From the WNIN Public Media Center in downtown Evansville.

I'm David James, and this is two Main Street.

I'm David James, and this is two Main Street.

So grab your coat.

Your hat, and leave your worries on the doorstep.

Just direct your feet on the sunny side of the street.

Life can be so sweet on the sunny side of the street.

My guess is renowned TV and movie icon Matt Williams, best known for the hit shows Roseanne and Home Improvement, and movies including Where the Heart Is and What Women Want.

Matt has returned to his hometown of Evansville to launch his new book, glimpses, a comedy writers take on life, love and all that spiritual stuff.

It's his personal journey of family, faith and forgiveness.

Glimpses takes us to the sunny side of the street, but not before stumbling in the shadows.

Growing up in a dysfunctional family.

Finding love the third time around and going through therapy to deal with the two pistons powering his life.

Crippling insecurity and driving ambition.

So, Matt, welcome back to two Main Street.

I didn't.

You didn't lead during that introduction, did you?

The who I who's this messed up guy you're interview.

But you look so normal.

Okay.

You turned out well.

Now, the last time you were here, Matt, you dedicated a new studio at your alma mater at the University of Evansville, honoring the late John David Lewis, one of your mentors.

And a year ago, you were expecting a grandchild.

Oh, and we got a breaking news.

She's ten and a half months old.

Wow.

Name is soul.

So you.

Well?

Oh, wow.

She is beautiful.

And the best thing is, she has a great sense of humor.

This kid loves to laugh, but more importantly, she'll do things.

She'll look around, and she knows when she's being funny at ten months old.

Oh, like, that's.

That's just been a delight.

Now, is this, friends?

Frederick.

Yeah.

Fred.

My son, Fred's daughter.

He and his wife, Hannah, gave birth, and they had soul.

Now they out on the West coast.

They're out in Santa Monica.

Oh, okay.

My son's, a school counselor.

He met his wife.

She's a fourth grade teacher.

And when he was supporting himself as a substitute teacher, he went into her classroom and she was his boss.

And to hear Hannah tell it, she says, I just went, oh, my God, we've got a hot substitute here.

I can't flirt with him or say anything.

So they kind of danced around.

Oh, he.

Yeah, very professional, but they ended up with a beautiful family.

Well, how often you get to see this?

We're seeing them quite a bit.

And Angelina and I have been out in Santa Monica for the last, well, since Christmas.

We're out there for over three months.

Okay.

Getting him any material out of this?

Oh.

Grandchild.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, I bet.

Oh, yeah.

Well, now, here's my quick review of your new book, glimpses a blue collar kid from Indiana Wednesday healing old wounds, recalling a rags to riches career, and reminding us that family, friends, and forgiveness create one hell of a life journey.

But we have a better review, I think, from this gentleman, to call these beautifully written pieces essays is far too limiting.

These are must read real life experiences that will lift your heart, restore your spirits, and nourish your soul with joy.

A captivating celebration of goodness.

David McPherson.

I've.

I've heard of him.

Yeah.

Tell us about David McFadden.

That people don't know.

Oh, he was my roommate at U of.

And, he started writing plays while he was at U of.

And then we both went our separate ways.

I went to New Orleans to graduate school, moved to New York.

He he did children's programing, etc.. And then when I launched Roseanne, when I created Roseanne, the very first writer I hired was David.

And, I called him he was teaching high school, in northern Illinois and a little school there.

And people said, why in the world are you hiring someone that's never written TV?

And I said, that's why I'm hiring him.

He's a good he's a good playwright.

I know, and he's had good training from movie.

I knew his sensibility.

And, I also knew, quite honestly, that he would protect my flank, that I'd have a friend in the trenches with me who thought, like, I did.

So, and then we went on and formed one dancer together and created Home Improvement and all these movies.

So.

So he's doing well as well.

He's doing very well.

I'm talking about grandkids.

He's got to pack up.

He's got like 5 or 6.

Okay.

Now, at the height of your success in showbiz, you decide on a simpler life and right for yourself and not for others.

Is that the genesis of glimpses?

Yeah, I kind of.

I just found myself.

I said this previously to someone.

Any time I created something that was inspired by love and guided by spirit, it succeeded.

If it was inspired by competition and driven by ego, it failed and I found I was continually turning out product instead of creating creating pieces from my heart.

And I thought, why am I doing this?

Is it because I at the time I was 65, 66?

I thought, am I doing this to prove I still have juice?

I by proving something to myself, why am I?

And I thought, yeah, why are you doing it?

So, there was a turning point that I write about in the book.

Or one day I went, I'm done.

I'm going to close up shop.

I'm going to go back to our farm, and I don't know what I'm going to do.

But I'm going to allow time and spirit and just quiet to guide me.

And what came out of it was these stories started unfolding.

And I just instead of judging and I started following it, I allowed these stories to pour out.

And then after a while I went, this may be a book.

So I sent these pieces to friends and fellow writers, David McFadden and being one, Jim Mano said and I said, am I crazy?

Is there something here?

And they said, no, this has a pulse.

You should keep writing.

Jeff Sparks, who was my other roommate, it UAV, he read some early on and he encouraged me.

So that's how this evolved.

And now once I did that, once I created in this beautiful vacuum, this quiet vacuum, I thought, why would I go back to Hollywood and get notes from the studio, the network, the actors, the direct and just be noted to death to have the freedom to create whatever is floating around in your soul, whatever bubbling up from your unconscious mind.

That's that's a gift.

Do you still need therapy?

No.

This book was therapy.

I really okay, I, I don't I did I was really screwed up I went, I went, I went through to psychotherapy for 32 years and kind of as I, the metaphor I use is untangling all that, those knots, all that twisted up knots inside my brain and going, okay, why am I like this?

Why am I like this?

And at the end of it, I kind of went, okay, I feel pretty good now.

I kind of like me.

I kind of like me.

It took a long time for me to like me.

And when you exited that show business madness, that helped.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Because what happens is I refer to it as mogul Linus, a mogul, and you get this disease called Mogul Lives, where one number one shows, two.

What if we get four shows on the top of our last movie?

Wasn't in the top ten.

We need to produce two more movies.

And you're pushing, pushing, pushing.

And you go, why am I doing this?

And then which comes back to.

Is what I'm creating of service to others.

And sometimes just making them laugh may be the service, a good belly laugh and having a million people laugh at the same time at your show.

That's being of service.

But at the front of this book there's the three words love, create, serve.

And I truly believe that's why we're on this earth.

To love, to create whatever it is.

We create radio programs or chocolate cakes or books.

But how does what we create not serve others?

And that and that was just a deep examination say, okay, this isn't just look at me, look at me, look what I made.

How can I give back?

And as I don't know if you're going to mention it, but all the profits of this book will go to charities to help children in need.

Not to mention that.

Yep, yep.

Now, reading the book, there's a lot of humor in the book, and there's some dark parts, parts of the book to now, your parents are, of course, are unforgettable characters and glimpses.

Frederick Golden Williams and Lily Bell.

Let's start with Frederick Golden Williams.

Yeah, my mother and father, who they were the most unique couple on Earth.

In many ways.

That's an understatement.

Yeah, yeah, they really were, and, and I couldn't put all of it in the book that maybe another book.

They both graduated from Central High School here in Evansville.

They did what you did in 1950, a year after graduating, they got married.

And in 51 I was born.

My dad worked at whirlpool on the assembly line, but he was an amateur artist.

My mother, who was always an AB student, really smart, gave that up to become what you became at that time a housewife, a housewife, stay home.

And I don't think.

And they had four children, I don't know, I don't think my father ever really wanted to be married, but he always wanted to have children.

So it was it was my 15th year.

I was 15, turning 16 when the family blew apart and my mom took a job outside the house, met a man, fell in love and ran off an abandoned us.

And my father and she got the house and all the money, and my father fought and gave her everything in order to keep the four kids together.

Okay, he said, you can have everything I have to have four kids with me.

Because he came from a broken home.

He had nowhere to live.

We had nowhere to live.

So we moved in with Wayne, my dad's friend.

Dad and Wayne, had a relationship for 53 years.

And the word gay or queer or homosexual was never mentioned until my father turned 87.

And at 87, my father finally came out and we had this long conversation over the phone and he said, someone said I was a homosexual.

I, I hope you don't think that's true.

And I said, dad, hypothetically, what if it what if it were true?

I said, it wouldn't make any difference to me.

I said, I love you.

You were a great dad.

You still are, and I will always love you.

And about, 24 hours later, about a day later, he called me back and he says, Wayne and I have had a relationship.

And, I said, no kidding.

After 53 years living together, this just in this just in.

And then.

So that was my dad and my mom, married six times.

She was in a race with Elizabeth Taylor.

Elizabeth Taylor and my mom were born in the same year, but my mom didn't match or for husbands because Elizabeth married Richard Burton twice.

Okay.

She was married seven times.

My mom was only married six times, but she was going to marry one of her husbands, remarry one of her husbands.

But he died before they could get married again.

If she had done that, she would have died.

Elizabeth Taylor and my mom, who was wacky and crazy and, fun.

I always said when my father told you a story, you cried when my mother told you a story, you laughed.

Yeah, but, with my mom, when she turned 60, I was on Home Improvement.

It was the number one show on TV.

And she called me, and she was between husbands.

And I said, mom, happy birthday.

You're 60 years old.

Just think about this.

And she said, yeah, yeah, it's something, you know, the usual stuff.

I don't feel that old.

And I said, is there anything you regret?

And she said, going to college.

She said, I, I always made good grades, I love school, I regret going to college.

And I love this story.

I said, mom, pick any college you want, I'll pay for it.

Go anywhere in the world, I'll pay for it.

And about a week later she calls back.

She said, I found where I want to go.

I want to go to Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

And to her credit, David.

And that's in the book.

She went to Oral Roberts University and in four years got her undergraduate degree and a master's of divinity.

I got and was on the Dean's list.

So my mother, who's 62, 63 at the time, is sending me her report card and I'm calling her going, mom, you can't look three A's in two B's.

This is great.

And, she had a pretty good vocabulary, didn't she?

Oh, yes, she did, because I know you when you lived on Reed Street.

Yes, yes, she would comment on the the folks next door.

Yes.

When we lived in a little house on Reed Street and at the time next door was a tavern, a neighborhood tavern.

And you know, where guys and gals, after they got off work would go and have a drink.

But on Saturday night they would have a live band where our house was only about eight feet from the wall of the oh my of the tavern.

And they had a live band with a drummer and an electric guitar.

Was like a shotgun.

Yeah, it was shotgun House.

Okay.

Right.

Right next to the tavern for a boy.

And so on Saturday night, I'd be lying there.

Hadn't the bet would be vibrating with rock rock music coming from the tavern next door.

And my mother, we went to church every single Sunday.

No matter what.

And, I've told this story before, but I remember she'd go to bed with her hair in curlers and put Vicks, sap on under her nose so she could breathe.

And one Saturday night, she jumped out of there.

I guess it was around 1230 at night, 1:00, and ran next door and kicked the door open with a bar full of people.

They stopped playing the rock and roll music, and she said, if you don't stop beating that drum, I'm going to shove those sticks so far up your.

And the whole place cheered and broke out in applause.

And she told them all to kiss us and walk back home.

Kiss her because I have to go to church in the morning.

That's good, that's good.

That's that last line.

There you go.

Now, the book is dedicated to Angelina.

Your wife.

My wife.

God bless her.

Yes, yes.

And how did you guys meet?

We met, in New York City.

When I was teaching myself how to be a playwright, I started writing some one acts.

Well, I wrote Between Daylight and Boonville.

That was my very first, which we've talked about.

That was my very first play.

And I said, If I'm seriously going to pursue being a professional writer, I need to learn my craft.

But I can't take three years writing another play.

So I started writing one act plays and I they were exercises to me, and they were all funny.

And I wrote them and I shoved them in a drawer.

And Angelina's good friend Suzanne Brinkley, who was a director, had been to the American College Theater Festival and saw the production that John David Lutes directed.

Okay.

And she came to New York and cold called me out of the blue, just called me.

She goes, where's your other place?

And I said, I don't have anything.

And she says, no, you have plays.

Where are they?

And I said, they're in a drawer.

I've got them locked away.

They're not very good.

She said, I want to read them.

She read them.

She said, these are really good.

I want to produce them and direct them.

And she did.

And one of the plays, one, a festival, a contest.

While she was producing and directing those plays, her friend Angelina feared to leave.

She came off tour of Annie and was between shows and came to New York, and she came down and helped us produce those plays.

And I write about it in the book, I won't they can read about it, but it was one of those moments where Suzanne took me back to the apartment she was sharing with Angelina.

This is the God's truth, David.

I walked in, Angelina was on her hands and knees doing spring cleaning.

She was scrubbing a toilet.

She swears it was the bathtub, but it was the toilet.

And she had on those yellow gloves with Lysol spray.

And I walked in.

I looked at her and she looked up at me and spirit, the spirit voice that I write about a lot in the book.

I took one look and I went, I'm going to marry this woman and have children with her six children.

I turned when I walked out, I turned to Suzanne and made a joke.

I said, I'm going to marry Angelina Feuer to Lacy, have six children, and moved to new Jersey.

And this went on and on and on and became a joke.

And finally Suzanne just snapped.

She says, don't tease about this stuff.

She takes it serious.

So we had two kids and moved to Los Angeles instead.

All right.

Now, you mentioned earlier that any money that you make personally from this book is being donated, and why did you decide to donate to, these children organization?

You know, I my passion has always been to help children because they did not create that situation.

They were born into a situation.

Our world, whether it's poverty or injustice of some kind or a war zone or whatever.

And I thought every child on the planet needs clean drinking water, some form of nutrition, shelter and access to some kind of education.

Just basic education.

Every child on the planet deserves that.

So, I, I identified several organizations, many hopes as being what is one of them, a motherboard.

They build schools for children.

They they they rescue them from oftentimes an enslaved situation, or children who are abandoned and they create schools for these children to go for all four years.

And even at the college, Crystal Funk and Heart united with Haiti.

It's very close to my heart.

I built a school in Haiti years ago, and we have gone through, as you can imagine, besides literal storms that tore down the school and had to rebuild.

Now we've got these the real storm, these gangs down there.

Oh, yeah.

And so anything we can do to just give these kids a chance at life, my my, you know, my approaches.

Put them in the starting blocks.

At least put them in the starting blocks if they choose to run the race.

Good.

We've equipped them for that.

But we have to at least get to some kind of shot at life.

And Bob Goff's organization, love does as well as Save the Children.

So that's my passion.

I really because these kids, you know, they haven't chosen this life, they have not, determined their conditions.

They're just reacting to and living in those conditions.

So anything we can do to make a child's life better is worth it.

Okay.

My guest is Matt Williams.

Mark Williams to his classmates at Reitz High School and the University of Evansville.

His new book is glimpses a personal journey to find light in the shadows and his relationship with God.

So how do you define God?

Well, are you cold?

God?

Is she in the book?

I do, I do because, look, we tend to create God in our image, right?

The God I grew up with in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Senate in Evansville, Indiana, was this angry, bearded white guy sitting on a cloud waiting for me to step out of line and throw me into hell, right?

That was the God you had to fear.

God.

And as I got older, I got really?

Is that what I want to spend all my time appeasing this petulant parent?

You know this police officer, do I?

That's how I'm gonna tiptoe through life, hoping God doesn't throw me into hell.

And I thought, that does make sense.

So I started looking at other religions.

I'm not a theologian.

I am not a scholar.

But I started reading, Buddhist beliefs.

Islam started looking at these other religions and going, wow, why don't you strip away the patriarchal hierarchical structure of most of these organizations and get down to the simple message, it is very simple.

Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

Just be kind, be gentle, be compassionate.

Take care of the poor.

Right.

And so then as I got into college and out into New York, I went, how can we slap a sex on God.

There's a famous book when God was a woman.

So I started looking at the early Christian mystics who often referred to God in the feminine.

And one of my favorite quotes is from Meister Eckhart, the Christian mystic who said, what does God do all day?

He lies on a maternity bed, giving birth to universes.

And so the I think I won't go off in the weeds on this when Constantine and the Roman Empire and all this and it became very male and no women, and we're excluding the feminine, we only have the masculine.

It's male.

Onward Christian soldiers.

I went.

That song is kind of repulsive because it's the opposite to the teachings of Christ.

You're not a soldier.

He was railing against soldiers.

He was railing against the oppressor.

So then as I evolved, I thought, how can God ever be defined as male or female?

And if he is male, which most religions want to make him?

What color is God's skin?

And James McBride, one of my favorite authors, has a book called The Color of Water because he was from an interracial, family.

My mother was Jewish, father was African-American.

And one day he asked, his mother said, what color is God's skin?

And she said, it's the color of water.

And I thought, that's pretty brilliant.

That is that is good.

That is.

But I will say one last thing and then I'll get off my my little soapbox here.

I'm standing on are your pulpit, my pulpit.

You know what really started turning things around for me when I stopped thinking of God as a noun and started thinking of God as a verb, as the divine creative force that has created and animated all life throughout the universe.

And we live in an expanding universe.

Right.

It keeps evolving.

It keeps evolving.

And what is that life force?

What is that force that expands the universe?

What is the same in infinite intelligence that lives in a whale that swims 2000 miles to the same water to give birth, and 2000 miles back the same intelligence?

If you look at a robin's nest, every single robin's nest is uniform.

It looks I go I started to write an essay going, do they go to the Grandma Robins?

And they all teach them how to build a nest.

But no, there is some kind of intelligence that guides that.

What is that?

Intelligence.

All right.

I don't know who.

I can't I can't even begin to define God, because if God, if we could comprehend God, God would stop being God.

Did you consult with any one in the clergy in writing this book?

No, I did, I did send it to a number of friends who, are of different faiths.

And I said, I am not here to proselytize.

I am not here to convince or convert anyone.

The lens through which I tell these stories is a Christian lens, because that's how I was raised, right?

And I, I shun the Christian label because in today's political day, in a world and divisive world, that takes on a whole different connotation.

So I find it easier to say I'm a follower of Christ.

And that's what I am.

I follow Christ teachings.

Okay.

Now there's a cliche of having an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other.

Have you experienced that through your career.

Oh yeah.

But the devil was usually me.

Okay.

The devil was my roaring ambition.

Okay.

And I one of those pistons.

Yeah, one of those pistons.

Because crippling insecurity.

And I think any true artist, every artist I've ever met of any value whatsoever is plagued without doubt is especially a writer.

Doubt is a writer's constant companion.

So you have to flick that little doubt demon off your shoulder and just keep going, right?

Question.

You're not smart enough.

You're not good enough.

Now therapy helps, but also I think that insecurity drives you.

But the demon was ambition, which is competing and comparing.

If you really want to be unhappy in life, compete with others and compare your life to theirs.

Okay?

And in Hollywood, that's all you do.

But you know, you, you need those things for success but you have to balance it right.

The balance for me was Angelina my family okay.

I didn't get caught up.

I didn't run around to parties.

I didn't go to Vegas on the weekend.

I worked very hard six oftentimes seven days a week.

And when I wasn't working, I went home to my wife and our two little kids, and she and the family was the ballast that kept the boat from tipping over.

Okay.

And I think also because success for me, yes, The Cosby Show, I was in my early 30s, but when I really hit, I was in my late 30s.

I didn't become a parent till I was 37 and 39.

So my real success hit in my late 30s, early 40s, so I was a little more mature.

I had been through two divorces.

I had been knocked around in the industry, so when it came, I went, this is great.

This is nice.

Having a couple number one shows, but this is not who I am.

That in my that that's not who I am.

We talked about those two pistons that powered your career crippling insecurity and driving ambition.

That seems to be a common theme in the pursuit of success.

And you said you have managed to harness that energy for good, but it wasn't easy all the time, was it?

No, no, you have to.

You can also, once you have success.

Real success in the industry.

My images.

Have you ever seen a whale and all the little sucker fish that are attached to a whale?

That's what happens all of a sudden.

These people come up and attach and they want everyone wants to take credit for your success.

And the second you have a failure, they detach and swim away.

So what happened was you also have everyone telling you everyone in Hollywood is a genius, right?

And I was in a meeting one time and they said, well, mad, he's a genius.

And I went, excuse me, I know I'm not a genius, so if I'm a genius, that means everyone is a genius, which means no one's a genius, right?

So if you start believing your own press and you start believing the flattery.

Because the flattery is the number one weapon of Hollywood, right?

David?

David.

James.

No one interviews better than you.

David, please.

It would be an honor.

Are you kidding me?

David?

And after a while, if you're not on guard, you start to believe that, and then you're really in trouble.

Then you're derailed.

You're off on the side.

You're in a ditch somewhere, right?

Okay.

No, but you are a good interviewer.

Well, thank you, thank you, I appreciate that.

Now, besides the book, you also have a podcast.

You talk to other other creative folks, including, entertainers, Tim Allen, George Lopez.

Yeah, I bet that's fun.

It is fun.

I, I, I kicking and screaming.

I started social media because when I left Hollywood, I said, I don't want to be on anything.

I don't want to be on any sites.

I just want to disappear.

And right.

And of course, you come out with a draft of the book and the first thing the publisher asked is, well, how many followers do you do?

Your social media presence?

Oh, I oh God, I gotta do this.

And I was talked into doing podcast in there.

Glimpses is the name of the podcast as well, and that's been the joy of this whole experience.

I really have enjoyed it because I get to talk with creatives about creating and spirituality.

Everyone from, the artistic director of Dance Theater of Harlem to George Lopez to Germano, to all these people.

And I have really enjoyed it because as a writer, any writer, you're always curious about other humans and what drives them, what motivates them, what's there to learn so much from these people?

Oh, I learned wow a ton.

And yeah, I've really enjoyed that.

It's on hiatus while I promote the book, but in the spring I'm going to pick the podcast back up.

And you're also teaching.

I teach at Columbia University.

I teach a TV pilot class, comedy, how to write a comedy pilot.

A lot of the playwrights and filmmakers, they don't have a TV department per se at Columbia.

So a lot of playwrights and filmmakers come and take my class.

Okay?

Now, being a comedy writer, there's plenty of humor.

Of course, in your book.

Tell me about Nova, the dog that, has captured your heart.

For three years.

My wife said, let's get a dog.

I said, no, I do not want a dog.

I do not want a dog.

We're not getting a dog.

And then during the lockdown and Covid, she tried to adopt from a shelter.

They were all gone.

Every dog was spoken for.

That's right.

Everyone was getting a dog.

And one day, like an idiot, she was sitting at her.

She's not an idiot.

I'm needed for walking over to her computer screen.

She was pulling up pictures of these little puppies and she says, come here, just look.

And I said, no, I don't want no look.

And of course, she pulled up this picture of Nova at six weeks old, this black lab with these little watery brown eyes and I looked at her and I went, okay, and Nova is on the cover of your book, and now she's on the cover of the book, and and I love this dog.

I said, it's kind of a competition between the dog and my wife, who I love the most.

And, right now, I think Angelina's still ahead a little bit.

Now, is that your, place in Hudson Valley?

Yeah, it is, it's the farm we've got in the Hudson.

It's beautiful.

Yeah.

I see some critters in the background.

We've got sheep and horses and, chickens and a garden.

So it's it's truly a gentleman's farm.

I'm not out there in my overalls plowing the north for it.

Okay, now, your wife's Italian family.

That's some good coffee, I'm sure.

Some stories there.

Well, I'll tell you a story the first time.

The first time I brought Angelina to Evansville to introduce her to the family.

My brothers and all of them, they were, Mark is dating an Italian, and I go, yes, it's a Martians.

Yeah, she's an Italian.

I go, yeah, well, she's from Detroit and she's an actress, a singer and dancer, and she's pretty fiery.

So, that was that was everyone's introduction to the Italian from Detroit.

And yes, I write about going to Italy with her family.

Yeah.

A little town outside Naples by Arno, which is 20 miles inland from Naples, and her sister got married to Vic in the same church where her parents got married.

Oh, boy.

In this little village.

And, it was as chaotic and as funny as the essay says.

Okay, now here's another one.

You talk about your early edition.

So when you, out of grad school, you want to make your make your way in showbiz, and, you were described as a hillbilly cousin.

That would be your your best role.

Oh, that was cool.

Oh, boy.

And that led you to voice lessons?

Yes.

Wait, let me see if they paid off.

David.

I went and, I couldn't get arrested.

The first year in New York, no one would see me.

No one would audition me.

I went all over, knocked on doors.

Finally, I got an audition with a woman named Marilyn Henry, who was the East Coast casting director for ABC.

And she cast the soaps as well as some primetime shows.

And I thought, oh my gosh, this is my big shot.

And I went in, met her.

She was very pleasant, very polite, and she had me read a scene with her, and I read the scene and we went back and forth, and I thought that felt pretty bad, you know?

And she was there.

I'll never forget it, because she was twirling her pencil.

Not a good sign when they're twirling their pants.

And then I said, do you want me to read another scene?

She went, no.

And then she put the pencil down on the desk and she goes, I would like to cast you, but I don't know how I could ever cast you unless it was as the hillbilly cousin.

And I went, excuse me.

She goes, that accent is god awful.

Where are you from?

Is that southern?

Is it Appalachian?

I said, I'm from Evansville, Indiana, and she goes, well, that accent is just awful.

I cannot cast you.

And of course, that threw me in despair.

Oh my gosh, deflating.

But I think, if nothing else, the book proves I may not be the smartest, but I am the most stubborn.

So I just went, okay, if I have to correct that, I will save my money.

Went to Tim, manic at Juilliard, and for six months I worked on getting rid of my accent and it worked.

Right after that, I started doing commercials, which paid the bills and the soap opera, and then I started doing other things.

So that first commercial, tell me about that.

Well, the very first commercial I got was a nonunion commercial, and I was called in and the woman, looked at me and she said, would you be willing to dye your hair black?

And I thought, hell, woman, I'll set my hair on fire, you know, but it makes some money so I can afford to eat.

And I was cast and I was cast.

Oh, it's embarrassed I was cast in a Spanish speaking commercial that only aired in Puerto Rico and on the Spanish station in New York, and it was hair pomade.

Okay, so I had to dye my hair jet black, and then I wore this silk shirt unbuttoned down to my belly button with a gold medallion, and I had to look in a mirror while a man, the voiceover in Spanish, you know, and this sultry siren walked up behind me and stuck her hand in my shirt, and we both looked in the mirror.

This fiery look.

Yeah.

And that was my first commercial.

I had no idea.

Oh, what he was even saying.

I guess if you put this pomade in your hair.

Okay.

A siren will slink up to you and stick her hand in your shirt.

So that was my.

So, you know, we go down to Spanish Harlem then like that I did not.

I never saw the commercial.

I got a check though.

I got paid and I went, I can, I can eat, I can stay in New York.

Maybe we can research and find.

Oh, God.

Please.

Oh, that would be you.

That would be wonderful.

Okay, you guys, you and Angelina took a trip to Cuba.

What were you doing in Cuba?

Well, I produced and directed the movie.

Where the Heart Is, and it was well received.

It was a good movie.

Ashley Judd, Natalie Portman and a friend of Angelina's who fled Cuba during the Peter Pan project.

He was one of the kids shoved on an airplane and flown out of the country during, you know, the.

Yeah.

The takeover.

He invited us down to a film festival.

So we went to the government said yeah, if you're fine, it's an international film festival.

And we went to Havana for the film festival.

And the funny thing was the movie was being shipped from Spain to Cuba, the Spanish version of that movie, it never made it.

Somewhere along the way, somebody stole it or it got lost.

But we wandered all through Cuba, and I write about that.

But one night it was the second or third night of the festival.

We're sitting in the theater, and Omar appeared to wonder.

The singer, a beautiful singer and she was in her 80s, is going to perform.

They were going to show some clips from her movies.

And as the lights came down, you heard these footsteps and I turned, I looked and here's this old bearded guy with a soldier in front of him and a soldier behind him, and they stop, and everyone in the row, two rows in front, stand up and he sits down.

And directly in front of me is Fidel Castro.

And I'm sitting there gobsmacked.

This is Fidel Castro.

And as I write this, when I was 11, he threatened to blow us up with missiles.

And I remember standing in my yard in Evansville, Indiana, at 11 in the front yard, looking up at the sky, looking for the missiles from Cuba to come and blow us up.

And now I'm sitting behind this old man who's watching a model put wonder up on stage singing these songs.

And I went, isn't life?

Oh, isn't it just remarkable that that's that's a great story?

Yeah.

Okay.

On a trip to Paris, you receive a frightening phone call from your son, Fred, who is in New Zealand.

And that was a scary phone call.

Yeah, we were it was, I think it was our 25th wedding anniversary.

And we had gone to romantic cities.

We took a quick tour and we were in Paris.

We're walking through the door.

We come back from the museum and there's a call, and our son is in New Zealand on a study abroad program.

And hey, honey, how are you doing?

He goes, I just want you to know I'm all right.

And that's not how you want to start a conversation with your children.

And we go, honey, what?

He goes, it's it's all right.

And he explained what happened.

All the study abroad students went on a tour in a van.

They were going to the mountains where they shot Lord of the rings, and the van flipped over and flipped several times and killed a number of the students, one of them being his roommate.

There.

And we clicked on the news and we saw this, and Fred said, I have people coming to the house.

They're knocking on the door.

I have to go.

Well, we found out Fred kind of inadvertently became the liaison between the parents who were calling in to find out about their kids, and he was the point person.

They were calling him to find out if their kids were alive or dead.

And a few hours later, he called back and he said, I charge some charges on the credit card.

I hope it's okay.

And that's why he had a credit card for emergency.

He said, I went out and I bought pancake mix and eggs and milk, and what he did was all those kids were so devastated.

They didn't.

They were wandering around the campus crying, and 20 of them came to his apartment.

He took them down to the big communal kitchen in the complex and cooked everyone breakfast.

And I went, I got a good heart.

Oh my God, what?

He he took that pain and he nourished their souls with breakfast.

And, I wanted to crawl through the phone and hug him.

Oh, definitely.

Yeah.

He took a tangible action to help comfort them.

Well, you've got some great children, Matisse.

She goes into these auctions where they're going to, they're selling these horses for dog food.

Yes.

And she rescues these horse.

She rescued five.

There are organizations that actually go to the kill.

They're called kill lots.

Oh, where the horses that have been abandoned abused a lot of times, racehorses that have been injured or cart horses that have outlived their their their peak years, are bought up by kill buyers and they buy them and run them to a kill auction.

And they're the buyers will buy the ones they think that are healthy enough to survive, and they sell them to canning factories for dog food.

And what horse rescues do is they come in with donations from others, cash or checks and buy whatever horse they think has a chance of surviving.

And my daughter ended up with five rescue horses.

And, that that was a turning point in her life because her patients and her fortitude and her talent for dealing with these traumatized, truly damaged animals, was remarkable.

I watched her transform them in equine therapy to.

Yes, she does a form of equine therapy called constellation therapy.

It's a very esoteric form of.

And with that, it's it deals with epigenetic pain and trauma.

So what happens is just like in group therapy, David James may come and say, I have an issue.

I want to work out what happened between me and my grandfather.

Mother?

What?

And with the horses, because they've been rescued.

They're highly sensitive.

They're sensitive anyway.

Because they're horses.

They're flight animals.

Right.

But because they've been traumatized.

So if David James, if I start talking to you about your grandfather and you, even if you remain neutral and your energy starts to change, whether you get angry or joyful or the horses pick up on that and they respond to what's happening in that moment.

And I've watched this.

I've watched a horse where a woman broke down in tears, and the horse will come over and lay its head on her shoulder, and it sounds, it sounds woowoo, but it is, it is.

It has been studied for years, and I it's a very effective way of revealing and begin the process of healing epigenetic pain.

Now, before we go to a break, we to talk about, you talk about regret in your book.

I think one of your greatest regrets not going to the funeral of your grandmother.

No.

Mau Mau mau mau mau mau Mau.

We called her mama.

Okay, okay.

And now she's the one who said you had a pastor's heart.

Yes, yes.

She was my maternal grandmother.

She is.

I tell people, if I am going to imagine the face of God, it's her face that I see.

Really?

I've never known another person to love as unconditionally, sweetly and tenderly as my grandmother, mama, and she was the most precious thing in my life.

And I write about how her thumbprints are all over my heart, and she was the person who shaped and guided my early life, really, more so than anyone else.

But then, after the University of Evansville and going to graduate school, I was all caught up again.

Ambition.

I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do that.

I'm busy.

I've got a scholarship, I'm acting in place.

And when she died, I just couldn't take the time to go to her funeral.

And I really.

And that always I said this the most important person in my formative years.

I was so, so self-absorbed, so selfish.

I didn't take a day or two and hop on a train or a plane to come to her funeral, and that haunted me for years, a theme of forgiveness.

So we mentioned Momo.

You did also reconcile, reconciled with your mom and dad in their final days.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

There nothing, nothing got unsaid at the end and everything was resolved.

And there was deep love and, especially with my mother.

Because when the family blew apart, there were years where I was busy.

She was off marrying different men, and we didn't even talk for years.

But toward the end, she was, as raw and pure and sweet as she could be.

And, everything was resolved.

So when, when both of them passed, I had complete peace in my heart.

Whatever trauma we went through in our teen years in the 20s and all that my teen and 20 years, was, was resolved.

And they're both buried here in Evansville.

Yes.

My father actually was cremated, so some of his ashes are here.

The rest are up on the farm.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

And we have some.

Oh.

I want to mention this.

You write in the book that you did find God in the form of Ed Asner.

Well, the god that I described earlier in the program, that mean guy up on a cloud when you throw you dog curmudgeon god from mud and that angry guy, then when I worked with Ed Asner, he was an imp.

He was just delightful.

And, I and Ed Asner at one time, I tell this story.

He just had a way of deflating ego and just leveling everyone to a wonderfully, wonderfully same to a wonderful, same place.

Right.

So, they're giving notes to the director, and I've got my script, and I'm the showrunner, I'm the boss, and I'm doing this, and I'm doing this, and I feel someone pinch my butt, and I jump, and I turn and it's Ed Asner, and he looks at me and he blinks.

Hello.

And he walked away.

And that was his way of saying, don't get so full of yourself.

Just we're having fun here, okay?

And I said, boy, I wish God would pinch my butt and wink at me occasionally instead of throwing thunderbolts at me.

So we go from, this curmudgeon God.

And as you're kind of an impish character to Roseanne Barr, the sassy sister of Satan, well, the obvious telling a joke, Roseanne is her own person.

And, I don't need to say more than that, but that's how you described her in the book.

Yeah, well, that was a joke, so.

All right, we move on.

We'll go back to Joe.

Yes.

Okay.

Some early reviews.

Matt has, done something extraordinary in this book.

He has revealed his own flawed humanity so that we may see ourselves more honestly and more hopefully.

I finished glimpses inspired to notice more, savor more, and most importantly, love more.

Not many books do that.

Father Edward Beck, who is Father Edward Beck, he is a playwright and author, and he is a CNN commentator.

Any time there's any kind of, news breaks with the Vatican or the Catholic Church, he's usually the one called.

And he, has come to several of my readings and he has been very supportive and very gracious.

And I like what he said, because one of the things I tried to do, David, in this book was to be as authentic and honest as I could be about who I am and my journey, as opposed to constantly presenting the persona of Matt Williams.

And that's why this book was really written by Mark Williams.

Okay, okay.

That's the difference.

Okay.

Another review.

I couldn't put this book down.

Matt Williams authentic voice shines brightly in stories that take you through his journey as a creator, father, and husband.

Glimpses will fill you with joy, wonder, and hope.

A feel great book that's from Missouri, bestselling author of Good Sam.

Tell me about it.

She's also a U of graduate.

Really?

I do know that, yeah, she went to U of T. She was very involved with the radio station there.

We've no longer there or there.

She was very involved with that.

She had a number of other job.

She ended up coming to Wind Dancer and through the years ended up being president of Wind Dancer and running it.

And, while doing that, she happened to write a couple bestsellers, and she's become quite the author.

You also write in the book that kindness is contagious us.

And I guess you've witnessed that.

Yeah, I really do.

The Bible says the measure you give is the measure you get back.

I really believe that.

And do unto others as you have them do unto you.

And if you're kind, it may not.

I may be kind to you, and it may not be reciprocated by you.

Right.

But somewhere, maybe it's the person standing in line at the grocery store.

So kindness does ripple out.

There is my.

My deepest hope for this book is that it encourages compassion, celebrates kindness, and inspires hope.

That's what I want this book to do.

I'm sure some stories didn't make the book.

And we I talked earlier about, your football career at Wrights High School.

Yeah.

There's there's quite a few.

I didn't realize how many I had written.

And when Adriana Reggiani, my dear friend and bestselling author, read an early draft, she goes this pretty long.

Matt and I went, okay, I can toss that one out.

I'll toss this one out.

But one of the essays that didn't make it into the book was called fundamentals.

And Herman Byers, who was the winningest football coach in Indiana history, was my football coach my last year in high school and his last year coaching.

And what he always did at the beginning of every season was whether you played all four years or you were a freshman, you began with fundamentals.

You had to have.

And I wrote an essay about as parents, what were the fundamentals we are teaching our children?

What fundamentals are we giving our children?

And so it goes on from there.

That one didn't make the book okay, so what is next for the creative mind of Matt Williams?

I am, I've been I'm working on and have been working on a musical for several years called Delta Blue.

It's a blues gospel musical.

I just, spent a week at, Goodspeed Opera House, with part of the team.

They're reworking the book, and we've got the book written.

We've got all the songs written that we are refining.

This has been a long process, and it's going to be an even longer process.

So that's my only non book project.

Okay.

And as I finish this I said I felt these are I've got like two books competing and I don't know which one's going to win.

But every morning I wake up and one of them's over here going hey made me choose me and this one's going to choose me, but I can't wait.

After after I finish this, this, book signing, I'm going to go back and pull out the yellow pad and start scribbling so well.

Matt Williams, Mark Williams, congratulations on the book.

Glimpses, which does take us to the sunny side of the street and also sharing your personal journey of family, faith and forgiveness.

Thanks again.

Oh, thank you so much.

Been a lot of fun.