111 Script Doctor transcript (Michael Crichton)
Michael: [00:00:00] Famous and gravy listeners, Michael Osborne here. I've got two things to say before we start today's episode. First, we could really use your help growing the show and there's a very simple thing you can do. Leave a review for Famous and Gravy on Apple Podcasts. If you're listening on Apple, you just scroll down on our show page, tap the Stars, and write a few words.
These reviews help feed Apple's algorithm and help new listeners to find our show. The second thing is, if you yourself are interested in starting your own podcast and you wanna learn about how we built Famous and Gravy, we would love to have a conversation. Our email, as always is hello@famousenggravy.com.
So two things. Please write a review, and if you're fantasizing about your own show, please reach out. That's it. Thanks again. Let's get to it.
John: This is Famous Eng Gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at [00:01:00] hello@famousenggravy.com. Now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.
I.
Michael: This person died 2008, age 66 at Harvard. After suffering from a professor's criticism, he changed his major from English to anthropology and graduated summa cum laude in 1964. Okay. 2008. And he was real touchy. Yeah.
Archival: Is this. Joseph Campbell,
Michael: not Joseph Campbell. Good
Archival: guess.
Michael: He earned his medical degree in 1969 and he spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
Okay,
Archival: so he's some type of anthropologist, like bio person.
Took
Michael: those. I love hearing people think aloud. Bio person.
Archival: Robert Coles. I'm trying to think of doctors from Harvard.
Michael: I have, no, not not Robert Coles. Good guess I like it. He used fiction to explore the [00:02:00] moral and political problems posed by modern technology and scientific breakthroughs.
John: Uh, was this Oliver Sacks?
Michael: Not Oliver Sacks, uh, who we've actually done an episode on. He, it's a pretty good one. All right. His books sold in the tens of millions and almost routinely became movies. Many of them blockbusters like Jurassic Park, the Lost World. And Rising Sun.
Archival: Oh, Michael Creighton. Is it like Michael Creighton?
Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Michael Creighton.
Archival: The exploration of fears is, to me a very important activity in terms of, um, being able to, uh, release them and also on some level, which I'm not entirely clear about. It's, it's very fun to be scared in the movies and I think in a certain way that, that, that. That the function of fantasy is to, uh, is to let us make certain kinds of explorations that we're not free to make in real life because they're too [00:03:00] painful.
Michael: Welcome to Famous Engr. I'm Michael Osborne. And I'm John Watts. And on this show, we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?
Michael Creon died 2008, age 66.
Today I am thrilled to be joined by my friend John Watts. John joined us for the Steve Irwin episode and the Jerry Springer episode, and we decided we needed to get away from daytime tv. So Michael Creton, how did we land on this one?
John: We wanted some serious action, some thrills. Yeah, that's thrills and chills baby.
Also, I think it was getting a little too straight on this pod for a while. I agree. Yeah, I agree. I'm here to really like even the playing field. Thank
Michael: you. Question. Did you grow up a Michael Creon [00:04:00] reader?
John: Oh
Michael: gosh, yeah. Do you remember the first book you read by him that did it for you? Oh,
John: baby Jurassic
Michael: Park.
Really? Come on. Yeah. Yeah. But did you read other ones after Jurassic Park?
John: Oh, yeah.
Michael: What was the first one you discovered where you're like, wow, this guy's got way
John: more going on for me? I just kept reading all of his books after that and I kept thinking, man, this guy really makes me feel smart. Yeah. Even though I'm 13.
Michael: Yes. I actually think that's one of his great talents. Yeah. Is he makes you feel like you understand something even when you don't. Yeah. I'm sure we'll get into that. I'm
John: fully a scientist.
Michael: Well, let's just go for it. All right. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary, Michael Creon, whose technological thrillers like the Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park had dominated bestseller lists for decades and had been translated into Hollywood Mega hits.
Died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 66 and lived in Santa Monica, California.
John: I'm gonna give it a compliment sandwich. They got the big things right. Did they, so technological thrillers is a clean and [00:05:00] accurate phrase. Yeah, I think they name check and drama to Strain and Jurassic Park, which are, you know, arguably the twin pillars.
And it, it rightly connects these books to sort of the Hollywood mega hits. But it's also, I would say Odine.
Michael: Okay.
John: It's so simple. It's not going to offend anyone, but it certainly isn't taking any risks.
Michael: I agree. It is a little bit. Lame. I like technological thrillers a lot because he wrestles with technology and science.
My big head scratcher was actually the properties, the Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park. What I like about it is that I do think that this captures the timeframe really well. Andromeda strain burst onto the scene 1969. Yeah. Actually, let me pause on that for a second. In getting ready for the research, were you surprised by how far back in time Michael Kreon goes?
John: Absolutely. I thought this guy just landed with Jurassic Park.
Michael: Right. I didn't realize Andromeda Strain went that far back. Mm-hmm. And that he was a known. [00:06:00] Figure in the seventies and he on already
John: directing. Yeah. Already. Yeah.
Michael: You and I are of an age where he was a known figure, but I felt like his star was still rising as I was becoming aware of him as a kid.
That's something I like about pointing to Andro de strain because it is the origin of Michael Creighton as famous figure. Right. And Jurassic Park I think has to be included in person. How could you not? Yeah. How you can't not, but those are not the most commercially successful Jurassic Park. The franchise is huge.
Yeah. But we're missing er. Here. Yeah. Which is kind of more of a juggernaut in a way. They could have said Twister. Yeah. Which I totally forgot about. Massive. Oh my God, I totally
John: forgot about that too. Uh, yeah. Uh, ER Westworld
Michael: is a little bit more, you know, obscure. But here's, I think the point I'm trying to make, if you are going to say this man who you know for his books, these are probably the two right books.
If you were to say the man who you know for being so successful, how much [00:07:00] money he made or the franchises he built, I would've probably thought about, er, the way I read this first line is it is more crediting his creative output than his commercial success.
John: Yeah. They're sort of taking, uh, a, a little bit of a bookend here, but I do think it's lost a lot of the other important details.
Michael: All right. So where did you land for a score?
John: I landed at five.
Michael: Oh, wow. That's a lot lower than I would've gone with.
John: I think it misses the fact that he was one of the only people to simultaneously top the charts in film, books and television. Yeah, that's huge. Yeah. Come on. It's accurate, but it needed a little bit more awe for me.
A little more, dare we say, chaos. Yeah. Um, nice. Nicely done. Yeah. Yeah. I just think, just part novelist, part systems theorist, and just such a great phenomenon as a writer.
Michael: It's a weird comparison, but if you substitute a few words in here, this looks a lot like Tom Clancy's first line of the obituary. Right.
Which is Tom Clancy. Is that a read? No, it's, I mean, which [00:08:00] is kind of a ding because Michael Creighton is more impressive in a way than Tom Clancy. He's more diverse in terms of the books, in terms of his involvement with the entertainment industry, and all we're saying is he wrote books that were made into movies.
Five is a little lower than I was gone. I was going seven. Uh, which is maybe a little too generous. Technological thrillers I like quite a bit. It does underplay a lot and it's not taking any risks. You know what, it's a six. It's a six. Okay. I could go with six. So, all right, let's go ahead and get into a category two, five things I love about you here, John and I will develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was and how they lived.
I'll kick us off. I couldn't come up with the right word here. I was talking with Alison, my wife, and I was like, well, he is kind of unbelievable. His output is insane. She had forgotten that er and Twister were also part of, it's not just Jurassic Park, he's also an alien. I mean, this whole Harvard medical doctor who after he finished his degree and did a postdoc, decided I'm gonna go [00:09:00] all in as an author.
He, he's, he's also kind of an alien 'cause he's six nine.
John: Yes.
Michael: Yeah. I mean, you, you just, you imagine seeing him and knowing the intellect and Oh, this was a Harvard trained doctor. Like this guy is unbelievable. I went with untouchable technological thriller, like captures a lot, but it misses some other st he's, he's not just sci-fi.
John: Yeah.
Michael: There's also the great train robbery. Mm-hmm. And disclosure rising sun, um, because of the
John: dead. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean,
Michael: his interests are very eclectic and exciting. And you put all of that in this six nine figure who has a medical degree from Harvard, and you're like, who the hell is this guy? It's, it's, he's sort of unbelievable as a figure.
So that's my thing, number one.
John: I love that. I think he began writing while in medical school to pay for medical school to pay for
Michael: Yeah. Right. To cover the bills,
John: right. Yeah. At night when he end up. Yeah. And just crank out a few novels that free time in medical school. Right. There's lots of that. So no big deal.
Archival: I've always said the guy who's in medical school of course cannot gets no sleep, works constantly, [00:10:00] nearly ruins himself. Um. But there's no way that a guy can write as much as you did and be in medical school. Can you live without sleep? No. Uh, but I discovered in certain ways that I could live without medical school, which was one or the other.
Right? Yeah. So that you can, uh, if you look at my grades, I think you can see where I did my writing because they sort of went along there as a big drop.
Michael: Are you intimidated by him?
John: Absolutely.
Michael: I'm really intimidated by him. Can you imagine meeting him in
John: person?
Michael: No, I think that's what I'm trying to get at.
He's super human. One of the things I feel like we do on Famous and Gravy is humanize people. He's hard to humanize for the height alone, you know, the only other time you see six nine people is that the basketball stadium,
Archival: wherever I go, tall jokes.
Actually, once I was, um, I broke my leg in Hawaii and I had to go all the way back to Los Angeles to have surgery in a wheelchair. And so going through all these airports in a wheelchair, I [00:11:00] had this amazing experience of seeing what the world was like for everybody else.
Michael: So just everything about him is kind of unbelievable.
Like, how do you bring this figure down to earth?
John: George Clooney said almost to the exact same thing when Michael Kreen died. It was just that he, he was just a force.
Michael: Okay, so what did you have for thing number two,
John: intelligent paranoia. You're saying he's
Michael: paranoid?
John: Yeah. Okay. I mean, this was me going back to my 13-year-old brain to say, when I was reading his books, I felt like he allowed you to feel both intelligent because you were learning about these complex topics.
Totally. In technology and theory in, but he made it so Mass. Oh God, yeah. Chaos Theory. The way
Michael: Chaos Theory is written into Jurassic Park. The book, like I remember feeling like I got it.
John: Genetics right too. The way it's like he walks
Michael: you through and makes you feel smart.
John: Yeah. And I think he has the ultimate online video tutorial of all time in Jurassic Park.
[00:12:00] Sometimes after biting a dinosaur,
Archival: the mosquito would land on the branch of a tree and get stuck in the sap. This fossilized tree, sap, which we call Amber, waited for millions of years. With the mosquito inside until Jurassic Park scientists came along using sophisticated techniques. They extract the preserved blood from the mosquito and bingo dyno, DNA.
John: I make learning materials as a, for a living. Yeah. And like looking at, that's the epitome of the best video tutorial ever. Now
Michael: he is an, he is an astonishingly skilled science communicator.
John: Yes. I remember going to school and, you know, putting my lunchbox up on the shelf and my coat on the coat hanger and then explaining gene editing to my friends thinking that I had, you know, figured this out.
You know? Yeah. Uh, we had climate modeling and state of fear, nanotech and prey.
Michael: Even, even like epidemiology with Andromeda strain on and on. He will take a subfield within [00:13:00] science, build out a paranoid fantasy around it and tell a. Fricking awesome story.
John: And I think that's the other thing, the paranoia piece is it's like this built in moral dilemmas.
It often explores human hubris. Right? Unintended consequences, ethical blind spots. See, this is
Michael: what I think a great science fiction does. It does get at humans versus technology or humans versus nature or humans and the planet or whatever. Mm-hmm. Like it's wrestling with the big questions of humanity and civilization.
Yeah. Through story. So your point about paranoia is actually well taken because I feel like it is approaching and confronting and reckoning with big fears through
John: narrative. He also just for, for whatever reason, his books were cinematic. Yeah. It was like cinematic prose.
Michael: Even when they're poorly adapted.
Yeah. Right. Like there's there a lot of his books should have been better movies. Yes. Jurassic Park obviously translates well in the hands of Spielberg. There are [00:14:00] others that are okay adaptations, but it should have been all blockbusters.
John: Yeah. Not Congo. Not Con, no. And not Jerry Broke Con, not 13th.
Michael: Warrior Sphere was a disaster. It was bad. It was so disappointing. Bad. Right.
John: That's another thing that his chapters were short. That's another thing for a kid. Or just it's, I love that about his writing and I just thought what a cool writer in terms of how he wrote, what he wrote about and, and I think to your point too, it was a running theme for him, this idea of that, and paranoia is a negative term, but I think that was his core purpose, to look at at life with some skepticism, with human nature, with some skepticism.
You know, we build these technologies and therefore they're flawed because they're built by humans.
Michael: Yeah. All right, so that's a great transition to my thing. Number three, tech support. You do feel smarter. We are all a little bit more educated on genetics, on evolution, on epidemiology, on a lot of things as a result of Michael Cretin, even medicine and er like you come away feeling, I, I get it now more.
So he's sort of a tech support guy, but he [00:15:00] actually goes beyond that because he was an early adopter of computers utilize before Amazon. Came along. He had a game, a computer game, and it called Amazon.
John: I do remember Yeah. Reading that. Yes.
Michael: In 1984, and he ended up writing this book, electronic Life. I heard him in an interview say, the reason I wrote this book is because I got involved in a software company and nobody was buying computers, and I was trying to talk everybody into it.
He was like trying to do a, like computers for dummies in the, in the early days before personal computers had been widely adopted. And I, there's a hilarious interview where he is talking with Merv Griffin and m Griffin's, like you use the word word processor. Can you explain what that means? What is a word processor?
Do you talk in a machine and it writes your book?
Archival: No. No. Oh, a word processor is, looks like a, a typewriter, but it has a screen instead of a sheet of paper. And when you type, the words appear on the screen. Right. And they're, they're just electrical impulses on the screen, which means that you can move around on [00:16:00] the screen and change what you've written, pull blocks of text and put it elsewhere.
You can, you have complete freedom.
Michael: Michael Creon is there for tech support. He, he seems like he knows everything.
John: Yeah.
Michael: And it's enviable. It's a skill I wish I had sometimes. So it's a famous and gravy thing that way. Okay. That's my number three. What do you have for number four?
John: Stillness in chaos theory?
Michael: Hmm.
John: For a guy who wrote some of the most paranoid fiction in the 20th century, I think Michael Creon from his book travels. Which is, you mentioned it's kind of an
Michael: autobiography.
John: Autobiography. Strange, vulnerable. Yeah. It was sort of like his eat, pray, love if you, if you will, everyone. Um, it totally is, is a little self-indulgent, but No, but
Michael: it's, it's actually, it's underrated.
Underrated. It is. And I, I had read this years ago and then I went back and thumbed through it, but where are you going with this stillness and chaos.
John: Yeah. I think in this he describes a two week meditation retreat in California. In the desert.
Michael: Yeah. I think it was with a doctor turned sort of eastern medicine type
John: shaman.
Yeah, the shaman. [00:17:00] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And he came back with this totally different view of himself.
Michael: Right. It was like energy work and aas and all kinds of, like, he did
John: new age stuff, Sufi mysticism, which emphasizes self purification, inner transformation through practices like chanting and poetry, energy healing, and past life regressions.
Michael: It is the thing about that book, it's right at the edge of. Woo woo and pseudoscience. But some of it, I'm like, actually I'm kind of like energy work. I'm sort of interested in that. Auras, I kind of believe in psychics come up in the book and I don't really exactly believe in this, but I also think that there are perceptual channels that we're not aware of and other people and some absolutely.
You know, maybe there's something to it. And that's what this like book has.
John: And I think that's also really the key point here too, is he's saying he didn't necessarily believe in them all, but because he wanted to know what else might be true beyond his sort of scientific brain. Yeah. He explored it and I think that's so great.
There's, there's something I like about all [00:18:00] religions and spiritual matters, right? I can find things that, um, that I attune to, like you just mentioned. It just also shows me. That he was open to investigating. He did not exert contempt prior to investigation.
Michael: Ah, good way to put it. Yes. Close off
John: his mind.
Yeah. And that, that I think is very important, especially when you have such a scientific mind like he did.
Michael: I completely agree, John. And I mean, I actually even like the fact that he integrates his literal travels around the world is scuba diving and Kilimanjaro. Yeah. Kill me. You know, trips to, you know.
Oh, really? Oh,
John: I don't wanna hear. That's like showing people photos of your vacation. Nobody wants to hear about that. Go away. Oh shit. But the other stuff I liked.
Michael: Yeah. Well, but this, to me, actually, the way you're describing it for me captures a really important difference between religious conversations and spiritual conversations.
If you find yourself in a conversation about somebody's religion, it almost always feels defensive. It's like picking apart all the things that are wrong, all the things that don't hold up. Whereas a spiritual [00:19:00] conversation tends to be constructive, generative rather than deconstructive. It's more like, I can agree, agree with that, or I could see how that could work for you.
Or I'll entertain that possibility. Yeah, right there there's an open-mindedness. It's less dogmatic in that way. Exactly. And, and, and I mean, I want to have those conversations with people whose belief systems I disagree with here. Yeah. And I think Michael Cretin in this book, and to your point about chaos and meditation, is that how you said it?
John: Stillness and chaos. Stillness
Michael: and chaos, yes. And I think that's a, a, an excellent number four. Okay, I'll go ahead and take number five. He's my secret hero. Aw. I mean, I, I actually did not know that before I got into the research. I think I, I really, for a while, John tried to model my life after his.
John: Hmm.
Michael: So, you know, I have an advanced degree from an elite institution.
John: Ooh, tell me more. Don't be shy, Michael.
Michael: I always feel fucking weird talking about this, the world once.
John: Oh, come on. Don't be like those people who go to Harvard. I went to school in Boston. Well, I don't know
Michael: how to talk about it without sounding douchey. You're not gonna sound douchey. This. [00:20:00] All right. I got a PhD in climate from Stanford and then towards the end of that degree I discovered podcasting.
And I've been doing that for the last 15 years. So I had this background in science from a top tier university and turned towards creativity and. Didn't realize it, but I, I've been trying to follow the Michael Kreon playbook. Obviously I'm not six nine, obviously Hollywood hasn't called me yet and I don't entertain the possibility that I ever will, the kind of success he's had.
But I, I do like one that science and creativity, nexus. Two, I kind of love the commitment to sitting in an academic environment for a long time. Universities can be really great places to sort of, I don't know. Do in the mind, and then I actually want to, this is gonna get even more awkward, I think. I want to talk a little bit about Michael Creighton's awkward turn towards climate skepticism.
'cause I don't know where else to talk about it. Yeah. In this episode, if people don't know this, I mean, this is a major, I would say, stain on his [00:21:00] legacy for a lot of people because he's pretty progressive and intelligent and on the money with a lot of things in terms of addressing technological fears and addressing threats of nature and so forth.
He becomes a climate skeptic in the mid two thousands. Actually, it may even trace before that, but he is got this book, state of Fear.
John: Yeah.
Michael: That is all about why global warming is wrong. Here's where I'm at with that book one, it is pretty easy actually to go through line by line and say, Michael Creon, you're wrong here.
You're wrong about the urban heat island effect. You're wrong about how you're characterizing the consensus. Like they're point by point things that I disagree with. He's what you might describe as a, what they sometimes call a lukewarm.
John: Hmm. Uh,
Michael: have you ever heard that term? I've never
John: heard that term before.
I mean, I can deduce what it means. Yeah. What, what would you think? It's like, yes, there are, but it's not as impactful as we imagine. It's, yeah.
Michael: I mean, he, even in, in that interview with Charlie Rose says,
Archival: I absolutely believe that warming is occurring, [00:22:00] humans are involved and where it's gonna continue for the next a hundred years.
Then what did you say that got everybody so upset at you? I'm not a catastrophe. And Oh, I said one other thing too. I said, I think it is not likely that carbon dioxide is gonna prove to be the primary driver.
Michael: Where he's really wrong is how much warming that's gonna mean and how consequential that's gonna be.
So he is absolutely downplaying the threat of climate and he's way off. But I do think that he makes one point that's actually really valid, which is he says, I'm not a catastrophes.
John: Mm-hmm.
Michael: One of the things that I think is so hard, has always been hard about conversations around climate is that the effects of climate change are pretty diffuse and are entangled with a whole bunch of other environmental concerns.
Right. If you are worried about water resources, if you are worried about extinction, if you're worried about land use and agricultural output, any of those things, [00:23:00] climate has its fingerprints on there, but it's not the only thing driving those changes.
John: Sure.
Michael: And. There is some validity to his point that maybe we are racing towards a story of global civilization collapse because we are attracted to those kinds of stories.
Mm-hmm. As people,
Archival: human beings, they line up for the catastrophe. They're ready for it, they're ready for overpopulation, they're ready for resource depletion, they're ready for whatever it is. They're, we're ready for bird flu. I mean, you know, it's gonna wipe us well. But bird flu is not a problem either.
It's a potential problem. Could be a very serious problem. Yes, I thought so. Yeah. But I mean, people are, are they're ready? They're excited. They're excited about may count the, I think it's far, for example, I've done this as a sort of test, sit down at dinner party and you say the world is coming to an end.
We have the most horrible things. It's about, and you get immediately the aroused attention of the table. Alternatively, you say, you know what? Basically everything's [00:24:00] good. Uh, the world's getting better. Nobody cares. No, they get, they get angry. Or they turn away. It's not what we want to hear. We want to hear disaster.
Michael: He is raising a good point. He's just doing it very, very poorly. One of the reasons I feel like I've had a hard time talking about Michael Creighton for the last 15 years is because of this very weird turn right before his death.
John: Yeah.
Michael: Like had this not happened, had he died in 1999, hit by a bus, like it'd be all praise, you know?
But these last 7, 8, 9 years are like, Michael, what the fuck? Do you think he knew
John: it was going to have that impact?
Michael: Yes, I do actually. I think he knew he was stir the hot. He, yeah. People say, I heard him saying that Charlie Rose interview, you're gonna get flayed for this. And he felt like he had to do it.
And this is like, okay, you, so, so you're arrogant.
Archival: I thought, you know what? I'm not writing this. I'm just, it doesn't matter. I'll, I'll, as you said, keep my opinion to myself. I started to work on something else and I felt like a coward.
Michael: And the thing [00:25:00] is, this stands in contrast to everything else. We were talking about a second ago in terms of tech support?
In terms of science communicator.
John: Yeah. Intelligent paranoia.
Michael: Intelligent paranoia. Yeah. It's like, I think he is trying to call into question our emotions and our sentiment, but he does it by exaggerating the uncertainties in the science and by cherry picking.
John: Mm-hmm.
Michael: And, and so tactically he's wrong, but I actually think emotionally he's got a point.
John: I think he had a, a real. Fear of human beings being seduced by a narrative. Yes. I think that was his and that
Michael: that is fair.
John: That's fair. Fear is a great moneymaker. Yeah. So I think that was, he seemed to have a, a massive aversion to that. The way he executed this through that book
Michael: Yeah.
John: Was not great.
There's like an old man, stubborn quality
Michael: there sure
John: was.
Michael: Again, it stains his entire legacy.
John: Yeah. To
Michael: me. Right. I mean, I, I think that because he all made us feel smarter, it's so like, ah, you know? Yeah. Let me say one last thing [00:26:00] about climate, John, because I do think. You know, I have so much to say on this.
Let a rip. Yeah. This well, oh well
John: you are a, a scientist.
Michael: No, I'm not anymore. And actually that's kind of the point. In as much as he's my secret hero and I see myself in him, I stopped being a scientist 15 years ago. Mm-hmm. And even when I was, any scientist only ever has a narrow sliver of the story
John: of expertise.
Michael: Right. And this is, I think where Michael Creighton strays is that because he's been able to know so much about a lot, he thinks he can know everything about anything that's arrogant and a lot of academics fall into that trap.
John: There's a point where you do kind of have to stay in your lane
Michael: and it's hard to know where that is.
Yeah. If you're six nine and brilliant. Okay, so let's recap number one. I said untouchable. He's an alien. Number two, you said
John: intelligent paranoia. Love that.
Michael: Number three. Tech support. Number four.
John: Stillness in the chaos theory. Stillness in
Michael: the chaos. And number five, my secret hero With some caveats. Yeah.
Okay, let's take a break. Category three. One [00:27:00] Love. In this category, we each choose one word or phrase that characterizes this person's loving relationships. First, we will review the marriages and the kids, five marriages for Mr. Michael Creon. First one to Joan. 19 65, 19 70. Michael was 23, divorced at 28.
Second one, Kathleen St. John married at 36. Divorced at 38. That didn't last long. Mm-hmm. Susanna Childs married at 39, divorced at 41. Also didn't last long. Number four. Ann Marie married at age 45. Divorced at 61. Hey, next 16 years in there. One child in there, Taylor, Ann Creighton. And then number five, Sherry married at age 63 and Michael Kreon died at the young age of 66.
And there was a son, John Michael, born after Michael Kreon died. Wow. Do you have something good?
John: Yeah. I, I don't know if it's good, but I've uh, what do you got? What do you got? I got, uh, my favorite line from Jurassic Park. Hold on to your buck.
Michael: Okay. He is chain smoking marriages. Yeah, he is. [00:28:00] Got
John: that cigarette hanging out of his mouth ready to reboot Samuel
Michael: Jackson.
No. The way that cigarette bobs in that. Yeah.
John: So iconic. Just,
Michael: yeah. It's like, hold onto your butts though. That's what your
John: butts ladies is what I'm saying. This guy looked like, I think on the outside, looked like somebody who would be a dreamboat.
Michael: Yes.
John: Say, well, in the doctor thing. Oh, that doctor thing and the, I mean, six nine.
Yeah, the money was rolling in, you know, totally. Santa Monica and What a catch. What a catch. And he
Michael: was caught many times.
John: Oh yeah.
Michael: And then released
John: that. Released baby. I bet. The beginning is. Fire. Yeah, I bet. That's why I think Hold onto your butts, because I bet he's getting into it. Yeah. You know, he's like sending the love bomb's.
Go to Tahiti
Michael: for the weekend. Oh, come on now. Yeah. Oh, I love you so much. I got a who, who wants to go to Paris right now, and then he is
John: gotta write a book and then you don't see him for two months. Yeah,
Michael: right. He would completely shut himself off and a tiny room that he had to duck into. Like a hobbit hole.
Yeah. To like bang out a novel.
John: He worked on those novels, like it was a more than nine to five job. I mean, he would, I think I read somewhere like Ev as [00:29:00] you got closer to the end of the book, he would wake up earlier and earlier. Yeah. So sometimes he would only get like two hours of sleep, which
Michael: is cool. I really love that.
Excited. But it excited is absolutely coming at the expense
John: of interpersonal relationships. Oh yeah. Oh absolutely. He's gonna be like, what? Groceries? Okay. What? What oil change? I don't know what you're talking about. You know, like, can't imagine him being a good partner, you know? Yeah. Like, but obviously
Michael: not, but
John: yeah.
But yeah, take your ride, but let him go.
Michael: Okay. Let me give you my metaphor. I said stacked Petri dishes. So, okay, so gross. You're the kind of, yeah. So each marriage I think is its own little biological experiment, a Petri dish. The conditions change, the variables are tweaked, but it's the same results. Blurry glass.
Do I see the right thing here? I don't, I think there's a lot of messy notes. There's a lot of complicated things after death. Like his estate was not Oh, yeah. Well, sorted out. His son to be, was not identified in the his will not
John: great documentation. Not great documentation, not great data management. And in the
Michael: end of the, I, I don't know if you've been in a lab that has a bunch of [00:30:00] Petri dishes, they kind of just stack up in the corner and they're sealed off and they're kind of discarded.
John: Yeah. You know, so stacked Petri dishes, he's got some, is my, he's got stacks. He's got stacks of, uh, ladies. Yeah. And,
Michael: and, and it's, I don't know if I wanna say gross for, for a man with his talents and with his in intellect. And I also think heart and compassion. I think he is introspective. I mean, that comes out in travels.
He no damn good at this piece.
John: Yeah. He probably could have done a little bit more of the energy work. Exactly, yes. Uh, to kind of smooth some of this part out and,
Michael: and there's a selfish self-centeredness. Oh. You know? Yeah.
John: I mean, he's living the introvert's dream. I don't need anybody to make my coins.
That's exactly
Michael: right. He is living the introvert's dream. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah. Um, speaking of making coins, let's move on Category four net worth. In this category, John and I will each write down our numbers ahead of time. We'll then talk a little bit about our reasoning, and then we'll reveal our numbers to see who's closest.
And then finally we'll place Michael Creon on the famous and gravy net worth leaderboard. I'm [00:31:00] imagining quite a bit of money here. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like Jurassic Park, the franchise. He and Spielberg, they go back. By the way, they knew each other in like the early seventies. Oh yeah. They were buds.
Yeah. But I mean, one thing I didn't realize. Is that he's not just an author. I didn't know about this whole, he wrote and directed Westworld the original. Mm-hmm. With Yu Brenner, he directed great train robbery with Sean Connery. He was more inside the entertainment industry than like Stephen King, for example.
Who Stephen King has directed one movie, maximum Motor Drive, with Video Estevez, bless his heart. I love that movie because it's got an ac DC soundtrack. But so Stephen King has this relationship with Hollywood. And that his books get adapted, but it's not the same sort of level of involvement. God no. And not the same sort of business acumen that Michael Creon has.
All of this is to say he had some bank, bank must of that big, big money and I, so anyway, oh, let's go ahead and reveal. John Watts wrote down $30 million.
John: Michael Osborne [00:32:00] wrote down 300 million.
Michael: Okay. The actual net worth number for Michael Creighton, 400 million. 400
John: million.
Michael: Yeah, you were way off. Well, something I've learned on the famous and gravy journey is producers do very, very well.
Hmm. Like orders of magnitude better than directors who do orders of magnitude better than actors.
John: Actors, yeah.
Michael: And with something like Jurassic Park, which I think it came just shy of 1 billion. So let's place him on the famous and gravy net worth leaderboard. So at 400 million, he's all by himself. He's right below Queen Elizabeth.
Okay. And, and right above Kenny Rogers, Kenny and Tina Turner are actually tied for six at two 50. Top five though Michael Creton well done. $400 million.
John: I feel really poor. Yeah. Like I was like 30 million. Oh my gosh. I feel very, he Uncle Scrooge diving in those, the bank bombs,
Michael: I feel very short. Let's move on.
Category five. Little Lebowski, [00:33:00] urban Achievers.
Archival: They're the little Lebowski, urban achievers. Yeah. The achievers. Yes. And proud. We are, of all of them
Michael: in this category, we each choose a trophy and award, a cameo and impersonation or some other form of a hat tip that shows a different side of this person.
John: Okay. I have a spicy one. Mm-hmm. In 1994 People magazine named Michael Creon, one of the 50 most beautiful people
Michael: in
John: the
Michael: world. I saw this. He's, you know, did you see who was hot? He's, he's a very, very attractive man. He's hot. Did you see who was number one that year?
John: No. Was it Brad Pitt?
Michael: No. Christian Laettner of Duke basketball Hot.
Another very tall man. Apparently people was into Tallman this year. All right. Yeah. I mean, but Michael Cretins an attractive man. He's hot. Yes. Is he hot because he's intelligent too? Or, or, or? I
John: think standalone hot. So if he was dumb as a rock, we, I would, he could. He's still a smoke show. He could still get it.
Yeah. Okay. I would not kick him outta bed for eating crackers. Got it. I mean, that is all like. Frosting. Like the Ivy League education, right. The million dollars, the movie, all of that's [00:34:00] aside. Yeah. This guy, I remember even when I looked at the back, you know, and they had Yeah, the book jacket and the back and the book jacket when I was a kid looking at that and being like, okay, damn.
Oh wow. Hello. Oh, oh. I think I just, has he written other books? Yeah. It's like, did I just discover something about myself? Uh, I'm pretty sure I did. Is that
Michael: right? Was it Michael Kreon opened some doors for you?
John: Yeah, I think maybe he did. I, but yeah, I think people Magazine knew. They said, uh, I mean, they said science fiction, more like science fiction baby.
Ooh. Getting these cookies.
Michael: Good. He's
John: boring.
Michael: Okay. Uh, I'll go ahead and give you mine. I'm gonna say CGI Pioneer. Mm-hmm. He is the very first director to use CGI.
Archival: In 1973, when I was directing my first film, um, a movie called Westworld, I wanted to do a special effect that required digitization. So we went out to, uh, effects houses and nobody knew what we were talking about.
They kept saying, don't you wanna solarize? I said, no, this is something called [00:35:00] digitization. You have to, um, turn the image into, into a, a series of ones and zeros and then manipulated in the computer. Nobody had a computer, nobody knew what we were talking about. Finally went to Jet Propulsion Laboratory and they said that they could do two minutes of film for us for a million dollars and it would take nine months.
We explained that the whole movie was gonna cost a million dollars, and we had only nine months to make it. And actually, finally what happened was that, uh, a man named John Whitney Jr. Did it at night on some computers that were owned by a company called Information International. And I think that was the first, uh, use of digitized film in a motion picture.
Michael: He is using computer technology in the early seventies. It's a sort of almost like Terminator shot. It's like what the robot sees that's been digitized. Okay. Um, it's, he's an early adopter. I admire that. To your earlier point about paranoia, he is both freaked out by science [00:36:00] and unintended consequences, but he's also wanting to understand it by becoming a practitioner and a user and that I admire.
So yeah, first director to use CGI first director. And I think it gets to what I was saying a second ago about like, I'd never thought of like Michael Creon, the director, but for people older than us that was. An association they had with him. Oh. Was an author turned director
John: up until Jurassic Park. It was Mo He directed most of his films.
Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm. I mean, it's
Michael: kind of wild. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, okay, let's move on. Category six words to Live by. In this category, we each choose a quote. These are either words that came out of this person's mouth or was said about them. I'll kick us off. This was maybe too easy, but I do think that Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, the Jeff Goldwin character, yeah.
He has some awesome lines and they're awesome in the book too.
Archival: You're implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will breed. No, I'm, I'm simply saying that life, uh, finds a way.
John: Life. Finds
Archival: ways.
John: Finds ways. I love
Michael: that. [00:37:00] So good. I do love that. He also says in the book, in the Information Society, nobody thinks we expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought.
John: Mm-hmm.
Michael: He ex is expressing some of his concerns about the coming internet revolution as early as the mid nineties. I watched a a, a Ted Talk. He gave that early Ted talk I mentioned earlier where he says something about how there is this thing where we all fall in love and we're all excited and we get these utopian ideas and we don't think of the unintended consequences.
Maybe I'm sounding old fogey here, but nobody thinks in the information age. Like what? Knowledge. Especially in the age of AI now. Like what are we expected to,
John: he's turning in his grave with the AI writing papers and, and
Michael: I think. It's easy for my paranoia to spin out, but we didn't banish thought. But I guess what I read in here was the power of pen to paper.
We haven't banished paper and lately I've been on [00:38:00] this kick where paper really matters. I believe in writing things out longhand. This came up in the Hunter s Thompson episode. One of the things I love about Hunter s Thompson is letter writing. The act of writing forces you to organize your thoughts. I think that we're at a moment in time where we need to make a full throated case for that craft when it's so easy to dictate and when it's so easy to outsource your thinking to chat.
GPT. So those, those were my words to live by. What do you have?
John: I had something somewhat similar. This is another quote from an interview. The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance. It is the illusion of knowledge.
Michael: God, you hear that and you're like, yes Michael, and you're wrong about climate. But yes.
Which I thought was interesting. Yeah, it is. Because he said that because it applies to him and it's true.
John: Yeah. And it's true. And it was, listen to yourself Michael, maybe a little bit more.
Michael: So what, unpack that
John: quote for me a little more, John. I think this reflects his deep skepticism toward accepted norms and his emphasis on critical thinking and independent thinking.
[00:39:00] If you see something that is an accepted norm, yeah, question it.
Michael: I just don't know how far to go with this anymore. Right. I feel like I, I was, I was in a conversation with somebody whose politics I don't agree with the other day. Nope. I mean like really don't agree with, and it, he was singing the praises of the institutional gatekeepers have now been exposed.
And this is the balance that I feel like we, I don't know how to get back to that. You do need safe. Private conversations where skepticism can be expressed and explored, but also resolved and in a completely open information ecosystem, like where there's no such thing as a private conversation, that last part of safe, but contains skepticism.
That is what I feel like we've lost and that's, that's fundamental for science. You need to be able to say, I don't know if I agree with this. I need the freedom to, to call bs. What, what has happened today is that everybody is able to exploit uncertainties and tell their own stories and make up their own reality.
John: Right. I [00:40:00] think that's really important to say that it does take one-on-one conversation in in some cases. Yeah. To do this and now and to this or
Michael: protected space, even if it's like 20 people talking. Right, right. A protected
John: space is a way, is a better way to put it. Yeah. I think it's important to have that, but now everything is on a grand global stage and there's so much opportunity for that here.
Michael: So I'm sort of like trying to apply the famous eng Gravy way of thinking to Michael Creon. I, I really don't know where this all leaves me because my deference to somebody else's expertise is a more emotional process than I'd care to admit. You know what I mean? It's very, it's very easy to spin out that I don't know how to do this anymore.
You know? Yeah. And, and like where to go for trusted knowledge.
John: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It used to be so. Clear cut. You say, oh, this person has the appropriate letters after their name. Right. So we'll listen to them. And now that's sort of been washed away and now it's,
Michael: I heard a podcast where this man said this thing and I totally have changed my mind about everything.
Right, right. John
John: Watts said that Michael Creon was hot and now I believe it. [00:41:00]
Michael: I believe exactly. I believe every
John: word he said. For an
Michael: example, I, I meant other podcasts.
John: I know I was talking about me. Um,
Michael: so what was the quote one more time?
John: The Greatest Enemy of knowledge is not ignorance. It is the illusion of knowledge.
So I think that the illusion of knowledge, I think is just this idea of yeah. Like how can we sort of stay humble and say maybe, I don't know.
Michael: This is the thing, is that it is such an important quote. It's just, it's sort of ironic how much I feel like it, it twists around his legacy. Right. You know? Right.
Yeah.
John: Which I thought was interesting. Yeah. When I picked it out.
Michael: That's a good one. Okay, let's move on. Category seven, man in the Mirror. This category asks a fairly simple question, did this person like their reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence versus self-judgment.
I'm gonna go hot take here. I think he didn't.
Archival: You think so?
Michael: I think he feels very, no. Very awkward being six nine. And he talks about it and I don't think he ever totally [00:42:00] comes to terms with his own genetics. You would think very attractive, very self-confident, very self-assured. Like inside and out. This man seems very sure of himself.
John: Mm-hmm.
Michael: I think he's covering something up. My two points of evidence are where he talks about, I've seen him in an interview with Diane Sawyer, you know, talking about how he was bullied for being, you know, so
Archival: tall. I was really uncomfortable, you know, I was the tallest person in the the world as far as I could tell.
Older kids chased me home and. Beat me up. I don't think there's any question that I did have a kind of withdrawal. I think it
Michael: also is evident in the inability to commit to another relationship. I think that is chains, smoking marriages hold onto your butts. I think that there is something that tells me there's deeper insecurities then you would otherwise believe, and I do think he feels separate and apart from.
People in a lot of ways, I [00:43:00] think that whole introversion fantasy Yeah. Says something and, and now I think you can be a confident introvert, but that's my hot take here. I'm actually saying he does not like his reflection despite being the 39th most beautiful person of 1994.
John: I mean, I think, yeah, I think that alone, if I looked in my, in the mirror and I was Michael Creton, I would be giving you, I would be serving looks in that mirror, I'd be like, Ooh, you'd
Michael: be ducking down to look in that mirror.
So you're going confident. Yes. You're not. I'm gonna
John: say yes. I think he, I absolutely, if we see anything, and I think he was very confident in his mental processes for how to understand the world around him. Yeah. I think he was very steadfast in his ability to identify who he was Yeah. And what his purpose was on this earth.
I think there was a lot to be proud of. So I disagree with the idea that there were, I. I can imagine there, there might be some insecurities, obviously with the, you know, especially with relationships. Yeah. I could see that being a bit of a chink in the armor, but I,
Michael: I'm going hot take and I don't think I'm right.
I'm happy that you have a hot take. I think we [00:44:00] can
John: disagree. Yeah. I just, yeah. I can't imagine him looking in the mirror and being like, oh God, what did you do with your life? What an idiot. God, we talking about wrong turns. Yeah. Where did I go? He was a failure. I should have just
Michael: been a, a humble doctor.
John: What a loser. God. No way. I don't think he did. So I just agree. I just
Michael: think, I guess the story I'm telling here is that the awkwardness of the body, which I think has some insecurity plus the. Challenge in trying to stay grounded with your own success.
John: Yeah.
Michael: Looks burdensome to me and bears out in interpersonal relationships, so I don't think he likes his reflection.
Do you
John: think everyone you've had on, like every celebrity you've talked about, has been burdened by their success? I'm just curious. I,
Michael: I don't know, John. That's a great question. I think yes, on some level I think that even imagine it would
John: have to be that way. Yeah.
Michael: Because everybody I know who's uber confident is also hiding inside a tremendous amount of fear because that's how the human condition works.
We're all born with deep instincts of fear and insecurity [00:45:00] and a need to feel like we belong, and this is what it means to be human. The reason I'm going this direction with Michael Kreon is that I think that there's actually more evidence for insecurity than you might otherwise think. This question in this category is always.
Somewhere in the middle,
John: I could see him being the type of person who achieved something great and then, and maybe he's happy for a day or two and the shine wears off immediately. Yeah. Which is kind of how I am with, you know, with some things in my life. Like, I mean,
Michael: actually that's an interesting point as it relates to Michael Kret because I do think that as his success went on and as he became somebody who could talk to American Japanese relationships or could talk about evolution and our relationship to extinction, that him feeling compelled to weigh in on climate, I is one of the biggest, if not the biggest scientific question mm-hmm.
Facing humanity right now. So I, I do think that part of that is I have a greater purpose. I, Michael Cretin have been the guy who has [00:46:00] talked to people about pandemics and has told stories about the big issues of the time. I gotta weigh in on this one and I have a hot take. It ain't as bad as we think.
John: Yeah.
Michael: You know, that kind of makes sense to me in terms of a progression. I'm sure he thought he was doing a good thing. I'm very confident he was telling himself a story. I'm a good person and the world needs me to do this. I
John: think he was 10 toes down on that up, no question. Until the, until his last day.
Michael: Yeah. And probably liked his reflection, but I'm saying no. So you said yes. I said no. I agree to disagree. Have fun. Okay. Category eight, cocktail coffee, cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most wanna do with our dead celebrity. So he's a scuba diver. I. And I really like the idea of traveling internationally with Michael Kre.
And so, you know, I love the face you're making like, gross. Here's
John: the don't, don't, don't, just don't talk about it. Ugh. Nobody wants to hear all that.
Michael: I, that's,
John: it's
Michael: probably true. It does have like a braggadocious quality to, its
John: so annoying. It's like talking about your dreams when you, it's like [00:47:00] nobody cares.
Where you went in Turkey. I don't give a shit.
Michael: No, but I want to go to Turkey and have a drink. Or I actually, I wrote somewhere in Tahiti, a, a coconut mojito is what I went with. Um, hello? Yeah. White rum, coconut cream, lime mint. Mint soda, water. I do like the idea of going on a dive somewhere in the South Pacific, seeing the coral reef garden and, uh, beauty and mystery of sea life.
And then getting out of the water, going back to the tiki bar and having a, you, I love the face you're making, you're like getting disgusted here. No, it's
John: great. Okay. It's all great. Detail me about your travel.
Michael: It's not What I want is the opportunity to have a step out of the world conversation. Okay. With Michael Creon.
Okay. In an exotic locale with white sand, beaches, and sunshine, what is
John: the exotic locale doing for you?
Michael: Freedom to talk. Okay. Right. Certainly. I want to try and dig in on my theory here that what he's done in [00:48:00] questioning the science of global warming tactically is off. 'cause he, he's dug in and he's really stubborn.
John: Yeah.
Michael: But I, I wanna approach him with the idea of like, is your main point about. Catastrophism, and let's talk about that because you do understand story and you do understand why people are attracted to certain kinds of stories that we tell around science, technology, and the planet. I would be curious to get at the emotional touchpoints of why we are drawn to that, why human nature is drawn to that, and what he would have to say about that.
Separate and apart from the particulars of climate science.
John: Mm-hmm. Right.
Michael: Plus, I like the idea of a little bit of scene setting with, you know, let's remind ourselves of the wonders of the natural world before having that conversation, because that is where some of this is coming
John: from. Mm.
Michael: Some of our paranoia is derived from our.
Spiritual connection, our love of the natural world and things that may threaten it. I feel like it would be good to prime the conversation that way.
John: [00:49:00] Maybe knock 'em off that high horse.
Michael: Well, we need to be sitting down because it's gotta be a literally a more level. Oh yeah.
John: You know? Yeah. You need like, yeah.
Some sort of hammock, like chair hammock. I like it. Hammock. Yeah. Hammock situation. Michael, you
Michael: get in that hammock and we're gonna talk. I like this. This is painting a scene here. Yeah. Alright, so what did you go with here?
John: I went with cannabis.
Michael: Alright. Yeah. Tell me why. I have a
John: different desire. Okay.
Because we need some privacy because I want to collaborate with him on a new idea. For a book.
Michael: Okay.
John: Yeah. I wanna storyboard it. Yeah, I wanna, I want to do some Yes. Anding. Yeah, I wanna do some trust falls some what if thing. Yeah, let's do some what if thing. Yeah, I think like that would be so much fun with him.
And I feel like I love this. You would sort of, with the cannabis would be able to think, be on the edge of the map, you know, in that way. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, it really sort of unlock that what if switch. Yeah. In him. So I'd like, you know, what if we throw out ideas, like what if we engineered memory?
Michael: How engineered memory.
Say more. Okay. What other ideas did you have here?
John: Oh, I just like was throwing out ideas. What [00:50:00] if, uh, robots started craving male affection and then fought for it.
Michael: Yeah. Have you ever collaborated with somebody creatively on a project, uh, outside of this podcast right now? Are we Oh yeah. No. Outside of this
John: podcast?
No, not really. I think
Michael: you
John: would be good at it. Actually, I love a situation where we're just like, yeah, crisscross applesauce. Yeah, well
Michael: brainstorm. And I've had the experience of feeding off of somebody else's ideas and like, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. And then there's a kind of accumulation of enthusiasm and possibility when you can take all of that creative potential and turn it into actual output and something real, something that's on the page or on the screen or recorded in an audio or whatever it is.
It is about as exciting as anything. Uh, that's sort of
John: like divergent thinking. Yeah. We just sort of throwing ideas out there, you know, it's like, uh, what if ancient DNA messages, right? Like, just like, okay, just throw it out there. I would, I would love a, to do a what if. Situation with him and see what his process is.
Yeah, that has, [00:51:00] it has always been fascinating to me. I couldn't find a lot about his process. I know that he did lock himself in a, like a separate house on the property. I want a taste of that.
Michael: I love that. Okay.
John: Yeah.
Michael: Well, I think we've arrived. The final category, the Vander Beek named after James Vander Beek, who famously said in varsity blues, I don't want your life In that varsity blue scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on a single characteristic.
So here John and I will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how Michael Creighton lived. I think that there are two things in the counter argument bucket and feel free to add to these. One is the stain. Are we going to remember him with a kind of crooked eye because of his. Turn towards climate skepticism.
It really does make you just look ance at the rest of his legacy. And then the second thing is chain smoking marriages. It sounds like he has friends. He and Spielberg were tight. Sounds like he and Sean Connery were Buds. Yeah. Two, he
John: was in two of his, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Michael: Rising son [00:52:00] and great train robbery.
Mm-hmm. And they, they spoke fondly of each other. But it's not clear to me that this guy feels connected with other people. Exactly.
John: It's at least in that romantic department, it seemed like that was a struggle, obviously. Right. And I, we have data. I
Michael: mean, I think he's invited into interesting intellectual rooms, like Oh yeah.
So I think he's probably got community, but I do think that the, I don't know, kind of dysfunctional piece there in terms of what am I contributing and what am I taking away from my loving relationships? I don't know. It's an argument against everything else is pretty Should we just go right for the argument for
John: I was just gonna say, I think, you know, there's, I'm, I'm sure he was a bit tortured with that brain.
Yeah. Seems like it. Like just, I think it would be hard to fall asleep. Yeah. Prank going on and you know, and, and just, oh, that's interesting. Like a busy mind. I think he had a busy mind. I could see him feeling unsettled a lot. Yeah. And having this sort of anxious apartness from others in the world because his mind was just constantly working on these ideas or challenging.
I think he wants us to be so [00:53:00] skeptical of things. Yeah. But I don't know if he realizes how exhausting that is as a human being, to be skeptics of it. It's exhausting. Yeah. Yeah. Like, let me just listen to, let me just hear something and be like, okay, I agree. Fine. And not have to worry about whether or not that is my moral obligation to like investigate everything that's exhausting.
So I could see that his life sounded a little exhausting.
Michael: I guess he, he did have a meditation practice.
John: Yeah. And maybe that slowed him down and that gave him a little bit of ease.
Michael: Yeah.
John: But I, that's how I imagine his brain to be was just sort of always firing and questioning and I mean, that just sounds a little torturous to me.
Yeah. So I could see that being a case against,
Michael: okay, well let's make the case for. What is the number one thing you want here? I mean, I sort of said earlier he's more of my secret hero though than I realized. I think he's a lot of people's hero. I think so too. That's just a lot of
John: people's
Michael: favorite author.
Why use that? Have we, I mean, favorite author, but just because you can write a great book doesn't make your life desirable or enviable. I, I, I mean, I think we wanna be seen as creative, right? Mm-hmm. It is [00:54:00] a validating thing. I mean, is that the number one thing?
John: I think? Is it also that he was just so unique?
I think people wanna feel unique. You look at this, this person who is, I mean, you talk about being a self-made brilliant person with that bank account. It's just seems like that probably It's not just
Michael: the bank account though. I mean, I do think that, I like what you have to say about him being unique. You have to imagine he felt blessed on some level.
If he does have a kind of spiritual pursuit that we kind of get from travels, my instinct is to think that he is asking deeper questions about the nature of the universe. I, I want to believe he's doing that with some. Quality of gratitude that I have been given a certain set of gifts and opportunities in life that few people get.
You know, what does it all mean, kind of, I guess maybe related to that, I do like the eclectic interests he has. Yeah. That's something I absolutely want to in my life. Right. And this
John: sort of renaissance man Yeah. Sort of [00:55:00] vibe that he had, which I think also George Clooney said he was a Renaissance man. Yes.
Yeah. I think that's, that's very attractive
Michael: to, yes. I also think even though we keep hit hitting on, or I keep hitting on this sort of stain of how we communicates around climate. I do think that being a science communicator that is of service. Yes. If you can do that. Well, if you can say there's a bunch of smart people in the lab who are getting together at conferences and are putting out research, and some of it is full of jargon and it's complicated, but I'm gonna tell you a story that helps you understand what this thing is.
Mm-hmm. And why it may or may not be important to you. That is a service to. Society. Yeah. To culture
John: and to humanity. Absolutely. Especially in democratic societies. It's important. It's a discipline itself. Mm-hmm. You really nailed it.
Michael: Yeah. I mean, well, but from mostly he got us to think about things that we probably ought to think about.
John: Yeah. Right. You know what I mean? Made it accessible.
Michael: E even Jurassic Park, which in a funny way, we haven't [00:56:00] talked as much about that movie and that story connects some really interesting things. Extinction is largely irreversible. What if it wasn't? But there's also an effort to help us understand the vastness of geologic time that gets you thinking about the deep forces in the planet and the deep forces in nature, and like what we are capable of doing.
With our God-like powers as humans.
John: Right. I mean,
Michael: that is a subtext of a lot of his work.
John: Yeah. He's getting me to thinking it. I think it's, it's amazing that as a person who has that ability to sort of be a thought leader. Yeah. Which I, I, I hate that phrase, but I think it's a, that he, he really no, it's
Michael: applicable here.
John: Yeah. It's an amazing quality to have and he hated the term futurist, but he in, in many ways was,
Michael: well, I, yeah, I,
John: I hate that term too because it it because you can't
Michael: predict the future well, because it makes it sound like somebody is more knowledgeable about the future than you are. That's a point he makes in that speech you shared today.
Yeah. It's like nobody knows more about the future than I [00:57:00] do necessarily, but I do think that people who can engage in a certain level of divergent thinking and expand your possibilities of what could happen that's valuable if that's what a futurist is, he is that. Mm-hmm. He's expanding your possibilities of what could be true.
John: Yeah. You
Michael: know, not what will
John: be. So it's nice to know that he was not only this handsome smarty pants, but he was also of service Yeah. To people. I think that's the point. Yeah. Which is very, which is a very nice thing to sort of seek in myself as well. You know, like Totally. No, the best
Michael: version of us, John, is always when we're of service.
John: When we're of service. Yeah. Happiness is the byproduct of being useful to other people. Yes. So he's really shown us what that looks like a a grand way. Yeah. You know, so it's unattainable for someone like me.
Michael: Right.
John: But at least and, and me, and most of us. Right. Yeah. But I just think that it's a really great model
Michael: and a reminder of that truth, that even if we're not six, nine bestselling authors with a degree from Harvard, when we are of service and are trying to help people, reminding them of the uncertainty of the [00:58:00] future in a good way, that is actually.
A great thing that all of us can do
John: and we should be doing it in small ways. Exactly not. And
Michael: we should feel validated for doing it in small ways too, right? Yeah.
John: Yeah. That's the preferred way.
Michael: If we were to summarize the points, I do think it is both the creative journey, his skills as a science communicator, but also reminding all of us about the possibilities for the world and therefore for ourselves.
Mm-hmm. Which is being of service ultimately. So with that, James VanDerBeek, I'm Michael Creon, and you want My life?
Before we get to the speed round, if you enjoyed this episode of Famous and Gravy, if you're enjoying our show and you have your phone in your hand right now, please share this with a friend. It helps us to grow our podcast. Alright, John, speed round. If people enjoyed this episode of Famous and Gravy, what other episodes from our archives might they like?
John: I'm gonna say Philip Seymour Hoffman. Wow. Okay. Love that one.
Michael: Take any particular [00:59:00] reason?
John: I just think as an actor, he was kind of chaos on the screen, like Creighton was on the page, you know? Yeah. So he, I like that there's a lot of
Michael: divergent interests. Yeah. And it's sort of eclectic taste.
John: He was just sort of a, a visionary.
Uh, I
Michael: love it. Uh, so that is episode 74, the Masterclass Act, Philip Seymour Hoffman. I'm gonna go with a more recent episode. I'm just gonna choose episode 97, time Pilgrim Kurt Vonnegut. I know that you're not a sci-fi nerd, but great science fiction does a service for us, and that Kurt Vonne did a service for us in a way that Michael Kreon also might have done a service for us.
And sci-fi authors deserve a little bit more love. So love that. Episode 97, uh, time Pilgrim, Kurt Gant. Here's little preview for the next episode of Famous and Gravy. He won an Academy Award in 2018, the first African American to win for best animated short, I wanna say Betty White, but I think it's off.
It's not Betty White. She didn't win for [01:00:00] being the first African American to win. It's, that's a good guess. It's good. No, actually, it's an awful guess. That's an awful guess. Famous and Gravy listeners, we love hearing from you. If you wanna reach out with a comment question or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com.
In our show notes, we include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels. Famous Eng Gravy is created by Ahmed Kapur and me, Michael Osborne. Thanks so much to John Watts for guesting on this episode. It was produced by Evan Scherer with assistance from Jacob Weiss. Original music by Kevin Str.
Thanks. See you next day.