You'll be tested every single day.

All over the US, there is a need to teach young people to, really, get them out in the backyard, building treehouses, fixing bicycles, because you become a better, more well-rounded, Renaissance personality if you actually know how to do things with your hands. If you can fix the screen door or replace your old garbage disposal, even change the tire on a car, a lot of people don't even know how to do that. We're literally running out of people who know how to do those things, the essential things like plumbing, carpentry, stone masonry, we're literally running out of them.

That was actually Lloyd Phillips who was a Kiwi film producer in L.A. And it was about Gorgeous George, not Haystacks Calhoun. I was in a couple of Lloyd's films and got approached to write the story. People don't realize it, but Gorgeous George had this flamboyant, camp stage persona that had a tremendous influence on other celebrities, like Elton John, Liberace, Elvis Presley, and Mohammed Ali, who all wanted to establish their own outlandish stage personas. The project died because Gorgeous George's wife refused to give up the rights.

But from what I can see all around me today, that America is fading fast, if it's not already gone.

[ Oval House] director, Peter Oliver, gave you the right to fail. He had a philosophy that came from Winston Churchill that you go from failure to failure with enthusiasm. So Peter gave us a go and that's how Ray [Hassett] and I ended up starting Sal's Meat Market at the Oval House.

Maybe, I got a sense when [Star Wars] came out, and there were always these lines around the block. We didn't understand the popularity of Cheers until maybe five years into the series.

I've turned down projects based on raunchiness before.