
This happens to be the same sod that's in New York, New Jersey Stadium. It was grown in North Carolina. Since the stadiums are all at different elevations and different climates, they can't all use the exact same species of grass. Rolls of scientifically engineered sod have been trucked in from farms across the country. oftentimes laying real grass on top of existing artificial grass fields.
Five of the stadiums are domed.
So they put these on for about 12 to 14 hours in every dome stadium to get enough light to grow the grass. FIFA funded and constructed this indoor growing facility on the Tennessee campus to test, among other things, how grass responds to grow lights. If you were just playing one match, then this wouldn't matter as much. Yeah, you wouldn't need these, but we need to be alive inside for, you know, 10 to 12 weeks.
Soraken has spent years testing the resiliency of grass. He's co-developed a robot that can stomp a cleat with the amount of force exerted by the average male professional soccer player. We just go row by row by row. And we get a heat map of the variability or the consistency of that surface, hopefully, for World Cup pitches. The more consistent, the better.
He and his team have examined how a soccer ball rolls and bounces.
Some of the research we've done is like, how do you manage this natural grass so when the ball lands, it's going to skip. And it's not going to bounce too high, and it's going to be at the knees or lower so the player can get the ball and do their move. They've tested on different types of grass, and there are many different types of grass.
So right here we have Marzoja, which is an older type of zoja that's more traditional, and we still have some of it on the farm. This is Tiftuff Bermuda, which is more drought tolerant, Bermuda grass. It goes on a lot of golf, athletic fields, and homeowners. We need to cut seven more roles for that other customer. Brad Gene is the owner of Crossroads Sod Farm in Tennessee, not far from the Grass Gurus at the university.
When we have problems, we have diseases, or we have issues, you know, we can call them and you know, they come out and they help us. Most of Gene's customers are residential users and golf courses.
Okay.
Sod farming is big business. It's probably a two point one, two point two uh billion dollar sector. Not surprisingly, he's not the biggest fan of artificial turf. You know, if it's 90 degrees, astro turf is going to be really, really hot. and the the grass is going to be really cool.
Oh, you're playing on plastic. And so that plastic gets in your clothes, it gets in everything, it goes home with you. Studies have also linked higher rates of injuries with artificial playing surfaces, although less so with newer, more forgiving generations of artificial turf. But John Sorakin believes it's more than that. There's just something special about grass.
It's the play of the game and the beauty of the game. On the grass, the play of the game, the flow of the game, it's more natural, pun intended. And where does all that grass go after the World Cup?
Well, for $450, FIFA will sell you a slice of souvenir sod from this afternoon's match. Just in case you want to keep some on your home turf. Pun also intended. You like to laugh? I love Dilab.
How did you know? Call it a hunch. The great ones make it look so easy. Do you think there's a chance that you and I could go someplace and laugh together? Believe it or not, it's been more than 40 years since Cheers premiered on TV.
All these years later, Ted Danson is a study in how to age gracefully. And this morning, he shares some thoughts on how he tries to enjoy the moment. Every Moment. Ho ho ho ho ho. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha. Oh. Yeah, you got me. I just learned that laughter can boost memory, reduce stress, and improve overall well-being.
Yeah, it's working. Anyway, I'm Ted Danson, and lately I've been challenging myself to rethink aging. You've seen my almost 80 years. Woof.
Sorry. I haven't said that out loud before. In my almost 80 years, I've experienced a few aches and pains, a little arthritis, so I should hate getting older. But you know what? I'm really learning to love it.
Learning to like it. Be grateful for it. And I want to share some of what I've been working on. Embrace your age. at every stage.
You see, sometimes I fall into this trap where I compare my current self to my younger self. Oh, his skin is so smooth. And he's not even wearing glasses and all that hair. But actually. Research has shown that having a positive outlook on aging helps prevent memory loss, keeps us healthier, and helps us live longer.
Folks who embrace aging even walk faster. Watch that scene. Oh yeah, it's working. Ouch! Shoot!
Yeah.
I'm okay. Hey, I'm back. Yeah.
Stay curious. and creative. Maybe you can take an art class or try a new language. Learning a new language or making art isn't just fun. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, it's good for your health and you might even use less medication.
Parliament Francais? What? No. Obviously, I'm terrible at French, but tomorrow. I'll be less bad.
Pretty soon I might stop offending French people altogether. Probably not. That's a high bar.
Okay, let's see. How can I put this? Think of creativity. as your favorite pair of blue jeans. Stay with me.
When they were new, they were pretty cool. But as they age, they get more comfortable, more unique, more you. And they make your butt look amazing.
Sorry, I think I just lost the metaphor. Anyway. That's the way creativity works. How you create might change, but the joy of creating and staying curious remains the same. And that brings me to something I work on a lot.
Nurture your relationships. Yeah.
As we get older, our world can get smaller if we let it. Loving other people and letting them love you is the most important thing there is. My reward for getting older was that I got to meet my amazing wife, Mary.
So Get out there. Make a new friend. Maybe you have a place you like to go where everybody knows your name. The fact is That people who have a good social network are healthier and live longer. And that brings us to the grand finale.
which is actually where we started. Watch all my shows. I mean Keep evolving. Getting older shouldn't be about trying to stop aging. That's why I'm suspicious of anything anti-aging.
In fact, I'm anti-anti-aging. If we're lucky, we get old.
So let's embrace it. Maybe tap into your creativity. Call your local library or museum. and ask about art classes. Or text a friend, oh, use the eggplant emoji.
People are loving this. Hmm. and laugh. You have to laugh. Maybe that's why I made it my career.
Yeah, another. Just keep evolving because we're not getting any younger. Thank goodness. I'm all right, I'm fine. Thoughts from Ted Danson.
Which brings us to a case in point. There's no doubt about it. Being a federal judge is a demanding job. which is what makes the man doctor John Lapouc introduces us to? all the more remarkable.
My life. It's just an ordinary life with I've been given responsibility. And I do my best to Lip up to it.
Okay.
For someone living an ordinary life, Ronald Gould has wielded more power. and surmounted more adversity than most. I'm Judge Gould. I'll be presiding today. He's a federal judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle.
One rung below the U. S. Supreme Court. At 79, he shoulders a full caseload despite living with progressive multiple sclerosis. a chronic autoimmune disorder of the central nervous system.
It's a condition he faces with grit and a healthy dose of humor. My MS. Uh Can still throw me. Like an unexpected curveball. But you know, just Take life a step at a time.
Even if you can't actually make the step. I guess for me it would be a role that is. I roll the wheel at a time. Gould has been exceeding expectations all his life. Magna cum laude at law school, Supreme Court clerk, President of the Washington State Bar Association.
But it was during his time as a lawyer in private practice that he first noticed something was wrong. Did you have a period where you knew the diagnosis but you didn't want anybody to know? Yes, I remember walking down the street. With one of my Law partners, I think he suspect.
something, so he kept walking faster. and faster and I couldn't keep up. The secret was out when he started walking with a cane. He soon graduated to a wheelchair and and continued his work at the firm until he received an unexpected call. I was taking a deposition.
and a receptionist came in and said to me. Uh mr. Gould There's a phone call for you. And I said, well, I can't take a phone call. I'm in a deposition.
And the perception has set.
Well I think you'd like to take this It's from the White House. Yeah.
He was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton.
So help me, God.
So help me, God.
Congratulations. and confirmed by the Senate in 1999. Was there a moment where you thought, you know, am I going to be able to even do this? Uh I never had that thought. When he joined the court, Judge Gould could operate his wheelchair himself.
Today, this former mountain climber has lost all use of his arms and legs and relies on round-the-clock caregivers. Good afternoon, and may it please the court. Unlike fellow circuit judges who travel to hear cases in other cities, Judge Gould, can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you. He presides remotely.
Over the years, he's mentored a new generation of lawyers. His law clerks. law clerks like Carla Gilbride, I always had a lot to say and from the time I was very young, my parents said, you're going to grow up to be a lawyer and you're going to win all your cases because the judge will get so tired of listening to you that they'll say, okay, you get whatever you want. Hey, hello. Gilbride, a public interest lawyer in Washington, D.C., has been blind since birth.
After clerking for Judge Gould, she became general counsel at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2023. I believe in the EEOC's mission with every fiber of my being. A position she held until President Trump fired her, along with scores of other political appointees, last year. We spoke with her before her firing. I think Judge Gould is a very focused and energetic person.
Having him as a role model helped me to. picture that all sorts of things are possible. Things like arguing before the Supreme Court. Gilbride did that in 2022, an apparent first for a blind lawyer. She spent hours memorizing the Justices' voices so she could respond to each by name.
So, please get me out of this box that you put me in. I will try, Justice Sodomayor. I like to have a cheat sheet with me of the most important cases, and I will usually prepare that one-page cheat sheet in Braille.
So, that allowed you to look at the justices and still read your notes at the same exact time. Right. I think that is where I'm at an advantage compared to some of my cited colleagues, but I try not to rub it in too much. She won the case 9-0. For younger folks who are thinking about perhaps wanting to have a career as a lawyer who have disabilities.
I want people to know that all roads are open and Judge Gould certainly did that for me. Council, I have a question for you. Yes, Your Honor. In his quarter century on the bench, Judge Gould's decisions have touched on some of the most pressing issues of the day. A 2008 opinion helped secure the rights of gays in the military three years before the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
In 2017, he was a member of a panel that struck down a travel ban from Muslim-majority countries. The court's very well aware of the importance of this case. A decision later reversed by the Supreme Court. And he has written for the majority in cases requiring that cities and businesses make their spaces wheelchair accessible. Do you think what you've gone through has helped you to?
gain perspective about those cases that you otherwise might not have. Possibly. I think I've I probably already started. with a great deal of empathy for others. Before I ever knew, I had a mask.
At an age when many of his colleagues have taken senior status, a sort of semi-retirement, Judge Gould has resisted. Has anybody suggested to you in recent years that maybe you ought to lighten your load a little? I think I've probably heard that from.
Someone or another. What's your response been? My response is, I want to keep working. full time as much as I can. As long as I can.
If I couldn't do the work. I would expect my Like always. To tell me. Until then, Ronald Gould plans to do what he has always done. Persevere.
Life gives us all lots of challenges. Majorly important. is to try to meet those. Challenges and meet them with optimism and and with a positive attitude. To Steve Hartman now, celebrating one of the ordinary angels walking among us.
When Wynola Wayne walked out of work, for the last time after 58 years as a nurse. You could tell this was no ordinary retirement send-off. This was the canonization of a saint. who went way above and beyond for her patience. as you will soon see for yourself.
after this reunion. with one of her very first patients. Back in 1965, Marco Haup, who was then just 15 months old, was visiting his grandma's house when a Christmas tree caught fire. Wow. Marco had third-degree burns.
over eighty five percent of his body. On the way to the hospital, I died twice. Hey, didn't expect me to make it. When the fire department found me, a toy was melted in my left hand. Marco was brought here to what is now Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
where a brand new nurse, still in training, was working in the burn unit. Good morning, good morning. And there was such a feeling of connection with him. And even though those burns were extensive, I said you're going to survive because I could see it in his eyes. My parents used to tell me about this nurse.
In the morning she was there. In the evening she was there. At night, she was there.
So your parents credited this nurse with saving your life? Yep. Absolutely. Marco has come to believe the same. If it wasn't for her then.
I wouldn't be here today. Where he is today. is married 12 years to his wife Tiffany. They have two children, and Marco has a good job as a school administrator and coach.
Okay.
None of which surprises Wainola. who was so impressed by the will of that little boy, she named her own son after him. Cheers Likewise, Marco was so impressed with Wainola's compassion, he named her his Divine Protector. That was my guardian angel. She fought for me while I didn't know how to fight.
She would not give up. After a five-minute standing ovation, Marco escorted Wainola out of the building. and although she is now retired as a nurse, Marco says she will always retain her other title. You're an angel. You're an angel.
You're in it. She saw it. I know it. The best thing. By a bee.
Get all money. Cause the variety needs to have a little funny. Uh-oh-oh. They're totally crazy. We'll give them a later.
Men, shirts, shorts, skirts. Uh-oh, oh. Shania Twain's anthem is as fresh as ever. But for the five-time Grammy winner, The road to Stardom has brought plenty of highs. and more than a few setbacks.
She talks about all that and more. with Seth Doane. Got you! Up and you get up, get it up, up and get up. Drunk in the city, gotta get in the dub, up and get up.
When it gets stuck, gotta get them in love. She can command a stadium crowd. I just love being with them. But spend some time with Shania Twain and see, she may be most herself here. With the horses.
I'll ride my pajamas in the mornings. Really? You'll get it right out of bed. Yep. What do you get out of riding horses?
What does it do for you? It's just a great escape. That don't impress me much It sounds a little like how she sees music, that other passion. Which made her the top-selling female country artist of all time.
Sometimes she'll blend the two, taking her horses on tour. Takes some planning. It's not like throwing in an extra suitcase. Exactly. Or when, you know, when in London, ride in Hyde Park.
So we did. I'm following you, Shania.
Okay.
On a down day between performances at London's Wembley Stadium. Where we'd just seen her electrify the audience. Ah. Oh. She'd gotten an invite from Harry Stiles to join him as a special guest for 12 nights at Wembley in June.
Watching you there at Wembley, it was hard to imagine you suffer stage fright. That's a lot of people. Yeah, the amount of people is not necessarily what affected me over the years with stage fright. It was starting so young in bars that were, you know, I was eight years old and the bars were smoky and Everyone was intoxicated and I don't know what I'm actually singing about because I'm singing about divorce and I'm eight. Twain grew up poor in rural Ontario, Canada, but her mom recognized riches and potential in her voice and would ferry her to bars to sing.
As a minor, she was only allowed on stage after last call. This was just an uncomfortable place to be as a child and I carried that with me. And only in my fifties I finally just said, whoa. I've got my voice. I have an audience.
I have everything to just celebrate, and the fear just dropped away. You can drive all night. See if you chance on the line. She reminisces about all of this in her new album, Little Miss Twain, out later this month. Little Miss Twain is me now looking back at my child self.
and the journey that child went through from Starting out in those bars at eight years old, right up to when I got my recording contract in Nashville. You know, I didn't get a contract until I was in my late 20s. My first top 10 record, I was 30 already.
So there's all of these years that's Were me Making a living at with singing in bars as a cover singer. collecting all of the songwriting that would end up becoming the Shania Twain records. Terrorist Miss Hallie Twain. Come on, Hallie Twain. She was Eileen Twain until someone at a record label suggested she change her name.
When I die. I've read that this album is the process of going from being Eileen to being Shania. It is. It's the it's the bridge. According to my mother, I'm the next ten yearsucker.
She does me to sing. In the bar. As Shania, she'd become the star her mother had dreamed of. Smoking like a chimney. Cool.
China. In me, honey. You're gonna go far. When I was younger, I was so over-responsible for. The household.
My mother was depressed a lot of the time. She spent a lot of her days in bed. She lived off coffee and cigarettes that I would bring her. In bed, just to See if she was still alive. Um there was a lot of violence in the house.
And we didn't eat well a lot of the times. We weren't clothed properly a lot of the times. You realize all these things you're saying are. Are quite dramatic. You just say them like this: no food, no clothes.
Violence. When I reflect back on those times I'm reflecting on them. from where I am now, which is a very Good place. Like I made it out of there. You know, so it's like, whoa, I'm just celebrating all of that.
And what makes me feel so accomplished is. is staying connected to where I came from. It's the contrast that makes it feel so good. Her parents would never see her success. They died in a car crash when she was 22, and Twain became guardian of her younger siblings.
Challenges came later as well divorce from her record producer husband Mutt Lang, who collaborated on many of her hits then the loss of her voice due to Lyme disease. She did not release any music for fifteen years. You had that experimental open throat surgery to bring your voice back. Yeah, once I made a sound, it was There. I mean, I feel lucky.
I don't want to make it sound easy. It wasn't easy. It was a very long road. But I just feel very grateful and very lucky that I have it back. My voice is different.
In what ways? I have more like of a fry to my voice, you know, a little gravel. I don't mind that. I've embraced it. It's now part of my sound.
How is that to change your sound mid-career, in essence? I know. Tell me about it. How does one do that? You just adapt.
I've taken a different approach to singing my older songs. In fact, I've found new placements in my voice that I enjoy, you know, that I didn't have before. I love to experiment. I think it's the same with any art form. You have to experiment a little bit to get just the right.
Whatever's satisfying you the most at that time, you know? It's kind of like an itch. You get a itch and you gotta scratch it. What was the itch for this album? This album was indulging in reflection of my life with a smile.
She's remarried to Frederic Thibault and lives in Switzerland. Looking back, Shania Twain is remarkably forgiving of her parents. It's all part of what's allowing her to celebrate her past. I started life out a little bit on the top side. I'm in my 60s now.
And I feel like I've really gotten it or I'm just now getting all of that. Right. You've had great success through other decades of your life. Yeah.
Yeah.
What is it about sixties? Oh you know what it is? It's called time. I'd love to have been able to get it right in my 50s, but I just that wasn't enough time. I needed to be in my 60s to start getting it right, you know.
And that's fine. I plan to live to be 200 anyway.
Okay.
Sounds like a good song. That does, doesn't it? I better live to BC 100 to get everything in that I want to get in. Penny. Penny.
Penny. Sheldon, come in. Thank you. I'd like to make a sandwich, but I'm out of bread. Yeah.
There's some in the fridge. You shouldn't keep your bread in the refrigerator. Staleness is caused by crystallization of the starch molecules, which occurs faster at cool temperatures. On Earth, we say thank you. For 12 seasons, the Big Bang Theory was one of television's biggest hits, and it spawned a universe of spin-offs.
The latest from the mind of creator Chuck Laurie arrives this week. Look Burbank tells the tale. If you turn on the news these days, it can sometimes feel like the world is ending. Which is exactly where the new HBO Max show, Stewart Fails to Save the Universe, begins. This Apocalyptic nightmare that you were living in.
It can be avoided. It never has to happen.
Okay, now I have like six questions. Stewart breaks a device that Leonard and Sheldon had built. and it triggers a multiverse Armageddon. And then Stewart is sort of enmeshed in fixing it. What's your plan?
No, I don't really have one. I'm kinda new to the action genre. If the names Leonard, Sheldon, or Stewart don't ring a bell, let's jump back to 2007. That was the year the iPhone debuted. I understand classifying.
It was also the year the Big Bang Theory. A show about a group of nerds trying to navigate life premiered on CBS. Where are you adding? To the comic book store. You're probably thinking the comic book store on a Thursday while I've fallen down the rabbit hole and into a land of madness.
The show made a star out of its lead, Jim Parsons, who played Sheldon. Smell that? Yeah.
That's the smell of new comic books. Oh yes. Even tech bros like Elon Musk made cameos. It feels great to come down here and help the less fortunate, huh? Oh, yeah.
But then there were the characters like Stuart Bloom, the hapless geek who runs a struggling comic book store. Played by Kevin Sussman. I didn't realize your soul was also for sale.
Well, it wasn't, but uh make me an offer. But this time around, Sussman gets his turn to shine in the deeply weird but still hilarious world of Stewart Fails to save the universe. Is there some pretty big similarities between who you are and the Stuart character? Sadly, yes. I could be, you know, kind of neurotic and.
Stewart is kind of neurotic, but he's through the course of this show, he's pushed into a situation that tests his limits of Putting himself out there, he takes, he's kind of, yeah, I guess he is kind of the hero. Stewart is joined by Brian Possane as geologist Bert Kibler and John Ross Bowie as physicist Barry Kripke. Uh Not a good sound. Plus, Lauren Lapkiss reprises her character of Denise, Stewart's comic bookstore co-worker and girlfriend. I thought you were dead.
I thought you were dead. This can't be happening. All of them as unlikely action heroes trying to restore order in a disintegrating universe. These characters are all underdogs. They're all like not Heroes, by any stretch of the imagination, so it's like it could happen to you or anybody else that, like, suddenly you have to do this and you don't know anything.
So speak. The show is the latest from Chuck Laurie, one of the most successful and prolific producers of TV sitcoms in history. Mm-hmm. from Roseanne to Dharma and Greg, to two and a half men, and the many, many spin-offs of the Big Bang Theory. This project was the wish.
for me to Go beyond the couch. 35 years I've been writing about people sitting on a couch talking. Hey, Mark. Unlike the Big Bang Theory, this new show was shot like a movie, with one camera and no studio audience, so it doesn't look or feel like a sitcom. It was by design to try and step out of my comfort zone and I'm out.
I'm out. Half the time we're shooting stuff, and I'm actually going, oh, that's how you do that. That's how you make that remarkables, a fight sequence or whatever. Stuart and the gang struggle as the world changes under their feet. jumping from parallel universe to parallel universe, each one with its own look and rules.
You're making up the rules of reality. of this multiverse. That was not a problem on 2 and F Men. It was a much bigger game to play than anything I'd ever done before. Gentlemen, we are in hell.
Really? Everyone's being so nice to each other. If the rules of reality change from episode to episode, for Stuart, as he fails to save the universe, the rules for making TV have changed too. Sitcoms and network TV no longer command the audiences they once did. I wanted to break every rule.
That was, we were confronted with. Here we go, we're rolling background. Laurie also enlisted the help of his Big Bang co-creator, Bill Prady.
Well, one of the things we said when we started was, let's make it the kind of TV show that the characters in Big Bang Theory would watch. and producer Zach Penn, who says the Big Bang Theory was actually ahead of its time, predicting the popularity of comic book action movies that have come to dominate the box office for the past decades. It was like a nerd revolution going on, you know, and suddenly, you know, comic book movies were taking over. They really caught the zeitgeist in terms of like where. pop culture had moved to, it had really caught up with those of us who are comic book fans or sci-fi fans.
Now that we've been living with 20 years of tech companies moving fast and breaking things, Okay. Stuart Fails to Save the Universe seems to ask, what kind of world do we want to live in? You are really getting on my nerves, Donnie Talker. Just don't ask Chuck Laurie about all that. He says he's just trying to make people laugh.
What do you think it is that you've understood, I guess, instinctively about this business and about creating television that's led to having so many successful shows. Jeez. That's a macro question, isn't it? I don't know. I know early on I decided let's Always presume the audience is smart.
Assume a sophisticated, you know intelligent audience And then write. Another thing Chuck Laurie knows is that that smart audience he's talking about is watching media differently. You might be watching this on your phone. And if Gory wants his universe to continue, he'll have to expand it. which is just what he's trying to do.
If you go see a movie in a theater, you have committed. You're going to sit there. And watch the two now three-hour movie, asking a lot, especially those of us with older. Bladders. if the audience doesn't have the same relationship with television.
The flick of the finger. It's gone. There's a thousand choices. to entertain you. Or not.
Maybe you just turn the damn thing off and read a book. My training for going on 40 years is. Don't waste a second. Don't waste a second. Every second you have an audience.
Watching honor their time. Mm-hmm. Give them some reason to stay. Our commentary this morning comes from author Barry Walters, whose new book, Mighty Real. is a history of LGBTQ music.
He explains What a difference a word can make. Yeah, shit we When I hear love songs sung by straight men. I mentally switched the gender of their nouns so I can relate to what they're singing about. This is what gay people do. Most hits aren't designed for us.
Not even those by us. Queer musical content ordinarily gets marginalized unless it comes from a juggernaut like Sam Smith. a gay but mainstream and multi-million record-selling brick. Doing something unhappy. Smith's 2022 chart topper with Kim Petrus.
There's nothing confrontational about his new single, My Guy. Yeah.
The reason why I'm mentioning it is its simple use of a masculine noun to denote a same-sex relationship. For someone of Smith's fame, That's news. LGBTQ POP is rarely this straightforward. Little Richard helped invent rock and roll by being nearly nonsensical. Then David Bowie made serious art out of complex gender provocation.
Seek it. Rebels like them are usually those with the least to lose. That's how it was at the Stonewall Inn 57 years ago. When butch gals, nelly boys, and drag queens got fed up with hostile New York cops. They fought back.
Uh So This summer Sam Smith fights back. With a hit-worthy ballad when one little repeated noun makes a big advancement. Revolution has never sounded so gentle. He's my God. I'm Week Owen.
Thanks for listening, and please join us when our trumpet sounds again.
next Sunday morning. Criminal Minds Evolution is back on Paramount Plus. Do you think it's possible to discern some hidden pattern shared by all serial killers? With a new killer each week. I see those wheels turning.
When a copycat killer emerges, the BAU will form a dark alliance with a familiar foe. Elias, would you help us? This season, he Is contagious. Once it starts, it can't be stopped. Criminal Minds Evolution.
New season now streaming on Paramount Plus.
