Matthew Perry's "Friends, Lovers & The Big Terrible Thing" | BC Book Club Ep. 2

e good day good day good day it is Saturday so it is time for the Breaking Chains book club BC book club welcome welcome welcome we are here today to read chapter at least chapter two of Matthew Perry's friends lovers and the big terrible thing um but before I do that I want to give you a little update on Matthew Perry's case this is the latest update and I want to talk a little bit about you know um the way some of his friends and family have responded to this and how the people accused are coming out and trying to you know justify their behavior there's a little bit to talk about with this so let me just show you the update in the case this is the most recent update that there are you know of the five people who have been charged um some of them are pleading guilty some of them plan to plead not guilty um some of them are still incarcerated some of them have bonded out so let's watch and you'll see for yourself this morning new developments in the criminal investigation surrounding the death of actor Matthew Perry the Department of Justice announcing on Tuesday a March 2025 trial date has been set for jasine Sangha also known as the ketamine Queen according to prosecutors along with Dr Salvador Placencia singha and Placencia are among five defendants charged in connection to Perry's death last year and the only two who have not reached plea deals with Federal prosecutors I'm the Beloved friend star was found unresponsive in a hot tub at his Los angelist home last October the medical examiner's office determining he died from the acute effects of ketamine prosecutors sa the drugs that caused Perry's death came from jasvin Sangha whose apartment they described as a drug selling Emporium she took advantage of Mr Perry by selling large amounts of ketamine to Mr Perry but one of singo's attorneys Mark gar goes telling NBC news she's being unfairly singled out how did she get connected to Matthew Perry in the isn't it just like Mark gagos to just get his face on camera the minute there's a high-profile death or criminal investigation first place it's like there's like mystery surrounding this well there's no Myster she isn't connected to Matthew Perry at all but in charging documents prosecutors say text messages between singha and broker Eric Fleming show she was aware of the danger singha has also pled not guilty in a different unrelated drug case people like to make her out into something that she isn't but there's a whole different side here a story to be told and it will be told in a trial Fleming pleaded guilty in August admitting he brought the drugs that killed Perry to the actor's living assistant another man charged in the case Dr Mark Chavez was released on bond Thursday his attorney says he plans to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine he's incredibly remorseful what happened not just because it happened to Matthew Perry but because it happened to a patient he is trying to do everything in his power to write the wrong that happened here the other doctor charged Dr Salvador Placencia he's entered a not- guilty plea and was freed on a $100,000 bond now he's been allowed to resume his medical practice but he has to disclose the charges against him and he can't prescribe Controlled Substances as we said Placencia and jasine Sangha are currently scheduled to face trial together in March but her lawyer tells us he expects that's going to change all right chlo MOS Chloe thank you Lord Jarett let's put that senior legal correspondent hat on for a moment yeah Okay so we've got most so that's basically the update um you have some people who are expressing their remorse and taking accountability and taking please and you have some people who are not going to accept responsibility now um cinnamon one of my viewers um brought my attention to this Vanity Fair article about his assistant and um I had seen the the headline on it before um but I didn't read it until she brought it to my attention because I wanted you know I was interested in in it anyway but so basically the gist of this article is hey um when you are an assistant to a high-profile person you you can't say no to them unless uh you're willing to risk your job and here's the thing so that to me is a lot of excuse making and basically another um just washing over of the real issue here and the real issue in that in in that whole scenario is that there is a culture of enabling in Hollywood in the entertainment business and in and in a lot of Industries but when a personal assistant is asked to do something that they can foresee is dangerous and illegal and harmful to their client in my opinion they have an ethical moral duty to say no I'm not going to do that um and regard oh you're you're not late cinnamon I just started a couple minutes ago um you you still have an ethical Duty when a high-profile person says go buy me drugs shoot me up with drugs shoot me up with more drugs you have an ethical responsibility not to participate in that and this article says that the um that the assistant really tried to get him help but the thing is is that that's great that's wonderful but it's not helping to continue to shoot the person up when you're um when you say you're trying to get them help they they really need to get that help and as long as they're enabled they're going to continue with their addiction so it's a it's a very very sad State of Affairs that is a major cultural issue especially in the uh entertainment industry is personal assistants are basically roped into doing illegal things to cover up for their high-profile figure because the high-profile name doesn't want to be out there buying the drugs getting the drugs picking them up you know and all of that so um to me there just needs to be a major cultural shift like with the meoo movement I mean in in with the me too movement the reason that took off is because everybody understood that there's this Casting Couch scenario with the Harvey weinsteins of the world right and um there's a very similar situation with this we have um drug adult high-profile celebrities out there running around all day every day and if they have these assistants just enabling them this type of stuff is not going to stop that it they are part of a system that is exploiting the person's drug addiction they're part of that system so sometimes we just have to step back and take a look at am I being part of the system that's enabling this to continue to happen you know so uh let me share the link so we can get started reading and um I think cinnamon might want to come up and read with me and perhaps other people who come but please remember to hit the thumbs up I'm going to pull up chapter 2 now so we can start reading it apparently it is an interlude um meaning you know we're going now we're going to kind of go back in time or you know uh talk about something slightly different that than was in chapter one and the forward and the introduction so with that I don't want to um start reading too late into the stream so that people know when they can uh start listening they don't want to hear my beforehand ramblings so here we go I'm going to start reading chapter two or interlude uh New York so the first thing I did when I got home from those five months in the hospital was light up a cigarette after all that time the inhale the smoke billowing into was like the first cigarette I had ever had in my entire life it felt like a second homecoming hey girl you there hey hey hi hi sorry I'm late no no you're fine um how you doing today by the way I'm I'm doing great how are you doing are you feeling better from yesterday yeah although in all honesty I literally just witnessed a very very very very very sad situation on another YouTube channel oh no um which also has to do with addiction so um this is very relevant and germine to what I just witnessed there's just there's just a person in in a you know a a far off reach of the you know kamaa Community basically who is literally having a um an addiction meltdown and it's and hurting all of his former friends and family and it's very very very sad to watch oh I'm so sorry yeah it's you know of course not your fault it's what happens but it's just sheds light on on all of this I'm hearing something in the background I know sorry I no I think it's me hang on okay I'm gonna I'm gonna keeping and turn it over I'm gonna mute okay all right I'm going to start the the second chapter over the first thing I did when I got home from those five months in re in in hospital was light up a cigarette after all that time the inhale the smoke billing billowing into my lungs was like the first cigarette I ever had in my entire life it felt like a second homecoming I was no longer in pain the massive surgery on my stomach had caused SC Scar Tissue which in turn caused my stomach to feel like I was doing a sit up at full stretch 247 but it wasn't actually pain it was more of an annoyance but no one needed to know that so I told everyone I was in pain so I could get oxycoton there you go pretty soon the 80 milligrams a day of oxycotton I had conned them into giving me wasn't working anymore and I needed more we're about to hear a very similar story to a lot of people in our lives I know at least I know you people have somebody in your lives who has gone through this when I asked the doctors for more they said no when I called a drug dealer he said yes now all I had to do was figure out a way to get down 40 floors from my $2 million Penthouse wow apartment with Aaron spotting me I bought the place I swear to God because Bruce Wayne lived in just such an apartment in the Dark Knight over the next month I attempted to do this four times I was caught you guessed it four times I was horrible at it naturally the call came down to it came down from above that this man needs to go to rehab again so and then you can pick take it from I guess we're gonna let's do kind of a page by Page thing I do a page you do a page sound good yeah that's fine um okay now I fixed the uh the echo so hopefully hopefully we don't have a stereo going on here okay so um hi Patricia sorry just wanted to say hi Patricia hi Patricia okay um after the explosion of my bowel I'd been through a first surgery and needed to wear a rather attractive colostomy bag a look even I couldn't pull off there was a second surgery pending to remove the bag but in between the two surgeries I was banned from smoking smokers tend to have much uglier scars hence the stricture not to mention I was my two front teeth a bite into a piece of toast with peanut butter had cracked them and I hadn't had time to fix them yet so let me get this straight you're right you're you're asking me to quit doing drugs and quit smoking at the same time I didn't give a [ __ ] about the scars I'm a big smoker this was too much to ask what this meant was I had to go to a rehab in New York quit oxycoton and quit smoking simultaneously and I was scared once I got to rehab they gave me Subutex for the detox so that wasn't that bad I checked into my room and the clock started by day four I was going out of my mind this had always been the hardest day I realized how serious they were going to be about this smoking thing too it was decided that I could smoke while in detox but once I moved up to the third floor the smokes had to go they insisted so much so that I was locked in the building so I could not get out I was on the third floor all around New York purred in the distance going about its business living life while their favorite sarcastic sitcom star was in Hell one more time if I listened hard enough I could just hear the subway the F train the R Train the 456 deep below me or maybe it was the rattle of something else something unbidden and terrifying and Unstoppable this rehab was prison I was convinced of it a real prison not like the one I had made up before is that the I think that's the end of the page right yeah yeah sorry I started to read but I was uh I was muted okay uh Patricia sorry uh imagine Patricia says imagine being that frivolous when buying a house I know exactly I was thinking this I was like wow you have that kind of money you can do you can anything even the silliest motivation is fine right okay I'll keep reading uh let me see red bricks black iron bars somehow I'd found my way to jail I'd never broken the law well I'd never been caught nevertheless here I was in lock out lockup Pokey the house of D missing my two front teeth I never knew that I even looked like a convict and every counselor was on guard they may as well have fed me through a slot in a bolted door I hated the whole place they didn't have anything to teach me I've been in therapy since I was 18 years old and honestly by this point I didn't need any more therapy what I needed was two front teeth and a colos bag that didn't break when I say that I woke up cover covered in my own [ __ ] I'm talking 50 to 60 times on the mornings when the bag did not break I noticed another new phenomenon when I woke up I enjoyed about 30 seconds of Freedom as I slowly wiped the sleep from my eyes and then the reality of my situation would hit me and I would burst into tears at a rate that even would make Merill stream jealous oh my gosh oh and I needed a cigarette did I mention that I was sitting in my room doing God knows what on day four when something hit me I don't know what it was like something was punching me from the inside but even though I had been in therapy for more than 30 years and it had nothing to new to teach me I had to do something to get my mind off nicotine so I left my cell and headed down the hallway aimless I had no idea what I was what I was doing or where I was going I think I was trying to walk outside of my own body I knew that all the therapists were on the floor below me but I decided to skip the elevator and make for the stairwell I didn't really know what was happening I can't do to this day describe what was going on except that I was in a sort of panic confusion a kind of Fugue State and there was that intense pain again not pain but pretty close to it total confusion and I wanted to smoke so badly so I stopped in that stairwell and thought about all the years of Agony and the fact that the yard never got painted blue and Pierre [ __ ] Trudeau and the fact that I was then and still am an unac minor it was like the bad parts of my life were appearing to me all at once I'd never be able to fully explain what happened next but all of a sudden I started slamming my head against the wall as hard as humanly possible 15 love slam 30 love slam 40 love slam game Ace after Ace volley after perfect volley my head the ball the wall the cement court all the pain lobbed up but short me reaching up smashing my head against the wall Blood on the cement and on the wall and all over my face completing the grand slam the Umpire screaming game set and match unaccompanied minor six love needs love six love scared of Love there was blood everywhere after about eight of these mind-numbing slams somebody must have heard me and stopped me and asked the only logical question why are you doing that I gazed at her and looking like Rocky Balboa from every one of those last scenes I said because I couldn't think of anything better to do stairwells wow he's literally banged his head against the wall yeah in a stairwell in a stairwell uh Patricia is asking why did he have the bowel problem his um his colon literally exploded Patricia he had to have major surgery he was in the hospital for something like five Mones months and it was all because of alcohol consumption and drug drug consumption but he attributed that most to alcohol okay so I'm going to turn to the next page and read all right so this is actually chapter two then okay well we're starting a new part so he was just telling a Side Story from what happened before another generation shot to hell it seemed like the whole world was walking through the arrivals Lounge of LAX that summer worldclass amateur gymnast sprinters dis discus throwers pole Alters basketball players weightlifters show jumpers and their horses swimmers fencers soccer players synchronized swimmers media from all around the globe officials and sponsors and agents oh and one 15-year-old also amateur tennis player from Canada they all washed up in Los Angeles during the summer of 1984 the only one was doing a big Geographic that was a year of the Los Angeles Olympic Games a golden time of high sun and muscled Excellence of a 100,000 people packed into the Coliseum and the Rose Bowl where Mary Lou rton needed a 10 to win the gymnastics all around and nailed it and where Carl Lewis won four gold medal medals by running really fast and jumping really far it was also the year I immigrated to the United States a lost Canadian kid with a dick that didn't seem to work what what where did that come from oh my God heading to Tinsel Town he live with his father I mean I don't remember any other references to his dick until now this this is a new story that's unfolding he's like he's like seeding us along man he's dropping those breadcrumbs my gosh um back in Ottawa before IID left a girl had tried to have oh here we go a girl tried to have sex with me but I was so nervous that I drank six your turn beers beforehand and couldn't perform by then I'd been drinking for a few years it began soon after the time I gave my mother away to that lovely man Keith and I do mean lovely Keith lived for my mother the only thing that is annoying about Keith is that he always takes my mother's side he is her he is her he is her protector I can't tell you how many times my mother has done something that I may have taken issue with and I've been told by Keith that it never happened some would call this gaslighting others would call it gaslighting it's gaslighting but my family was held together by one man and that was Keith Morrison anyway back to my penis I failed to make I failed to make the correlation between the booze and my private parts not working and no one could know about this no one so I was walking around the planet thinking sex was something for other people for a long time six uh for a long time years sex sounded awfully fun but it was not in my Arsenal this meant in my mind and pants in my mind and pants at least that I was congenitally impotent if I just go to Los Angeles I'll be happy that's what I thought seriously that's what I thought a geographic long before I even knew what a geographic was would do would do for me I fit right in with the muscled hypert Tred athletes also waiting at the baggage carousels weren't we all just bringing some kind of crazy dream to this crazy City if there were hundred sprinters and only three medals per discipline how much serer could you say they were than me in fact I probably had a better chance of making it in my profession than they did in theirs after all my dad was an actor and that's what I wanted to be all he had to do was help me push on doors already a job right and so what if I came halfway down the pack I might not get a medal either but at least I'd get away from Ottawa and a dick that didn't seem to want to work and a family I wasn't really part of and on and on so um so Patricia says he was getting it wrong the dick doesn't work you work the dick p so um just to give you also a little bit of context here um this move from Canada to Los Angeles was a big big big deal to him he felt abandoned by his family and so he moved to and and part of that was moving to Canada to try to you know Chase his dream but he had this is a big um you know one of his big triggers in his life is just not feeling like he was really part of a family and he you know he was getting away from the one F uh family group that he thought was you know at that time in his mind hampering him so that that's the context here um but let me go on the initial plan for me had involved Sports too my tennis had Advanced to the point where we seriously considered me enrolling in nick uh baller's tent bottier Tennis Academy in Florida Boler was the premier tennis coach he helped Monica celis Andre ausy Maria Sharapova and Venus and Serena Williams among many others but once in La it became quickly apparent that I was going to be a perfectly solid Club player nothing more I can remember enrolling in a satellite tournament with my dad and my new family watching he'd remarried to Deb Debbie a lovely woman in the catch of the century in 1980 and back then we had very young daughter oh he they had a very young daughter Maria and in my first met I didn't win a single point the standard in Southern California was off the charts when it's 72 degrees every day and there are tennis courts seemingly in every backyard and on every street corner some kid from the city I'm sorry the icy Wast of Canada where it's Subzero from December through March if you're lucky is going to struggle to make an impact it was kind of like being a really good hockey player in Burbank oh my God and so and so it turned out my dreams of being the next Jimmy Connor quickly faded when when faced with whipped 100 mile per hour serves coming from bronze Californian Gods who happen to be 11 years old and called Chad but spelled with a capital D it was time to look for a new profession despite this Swift reality check I loved La instantly I love the vastness of it the possibilities of it the opport opportunity to start a new not to mention that the 72 degrees every day made a nice change from Ottawa plus when I realized at T tennis wasn't going your turn to be how I would make a living and someone told me people actually get paid to act I quickly changed career go goals this wasn't as far-fetched as it seemed for a start my dad was in Show Business and I had a hunch that the attention would light me up like a Christmas tree I had a solid training at home whenever there was tension or I needed attention I'd hone my skills at delivering a killer line if I was performing well everything was safe and I was being taken care of I might have been an unaccompanied minor but when I got laughs there was a whole audience my mother my siblings the Murray Brothers kids kids in school who would stand and applaud me it also didn't hurt that three weeks into my sophomore year at a very prestigious and expensive thanks Dad new school I was cast in the lead role of the high school play that's right ladies and gentlemen you are looking at George Gibbs in thoron Wilders ourtown acting came naturally to me why wouldn't I want to pretend to be another person Jesus Christ I think my dad had sensed this was going to happen after I was cast in ourtown I raced home to share the big news and found a book lying on my bed called acting with style the inscription inside read another generation shot to hell love love Dad acting was another one of my drugs and it didn't do the damage that alcohol was already starting to do in fact it was getting harder and harder to wake up after a night of drinking not on school days it had hadn't escalated that far yet but certainly every weekend but first I had to get a regular education Lynn are you there oh God I was muted I'm sorry that's okay sorry y'all how boring okay I was the pale Canadian kid with a quick mouth and there's something about an outsider that pequs the interest curiosity of teenagers we seem exotic especially if we have a Canadian accent and can name the entire roster of the Toronto Maple Leaves plus my dad was the Old Spice guy for years on their TVs my schoolmates had seen dad dressed as a sailor on Shor Leaf I totally remember those commercials he's very handsome his dad was very handsome absolutely he was a great Old Spice Guy uh let's see um my schoolmates had seen d dad dress as a sailor on shorle replete with PE peacat and black sailor cap slinging that iconic white bottle at clean shaven bit actors while urging them to clean up your life with Old Spice it may not have been Shakespeare but he was famous enough and he was tall and handsome and very funny and he was my dad dad was also a drinker every evening he'd arrive home from whichever set he'd been on or not been on pour himself a healthy slug of VOD Caton and announced this is the best thing that's happened to me all day wow he said that wait he said this about a drink sitting next to his son on a couch in Los Angeles then he'd have four more and take the fifth to bed dad taught me the many good things too but he certainly taught me how to drink it's still no accident that my drink of choice was a double VOD catonic and my thought every time was this is the best thing that happened to me all day there was a difference though a big one without fail next morning at 7 dad would be up bright and Breezy he'd shower and apply his aftershave never Old Spice and head out to the bank or his agent or to set he never missed a thing dad was the epitome of a functional Drinker I on the other hand was already struggling to wake up and causing Whispers with those with those who drank around me I watched my father drink six VOD katonic and live a perfectly fun functional life so I figured it was possible I figured I'd be able to do the same thing but there was something lurking in my shadows and my jeans like a creepy beast in a dark place something I had that my father did not and it would be a decade before we knew what it was alcoholism addiction you call it what you want I've chosen to call it a big terrible thing but I was George Gibbs too I don't remember what my classmates thought of this newbie showing up with his pale skin and Canadian brogue but I didn't care Spark Notes describes Gibbs as an archetypal All American Boy a local baseball star and the president of his senior class in high school he also possesses innocence and sensitivity he's a good son but for George to stifle his emotions is difficult if not impossible so pretty much dead on then at home though my dad had vodka all over the house one after when he and Debbie were gone I decided to take a big Swig of vodka as the Warm Spice of it jangled down my throat and innards I felt that well-being that ease that sense that everything was going to be fine I saw the clouds from my backyard in Ottawa and I figured I'd head out into LA to walk in this Bliss the 72 Degree Heaven the star of the school play wandering like a drunk adicus through the star studed streets Clancy Seagal writing for the London Observer about the 1984 La Olympics noted that whenever he visited the city he sensed that he was passing through a soft membrane that seals Los Angeles off from the real painful World here I was too slipping through that soft vodka soften membrane into excuse me I'm feeling a little burp coming on sorry uh into a place where there was no pain where the world was both real and not and yet as I turned a corner something else hit me that had never occurred to me before death fear of death questions like why are we all here what's the meaning of all this what's the point how do we all survive all this what are human beings what is air all these questions poured into my brain like a tidal wave it was just it was just rounding a [ __ ] corner or I was just rounding a [ __ ] Corner the drink and that walk opened up a c in me that's still there I was so troubled I was an extremely screwed up guy the questions cascaded like alcohol into a glass and all I'd done was what sigle had done I had arrived in Los Angeles along with gymnast gymnast and sprinters and horses and Riders and actors and wannabes and hasbin and Old Spice actors and now a great void had opened up beneath me I was standing at the edge of a great pit of fire like the pit of Hell in the herum desert of central Turkmenistan Turkmenistan the drink and that walk had created a thinker a Seeker but not some soft focused Buddhist crap one who was on the edge of a deep Crater of flames haunted by the lack of Answers by being unaccompanied by wanting love but being terrified of abandon abandonment by wanting excitement but being unable to appreciate it by addicted didn't work I was face Toof face with the four last things death judgment Heaven and Hell a 15-year-old boy brought up close to the face of eschatology so close he could smell the Vodka on its breath years later my father too would take his own meaningful walk he had had a bad night on the drink where he fell through some bushes or something and he talked to Debbie about it the following morning and she saidis this the way you want to live your life and he you you there yeah sorry it took a minute to turn the page and he said no then he went for a walk and quit drinking and hasn't had a drop since excuse me you went for a walk and quit drinking I have spent upward of 7 million trying to get sober I've been to 6,000 AA meetings not an exaggeration more an educated guest I've been to rehab 15 times I've been in a mental institution gone to therapy twice a week for 30 years been to death store and you went for a [ __ ] walk I'll tell you where you can take a walk oh my God but my dad can't write a play Star on Friends help the helpless and he doesn't have $7 million to spend on anything life has its trade-offs I suppose this begs the question would I trade places with him why don't we get to that one later on the Juke Box i' put a few dimes in and play Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush over and over sometime sorry don't give up please don't give up I've recorded that song go ahead you go you go Lynn sometimes I'd slip in main stream Main Street by Bob Seager or Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles one of the reasons we love the 101 coffee shop was because they kept the Juke Box up to date plus it felt like old Hollywood in there with its caramel colored leather booths and the sense that at any moment someone Super Famous might walk in you know to pretend that Fame didn't change anything by 1986 I was pretty sure Fame would change everything and I yearned for it more than any other person on the face of the planet I needed it it was the only thing that would fix me I was certain of it living in La you would occasionally bump into a celebrity or you'd see Billy Crystal at The Improv make note of n Nicholas cha cage in the next booth and I just knew they had no problems in fact making sure I'm not muted yeah okay oh you didn't really you didn't end up liking Rachel didn't end up liking the book but she says that's that's fine we'll we'll find out how what we think it's it's at least amusing at this point uh said no then he went for a walk and quit drinking and hasn't had a drop since oh wait that's what you just read okay in fact all their problems had been washed away they were famous i' been auditioning steadily and had even gotten a gig or two most notably in the first season of Charles in Charge I I played Ed a preppy plaid sweater and TI wearing Square who was confidently in toned uh who confidently in toned one m line my father's a Princeton man and a surgeon I'd like to follow in his footsteps but it was work and TV and without much more thought I found that I was already skipping school to hang out in diners with girls who liked my accent and my quick patter and my budding TV career and my ability to listen to them thanks to my training back in Canada I knew I was able to listen to and help women in crisis if you're a woman and you're in duress and you sing a song about it I will listen to it over over and over and over so there I was in the 101 coffee shop holding court with a gaggle of young woman quick with a line and a smirk and a willing ear I ditch the preppy Charles in Charge look as soon as I'd left the universal lot in Studio City and was dressed like any cool teen in the mid1 1980s denim jacket over a plaid shirt or probably wearing King a Kink's t-shirt before going home to listen to Air Supply I loved air reply when you're nearly 16 days seem endless especially when you're charming a bunch of young women greasy spoon in Hollywood I must have been really on that day too because I joke as I joked around a middle-aged guy walked past the booth and put a note on a napkin in front of me on the table and walked away right out the door the girls all stopped chattering I looked at the guy's back as he left then did a prototype of Chandler's Double Take getting more well read it one of the girls said I carefully picked up the note as though it were covered in poison and slowly opened it in spidery handwriting it said I want you to be in my next movie please give me a call at this number William is it Rickert or Richard Ricker um what does it say yeah what does it say another girl said it says could you be more handsome and talented I said dead pan No the first go said it does not the tenor of her disbelief caused another round of laughter as I said oh thanks very much but once the laughter died down I said it says I want you to be in my next movie please give me a call at this number William Richard Rickard one of the girls said well that sounds legitimate right I said this movie is going to be shot in the back of a windowless van oh my God at at home that evening I asked my dad what to do he was on his third VOD katonic there was just enough Co cogency left in his tank to get a useful answer by now he was starting to get a little frustrated by the fact that my career was beginning to percolate he wasn't jealous but he was aware that I was younger than he was and that the road was rising to meet me and that if I played my cards right I might have a better career than the one he was having that said he never showed anything but support there was no great Santini going on here my dad was my hero and he was proud of me well Maddie he said can't hurt to call but whatever my dad said I knew I'd call that number I'd known it when I first read the note this was Hollywood after all that's supposed to be how it happens right it turned out that William Rickard didn't want didn't want to make a movie back in the back of a van Rickard had been watching me perform for the girls that day in the 101 and had seen enough of the Matthew Perry show to want to cast me in a movie he was making B B on his novel a night in the life of Jimmy rean the novel and the movie are set in Chicago in the nearly uh oh sorry in the early 60s Reen is a teenager who's being forced to go to Business School when all he really wants to do is get enough money to buy a plane ticket to Hawaii where his girlfriend lives I was to play Reen's best friend Fred Roberts who like in ed in Charles in Charge was well off and a bit snobby and suffered from chronic virginity I could relate ditched the prep look once again as Fred was to be dressed in a gray felt flat cap and leather jacket over dress shirt and tie oh and black leather gloves in the movies the character of rearin sleeps with my girlfriend but that's okay because playing rearin would be something what would be someone it would be a privilege to be cheated on by the list of geniuses who were ahead of their time is too long to detail here suffice it to say near the top of my such list would be my co-star in a life of the night of Jimmy Ruden River Phoenix oh man yeah this movie was my first job excuse me and I'm actively and I'm acutely aware it would be a better story if the movie was a huge hit but all that really matters is that I learned how to make a film and I got to know River who personified Beauty in every way there was an aura around that guy but he made you feel so feel too comfortable to even be jealous of him Stand By Me had just come out which he excelled in and when you walked into a room with him his Charisma was such that you instantly became a part of the furniture wow your turn yeah the movie was shot in Chicago so there I was just turning 17 years old and heading to the windy city sans's parents sans's anything once again an unaccompanied minor but this time it felt like Freedom like what I was born to do I had never been so excited in my life it was in Chicago and on this movie and with River Phoenix that I fell deeply in love with acting and the cherry on top of this deeply magical time was that River and I became firm friends he and I drank beer and shot pool on North Rush Street The Color of Money had just come out and pool was the thing to do we had a perdm we flirted with girls though that's as far as it went for me because well you know River was a beautiful man inside and out too beautiful for this world it turned out River was a better actor than me I was funnier but I certainly held my own in our scenes No small feet when I looked back decades later but more important river just looked at the world in a different way than we all did and that made him fascinating and charismatic and yes beautiful but not in a gap ad kind of way though he was that too and a there is no one else in the world like him kind of way not to mention he was rocketing to stardom yet you would never know it and somewhere in all that magic River Phoenix and I managed to shoot a movie together later River would say that he wasn't happy with his performance in Jimmy rean claiming he hadn't been the right person for the role but to me he was the right person for every role he could he could do anything I remember seeing him in the movie sneakers he was making choices no one else would make not to mention holding his own with Legends like Robert Redford and the wonderful Sydney Pote and sorry for that noise you guys might have heard that was my dog tripping over a cord and then he says if you haven't seen it you should it's highly entertaining the movie we made would eventually tank at the box office but it didn't matter we'd been somewhere beautiful and magical even if it was just North Rush Street in freezing Chicago and it was the best experience of my life I knew it too my work was done in about 3 weeks and they Pro and they probably River actually liked me so much that they kept me on the movie till the end things didn't get better than this one night alone in my room at the Tremont Hotel as things were drawing to a close I knelt down and said to the universe don't you ever forget this and I have not but magic Never Last whatever holes your feeling seem to keep opening up it's like guaca-- maybe it was because I was always trying to fill a spiritual hole with a material thing I don't know either way when it came to the last day of shooting I sat on my bed in my Chicago hotel room and cried I sobbed and sobbed because I knew then I would never again have an experience like that my first movie Far From Home Free to flirt and drink and hang out with a brilliant young man like River Phoenix I would SOB again seven years later on Halloween 1993 when River died in front of the Viper Room in West Hollywood I heard screaming from my apartment wow went back to bed woke up to the news after his passing his mom wrote in reference to drug use the spirits of River's generation are being worn down and by then I was drinking every night but it would be years before I understood exactly what she meant with Jimmy Reen in the can I flew back to LA from Chicago and returned to planet Earth in the form of High School I was still functioning for I sorry I was still auditioning for tons of things but wasn't getting much traction I was booking mostly comedy stuff and I ended up guest starring on just about everything my grade still sucked though I graduated with a 2.0 average exactly all that I asked for my graduation was that my mother and father both attend which they kindly did the incredibly awkward dinner that followed seemed only to underline the fact that the child they shared was destined to be uncomfortable as a default even though he was also unusually also usually the funniest person in the room but that night at dinner I was only the third funniest and the third most beautiful at least a childhood dream of them being together had come true if for Only If For One Night Only and even then if only embarrassing s silences and Barbs passed back and forth like some angry Cosmic joint I'm grateful to my parents for attending that dinner it was an incredibly kind and completely unnecessary thing for them to do but it crystallized something for me that I had not anticipated it was right they weren't together they were not to be they were correct to be apart they both subsequently found the person they were meant to be with and I am incredibly happy for both of them Maddie no longer needed to make the wish that his parents would be together it would be decades before they were in the same room together again and then for very different reason the acting roles and the quick mind and mouth and the friendship with River and the denim jacket over plaid shirt all combined to help me land a beautiful girlfriend named Trisha fiser Eddie fiser and Connie Stevens daughter that's right hey ac9 good to see you that's right Carrie Fisher's half sister this girl was no stranger to charm the the rhyming poetry of her name alone should have made her irresistible plus I was 18 now and was pretty sure everything worked except when I was in the company of another human being I carried impotence around with me like a great ugly secret like I carried around everything else accordingly as my relationship with Trisha Fischer deepened thoughts naturally turned to a physical con consummation but I announced confidently that like a Roman Catholic I wanted to wait oh my God not many 18-year-old males say that by the way nor should they this of course caught her interest when she pressed me on why I said something about commitment or the future or the state of the planet or my career anything in fact to avoid telling her that I was softer than the caramel colored booth at the 101 coffee shop when the push came to sh and I couldn't let push come to shev or my secret would be out my firmness at least in my conviction to wait lasted two months but Dam's burst and the makeout sessions that didn't lead anywhere were beginning to cause us to both hyperventilate Trisha Fischer made up her mind Maddie she said I've had enough of this let's go she took my hand and went and led me to the bed in my tiny studio apartment in Westwood I was horrified and also excited though I was still haunted by an inner dialogue of fear maybe this time it was was someone I deeply care for my previous inabilities will dissolve dissolve bad word should I have a stiff drink beforehand well stiffs the problem pal maybe it won't be as hard as I feared not as hard Matty stop doing that before this brief dialogue could turn into a three peny Opera Trisha had to throb both of us and pulled us into bed I distinctly remember the foothills of Love Making as pure Bliss but like a neoy mountaineer I feared that Beyond a certain base camp no amount of ox oxygen would help me get any higher and so it proved to be how else to put it I just couldn't get that thing to work right I thought of everything spinning complex erotic images through my adal brain hoping to land on something one thing that's all it will take that would firm up my commitment to Future Bliss nothing worked nothing horrified again I forsook the loving arms of Trisha fiser and padded my slim naked body over to a chair in the apartment it was like you could bend me in half if you wanted to I sat there soft and sad my two hands cued over my lap like a nun's during Vespers doing my best to cover my embarrassment and maybe a tier or two Trisha fiser was once again having none of it Maddie she said what the hell is going on don't you find me attractive oh no of course I find you attractive I said the physical is issues were bad enough but worse I could feel an escalating sense of Abandonment slipping in through the windows of that room what if Trisha left me what if I wasn't enough like I always wasn't enough what if I was destined to be unaccompanied again I was desperate I really liked her and I really wanted to believe that love could save me there was only one thing to do I had to tell her everything Trisha I said back when I was in Ottawa I was so nervous about making out with a girl that I drank six beers I left nothing out I told Trisha the whole shameful tale and I ended by admitting that I was impotent and always would be that it was no use there was nothing to be done that my desire for her could never be matched by anything solid anything worthy of the name but I was desperate for her not to abandon me too so if there was anything I could keep do to keep her all she had to do is ask on and on and on I went burbling like a little river in the spring dear Trisha Fisher she let me Babble on and on on as as I tried my best to convince her that no matter how beautiful she was and she was very beautiful indeed it didn't matter I was destined to repeat that night in Ottawa for the rest of my days eventually I went down and took a breath Trisha said very calmly very simply come with me that's never going to happen again with that she walked over to me took my hand and led me back LED me back to bed laid me down and sure enough sheer Glory for two whole minutes that night by the dent of a miraculous universe and the mini ministrations of a beautiful young woman who deserved better I finally first misplaced my Virgin I finally first misplaced my virginity then lost it all together an impotence has not been part of my vocabulary since just as she promised it wouldn't be everything about me at least physically works just fine I I say the same thing too I'm great physically mentally that's the issue and how pray tell did you managed to pay such a debt Mr Perry such an honorous debt to the woman who saved your life in one of the most meaningful ways of manageable why good reader I paid that debt to Trisha by Sleeping with almost every woman in Southern California oh man on one such date back then with another 18-year-old at one point the woman stopped dinner and said let's go back to your house and have sex sex still being relatively new to me I agreed right away we went to my apartment and as we cross cross the threshold she stopped me and said wait wait wait I can't do this you have to take me home which of course I did the following day I felt bothered by what had happened and already in therapy I shared the story with my therapist I'm going to tell you a story and it's going to help you he said when a woman comes over to your place and she takes her shoes off you are going to get laid if she leaves them on you won't I was 18 then I am 52 now and he has been right 100% of the time there have been times I've cheated a little and left a pair of shoes at my doorstep as kind of a hint that this is where the shoes go but that therapist insight has been correct every single time if a woman keeps her shoes on it's a make out session at best years later Trisha and I would date again while friends was at its peak she didn't abandon me old fears crept up and I ended the relationship I only wish I could truly feel that she didn't abandon me truly believe that maybe things would be better maybe VOD katonic wouldn't have become my drink of choice maybe everything would be different or maybe not but to Trisha and those after her I thank you and to all the women that I left simply because I was afraid that they were going to leave me I deeply apologize from the bottom of my heart if I only knew then what I know now wow let me see how long this interlude is it's a little too long to start into now we'll start that next week wow that's all so that that it's funny but it's also very sad you know he the the writing is very funny the you know it's it's very in line with his sense of humor and his character you know he basically made that character on friends and you can see that here right and um but I I'm really um interested in the themes of um you know abandonment and him he's said this now several times throughout the book and this happens in a lot of relationships where people don't even know that they're doing this I used to do this I would put I would be super duper duper in love with them want to be with them for the rest of my life but then I would push them away without knowing it you know because I was afraid because I sensed that they were going to abandon me first so I would push them away and that was a a pattern over and over and over and people do that with friends and family too you know they get really wrapped up in their addiction and they sense that oh this person's about to abandon me so they either just completely uh dump that relationship with that friend or they do worse and they go on a tie rate against that friend right and you know trying to um justif you know say hey look I'm what's really going on if you were to read the thought cloud or the feeling cloud is I feel like they don't like me and they're about to abandon me so I'm going to do it first I want to be the one that said I broke up first I want to be the one that said I didn't get dumped and in some people it's just much more prevalent than others and um so those are my initial thoughts what do you think cinnamon yeah I mean I agree and you know I uh it's interesting because I going through this particular chapter I feel Matthew is sort of digging deeper into his inner child and I I share you know a lot of his um you know my my family Dynamic was different than his but the whole alcoholic abandonment um not being good enough is runs very deep and uh and you know years of therapy and you know all of those things that he's talking about I understand I grew up in La I lived in Westwood I understand the whole thing so it's it touches me you know in a way that I feel like I can relate to what he's talking about but the abandonment thing is such a deep inner child thing I don't know that it it ever really goes away and for me same as you Len um you know I have been in a lot of relationships I've been married you know a couple times and the the thing that I you you know come to almost every single time is that it's I'm not good enough andh intellectually I know that I am I'm very accomplished you know I've got I've had a good career I've you know all of those things and but there's that there there's that thing inside of me that I don't think will ever go away and and it's it's that unaccompanied minor right um it's that I've been abandoned and um I I just and it must be because I'm not good enough intellectually I know that that's not true but it's it's a it's so deeply embedded that I don't you know I can hear it in his writing and it it really touches me in a way that sort of triggers all of that yep it sounds like we've you and I have had very parallel existences because um I grew also grew up in southern California and then I went to and then I went to San Francisco with my ex and then had my Tech Career there which is where I which is where I live now and still still intact and you're intact yeah um I haven't been married twice but it's the same but it's the same thing like growing up in Southern California and I think it's just the world now but in Southern California especially all the the girls it's much easier to be perfect and I was always the awkward imperfect girl I was always the uh what's the wingman to the beautiful girl you know what I mean and and so it's a it's a really and then when you already have family who has actually abandoned you and you know you already have that as part of your psyche and then they've done other things to you that cause severe self-esteem issues and um not in the world I I guess all this to say that childhood is so important it is so important and it's so formative and it's and it it really um our experience there experiences there can really um literally change the course of our lives and the traumas if you don't heal from them can cause you know basically what we're seeing with Matthew Perry I mean he was clearly very very especially as he's writing this book very aware of his role in all of this and when he talks about his parents uh and their role and like him sitting next to his dad I don't see him blaming his dad for that I'm I see what he's doing is saying these were the role models and that is what happens that is what happens is is kids do emulate their parents they they worship their parents they want to be like like their parents they're T A lot of times their parents teach you be like me and then they say be like me and uh pour yourself a really stiff drink every night and say this is the best thing that's happened to me all day I mean he was very influenced by that so we have to be so cognizant of how we are influencing other kids and other people especially our own you know yeah totally agree um we can I'm sure we'll have more to talk about when it comes to you know being parents and how we've um how we've parented our own children because it's a thing that I felt super strongly about um when I became a mother and realized that I had all of these you know issues going on that I didn't I wanted to break the chain I wanted to break the chain because there there you know in my family there was all kinds of addiction and things going on and damn it I wasn't going to continue that in in my family so and and we did and we did um but you know it's not an easy thing and it's something that um you know when you when you read the story about Matthew Perry and I think it's going to get there's going to be a lot of triggers I think along the way it it makes you understand that you know like his father who just quit drinking all of a sudden one day by going for a walk yeah you know my mother was the alcoholic and my God I mean if if that could have happened in my family I would have been overjoy it would have changed the course of my life but no I mean addiction is a very different thing for a lot of people and um and I didn't understand it then but I understand it better now and that whole thing about gosh you know my dad can quit drinking by just going for a walk but I can't I my jeans I'm I'm built differently you know I can't do that yeah and he's you know he struggled with it the whole his whole life well obvious right it killed him it literally killed him because it's one thing that's really sad and disheartening to me is that it it appears as though he you know published this book and went on that really I don't know that that book tour that really won a lot of people over um and um he was he was still deep in addiction and it was just it was like addiction that was cloaked in well this is going to help you with your depression and that you know and he not only like it sounds like he initially went into it with it being a treatment for depression but then was like literally hooked you know to the point of you know and that that's what's so sad to me is that that he was in the depths of addiction as he was talking about all of this stuff so when he said self-awareness doesn't change you know self- knowledge of your wrongdoing or your um impulsive behavior doesn't cause the change to happen so so Patricia sent me I'm showing the pics now so uh what is do you want to come up and explain this Patricia um just going to send you a couple pics of my ex my daughter's dad he was in a band so do you want to give more do you want to come up and give more context because I'll share the the streamyard link so you can come up I want to hear your beautiful um English accent oh thank you shift thank you very sweet so what uh is it was he in a well-known band just wondering he's this is my daughter's dad he was a very talented and gorgeous man but childhood problems let never left him ah damn is he still did he die Patricia did he die as a result of that um is he still with us or is he still struggling and and it really does go like people really discount the idea that um um our childhood is so so people don't give enough weight and relevance to issues in their childhood such that they understand how it's driving some of their um you know bad patterns and bad behaviors in life I know that I did not give enough regard to my childhood for a long long time I I went around being like Oh my childhood was my childhood I had a great childhood it was amazing and there for the most part it was amazing amazing but there was this whole other side of it that was horrible you know so like I had my mom's family who was incredible and then I had my dad and his family who were the opposite and luckily I spent far you know the 95% of my time with my mom so that was good but um and I think that's one of the reasons I discounted the role of my father and his family in all of this because um I you know I thought well my life is great I have fantastic mom fantastic grandparents love my brother love that side of the family so I just kind of ignored that there could be trauma deep deep longlasting trauma effects from what my dad did and yes they are our foundation so um I'm really sorry to hear that about your about your ex he is a really good-look guy um not sure if I recognize him at all from any specific band but anyway so I guess we'll do you have anything else you want to add um cinnamon before we go um no but I do want to maybe plant some seeds because I know um we talked about I think um on your other channel maybe this isn't the right place to do it about some of the crime uh True Crime cases that sort of brought us into this whole yeah I want to do a whole separate stream about that yeah absolutely yeah I'm I'm looking forward to that because there's so many of course but I'm particularly um enraged right now over this whole Jennifer SoDo situation I don't know if any of you have been following that but it is it is I I was listening to um somebody else who was um streaming one of the um conversations when she was being intervie interviewed by I think it was the police um after her daughter had died and it she was so disconnected and very you know ju anyway we don't need to go into it but there's I I can't wait till we get to like sharing those experiences of how we got here because there so much right I mean I would not be here if it hadn't been for way back when it was during covid I had not followed True Crime at all and I happened it was during covid and I you know YouTube was like my lifeline to the world at time and I don't know how I ran across some of the um you know the YouTubers that were streaming or really talking about True Crime but honest to gosh I was hooked and that's when I first discovered you Lynn I think you were um co-hosting with Natasha at the time with h and that was uh for Gabby so anyway that'll be fun to uh to go back and look at yeah uh regarding Jennifer SoDo I definitely plan to look at that case more it is so triggering so so incredibly triggering to so it's like one of those things where I know I have to be in the right Zone in my mind you know there there there are days when it's just not you know there it's just too much then then then there are days where I'm like okay I can handle this because I think it's important enough to break chains on I do want to cover that on this right Channel yeah I also think recently you know the the high school shootings um that that's another area that is just it is so troubling to me that our kids are having to deal with all of this but you know the parents where where's the accountability and what there's so many issues there that um I think would be interesting for us to discuss at some point yeah my my big thing with that is okay let's take the whole idea of gun laws off the table if you're if your idea it is you know don't touch the Second Amendment then deal learn how to recognize mental illness right because if you're going to say that it's just mental illness that are causing these things which it could be then address it do something about it don't then [ __ ] hand your child a gun or at least leave it unlocked somewhere especially when you know that there's already been threats from that child so AB outrageous and the FBI has been you know concerned about that particular child yeah so there's there's so much there anyway I can't wait um we have one more picture from Patricia now this is showing him just before he died her ex so first let me just show this is her ex and I'm assuming that's your daughter who's with there um Patricia this is and his childhood she said his childhood problems you know were continued to uh haunt him for all of his days and Trigger warning this is him just before he died it's it's incredibly sad and honestly you can sort of see the similarities in like young Matthew Perry to Matthew Perry right before he died cuz he he looked okay but he wasn't looking that great you know Matthew Perry and I'm not one to talk about the way people look but this isn't this is exactly what happens this is exactly what happens to people and it's so so so tragic and all we can do is just try to you know I know it sounds hokey but continue to un to break those chains around our brains that that um enable this type of behavior avior I I started this stream by talking about how there's somebody right now in on YouTube who is literally at this moment in the throws of what appears to be horrible addiction and playing it out on their Channel and um it's it is all around us it is all around us it's so hard to watch but all we can do is pray pray for those people because it's really it when it comes down to it not one person can cause another person to get sober not one person can cause another person to get sober or change or do the things that they need to do to get help they have to make that decision on their own and then to stay clean and do they have to it has to be more important to them to be clean than to be uh to continue to stay addicted and it's really hard okay okay Patricia I'm going to show one more picture and then we're going to go oh I just uh that's this I'm seeing the same picture Patricia that I just showed on the stream I just showed this one and I think that's the one you sent me again so yeah I I I showed it a couple minutes ago and talk talk about it in case you didn't see so that and like I said that's what that's what happens and you it's very easy to see especially when you haven't seen somebody for a long time it's easy to see this the physical signs of Addiction on somebody and it doesn't have to be drug addiction it doesn't have to be alcohol addiction addiction takes many forms and The Addictive Behavior around that takes many forms so for instance internet addiction is a thing and it can come into play along with your other addictions and so when you so even if the bad behavior is related to internet addiction it's still addictive behavior it's I think maybe Patricia is behind in the Stream So anyway so with that I really again appreciate you coming up and reading you do a great job reading um I'm uh very grateful for that I'm you know enjoying this kind of Saturday s thing and I'm definitely going to be scheduling a stream where we talk about what got us into True Crime and I have plans to do a lot more coverage here but I'm also balancing that with my coverage on the court on the court stream I want to start doing court cases over here but I need to build the channel up a little bit more before I feel comfortable doing that so right so anyway thank you very again very for being here everyone have a wonderful rest of your day God Rest the soul of your ex Patricia God Rest um Matthew Perry's soul and um you know prayers to all people who are struggling with addiction right now whether they know it or not right nice to see you Sparkles thanks for being here and with that we are out is