Desi Arnez Jr. Interview

it's always a pleasure whenever we on page five get to have a very famous celebrity and here's one this morning his name Desi Arnaz jr. and I know everybody recognizes you and instantly okay good morning you must live with that most of your life you know being recognized I guess uh people more or less recognize me sometimes they don't sometimes they do depends if they've seen me on something recently here yeah I I mentioned at the beginning of the show desi about the Olympics because I thought it had such a fabulous positive sort of image worldwide here in the United States especially I've never seen such you know esprit de corps among Americans in general did you was were you affected by it well actually uh I went out to the Olympics in Lake casitas and we I helped with a group out there pick up cans not then part of what we'll talk about later has to do with that that were the official environmentalists for the Lake casitas Olympics Wow and so they were they were helping to recycle during the Olympics it was great huh yeah did you follow any of it all for the past two weeks I watched some of it on TV yeah yeah it's it's exciting don't you think isn't it a special yeah I think uh I mean I I enjoy sports and I think it's uh in its in its place it's it's great in other words as a sporting event it should be just left as a sporting event you know and in that situate or them to participate in their sport and all it's fine there's a lot to see in the Olympics there's a lot to see about human nature in the Olympics there's a lot of good things that a person can see about themselves looking at a sporting event you know participating in a sporting event yeah by you mentioning that I thought of Mary Decker yeah I don't Jack actually see it or the replay of it I saw the replay of it yeah well I was actually watching he just happened to be I was watching at that moment cuz I didn't get to see all of it and what had happened it was like I'm sure everybody else was just as stunned as I was because it was like something right out of the blue the last thing I thought could have ever happened but she said something like one of her comments I didn't get to hear all of the mention she made was something about I can just see what it would look like in the press if I would have pushed Zola but you know instead of just falling if I would have pushed her to or something I thought to myself isn't it sad she has to be so conscientious of her Press image right when she's really an athlete and it's too bad she just can't go ahead and maybe that was the problem you know well even you know it's interesting what crossed my mind was and during the Olympics was that these people are just people and after they win the gold medal or whatever happens no matter how successful you are in whatever fields you're you're in and whether you win or lose let's say that day you know I mean that's the interesting thing about athletics is there's a winner and a loser is both the winner and the loser still have to go home and go to bed alone whether they're married or I'm not saying whether they know you but they still have to live with themselves you know and be able to have a right relationship with themselves and so so it really so what you know what so what if they they still have to take whatever comes or whatever happens to them in their life and and live live life you know you know just like everybody else does everybody has the same thing to contend with it it's not really that much different but we play certain uh we we we put certain images on people and sometimes this is what you're saying the people like buy into that image and feel they have to defend that image right and then that's people in the public eye you know people in the public eye aren't any different than anybody else and that that's what's interesting about like for me you know being in the public eye that I was asked that a lot how is it different for you and it is different if you believe in your own believe in what people are telling or saying this is who you are yeah and because then it's a false image now the old saying some about you start reading your own yeah that's the clipping that such that's a true saying people actually do do that and I wasn't I wasn't immune to that either I did that too desi uh I know that uh you know I couldn't help but the crew were talking about Dino desi and Billy right and and I think and I I could cross my mind because the videos are so heavy now and we discuss a little bit about I like to play my country-western and I and the crossovers to or the light new wave stuff but you guys would have been at the top of the charts you were anyway musically but as far as the videos are concerned you would have probably been right there as well at the top of the charts and I was just curious about how you look upon the videos that what they're doing with them well I think it's I always liked film so I think it's great to be able and I really like special effects and being able to combine visual effects and film and music which I still love and is a fantastic new medium yeah and that can be it's there's a lot of potential the one thing that I'm seeing in videos which concerns me is that they're using a similar theme in a lot of videos and and now they're losing the content of the song totally do you understand what I'm saying well totally lose and so that we have to remember to keep the value of the song and not just to write a song so it'll look good on a video so so it's very so it's still music is still the most important as far as the lyric content and the music the melody and all that and then if there's a song that you can visualize them I'd rather look at it that way than coming up with something visual and trying to put a song to it got it we were talking about Dean Martin's video since I met you baby which was played on page five and you said it was produced by Dean son Ricky right by Dean's youngest son Ricky and who is a video film producer director and producer and writer and he's a musician as well performer and he just did a short that Billy Henchy of Dylan is in billion myself were in a short film that's called the last Jerry about World War two it's kind of a comedy take off on on World War two and that should be out on cable soon you keep in touch with Dino and yeah Dean and I speak every once in a while he was in the Air Force for two years he became a jet fighter what he did yeah Wow I know it's what I keep saying you made over the last few years you're talking last three years he was in the Air Force for the last about a year ago he got out he's a second lieutenant in the Air National Guard flying phantom force out of March Air Force Base now this is the Dino of Dino desi and Billy yeah but now recently he's decided he wants to go back into the entertainment business so he's a he's a jet fighter pilot slash actor Dean if you're listening you knucklehead you anyway he he has been performing again he was in a film called heart like a wheel the Shirley Muldowney story he had a guest starring role in that and he's getting back into acting again you mentioned Ricky might want to do a video as a bringing you guys back into the spotlight well Ricky has talked to all three of us about the reunion aspect he keeps telling us that people are out there clamoring a union and we're asking him where where are they clamoring where are they clamoring but we've thought of we've thought about it and Billy is with the Beach Boys now he's playing guitar and keyboards and singing with the Beach Boys he has been on and off for the last 10 years over the last five years steadily playing with the Beach Boys and he still writes and the kid that was just killed with the Beach Boys Dennis Dennis did you know him I knew Dennis yeah yeah the Dino desi and Billy when when we first started first toward our first concert was with the Beach Boys they like took us under their wing and we opened for the Beach Boys at the Hollywood Bowl and they had us onstage with them at the end of the show and then we went on the road with the Beach Boys and played California and Hawaii and open for the Beach Boys and then that kind of became an interesting family Billy's sister married Carl Wilson and and now Carl Wilson and Billy sister divorced and Carl and Dean's youngest daughter Gina are going together so it's all it's been a kind of a family thing for the last fifteen fifteen years and Dennis was a when we were first recording and playing concerts Dennis helped me playing rock and roll music I was 12 years old I was educated in jazz and Dennis used to just pick up the drums and you have to play real loud on stage you know and he used to help me play it when I first played in the concert he'd play louder play louder and so he'd help me so I grew up with the Beach Boys really Wow yeah so he must have been affected a little bit by I I was affected by it part of the whole Dennis and there are some other people that I was affected by in the last couple of years that didn't make it through the stages of whatever happened to them in their life they were unable to recover yeah we're getting into the subject of drugs and alcohol which we will get to in just a moment I'm just curious about is the video going to happen or is that just in the talking stages oh I don't know I will see what happens it'd be great yelling yeah we really don't know yeah something may happen we don't know you guys just in the talking stage now did the other guys look as good as you do does it no they don't they definitely being funnier I'm very living I think they I don't know back then pretty good shaking doing really good so I got I got to tell you if every if they look as good as you than hitch it should go on to another resurgence you know a whole other how long how many years was that you know does he not very long it was uh like four years I was 13 14 15 and 16 but like I said we're still interested I may be recording an album on my own in the next year or so and singing singing and performing yeah a couple of friends of mine or writers and there's some material that I'd like to do and nobody's interested in doing that you know does you can't expect any kid between those ages thirteen and sixteen with that kind of fame I mean you're being launched into the greatest spotlights in the world to to do very well I mean you might take credit for going for years very very well don't you think uh yeah we had an interesting thing because we didn't do it in order to have a career we were doing it for fun we were we went to school together we were in grammar school together and Dean and Billy came over to me on the basketball court one day and said do you want to play drums for the carnival for the school carnival with us and that's how it got started and I played drums with them and I had a rock and roll group before that called the Jaguars which was like an instrumental group that played wipeout and the lonely surfer and those kind of sized with the kid that played a little Ricky which we were talking about earlier yeah and so I played with them and then denoising Billy play two parties around West Los Angeles and Beverly Hills and department stores for like a year and did that kind of a like a local band yeah and then somebody hurt us we had an audition like for a whole bunch of people and somebody hurt us and signed us up to reprise records and it just happened it was just something that we were having fun doing and we recorded a couple of songs the second song was a hit and we were third times 13 years old I I was in school and then what happened is we we start going on the road on during holidays and then coming back and a lot happened uh I admit happened in those period in that period but not because we're looking at it as far as a career but because we were out into the world at a very young age we are your mother your mom and dad what did they think about it were they well they my son and I love him and he's becoming a big star yeah well no they they were supportive but they were very concerned because of the fact we were very young we were we were out traveling on the road and and going into a whole different existence that you then you would if you were just in school at 13 years old we were traveling with the rock-and-roll mom was in the Papa's and Paul Revere and the Raiders and the WHO and the guess what and I don't know but they were at maze and but they were okay well they were they were very supportive but what-what happened down the line was the they were concerned about that I was experiencing a lot in an early age and but they were always very supportive of of the they were just concerned as concerned parents as parents would be that love you again are they still are you still close and actually I think I'm I have a better relationship with them now than I ever did I have a better relationship with myself and it just kind of that's nice yeah so it's so I have a better relationship in general with life yeah I got that when during those years when you were so young was there heavy alcohol drugs well for me it started very early and I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol when I was about 14 start drinking and and then in the 60s or the middle 60s when the drug explosion kind of happened I thought that that was because I started drinking at a very early age and I knew there was something wrong at a very early age with drinking so I said oh great marijuana this is it this is the answer and although that I shouldn't be 11 well but that's what happens you know and that's what happened to a lot of people in my generation because we prior to marijuana becoming popular we tried drinking and then you for me anyway I said well this isn't good this is interfering at a very early age I realized that there was a problem and then I thought marijuana was the answer and I started using marijuana and other mood altering substances in the 60s that we all tried and and I just stuck with it for for a while until I realized that there was a serious problem in the last six years this is over two years ago that I haven't used so you been straight for two year two years there was a serious problem the last six years but it was interfering even initially only when you're that young you don't well when you're that you know the whole problem is it's a it's a it's a problem that says you don't have a problem in other words do you understand what I'm saying you always say to yourself I'm okay I can handle it you know and that's the nature of the problem got it very good I was just curious can you mention some of those names of those who didn't make it you said there were friends of yours and they didn't quite make it to this point well there's a lot of people there really are a lot of people not so much they're not so much in the spotlight they're not so much well the people that I mean that are there and it wasn't necessarily that it was drugs and alcohol it was that something else happened to them that may have been premature understand what I'm saying in other words there you couldn't directly relate it but but but it was related indirectly and so I don't like to mention people saying I didn't want to pressure that's why you know they're they're people that we all know people that I've you heard you that everyone everyone knows what has happened now and whether it was a direct or indirect accident you know something happened an accident happened or there have been many many people in the public eye that have bit of uh indirectly or directly have been affected or something or you know died yeah desi when I just speaking with you for the short time that I have I don't pick up that you entirely blame being a special kid with famous parents and being a famous child of those parents and being thrown into all this fame and fortune I don't see you blaming them or all of that totally or maybe you do but I don't feel like it's all there no I don't blame them at all what and there's no blame you see what happens is what you find out when you in recovery from drugs and alcohol is you find out that it's a mankind's disease let's put it that way and everyone is affected by it and your parents parents parents parents were affected by it no one is directly responsible everyone's responsible it's socially acceptable it's an it depends on your it everyone is also susceptible it you don't have to be from a special background I mean when I went through drug and alcohol recovery of people from all different walks of life going to there it doesn't play favorites it doesn't play favorites so there's no particular blame it's all everyone's responsible though and then that's what you become is responsible for your own life which then you stop blaming yourself you stop blaming other people and I and part of the problem is in blaming other people in blaming yourself is in the self condemnation or guilt guilt and stuff like that that's part of it because you're speaking tonight let's say you have three are you speaking at all each one of these Tuesday Wednesday Thursday right Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday that's tonight and tomorrow night and Thursday night seven o'clock you're going to be in Boulder City at new life that's 700 Wyoming streets so you're personally going to be appearing right and this is a seminar for people that are interested in living a different kind of life and not just for drugs and alcohol but any kind of compulsive behavior that manifests itself in many many ways that are in our life and so it it all connects with self-defeating behavior that may manifest itself as in drugs and alcohol or any variations of excessive behavior and new life is a place where people can go to find out a man named Vernon Howard who's an author and a writer has been giving talks and writing books for twenty thirty years about how people can see where it is they're hurting themselves and by in seeing it naturally there's an intelligence inside of us that would never hurt itself got it does he I hate to interrupt the interview it's been fascinating you're a true gentleman and I hope you get a nice turnout and great thank you for sharing your time with us on the show okay Thank You Dennis you're welcome stay with us we're coming right back the first word

Channel: Dennis Hunt

Views: 125,677

Rating: 4.8618183 out of 5

Keywords: Desi, Arnez, jr, Interview, Talk, music, singer, actor, Hollywood, Famous, Entertainment, Stars

Id: eto0kz04zwE

Length: 18min 48sec (1128 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 01 2012