FRIDAY

• Home
• Video
• Podcasts/RSS 
• Local Showtimes
• Past Shows
• Blogs
• About the Show
• Tell Tavis
• Features
• Mobile

RELATED LINKS

• Mr. Miller's official site
• The Daily Standard article by Mr. Miller
• Spoiled Rotten America
• Mr. Miller's bio

E-mail a friend

Tavis: Larry Miller is a popular comedian, actor, and writer whose film work includes 'Pretty Woman,' recognize that face? (Laugh) 'Best on Show' and 'The Nutty Professor.' His latest project is a new book called 'Spoiled Rotten America: Outrages of Everyday Life.' Larry Miller, nice to have you on the program.

Larry Miller: Good to see you, pal. You know what?

Tavis: What's that?

Miller: It's just great. I feel like an eighth grader saying this sometimes, but I love this stuff. (Laugh) I love the acting, I love the comedy, and I love the chance to have made this. The reason, by the way, 'Spoiled Rotten America' came up is because like a good comic, when the lights go down, I like finding something that everyone has in common. And it finally hit me that no matter how old you are, 20, 50, or 80, your parents are twice as tough as you.

And their parents were twice as tough as them. And it keeps getting tougher as you get back, until you slingshot back to us. And let's be honest, (laugh) my father had three jobs and went to school at night.

Tavis: Are you calling us wimps? (Laugh) Punks?

Miller: Well. (Laugh) If I go to the cleaners and the bank in the same day, I need a nap. (Laugh) Before I even had that title, by the way, I was writing the thing. I'm in the office; it was lunchtime. I went down to the kitchen. It's always stocked, that's pretty spoiled right there. I open the freezer, take out a box of frozen soy buffalo wings. One of those things we all eat.

You pop it on the plate, pop it in the microwave. What could be easier? Cook two minutes. Two minutes. And then it said, 'Turning over halfway through.' And I actually thought, in that second, 'Oh, now I gotta turn it over, too? (Laugh) Do I have to do everything around here?' And that's when the concept - it's funny stories that are wistful, and as joyous as I can be about life in general.

But that's when the concept hit me of 'Spoiled Rotten America.' (Laugh) We all do that. We all just drive from restaurant to restaurant with sauce stains on our faces, just desperately trying to digest enough to pull over and eat again. (Laugh) We all just got a little spoiled. And frankly, when I read, before this came out, just the weekend before it came out, I knew I could talk to you on a certain level, because I read that great piece in the 'LA Times' about your life.

And the reason I wanted to talk on this other level, it's funny. And it's as funny as I can be. But I knew that on all the shows I'm lucky enough to be able to do to sell the thing, I wanted to say things that I couldn't say. That it's a joyous book. That it celebrates life. That every day, I see in my life, and that's what jumped off the page to me.

Tavis: See, and I'm thinking that - I had no idea that you'd read the piece in the 'L.A. Times' and wanted to come on our show. I thought you were on because the Fox News Channel wouldn't have you on with a book called 'Spoiled Rotten America.' That doesn't fit the Fox matrix.

Miller: You know what's weird, though? There's no - I don't see left-right anymore I see up-down. I don't see what the positions are against either (laugh) a Congressman fooling around with pages, what's the plus side of that? Where's the 'Crossfire' position on that? No, I think it's grand. Okay, well they disagree.

Tavis: It's a funny question, but there is a flip side to that. The minute this story broke, the Republicans said the solution here is to get rid of the page program. I'm not making this up. That's what they said. The problem is the pages, let's get rid of the program. And that's the flip side.

Miller: You know what's hysterical to me, though? Because there are, and the guy just passed away who had also said that guys get caught with this thing. And whatever that thing is, first of all, I'm glad I don't have it. (Laugh) Second of all, you wanna say well, it was over-friendly, you wanna say. No, it's not. The line is not that hard to see here. (Laugh)

You can't touch the boy, how about that? (Laugh) Why don't we begin with that? And they say, well, it was an error in judgment. No, you wear a striped tie with a plaid jacket, that's an error in judgment. (Laugh) You get caught in the hot tub with the chess club, you have to, you can't. But you know what? This thing, to me, I love being funny. I love being an actor.

I've loved it since the first time I got on a stage. But this, to me, is a philosophy about every day is a new creation. I squeeze every drop out of every day, and if I can be an evangelist in comedy and say to people in show business, the way I know you do, because you do so many things, because every weekend you're out and about, I wouldn't change any day. My birthday was yesterday. And...

Tavis: Happy belated birthday.

Miller: Oh, thank you very much. (Laugh)

Tavis: You're welcome.

Miller: The point is, I got up when my wife said, 'Today you get to do whatever you want.' I said, 'Gee, that's fantastic.' So I got up and I put the coffee, I made the kids' breakfast. And then one kid had a football game at 9:00, and then my wife runs the snack bar at Little League, 'cause it's fall ball, and in Southern California, you play year round. And then someone didn't show up. So, I went down for the other kid's game. And then did four hours in the snack bar, too. And to pick up some stuff.

Tavis: Happy birthday.

Miller: That's the point. (Laugh) One of the other mothers said around 6:40, 'Well, what are you gonna do for your birthday?' I said, 'This. (Laugh) I think this is it.' What am I gonna do? You mean the trip to Catalina? And I know that your life is the same. What am I gonna do? Well, I'm flying to this place for this award; I'm opening this club for kids. That's what I wanna do, every single day.

Tavis: You made a funny statement, though. Maybe funny's the wrong word, Larry, but it was certainly poignant for me, and makes me inquisitive. When you said that if you can be an evangelist using comedy, is that oxymoronic? There are a lot of people who think that you can't do both, or that you shouldn't do both.

Miller: I disagree. I see God in every minute, and in every day, and in every joke. To me, all art, all story telling, and by the way, I think (laugh), sometimes you think you can hear sets flipping off all over America. (Laugh) But you know what? It's the truth. I see it in every day. That's what I meant before. Every single day you wake up is not only a new creation, just like the first one, but it's a chance to do this stuff, to fail, to get things, and not get some things?

Hey, at the end of the game, you wanna be wearing the uniform that's clean, or the one with the blood and the dirt on it? I want the one with the blood and the dirt on it. And everything I write, the 30 times, 30 drafts, or 50 drafts I did of every chapter, everything I've ever written, every script, every part. I've been in over 40 movies, but how many auditions did it take to birth that? Twelve hundred? Thirty-five hundred? I don't know, and I don't care. Most people, (laugh) not unlike, say, the two of us, most people would get knocked down enough and just say, 'I choose not to do that anymore. I would rather...'

Tavis: (Laugh) Yeah, 'cause that does not feel very good.

Miller: Hey, ow. Ow. (Laugh) All right, you take the ball. But you know what? I wouldn't change a thing.

Tavis: Let me ask you what primarily you think has made us such a spoiled, rotten America? You talked earlier about the excesses, about the conveniences, about technology. What's made us so spoiled and rotten?

Miller: It's perfect human nature. Who wouldn't be? Remember, we haven't had to really fight or struggle for anything the way, I keep saying, grandparents. Great-grandparents. Every generation going back, in the thousand ways they did. (Laugh) My uncle is coming up for Thanksgiving. He's gonna stay with us a couple of weeks, he's been there two weeks, and he was the last time, when I went shopping with him at Ralph's.

And he says, 'Oh, look at this, the fruit section. It has the pre-peeled fruit.' (Laugh) And you know, why it's idiotic, and it costs nine dollars. And then there were baked potatoes wrapped individually, but they're 70 cents. He said, 'This is idiotic; everyone's too soft.' And I said, 'You're right.' And I realized well, before he got there, I had bought those. (Laugh) So you know what? It's human nature.

If we're given things, it doesn't mean we're lazy, 'cause we're not. And I don't mean you and me, I mean everyone out there. We're not. People work three jobs all the time. And it doesn't mean that we don't try hard, 'cause we do. It means that we wanna do it with air conditioning. (Laugh)

Tavis: But what's the end result? Okay, I accept your thesis, your argument, as to how we got to be spoiled and rotten as Americans. What's the end result here? What's the down side to us being so spoiled and rotten?

Miller: There are two ways to go.

Tavis: All right.

Miller: One is that in another 30 generations, we'll be like the first (laugh) 'Matrix.' We're just sitting in Barca loungers with hoses attached, and just running. (Laugh) And there's a daydream of being on a beach with Scarlett Johansson. No wait a minute, that was me. (Laugh) Okay. All right, hold on, let me start again. But the point is, that's one way to go.

Another way to go is, though, that we start seriously living. Not only the creed of the country, but that we've been taught for thousands of years, which is you know what? Maybe it would be good, and we can do it every day like that, with our own kids, with our neighbors, with our friends. You know what? If the kid falls down, pick the kid up. Somebody else's kid, too. Dust the kid off. It's not that hard. If someone needs some dough, you give it to them. It's not that hard.

Tavis: Larry, I hate to break this to you. That's called love, and people don't wanna hear that nowadays.

Miller: What are you nuts? What are you crazy? No, by the way, they do, though. 'Cause you wanna hear it, and so do I. And it's not that hard. None of the great things in life are that mysterious. If you can do any better, if anyone out there can do any better than the Golden Rule, I'd like to hear it. And that goes for all religions, by the way. That goes for all cultures.

You know what? If you wanna be treated a certain way, it might be nice if you treated someone else a certain way. And that sounds sappy, but I don't care. Because everything I believe I comedy, everything I live, everything I do in my life, (laugh) (unintelligible) Little League or here with you, is in the same theme. That's how I wanna be treated.

Tavis: There are a couple of things here in this book I've gotta pull out in the three minutes I have left that were just hilarious. There's 17 essays Larry writes in this text; they're all hilarious. One of them happens to do with Christmas. (Laugh) I'm giving up (unintelligible) holiday season.

Miller: That's right. Because the (laugh) first - because I don't see what the, see, I'm a religious Jew, and I believe that all Christians are my brothers and sisters. And it's not lightly said. I've said this on Bill Maher; I've said this on all sorts of shows. I don't get a lot of response, (laugh) but I've said it. That I believe everyone is here to help each other. The point is, I don't see what the problem is with; I swear I don't see it.

When if your drycleaner wants to say Merry Christmas, I don't see what the problem is. When I was a kid, I used to love, love when every local newscast would have all the anchors and the employees out in winter coats, rocking back and forth, singing. And by the way, the astonishing thing, because life is full of irony, and so is our country, the astonishing thing is that who wrote virtually every huge Christmas song? (Laugh) Irving Berlin.

Tavis: I knew you were going there. (Laugh)

Miller: So you know what? As I wrote in the book, who, of course, so life, it just gave me another chance to be funny. And something I think is hysterical. Why do we have to go around these tortured leaps of calling it Winter Day Cold Pagan Festival? Why do we have to - I really don't see the point. Ice Break. Come on. (Laugh)

Tavis: Maybe, Larry, have you ever considered that maybe you're, like, from another planet? Like, what you say makes sense, but it makes, like, too much sense. Maybe you don't belong here.

Miller: You know what?

Tavis: Maybe you're right, and all the rest of us are screwed up.

Miller: First of all, in my opinion, everyone else has to leave. I get to stay. (Laugh) But seriously, if you think about it, I know you know this. People out there know it. You know the biggest problems in life aren't that hard to figure out, really. It just stems with some very basic stuff. We forget it sometimes, but that's our problem. Well, that's our chore.

Tavis: This is a (laugh) powerful book, and we talked around so many things. But I promise you you will not be disappointed when you pick up the new book from comedian extraordinaire Larry Miller. 'Spoiled Rotten America: Outrages of Everyday Life.' That's exactly what they are. The stories about the kids and hitting golf balls in the house, which I don't have time to get into. (Laugh)

Miller: It's all true, by the way.

Tavis: I'm sure it is. And that's unfortunate, that's really tragic. (Laugh)

Miller: Yeah. But through tragedy comes comedy.

Tavis: There you go. I like that. You picked up on that so fast. 'Spoiled Rotten America.' Larry Miller, nice to have you on the program.

Miller: Thanks, pal.

Tavis: That's our show for tonight. Catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles, thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.