All We Have Is Now: A Conversation with Alan Alda

thank you I'm Damian Wetzel I'm the director of the Aspen Institute arts programs and it's my honor to have you here at age Society is the first time we've collaborated in the arts program with age Society in their building second time we've done a major collaboration though so I should say that it's been great to be with them again we did a huge project in Beijing with them two years ago bringing Meryl Streep and yo-yo ma and Eric Fischl and artists from New York and all around America chefs Alice Waters was there to collaborate with Chinese artists and essentially do a cultural diplomacy experiment about how do we work together how do we collaborate together and the challenge being not to put on a great show but how are we going to how are we going to work together as a metaphor for conversations maybe that we're a little bit more difficult on other areas with China and so it's good to be back here for this conversation it's my real honor to have Alan Alda with us tonight I have had the pleasure of working with him a couple of times on projects and I asked him if he would just come and have a conversation about his work and you know for my from from my point of view you'll hear this coming up quite a bit as a citizen artist which I think Alan is the epitome of he he does incredible artistic work but he also fulfills many purposes reaches you know countless people with message as well as excellence so it's my pleasure to welcome Alan Alda I feel I feel a little like James Lipton but you know I did read that I think I mentioned this to you earlier that you know in when you really were writing your your first episode of mash you found yourself at a certain point dancing yes dancing around the room saying I can do it I can do it I can do it I can do it so I don't know who by the way is what Ally Volman says in her book that she had a particularly difficult day shooting I think persona or one of those movies with Bergman and at the end of the day she was jumping around saying to herself I can do it I can do it it's a wonderful feeling because the thing to do is to go into it not knowing if you can do it yeah you write about this Alan's written in essays and in his books about that freeing yourself the wilderness of your intuition yes sounds scary the idea of wilderness first of all you know we think you know what is that going to be like out there but you insist on the wilderness of my intuition is the only wilderness I'm willing to go into haha I like when I go when I travel you know I like to go to exotic places that have lobbies lobbies are good yes yeah that's good what we always like potted palm as much as that there's fauna but it's in the lobby but yeah it's in its natural environment in the lobby exactly exactly well not content with having the the actual Alan Alda I also want to bring the virtual Alan Alda here just briefly so we're gonna take a quick look at something actually register two things in a row just to give a sense Captain Benjamin Franklin Pierce nicknamed Hawkeye just last night he pasted in deliver in my scrapbook educated search even as a proctologist ended in seeing new faces with high standards of conduct pellicer how drunk you make me I'm not going home and deep concern for personnel relations you should get about your mind and pay more attention to your body or if you don't have the time let me do it for you he's Hawkeye Pierce on mash weeknights at five on Channel seven when I got into this war I had a very clear understanding with the Pentagon no guns huh I'll carry your books I'll carry your torch I'll carry a tune I'll carry on carry over carry forward Cary Grant dashing Harry carry me back to old Virginny I'll even Harry Caray if you show me how but I will not carry a gun well it's very nice to see my life flashed before me like it's nice isn't it well we have about you know 50 minutes or so so we're gonna do you know 50 some years and then we'll look at the next I'm not sure I have to do my math for a second 106 is the number right of what of where you said that you're gonna go mind of my life like I expect my life to be over when I'm 106 just convinced that's it I just picked the number one day and I was being interviewed in London one of those awful days where there were like 15 back-to-back interviews as opening a movie up and this interviewer at the end of the day asked me something I'd never been asked before she said well how long do you hope to live so I was so grateful to hear a question I had I would now get to hear myself say something different so I said a hundred and six if I can still make love so the next day the headline in the paper was watch out girls Arlene reads the paper and she says 106 give me a break well but now you know that's a fairly conservative s I know I think I should change my show yeah you're kind of messed up but but that's right really but I AG this is really funny I'm very suggestive I actually believe it'll be a hundred and six yeah well I believe in suggestion I believe in suggestion about names about you know all kinds of things so you may be right but you know there's lots of time to change so you can you can weld so form right I'm exactly on schedule right you are we'll talk more about that let's go back to mass for one second so I can say that you know from a personal point of view I learned how I felt about war and the ability to deal with stressful environments in great part from from watching mash over the course of my childhood and it was something that you know I didn't have the the relevant factors that it started as Vietnam was still going on but I can't imagine that that what that felt like at that moment and I think that that space between the comedy we saw introducing Hawkeye Pierce and then the message that was there I know was it from what I understand has been a large part into your writing what you insisted on but what was that obligation to you I mean - you're getting you're going to Hollywood for this series probably don't know it's a big hit right away no I didn't I said Darlene I can't do this because we live in New Jersey our children go to school there and this thing might burn for a year but she said well maybe we can work it out by travel and that's what we did but you know it there the word the Vietnam War was on and there was a relevance to that war and and Larry Gelbart who wrote most of the first four years really saw the connection between the Korean War and the Vietnam War or between our show and the Vietnam War but I just saw the connection between the Korean War and all war and I I thought that we were specifically working on the Korean War and if it had any relevance to other wars including the one we were and then that interested me but I was at what for me it wasn't a secret coded message about Vietnam but it was for him me the first title card of the first episode says Korea 1952 a hundred years ago you know which I was he was being ironic about the fact that it was it wasn't so long ago what's happening now I saw that and I had never really registered on me interesting what what did register for you is you know playing a doctor in that circumstance not a soldier but surrounding that and I you know what did you what did you bring to that and far as far as what you wanted to say did you did you you know I never I don't think I ever wanted to say anything I always had an antipathy toward propaganda that's what and I and I I really I think that good writing or good theatrical experience ought to be an immersive experience that helps you helps you go through what it's like to be human in a tough spot with other humans that's that's pretty much what every good theatrical experience is but it engages you would the dramatic stories can be so powerful that it helps you imagine yourself as one of those characters I think that's the key to this and way I read a phrase that Tony Kushner wrote recently said what we was waiting in all of our minds it's like giving that to us that we can understand it we can we can take it on ourselves something that you said or didn't say or how you struggled with something that's waiting in us all that we can relate to it if we can if we get something out of it that that helps us understand with a little more depth a little more feeling what it's like to have to get along with these other animals otherwise our relatives and our family and yeah and the people we do business with if we if we can just get a little deeper understanding of that that's all we need I really don't like it when it when it's end result is it tells you how to vote or what your religion order with it but but but in a sense that what you're saying then it's not propaganda is a head-on collision you know but let's go back to to comedy in a sense it's laughter yeah well laughter is subversive cuz it brings you in the side is what I think yeah we get all comfortable and then suddenly you hit us with that but after also makes you vulnerable I think most people are vulnerable when they're laughing which might be that fascists tend not to laugh they're not now you also I've heard you you you are read that you wrote that you know very few people you'll shoot people while they're laughing yeah yeah they're not yeah we're it's like there may be one out of a hundred thousand to lash while he shoots you yes as possible but but usually when you're laughing you really are in a vulnerable state and and their guards down your guards down and you're open you're open to because your brain has been you put different parts of your brain are crossing each other in the funny way there's a you've been led down a path where some ways you're going toward and then that's both unexpected and inevitable so that it the shock of that when you get there really holds you back for a second and you you can't keep pressing your point you have to be vulnerable mm-hmm I think I think that's right let me play you know the thing to remember about comedy is if it's if it bends it's funny if it breaks it's not funny so you gotta get back from the pain you see what I mean but the like they said they asked me up in at Harvard a bunch of kids ask me what's comedy so I said and then this is this is part of what I'm trying to say about getting back from the I said comedy is tragedy plus time there's the Woody Allen movie that's what he Allen's crimes and misdemeanors all these clips available on YouTube all rights reserved to YouTube and everybody else we're welcome to see them enjoy them Las Vegas what happens here stays here that's an interesting analysis obviously right there about the taking the tragedy whether it's a hundred years a you know ago 1952 Korea or anything you know putting that space between but you know the other thing I was thinking is that you know a Hawkeye was a tremendously sympathetic character and but you know many of your characters this this guy in crimes and misdemeanors not the most sympathetic and no the others that you know you've you know you're not he's who that's subversive to because yeah but even Hawkeye you know he was a sympathetic character because he saved people's lives and he was very concerned about repairing people getting them whole again but he was I didn't know how he was gonna play that character he seemed like years from me really yeah he was he was a smart aleck and I'm you know I'm not that much of a smart aleck I don't think and he was a skirt chaser who drank too much he was he could he didn't mind insulting people openly sometimes I don't know if I'd want to spend too much time in his company but he had you know even in those stories he was entertaining and it took me I had a leap into the character I didn't know if I was going to be able to be the guy I was waiting for the first shot and they called quiet on the set and I'm thinking well you better figure out how to be this guy pretty soon haha and they say scene 1 and he'll shut the clapper and they says action I think well this is it all I had to do is walk across the compound silent shot they opened the door I start walking and there's a nurse coming toward me so I just grab her around the waist and give her a hug and they said jeez that's not so hard after that I was hooking you found it yeah and what and and literally just you just I just jumped into it the wilderness of your intuition yeah you're a yeah Wow that but you know that all seems so long ago to me it's it we started the program 41 years ago incredible it seems like it happened to somebody else completely but fortunately he lets me live in his house he's a giver yeah that's nice sound like yeah well I mean I've been revisiting these clips and I can say that you know the the messages endure the the the horror that of some of the scenes there's one I watched the other day where you know you have a flashback about the chicken muje Vida scene that really confronts the madness the insanity I print anybody doesn't know what that's about good okay this was the last episode of the series and Hawkeye was sort of having a nervous breakdown because he had been in a bus with some Korean people who were trying to escape from the enemy and there was there were the enemy was marching by the bus at that moment and they were all trying to be quiet so nobody'd know they were there and there was a baby crying and he said keep that baby quiet and this happened I've heard this story from several Wars it's not an unusual thing in trying to quiet the baby they accidentally smothered it and in his mind it got he only could remember it because it was too powerful an image he can only remember it as a chicken being killed and finally at the end of the show he actually remembers the thing and breaks down over it but that awful thing that Tim I mean I wrote that that episode with several other people but I wanted to use that image because that's one of the to me one of the powerful things that happen in war it's happening now you know the argument about drones and the the people the children who are accidentally killed in these surgical strikes that don't seem to be worth even mentioning collateral it could yeah it's collateral it's not collateral for the person to whom it's happening and it seems you whenever people talk about surgical they mean something a lot rougher lot more a lot less targeted than surgical implies I think I think that's the reality do you watch have you ever watched homeland yeah yeah so they address it through they do yoga through the course of that series they are taking on that you know those those decisions those see that's the kind of thing it's if I were going to do a story about about what I'm saying if I were going to do I did do a story about war but I didn't hope to convince anybody of anything I only wanted the audience to go through the experience of feeling what it's like to be in that relationship with somebody where you caused their death what is that how does that make you feel and they had it how does the audience feel identifying with that character we did a show once about a pilot who felt fine because he only bombed people from 35,000 feet and he said that and I had a friend who told me that he said oh I never see them guys it's scary scary we can a what you're talking about is the transfer of empathy eventually to try and transfer that to is a gift first of all to be able to do it and I think it's one that you know we need to talk about more and more today way more in the face of short-term abilities well we the technology we are used to much shorter bursts of anything resembling empathy yeah and we don't come in contact with the people we have an effect on for instance bullying used to be face to face now you can bully people over the Internet kids can bully other kids they very much like the pilot at 35,000 feet they don't see the kid being bullied and if the kid goes so far as to kill herself or himself they don't have to experience that either so that we have a lot harder job now to deal with bullying because it's technologically feasible to be unperturbed by it right right but so but the ability to transfer them so to make people feel something yeah is almost it's a commodity of a sort I mean I think that homeland is trying to make us feel certain things it's actually just trying to get to success accessible for that raise a good job that they do let's let's cut yeah you mentioned so that was like oriental launches I've seen myself I'm glad you innit oh now we're gonna see another one do we want more government or do we want to get control of government that takes experience and mature judgment that's what the presidency needs now more than ever and that's why I asked you to give me your vote so that I can give you the government you were promised by the founding fathers thank you very much well I thought I was gonna win that even hahaha even even when I knew we'd shot the scenes where I lost but when we were watching it on television I thought there was still a chance is there cuz you thought you made your argument I thought I will yes I would I did you felt that sorrow Dan you explained what it does for those who may be more this was West Wing the West I ran for president as the the Republican nominee and Jimmy Smits was the Democratic nominee and oh and this clip was from an hour show that was a live debate we did it live so you did it live that's why it says live and yeah it was live I did it twice once for the East Coast and an hour later for the West Coast did you hone your arguments what no but you know the audience was different for each each should debate and the the second audience somehow thought it was a democratic rally they kept applauding the other guy well and at one point I just stopped him you know I didn't like stepped out of the script I said no wait wait I got a really good thing to say here just a minute you know and I how you tried to I was really raised away and I didn't want to lose that mm-hmm so it's to me that's interesting so did you write those lines or with witness no there's a scripted show but it's very hard to do because um I'm with you till the founding fathers name yeah well the the show was written then rewritten while we were rehearsing it within that too much time to rehearse it so we really had to bring it off of teleprompters and that looked like we were doing that mm-hmm unfortunately I wore glasses at the time and I couldn't wear glasses because they weren't established and as the character you know character didn't wear glasses so I couldn't see the teleprompter but there was no way to remember it because that they kept changing it every day so for the first time in my life I wore contact lenses oh and it's the most frightening thing in the world to see your finger coming toward your eye I'd never done it never had time to get used to it so right before the show about two minutes before the show I'm still poking myself in the eye with the wind I thought I was gonna go on blind that's a horrible horrible experience really is like yeah what about playing a character okay so you already said though Hawkeye you didn't feel was all that sympathetic you just managed to find your no trouble playing this guy you're okay with that yeah people kept saying to me was it hard to play a Republican Levison what ice nobody asked me that when I played a homicidal maniac well you know their levels of belief you know oh this is a person who has good arguments for what he believes in and he's trying to do good according to the way he sees it that it was simple to do that that was I loved playing that character that's why I wanted him to win I wanted to show which I think everybody thought of as having a slant slightly to the left if I would would see the good in in the other side running the country by the way this guy was would never have gotten the nomination I know far2 yeah he's far too cell to many didn't want to offend anybody yeah well it's interesting to me you mean the West Wing was an incredibly inspiring show it showed government kind of working through problems rest later that the Sorkin's genius that you know setting us up in that way and your character showed very much the simplicity that's why I love this clip in a way because it breaks down to nonsensical kind of argument in a sense I mean you need four to be like the founding fathers you take the actual elements and the guy wrote this was lawrence O'Donnell who really has a tremendous amount of experience in government and he started this debate in a really clever way where my character says to the other guy why don't we instead of having a fake debate when we really discuss it so they till then there was a kind of lively exchange of real opinion rather than rather than sound bites which most what's dinging what do you suppose that is that Oh then the doom badoo badoo maybe it's my agent wait it could be this could be the time to play tap a tune but just giving that will say that oh you're right yeah so I want to turn now you know the work you've done we've talked about so far really has been about what you've done on various screens yeah we've you know we could talk about you know the stage is well Glengarry or you know your childhood in vaudeville which i want to talk about at some point just what that was like being around vaudeville as an influence but you know I think we should move soon if not right now to your work on behalf of things because even if you're not advocating for something as a character it's propaganda wise you certainly have shown yourself to be an incredible advocate for causes so I think I have a clip coming up that gives us a little taste Alan Alda sixth graders and science why this well mashup turns out the seed that led to this moment was planted sixty-five years ago when the actor was himself all of eleven and asked a teacher one of those seemingly simple yet devilishly complex questions what's a flame what's in a flame what's going on in inside a flame all I heard from a teacher was its oxidation didn't explain anything to me I didn't know what oxidation boys after his eleventh season emmy-winning Ron on the CBS sitcom mash hand me the one on my right he hosted the PBS series Scientific American frontiers which amesh him in the world of science and he couldn't stop thinking about the flame the non-answer and the challenge scientists face explaining their work to the public go of it zinc so I mean I get from that clip and from watching you in this context I've had you know been lucky enough to work with Alan the World Science Festival on a couple of different projects their curiosity yeah yeah it was as always stanley have always been curious and I when I did the clip that we just saw with the robe was from Shoei did for 11 years on PBS called Scientific American frontiers and what we did we did the interviews with the scientists about 700 scientists I interviewed and the the form was not a conventional interview where I had a list of questions in them and I know what they're going to say I didn't know what they were going to say because I didn't know what I was going to ask them I just worked from a natural fund of ignorance I didn't pretend the ignorance I didn't have it came naturally to them they're just yeah but it also came with curiosity if you just have ignorance without curiosity it's not so good but I really wanted to understand what they did and I wouldn't let go until I understood it and I I didn't mind okay yeah I didn't mind nothing stupid up until then as long as I could finally understand it and when that happened there was this moment where very often the audience got it too because well first of all we'll be cut that way so would you build to that but the idea that a real human was trying to understand the scientists made the scientists forget about the camera the scientists couldn't go into lecture mode because if I didn't understand part of the lecture I'd say I don't get it what do you mean by that that's what and so it's your own natural curiosity but you just thought I'm just going to work this to a logical place to share with other people that everybody gets yeah and I wouldn't explain it all I did was ask questions and they'd explain it but I grabbed one great researcher Eric Lander it grabbed him by both cheeks I said Eric I don't understand what is it what are you telling me and he could tell me a different way it was good-natured but then it worked the other way around in China I'm talking to you in long ping but the guy who invented hybrid rice and I couldn't understand me using biological terms I'd never heard before and I couldn't I kept asking him and he reached over he grabbed me by the shirt he said Alan pay attention the thing was I was paying it or you know well I didn't understand the jargon I know and - and there's a good reason why scientists use technical words that the rest of us don't get because one of those words can stand for five pages of ordinary words why should they say all five pages every time but I think you're what you've managed to do is is take that and acknowledge it and value it and say but can you also explain it to us yeah yeah that's you know what can I work I work hard at helping them do that and it's wonderful to see that they want to do it and and actually get better no matter whether they are whether they start out afraid to tell up to an audience and shake you know some young graduate students are really not comfortable talking to an audience or even if they're already master communicators they all get better from the work we do with them and why do you think it's important that you know whether it's you know young students in school or the average adult let's say you know the things that go on like with world science festival which Brian green and Tracy Day have made a huge part of this city where you know science kind of is everywhere for that week and it's about that message of this is important to know why do you think it's important it's really important because so many reasons one reason is as far as the scientists are concerned the public has to fund them or they can't do their work Congress has to fund them in order to collaborate with other scientists other scientists have to understand their work too they don't always understand it if there haven't been trained in that exact field they don't understand it the same way but that's that so science can happen but just on our behalf from from our point of view from my point of view my own personal point of view I want to be able to understand this because this is maybe the most glorious human achievement science and to be divorced from it to have it be done by priests and white coats and not for me to understand it enough to to have to take to get joy out of it to get pleasure out of it this is the poetry of the universe how come we can't understand it the way they do or come close to understanding it the way that they do and and to see them as the humans that they are this is a human activity science and it's done by people with passion people who make mistakes people who have envy and desire all the human attributes that we all have and I want to see that so I see that I'm like them and they're like me and I can latch on to what they're doing otherwise we're missing we're swimming in a sea of science all the time now everything around us we carried GPS in our pockets that wouldn't have been possible without Einstein's general relativity wouldn't have been possible without without a computing power and all kinds of stuff that science gives us to walk around with that in their pocket and just use it and that no it's day I get for granted that's like they've is like finding diamonds in the ground and playing marbles with them you know I feel I agree with you though I have to say it's exactly how I feel mostly I though about the arts as well hmm about you know the greatest achievement of humankind in the end or legacy what we're remembered for in so many ways is you know you can name what you like but you know to me let's say the Emperor concerto or something just yeah one melody deed it's like oh my god the poetry of the universe yeah you know where did why do we all understand that that's so great I can't rhyme sickly cause I'm an artist of course I take it for granted that that's true but what I do is I try to combine those two things and what do we do with the world science festival it's what we do at the Center for communicating science did I want to talk about that hello I helped start that and and we really come by we teach scientists to improvise the same way we would teach them to improvise if we were working with actors not to turn them into actors but to bring out the real them and in them to work them to be able to relate to the people they're talking to communicating with so that there's a real one-to-one relation ship with the people they're communicating with and not just when they're on the stage but even when they're writing because when you write the first sentence you're setting the person's brain up for the next sentence and if you know what's happening in that brain then the next sentence will register you know give you one thought that is occurring to me is that Leonard Bernstein refer to the within the arts the supply and demand of the arts then yet every child learned how to read music that the artists would actually have to do better oh that's good because they know more and their demand would be more that's that supply and demand that's one of the reasons I want people like us to understand science because I want us to challenge the scientists with good questions yeah make them responsible for all the things they come up with and but but not by asking questions that are irrelevant but ones that are this is their what I consider like an obligation you know this is that if you're if you're living breathing human being this is your obligation that's do you know all we have is now no thinking this is it aren't we going to ask those questions aren't we going to try and push frontiers that'll take us to something in some cases depending on you know how much we know is in question but you know the planet the danger to the planet causes every day you're going to not ask that question or ask it and I feel like you're you are helping the scientists to get us to ask the questions that will push it right and the scientists will welcome that the more of those questions are asked because that's what they do for a living they ask skeptical questions right and they're used to skeptical questions being posed to them as they do their work that's how they make advances their professional skeptics do you think we can try a little something with the the crowd here you want to do the tapping thing we can do the tapping or they'll do this yeah you don't know what this is okay this is something when I talk a lot with scientists about the importance of story because as as humans where we only remember things that are emotional and and if you're just going to spray information at the audience and not not give them a chance to have a motion that vocht in them they're probably not going to really pay attention to and they're not going to remember and story is one of the best ways to convey emotion so what so I think of aristotle's who said a couple of things about story he said one thing he said was well story has a beginning a middle and an end but I don't think that goes far enough I mean a dead cat has a beginning a middle and an end but I like better what he said about dramatic story dramatic action where you have somebody who's trying to achieve something against obstacles and ultimately either achieves it or fails but something big is at stake you can't take your eyes off or your ears off a story when that's happening right so I'll just show you exactly what I mean come over here come on up and be my guinea pig all right I asked somebody from the audience usually but you look like we've never met before have we now okay so take this class all right and put it down on the table over there okay now come over here okay come face the table okay hold the Blanche all right okay okay now be very careful put it on the table but don't spill a drop or your entire village will die oh my god I can't believe this is happening don't you why should you do this to Ed Wilson no but I'd like all mixed knit all right no no no you have to just get it over there now that was a very good idea that I like that you don't did I got this yeah I need a little buck for this one oh okay I think we're good Alan Bravo okay so rich which trip across the stage was more engaging Oh see that does all you were doing was delivering the glass that's like data when you came across with this even this artificial this fictional idea that your village would die it still had an effect on us there was something and happened to us who you said this is important and everybody everybody was focused on that glass I did this once when my god Ian so much so many other things too it's yeah I'm like getting very depressed and why I realize all I'm looking for his instruction I was just like okay good I'm just gonna do this I didn't even know hurt imagine that that's another thing your total involvement with the glass and the audience's involvement with you with the glass is theater yeah and it is how you get taken outside yourself because you're doing something that's why they call us actors do things to act us to do to try to achieve that endeavor try is so powerful as an attractor the endeavor the they they really I did this once with an audience and a little bead of water went down the side of the glass and the audience gasped now over what over a little bit of water you know the village the village wanted yes the couple of days ago I did this at the Institute for Advanced Study with a couple of really great scientists and the little bit of water spilled and she said oh my god is it that's okay that's Ralph we don't care about oh it's so so good and gripping to just have that type of a demonstration I think that's so valuable just to be able to participate in some way and feel like you know we're all pulling you're not if we're not just telling people things you're not just telling me something we were standing in the wings before talk just before we came out we're talking about the value of being able to do something like this and not just put it into words I mean words are good I wouldn't you wouldn't know all of that I meant to convey with this I need if I didn't use words but to see it to experience it it is so so strong it is that's so good okay um I was good I'm gonna have to have some water that's yours that's thanks a lot I want to move to one last thing which I've always thought of myself as a feminist so I'm pretty sure I know how I'll do in this test of my reaction to women in the workplace I am ready to begin women in fact like Mazarin Banerjee who's a professor here at Harvard University the test is called the implicit association test and it begins simply enough I have to pair the word in the center with one of the words above by pressing the e key with my left hand or the I key with my right well it could be anything either way well she told me I had implicit bias toward women that's not possible you're an honorary woman I read hell I know no it's in his wikipedia but somebody did call me the Boston Globe yes dubbed you an honorary woman for your work on behalf of women's rights right and with first lady Betty Ford on the are a and it's well known and you have a bias it turns out I was a little uncomfortable because right after that like what happened did I say Betty fourth I'm Betty yeah yeah yeah I know but soon as they said I was not a very woman I got pregnant I hated that um no but this test I'm it I I have to talk to to I think I think she invented the test I just want to know more about it because the idea is if you take longer to match up I say a woman in a professional job or the word woman you take if you take longer to to identify the connection that is supposed to show implicit bias also works across racial lines so you can show and I'm not even sure that women can pass this test either because you know I I had a conversation with a woman called Jo Handelsman who did a study a few months ago that was extraordinary she took resumes of young scientists who were applying for jobs sent him to the heads of departments at universities the resume was identical except one had a female name at the top near they had a male name it was an easily identified name as male or female the women were offered less money by far they were considered to be less professional but if they got any complaint he compliments from the resumes it was that they were nice wow you know they're they fit a kind of nerd not nourishing what do you call it then well nourishing the persona right and and that I mean that's and and they didn't even want to accept the results they said no no science is rational this can't be true but even women in the at the heads of departments falling would fall into the same thing that not to the same level as men I don't think but it's to a surprising degree and so for all these years you've you've tried to you know further women's rights I'm sure you look around the world today and you know if you you know watch or read about Malala or girls education do you feel like you know this battle has has progressed in a way you'd hoped I mean you must be just yeah the things you just cannot imagine things you have been involved in it and you know it and it's it's it's all our rights we all suffer by having any group of us diminished or kept out of the mainstream because we all depend on one another's talent and ability to deliberately not educate half the world is insane it's just it's just not a good thing to do but do you ask me a question I was going to answer until they started talking what was it oh I probably it's just about you know your involvement with women's rights specifically you know when you decided for yourself was this a natural thing or just you know it's just like the science thing I just found out that I could be helpful and it was something that interested me the more I did it the more helpful I thought it could be I'm asked a lot how come I got involved in it I I don't I don't really know I I I mean I had I've mmm I love my wife I love my three daughters and I know I don't wasn't aware of that is consciously being a motivation I think that there's probably some unconscious thing which was dead when I was born my father was in burlesque and they stood in the wings watching naked women for the first for you there can be different reactions to that yeah after a series I think I was like a Bob Fosse I think yeah that is I don't know I don't know if that turned him into a feminist I don't know if it turned me into a feminist but the chorus girls wasn't just watching them him but they they mothered me they took me up to their dressing room and they they combed my hair and they were very sweet me to pat in my Chino and they say okay Ally we have to change our costumes now turn your back that was like three years old you know so I turned facing the wall with my face and they're still customs and I could smell the perfume when the costumes might hear the silk rustling behind me as they change their costumes I get excited just thinking I bet there I'm not finish it we looks comedian don't let me interrupt no yeah no but the thing is they I saw them as I don't I don't know if this had an effect on me actually but I saw them as people you know that if I if I had been exposed to them as a teenager from the audience that would be different but I was backstage with them and they were they were people like me and you knew them they knew you that's right wait and they say you're here and you're getting care for you I am well I think what we're going to do now is have we have about five minutes for questions so if you have a question please raise your hand there's a their microphones and just make sure it is a question one time one time somebody got up and too radical to raise a question and talked for five minutes yes that and and I said is there a question in there and he said yeah don't you agree and that good yeah that is good let's not do that I thought that was admirable all right right here we'll start right there hi I was wondering if you are involved with any women's rights organizations right now not-not-not where I put in my time no no no but you know I'm sorry what do you say why I said do you water well huh like your follow-ups you have one you know I'm so busy with the science thing now I can't I can't even do all of that and and plus I have it this day job or you acting right but you know do you feel as I do that we made we did make progress and this plenty left to do but when we were trying to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed the three arguments I heard most commonly were will have if we have an Equal Rights Amendment we'll have to have unisex bathrooms uh-hum sex we'll be able to get married and women will have to serve in combat all three of those are common though and they had nothing to do with the Equal Rights Amendment without the Equal Rights Amendment we we get but the other things that the Equal Rights Amendment would have solved in many states are still unequal you have to shop around for a state to get the same rights you should be an American and be able to go anywhere right somebody over here yeah um Alan everybody who is your fan always talks about your innate kindness and decency in a bid to take this from you yeah right and I can testify too but but in a business that is not known for that I assume you'll agree with me how did you maintain that and why aren't others like you that's very kind of you thank you I don't have you know I'm not as I'm not as nice or as as I seem if nice means a week and people can step all over you which which some people actually thought that's what it meant so I I would get into lawsuits where people would steal from me and I've liked nothing better than a good lawsuit really well it's really fun and you really haha but I also developed as a young man I don't do it so much anymore but as a young man I would so resent somebody starting to steal from me if I saw it happening I would my voice would get very quiet and I'd look them in the eye and I'd say I can forgive or I can forget which would you like they got so scared because I sounded insane but actually you can't separate those two functions you know I mean I they're people that I I didn't forgive but I forgot about it there are the people like for gay but I didn't forget they're coming back yeah exactly that cake reminds you yeah yeah so I you know you just yeah yeah you have to make your way it you're right it is a kind of rapacious businesses has it been for you and Europe end of it or is everything nice I think this scale and the stakes are slightly different the great ballet world and the acting theatre movie the television world so I can't say rapacious is a phrase that comes to mind I don't think I've never actually sued anybody so that hasn't happened oh you got a try I know I'm thinking you know it's really nice this you know I don't want to miss my opportunity so I'm looking yeah it's good one more question I run the endowment fund for Stuyvesant High School your father graduated in 1930 Eric Lander graduated Brian Greene graduated I just you're an extraordinary man we've been very proud of you question as a parent you are kind of extraordinary can you say something about your father and even though my father was a very sweet man and it must have been pretty smart to have graduated from Stuyvesant what about wood first science high school in New York oh oh yeah thank you and he and I had a he he brought me on stage when I carried me on stage when I was six months old in a burlesque sketch and trial by fire yeah and then they kept sticking me on stage I remember when I was three years old I was I was in a sketch in burlesque and then when I was nine we entertained the troops at the Hollywood the Hollywood Canteen where'd all the troops run this during the war and they were on their way to the South Pacific and all the actors and actresses would entertain the troops there so he taught me who's on first and we did the Abbott and Costello sketch I I was nine years old with buck teeth and I was chubby and I was Costello and I would stand in the wings frightened I was really scared and I'd be shaking then I come out on stage just a couple of steps and I'd feel the glow of the spotlight and then we'd start the sketch and I'd get the first laugh this powerful feeling of laughter and I had power over these people who have been carrying guns earlier in the day it was a wonderful feel you can't give up that sense of power once you have it and you felt it that and yet the only thing is you have to translate it into something else and that's what I think over the years I've done I don't see it as power now I see it as making a meal for them a gift a we're presenting something that we can be together on there's no doubt that if everybody's looking at the person in the spotlight that person has some kind of power but you have to give up that power so you can be as personal as you can and really reach them in in their sense of humanity and you can't do that by having power power with performers who overpower the audience I find really upsetting they bore me and I get irritated at them but if they can be generous with the audience then I then I think we're somewhere especially if dignity they have talent and they've worked on their talent and then they've got something to be generous with that's great I love that and that requires a certain letting down of guard as well as you got to have to be vulnerable to do that you really you do get emotionally naked which brings us back to burlesque and then back to for Alaska you know it just wanted to touch briefly on the title of this all we have is now is to my mind you know I got it from you from your writing talking about Marcus Aurelius and the idea of being in the moment and not needing to have it what is it having a wrong answer better to not have an answer than to have the wrong answer so you're in that moment of of life whether it's on a stage or trying to share humanity you want to talk if you would just for a minute about that and maybe your near-death experience and well 10 it was exactly 10 years ago October 19th that I was on top of a mountain in Chile and I got this terrible pain in my gut and I didn't know what it was it felt anything as bad as that turned out it was this much of my intestine that had got choked off lost its blood supply and if it burst within a couple of hours I'd be dead and the pain is worse than childbirth and I've heard that from women who enjoyed both of those experiences so it you can imagine what and they got me down this bumpy mountain road eight thousand feet took an hour and a half down the road while I'm screaming and pain but this wonderful dr. Nelson Zepeda was at this little operating room and saved my life and when I woke up from that I was euphoric and wasn't just glad to be alive I had been glad to be alive before that but now I was euphoric and I wanted to make the most out of my life that this new life I had I really recognized it as a bonus and I was aware every day for ten years of almost every day I'm really glad to be alive so I I wanted at the camp but I didn't I kept looking at all the ways it could count and none of them seemed to stick with me except when I was reading Marcus or really as this emperor who was such a great writer and and he was talking about how it is no good it's no good to think about your past victories your past great moments because they're done there in the past it's no good to think about how they'll regard you when you're dead because you're going to be dead you won't notice so all you he said this phrase that just struck me all we have is now and what got me about that was scientists were explaining to me right around that time that the experience we have of now only lasts for about five seconds so when I was talking about Marcus Aurelius before and saying all we have is now that's in the past I'm only here now and time moves on now I'm over in five seconds so when I just said when I was talking about Marcus oh really haha it's in the past it's gone and when I started saying to myself well I'm gonna do that now thing that present moment thing I do and all of a sudden I see things more clearly I see colors in people's faces I hadn't seen before reds and greens I see blue in your face I didn't notice it before you could do something about that clearly yes there's people to see yeah I saw I was so alive but boring people became interesting a life worth living well it's suddenly yours next to somebody at dinner and they're telling you this boring story and you think somewhere in this is my salvation somewhere in here I'm gonna get something out of this because this is happening now there's only the goal I got is this yeah and I and they became less unpleasant oh my god it's so great all right well I think that you know that you're talking about time here so I'm gonna close with just two quick clips from the last night of mash which you know you said you co-wrote you bunch of people and maybe it'll give us a little thoughts on that when it when it's over but I can say that you know I remember where I was what had happened when you did it I was in my final year of high school in California and every was retiring about it it made a huge impact so no let's just just see well boys would be hard to call what we've been through fun but I'm sure glad we went through it together you boys always managed to give me a good laugh right when I needed it most never forget the time you dropped Winchester's drawers in the o.r of course I had to pretend I was mad at you but inside I was laughing to be all hell yeah I'm laughing just thinking about it I love a good laugh like this I better get out of here colonel before you go we've been thinking about it and there's a little something we'd like to give you it's not much but it comes from the heart that's the only time I think on the show I ever saluted I think I mean I that's why we made it a like a gift to him because I would always resist anything military well I mean that that seemed said so much to me when I saw it again after all these years I thought wow there's like you know the push back where the you know Potter had to tell you you were wrong all those years and in the end he revealed that like boy he night when I only seen this a couple of times since we shot it and when he when he breaks down like that it chokes me up every time because he didn't have to work himself up to do that we Harry we all loved Harry and Harry loved us and he that was him feeling the Cabaye the good by himself yeah yeah and then shortly thereafter that was actually a pay up to a dramatic story we're all through the show the guy who played BJ I mean that the character BJ couldn't face that we weren't gonna see each other again he couldn't say goodbye and I would say just say goodbye just say the word say goodbye and he couldn't do it so he leaves and I get in the helicopter and I see that he's left me a message and it's the goodbye in rocks so that it was a payoff of this glass of water we had between us yeah was a beautiful ending and you know it speaks to so much about living in that moment that time and really grateful to you for doing this thank you

Channel: The Aspen Institute

Views: 55,990

Rating: 4.8431373 out of 5

Keywords: Alan Alda (Author), Damian Woetzel., Aspen Institute (Organization), M*A*S*H, ational Science Board's Public Service Award, Women's Rights (Organization), science, education, The West Wing, Scientific American Frontiers, Emmy Award, Golden Globe, Golden Globe Awards (Award)

Id: DuUUO1Kavwk

Length: 60min 30sec (3630 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 30 2013