World Over - 2017-11-23 - Full Episode with Raymond Arroyo

on a special Thanksgiving edition of the world over radio talk-show host Michael Savage is here he tells us what he believes is the bedrock of American culture and we'll discuss his new book God faith and reason and later she's in charge of the world's largest library right here in Washington DC Carla Hayden joins us to talk about the treasures of the Library of Congress and finally singer musician and daytime talk show host Harry Connick jr. joins me to tell us about his new show and the spirit that animates it the world over Thanksgiving edition begins right now [Music] now from Washington DC Raymond Arroyo a warm welcome and a Happy Thanksgiving to everyone here in the US and the world over later I'll tell you what I'm thankful for but first he's heard by over 10 million listeners on his nationally syndicated radio show he's a botanist a medical anthropologist and author of 25 books four of those were New York Times bestsellers his latest is a departure from political commentary it's called God faith and reason and it's a glimpse into his personal religious faith and the judeo-christian values that are the foundation of American culture joining me now from San Francisco the one and only Michael Savage thank you for joining us Michael mr. Arroyo it's a true pleasure to be with you and your worldwide audience well the pleasure is ours I hope we can get into some some travels together oh well we'll do that before long look at the beginning of this book Michael and I've read so many of your books I've been listening to you for years I was struck by the book because early on you write it was God who that has given you your success and therefore you decided this next book was going to be something for him what did you want to give back to God and how does this book accomplish it I had come off the success of a series of New York Times bestsellers with my current publisher has shed and they were they rushed after Trump won they said we want a book on Trump three months Trump's war I called it I said I'll only do it if you publish my god book because I've been promising my audience that the last book scorched earth government zero would be my last political book I have to give God back everything he's something do you think ok they'd agreed to do it's a trust well became number one New York Times bestseller well here we are a year later well are some 9 months later the book is out just before Christmas what am I trying to do with the book I feel that by writing this having written this book God faith and reason which goes back literally since I'm a teenager and by drawing people into my stories family stories childhood in New York working for dad in his little store you name it I'm going to trick my audience because throughout this book I cleverly included some Old Testament sayings every other page if you'll see this set in an old looking typeface quotes from Ezekiel Jeremiah biblical quotes throughout the book in bold filling up whole pages so what is the whole game here the game is to take the secular reader on a journey with me because they love my stories and in so doing they say what's oh look I haven't read the Bible in so many years what's this stuff from Ezekiel what is Jeremiah is saying thousands of years ago gee that applies now maybe they'll come to understand that these words may have eternal value and in so doing maybe just maybe they'll be drawn back into their own faith because Raymond you have a largely religious Catholic audience am i correct well 1/2 1/2 inch evangelical believe it or not and we have some Jewish viewers as well and even seekers non-christians I understand why however so many people don't understand that his secular or as atheistic they may think they are they weren't born when they were born in other words the world didn't begin when they were born it doesn't end when they die meaning they're not two generations away from a very religious ancestor a relative grandfather grandmother great-grandfather grandmother whether it was a priest a rabbi or churchgoer they were there so it's in their DNA it's in their genes and I'm hoping to excite that DNA in them to what their true heritage is Michael do you consider yourself a person of faith I'm like Mother Teresa I go in and out of I go sort of in and out of it but there's not a minute that I don't think about the eternal meaning when Mother Teresa in her last years finally I think they wrote her they released her her journals or some my Diaries didn't she say there were days she didn't believe and she was so ashamed well it was she had a crisis of faith it wasn't that she didn't believe but she sort of had a crisis of faith where she didn't feel God's presence she knew he was there but she didn't feel it and that in its is sort of the walk of faith I thought well there it is feel that's a big word my book is God's faith and reason it's not God faith and feelings abut certainly certainly without feeling it you know you're not really there I mean how many people how many people go through the rituals of religion and don't connect in that church or in that synagogue and so I tell stories of when I was a young man born Jewish my father was not really religious he just didn't believe in much my mother would like the candles every Friday night and it gave me a certain calm to know that she believed in something bigger than now maybe it was tradition but the fact was is a feeling feeling and so when I was a teenager in doing my wandering I would go into any house of worship that that attracted me I went I went to an Abyssinian Church in Harlem New York all blacks I met a preacher on the street struck up a conversation he jumped in my old Volkswagen Beetle I said well I'll take you to your charge brother Billy and we drove up there and I said this room was shaking that Abyssinian church was shaking I said these people not only feel God they make God feel them hmm years later I wound up in Berkeley California with my wife and my little boy I walked into a Chabad which is a Orthodox Jewish temple in a makeshift place and I saw what I had seen in the I'd never seen which was am I going on too long go ahead I walked and there were the men dancing in a circle with their hands on each other's shoulders that place was shaking like the Abyssinian Church it was shaking like a Fijian village but they were Jews with the big beards with the black coats and in the circle I walked in the stranger with his little red-haired boy god bless him and the rabbi reaches down takes my son puts him on his shoulders and drags me into the circle and there's a chapter they called dancing with Haasan's now that started a whole road of mine I'm not a religious man but I certainly respect their religious acity religiosity and so therefore these chords all resonate in me and and I think resonating in God faith and reason Michael in the book you decry and I've heard you say this over and over again the secularization in America where people of faith religious ideas the notion of God is pushed to the margins of society yet in some ways if I'm reading this right you you called people out in the beginning of the book for not practicing their faith but the author himself doesn't really practice do you I do tell me what you know when I've read religious teachings in mystical Judaism they say that the man who actually feels the presence of God is closer to God than the man who does the rituals and doesn't feel the presence of God and so having said that I believe that my fear and my awe of the of the power of God is a form of practice in its constant it's it's not I don't think a single breath goes through me without my recognizing that it could be my last sorry to be so fatalistic no no no well look this is a this is an important concept to know that look we're not here forever death death await you know if you look at some of those old paintings of saints you know you go through Rome you go through different parts of Europe in the corner of the the painting my kids were always spooked because there's a skull down there with a little crossbones beneath it well that was the memento mori the remembrance of death your death is coming we're all gonna go the same way that's not a bad thing in fact it clarifies the mind as you say in the book well I think that if you dwell on this it can render you powerless and you can't move people get frozen with fear I think that in spite of the fact that we're mortal and in fact that we're all going to go by the way of all flesh we have to embrace life Jewish people say therefore choose life not that the death worshippers the atheists say therefore choose death that's our society unfortunately today is embracing death in every form whether it's through drugs violence rampant sexuality that's no meaning that's a that's a form of choosing death isn't it raiment so we have to look we have to look at the other side in shoes life the life-giving side the family the religion the faith the congregation is life in an interview in 2009 in The New Yorker magazine they asked you about your father and you said he didn't like talk of faith in fact he sort of forbade it what Mark did that leave on you did that make you uncomfortable with faith as a younger man why he didn't disallow it he just didn't believe in God he didn't think that there was anything beyond his death mm-hmm it was a very cynical view of an immigrant I'm an immigrant son after all he came here led a very hard life in the old country and a harder life here he died very young and I think he had a very tough life and he had no reason to believe anybody up there was helping him I have found the opposite to be true that without this upper power call it God if you if you want because that's what I think it is I wouldn't be sitting here speaking with Raymond Arroyo I would have gone off the rails a long time ago and never come back I know that for a fact so for me it's a different story Michael in the book you talked about at one point going down to the core of your being you were taken there by a moment in your life and you said it took you a good number of years to come back but it was really in that cauldron when you were down and out you say where you discovered God tell me about that period in your life funny you bring it up and every time I think of it I get chills through my head down my spine I had gone back to the University gotten two masters degrees I was told well in order to be a professor you better get your PhD from a university because that's your union ticket I went to the highest level I could I got my doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley in a very difficult field of three Sciences combined I earned this PhD in two point three year two point seven two point six years it was a record I came out thinking I finally get this teaching position two hundred University said white men need not apply I'm sorry to make it that clear affirmative action had started to click in they were not hiring white men they were hiring anyone else it didn't matter and I banging my head against the stone wall with two young children I thought I was failing them I thought I was failing my ancestors my heart was aching I didn't know what to do and so one day in Fairfax California I put on my Tallis and my yarmulke from the Chabad people I went out on the deck and I yelled and that valley shook I know the valley shook I begged God to save me and all I said was just give me a living I will prove to you I'm worthy I didn't say don't make me I send out Amira didn't need to be rich just give me a living I'll prove my value it wasn't like you know the Red Sea parted and the SS will be the mill production years it took years but slowly the Seas parted slowly things came my way as long as I kept working at it hmm because God knows if I get lazy I'm not a good person no no we're not using gifts were given I don't retire even at my age I mean well he knows I'll just go bad yeah we should also say your family I mean get through your example your son is the founder of rock star the the great beverage that everybody kids are drinking everywhere your wife was the head of that company is she's still president of rock star well she's the CEO oh she manages the books Wow unbelievable so I mean what he did a great you know I don't want to talk about him I don't like to merge his business with my philosophy but the fact is is that he he spent them a lot of years with me traveling in the South Pacific he he was there with me as a little child he's seen things that kids wouldn't never so lucky to have experienced now whether any of that reflects in his business acumen I don't know but all I can say is that we've been very blessed as a family and I'm trying to say to the world on the on this show that I want to thank God through the show because this is a religious show is it not religion sure okay I mean that's what the book on faith and reason is about it was my way of giving back to God my thanks I don't know how else to say it so it's through personal stories through an odyssey I'm not proselytizing I'm not an evangelist I love you even Angelus they save people but I'm not one I'm not a theologian but your doorman it's your struggle it's your it's your story and you find you in the book you meet a panoply of characters here a Jewish mobster a Buddhist an atheist you're having dinners it's about your life as a child you even have sections you have a section here that I want to talk about before we run out of time you say here Halloween is bigger than Christmas why do you think that is in America well that's why I had them published a book this time of year that's why it's in the bookstores right now we've just come through Halloween every lawn in the white suburbs ghosts and goblins and spider webs and this and that I said if this isn't the embodiment of paganism I'd like to know what is and so when I grew up in New York City every other car in Queens New York had a little st. Christopher on it it gave me faith to know that there were people who had faith it gave me faith to know that they were faithful people around made me feel good Church on the corner everything had its place it was organized orderly now you drive around in New York or in Washington DC or San Francisco there are no st. Christopher statues there are dream catchers there are voodoo dolls there are cobwebs hanging off mirrors I don't know how they can see through the through the windshield if that doesn't symbolize the demoralization of America I'd like to know what does to me it's all combined and the fact that Halloween is now bigger than Christmas yeah it's become its own festival it's much bigger and they lead up to it like it's a holy day tell me Michael and you make other observations throughout the book and I wish I had more time to really delve into it further but it's really worthwhile there is there is an article I read where you talk about your talent and how you discovered it and you really attribute it to your brother Jerome and your mother tell me how you discovered the work of your life really one of the great works of your life well it's a sad tragic story in my family every family has when I suppose this was I was the second child the third child was Bologna was a little blond-haired blue-eyed boy looked perfectly normal but after a year or so they realized was something off he couldn't see couldn't couldn't hear and he was he was crippled born crippled well it destroyed the family ripped everyone's heart out and they would put him in the kitchen in a highchair and he would sit there alone all day and they would say don't go in there and don't bother him and I thought what what do mean don't bother him so when no one was looking I'd sneak into the kitchen and although he was supposed to be deaf I would whistle to him and I would see his eyes light up and I knew that he wasn't deaf I knew also there was a soul in there and in speaking to him in that mysterious way that God gives us I learned how to communicate with audiences hoarse silent I mean you're sitting in a studio I'm here alone we're communicating with a silent audience but there are millions of people out there that's the Saints trying to communicate with with the silent audience and I just learned how to communicate with silent audiences with animals my little dog Terry's always with me I think it's through the gift that my brother and I would say my silent brothers who I owe it all to amazing before I let you go the sex abuse and sexual harassment scandal that we've seen engulfed not only politics but now media entertainment I mean it seems to be spreading are you concerned that it's gone too far and what I mean by that is you have accusers suggesting that you know a guy asking somebody out to a drink is harassment your thoughts it's insanity it's a witch hunt in the French Revolution all you had to do was say Jacques Hughes and they cut someone's head off no no trial nothing we are living through a revolution here god only knows who was behind this but it's like the French Revolution the guillotine is falling every day someone else for whom the bell tolls the bell tolls for thee I mean there's a poem about this right and the accusers don't realize that the guillotine is a very thirsty instrument there's no amount of blood on earth that the guillotine will be satisfied with and after the French Revolution got through killing all the counter revolutionaries what did they do they started killing each other until the guillotine finally fell silent when there were no no longer running next to cut we see this going on now in the media who's next to fall when is it going to turn on the when will the women in the media suddenly start being accused of being sexual predators and by whom when will that start when will that end I mean we have to understand we're a nation of laws and I matter how many people may line up and say I accuse you without a trial the person is innocent until proven guilty in my book I don't care how many people line up innocent until proven guilty whether it's judge Roy Moore in this case or anyone else innocent until proven guilty I want to see a trial we are a nation of laws not a nation of of hanging public hangings I want to close with this at the end of the book you write in the end the search to find God is the finding itself what does that mean it's an interesting thing as I was going to press with the book it was like my Albert Einstein e equals MC square in relativity moment which was where is God why is God silent well you see the idol worshipers they don't have to worry about where's God they worship the statue they worship the tree they worship the stone they have something to hold on to but when Judaism came along and we were taught that God is invisible it was became a paradox for a man because it was the first time we didn't have that rock or that tree so where is this God well we heard about him we heard he was there we heard he gave us the Ten Commandments he did this he did that so I realized why God remains invisible to us because if we could see him and we could touch him we would dismiss him as yesterday's movie we'd say oh I met God yesterday that was pretty good but what's what's happening today what's today's show so God was so smart by remaining invisible through all the ages mankind will always search from and in searching for him and looking for him don't we find them in every leaf every tree every dog every child every baby every cloud don't we see God's work yeah yeah I know it's reminds me of a line Jew and Jesus meets Thomas after the resurrection and he wants to touch the wounds you'll remember to have confirmation that you know this is really the guy he saw crucified and Jesus tells them blessed are those who have not seen and still believe which kind of confirms your your notion there Michael well I think there's a little of his DNA and me somewhere just a little bit probably more than that Michael Savage thank you so much for being here God faith and reason by Michael Savage is available now in bookstores everywhere and online what a pleasure when we return the woman who runs the world's largest library and it's right here in DC librarian of Congress Carla Hayden shares some of the library's treasures and the importance of literacy the world over continues in a moment [Music] now once again Raymond Arroyo welcome back to the world over she runs the world's largest library its collections include millions of books and recordings photographs maps even films she's the first woman the first african-american and the first professional librarian in over 60 years to lead our National Library to learn about the Library of Congress's vast collection and the vital importance of literacy we asked the librarian of Congress for her thoughts I recently spoke with dr. Carla Hayden take a look now I want to talk a little bit about you and then about this amazing collection you have a unique vision of libraries that has so struck me as I've read about your career you were in Chicago you ran the libraries in Baltimore you see them as much more than repositories of books in fact they're the cornerstones of democracy they really are one of the few places that everybody can feel part of and they're welcome and we like to think of ourselves as really a refuge but also a place that you can soar hmm and you expanded what Baltimore was doing I mean it wasn't just giving out library cards of finding books for people you were you turned it into really an educational center for the community in fact we even called it an opportunity center and it was the place that people could go and get online to apply for jobs about 85% to 95% of all jobs any type of job you have to file online you know apply online and most people in some challenged areas don't have that access and so we had health Fair's gave out flu shots all of these types of things amazing tell me about there's one little boy that I saw referenced in some of your interviews a boy named Leonard in Chicago tell me about him and how he kind of characterizes exactly what you're talking and Leonard was part of the reason that I said this is the profession for me I was assigned to a storefront library on the south side of Chicago and it was a pretty challenged neighborhood and there was a little boy Leonard who was bullied and teased because he had a facial deformity and he would come into the library and we struck up a friendship and after when he would sit right next to my desk and pretty soon he was sorting cards he was helping with preparing the crafts in years past and Leonard finally he had surgery that allowed him to be more accepted but he would and he became a teenager and then he would pass the storefront and wave at me and it made me feel so good because he found that place in the library that safe spot to borrow and be affirmed and he would read books and so interested in so many things amazing I want to talk for a moment about this astounding collection that even I didn't realize until I moved to Washington what the Library of Congress contains you incidentally have 3,200 staffers who you oversee 160 million items including things like the George Gershwin's piano Arthur and Jerry Lewis is film collection home why do we need all that well it's the collective cultural memory and historical memory of the United States and the world and it really is a resource for anyone that has curiosity that wants to find out more and we also are sustaining creativity and saying this is a celebration you recently digitized something near and dear to my heart 20 years ago on on confessing I I was going to write a play about Alexander Hamilton a little later now but I took notes 20 years ago they put me in one of your Special Collections room with the gloves and I flipped through Hamilton's letters and read many of them for days you now have digitized all of these letters tell us about and that's the wonder of it when you think about for instance the papers of 23 presidents from George Washington to Coolidge the diary of Teddy Roosevelt where he marked on February 14th that day that his mother and his wife died and he said my life is over and then you have Hamilton's letter this last letter to his wife before the interview as they called it and that people can of course visit and look at these things just like you did but with digitization anyone that little boy southside of Chicago can sit at a computer and look at Hamilton's letters and the letters of his wife it's amazing are you worried that the digitalization will force people or encourage them not to make the experience of going to a library and reading a hard book or a hard manuscript well and I'm smiling because digitizing whets the appetite right okay so once you see it and then you want to see the real thing and that's another part of it and you want to read more about it and it just gets you going so that's what we're trying to do tell me about the origins I was fascinated by this the origins of the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets when he was assassinated it give me this Backstrom fellows came in 1975 the librarian of Congress was new and was exploring the office of the librarian and there was a door that seemed like it didn't go anywhere and so he opened it and behind the door was a safe like a bank safe however there was no one that could open it and the legend goes that a gentleman was released from a facility who had special skills and opened the safe and there was only one thing in the safe and that was a small box and he opened it and it said these are the contents of a for him Lincoln's pockets the night he was assassinated and it was given to the library by Abraham Lincoln's granddaughter oh my god and he had two pairs of spectacles he had articles about himself that some were good some weren't he had a handkerchief that had his initials he had a five-dollar confederate bill and then something that really touches you in a way because he had a button that had come off of his pocket and just think about the humaneness of that if something this comes out you can put it you pick it up mmm beautiful it tells us it humanizes imagery humanize him he was a real person in so many ways and he's relatable do you feel yourself as a Library of Congress librarian of Congress do you feel that you are the custodian of Americans literacy or America's literacy does that an a burden you feel oh no we're partners with so many other types of organizations and institutions and so working together we can really work on I think something that people might not realize that illiteracy is unfortunately a contributor to a lot of the challenges that people have worldwide right and you think about 65% of people adults worldwide are functionally illiterate and how that contributes to some of the issues that they face in life no this has become a passion of mine writing for children you see the vast weight and the the the bitter patrimony you pass along to them if they can't read or if a parent can't read so I love that you've committed so much of your work and the Library of Congress to fostering reading before I let you go madam librarian story nted which is what this segment is it's a literacy initiative I found it but the idea is stories Orientis in the world they show us our place in the world what was the story that set you on your path and the lesson you gleaned from it what when you talk just now about your place in the world the book and I love to read and I was going to this storefront library and my own across from the school I was about eight and some person put a book in my hand bright April and it was about a little girl who was brown like me she was in the brownie true she had two pigtails and for the first time I saw myself reflected in a book and that taught me that children need to have books as windows on the world but also they need to see themselves and something that we say is so important books and literacy and it's like there I am and there's my family and since I've been talking about it so much lately in terms of influences in my life I've received letters from women from varied backgrounds the first one came from a woman in Minnesota who said I was a skinny girl handicapped and bright April was my favorite book because she was an outsider and then recently a woman in Connecticut who shared it with her two daughters and found a copy a battered copy she said and she just read it to her granddaughters who identified with this little girl and so that's just that lesson that young people need to get something from a story to not just entertainment but yeah and the importance of diversity in books particularly children's books because it is important for kids to see themselves and place themselves in that drama right and that's what the the pull is you can imagine yourself taking great adventures and all types of books but it's also good to see something that relates to you - because that's what no reading can do give me your strategies you've spent your life as a librarian and you interact daily with young readers what would you advise parents who have reluctant readers at home what are they missing what should they be doing what they might want to do is think about making reading fun and not being too prescriptive if they want to read a comic book fun let them read it because they're reading and the practice of reading and readers become better when they practice and they can read a cereal box they can read that and also to model reading in the home I had that advantage with a grandmother that read to me and would read next to me my mom and so show them and and you don't have to read war and peace you can be reading a magazine and it's reading time and everybody gets to read what they want and they see as an adult doing something you know they will model they follow it yeah right it's great advice great about final question you were appointed by President Obama for this position I am a little distressed that he dropped the lifetime appointment and turned to a ten year appointment your thoughts on that was that a good idea or maybe not such a good idea since you're just getting started early Congress decided and it was I think a good decision because libraries are evolving and changing and you might need to make sure that you are changing as well in terms of the leadership so I think it's okay and especially at my age oh come on age your mother is still with us and lives in your building you would tell yes I mean it must be amazing having your mother there watching you and breaking down the barriers you've broken down and being the example you are I mean you're you're like bright April to a lot of girls looking in I have to tell you though my mom was the example because she was in Social Work in Chicago and some of my earliest memories were sitting doing my homework in the back of a community meeting that she was heading up in housing departments the social services that she was responsible for battered women's shelters working with youth and gangs and all of that so I grew up with this service and using the thing that I'm involved in to serve has been a watchword well and to have your mother there alone oh my goodness she was a stay-at-home mom she says now the love he had to work when I was coming up early thank you so much for this thank you and for great work you're doing it you can keep up with all the doings at the Library of Congress and view many pieces of their collections by visiting their website there at loc.gov when we return he's a singer and band leader who sold over 28 million albums worldwide and he currently hosts his own syndicated daytime talk show my exclusive interview with Harry Connick jr. is next on this Thanksgiving edition of the world over its director now once again Raymond Arroyo welcome back to the world over he's an actor bandleader and singer who sold over 28 million records worldwide he's won three Grammys two Emmys and earlier this year he had a daytime TV host to his resume he of course hosts the syndicated talk show Harry and I sat down at CBS's studios in Manhattan to talk about his career the roots of his music and the faith that drives it all here's my exclusive interview with my fellow New Orleanian Harry Connick jr. Harry I want to talk about the show in a minute but I first want to talk about you how did you not study the law with a mother who's a Supreme Court justice in Louisiana and a father who was the DA for what 30 years right there was a lot of law a lot of my house my mother just to be fair was a small claims court judge my dad was a DA and I remember at one point when I was in my early 20s my manager who is a Harvard Law graduate and her husband who was a harvard law professor I sought their counsel about maybe getting a law degree because I felt maybe this is something that I can do and they sent me this big giant book on the law I don't know anything I open that I say I see I see your point this is not my turf I'm not going to do it didn't do it no no that I don't belong they're my parents well you know they're they're real intellectuals and and they both of them are brain lawyers but that's just my brain didn't work now they also owned a record store that's right which is probably where some of the love of music came oh I think a lot of it came they're so my mother and father when they were putting themselves through school in the late 50s had a small record store called Studio a productions and they would sell the popular music at the time you know Nat King Cole and I was Presley and Frank Sinatra and all that stuff so by the time I came along in 67 obviously that they were out of that business but they obviously had a lot of records then that they kept so I heard music all the time because my parents were both huge lovers of not only great music but but music that that was important music especially to me being a young musician where did the piano start you started very my grandfather who had a restaurant around the corner from where you live right used to complain I remember him coming in here playing the piano he's taking all the business there or they want to listen to him they're not eating this is pretty good for me yeah I noticed I had some good tips where did that come from well we had a piano in the house from as long as I can remember but even before that my cousin George I used to play and my sister who's a few years older than I am would take lessons from her and I sort of remember hanging out and the story is that when she would finish her lesson I would go and play the things that she had learned it came very easily to me it wasn't that I was some kind of prodigy was just very natural for me to sit down at a piano and kind of pick notes out so ever since I can remember that's just sort of what I gravitated toward tell me a moment about Ellis Marsalis is sure effluents on your work and I wanted to take a little step back James Booker this kind of flamboyant great pianist he accompanied everybody from Aretha Franklin to Fats Domino he taught you James was a friend of the family's and used to come over he my dad always said he wanted to put James in the studio and record him because that's what he did to me when I was like 9 and 11 I made a couple of albums but he never did and it's one of his great regrets so James would I knew James from going to the Jazz Fest and James would like to show up at my house once in a while sort of unannounced and give me piano lessons right I loved the time I had with what did you get from him what did you get from Ellis Marsalis later at Naoko which is the new orleans center of creative mode that's right I think between Ellis's tutelage and James is sort of sporadic appearances you you couldn't have a more complete spectrum of piano of American jazz and rhythm and blues piano plan Ellis is a real music academic I mean so he he understands not only the structure of music but how to convey that information to young people he's probably the I would say certainly the best music teacher I ever had he was an incredible and is an incredible pianist in his own right but he would also allow us the discovery process just enough to keep us interested in wanting to acquire more information from him James would basically I'd say James how do you how do you play this lick and James would say oh this is how you do it and I would sit him and watch him and and and if I didn't understand something he would show me so was it was a way like Ellis would never sit down and show me Ellis would say well you have to figure it out hmm but the stuff I got from James like he played things that nobody played before or since that were pretty much impossible to do so to have his tutelage was incredibly rare blessing incredible tell me about your mom for a minute Anita you lost her when you were 13 that's right what is the lasting influence boy you know you're fine today yeah I think about her all the time I think about the fact that she was she's from New York she was brought up Jewish by the time I knew her she was pretty much nondenominational but she knew more about Christianity in the Bible than most Christians I know she was very well-versed in the Bible and was an incredibly spiritual woman that always treated me beyond my years and I would see that with other people too with my cousins or my friends she would always sort of take the time to look them in the eye and and in treat treat them respectfully she always made us feel very important and I think the benefit of that was it helped us all including me to aspire great to greatness because she was treating us like that um and and and I think about that a lot I think about people that would come over to the house some of them were famous politicians some of them were auto mechanics didn't matter we didn't know who they were or what they did as little kids but she treated everybody equally it was an amazing thing to see in real time to see somebody practice that because as I got older and I saw things like sexism or racism it didn't happen in my house like it didn't happen my father and didn't have him with my mother he they would treat everyone the same and that gets drilled into your head over time and you start to realize the benefits of realizing that there's something to learn from from everyone so that's that's a great lesson I learned from my mom and you were raised Catholic not right you wish and not in an interfaith household you didn't learn both things right so when my mom was when I knew her she wasn't practicing anything but my dad is a very devout Catholic still is at 90 years old and he would take us to church but I wasn't baptized as a baby and my sister wasn't either because my mother wanted us to decide for ourselves what religion we wanted to be so I felt like I was part of the Catholic community because my father my mother's family was not in New Orleans I was surrounded by these Irish Catholic conics and I wanted to be a part of that so I decided when I was 14 I wanted to be baptized I wanted to be confirmed and that's when I joined the Catholic faith official jumped in you you went to Jared I did tell me about that time this there's very little reporting on it but I can remember in high school following high school you were musical directing you were doing I mean Sonny bori who was running the theater program there still a friend of yours you were really involved in in creating shaping musicals III I was into the musical theater stuff as a result of Sonny Boy he used to give me a lot of leeway you know with the orchestra's during the school productions and doing all kinds of stuff I mean I remember playing there was a mime from Germany that was in town and she didn't speak any English and she had a couple of gigs and through an interpreter I found that she wanted me to just play what she was my Mimi and I I remember my dad came to that gig and we still laugh about it because that that's not hard for me to do it doesn't make me some musical genius but you just kind of sit there and if she's miming something that's supposed to be winter you play something that sounds like winter exactly and it was it was an amazing experience playing in gospel music and churches playing R&B showing up to a gig and Walter Washington is there I mean which I was inundated with a wide variety of experiences and so all through my high school career is when I really really started to stretch out play more gigs because that sort of prep that's right when I saw you wrote vows shalt not write and you know a Broadway musical you're composing this thing people said what where is this coming from well I knew where it came from right right and it's all kind of come from the same place I mean making movies doing Broadway writing for Broadway acting in movies I mean it's all sort of my brain and I see things and hear things things through that that lens I guess and it all seems similar to me and you know what I mean in the same place it's coming from the same place or the creative process is is the same what with those various genres do for me is allow me to sort of break through any default patterns that I might have so when they called and asked me if I wanted to write the score to a Broadway show I was forced to do things differently I was if I was forced to write songs that advanced a storyline which is something I never had to do before and I had a lot of trouble with it because I was trying to write one off song yeah and and and I didn't want to sacrifice a song just to get the point of the show across which is a very selfish immature way to do it I learned I learned a lot on that experience yeah now tell me Harry Harry Met Sally of course exploded you everywhere was that limiting because they kind of cast you as the Sinatra the new Frank Sinatra you've resisted that ever since I might add well it's not that I resisted it I mean Frank Sinatra was a great singer of all time I mean uh unquestionably to me the greatest thing of all time but he wasn't much of a piano player didn't write a whole lot of songs so I never compare myself to him because I just don't see that many comparisons I mean if you want to talk about Sinatra you have to talk about all of the other great male singers of all time that I that I love to but When Harry Met Sally took off and it turned me into a sort of a big band singer which is a type of music that I never played I had never maybe once or twice I had played with a big band so when I went on the road I had three arrangements for the big band it's hard to do a two hour show with three songs so somebody had to write two charts so I started writing arrangements for the big band and they were not good they were passionate we loved playing them but I look at him now I'm like it was like a chimp wrote these things it was not not impressive but that's how I learned and because I was on the road and performing I had a chance to perform my arrangements and right away no this is wrong this is Rights was expedited the process so I'm very indebted to that but when Harry Met Sally experienced because it helped me grow very quickly my sense is watching you do this new show Harry which is it for anyone who's ever done it it's a tough thing to do but a lowly show like this and a daytime show where you're shooting multiple episodes of it is it easier to guest I like hosting better because see what you hear what you're doing I'm really impressed with because you you've clearly done a lot of research on me and you you're making me feel like I'm the only person that matters to you right now and you're really really good at it and that that's the that's a great feeling I think ultimately even though it's a selfish feeling all of us like to talk about ourselves you do on the show I mean there's this woman you brought out early incredible and we'll get to that yeah but I know you're highlighting people who otherwise we wouldn't see well that's that's a great thrill for me and I like talking about myself on talk shows but but I really like hosting the show because not only do I get to do all of the things I like to do but I get to meet these incredible people I want to do a really fun show an aspirational show I want to have my band there I want to have great guests and I want to celebrate women and family and community and that's exactly what we're doing it's a it's a blast it really has you were drawn to the kind of Merv Griffin Dean Martin vibe what about that attracted you well when I think of shows like Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas I think those two people in particular both of them are musicians and both of them were really really good at at what they did but they were there were talk shows mm-hmm I didn't want to do a talk show because I I'm a musician and if you look at Dean Martin Dean Martin show was a weekly show where he did not rehearse in the history of television the only two shows I've ever heard of people not rehearsing are Dean Martin's in line I don't like to rehearse I like to go out and it might make mistakes at that that's there's so much gold there so but but he wasn't doing a daily show so as much as I admire those shows and other shows what we were trying to do it wasn't really a playbook for that there wasn't really a show where the host was actually the musical director for the band where the host was actually physically riding out trumpet parts and alto saxophone parts and that's what I do so again it's not hard it's a lot of work but I love to do it and we're trying to do something different do you think TV has become too political I don't know this is a political free zone in your show it's I mean if somebody wants to come on and talk about their political views I'm not gonna stop them that doesn't happen much once in a while it happens it's I mean there are a lot of sources to get politics on TV a lot of great sources some of them you know are better than others but you won't have a hard time hearing about politics on TV I wanted to give people a respite from that I wanted to do a show that didn't talk about politics because especially now I think it's very clear that we're very divided as a country and yet when you think of things from the perspective of family and faith and community we pretty much are all very similar no matter what you believe I mean if you if you don't bring politics into the equation or even the equation it's amazing how much we as Americans have income most parents want to do the best they can for their kids most people are hard-working we're all the same like that so that's that's what I want to want to talk about they can get the heavy stuff somewhere else but I wanted him to to be inspired and to have some joy from this show and you see that you feel it in the audience to him and I was I was sitting out in the crowd and you even in between breaks people are talking they're good particularly this there's a there's a segment you have called Harry's leading ladies right and it's where you focus on unsung heroes right tell me about that whose idea was that well I had a bunch of ideas when we started this show um and one of them was leading ladies I said listen my grandmother was amazing my mother was amazing my wife my three daughters my manager who I've been with for over 30 years I'm surrounded by incredibly bright very strong very independent women that's all I know I want to see more of that there's a million of them out there I want to meet them all I said can we do it every day because I want to celebrate them and I really respect them and every single time one of these women is on and it's very frequently the first thing I do after the show I'll go back into my dressing room and I'll see my little team of people and I say man that was unbelievable how lucky am I to be inspired it makes you want to be better and and and in when you showcase that boy I just think somebody's gonna bound out of their house one day wanting to to help it's so inspirational well in the end the power of that going on right a positive influence away do you see this whole show as your faith in action I know you wanted to avoid preaching and you do but the whole show it seems to me is sort of your faith being displayed moving it's a really good question and I've been asked many times sort of if my faith informs the decisions that I make on TV I don't I'll be perfectly frank with you I'm a Catholic I'm a very proud Catholic I'm not a perfect Catholic in fact I always say I'm a practicing Catholic I'm gonna keep practicing till I get it right I have a lot of work to do and I talked to my father virtually every day about things like faith things that the Catholic Church teaches we argue you know not in a nasty way but we go back and forth primarily because he's the superior knowledge with it and there might be some generational differences but we always have these substantive talks about it is something I'm deeply interested in and is a very very very important fundamental part of my life but I don't really think about that when I'm performing and I guess it's because I have a philosophy about how to get the message across they say that when you teach a dog to fetch if you throw the ball and the dog gets the ball it comes back to you if you pull the ball out of the mouths of the dog he's not gonna do it anymore you have to let that dog voluntarily you say drop drop and when he and you have to teach him how to empower the dog to do it himself I think it's a similar kind of thing with how you get the message of faith across nobody wants to be preached to unless you go to church some people do and it's great some people do it so well my guitar player Jonathan DuBose has his own church the agape Fellowship and it's a terrific Church in Bridgeport Connecticut he is a preacher you cannot have a conversation with him without being preached to and I love it so I was incorrect by saying nobody wants to be parents do I I don't know how to do that so how do I do it and it's not like I'm trying to preach what makes me feel good it makes me feel good to celebrate life to celebrate love to celebrate faith family community and how do i how do I do that I had the pleasure of talking to his eminence cardinal Dolan about this very thing and he said so you kind of want to come through the back door you kind of want to have a like a breakfast table conversation and not really hitting it on the head and I said yes I think that's what I want to do he says you know the church needs that and I didn't think about it like that he said people need to hear the message in in different ways and I thought about it I'm like maybe maybe God made me an imperfect curious Catholic my dad called me Thomas by the way because I'm always firing these questions at it maybe that's my purpose maybe my purpose isn't to be a good preacher but to walk hand in hand with the majority of us who really are trying to figure this stuff out because at first I used to think I have to represent my faith and I had I don't the power to do that oh you're doing that I would argue you're doing that you've been married for 27 years your father first right a husband and when I see this I've always thought you want to be a good Catholic and you want to advertise the faith just do what we do in New Orleans feed people entertain them make everybody happy and bring everybody together that's what you're doing or it's it's you know what to hear like that is really refreshing because that's what it that's what it is for me that's a little xperia and when you look at people and you see that you know Raymond I go out in the audience during commercial breaks some people are crying you hold their hands and you and they cry and they say thank you and and I'm not fishing here by any means but I'm thinking to myself what a thanking me for I'm up here I got my name on the marquee like how much more attention could be on me but that that's what I think God wants me to do that and I think that's what I'm supposed to do I'm supposed to entertain people that try to make them feel good you know we're all trying to connect the dots here and if I just I mean if I can do that for an hour a day I feel like I'm I'm the luckiest guy in the world what do you want to do next I know you're a restless spirit I am can't do just one thing no I can't you know I'm always reading new movie scripts and writing new projects and after hosting this show I think I've done I don't know what else there is to do like I mean I've done Broadway film and TV and films via everything but I haven't mastered any of it you know I've only done this hosting job since September and I'm always learning things I'm always figuring things out so I'm gonna keep sort of working on all of it and things sort of evolved out of that so we'll see where it takes me we'll be watching thank you Gary pleasure ray boy Thank You Man thank you before we go I want to tell you what I'm most thankful for firstly for you for your devotion to this show for more than twenty years it means the world to us as I said many times we do this show for you and with you always at the forefront of our minds and hearts that's the way Mother Angelica devised it from the beginning I'm thankful to my producers Christopher Edwards James Faulkner and Cristina Calif for all their hard work the crew you don't see including Michael boo gaskey Stephen Beaumont and a host of others in Birmingham and Washington I'm particularly thankful to my family and the chance to come together during this special time of year which I'm looking forward to I trust all of you will gather close to those you love friends and family and remember those who don't have what they need we are so blessed so many of us with blessings beyond our imaginings and it's important to give thanks this time of year so make sure you take the time to do so in the new year we're gonna be shaking up the show a little bit not suddenly but in time some things like our brief the headline segment at the top of the show is going away but we'll be introducing some other segments that I hope you like I just want you to know that you are so appreciated not only this time of year but always that's all the time we have for now the show continues on Facebook and Twitter like me on Facebook follow me on Twitter the links are at Raymond Arroyo dot-com be sure to join us again next week until then we'll be scouting the world over for all that is seen and unseen on behalf of the staff and crew of EWTN news thank you for watching happy Thanksgiving I'm Raymond Arroyo from Washington DC Bunner [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 15,338

Rating: 4.6717949 out of 5

Keywords: WOT, WOT05982

Id: a11yP8lXNmQ

Length: 59min 1sec (3541 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 23 2017