Douglas Taurel
Appearances
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I mean, they both, Christopher Reeve was pretty ripped too. When you look at him.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, no. But for that time, he was pretty ripped. For sure. He was pretty ripped. Yeah. But yeah, so I just remember crawling over the cars and thinking, man, this feels like Godzilla. And then just seeing the buildings up. And then people were, you know, panicking. Some people were crying. You know, I, I was pretty numb through all that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I, you know, I grew up in a really kind of turbulent childhood and I had a lot of insanity in my life. And, uh, so, you know, a lot of screaming in the house and stuff. And so I kind of develop a mechanism of going numb. Whenever there's a lot of stress, I'll just, I'll just go numb. And do you recognize when you slip into that place? Yeah, pretty fast. Like, is it intentional or subconscious?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I think it's subconscious. You know, I thought about that at times, but like, if there's a lot of something going on, I just, I just go now in my heart, I can literally feel my heart calm down. And I think a lot of it is hiding when my dad was screaming a lot, you know, and I would, a mechanism of trying to calm myself down and I would hold my little sister as well.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I think consciously I would just come out of it. It's kind of weird. It's like you feel it and you see it, but you're controlling it. It's kind of like you're out of mind in a way. Almost like a third person view? Yeah, you become like kind of third person view. Like you can feel yourself getting numb. You know you're in a dangerous situation. I mean, it would happen on the subway sometimes.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Like crazy shit would happen on the subway. And I would just go, I would feel myself go numb. And I just start, I can notice my surroundings really well. And then I started thinking about an exit of some kind, like, what am I going to do? What should I do? Yeah. And that's it's just something that I think I learned through trauma, you know? Yeah. And so I remember 9-11 being pretty peaceful.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You know, I knew things weren't right. Things were crazy. A lot of the girls were crying. They were freaking out. And what was really weird, I remember 9-11 is because we were in a gym. So there were treadmills and all the treadmills had TV. So you could see what was happening on 9-11 on the TV, but you were right next to it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So it'd be kind of like us watching TV and some disaster going on over there. And you can see it on the horizon. Yeah. And then when you'd walk out the front doors, you're like, shit, that's right here. And so I would go in and out, in and out from the gym. It was a big glass building. It was a beautiful building. And I remember thinking, man, I wonder what's going to happen. So I walked outside.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You couldn't call anybody. I couldn't call my girlfriend. All the lines were locked up. Satellites were jammed. And I remember just standing outside and looking at the buildings and thinking what was going on.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Oh, I mean phone lines were jammed. But they were satellites. A tower. Sorry, the tower. Yeah, the tower. Yeah. The towers.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. And yeah. And so, you know, and then we started watching people jump. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, no. And that was... That was really surreal. And I remember being next to a female trainer, and she just completely broke down. And I grabbed her, and I said, let's go inside. It's OK. And then people were talking about it. In fact, the part of the 9-11 museum that I can't do is that part. They have a video section.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And when you go through the museum on the right corner, they have a video section showing that. And they show that lady who the infamous lady, she pulls her dress down for her last sentence of dignity, and she jumps.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Not the people, the buildings. So right there. So I went back inside, and I can't remember what time the first building fell, but I saw it on TV falling. And I remember thinking, holy shit, that's right out there. And I remember I ran outside. The building had completely fallen by the time I come outside, but I saw the fume of smoke coming out.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And what I try to tell people is, so it was a big glass building, glasses everywhere. Imagine this whole room, just glass. And it'd be like, someone just dumped a bucket of gray paint. And I remember seeing the smoke coming down and I remember telling this guy, Bernard, I said, Bernard, he was a trainer, I said, Bernard, put the towels. Again, that's kind of like my mechanism.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I started thinking about an out. And so I said, put the towels underneath the, underneath the doors. This shit's going to be coming in. So we started grabbing towels, putting them in because I worked construction when I was in high school. So I knew there was a lot of asbestos in the building. The shit you think about when you're under stress.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I was thinking, I don't want to breathe asbestos in. So we put that in and then it'd be like that current behind you. It just went gray. It just went completely gray. So, you know, you're dealing with that. You're trying to, you know, digest what happened there in 9-11.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, I didn't hear them falling. I didn't hear them fall. I could hear the rumble of the smoke. That's what I do. I could hear the rumble and the smoke. And to this day, the car alarms. As the smoke, every car alarm went on. Yeah. It was going on nonstop. You can hear that. And you can hear, because the debris had hard stuff in it, and it was hitting glass, breaking glass. It wasn't smoke.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
It was literally like a blob of metal coming at you, and it was just... You could hear that noise. So we closed the doors. Really, pandemonium was really breaking out back then. I remember thinking, fuck, what are we doing? What's going on here? I mean, this is kind of crazy. And...
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
you know you you try to talk to people you know i remember talking to a guy named vishnu he was indian and he was really you know freaked out about it and i said look man just we just got to keep everybody in here let's don't let anybody out until someone says let's get out of the building and then we saw the other building fall down and then i was like holy and we put more towels in
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And then we just sat there kind of like everybody went numb. Everybody in the building went numb. We were trying to figure out, you know, what does this mean? You know, what do we do? You couldn't call, you couldn't get a line out. And you just, we just, I remember everybody got around two or three treadmills because you couldn't see outside. You didn't want to open the doors.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And also people were banging on the glass doors to get in. So we would open the door to get in and smoke would get in and After the second building, I remember an African-American woman, she had blood down her face. She had one shoe on, I remember that, heel. And we let her in and she was just completely just emotionally distraught. And we sat her down on, we had a bench on the side.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
We sat her down on the bench, we gave her water and she was just, she didn't know what happened. And so we went back to the TVs to see like, what the fuck is going on? You know, you start, you know, by then we knew it was a terrorist attack. And we stayed there for probably an hour. And then I remember a fireman, a big dude came, busted the door open. And he was a big dude.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
He was probably like 6'3", 6'4". You know, and, you know, fire guys, they got all the fucking gear on and they look even bigger with all the gear on. And he just said, I want everybody get the fuck out of here right now. And he had this look. I'll never forget that. Don't fucking question me. Don't fucking ask me a question. Get the fuck out of this building now. Everyone jumped.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
We said, yes, sir. We grabbed our stuff. Everybody started grabbing. I grabbed towels and I started giving them to people to put over their heads to cut through the smoke so they wouldn't breathe in the smoke.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No. No, man. We were literally, he kind of, he had him and a couple other guys started leading us in a line. And we were, we were, we were being led to the FDR, which is on the east side of Manhattan. Yeah. And so I grabbed my two clients. I had a nine and a 10 o'clock and they were, my guy was really freaked out. He was a small guy. He was a lawyer. His name was David.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I haven't talked to him in years, but I hope he's doing well. He was really nervous, great guy. And I grabbed him and I grabbed this other client of my name, Marlena, and they didn't know what to do because they both lived in New York and they had basically sealed New York from 34th street down. You couldn't go anywhere. So I said, look, I lived in Hoboken.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So I said, look, and everybody was being evacuated to Hoboken and Jersey City. They're the two cities on the west coast of Manhattan going west. So all the ferries were there. They were bringing ferries from Connecticut. And so they were basically ferrying everybody from 34 down all the way across to Hoboken, New Jersey. So I grabbed them. We left. We went through the smoke.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I remember walking on the FDR thinking, this is what it must be like to be a refugee. I mean, this has to be like it. I mean, we were walking with towels. No one was talking. We were all just walking up side at FDR, silence. You would hear crying in the back. you'd hear some yelling and screaming, but for the most part, everyone was just marching, marching up.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
We were going to a spot to get on the ferry, to go back to Hoboken. Um, I grabbed my clients and that was the first time I saw Manhattan without the, without the world trade towers. Cause we were on the Hudson river. And so we were seeing things from the TV. We saw the towers come down. Um, But we didn't get a perspective until we got on the ferry, until we were on the Hudson River.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I remember the ferry got in the middle of the Hudson, and I remember just looking back and just, not seeing the towers, which was surreal, right? Because for so long, you just always assumed that these buildings were there.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And then you couldn't really see the skyline because the smoke was just, I mean, it was just like, I always describe it, it looked like some big giant brought a hibachi grill and it was just smoking all of lower Manhattan. And that smoke lasted for months, man, for six months, right? For a year, I mean, the fires went on for almost two years down there below.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
They were so hot, 1600 degrees Fahrenheit. And so I grabbed my two clients and I took them home. They're, you know, they had made, I can't remember. I think they, I believe we had cell phones. I can't remember how they called, but they had called family. They had gotten a call out and they were waiting for them in New Jersey and they got picked up. Both of them got picked up by friends and family.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And then Hoboken is only a square mile. So I brought them home, they left, my wife was there, girlfriend then, she was like, oh my God, you know, the whole thing, you know, hugging me, you know. And so, and then she goes, are you okay? And I said, yeah, I'm good, man. And I remember the other thing I remember is being starving. Because I hadn't eaten anything and my adrenaline just kicked in.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I think my adrenaline finally had come down. I go, I'm fucking starving, man. Let's go get some food. You know, an emotion hits people in very different ways. And I just remember thinking, I'm hungry. I want to go eat. And there was a great Italian bar right next to an apartment we rented. Everyone was in it watching TV. It was an old place called Leo's. Had been there from, you know, the 50s.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
and um we went in people were watching um and people were you know trying to kind of grasp the news and i sat down i ordered a spaghetti bolognese she ordered lasagna and i ordered two beers and i remember my wife got a beer and it was flat my girlfriend and she wanted to complain about it and i said not today that's what i told her erica look at the tv drink the fucking beer
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I think she didn't, she just, she snapped. You know, she was not there where everybody was at, you know, because she didn't experience it. And then once she kind of snapped, like, oh, I know, what was I doing?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, yeah. And so we, yeah, and we ate. And then, you know, that's kind of where... And that was 2001. I'd only been in New York for one year. And then you go back, and I had thoughts of leaving. I'm like, well, I came there to be an actor, to pursue my dream. And I'm like, well, maybe I should leave. Maybe this is not what I want to do.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, back then there was really two cities. There was New York. I mean, there was New York or L.A. Those were the two cities you would go to. Same industry, though?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, for the most part. I mean, film and TV, like if you have no passion in theater, you're going to go to L.A. And if you have passion for theater, but both film and TV meccas, it's New York or L.A. Well, it was easy because my wife was going to grad school and we were just dating at the time. And she's, you know. I was ready to get out of Houston and I said, look, listen, I can't do this.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I want to get out. And I was going to go to LA cause I was born in LA. And she said, listen, you know, I'm going to go to grad school. Why don't wherever I get accepted, let's go together. And if it doesn't work out, you know, we're in a city that we both want to be in, you know, we're not in, you know, Topeka, Kansas. And I said, yeah, sure. So she got accepted. She got a full ride to NYU.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So we're okay. Let's go to New York. And you know, I had had success going east always as a young man. I got a scholarship to go to Ole Miss from Texas. My first acting job was in North Carolina. My parents actually met in New York. So I thought, I'll just keep going east, you know, maybe east is my direction. And yeah, and so that's why we were in New York. And so... That happened.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And then, you know, you know, you try to, it was, you know, it was so surreal. And I remember the, what we were talking about camaraderie before we started, that's when New York was magical. It was really the most magical place you could have ever be in. People would stop, they would help you.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I remember the, on the West side, and this, this went on for, for a long time, all the fire trucks going back and forth, right. And people clapping, kind of like COVID, but, In a more sincere way, you know, everyone had an American flag. It was the most patriotic, you know, the country had ever been. It was just, it was a wonderful place.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You know, people were looking out, you know, it was a scary place too, because you would read on the paper, you know, okay, Taliban is choosing next targets, anthrax in the subways. And you'd be on the subway going, oh, fuck. And you look at people like, don't make a funny move, dude. And so it was a great place. It was wonderful, man. It was just really fun and it was safe.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
It was kind of a love fest. People wanted to help each other. And that's kind of how I got really addicted to what was happening in the Middle East because- Ironically, my father was very patriotic. He was a Syrian Jew, Argentinian Syrian Jew. And he was always grateful to this country. And he was always grateful to what America did in the Second World War. And he was a very proud American.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I got my patriotism through him, which is ironic because we had a kind of a turbulence relationship. And he would always watch this. I don't know if you remember this documentary called World War II. the war at the world at war.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. It was an old documentary and he watched, it was basically the Hitler, Hitler documentary. And he would watch that over and over and he used to drive me nuts. In fact, I would lie on the couch sleeping when he would watch that. So, um, Yeah, so I, you know, I felt really, I wanted to find out what was going on in the Middle East.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I was always the character, you know, I always had the character, if you punch me, I'm going to punch you back. So I wanted revenge, you know, I wanted those guys to be punished. You know, I was one of the people who, you know, who wanted the Iraq war. So was I. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, well, I mean, COVID. Just couldn't do it anymore. They changed the city that much? Oh, dude, it's Joe Rogan left. The reason why Joe Rogan left LA is the reason why everybody left. It's hard to explain to people the insanity that happened there on both coasts. I mean, you see what's going on in the fires, in the Californian fires right now.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, that I don't know about. I mean, that I don't know about. But when you read that, what was happening, like the insanity of the decisions that were going, the budget cuts and all that, you're just like... And then, you know, I mean, you couldn't breathe, man. I mean, you couldn't breathe. I mean, they were, I mean, they were in your living room. They were in your kid's classroom.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
The theaters were, everything was shut down. You were fighting with everybody. You were yelling with everybody. Your friends that you thought were friends were not your friends anymore. It's really hard for people to understand the isolation that happened when you weren't part of that mantra, you got kind of pushed out.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And, you know, that's why so many people left both coasts and they're still leaving. But yeah, that was 2022. Yeah, it's really... for me it's actually quite quite emotional i was really i loved new york i mean i i mean i built my career there my kids were born there in hoboken i raised my family there i made my mark as a as a guy there you know
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I experienced the most probably traumatic thing besides maybe Pearl Harbor or something firsthand. The people are great in New York, you know, besides the politics, they're fucking phenomenal people, you know, hardworking, you know, Irish, Italian, all over the place. The city, the energy is amazing, especially if you're in the arts, if you're an actor, you know, that's...
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You know, that's where do you want to be? You know, I mean, I would study. I studied at Carnegie Hall. You know, I was next to the history. You know, I'm again, I'm a massive history buff. So, you know, where I studied in Carnegie Hall was a half floor. The building had half floors and it was below Marlon Brando's apartment, his old apartment. And I would touch that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And so it was I mean, there's it's just it's. It's hard to explain, but New York is an amazing place when it's functioning, when it's being run right. You can put up with the insanity when the insanity doesn't come in your bedroom and doesn't fuck with your kid's school. And when everyone leaves you alone, right? I mean, New York is always crazy.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I mean, you have to be insane to live there, to pay those rents, and to be on the subway. I mean, there has to be a payback, right? So... Yeah, so I did that, and then I started reading the paper every day, and I started getting really addicted to what was happening in the Middle East.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And then I guess around 2007, 2008, I started reading stories about guys struggling and guys who couldn't pay their bills.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because they were in the paper all the time. Really? Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So yeah, no, no paper guy. Yeah. The New York times. Well, I mean, back then the New York times was considered the New York times, you know, it's gone, you know, off course, uh, to say the least, but back then you read the New York times like it was
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
also as an actor, they had this great thing that they would have the upcoming off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway and off-Broadway and Broadway plays, they were coming up and they would review them. And so when I was, I love research, I'm addicted to research. And so I would read that section. I would see who the playwright was, who the director was, and I would research them.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I'd find their contact and I reach out to them. And that's how I would find work, right? And I would say, hey, you know, This is how I saw your, congratulations on a great reading. I'm a great review. I think I'm right for your work. I'll love to send you my stuff. And that's how I would network. And that was, so I would read that. And then you would read what was going on in the Middle East.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And so, um, yeah, I started collecting clippings and stuff that moved me a lot. And then I decided like around 2007, 2008, you know, maybe I should write a play. I didn't think it was going to be a one man show. I said, I'm going to write a play. So I would go to the New York library and I would research stories about, um, about veterans, just war stories.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I started with the revolution, ironically enough. And my idea was, because I think it was 2007, 2008, Iraq was, they had elections and it was a big deal in Iraq. I think Saddam had already been, had fallen. And I remember videos of people like using their thumb, I mean, their finger to vote.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I remember thinking, gosh, man, these people are, you know, at that time we were thinking, you know, we're liberating them and they're getting to vote, you know, and And here in this country, no one votes, you know, no one votes, man. Don't they understand the sacrifices going on? We should vote. We should vote.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So I had this idea of kind of, um, um, writing a play and reminding people of the revolution. Excuse me. I'm just gonna, I like tears. And, um, Yeah. So I, you know, I would, so I would go research the revolution, you know, and when you research, I mean, I would literally go look at microfiche, you know, and I started, you get into a rabbit hole of research.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And then I started reading about the civil war. Then I started reading about, you know, Vietnam. And then I started reading about, you know, all the wars, you know? And then I would see stories of what was happening in the Middle East. And I started reading this thread about how we haven't been taking care of our vet since the revolution.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You know, I mean, Joseph Plum, he fought in the Continental Army under George Washington. And he talks about how they never got paid. And a lot of Minutemen, when they came back after the revolution, they became indentured servants because the pay they were promised they never got. And so to survive, they basically became indentured servants to blacksmiths. And then the Civil War, same thing.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So I started kind of like, fuck, what the fuck is going on, man? So I started researching. So it led me into a rabbit hole. And so I started collecting and I would Xerox letters and I would Xerox. And then I got into microfiche. And if anybody doesn't know what microfiche is. There's a lot of people that don't know what microfiche is. It's pretty fun.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I mean, you can go in a rabbit hole because you can. Michael, do you know what microfiche is? No. No.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. Yeah. But you could look up any year, any day from any newspaper all over the, all over the, all over the world for the most part. And you can read what was going on. And I have this fascination about the past. I just, I've always have, people always ask me if you can go a hundred years forward or a hundred years backwards, where would you go? Hmm.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You can take the knowledge with you. I'm going backwards. That'd be so rich. Okay. But only to experience. Only to experience. Like you were going to put in a... They're going to put you in a bubble case or a bubble ship. So I can only watch. You can only watch. Yeah. Forward. You go forward. Why would you go forward?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. You know, I... I'd be interesting to learn what it was to be like in the early 1900s.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, what if I said you can go back to like 1500? 1500. Are you, obviously, stupid question. I was going to say, are you a military buff? But are you a history buff?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
But maybe at that, you might have a passion like generally Ulysses Grant battles or something.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, that's true. And what's even scarier is if you go forward and you realize you don't even exist.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, probably wouldn't because people don't. But yeah, so I would collect this information and I would look at microfiche. And then I started getting really passionate. I started getting really digging into our history and how we treat our soldiers. And so... I mean, this went on from about 2007, 2008 to all the way about 2013, really. And I would, you know, I'm like a dog with a bone.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, when you don't... So, after 9-11, New York was the fucking safest place you could ever be in.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You know, once I get into a project, I don't, I won't let it go. And so I would be in between auditions when I had time, I would go to New York Public Library. Also, I fucking loved it. You know, I loved reading about it. I love, you know, reading about stories of the Civil War and the Revolution, like reading about how, you know.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
they were hard people and they were strong. And then, you know, you just learn some fascinating things like, you know, how illiterate a lot of the revolutionary guys were, you know, and I would read their diaries, you know, today I go eat monkfish, tomorrow we eat monkfish, looking forward to go marry, eat monkfish.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You know, it's fascinating, you know, reading that, you know, and then you come across somebody like Joseph Plummer, Ebenezer Fox, who were really literate and they kept these amazing diaries. And you're like, holy shit, you know, or the same thing with the Civil War, you know.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Oh, man. Well, I was dumped by a chick and I wanted to impress her. So, all right, so we'll go back.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, I didn't have many skills going on. Right. So when I graduated, so the thing is, so I'm blind in my left eye. And so when I always, yeah. Like blind, blind. Yeah. So when I was four, so I had an accident. And so do you think you're going to escape without talking about the accident? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, I mean, my sister threw something and basically took my eye. Okay.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And, um, my dad wasn't there. And so, um, Yeah. So kind of, that's how I grew up, but what was I going to say? So I, so when I played football in high school, and so when I graduated, when you play football in high school, you're always, you know, like all the recruits are trying to call you because you're like on this A-list of recruits to get you to come and join.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, I'm from Houston originally. Well, believe it or not, I was born in LA. My dad was a merchant marine, lived there for about eight, nine years. And then my dad got tired of driving to Long Beach to the Union to get work. And so he decided to move to Houston where the Union was closer. So he can ship out of Galveston and- Yeah, all the ships going out through the Gulf and all that. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I remember sitting, I had a waterbed. Did you ever have a waterbed? Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, I mean, when you're 14, 15, that doesn't matter. True. And there are also benefits that we both know about that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, the biggest pain in the ass of a waterbed is if you've got an air pocket in the bed.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. Well, I never had one that broke. But yeah. Anyhow, I had a waterbed. So these recruits would call me and they would say, hey, you know, I heard you just finished high school and you played football. I think you'd be a great Marine. You know, why don't you come?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
recruit and i said well that sounds great i just got to let you know that i'm also blind in my left eye and he'd be like oh well maybe it's not for you i think you're gonna have a good life son um but i don't think maybe the marines is for you and then like i don't know a couple weeks later the army would call same story yeah and i would tell him i think you're gonna have a good life son but i don't think the military is for you and i think the coast guard called
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I believe, yeah, I think in the Navy, in the Navy. And I remember I was getting these phone calls. So when that finished, I really thought that that was my last connection to the military. I was like, I'll have no connection to the military. I would never think about the military.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, no. So what happened was, so I was, I was always a good student in high school, but I got high before my SAT. Fuck that up. Not a good, I would advise you not to take your SAT high or drunk.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I did, but I, you know, my parents didn't have much money. And so I just figured they're not, I'm not going to go to college.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, I never even studied for it. I never even prepared for it. I mean, you had to take it. And I just remember thinking, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to do well in school. I'm not going to go to college. I didn't see an opportunity for me to go to college. I just didn't see it. So it doesn't fucking matter. And so, of course, that, you know, not a good decision.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
But my plan really was to go work with my dad, you know, on the ships. I figured I'll just get a job, make some good money. He made okay money. And I thought, you know, as a 17-year-old, 18-year-old, I'll be fine with that, you know.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So we moved to Houston. So I grew up in Texas, basically. My life as a kid was in Texas. And so I became an actor. I can go into that story, how I got into it. But when I got to, we moved, I moved with my girlfriend at that time in 2000. And so that's why I got to New York and it was great, man. It was really, New York was a lively place. It was exciting. It was fun, you know?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So my dad was kind of a verbally violent. He was also violent, you know, but he was very verbally violent in the house.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
He kind of grew up in the street. You know, he came to this country with nothing. He didn't, you know, in retrospect, as I look back, my dad passed now. He passed about five years ago, six years ago. No, it's okay. But I'm just thinking when he passed, but yeah. I don't think he... I don't think he knew how to love. Right? I don't think he was... I don't think it was ever taught to him.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And, you know, and for his mind, because he grew up in the streets, came to New York. I mean, he had some issues in New York, you know, and then he got a second chance and he kind of built a life. And for him... if you had milk in your refrigerator and a stereo in your room, you were doing good, you know? And that was his version of success as a father to us.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You know, I was one of five, four sisters, three were stepsisters. And my mother was Colombian and she had come from her first marriage with three daughters when she was 16. So there was just a lot of violence, a lot of yelling, some physical violence between my parents. That's kind of where you learn your mechanisms.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You know, you learn how to, you just learn how to hide and you learn how to, you know, I think, I think when you, when you asked, you know, is it conscious or subconscious? I think it's a part of both because I think you force yourself to ignore it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
right to make it go away in some way um either hiding under i mean i would hide under we had a bathroom sink and i would hide underneath the bathroom sink um a faucet uh like a cabinet you know i would get inside of it or underneath the bed or in the closet i would go in there until things would subside and then you know that that shit proceeded through high school you know by then you you get fuck here we go again you know you kind of you know you're like fuck
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Fuck no. Fuck no. Really? Between me and my dad? Yeah. Fuck no.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Uh, I mean, you would have, I would have had to been more, we both would have had to been more emotionally intelligent to do that. Um, I don't know. I think he probably would have said I did the best I could. And he'd said that. He said that a lot, you know? Um, and he did and to a degree.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, no. Um, You know, I mean, it goes so deep, man, with my sisters because, you know, they were his stepdaughters. And so that caused a lot of stress financially as well. You know, my mom was great. My mom is the reason why I got to go to college and how I got my life. But I don't think she was, you know, as you get older, you see your parents as people.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You know, when you're there and you kind of get retrospective and you start looking at them.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, and it was harder for them, you know, because things were harder. You know, you think about what your mother had to do. She had to fucking wash diapers and shit, you know, and make baby food, you know? Life was much harder back then, especially for immigrant parents who were considered...
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And then, you know, 9-11 hit. And so after 9-11, like the security in 9-11 was insane in New York. Post 9-11. Post 9-11. Because everyone was looking for... I mean, if you farted the wrong way, they were going to pull you to the side. It was all about terrorism. It was all about... I mean... Fuck, we had, I mean, Apache Helicopters parked on Bryant Park. I feel like that should be Thursdays.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
outcast you know um is your mom still alive my mom is still alive and my mom was also patriotic i remember when i was in school they would give you kind of like a census you know it was basic you know male white hispanic or african-american something and i would i knew i spoke spanish i speak fluent spanish so i would check hispanic
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I remember I told my mom that one day and she said, don't you fucking ever do that again. I came to this country for you to be American. Don't fucking throw that away. Never click Hispanic again. You're an American. You were born in this country. I had you in this country. You're an American.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So, and it's funny, these little seeds that your parents plant in you, they flower in different ways as you get older, right? You don't, I said, okay, sure. I'm an American.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, so my mom. Being in a play. So my mom was not going to allow me to go work with my dad. She goes, you're going to college. And so she basically, I partied a lot. I did drugs. I experimented with everything. Um, everything. And so she said, you're going to go to college and you're going to get away from your friends.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So without me knowing, she had driven to, she had driven to Lufkin, Texas to find out how can she get her son enrolled in junior college in Lufkin, Texas.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, no, I was in Houston. And so I remember she goes, you're going to Angelina College. I said, what? She said, you're going to Angelina College. You're going to get a two-year degree. And I said, okay. And she says, it's not even negotiable. You're going to college. You're not going to go work with your dad.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
If you want to work with your dad afterwards, you can, but right now you're going to get a two-year degree. You know, she came from that class where education was so important to her, you know, and she wanted me to have an education. She wanted her kids to be college educated. Um, so she fucking packed a duffel bag and a couple of things. Uh, uh, I can't remember what else.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And, you know, football. I think I took a football with me. Fuck. Who knows? In case I was going to throw a football with someone.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And she dropped me off and she sat me in front of the Dean, you know, and I remember, and the, and the Dean said, well, if he keeps a, I had, I actually was a good student besides my SATs. I had a, I had a B average and I had a really passion for math. And so I took, you know, uh, advanced algebra and I was really good at it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And he said, well, you know, he's got all the core classes and he seems he's got good grades. He says if he wants to go to major college afterwards and if he has to maintain a C average here and if he maintains a B average, he can go into major college without a four year school without his SAT scores. So I said, OK, great.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You know, so I was going to major in business as a business associate degree. It was like the first week of class. There was this black kid and he stood up and he says, I'm going to be an actor. His name was Marcus Wiley. And I'll never forget him. He's like, I'm going to be an actor. I'm going to be famous. And I remember I had just broken up with my girlfriend. I dated her.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I dated her all through high school. She was a junior when I was a freshman.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I was, I was. I was swinging in the big leagues. And so I was devastated. And the irony about this story is that I broke up with her. And then she got with someone else and I was like, fuck, why did I do that? I should have never done that. It teaches you to be careful what you wish for. And I was full of myself and life quickly taught me a lesson of humility.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Those things are awesome. They are awesome. They are awesome. And I remember looking at them thinking, fuck, man, am I, is this real? Like, am I living in a movie?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I'm going to do it. Me too. I'm going to do it. Because she was going to Stephen F. Austin, which is not too far from Lufkin. So it was only like 30 minutes away. It's a four-year school, not too far up. And it was in a town called Nacogdoches. And I said, well, can anybody audition? And he said, yeah, yeah, man, you should audition. It's open auditions right after class. So I went.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I used to breakdance really bad. And my audition was to be an alligator. What? Yeah. Well, she, it was a children's show. So she said, you know, can you, you know, what, what kind of animal can you do? And so I used to do the centipede. Remember the centipede and break dancing?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Fucking did I know that? So I would do the centipede and I would make a noise as an alligator. So anyway, she cast me and- All right. So your first role is a centipede alligator. My God. Centipede alligator. Okay. And then before we get off, I want to give you this gift. Okay. But- Yeah, so she loved what I did. She cast me in another children's show.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And then she said- What were you then, like a giraffe horse? No, I played a monkey. I played an alligator, a monkey. And then I played, it was another animal. I played a parrot. Okay, what was the first human being you played? Well, so then what happened was, so she goes, you know, you're really good as an actor. If you major in theater, I can give you a theater scholarship.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
and it'll pay for your books and it'll give you a little bit of money. So I thought, sure. And so I told my mom, she goes, do it. And so I was able to keep my business associate degree and major in theater. So I started studying acting and I never thought of myself as an actor.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
It's everything. You start reading plays, you start studying playwrights, you read the classical plays, you read Shakespeare, you work on, you know, um, you know, um, how to move your body, you know, basic acting stuff, you know, how to, you make weird noises. And basically what they're trying to do is get you to out of yourself. The self-consciousness. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
But I, because, so I moved a lot too, you know, I lived in, um, I was born in LA. Then I moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Then I moved to Bogota, Colombia. Then I moved to Houston. So I was the new kid a lot. And then there was divorces, separations. Then I would go to another school. So my self-mechanism was... being a jokester. Extrovert. Yeah. The forced extrovert. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And so I would always make people laugh and I, and I became a really good of studying behavior. I knew who to stay away from and who I can kind of become friends with. And so it was acting, being a jokester was really easy for me. Um, And so then the second year at Angelina, she cast me in a real play. I played a drunk. It was a play called God's Favorite by Neil Simon.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, it's about six months, man. Okay, that sounds about right. Yeah, about six months.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
It's a really well-known play. But it's the modern story of Job where Job loses everything. And I played his drunk son. And they would have these competitions. And you would do these plays against other junior colleges around the state. And I got best in acting. And the play was putting on a glove. I knew how to be drunk. I knew how not to get along with my dad.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I knew how to be depressed about it. I knew how to yell about it. So it wasn't a hard stretch, but they loved it, you know, and I was awarded. And so, but what was really cool about it is I never really saw myself as an actor. And that second year, all like the staff, they started to look at me like a real actor. And
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, no, no, no. But my point was like, all the subway stops had guys with AKs, every subway stop. I mean, it was like- AKs or M4s? Or, I don't, what's the difference between an AK or an M4? Well- You may know, I will know.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So then that year finished, I was going to go work with my dad and we were having these competitions where everybody was going to audition for major universities. And I went and again, I guess my lack of confidence, I didn't prepare anything for it. And I had my... My theater director then, he goes, well, you're going to audition for the schools, right? And I said, no, no, no.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
His name is Mr. Vaughn. And I said, no, I think this was great. I was able to pull the wool over people's eyes. I got some money, but I think I'm done with the acting gig. He goes, you're, fuck you are. Get up in my hotel room. You're going to memorize this monologue and you're going to audition. And I said, are you sure?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
He goes, yeah, you're going to memorize it tonight and you're going to audition tomorrow. And the monologue he gave me was a play from Talia and Son. It's a dead Vietnam soldier who comes back to his life. He's dead and he kind of watches his family move on.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
It was. It was. It's a beautiful play. And some people are depressed. Some people have moved on. And it's his whole interaction watching his family. That's the second act. So he gave me that, which is ironic, right? Because this is what I do now is telling stories of dead soldiers.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Um, I did that play and I got a scholarship. I got a full ride to Ole Miss. So I went to Ole Miss. They called me up. They said, we love what you did. I think you'd be great here. And I went up to Ole Miss. I had three other offers and I went to Ole Miss. I don't know if anybody knows Ole Miss, big party school, Oxford, big football town, beautiful place in Mississippi, uh,
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You had to wear a tie, got there. I went to a football game with a bunch of girls and I called my mom and said, mom, I'm going to Ole Miss. I said, I'm gonna take out some money and I got some money from the scholarship and this is where I'm going. And so I went there. I always kept that monologue in the back of my pocket. And that's really where my acting career kind of really took off.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Now, I didn't really become a trained actor yet. I was still fucking fucking around and still doing my thing. And anyway, I went through college. What's considered to be a trained actor? Ah, movement, voice. You know, you study the classics again. You keep studying the classics. That's the basics. Playwrights. You have pieces under your belt.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. And he'd been acting since he was a kid. Okay. Really young. Well, not as a kid, but as a teenager. And so his quote, no method. Figuring it out. Figuring it out was doing work for a long time.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Okay. I was going to say, I liked it. I mean, I liked it. I mean, it's Tom, you know, you know, it's Tom, it's Tom Cruise, man. It's good. You know, I mean, I mean, his movies are, I mean, what are you like the guy is a human being or whatever his personal life is. His movies are entertaining, man. You know, and I've.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Really? Yeah. Oh, it's so good, man. It's so good. I mean, it's a great movie, man.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. No, that's a good way. I mean, I think cinema is great now, man.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I mean, the world has changed so much now, Andy. I mean, the whole world's so different now. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you see it in the military. You probably look at it sideways, how it's different now.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, for us, I mean, everyone is on this phone now, you know, and so.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I mean, I don't know the answer to that. No, I mean, that's the thing. Everybody wants to be famous. I mean, fuck, right now, man, you could be a YouTube star or a TikTok star or an OnlyFans star, and you could be famous, rich, and you don't even know who Shakespeare is. Yeah, that's fair. So it's just a different world now. I don't want to age myself, but I'm in an older demographic, and so...
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
i love studying art you know i love the through line i love one of the beautiful things about my play is i love seeing the audience in the footlights just seeing their heads silhouetted um i just you know i love creating character and i love but I mean, there's more of us out there. It's just different. Also, theater's dying. Theater is struggling right now. COVID didn't help.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. I mean, they were on all the platforms. So they were, so the place was locked down, you know? And so, and then slowly, like you said, that kind of dissipated. I mean, I remember flybys around Hudson, on the Hudson River jets for, and that went on for about a month.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Their reactions to COVID didn't help. People are stuck to their phones. Getting butts in seat is always difficult. It's just a very different world. And to be honest with you, as an actor, I don't know where it's going. I don't know. Theater specifically? Just the whole business itself. You know, everything is streaming. Everyone is freaking out. You know, money's getting tighter. Projects.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, everything. And, you know, people's attention span is... Not good, you know what I'm saying?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, like this medium. This medium seems to have penetrated. You can do this for two, three hours, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, I think, well, I think we're, at the end of the day, we're still human and we want to learn. I mean, I'm sure you still have a hunger to learn. Constantly.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, and I want to do jujitsu and I'm dying to get into it. What's holding you back?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
don't sit here if you're about to say I have to get in shape first no no I'm gonna have Michael come over there and get you no I'm okay shave it's just I don't you know I've got so many aches and pains from working out so many I'm like my shoulder fucking hurts my back my knees like jujitsu will fix all those yeah I'm sure it's a zero injury sport there's no wear and tear so I'm like I mean do I have the time I mean I've seen my friends have taken jujitsu walking around with black eyes I'm like do I want to do that right now it's a gentle art yeah it's a gentle art so that's the only reason but I my son wrestles and he's a good wrestler
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. Well, I mean, that's, I think that's why this medium works because people want to learn. I mean, that's how I found you. I found it really interesting. Um, I found again, how did you find it?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So that type of security kind of lasted for almost 10 years, really, because then the wars in the Middle East started, and then New York was like always the center for attention. And so you could, I mean, you could be completely comfortable. I was there in 2000 with my wife, now girlfriend then,
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I think I found you. Have you ever been on Megan Kelly's podcast?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I don't think I have. Someone shared your clip to me. Again, because what I do with my play and vets, people share me all kinds of crap. Oh, I bet. And so I came across it. I loved your intro, Clear Hot, and I loved the beginning. And I remember thinking- Oh, the radio call? Yeah, I loved that. And I remember thinking, huh.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, well – I think it's a badass intro. It's one of the best. It's pretty sweet. It's a pretty sweet intro. Yeah. And if you like military and history, you're going to get addicted to it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. And so, yeah, I think that's how I came across you. And I just thought, this is really interesting, you know? Well, here we are. Yeah, and here I am. And I'm always looking for platforms to share the play because of how important I feel that it is. It's become this new artistic mission of mine. And it's hard to get press now, man. It's really hard to... People just don't care.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, so the play is... What happened with the play is based off the letters from vets from the revolution through the Iraq and Afghanistan. Okay. And so I kind of put it together and I'll just take a one step back in how the play became the play. When I finally got it up in 2015, a lot of festivals had told me no. And one festival, it was a whole journey. I couldn't find a director.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No one knew what to do with it. And I even threw the play in the fucking trash can. My wife pulled it out. She said, stop being a baby. Why don't you just memorize a monologue, go find a director, show them what you're doing. So I did that. And so I, you know, I did it for five people. They're like, yeah, it's kind of interesting.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And then when I finally got like a 20 minute version of it, I did it at the Bowery Poetry Club at the Lower East Side for a festival called Mono a Mono, which actually had denied me earlier. All the festival had denied me. And so when I finished the play, it's based off a letter from vets from the revolution for Iraq and Afghanistan. When I finished the play, I was just so happy, man.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
that I fucking got this project up because I've been researching it since 2007. And I didn't know what to do with it. I couldn't find it. And I was getting so frustrated. I mean, I would talk to directors and they would say, I don't think anybody's into it. I don't know what you want to do with that. And they'd have all kinds of different ideas.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, I play 14 characters. And each character is trying to come home, either spiritually, physically, or emotionally.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
3, 4 o'clock in the morning, walking by yourself, her walking by herself, not a thing that was going to happen to you. Because there was cops everywhere. And there was, like, attention, and everyone was looking. And if you look funny, and then we had to deal with the anthrax, or they're on the subway car. So it's a complete different world. And then...
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Except one. One guy comes three times. He's kind of like the narrator of the play. He starts the play in the beginning. He talks about discipline. He goes, I learned three things in the military. First thing I learned was discipline. Then he goes through a monologue and I do a scene.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, we don't know, but we can assume that he gets up at 4.30. He gets yelled at a lot. He gets yelled at.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. You know, I even shared the play with him when he first came on Twitter, I shared it with him and we follow each other. And every once in a while we'll send a message and I told him about the play and
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Good. He said good. Or I once asked him, what about, it was a couple years back, I said, man, what about... Um, no Netflix. He goes negative, negative. He is a bespoke human being. Yeah. Yeah. He's stoic. He is that definition of modern stoicism. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So through the lens of soldiers, except for guys there three times, three times. And so, but when I first performed it, when I thought that that was going to be the end of it, um,
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
um a a gold star sister came up to me she had lost her brother in afghanistan and she was really really emotional and i really had thought andy that that was going to be the only time i was going to do this play that was it and she said i don't know if you know what you're doing but i hope you don't stop because it's really important and she had told me about her brother and um
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And that was, you know, I thought, maybe I'm kind of on to something. And it was only 20 minutes. You know, it was a lot of guys there in the time.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, at that time, at that time, it was only like, six characters. Okay.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And the end, the end, which might work today with people's attention. Uh, no, the plate now is 90, 90 minutes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, my goodness. Yeah, no, it's 90 minutes, man. Um, And so anyhow, my director, who I had paid to come on board, he was like, well, maybe you're on to something. He goes, well, do you want to keep going?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I said, yeah, man, I think, you know, maybe I can find another festival. And I like to do this play. He says, well, let's work on it a little bit more together.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, no, no. I mean, you know, go here. I think you look, this is a good move for you here. Sit here.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, to a degree. Sometimes if you're struggling with a piece, you know, I think what this character is going through is this, you know, I think this is, you know, asking questions. Okay. Like, why is he doing that? You know, and you're like, I don't know. Well, you need to figure that out. I think that's what that's what you're struggling on. You don't know why he's saying those words.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
COVID happened and you take cops away and then you get people who get burned alive on subways.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And so they kind of, you know, kind of like a shepherd, you know. But at the end of the day, it's your butt on the it's it's your ass on stage.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
um so we did it we we flushed it out to 50 minutes um again i thought this was just going to be a passion project i'd struggle with it um i would i mean i would sit in bed every night saying please help me find a director please i would i believe in incantations and so i would just tell myself please let me find a director and i don't know i i is that like witchcraft Kind of, but it works, man.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Does it always work? It does. It does. I don't think that's true. No, I think if there's something you want, Andy, and you stay in bed every night and you say it, it'll happen. Why do you have to be in bed? Is this like a kink? No, you don't have to be in bed, but you need to say it. You just said you're in bed. But I think if you put it out there, it comes to you. I really do believe that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. Well, I can dive into that. But I think if you tell yourself you want something enough and you believe that that's what you're going to do. Thought leads into behavior. Behavior leads into action. Action leads into character. Character leads into results.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And so, yeah, if you just sit there and you're eating juicy fruits and bonbons, you say, I want to be a billionaire. It's a classic pairing, though. Yeah. If you jelly donuts, I want to be a seal. And no, you don't do shit. You're not going to be a seal.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
That's post-SEAL, right? No. You mean while in combat? No way. Yeah. Really? Yes. So everybody has this, everybody has this perception that, you know, at least when you're in combat or you're in the military as a SEAL, when you're in, when you're enlisted.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Fuck yeah. I mean, because you have this, I mean, as a civilian, you have this perception. Soldiers, I can see that, but you have a perception that, like special op guys, Green Berets, Rangers, SEALs, that you guys are going to be in the tip-top, tippity-tip-top-top of your shape.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
That I don't know. I mean, Yeah, I don't know. That'd be a rough one. That'd be a rough one. I'm sure if you're doing that, you have other issues. I mean, I'm sure, yeah, I don't know about that, but I do know that that's not the way I want to go. Yeah. Getting in front of a moving subway. But, I mean, there are stories of people who have jumped on the platforms to save other people.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Ah, well, I would have never thought that. I would have never thought that. It's just people, man. Well, yeah, but I mean, you know, certain disciplines require certain things, right? It's a grind. Well, that I do believe, but I mean.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess I can understand the grind to a degree because I used to be, you know, when I trained and I was always really lean, really in shape. I was addicted to it. But I would have these, like now we have two kids, you know, I was like, fuck, you know, give me the mac and cheese. You know, like I've done dieting. But so I understand.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, it's definitely wild watching your kids grow up. Watching my son, yes.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, no, that definitely blew my optic. But yeah, I just would have never thought that. But so I, anyhow, I did, I took the play. My wife is from Scotland. And so I had performed in this festival called the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It's a huge festival for theater. Broadway goes there, West End goes there. Are they looking for things that perhaps they want to bring back?
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Everything. It's everything. You know, when I did it in 2005, there was, 1,500 shows. When I did it in 2015, there was 3,500 shows. And I think it's even bigger now. I mean, everyone's going there for all kinds of reasons, but it's three weeks. It's in Edinburgh, Scotland. I've been there.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Oh, it's beautiful. I got married there at the Royal Lyceum Theatre. What a beautiful country. Yeah, yeah. Before my mother-in-law passed away, but we used to go there all the time to see her. It was a second home to me, Scotland. Yeah. So my wife said, I was going to do at this festival called the New York Fringe Festival and they went bankrupt. So I didn't have a festival.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And she goes, let's just take you to Scotland. You've performed there. We can stay at my parents' house. You can do it there and it'll be great. So that's what we did. I took it to Scotland. I didn't even have a name for it. I called it the American soldier because you had to put a name down to apply to it.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
There was a really famous story of a guy, a construction guy or a maintenance guy, who somebody fell. I think it was somebody who was having a seizure, and he jumped and fell on top of him, and the subway went over him, and he saved him. In fact, and I think he was – I think he got invited to the – one of the inaugurations – not inaugurations, the presidential speeches. State of the Union.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. It was called Brothers Keeper, Brothers in Arms. And then it just didn't feel right. And my wife just called it the American Soldier because that's what you're doing. You're doing the American Soldier. What do you call it now? It's the American Soldier. It stayed there. It just stayed that way. And so I performed. And so for people who don't know about the fringe, it's like...
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
It's very acceptable if you suck for people to get up and walk out of the theater. It's kind of cool to go there.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
They don't really say anything, but they're quite happy walking out with their pint of beer. You can bring a pint in. And if you suck, you can literally see people. Real-time feedback. Real-time feedback. We don't like your play. So you're always hoping to, and it's very common to only have like five people in your play, three people in your play. I mean, in the audience.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Is that tough as a performer to have that small of a crowd? Fuck yeah, it's tough. I mean, there's an old saying, you know, if there's more people on stage than there is in the audience, you should probably shut down your play. But because it was a one man show, I could get away with it.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. And so, but before I went to Edinburgh, you needed press to go there. And so there was this one off-Broadway theater in New York called the, it was called 59 East 59th and did a festival called Eastbound to Edinburgh. And any play that was going from New York to Scotland, you could perform for a week in there.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And anybody who didn't want to go to Scotland could see the plays that were going from New York there. And so they heard about my play and they said, we'd love to have you in the festival. Would you like to do it? And I said, fuck yeah, let's do it. So I did it. And I was still thinking that this is not going to be much. And I was nervous. And I remember...
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
a reviewer from the Huffington Post, she was reviewing another play and she saw the name of the play, The American Soldier. Now this is 2015, we are deep into the Middle East. She goes, I'd like to review your play, can I get a ticket? And I remember thinking, fuck, I don't want my play reviewed because she's going to hate it. Because I still didn't have my confidence in me.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
The last time I did it was for those eight people on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. And I was really just trying to get this play up. And it was really for me. It was just for me to do it. And she gave me a fucking crazy review, positive. She just loved it. So I was able to take that to Scotland and put it on, use it as press, use it in the magazines.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Because there's so many shows that people are trying to filter out. Yep. what not to see. And so I was using Flawless and Powerful by the Huffington Post everywhere. At that time, the Huffington Post was a big, big piece of media. Still is in some circles. Yeah, some circles. So, It was three weeks, Ron. First week, I had about more people than normal because I had family there.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
My wife's family was there and I had some friends there. So I would always get eight, nine people in the audience. And that piece of post brought in somebody from the Amnesty International Award for the United Kingdom. And they go around watching plays for theater excellence and they give a voice to the voiceless. So she saw my play on the end of the first week. And after that, my play sold out.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
State of the Union, thank you. And he got an award or something. As he should. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where were you guys on 9-11? So I lived in Hoboken, New Jersey, which is right across the river. In fact, Hoboken probably lost more people from the five boroughs. So Hoboken is considered the sixth borough. It's in New Jersey, but it's literally right across the river from the Hudson.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I was nominated for an Amnesty Award. And out of 3,500 shows, I was shortlisted in the top 100 plays to go see. So the place was packed and everyone was seeing it. And what was really cool there is that I was always nervous doing the American soldier. But what I didn't understand there is that a lot of Aussies, Scots, and Irish were dealing with PTS as much as Americans were. For sure.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And they were fighting in the same battles we were. And I would finish the play, and I would just get swarmed by these guys and families. And they were like, and they would share their stories with me and they'd be emotional. And they were saying, you know, you know, I fought here and I fought there. And, um, gosh, you know, you, I know you're doing the American soldier, but this is our story.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
It's more probably, I don't know if it's more nerve wracking. It's more, you have to really drum yourself up for a small house. You have to kind of focus and like, you know, why am I doing this?
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I don't, I don't. Again, go back to that ability. I've always had an ability. In fact, actors have come up to me. I mean, when I was studying with Winn Handman, a very well-known acting teacher, I was in class with Gretchen Maul. She was a very well-known actor. She was the girlfriend to Matt Damon in Rounders. I don't know if you saw that.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
She was in my class. Chris Cooper was in my class. So I was in class.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Great movie. It's a sleeper. It's a sleeper. It's a great movie. But, I mean, actors would always tell me, you know, you always had to present your work in front of a – in a scene. And – People always say, fuck, people like actors would look for drugs to take to calm their nerves down. Really? Yeah, I swear to God.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, I remember one guy particularly, he goes, I get so nervous, I don't know how you do it, you know? And I'm like, just breathe, man. It's just, you know, people ask me that. I did an interview not too long ago, but I experienced so much trauma that making a fool of myself in front of people was the least thing that I was worried about. Like it just- Didn't even hit your radar.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
It wasn't even on the spectrum. Like if I fail, to this day, if I fail, I've had a good run. It's all about the journey for me now. I mean, obviously I've been able to develop some understanding of where my life is going now and and some perspective, you know, about the journey. Like, here I am, you know. My acting has brought me in front of a Navy SEAL.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I would have never in a fucking million years thought... I wouldn't put that much on a pedestal.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Well, for me, it's a great pleasure and honor to be in front of you.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So it's like from my door to Times Square is 20 minutes. Okay. So a lot of people lived in Hoboken, a lot of finance guys lived in Hoboken because it was cheaper, it was quieter.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Okay, veteran. Fair enough. Fair enough. So, but it's all about the journey, right? And so I always had the ability not, I mean, you know, I had a little bit of anxiousness coming here. Sometimes at the Kennedy Center, I have a little bit of anxiousness, you know, but, you know, I just, you know, I look at perspective.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I tell myself something that I learned when I would get a little bit anxious or a little bit nervous. I said, these are energies and just kind of, you know, enjoy them. And, you know, imagine that, you know, this is gonna be the last time you're gonna have a conversation with this guy or this person or this moment, right? And make the most of it.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And so that would kind of, that will always calm me down. But yeah, so I never got nervous, so to say. Anxious, yeah, you get a little bit anxious. Natural, human being. Yeah. But you focus. But having nobody in the audience or three people in the audience. That's got to be tough to put on like an A plus performance. Yeah. And so you have to.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You have to kind of like, you know, like, you know, what am I?
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I bounce around. So I start off with the, I start off modern. The guy would discipline. He says, I learned three lessons in the military and he goes through discipline. And then I go to the revolution and,
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
then i go to vietnam and i go to a mother who says goodbye to her son um eleanor wimbish who i know the family now um she's son died in 68 in a helicopter crash and she goes to the wall and she says bye to her son and then after the vietnam piece i go to um oh i'm sorry after um after the first lesson, I go to the revolution. Oh, I did revolution. Then the Vietnam piece.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yep, exactly. And so I was a personal trainer at that time. So I would take the path, which is a version of the Jersey subway, and I would go from there into the World Trade Towers. And that was my commute. I'd wake up around, depending what client I had, I'd wake up at six or seven in the morning, take the path.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Then I go to second lesson. And after the second lesson, that same character comes back out and he talks about teamwork. What I learned is about teamwork. He makes fun of a soldier. And then he realizes, you know what? I've realized that we're all in this together and no man's above another man. And the way you survive is by helping your fellow man.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And that's his second lesson he learns in the military. And then I go to World War II, I do an Iwo Jima letter. And that kind of gives the realities of war, it's a really graphic piece. And then I go from there, I go to Vietnam. Vietnam Johnny, smoking a joint, talking about what being in the jungle's like, talking about people marching and protesting back home, but also wanting to get back home.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And after Vietnam, I do a jacked up guy from Iraq who doesn't know which way is home. He wants to be there with his guys. He wants to come back home. No matter what his wife says, it's so meaningless and senseless, some of the lines. I try to explain this to my wife and my friends, but they'll never understand. They'll never understand.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I go to that piece, Iraq, and then I play a woman who, she's alone, and her husband is on three deployments to Afghanistan, and she talks about, you know, I'm making dinner tonight, and I realize that I forget that when I'm preparing dinner that Mike is leaving us tonight, and then we're going to have to sit alone at the dinner table. And then I play her son who talks about, I miss my dad.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I miss when he goes away. It's not really, it's hard for me to say bye to my dad. I promised him I'd be really strong. I don't think I'm doing a really good job. And then I play a father who loses his son to suicide, Kevin and Joyce Lucy, who I know really well now. And then I play a female vet who loses her eye in combat, Nancy, who I met during COVID. And then I go to the Civil War.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And then I go back to Afghanistan. I play a one-armed soldier who loses his arm in combat. He's Hispanic. And then I go to World War I. Irving Greenwald. I wrote a play for the Library of Congress and a lot of his materials from that play. He fought in the Lost Battalion. And then I go to World War I and then I finished a play with the last monologue, the same guy comes out again.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And there's a guy he was making fun of in the middle. And he talks about now that guy loses his life in Afghanistan by an IED. And he's an Army Ranger. And when they say the goodbyes, they all put their Ranger tab at the memorial for their fallen soldiers. And then he says, I realize now I'm part of an amazing history. But what I realize now is I'm part of a brotherhood. And he marches away.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And all of them, all the trains, every subway line, the ferry, they all emptied out in front of the World Trade Towers.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, the son, the father who loses his son. That one is always... In my play, there's always a father-son through line. Again, life is weird. It's a love letter to my dad, even though I didn't get along well with my dad. I guess it's that looking for that... looking for that father son relationship, you know? So those were pieces that always spoke to me really emotionally.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You know, when the mother says goodbye to her son, you know, I, so I have a great relationship with my son and I made a point of,
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
breaking the cycle that i had with my dad not uncommon yeah well there's basically two ways it goes yeah you stop the from rolling downhill or you start picking up and you start hucking even more yeah yeah that's a great way to put it you hook even more so we you know in fact today my son called me and he was telling me his time on the 40-yard dash he played sports and and he got uh i'll say it on this podcast he got uh the highest english he's a really smart kid my wife's really smart
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
But his English teacher pulled him aside and said, you got the highest score on the English final exam out of the whole, he's in ninth grade, out of the whole ninth grade.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And he was really proud and he told me and I said, yeah. And I said, it's fucking badass, son.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, and my biggest regret is never taking a picture of inside the World Trade Towers around 7 or 8 o'clock in the morning, because it was like a sea of humanity. It's hard to... It's like every human being on Earth was there? Yeah, but no one is bumping into each other. I mean, it's like, it's a choreography that everyone knows where they're going, they're... Everyone's going to work, right?
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So I wear, I wear kind of a version of a costume, you know, combat boots, you know, green pants and a green fatigue t-shirt and a version of a version of an outfit. Dress up army shirt. And that's kind of my only costume. I use props a lot. I use props. What kind of props you got out there? Cups, whiskey bottles, beer cans, candles, a diary.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So the stage is usually, it's a flag behind me, six by nine American flag.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, www.theamericansoldiersoloshow.com. I mean, that would probably be a good place to start.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
You can scroll down. I'm trying to think where I have my more images. Yeah, as you come down, you'll see images.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. I always left because I used to reach out to... Can you scroll the other way? No, the other way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right there. Again, my life. I find it funny that that guy's going to be the DOD. We think. And I think... How do you think that'll play out? I think he's going to become the DOD.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
the woman getting burned in the subway in New York, I think people are realizing.
Cleared Hot
Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
No, it's not. But it's the culture issue that is pushing the other direction that people are going to try to push away from.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. Yeah, you can... There's links, you know, that's a great story right there. So that so I did the play in New Jersey once. And that's been I've become friends with all these vets. I mean, I get messages from vets all the time, you know, and that's been why I will. I mean, I can tell stories about vets who really broken down in the Q&A. But this one was a very I was in New Jersey.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I finished the play. I did a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday performance. And I remember I saw this older lady. Her name is Rose. And I saw her after the show. And she gave me a big hug. And she was really complimentary of the work. I saw her on Saturday as well. I said, were you here yesterday? She goes, yeah, I needed to see it again, son.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I just think what you're doing is so special, so beautiful. Then I saw her on Sunday with two friends. She had brought two older ladies as well. And they were all civilian nurses who went to Vietnam to help the Red Cross. And she wrote me this note. I have this letter. And so I asked her permission. Everybody who I have here, I have their permission.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And she said, if you ever hear a bird singing in the trees, that's me singing your prayers. And I was...
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So you have your path. They have their path. You know how to dodge. And they had these stairs that went forever up. In fact, have you been to the 9-11 Museum? Yes. Okay. Very, very moving.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I can tell other stories too. I mean, if you go, I mean, if you go up to the menu, I'm sorry, I forgot. Michael. Michael. I don't know why I was going to say that. Or Michelle. Michelle. Michael. If you go to... Oh, I'm sorry. Scroll down. Keep going down. Veteran letters. Keep coming down. I'll tell you this. Just keep smoothly coming down. Keep coming down.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Keep coming down. Keep coming down. Keep coming down. Keep coming down. Right there. Go up. Right there. So you would read veteran testimonials. Right there. Yeah. Click that. And if you go up a little bit, see that chopper? Yeah, that chopper one on the far left. The Apache. Yeah. Yeah. So that guy, no, not that one, far left, that was the Vietnam. She was a very powerful message.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
She saw me in Iowa. So I kept his, he asked me to hide his name. I did it in, the play's taking me everywhere. I mean, I've done Chocolate Factories, the Kennedy Center. I did it in Bannerman Island, right across from West Point. How many times have you performed it now? Man, I've done the play now. 10 years now, but it's been in over 40 cities, 35 states.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I think you do both simultaneously. For a long time, I was wondering if the message was not wanted anymore.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I definitely believe you, wane. When you say wax, you mean like crash? Ebb and flow. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. That's what's happening. But I keep getting bookings. People keep wanting to see, and that was kind of what I reached out to you because I've seen, it's been really interesting.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
The play has so many different layers, but it's been really interesting when I go to small towns, Tumul, Iowa, Champaign, Illinois, Red Hook, New York, A lot of the people who love the play, who want to see the play are an older demographic that are trying to remember the America that doesn't kind of exist anymore.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yep. For me too, especially being there and seeing the whole thing. Yeah. But they had... So they give a version of those stairs when you're going down into it when... I think it's by, you know where the blue wall is? Right there. But they went forever, right? And they were, I think four and four, four going up, four going down. Obviously in the morning, the four going up.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And they're holding on and they're in these small towns that has, that it's been hollowed out by all the manufacturing. They're gone. There's no jobs there. And all the young people have left. And I've kind of noticed this, layer in the past couple of years, you know, as I've been doing three, four years now, I've been doing the play in these small towns.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I mean, I did the Kennedy Center this year, which was DC, big, you know, city, but it's been really fascinating me to see the, what we've done to the small town with the manufacturing, all the job is being shipped away. And these small towns now are being held by old Americans, American veterans from Vietnam, Korea,
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
some from Iraq, you know, and, and they're trying to hold, and they're trying to hold on to a, they're trying to remember or hold on to a version of America that is, it's been forgotten or is being ignored. And, I find that parallel really fascinating to me now because as we ignore vets, vets are struggling, especially with the debacle of Afghanistan recently.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Now it's the same parallel what we've done with the manufacturing jobs in our town and these small towns that are being hollowed out, completely hollowed out because the young base is leaving because there's no work there because there's no jobs there.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And so the only thing that's left there basically is old Americans who grew up there who haven't left and immigrants who, you know, the waiting tables or whatever. And they're the ones who are holding the town together in a weird way. But slowly these towns are really dying out, you know? And I mean, I was just in Bloomberg, PA. I did it twice there. They brought me back.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I mean, I was the fire marshal. I mean, they made me the parade marshal and then... I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It was cool. But then, you know, they, you know, they, they had like the high school kids and they did the Pledge of Allegiance and they did, they sang the Star Spangled Banner. And so it's small towns that are trying to hold on, you know?
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And, and then when they see the play, they're like, why doesn't everybody see this play? How come no one doesn't know this play? So I have found that interesting. And I don't know what the answer is or what that means, but I found that a parallel track between how we've treated a lot of our vets and what we've done to our manufacturing jobs in our small towns. Does that make sense?
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. I mean, we've lost, when NAFTA started, probably around a million jobs that have been kicked out. Two out of three jobs are overseas now.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So I don't know what that means, but I do know that it is kind of cool doing the play in these small towns and giving these guys, I don't know what, hope or feel good, you know, making them feel good about, you know, what they did, what they served, what the country means to them. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, well, I think that that's what's really, you asked me about the, you know, can I keep going? And I wonder about that, you know.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Where I get really turned on is when at the end of the play, vets are coming up to me and sharing me their stories. The play is really, it's 90 minutes, but it's kind of like two acts. You have the first act, which is the play, and then we have a Q&A afterwards, which started organically because I couldn't get off stage because people wanted to find out what my deal was. Did I serve?
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Which I did not. Why am I doing it? Where'd you get the material from? What's the deal?
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
and the i mean the four going out were empty and before going up and so you would get up and get your coffee you get your muffin and and that was my path so i'd get into world trade towers in the morning i get a muffin i get a cup of coffee i'd walk out i'd walk from uh cornwall street all the way up to whitehall street which is about a 10 15 minute walk and usually if the if the if the weather was beautiful that's what you i would do specifically
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Oh, dude, it's endless. I mean, I've had stories. I mean, I guess we can talk. I mean, so this guy right here. So when I did it at Bannerman. JC. JC. Yeah. His name is, we'll just say his first name is John, but. Easy. Don't be doxing people. Big dude, big guy. He's probably 6'4", 6'5". And I was outside in front of Bannerman Island, and he was standing like this in the back.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
It was outside performance. And I remember thinking, this guy is going to fucking give me the right act. Like, you know, this guy is going to tell me, who the fuck do you think you are doing these letters?
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah, well, when they don't smile, it kind of leans into scary.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. So he was a med vac crew chief gunner. And anyhow, he came up to me and he says, can I talk to you? And I said, yeah. And he just broke down in tears. Just big old dude hugging me, crying. And then we sat down, we talked, and he told me his son was serving in Syria and he was dealing with PTS and he was worried about him. And we talked about the play. We talked about what it meant.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And he's a great guy. That was in 2017. He texts me all the time. Keep doing what you're doing. Keep doing what you're doing. That's awesome. Yeah. And then there was another, I mean, there's, I mean, if you go back, I can, I could, I mean, I know all these stories. You know, Candy Close, she, you know, she talked about PTSD. Scroll down a little bit.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So this guy here, so he saw me in New Hampshire. He took his life, unfortunately. Rest in peace. But he, you know, saw me in New Hampshire, told me a story. Yeah. And his mom called me and let me know that.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Oh, man. It's quite somber. It's quite hollow. Yeah. Hollow ground there. Yeah, I've been there many times. Every time I go to D.C., I try to go. Yeah. So, you know, these people, they write me their stories. You know, they write me their letters. And I've become friends, you know, with Kevin and Joyce Lucy. They lost their son. He took his life. And he fought in Iraq.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And that was a crazy story, because when I was performing it, they, throughout the whole time, someone would always say, hey, I know that. I know that letter. And then I thought, fuck, by luck, by chance, did I pick this guy's family or something, you know? And then he says, no, but it's like my grandfather, or it's like my mother, or like my dad.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
But in Cape Cod, this guy stands up because I know that family. Those are the Lucys.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
i was like holy that is because i know the character's name jeff lucy and uh he says they would want to meet you and so he hooked me up with him the father father wrote a book and i was nervous when he called me and a lot of especially the gold star families they're just really grateful that i'm keeping their families their their their name's not forgotten yeah the name's not forgotten
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And they text me all the time. Every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, I get a beautiful message from Kevin, Kevin Lucy. They came and saw my play for the first time in Connecticut last year, I think it was. That was kind of scary, doing his son's story, his story about his son in front of them. I bet they loved it. They did. They did. They were, they're beautiful people, man. They're so supportive.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And, and they always tell me, um, you know, thank you for not forgetting. And then, you know, Eleanor, Eleanor Wimbish, you know, dear bill letter was a very famous letter. So, you know, I do these letters and by, you know, you do the play long enough and you start knowing the families and they start reaching out to you and, um, Yeah.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I was a big history buff. So there was Trinity Church right there. And so I would always go to Trinity Church if I had time and I'd read, I'd memorize monologues because I was, you know, fascinated and just addicted to learning stories about, you know, who was buried in that cemetery. You know, if it was, you know, I think one of the Adams kids were buried there.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And so you wonder, you know, do I keep going, you know, but you know, I mean, 30,000 vets have taken their lives since, since nine 11.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. Seven around, I think seven at seven or a little bit more than seven died in combat.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. It's times four. Yeah. It's times four. And one of the things that a lot of the vets have always told me, um, who have seen the play have said the play is really important because it reminds people what, like you said earlier, what the sacrifice was. Yeah, the cost. The cost. And they want people to know, but they can't say it. And so I think that's been the success of the play.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
The success of the play has been that it depicts reality. It's a clear version. I mean, I've become friends with a lot of veteran therapists as well, equine therapists, canine therapists, and they've all said, you know, this play is so great because it's the only way I can explain to people what PTS is. It's the only way I can explain it. And so... how it keeps going.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Um, I mean, I was in Texas just last year and when I finished a play, um, I was talking gab with people in the theater and I saw this guy up and sitting down and he was just staring at me. This was just last year and Thanksgiving, uh, in Fredericksburg, Texas. And, uh, I just, I looked at him to the corner of my eye and thinking, um, I said, are you all right, man? I said, do you want to talk?
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Because a lot of times they just want to talk to me privately. And he started walking down the theater, down the steps, and he just literally fell in my arms and broke down. And he had done like seven deployments. He was a Marine. And he told me all his buddies have taken their lives. He was the only one left. And so I never know what to say, really, besides.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. I told him not to give up. I told him to talk, find passion. And I tell him, you know, like I have a line in the letter, you know, you owe it to the guys who didn't come back to stay here. I mean, what do you say? I mean, any suggestions?
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. So you wonder, you know, how much important the play is, but like this year, I mean, so I'm supposed to go back to Virginia to the American Revolution Museum. I just got called and they want me to perform it for What's the base on Kentucky and Tennessee? Is that the 82nd? Could be. I'm not super familiar with the army bases. Yeah, they want me to bring the play there.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Apparently some generals want to see it. Where else am I going? The Citadel.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And then you kind of felt like you're walking through American history. That's where America really started, really, you know. right there and around Whitehall Street at Trinity Church. And it's the beginning of Manhattan. And so, well, on 9-11, my first climb was at nine in the morning on that beautiful day. And to this day, I'll never forget that day because it was such a beautiful day.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
to that website theamericansoldier.com is there a contact on there like if somebody hears this and they're interested they want to bring it to wherever they are that's the place to do it yeah okay what do you want to leave people with closing thoughts wise I think but before we close I want to give you this what is it hang on alright so that'd be a dildo wrapped inside of that damn it
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I have a friend of mine who hunts. Okay. He's a big time hunter and he makes these knives. Okay. And, oh fuck, I left the card. Oh, well anyway, you don't need the card.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. But it's at squidlowcreations.com. I told him I gave it to him. I give him a shout out, but it's a really good metal. He's a big time hunter. I can tell you, if I had time, I'd tell you an alligator hunter. We used to go out. We used to go get sharp. We used to go gator hunting.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. Yeah. So at SquillowCreations.com. Okay. And so I wanted to give you that. Thanks for having me here, brother. Of course. What do you want to leave people with? I... Thank you for everyone's service. I think it's important that we keep these stories alive.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I think it's critical as a society that we remember those who are willing to raise their right hand to fight for us and not forget because, you know, as a nation, if we forget these stories, I think in a way, kind of like what I was talking about the towns, we start hollowing out ourselves as a nation. I agree. And I think it's important. And the Greeks knew that, you know, the Greeks used to,
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
the Greeks would they would have ceremonies the Cherokees knew that and so they kept the fist of the society and the fighters together and they were able to always be connected and they always understood each other and so when they had to do service or sacrifice they were willing to do it because they knew the people behind them were gonna knew their sacrifices and I think that's important so yeah I think that's what I would like to leave I'm just grateful to be here brother
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Yeah. In fact, whenever... Scott Mann, I don't know if you've heard of Scott Mann. He came and saw my show and- I feel like I have heard the name, but I don't know the context. Pineapple Express.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So he saw my play up in Detroit and we went for dinner afterwards and I was telling him, he was asking me, you know, why I wrote the play. And so I was telling him and I said- And I was describing the day and he was like, that's probably a version of PTS that you have. And I never really thought about it to that point because I can describe it in detail, everything in detail.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
Not that I have PTS, but the way he was explaining it to me because you know it so much in detail. And to this day, if I walk out on a beautiful day where there's not a cloud, weather's around 70, 72 degrees, spring or fall, you know, September, I'm right back there. I can remember everything about it. And I just remember that day. I went in early. I woke up. It was a beautiful day.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So I went in early, get a cup of coffee, and I was going to walk. So you could either walk from the World Trade Towers or you could take a subway if you wanted to, to where I worked at. But it was such a beautiful day. I said, you know, I'm going to walk. I'm going to walk today. So I came out. First plane hit at 846. So I was at the underneath the World Trade Towers. And the World Trade Towers.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
So not the first one. So I walked out around eight o'clock in the morning, 8.15. I got to the gym at about 8.30 and then the first plane hit, 8.46. Didn't even hear it really. I had a client at nine who came in early and he was freaked out. He had just walked out when the first plane, he was literally walking out when the first plane hit.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And for people who don't know, World Trade Towers were huge, massive. In fact, when they were up, you didn't even notice the Manhattan skyline. When they fell down, it was the first time you noticed the Empire State Building. So being in a quarter of a mile from them, they're just like towering over you. In fact, when I first got to New York, I remember being really lost.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I had a map trying to find my way to go to auditions, and this older lady said, son, where are you going? And I said, well, I'm trying to go to the north side of Manhattan. She said, well, let me show you something. You see those buildings over there? That's south. And if you know where South is, you know where North is. And if you know North is, you know where West is, you know where East is.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
She goes, whenever you get lost, just look up and you'll see those two towers. And you could be, I mean, you could be all the way up in Spanish Harlem. You could see them forever, man. You could see them coming in from Connecticut, driving. You could start seeing them. So I got to the World Trade Towers, to my gym. I had just walked out of the 9-11. It was a beautiful day.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I remember just walking on the side, just thinking, looking at the Trinity Church, drinking my coffee, eating my muffin, getting there. And then my first client at nine o'clock was there early and he was all freaked out. And he's like, something happened at the World Trade Towers. And I said, well, what happened? He said, I don't know, something's going on. I go, well, let's train, man.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
I mean, sure, it's nothing, dude. And at that time, everybody thought I was a Cessna. No one knew what it was. And so I started training. And then the second plane hit, which I believe was at 9.03 or 9.02. And that one felt like turbulence on a plane. That one you felt. I don't know how it hit it or what, but you felt, I mean, everything shook. And then everyone stopped.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
And I remember putting the dumbbells down and we walked outside. And just, I remember the scene looking like either that year or the year before Godzilla came out. And there's a scene in the movie of Godzilla where everyone's climbing over the taxis and looking up and looking at Godzilla and they're like, ah, you know. The problem is there's like 17 movies. It was like the latest one in 2000.
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Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel
They're redoing that one for the third or fourth time. Yeah, I know. I can't watch Superman anymore. What about Superman can't you watch? I just, I'm a Christopher Reeve guy. And, you know, I was so, you know, being old and that's my movie. And I think I watched the second one after that. But then. With Cavill? Yeah. Built dude. Yeah. Looked like freaking Superman.