UDSKRIFT 🔗
Craig: And welcome back to Daddies with Issues. I'm Craig Chester.
Jason: I'm Jason Byers.
Craig: how was your week, Jason? Tell me about your week.
Jason: my week was fantastic. the elections I didn't realize that I had a place for hope and optimism about the state of our country. It was I thought that that had died. And
Craig: Totally.
Jason: yeah, I feel I feel transformed. I feel engaged, I pay attention to the news more.
Craig: It's been fun to watch the news the last three days. it's been fun. it's been like How long has it been since
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. And the Schadenfreude.
Craig: that happened? Yeah. my God. And just the I mean, I feel like one of the things that I hate about Trump and I hate about these times is that the way that it's like opened up the can of It's like it opens opened up our imaginations to think that anything is possible. so we live in this constant state of vigilance where I totally thought there'd be Ice agents at the polls. I thought there'd be I just I thought he would try to do something, martial law, people were talking about that. And and it's sad because it's like we all imagine that because anything's possi anything is possible with him. And I hate that
Jason: That's
Craig: he's opened Pandora's box into the worst parts of our imagination of what could happen. And that that to me is like, and I'm just so aware of that since the election. I'm just like, once I drop the martial law thing and my God, how am I gonna get harassed at the at the polls? It's like it didn't happen. And that's what I
Jason: I know.
Craig: think is so interesting and and and educational about this, is that it's like, you know. He unleashes our worst, just our imaginations can have been going wild for two years and or yeah, two years. And and it didn't happen. It was like a
Jason: Yeah.
Craig: fleeting fair election and it was too big to rig. Too big to rig.
Jason: Too big to rig. yeah, it's what one of the features of growing up in an alcoholic home or a highly dysfunctional home is that you anticipate bad things happening because you have to. you have to sort of prepare for the worst because the worst often happens. And then you learn as you recover from from the effects of growing up in a home like that to Catch yourself and go, okay, the worst things often don't happen. I'm preparing for the worst, but that doesn't that just causes anxiety. And so you just try to stay pe present and stay positive or at least neutral. But then, like you said, with Trump, because worst-case scenario things happened, it did it it
Craig: Yeah.
Jason: created this hypervigilance, and you realize, you know, you're stuck in. a an alcoholic home. You're stuck
Craig: Yeah.
Jason: in this in this system where you're powerless over really bad things happening. And that
Craig: Yeah. It's it just it just goes to prove what we've talked about before about how it's like we're all codependents dealing with an alcohol an unpredictable alcoholic, who who, might come home on Christmas morning and stomp on the Christmas presents and There ain't no Santa we have to do we you never know. And also that could still happen. Like the thing about Yeah.
Jason: Well, Stephen Miller Stephen Miller's new position.
Craig: it's just it's it's he's very predictable. he's just gonna double down. He's he's never gonna I'm I'm I'm telling you, he's never gonna leave. We've talked about this before. He's going to he'll he'll he'll do whatever he can to stay in the bunker. He's gonna rush that bunker into into place in the next two years. And he just isn't gonna leave. He's he's very it's it's principle thing for him. Like he's just gonna be like Custer's last stand, like he's gonna be very and He's going to fight it. Look at he's always gonna fight it. it was it was just too big a vote, you know, there was no way he could say that it wasn't fair. And so it just all of his plans backfired, all his attempts to undermine the election backfired the court systems held
Jason: Yeah, the gerrymandering.
Craig: the gerrymandering blew up in their faces. it's just so it's just so sweet. I feel like the whole country went to rehab. Or the whole country went to to an Al Anon meeting is what I how I feel after the election. You know?
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. And we and we had to hit bottom to
Craig: Yeah.
Jason: wake up and go to that meeting and realize enough is enough and
Craig: Everybody was on the same page. everybody was like watching all
Jason: Yeah.
Craig: of this and going like this is bullshit. I mean, I'm from Texas and
Jason: Blue Texas.
Craig: Yeah, I can't rem believe that that happened. It's I I am you know, growing up there, it's just it's such a I mean, Anne Richards was was governor, I think, in high school, I think, and she was a Democrat and she was amazing. But I it's
Jason: Yeah, I remember.
Craig: been my my almost my entire adult life that Tex Texas has been red. And I just think about, you know, it's it's nice to it's sort of when it happened, I was like, oh right, democracy works like voting, like this is still democracy. And Elon Musk, like what happened to him, it just is like so
Jason: Yeah, that's sweet.
Craig: my god, just such a Disney villain, you know.
Jason: I know. How was your week?
Craig: My week was good. tomorrow's my birthday, so I've been planning for my birthday tomorrow I've had like a couple of weird days, you know, where I felt like a little I I don't ever get depressed. Like Jason talks about having depression, but I don't ever get depression. Like I'm I might have anxiety, which is probably more what I have. I have
Jason: Y you just have everything else.
Craig: everything literally everything else. Borderline, narcissistic personality disorder, meth induced schizophrenia, I everything else. But I don't have depression. but I had like a day where I was really bummed out. I woke up and I just I just was in a I was just I slept all day. I just went back to bed and and I don't even know why. Just I I
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think it was it was after the it was after the election. It might have been some kind of post election crash or something. Because one of the things that the that the election made me realize too is whenever we won and when it was like, we're all like we're all on the same page, like all of America is like pro DEI, like all of the historic like wins for people of color, like amazing.
Jason: Yeah. Yeah.
Craig: And first openly gay senator, like it just it was just such a like fuck you Target basically. is what the title of the chapter should be. And and I feel like I just when that happened, I didn't realize how much tension I'd been carrying around from living in this country. Like how much low grade tension. Cause there's also this part of me. I have friends who've left the country who moved to Mexico, Panama, Portugal, and so there was this part of me that I had always said, like, well I'm gonna wait to see how the midterms turn out. If they're really, really bad and it's gonna be like Nazi Germany, then I'm gonna go, I'm gonna leave or figure out some kind there they were all been have your passport ready, have your your your papers ready, your FBI background check, all that stuff. And so there was a part of me that was it wasn't high on the list, but it was in it was on the list of am I gonna to leave the country? Am I gonna be, is this gonna be me being stupid because I'm not paying attention to the warning signs of fascism, just plus with the technology too, But it there was this part of me it like, well I don't have to leave the country now. It's the first one of the but I think I I think my day of sort of being under you know just emotionally d depressed or drained was sort of like a crash I had from like basically
Jason: Mm-hmm.
Craig: living in the these tension filled times for the last two years. you know.
Jason: Yeah. And you're an empath, so I think you feel like me, you feel everything very deeply. So you probably didn't realize how much that was a drain on your system.
Craig: how was your week? What's going on with you? How was anything new with any Darren adventures this week?
Jason: no. I have to pick him up again at the hospital next week for colonoscopy. That's so I get to be
Craig: Wait, aren't you getting one too? So you're both
Jason: I need to get one. So
Craig: getting double colonoscopies? It lies it like a you have a suite together, two for one two for one special. Is this a Group on thing? For all gays over fifty? The colon the that's so romantic, the two of you getting colonoscopy together.
Jason: I know, I know, I love that we're talking colonoscopies. yesterday we were watching a movie, what was it? The Invitation, the Olivia Wilde movie. And
Craig: yeah.
Jason: he ended up hating it. And he's like, Well, you can just continue watching, it's fine. I'll just play around on my phone. And I realized, no. I'm going to stop watching, even though I was really into it and it's very propulsive. So it's definitely not one that lends itself to pausing and then watching later. But
Craig: Okay.
Jason: I realize the good boyfriend thing to do is to just turn it off and do something else. so
Craig: Swim
Jason: yeah, so these little little choices, I think relationships are made up of choices and choices that you make for for the relationship. So that was that was a nice little that was a nice little moment for me. Although I'm curious to see how the movie ends.
Craig: Yeah.
Jason: but Just, you know. What about you? how how do you feel about one year older?
Craig: I think hitting six af like sixty was such a big year, like turning sixty. That like sixty
Jason: Mm-hmm.
Craig: one's like whatever. at least I'm in the low sixties still. But everything's there's so I've read this article that like people in j they age in in increments. Like there's a study that was done where like one of the first increment is thirty three or thirty four, then the second increment is forty five or forty nine. And the the third increment or yeah, is like is between fifty eight and sixty. There's like and there's a leap that you make at that period. And it's really true. it's really true. I I noticed just in the last year, like differences in my skin. Like I noticed that I like if I skin this
Jason: physical differences.
Craig: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Age that that you age in increments. I notice like the last year, like my skin is d is starting to change. It's thinner.
Jason: Mm.
Craig: like I if I cut myself, it's like it's just a little bit thinner. And so it's like it's it's definitely real. Like I think you basically like as you know, you basically are yourself, you know and also this this week like on Halloween, like the moth posted my Montgomery Clift ghost story that that I told and I never
Jason: Mm-hmm.
Craig: seen it before and it and it and it went viral. So I was watching myself, I would say I was like in my forties when I did that And I was like looking at how different I look too, that I'm that I'm older now, so my face looks different, it's fuller. I'm also fatter, so that's part of it too. A big part of it. But I but it's just like I was so handsome, you know, and and sort of it's sort of funny to to see you know that's the thing when you're when you're an actor, you just go about your day and sometimes someone will post something or you'll see yourself from like someone posted a clip from Adam and Steve the other day and see myself and be like, right, that's what I used to look like. So it's sort of it's interesting to to have that, you know, just to have that awareness and relationship with your looks in a way that is unique
Jason: Mm-hmm.
Craig: to being an actor, but But I so that that was but it was nice to have people you know respond to the story. And I've been working on my screenplay about Monty, which is what I've been focusing on. Because whenever I relapsed and I lost everything, I was I was working on that script. and I sold the idea to HBO Films and I had a
six-figure script deal at HBO, but I never wrote I never wrote my Montgomery Clift screenplay. And so now that one of the things that I'm I do in a very methodical way is like Now that I'm sober and I'm on my feet, I'm going back and I wanna finish the things I was doing when I when I relapsed. And so
Jason: Mm-hmm.
Craig: it's almost more like a symbolic thing that I need to finish that. Cause that's what I was doing, the middle of the whole thing. And I also let a lot of people down. I had producers, I had like they have a lot of people attached to that
Jason: Yeah, I remember
Craig: project. And so it's it's a very so I'm you know, I'm looking forward to like No, the way about turning 61 is that I realize I don't have a ton of time to waste. this is where it gets shit gets real. And so when you think about like, you know, the average lifespan is seventy eight for a guy, seventy nine. but of course, I never took care of myself and I'll probably live to be a hundred 'cause that's just how fucked up life is. All my friends that were vegan will probably die in 72. It's just it's it's the illogic, it's like the Keith, the Keith Richards of it all.
Jason: Yeah.
Craig: so I, you know, but it it does make me get, you know, you just get very serious about like what am I gonna do? What's important to me. and so yeah, I just want to finish my Montgomery Clift screenplay and and and it's also just fun for me to write. It's fun to revisit it. from this perspective now because I look at it differently. I I definitely have a different understanding of myself and an of addiction. And you know when I when I was going through the when before this happened to me and I became like a crystal meth addict, I I don't think I understood that about Monty. I don't think I understood that. I sort of just thought he was like just a I just I I and also the way that Monty was sort of made fun of in last ten years of his life were, you know he was a horrible d alcoholic and addict and everybody was annoyed by him. He was incredibly exhausting the same way that I became. And so
Jason: Ha ha.
Craig: yet it yet again, it's like our lives are twinning, I'm I'm and I never even saw thought about this until, you know, recently that, you know, that yet again there's this parallel between our lives where like he was like, you know, horrible addict to Who sh who was just like a disaster, for the last few years of his life. And I was just I was a disaster too. And the only difference is I didn't die. But and so, but I I'm
Jason: And you got sober.
Craig: Yeah, it's yeah. And that has a everything to do with the times I live in, back in nineteen sixty six, twelve steps were not like a thing. They were around, but they weren't like like they are today.
Jason: An obvious option, yeah.
Craig: Yeah. And and also if you were gay, it's like you know there were no like gay meetings, you know, gay anything.
Jason: Or celebrity meetings.
Craig: No. I think there probably I there surely there were celebrity meetings. I know that because Nancy Walker used to go to them and she's part of my script
Jason: Weren't they friends?
Craig: They were, and she was trying to get him to go, actually. Nancy Walker.
Jason: She's trying to twelve step him?
Craig: Yeah, she did. She tried to be his Eskimo. but yeah, Nancy Walker, who she tried to help. She
Jason: The bounty lady, for those of you who don't know.
Craig: was the bounty lady. She was also on Mary Tyler Moore's show and she
Jason: Rhoda? yeah.
Craig: she directed the movie Can't Stop the Music, which is a gay classic. and so she but yeah, Nancy Walker tried to help Monty get sober and and go to meetings with her, but it didn't work, obviously.
Jason: So for those of you who don't know, Craig's Montgomery Clift story is about Craig being haunted by the ghost of Montgomery Clift, who spoke to him through psychics. Is that is that a is that a fair log line?
Craig: Yeah, when Adam and Steve came out, these agents in Hollywood approached me and asked me if I wanted to come to LA to be a director. And there was a Revenge of the Nerds remake happening at the time, and I was up for the up for that. So I went to see a a psychic because I didn't see myself as a d Hollywood comedy director, and I met this with this woman named Reverend Catherine, who's a psychic to the stars,
Jason: Who we love.
Craig: who we love. And she I heard that Chris Cooper went to her and I like Chris Cooper, you know, actor from Adaptation. And so while we're sitting there, talking to her, asking her about which agent to sign with and should I go to LA? And she's looking over my shoulder at something that's not there. And she was like, there's a spirit of a dead actor around you. Then your next film is going to be about this man. And and I I listed off a bunch of names when I said Montgomery Clift. She was like, That's that's him. He's saying I'm Montgomery Clift. And so And I thought she Googled me. I'm like, you tell a gay guy, Montgomery. It's so obvious. every gay guy's gonna be like, Really? Monty Clift is my spirit guide? And so I went to LA and then I met this woman, Josanne, who was like whose husband worked with my dad. I just went to dinner as an obligatory thing for my dad to because he was showing me off, you know, like my son, he's got a movie coming out. And then when I mentioned I mentioned closeted actors and I mentioned Montgomery Clift at the dinner in the conversation. She was like, that's him. That's the guy who's standing beside you. And she she told me everything the woman in New York said. And I called I got in the in the car and I called Parker Posey and because I she knew what Catherine had said, and we just were both laughing. And she was like, This is so Shirley McClain And and so it went on this crazy thing where they were, I was trying to, get a sellout job and In LA, it was I was up for a female mud wrestling comedy. And I remember that I had to do that pitch, and I'm working on this female
must mud wrestling comedy pitch. And Josanne would call and Monty would call and be like, Monty doesn't want you to work on this, he wants you to work on his movie. And so, and it was this this crazy thing that happened, and you know, there were a lot of people around, like my boyfriend Brandon at that time, he was, you know, we just started dating. One day his mom had just passed away. Brandon's mom had just passed away, and she died from as a result of her of her addiction, ultimately. And Josanne was like, Did your boyfriend's mom just die? 'Cause she's here. I don't think I ever told you this. And then I I put
Jason: No.
Craig: Brandon on the phone and she was like, She knew that his mom was a addict. She knew that his mom she knew all of these, which was not really that common. And
Jason: No.
Craig: she was right about everything that. That about Brandon's mom, and he was crying, and it was like it was really powerful. and so that was right in the beginning, like how it started. There were things that were hard to deny. and then, you know, because people are people and I'm a human, like I went down the Monty rabbit hole and and and you know went a little cuckoo for a while. But but the backstory is that
Jason: Remember.
Craig: the backstory of this though is that. I found these pictures in a box the other day, of from nineteen ninety nine and it was me at Libby Holman's house in in Connecticut. I went up there with
Jason: yeah.
Craig: my and I went up there to take photos. I wanted to see w this where Monty would hang out when he would leave the city, go to to treetops is the name of the estate. And so he was very close to
Jason: Libby Holman was a Libby Holman was a an heiress, is that right?
Craig: Torch singer. She married the RJ Reynolds heir the tobacco heir and then
Jason: Okay.
Craig: he mysteriously died and was shot, which she claimed to be suicide. And so she was there was a tall trial of the century in the 20s, and she basically got off. But a lot of people think she she murdered him to get this money. And she lived with this her whole life, this this these rumors that she was a murderer, murderess. And so, and Monty was one of her closest friends. They had a very enmeshed Older woman, younger
Jason: Codependent.
Craig: gay man, the dark side of the fag hag version of it.
Jason: Yeah.
Craig: And she wanted to possess him, And but she also was very good for him in other ways. But anyway, but so I found these photos and you know, the reason why when Kath, when this whole thing sort of with Monty, the the context of the ghost story was that I I had already been wanting to write a movie about him about seven or eight years earlier and and was researching it. So whenever it was like Monty wants you to write the screenplay, I was like, So there were these these points of reference that that that matter to why this why it seemed real to me. And also when I was 19, I had like my face reconstructed, I had a deformed jaw. And while I was home in my parents' house in Texas, my dad got me all these. VHS movies to watch because he knew I was about to go to New York to be an actor and he wanted me to know who the classics were. So he got streetcar named Desire, he got Marlon Brando he wanted me to educate myself. He was such a good dad that way. Such a sweet thing to think about. And so I would just lay on the couch while my face was my jaw was wired shut. My my jaw was healing for eight weeks. And it was the middle of an afternoon, hot summer day. I think it was in June or July in 1984. And I put in a place in the sun, which is a famous movie that Monty made with Elizabeth Taylor, and and and turned the movie on. My parents were gone. I was home home alone in the house, which was kind of rare because I just had facial surgery. And when I first saw Monty's face, the first shot of that movie is him backing up to the camera and he turns and is an extreme close-up of his face. And when I first saw his face, I got this really strange feeling that I got scared when I saw him. And I like I felt like someone was gonna break into my parents' house. So I got up and I locked all the doors. I locked the front door, closed the garage door, and I had this creepy feeling that someone's about to break into the house. And and and this is the middle of Texas, in the middle of the day. And then halfway near the end of the movie, I didn't get to finish it because my dad came rushing in the house hysterical 'cause there was a plane crash right by our house, the Delta a Delta plane crash, like it was flight 1 9 1 or something. My dad was driving down the highway and the plane crashed on the highway and killed people in their cars and then slid into a field. And my dad saw the whole thing and he was ran in hysterical traumatized. He's like,
Jason: my god.
Craig: Turn on the news, turn on the news, turn on the news. And so we turned off Place in the Sun and it was like We were watching live footage of this plane crash and he just witnessed it. And he was like, Why did you lock all the doors? Why did you close the garage? And I was like, I felt like someone was gonna break in the house. So Monty's entrance into my life was very dramatic in this very creepy, weird way. And and so whenever both psychics told me that he was around me, it it tracked, you know. I started thinking back to that experience that day when I first saw him and and The feeling I have was that some there were that there were eyes on me, that someone was breaking in the house, it was the same feeling of not being alone. And that that's the context that made me open to what the psychics were telling me about Montgomery Clift guiding me since I was nineteen and all the stuff they told me.
Jason: Do you still, now that you're revisiting the Monty project, do you still have the sort of do you still believe in the psychic stuff? Do you still have that kind of relationship to it? Because you said you went down sort of a a kooky rabbit hole. Do
you feel like that was a phase? what is your relationship to the sort of spiritual or supernatural aspect to it now?
Craig: I think it's I still believe it. I I I think that I believe it's real. I believe that there's something else going on. there's there's too many things that happen that are impossible to explain logically. There are other things that happened that are easy to explain logically. And I think both are true. I think that there is there is a psychic there is like something Woo-woo going on here, but I also think that that people's personalities get involved, the same way my personality got involved. I I believe that people have a gi it's possible to have a gift. I think being psychic is like a gift. It's like some people are just born and they play they can play the piano, you know. I just feel like it's a gift that you're born with. I feel like on some level we're all like Wi Fi in a sense. I feel like we all, you know, pick up on things and and I think that some people just have like stronger Wi Fi connections to whatever this is. And I think that in eventually, in a hundred years we'll understand what this is. I think the it's all be proven eventually. Cause like think about what we didn't know a hundred years ago. Like look at how much we've known now versus a hundred years ago. That's gonna keep going. And in a hundred years we're gonna understand the nature of reality and whatever this is. But there is something going on. There was something going on. But I think that what happens is that, you know, I brought my my alcoholic personality to the story and and brought some of my darkness in that way. and I think that the psychics also have their own lives and their own, you know, egos and their own so it's it's a it's a it's a all of it is kind of true. It's about like, you know, and to spend time trying to separate it out is can make you crazy. But I I look at it like like I was I was so I lived in LA. This is a related story. I I got to know Mel Gibson. Like I
Jason: I remember that.
Craig: Yeah, and this is related to the Monty story. But I was at I was at Mel Gibson's house, And he was going through this breakup with Oxsana And and I was in his kitchen. He was he always made chai tea, or he would make chai tea and we'd hang out in his kitchen, which was a gay thing to make for Mel Gibson but he we made chai tea. And and and he came into the kitchen and and I was texting with my friend because she lived in Malibu. I was gonna go from Mel's house to down to her to see her afterwards. So saying, I'm about to leave here. Are you home? Can I come by? And and right at that moment, Mel comes walk running into the kitchen. He was in a rage about Oxsana and he had this statue of this saint, and it was a female saint, and I don't remember her name, but she has two. tits on a platter. They're like two boobs on a platter and I don't know
Jason: There's a saint with two boobs on a platter?
Craig: Yeah, they're two breasts on a platter.
Maybe they're not breasts, maybe they're like cakes. I don't know what they are, but they look like tits. So right at that moment, Mel's like he I think he this somehow this saint had to do with his daughter his child that he had with his wife, and they were he named the child after the saint, maybe I'm not sure, but he comes in like on holding this statue, like of the s this saint, female saint, with two tits on the platter, and then right at that second. My friend who I'm about to go see from there texts me a photo of the same thing of a saint, of that same saint.
Jason: Really?
Craig: Yes, at the same moment. So I'm st I'm standing in front of Mel Gibson. He's holding this like statue of the saint. And I looked down, it's like bing! And it's like there's a picture of the same saint. And she at that moment happened to be at this like monastery or something down the road. And she was like, and she just took that photo. And I was like, my
Jason: ha ha, look at this saint with two tits on a platter.
Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't and so it was like this crazy synchronicity. And I left, I was like, my god, my god, I just saw this. I've just at Mik Mel Gibson's and I just saw this and so I go back to her place and we have this we have this great conversation about what this means. The tits on the platter thing is a moment because who knows what that means? Who knows that what that means? That synchronicity. Like we can't really know what that means. And in a way, the way she was she was explaining to me, which is very true, she's like, like all that woo-woo stuff is like the ocean. And like my brain is like a teacup. So like the ocean can't fit into a teacup, or the teacup will break.
Jason: Mm-hmm.
Craig: And from then on whenever something happened that was really obvious synchronicity, instead of me trying to go like what why what is this what's what's this what's this mean? Which is what I did during the whole Monty thing. It was just like obsessed with like, what's this mean? Now I go like it's just tits on a platter. It's just tits on a platter. And and she and
Jason: Ha ha ha.
Craig: I would say that because that stuff does happen and just like I have no idea what it means. I can't know what it means. And the pursuit of trying to understand it is actually what makes you crazy. We're not meant my my brain is a teacup. My mind is a teacup. It can't contain the ocean. And so now when things like that happen, I just go like there's something else going on. There's something else out there. I don't know what it is. I don't need to know what it is. Because I can't really know what it is. we can't really. And so that's that's where I'm at today with the Monty story. Like I believe it, and it doesn't really matter if it's true, it doesn't really matter how it what.
Jason: It's just it's just tits on a platter. I wanna know I
Craig: It's just tits on clutter.
Jason: wanna know what the tits on the platter means. I want to know what that saint like what was she the saint of? Why does she have tits on a platter? Did you ever look that up?
Craig: I did, but I I I don't think it was relevant. But I don't think it matters because he wasn't talking about he he's talking about the saint because it was I think his he named his daughter after that saint, which is why I
Jason: Okay.
Craig: I I'm not sure 'cause and I'm probably wrong, but I have a dim memory of him bringing it up for that reason. But but but yeah, that's it just and there's there's a freedom in not having to understand everything and just like there's there's something else, there's something bigger going on. I hundred percent believe that. I just don't know what it is and I don't need to know. And when people try to explain it to me, when the psychics say, well, this is what's going on, I also go like, Well, you don't really know that. No one really knows what something means. if the psychics or whoever tries to explain like this is what this means, like you were his reincarnation, or you were his like twin, or you were his that's that's where a person's matter of opinion comes in. How we interpret things has everything to do with our own experience and what we believe. And we don't have a way of really knowing what that is. I mean, so I mean, do think that the Monty thing, there are things that happen that are just impossible to explain away. There are things that happen that are that I can explain like, you know, we were making it happen. And but I, you know, I I don't invest in what. interpretation is anymore because that's subjective.
Jason: Right. And limited. I think I'm more of a skeptic by nature, but there have been moments in my life where there's been some synchronicity that's been impossible.
Craig: What's a really glaring example of one for you?
Jason: I was I was studying abroad in Stratprod upon Avon, studying Shakespeare in college, and I was with some friends in Ireland, and
Craig: Okay.
Jason: there was a bus that we needed to make to the ferry in order to it was the last ferry, it was the last bus to the last ferry in order to make it back to school. And we were short money. For all of us to be able to take the bus. And we're like, what do we do? And I looked down and there was a 10 pound note right at my feet. And just picked
Craig: Mm-hmm.
Jason: it up and we all made it on the bus and we made it and to the ferry. And it was there was just silence on the bus because it was just so the
Craig: Well
Jason: the timing was so on the nose.
Craig: Have you ever felt your grandma around you? Have you ever had any moments like that?
Jason: I I honestly I haven't. And that's you know, I I asked her, I would we would talk about death as she was, you know, getting quite old and it was it was obvious that was the next the next big event. and I well a A, I I asked her what I what she thought what she thought would happen when she dies and she says it's just blackness. It's just fade to black. and I said, Well, if that's
not the case, if you know, if you enter some sort of spirit realm, will you haunt me? I want you to haunt me. And she's like, Okay, I'll see what I can do. and I I
Craig: She was great. I would want her to hunt me too.
Jason: haven't really I mean the closet door actually this week was lying on the couch playing Scrabble, the Scrabble app, which I'm wont to to do, and the closet door opened. and so it the thought did
Craig: Creepy.
Jason: go through my mind is is that my grandma, but it I don't have I don't know. I I have people in my life who are believers. my aunt said that she gets visited by my grandma with like weird electricity stuff. But I mean
Craig: That's really common electricity thing. There's a really good episode of of Woo Woo
Jason: Yeah, but but if she's gonna visit anyone it would be me, in the family. So I don't know. She's pissed. I don't know, but I know I'm kidding.
Craig: She's not pissed at you. Maybe she just is like, you know. I mean, it I feel like it has a lot to do with how open you are to it too. Like if you're actively
Jason: Yeah, maybe I'll try to open my eye my mind to it.
Craig: If you're looking an active woo-woo pursuit, then that t tends to help, I think. But but I had a I was psychic once. I predicted someone's death once. I've I've actually a few times.
Jason: Really?
Craig: Actually, you were part of this part of the story, but yeah, that when I was in LA, lived in LA, we'd go to Al Anon with this guy who's a French guy, his name is Jean and with my friend, the actress who I just mentioned in the Malibu story, and we'd go at we'd go to This it was like the very it was very much like the movie star Alanon meeting, famous people like famous singers, movie stars. And so we always go out to this French restaurant afterwards called Cafe Midi, which is in the old which is in American rag on La Brea. A French restaurant, because Jean was French. So we would always go there and and and one day we were all hanging out and Jean was talking about how he was he was very just sort of like he was a very wealthy French guy and lived in Malibu. And was really very cynical about finding a woman. He wanted to find a woman to love him. And and we were just sort of giving him a pep a pep talk, like, you're gonna meet someone eventually. And he's No, no, no, it's never gonna happen. And as we're paying at the cash register, he walked past me and I was and I had this sensation like in my chest of just like I knew he was gonna die. Like it was very real. It was very and it wasn't like
Jason: Really? How old was he?
Craig: He was 62, early sixties. So he was really old.
Jason: Okay. So he's really old.
Craig: No, no, no. But I just and it wasn't even like I didn't have any it was like a physical sensation in my chest. It was like a weird, the way that you get when you get homesick, that it was and I just knew he was gonna die. And I But it had no emotion attached to it. There was nothing like this is good or bad. I just, and I didn't really think he was going to die. I thought he's going to check out, was the thought. It was like he's going to check out of being alive here. It had no emotion attached. There was no emotion attached. And so I I left there. I went home to my boyfriend Paul and I told Paul, and he was like, I'm like, I have this really strange premonition that Jean's going to die. And he's like, You're just being crazy and alcoholic. Well, you go to a meeting. And then I told. My friend, my actress friend, the same thing, and I thought like Jean's gonna die. So cut to two weeks later, I met the vet with my boyfriend Paul and Olive my dog. And my friend texted the actress, she texts me from the morgue. She's like, Jean was killed on the 1 0 1 freeway, was in a car accident and died. She was at the morgue to identify his body. And it
Jason: my god.
Craig: was two weeks after I said he was gonna die. And and she was like, You said this was gonna happen. And Paul was like, You said this was gonna happen. And I started crying because I was upset that he died, but it was also just like, I knew this. I knew this was gonna happen. He was on the 1 0 1 he pulled the car over. He had a convertible and he was with a woman going to Palm Springs and something got under his car, like a piece of scrap, something, and he pulled the car over. And when he got out to get out of the car to take it out, he was hit by a truck, he was decapitated. And
Jason: my god.
Craig: so it was a horrible accident. But I had that, and then I had it another time when I was Laying in bed and I was again with Paul, like was we would take naps on Saturdays and we were laying in bed and and he fell asleep right away and I couldn't go as couldn't fall asleep. And I was thinking while I'm laying there, I'm thinking like Whitney Houston was a crack addict. Like how did Whitney Houston become a crack? Did that really happen? Like Whitney Houston became a crack addict? Like how did that and I was like, I'm gonna get up and go look at YouTube videos of Whitney Houston being interviewed and being on crack and it This whole thing about Whitney and I'm not a fan of Whitney Houston, I'm just average about her, but so I'm laying there just going like Whitney Houston, Whisney Houston, and then my phone lights up, it's on silent, and it was a text from you saying Whitney Houston just died. And
Jason: my god.
Craig: I had this sort of like and I I was like and that's where that's the first time I thought like were Wi-Fi because I was like, I must have been picking up in the Wi Fi of it all, like in the Wi-Fi of collective conscious or something that but I I I also had a premonition she was gonna die too. And so yeah, I've been psychic at times.
Jason: Have you had anything like that recently?
Craig: No. No. I
Jason: And you've never been more open.
Craig: Yeah, but I'm also like I'm also I I turn things over more. Part of what it is to be in this place in my life, this good place, is that I I don't need to know things. I I just but that I wasn't trying to look for those things before, but but that and then but maybe it'll happen now because that period of my life I was very in a good place. I was very sober, I was very sort of settled and I was going to tons of meetings and stuff and so maybe it'll happen again soon, maybe but I I didn't predict the midterms going the way they did. I didn't see that coming, so what do I know? No one did, yeah.
Jason: Well no one predicted on that note. On that note.
Craig: yeah, no one did on that note. See how I brought it back around, I brought it back to the midterms. Full
Jason: Yep.
Craig: circle.
Jason: I
Craig: but I'm gonna see you tomorrow night, which I'm so excited about.
Jason: Yeah, what time? Seven thirty, you said? No. Six forty five. It's very
Craig: Six forty five is the dinner. in East Village. I'm excited to see Darren tomorrow night too.
Jason: Yeah, he's excited too. It'll be fun.
Craig: Yeah. Yeah.
Jason: Sixty one.
Craig: How old was I when I met you? I was forty I was forty one, right? Around there twenty years ago. Yeah.
Jason: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it was twenty years ago.
Craig: Wow.
Jason: And that was a different era.
Craig: A lot of people are commenting on how we look younger than we really are I posted.
Jason: really?
Craig: Yeah. Yeah.
Jason: good.
Craig: And clean living. Clean living.
Jason: Yeah. my dad looked younger than he was until he was I think somewhere in his seventies and then he aged like ten years in one year. So
Craig: Well eventually, it doesn't matter how beautiful you are, you eventually look like shit.
Jason: Yeah.
Craig: look at Robert Redford, Lauren Bacall like eventually they look they look bad. Like if you live to be old enough, you will look you'll look you know, like you're melting.
Jason: Gravity always wins.
Craig: Yes, yeah. Yeah. Okay, well thank you for joining us today. we will see you next week with more issues and more daddy talk and we hope you have a really great week.
Jason: Take care, everyone.