Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20150102

G some of the people we lost in 2014. These men and women lead lives of purpose and consequence. They enriched our culture through their inventions art and enterprise. They have appeared on this program in the past 24 years and passed away this year. Every israeli every jew wants peace. Not i was branded sometimes a general looking for war. May i tell you something personal i have been participating in all the wars of the state of israel. And i went through the ranks. I started as a private first class. And i saw all the battles, i saw all the lorraine hahns of the battles. I felt all the fears of the battles. We lost our and myself i lost most of my friends in battles. I was very seriously wounded twice. And i had being in hospitals and i had to make decisions of lifeanddeath of myself and of fathers. And believe me i understand the point of peace better than most of those to speak about peace and never had these experience. Now the question how long can we live like that we will have to live like that as long as there is no strange in the attitude of the arab world to jews in israel. And by now we have not seen yet any change. It doesnt mean that we have to wait with every attempt until then. But we have to be very, very careful. And i think its important that jews around the world and friends of israel nonjewish friends of israel should understand that we are facing all the time and now to our very existence. So we the jews have to decide if the jews want to have an independent country of their own. They have to be ready to hold the sword in one hand. It doesnt mean that they have not take steps to the peace. Im interested to make a step forward. All the things i directed have not been a good family story or something. I always try to invent something new or even the it is always i think it should be something new. We discovered this new aspect in a play or in a movie. You know its really acting is a weird thing because really the best acting is a daytoday thing and thats why doing the theatre is so important to know me. Rose what does that mean daytoday. You are only as good as what you are doing right then. And i truly believe it. That is what i think of acting. Acting is not something that is put on a canvas that you can put up on a wall and see whenever he wants to see it it is really what you do in that day with what it is what you do on that day is when im satisfied. Im as good as what im showing you right now because in the theatre is something that will humble you in a second because you will be as bad as you can be at certain moments sometimes in the theatre. Rose where did the start from. That was started when i was a kid. My father had a restaurant in yonkers you know. And i used to pick up dishes on lunchtime when i came home from school, pick up a dishes and help my father out. Each table had a different ethnic there was a frenchmen over here germans over here italians over here greeks, so i used to walk over they would talk to me. And i go, they said i thought oh you dont want that then i would go to the italian table. You would say two eggs. You have what is it. One or the other. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Its true. A lot of people try to analyze, how do you do that i dont know. I just do it. You always want to go overseas. I did. Isnt it strange. I have two brother older and younger, both went into the academic world in one way or another interested in international affairs. I went over and it stuck. I knew, what was t i guess my freshman year in edge chr i wanted to be a television a Foreign Correspondent. When you were there in the beginning was it hard to get on the air because you had to get the footage from vietnam you couldnt go by satellite. No satellite. So you had to fly back. We would go before it hit the air right. When the half hour shows came out ept of 63 cronkite there were to satellites there were very few correspondent who knew how to dot work, knew how to go out and package a story as well as report a story. That is work with the camera team, write the script, make sure it going to go together put it in a sack on a pannal flight. And 48 hours later it be would on the air so you were left to your own devices there was no producer looming over you in the delta. You were given a free hand and those were heady days. You know there are a lot of theories that have been written about the comic spirit in people. And fraudian explanations about it. They say funny people perceive their mothers as being troubled and spent their Early Childhood trying to amuse their mothers lighten their load. You bay that. I think that is your first audience is your mom in the kitchen doing something to make your mom of laugh. Traying to make her happy or laugh. Or make her love you, one or the other. Probably t is all rolled together. Other people talk about the absurd child syndrome the children perceive that they perceive insanity in the world. Were told things as children that are clarely not true. As soon as you open your eyes were told policeman are good. Were told that bad people go to jail. And theyre not blind and deaf it is not all policeman are good, they are indicted all these policeman or innocent people are being executed in jail. So this is the small child either im crazy or the world is crazy now the kid without decides the world is crazy now has two choices. He can be crushed by that or he can find the company dee in it. He sees it either as tragedy or company dee. Once he decides its company dee youre an absurd child. I think the greatest thing i have done in my life charlie is to take care of sick people. To my great regret when i die the obituary is going to be headlined something about the writing. Its not going to talk about all of those people whom oneonone i had the opportunity to care for. And when i say care for i mean not just in the medical sense. Because thats what being a doctor is really all about. The satisfaction of making a difference in somebodys life. The satisfaction of making a difference in someones life but you know each time it makes a difference in your own life too the sense of healing which covers so many thing. Is actually something that benefits the healer just as much as it does the person healed. Well that is something of the past. I always try to show that even a peace of they display it not necessarily in modern costume that that way people are moved by it. I always think that when people go to the opera and they dont come out with eyes with a little bit because i really have cried it didnt work and very afraid that opera could lose his impact on the modern public if you dont make an opera feeling as something of our time and not something of the past. And thats difficult now odays. I have come to care about people i get involved with. I come to care. Im genuine leigh curious about what happens inside the heads and hearts of other people. I think the people im dealing with as a writer can sense that. That this is not be an act. I really do become curious and concerned about what is going on in their lives. What is the hardest part . Writing. The wraing of it. Getting the story is easy compared to the writing and putting it together. And telling the story in a way because freakley youre dealing with stories that you already know the end. Thats true. Cruel data is not a famous story. The Mcdonald Book was more people knew the end. But the writing for me is much harder thats not to say the research is fun. The last time i had fun doing research was my book on alaska. These past 14 years the research hasnt been fun. I love the thing that jim said i dont know who the next president will be but i know who his next friend is going to be. Its been strauss. He said that not about jimmy carter. No. But about somebody else. So what is it about you that these powerful men are attracted to . Well i dont have any desire i never had a desire to run for public office. I was nonthreatening i had a reputation of being very very loyal. And hi a reputation of having pretty good judgement. Judgement is what it is about. That is the main thing. Somebody you can trust. Yeah. And somebody that got good judgement and not just for himself but in business for the countrys good. And the president s good. So i think theyve understood that at the end of the day k the double standard world in which the United States and eight other powers have Nuclear Weapons and gives lectures to try to put pressure on the rest of the world not to have those is just an unworkable thing. Its a invest defeatlessing policy it is to the going to stop proliferation. And it really cant be until the Nuclear Powers theyre saying and im warm leigh agreeing with them it is odd company for me to be in in a certain way. But here i am. Rose schell and kissinger together at last. At last. What they are really saying or what i am saying is that if you bring your own arsenals to the negotiating table thats the american the russian and so on thats the biggest bargaining chip that anybody ever put on a diplomatic table. And you say were willing to go down to zero. Were willing to live in such a world. So you proliferaters better not get into that business. People will say why does he write fiction. But i think my fiction is the heart of my work. Rose i think you will be remembered. I do. Rose maybe im just wrilsing in the dark here but i dont think so. First i began as a short story writer. I wrote about 30 short stories before i wrote any nonfiction. Three of my first four backs were novels. Not very good novels i confess but nonetheless but the stories were being published. And i really was kind of a financial decision. I wasnt i was a commercial fisherman and i was doing that in addition to my writing. And i had a new wife and young kids and i really had to make some money. So i went over into writing nonfiction about what i knew about boats and wild places and wildlife and stuff. Then i got to send me around the world to all the wild places, mr. Sean everybody is writing about europe. Who is writing about all these wonderful wildernesses it that are going down the tubes. That really is the beginning of that. And that produced Nonfiction Book and a fiction book. The real issue is adapt station. The world is changing so fast. A daing to what . Adapting to what it is that students ought to be prepared for as the world changes. I read an article a couple of weeks ago that said hey this is all a con game. You used to say if you went to college and you got out, you got a better job higher salary. And what is happening now. People are coming out and theyre prepared but not for the job. It is interesting. We sent ourselves down that road. We argued tried to tell parents and everybody else if you come to university youre going to make a lot of money. Listen if you come to university, youll have a good life. Learn a good deal and who says a plumber cant read mobbee dic wochlt says a plumber cant be interested in shakespeare. We have to wide everyone our sense of where College People are going to go. Many of the great editors on the times whether broad war correspondent Foreign Correspondent National Bureaus i stayed in that one place. I loved once i became a cultural reporter and critic i loved doing what i was doing. Many of my friends who i have become Foreign Correspondent including Abe Rosenthal and bernard galb. They felt that they mr. Surprised that i wanted to go into what was regarded as a occupation on the times cultural critic. Or pie days so that was not for that was not real men will cover more. Think they were there covering theatre. This was a male world. It was a male world, in those days journalism look. And you had to get out there and do some real tough reporting but Bruce Atkinson persuaded me. Brook atkinson persuaded me. You can always go overseas. Are you doing a lot of articles on a freelance basis for the sunday drama section. Later the arts and leisure system. He said try it out and see you may become a critic some dayment and i think that you will enjoy doing that. You think that poetry is music for the voice. Thats right. His own music. I go back to stand by to Edgar Allen Poe Nikki Giovanni is music written for the human voice and it only comes into its own when it is spoken. It is wonderful to see professors of literature and the Ivy League Universities in colleges looking at what is called concrete that is poetry which is to be seen. And so how it is shaped is so important to the poetry. Thats fine that may be true am but for me until the human voice gives it elevation, it doesnt really sing t doesnt really come into its own. It doesnt lift the heart and make the blood race. Of all the talents you have what one of them resonates most with you . What one of them is the clearest expression of who you are and what are you. Im a writer, thats what i am thats who i am. Thats how i describe myself to myself and to god in prayer, when i say lord, you remember me . Maya angelou six foot tall black female i write lord remember. When i see it i really have to describe myself to the lord. I always infuse what i do, i write. Thats what i do now i thank the lord that i am able to do other things im grateful. But thats how i describe myself to myself. Is it in your judgement a learned craft or is it. Well everything is learned charlie rose. I dont know how you learn it, but everything is learned it is said that some people are born great. Some achieve it and some have it thrust upon them. I think that is true of all the things you are. You are born that thing. You earn it and some of it is thrust upon you. I believe that to be so. Just tell me what it means to you this game if you spent seven decades. I think the book sums it up pretty good. I have never earned a dollar bill outside of baseball. And when i tell that to people i said what did you do, come from a rich family. I said oh, no no, no. When i was a young kid and finally signed out of high school with the brooklyn dodgers went to the Minor Leagues i was a pretty decent player at a very young age. And i was asked to go to havana cuba to play in the Winter League in cuba. And they wanted big League Players at that time. But al camepanas recommended me at a young age to go to cuba. I played there for two or three years and when castro come n that was the end of the baseball. And i went to puerto rico and played in the wintertime. Played there two or three years. And then they started having instructional leagues in florida. And i always wound up as an instructor or something in florida where i lived. Thats why i can say that i have never drawn a paycheck outside of baseball. The defining event of my life was being raised in harlem. Shaped by the black cultural experience. Yes. The whole the total Life Experience and the people that i met. And my stepmother how that all came to be. That is a defining i came out of harlem and i try to put in perspective why it has a claim on you that place. It did then i suppose it still does. The rilt imof the the people and the sounds and ideas everything was a crossroads there prejudice discrimination, as well as love and freedom and fun. The most beautiful thing i suppose has been this relationship. I have learned and we wrote each other a letter in the book. Rose will you read your letter to him . No i no because. You wrote each other a letter. Rose and so because. Rose what did you say. Well we talked about love you know. And sex and beginnings of things and scratching through each other and its like coming out from deep deep murky waters into the of life. Where we could both see each other. And that has been meaningful. How to how does love flourish. Not only love man, woman but how does love work. That has been i come to the conclusion that maybe thats why were put here on earth in the first place. Rose to make love work. To make love work. Here was a man who had never harmed anyone in his life. Was totally along with my mother there was no politics ever involved in our house. The only pictures in our house were religious pictures. So the enormous shock of not only myself being arrested and tortured and taken to england but then finding that not only had my father been arrested but several members of my family had been arrested as well. And tainted with evidence which was obviously fabricated. Rose heres what interests me. Because you pointed out the father son relationship. It is that you grew to understand no appreciate love more deeply your father because of your association in prison, is that fair . Thats totally true. Because all my dealings with my father up to that period were on superficial level. Rose give me some money. Give me some money or tell me what horse will win the next race. But it was only when we were together in prison that i got a deeper understanding of the truman and the spirit that was in the man. And that deeply affected me. My father gave up an ultimate sacrifice for me his life. He came to prison and went through all the brutal hardships of prison to give me an understanding and maturity of what life was all about. You were the definer on stage of Tennessee Williams more than anybody i can think of. Well hes a great poet and a great writer i was fortunate enough to do the rose tattoo with maureven stapleton. That was early in your career. Many years ago 1915 50 48 years ago. The next play i did of his was camino real. And the first film i made was written by Tennessee Williams and directed by cazan. So i feel real rich. Rose you were reminding me of a quote about living. Yes. Tennessee has lord byron says in the play lately i have been listening to hired musicians behind a row of artificial palm trees instead of the single pure stringed instrument of my heart. For what is the heart but an instrument that turns noise into order and chaos into chaos into order and noise into music. Make voyages attempt them. Theres nothing else. And i have taken that as my philosophy. Keep making the voyages, even though it may be a leak in the ship, you want to keep sailing. Rose stay on the journey. Yes. How was he to work with. He was wonderful because he was so bossee. Rose he knew what he wanted. Yes and you didnt get to argue. You could say well, george i was one of the few people who actually called him george because hi known him so long. Rose everybody else what, mr. Abbott. Except his daughter, she called him george or daddy she called him george. He would say can we try this. And he would say you can try it once and if it doesnt works then its out. He was completely fair he was fair and a pragmatist about everything. You would have been so bored with the idea of his dying. Dying was very dull to him. When we were in our or chest call or chest ral read throughs the musical directors mother died and he had no sympathy with that. One day out thats enough. He should be back here. Ronald reagan once said backtoback calling him george said i dont dare call him george because im temporarily between jobs. It is said that he liked to work not with stars he liked to work with people who werent stars. Thats absolutely true. We had a very sad story about that because once monet mattress for matthew worker. She was thrilled to do it was delighted. Everything was signed. And george had the entire Production Group in the room and said how many people here want nancy walk never this part. And 19 hands went up. And he said well, all right i guess i lose but im not going to like it and it had nothing to do with nancy. I loved nancy. But he wanted to make stars not work with them. I pressure every moment of my service in the senate and my brief service at the white house and by the way majority leader of the United States senate may be the very best job in this city. Youve got real power. You can really accomplish things but you still dont have the trappings of security and the things that distort your life. Rose you have more of your life. You do. Rose you dont miss it though. I really dont miss it. I look back on it with great pleasure but i dont miss it. Rose i got 30 seconds left. Do you go, will you always regret that you were not president . I regret that. Thats the one ambition that was obviously unfulfilled. Rose does anything cured that regret. I would very much have liked to have been president of the United States. But i wasnt. Obviously will not be now. So i will help others. Have i been right about iraq, i dont think anyone has been right about iraq. I think iraq has been full of surprises and surprised everyone it surprised the people who prosecuted the car. The people who launched the car. It surprised the liberals who criticized the car. It surprised the hawks who thought iraq would redeem the best hopes. And i dont really looking back on what i wrote about iraq and looking back on on the logic of the war and the logic i subscribe to will you remember i wasnt one of the people who was beating the drums of car the war came i was a 9 11 person this is what i was working on. I was working on 9 11, on the arab attacks on america of 9 11 then the iraq war was launched. And i caught up with the war. And i followed the war. I went to iraq because i didnt want to write about the war and think about the war from a distance. And i plunged myself into this war. And i thought hi some advantages the advantages of language. Here is this irony, we are deeply invested in the arab world and deeply invested in iraq. But many of our people, many of the few who write about the war many of the people who write for or against the war know very little about that culture. I felt i had that advantage at least. So i have just tried my best to understand this war. I have sympathetic to the war. I think its a noble effort. Our friend Bernard Olivier said he thought the war was morally right and politically wrong. Then he asked me, he said what would you say if you were to have a big sound bite about the war. And i said its a noble war. The question will be will it be a Noble Success or a noble failure. Sometimes a noble effort can also fail. I have been in magazines ever since i bumped that them professionally by selling them on the street in the kings road when my hair was down to my pants. And i have loved them ever since. And i will probably go on publishing magazines until the day i die. I think the death of martin king and bob kennedy in 1968 i think the snuffing out of those two lights i think the beginning of the age of cynicism began with that six week period. And perhaps we didnt realize it at the time. But much of the idealism has gone out of politics. It is not seen today by many people as an honorable profession. And i think that the doubts and the questions that people have about whether the political process is meaningful a trem does falloff in the people who participate in the political process in terms of voting because people who have money give money but that has added to the cynicism. I think that bobs position poll as side political leaders could change minds and change lives. I think that began to diminish with his death. And the Chicago Convention which was traumatic and filled with turmoil and trouble was the first recognition of just how deep the cynicism was and just how passionately people felt the loss what. And from there if seems to me there is an aesthetic downhill flow of the idea that politics was an honorable pursuit and a way to the solve problems of society in the world. Rose . Characterize the Charlie Haden style i mean what is the signature . Oh pie goodness. Just honesty i guess. The people that usually characterize my style are the guys that write about the music you know. I am just involved in playing. Its very important to me to communicate as much as i can beautiful music to as many people as i can. Thats my goal. Look at this. This is bass player from august 1996. Charlie haden jazz legend. Does legend fit comfortably on your shoulders when you think of i really cant answer that. I dont you know im not the attorney to say if im a legend or not it doesnt really the thing that matters to me is that heres the music that we play all of the titles and categories are for someone else to write about. I think a great musician is a musician that plays at a level beyond categories. Beyond categories. Beyond categories. What does that mean . That means playing at a level where you are willing to give your life for your art form. And theres no you dont think about categorizeing it. Its just unbelievably beautiful music that has to do with enhancing the planet, making it a better place allowing people to touch deeper parts inside their souls. I didnt think of my in terms of my writing is an inspiration. An exploration. An exploration of life of the meaning of life and in tidge of the meaning of life, its manifestations, where i found myself, where im liveing it so its where are you at that moment in terms of an exploration of questions that you are asking yourself to an extent but questions other people are asking myself as well. Rather than give answers we ask questions, yes. Like interviewers. Do you does it get easier for you . Writing . No its never been either particularly easy or particularly difficult. Its not it is not pachbl its a necessity. Its a necessity. Yes. What is it about muss thake brings you the most satisfaction . People. I love to interact with humans i remember as a youngster young conductor not young, not a child but young conductor in my i would accept engagements in some very odd corners of the earth simply to be able to go to that corner and learn something about people i would never have had contact with otherwise. Like villeages in mexico, i used to go and conduct concerts there what i mean really lost places. Meet one of people learn something, add to mylan gauge facility. And just grow. The best time the best time is now. I dont think there is anything else but now. This is it. Im having the best time with you. I dont i put it in the cabaret because they seem to get a kick out of it somebody said to me talks to me an awful lot nowadays people talk about serenity, you know. Serenity so wonderful to have serenity, somebody asked me to give them a definition of serenity in my life. I said something, i think it was genuinely funny im apt to do that from time to time. They asked me what my idea of serenity was and i said call waiting. And honest to god t may be sad to a lot of people, i like it am the day that i can admit to myself that this is it, for instance, when you think charlie that you complain all the time about this, about that about life about efing about situations everything, if i can get myself to admit because there is son rye et this is it. There is it. Its like how do you like me so far. I love that line. This is it. Rose thats been there. Yeah, theres going to be good times in your life and theres going to be bad times and there wouldnt be any good times if there werent bad times. When i was 25 when i first started acting, and i had been around the world a little bit. Hi traveled in a lot of different societies. And i felt i knew as much as any of these actors that had been to acting school. Rose Life Experience. Yeah i just think that acting is common sense. Rose dow. Yeah and i dont think of myself as an actor. I think of myself as a reactor. Show me an actor i will show you someone thats climbing the scenery and trying to impress. Give me someone who is going to react to the situation or the person or the dialogue or whatever give me a reactor rather than an actor. There there is no question in my mind that you cannot be a success in business if you dont love what you are doing. And if you come to work and its drudgery believe me somebody with a 20 inferior iq will cool you because will be thinking about business and you wont. So you have got to like what youre doing. In a job where you dont like what you are doing change, do Something Else because youre not going to make it. It is a very competitive world there are a lot of smart people. And smart people that enjoy coming to work are going to murder you. I dont believe in working 20 hours a day believe me. I get up in the morning and gi to work and the minute i leave work, i forget it, i go play bridge or do whatever i do. Very rarely do i think about business after i leave the office. But i give it 100 when im there i dont go out for lunch. I eat lunch in the office every day. But i can tell you, i think that is the total key to success. When did you know that you wanted at least to entertain if not be whatever you are. That time when i saw my i think it was after high school. Really . Yeah i knew that i had tendencies that way. What are you doing. Performing. What is that about . Nothing. No i i think it occurred in college when i took this improvisational theatre class and something was so freeing about that that i flunked out of my Political Science course. But did well in improvisational theatre. Amazing, oh very well very well. That thing that i go well now. I have brought my mine hither and my mind and no my friends but in the end you must suppose that charlie rose knows. Yes he does. Yeah so that was you know that was the beginning where it really started to kick out. And pretty much from then on doing this. Is there bun great thing you want to do is this this dow get more satisfaction from this kind of thing or dow in the end get the most satisfaction when are you out there with an audience . Its equal in different ways. I mean its like comparing hang gliding and spelunking this one is kind of the idea of how intimate this piece it and when it works and reaches people on thatity mat level it is just as beautiful to me as performing live it is different but it gives the same satisfaction. But performing live is this extraordinary its this great release and amazing kind of fulfillment of the one to one caveat is performing live and when are you really creating is this old stuff or new. Its an old line, my friend. Ive heard that but when you really find a new thing t is something wonderful, the creation, when you create it that is extraordinary. When i was a kid i always wanted to play act i always wanted i wanted to perform. I wanted to be on the stage. And it just seemed to be a total part of pie being and not because it was ever in my family no member of my family ever came even close to the performing arts. Where do you put applause in the things that you have done in your career. At the top the very top. Oh very top. Nothing. Well i think that i think obviously to have a for so many other reasons but applause was something that i felt i could do. And i did it. If people want the friendship of bette bacall they have to know what about you . Well they have to know how outrageous i am. Rose what does that mean . Well, i believe that without laughter there is no point at all. So i think everything is a joke. That doesnt set well with everybody, you know there are a lot of humorless people in the world but i dont want to know them because i cannot imagine being a friend of anyone who has no humor. Who doesnt laugh. But has to have a sense of humor and not take yourself seriously. I mean you have to take your work seriously but not yourself and i think that wit is one of the guiding factors for me it is one of the most important things in any relationship. Did bogey have wit. And how. And how. And how. How would you like to be remembered. You can remember me because of our great conversations and because you and ri is on the same wavelength, on the same page as they say. So i am let the chips fall where they may, i am not going to be around to worry about it but i hope its kind of positive in one way or another. I know very little about yoga what is important for me to know . You know t is the integration of body in thecismest. The keeps the body healthy the mind Healthy Energy flowing without any disturbances and blel health. But i started learning then through the years i wrote the first book life on yoga which is building on the skeletal and physiological bodiment then i went on practicing where the movement of the the envelope flow in the body, then i thought of so life on yoga then being a seeker in the art of yoga that there is a parity within body there is a statement in body, mind and self. And i wanted to know how to integrate this by using various positions yoga positions and the best technique. And i realized that it came to me that i am no more a seeker, but i am actually seeing what mi doing. Are you seeing what you are doing. What mi doing. So that made me to realize im part of this book because it gave me the light on the self. And light on the self is light on life. Rose yeah. Rose how do you choose what you have do, because you have done shadow lands. Im gandhi we all know why he did that. That was a love affair of a lifetime. But i am most interested charlie, in love. Im not very good with fiction. I dont read much fiction. Is there another gandhi in your mind. Dow really want to know. Yeah, i do. Thomas payne. The american dissident. Yeah actually an english man he was and he came over with ben franklin in 1773 and he wrote the great crisis these were the time et cetera, et cetera et cetera. And then with jefferson he framed the american declaration of independence. What is it about you you think that gives you this tenacity to survive and to bounce back . Fear. No, truly. You know this business. The tenacity is im never vout that im so terrific that anything is beneath me i have never been the one to says thats not my job or im a star i dont do that. That has never, ever crossed my mind that is no one. And number two, i have to make a living. And i, i go to make a living. And there is what i do. And mi up for hire. And i love my work. I dont i love my work. I stand on the stre when theyre filming a commercial and i watch it. Im still struck. And thats what made me keep in the business. Give me some sense of how you think what is the first 100 days says about this presidency and this president and what it might indicate well, i think part of it is what it is as about us, there is always in washington an enormous rush to judgement and i keep waiting for the first column that will read the Clinton Presidency failed because, you know, the term is four years longer we could all lean back and relax a little. Im a painter by profession because i paint every day number one that is how i make my living. You make your living as a painter. Oh yeah. I direct a broadway show if i want to direct a broadway show. And i dont do that every day. You appear in an eddie murphy movie if you want to. Painting has always made me independent. But is it your first love . Theyre all my loves or i wouldnt do it. You dont want to choose between them. No, i danced when i was 7 years old, i stole my brothers paints when i was 15. It was funny, i used to play hooky from school in trinidad when rainfalls in trinidad you stay home when the rain hits the galvanized you want to sleepment and i was the baby of the family. How many children . I was the last of five and the last one you know how i was born. Rose no. After god made adam and eve. He made jeffrey instead of out of hot volcanic ash they want john gotti almost as bad as they wanted to pin win the persian gulf. I they want him very badly. He thumbed his nose at the government he beat them three times. He has become a bit of a folk hero people talk about him in the street. As a folk hero. Yeah they write letters to him. He wins polls on Television Programs and on and on. You need the projection and the civility of the fashion gives you because you do a show dow it in new york or in paris it covers can the world i mean on the press all over the worlding especially france, you do a show are you doing paris you get worldwide attention. Thats very very important for your business. At the same time you know this clothes have to serve a purpose. Women want to have to wear those clothes to create a credibility. And i think that sometimes today a lot of the designers forget the fact that a woman has to wear those clothes. It is only fashion once a woman is wearing those clothes. Most people say this, what bradlee has is great instinct, thats what you have in a bundance. What do you think it is about being a good editor that served you well . Well i think i was curious. I think i came along at the perfect time. You just cant quibble with my sense of timing just as Catherine Graham was interested in expanding the post and spending some money on the news product the conversation about the posting about such a it now sounds that the post was a nothing, no good rotten little paper when i came there which is not true. Rose it wasnt the best paper in town though. Okay. But it was a good paper and some of it was, it had a wonderful editorial page and a wonderful editor. It remains of course the most important and central i would say, experience of my life certainly my professional life. It was an inspiring time it taught us some things i think, that we have not seen since. I found in Robert Kennedy a unique human being who almost certainly alone among all politicians i have met and almost alone among all human beings ive met a person who continued to learn and educate himself as he grew older. Most of us most of us bank our intellectual capitol maybe in our mid 20s and then we try to live off of it for the rest of our lives. But he had none of that he was constantly interested in new things. Who is writing good stuff now about this or that about crime or poverty or race or even mundane things like housing or welfare or whatever it was. He wanted to know, and then he read. And sometimes you know you would look up in the Office One Day and see some professor that you would talk to him about a few days before because we call the guy up and say hey, i hear youre weig good stuff come in and lets talk. Rose we began a remembrance of Joseph Brodsky with him reading his poetry at the 92nd street y in new york in 1988. Something like a in hungary but without its innocence. You have something that he wrote that i would like for to you read us. Would you please. Its called torn solid which is a place in twed en sweden. There is a meadow in sweden where i lie smitten. Is eyes stained with chowds white and out, and about that meadow rome is my widow pleading a clover reads for her lover. I took her in marriage, in a granite parish the snow lent her whiteness, a pine was a witness. She would swim in the oval lake whose opal mirror framed by bracken felt happy broken. And the stubborn son of her auburn hair shown from my pillow as post and pillar now in the distance i hear her descant she sings blue swallow but i cant follow. The evening shadow robs the meadow of wits and color. Its getting colder as i lie dying here i am eyeing stars. Hears zenith no in betweenette. What is the magnet of directing for you . The magnet of directing a movie is that you beat the hell out of the script and dow it again and you do it again and you keep trying to tell the story you say over and over, okay then what happens and what happens next, and then what, and whats after that, because that is what the audience says, they just always say then what. And you cast it as well as you can and you work with the director of photography and art director. You do all those. And then it takes you over it starts to tell you what to do. At a certain point in shooting the movie picks you up by the scrof of the neck. Rose even a movie shot out of sequence. Absolutely t just creates its own life. It decides what it going to become. Just like in the cutting room there are pieces that are jumping because they are alive and people just laying there dead and you just automatically learn to cut out the dead pieces and let the life feed the life. For more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs. Org and charlie rose. Com. Funding for charlie rose has been provided by the Cocacola Company supporting this Program Since 2002. American express additional funding provided by. And by bloomberg a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Youre watc announcer a kqed television production. Larriva its like holy mother of comfort food. Kastner throw it down. Its noodle crack. Patel you have to be ready for the heart attack on a platter. Crowell okay, im the bacon guy, right . Hoofe oh, i just did a jig every time i dipped into it. Man it just completely blew my mind. Woman it felt like i had a mouthful of raw vegetables and dry dough. Sbrocco oh, please. I want the Dessert First [ laughs ] i told him he had to wait