Note: Dead Eyes transcripts have been generated with automated software and may contain errors. We advise you to listen to episode audio before quoting in print.
Dead Eyes, Episode 08 - “Show-Me State”
Connor Ratliff We talked on last Wednesday, so it's been a week.
Ryan Miller Oh, okay. A lot's changed in a week.
Connor Ratliff What's changed?
Ryan Miller Well, I don't know. I just remember last time saying, the only thing you can count on is that everything's changing every day.
Connor Ratliff Well that's the same.
Ryan Miller [Laughs] You're...
Connor Ratliff Why would your example of how a lot's changed would be the one thing that hasn't?
Ryan Miller [Laughs] You're right.
[Theme song fades in]
Connor Ratliff At the end of the last episode, I recorded a little addendum saying that we would be taking a break from new episodes of Dead Eyes. And the reason for this was that I had gotten some work touring with Guster. Five weeks, 21 shows in 19 cities. And I made a little joke about how maybe I would get fired from the gig if things didn't go well and that if that happened, maybe I would come back and talk about it on the podcast.
Well, here we are.
And it's not that I got fired, exactly. It's that the whole job got canceled, just like everything else these days.
Voice of God This is Dead Eyes. A podcast about one actor's quest to find out why Tom Hanks fired him from a small role in the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.
Connor Ratliff I'm Connor Ratliff. I'm an actor and comedian. 20 years ago, I was fired by Tom Hanks. I was told the reason was that he saw my audition tape and he thought that I had "dead eyes." And that's the short version.
I'm talking to my friend Ryan Miller from the band Guster.
[Concert Audio]
Ryan Miller I want to write more songs. Oh, I have that other idea too.
Connor Ratliff A few weeks before this conversation, he and I were on stage together, night after night performing in front of big crowns. He had invited me to go on tour with the band and. Do weird improvised comedy things during their concerts.
[Concert audio]
Connor Ratliff "What life lessons or advice you have for us? Son is five months old—" This is written like a telegram. "Son is five months old. Stop."
[Audience laughter]
Connor Ratliff I walked on stage in San Diego to an audience that I would say. Maybe two people in the audience that I knew personally, they might've been the only people in the entire audience who had any idea who I was.
Ryan Miller Right.
Connor Ratliff I think that's a realistic assessment of that crowd.
Ryan Miller Okay.
Connor Ratliff And, by the end of the show, the audience had taken to chanting my name on three separate occasions, not prompted by me.
Ryan Miller [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff The show ended and I walked through the crowd with the audience chanting my name.
Ryan Miller [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff The tour made it all the way to St. Louis, Missouri, the state I grew up in. Not too far from where my dad was born. My parents were in the audience for what ended up being the final show of the tour.
[Trotting country music starts]
I got to do that thing where I mention them from the stage. It's not something that I've ever had the opportunity to do before in plays or improv shows. It felt really nice.
[Concert audio]
Connor Ratliff This is a special...This is a special night. I don't know if anyone here—very few people know this,but I'm from Missouri.
[Applause]
Yeah, uh, my dad grew up in St. Charles. My parents are here tonight, and, uh, wherever they are.
[Applause]
And I grew up in Jefferson City. Uh, so this is uh, this is a real, this is a real special night. And so...
[Music fades]
Connor Ratliff The first night in LA, I asked, what's something that people are worried about? And one person said, "Coronavirus," and we did a song about it where it was about washing your hands. Lake Tahoe, it was a few nights later, I asked, "What's something that people are worried about?" and everybody, including a child in the audience, they all said—
Ryan Miller [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff It was almost like the whole audience was just shouting "Coronavirus. Coronavirus." And that was when I realized, Oh, that's what everyone is worried about now. And on the last night of the tour in St. Louis, um, you said, I'm not going to say anything about it. And, and then at the end you did say something about it and you said...
[Concert audio]
Ryan Miller ...and what we've hoped to do in the last couple of weeks as things get really weird out there is to just be here and, uh, positive and give ourselves a moment to...
[Applause]
Connor Ratliff And then I immediately jumped in and said...
Connor Ratliff Not, not positive for the virus.
[Trotting shuffling country music starts]
Just to have a positive attitude! We're not...
Ryan Miller [Laughs] We're a good team. We're a good team.
Connor Ratliff I never check my phone during shows usually, but on this particular evening, I needed to verify a piece of trivia about the venue we were performing at that I wanted to mention to the audience, and I saw that my phone had blown up. I had way more messages and notifications than was normal for Wednesday evening. And I knew that wasn't a good sign. I mean, nothing great happens at 10 o'clock on a Wednesday night that people feel the need to send you messages about.
A couple of the musicians who were backstage said, "Don't check your phone. It's all bad news." But I, I did it and I saw the headline.
Newscaster 1 Tom Hanks and his wife, the actress Rita Wilson, have announced that they have both tested positive for coronavirus.
[Furtive acoustic music starts]
Newscaster 2 Tom Hanks announcing overnight that he and wife Rita Wilson are both infected. They're currently in Australia.
Newscaster 3 Now we do have some breaking news moments ago, actor Tom Hanks, his wife, Rita Wilson, they have tested positive for coronavirus. By the way, they are at our prayers tonight....
Connor Ratliff And it kind of took my breath away. It was genuinely shocking.
And then I saw all the jokes that people were tagging me in or sending me. There were all things like, "Who has dead eyes now?" Or, "You gave Tom Hanks the coronavirus." I felt really bad; the gut punch of the news itself and that people were joking about it as if this was an outcome I'd be pleased with. And I know I'm being oversensitive about this because I don't think anyone who was making jokes had bad intentions. All of it just took me by surprise in a really bad way.
[Music ends]
Ryan Miller It was basically like, Oh, that joke isn't funny anymore. Even if, even though it's, it's not really what it's about. This isn't about your—This podcast obviously isn't about Tom Hanks, but you take the—you know, you take the lumber out of the bottom floors and the whole thing can tumble, so I was just like, I was super bummed for you because obviously I felt that like, I felt like this isn't going to be fun anymore, unless—Although I will say this other part, and this is, and I'm sure that this is probably true, is like, I know you as, as a quick mind and as an improviser and there was part of me that was like, you're going to figure out a way to talk about this. You know, you'll find a way to yes-and your way out of this.
[Sadder trotting country music starts]
That was, that was my second thought after I was sad for you. I was like, This is an obstacle and this is what you thrive on. That's, that was my thought.
Connor Ratliff I went back out on stage. I mean, the show must go on, right? You know, I had another few minutes to perform and he just had to suck it up and act like things were fine.
[Concert audio]
Connor Ratliff And then I started thinking about what a special place this is, and and about this building in particular. And I thought about the thing that it says on the Wikipedia page I looked up...about all the people who've performed or spoken in this very room. Did you know that albert Einstein once stuck in this room?
[Audience cheers]
That's right. And Dwight D. Eisenhower...
Connor Ratliff And then the next morning I was having breakfast with my folks when Ryan called, and it went straight to voicemail.
[Voicemail audio]
Ryan Miller Shy Connor! I got some news. We did it, the tour was a success. I say this in the past tense, because it's over, uh...
Connor Ratliff The audio cuts out a little. So just to be clear, what he says is, "Shy Connor," that's a nickname he gave me during one of the shows, "We did it. The tour was a success. I say this in the past tense because it's over."
Ryan Miller So call me when you get this or any of us, but I think, uh, we're all going home today. Good job. Bye.
Connor Ratliff Everybody in the band, all the musicians, uh, we'd been living together in a tour bus for three weeks. They all booked their flights immediately and went back home.
Ryan Miller On some level...it's a bummer that we didn't get to finish. But it was also—the reality was the, uh, was starting to creep in, too, about how irresponsible it was feeling to be on tour. And so it's kind of, you know, there's this, this hierarchy of, well, you know, it's, it's hard to, mourn the tour when the tour when the world is sort of self-destructing in so many ways. Um, everything became very hierarchical, uh, on tour where I was like, "Okay. The world is sort of falling apart right now and it doesn't feel right to stand up there and make jokes.
[Traveling guitar picking music starts]
Connor Ratliff By the time I was on the phone trying to switch my flight to get back to New York City, there was a two hour wait to talk to anyone at American Airlines. I figured it would be just as easy to take a two hour bus ride back to my hometown to stay with my parents in Jefferson City, Missouri.
Ryan Miller You're much happier being in Missouri than you are in New York, right?
Connor Ratliff I would like to be back in New York, but it just doesn't seem like it makes any sense for me to go back there. It's, it's, it feels like when New York is the epicenter of the pandemic, the last thing that anybody needs is like, well, "Here comes Connor! Maybe this'll help."
Ryan Miller [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff You know, like, it feels like I could, I could only make things worse. I can—It's just one more person being a drain on whatever resources are there.
Ryan Miller Yeah.
Connor Ratliff And in the meantime, my parents can use my help here. It's not even necessarily anything to do with happiness. It's just a matter of like, I don't think it would be, uh, smart or useful for me to leave my current situation to go to a city that is, I think, on the verge of things getting worse? You know?
Ryan Miller Yeah. It feels, it feels that way from here. Are you having any kind of like, "Oh, this is what's going to be my life every day for the foreseeable future?" And how does that make you feel?
Connor Ratliff I don't feel creative.
Ryan Miller Right.
Connor Ratliff I've had various groups and individuals who are itching to like do something. And they'll be like, "Hey, let's do this. You know, we'll do like a virtual improv show," or, you know, "We'll do a virtual open mic."
I don't even have the energy really to respond to it because I just don't feel creative. I feel like that part of me is on pause. Uh, I don't feel the impulse to be funny. I don't feel...It just is like, that, that setting is a little bit sort of turned off.
Ryan Miller And have you been in this situation before?
Connor Ratliff Where my creativity turns off?
Ryan Miller Yeah.
Connor Ratliff I've had moments where I've been feeling bad, and normally that's the thing that at some point sort of snaps me out of it. But in this case it's, you know, I'm calm. I'm not panicking, but it is...It's not like having like, a numb arm or a numb leg or something like that, but it just, it is like there's a part of me that's a little bit numb right now.
Ryan Miller At a certain point with the, it's hard to like laugh about or be the quartet playing classical music as the Titanic goes down, even though we're doing a good job of it, where I was just like, "This doesn't feel responsible."
Connor Ratliff Whenever I think about like, comedy dying, I think if there was even just one person left and they were funny, I think comedy would still be alive.
Ryan Miller [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff Even with no audience. Because at first I was like, Well, as long as there’s one person and one other person to laugh at it. But like, I don't even think, uh, you need the person to laugh at it. Because I think the funny person would know how to be funny, even in the absence of all other humans. You can tell a joke to a tree. Who cares if that tree thinks that's funny? I don't.
Ryan Miller You gotta look at what's positive. Maybe that's the big takeaway. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff But there's so much to wallow in.
Ryan Miller [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff When you're looking at a situation like that. It's like, you go into a grocery store and there's like, a lot of healthy food in there, but you're like, "Here's a whole section where there's a lot of broccoli and a lot of carrots and things that are good for you."
And I'm like, "Yeah, I can't hear you. I'm in the, I'm in the soda aisle."
Ryan Miller "Sorry, I'm, I'm in a, I'm in a hot tub full of jalapeno flavored Cheetos."
Connor Ratliff "I have pudding to eat. And I know it's killing me, but, um, this is what I'm drawn to."
Ryan Miller [Laughs] Yeah. Well, I hear you, bud. I guess, I guess my only advice would be, uh, just as a point of practice is to just force yourself into the, "I'm healthy. This too shall pass." And when it does, things will be shaken up. But like, you're going to still know how to act, and you'll still have a voice and you'll still be an exceptional improviser, and we're going to go back on the road and finish this like, in some version. So I don't know, that, that's all...[Laughs]
[Concert audio]
Connor Ratliff [Singing] How did we get here tonight?
Ryan Miller [Singing] The U.S. Highway System…
[Audience applause]
Connor Ratliff Dead Eyes will be right back.
Ryan Miller I had no idea you even knew what a piano was. Good job there, Shy Connor...
[Birds chirping]
Connor Ratliff I'm at my parents' house, a house we lived in from when I was in junior high, seventh and eighth grade. And it's weird. I normally love visiting here, but normally I have some idea of when I'm going to go home.
[Soft, plodding guitar strumming]
At the moment, I have no idea. Maybe I'll be here for another week, or maybe I'll be here for the next year-and-a-half because it's March 2020 and there is a virus that is spreading all over the world. And nobody knows anything for certain.
Connor Ratliff Okay. I'm going to record now. What are you doing?
Gretta Ratliff I am playing on Messenger, a game.
Connor Ratliff What's the game?
Gretta Ratliff I can't remember. You're disturbing me. I'm trying to answer. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff My mom was born in a little town in Wicklow County, Ireland: Arklow. She met my dad in Germany during the Vietnam War. He enlisted because at the time the thinking was that you were better off enlisting than waiting to be drafted.
He remembers being in a room and someone came out and said, "Does anyone here know how to type?" My dad was the only one that raised his hand. He got stationed in Frankfurt. Everyone else in that room got sent to Vietnam. I sometimes think about how unfair that seems, but also that I wouldn't exist if my dad hadn't learned how to type.
Gretta Ratliff [Sighs] A draw. A draw is a loss to me. I need to win. So, what are we doing? What are we talking about?
Connor Ratliff I suppose we could talk about what you remember about when I got fired from Band of Brothers.
Gretta Ratliff [Laughs] Well, I have a memory of somebody saying that the lady who came and told you that you'd been fired said, "If it's any consolation, apparently there were four people that went back in the room. The vote was three to one," or something. Which of course was suggesting that everybody else, well, everybody else did want you in any case, but that, that Tom Hanks didn't want you.
Connor Ratliff The whole reason for the re-audition was that there were people arguing on my behalf, the people who had cast me.
Gretta Ratliff Sure, yeah.
Connor Ratliff I'm confident that I was not told that there was a vote, and I don't think if there had been a vote that they would have told me.
Gretta Ratliff Yeah, somebody said that, I thought it was you.
Connor Ratliff No, wouldn't have been me.
Gretta Ratliff And it may just have been in conversation that somebody said, "I think this is what happened," because we were all saying, "Oh, I think this is what happened." I think—
Connor Ratliff Who's "we were all?" Just like, you and dad, or...?
Gretta Ratliff Well, yeah, just generally your support, your support system.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Gretta Ratliff Yeah. So it may have been a conversation.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. I mean, it feels weird even to be talking about it now.
Gretta Ratliff Sure.
Connor Ratliff Although, it is a story about how you have a certain idea of how things will go.
Gretta Ratliff Sure, you know.
Connor Ratliff And one of the hard things about that is that you've already sort of like, laid the tracks mentally in your mind you have an idea of at least what the next few weeks are going to be like. And when that's not even something that you can count on—
Gretta Ratliff Yeah.
Connor Ratliff —that's a hard thing for us to...adjust to mentally.
Gretta Ratliff And the fact that, uh, well, bringing it back to your experience, we were all—and you, you also, obviously—we were all on such a high that you had got this little part. It was so exciting that this was happening for you. So that was a big, that was a big disappointment for all of us at the time. You know? That you'd been so disappointed.
This is people's real like, livelihood though, you know? This is, this is beyond any...
Connor Ratliff Yeah, this is everybody.
Gretta Ratliff Yeah. We thought that was such a big deal at the time, and really, it wasn't life and death.
Connor Ratliff No.
Gretta Ratliff And the expression I always had with you guys is "Nobody's child died." You know? That's—I always think that's like the worst thing. So, yeah, you survived it. Fine.
Connor Ratliff Have you ever gone through anything that's—Does this remind you of anything?
Gretta Ratliff No.
Connor Ratliff So this is all new.
Gretta Ratliff I don't ever remember anything even remotely like this. I'm trying to just like, tell myself just do what you're doing and eventually this too shall pass. The question is when. [Laughs] Could be awhile.
Connor Ratliff You say that a lot. You say "this too shall pass," and I've seen a lot more people saying it over the past week than I've, than I, I've ever—
Gretta Ratliff They're copying me! Yes, they're copying me. Everything does pass. The worst times of your life do pass. For most people, it gets better. Not for everybody.
Connor Ratliff What's it like having new back home?
Gretta Ratliff It's great. That's the little bonus because you weren't planning, you don't get home often enough.
Connor Ratliff Part of me was a little bit disappointed that I wasn't going to get to visit, uh, the house. I wasn't gonna get to visit you guys at home.
Gretta Ratliff Sure, yeah. Yeah, you like to be home.
Connor Ratliff But now, you know, I don't know how long I'll be here. This is—
Gretta Ratliff What? [ Laughs]
Connor Ratliff [Laughs]
[Slow tempo jazz guitar strumming starts]
Is there any downside to me being here for you guys?
Gretta Ratliff No.
Connor Ratliff Is it helpful?
Gretta Ratliff Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's made all the difference, because I think also it's given your dad a lift.
Bill Ratliff Well, you're here longer than we expected. We thought she'd be here a couple of days and now it's going on the second week.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. Well, actually, originally I was just going to see you in St. Louis and wasn't even going to have a chance to come visit the house.
Bill Ratliff Yeah, I know. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff [Laughs]
Bill Ratliff We're glad to have you here, though.
Connor Ratliff My dad grew up in St. Louis, but for a time my parents lived in Chicago after they were first married. My dad got a job selling insurance, but he was also trying to be an actor. He saw an audition for a group that was going to be doing improv, and he tried out for it. It was run by a man named Del Close, who, if you know anything about improv, is kind of a big deal in that world.
You can see Del Close in a tiny role in George Lucas's second film, American Graffiti. But he's mostly known as one of the most important founding figures in the modern art of what's usually called "long form improvisation." And he cast my dad and one of the groups he set up to develop this art form, during a year when Del Close was on the outs with Second City.
The group was called The Chicago Extension and when I hear my dad describe what they were doing, a lot of it sounds like an embryonic version of what I would end up doing decades later at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater.
Bill Ratliff Improv is basically the same rules are applied, but now it's more, uh, slick, I think. You guys have studied, you've gone through the process at UCB. They've got the 101 and 102, 201, 301 level. We just got on stage and they said, "Here are about three rules: you know, listen. Yes-and. And, uh, keep moving and be funny. And those were the rules. And now...[Laughs]
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Bill Ratliff Now there's a lot more rules and it's a lot more planned and structured, I think, and the people know what to do and they don't go off on tangents the way we used to and have long periods of nobody laughing
Connor Ratliff Del Close had left Second City, I remember you telling me about how people from Second City at the time would come over and watch shows that you guys were doing.
Bill Ratliff Yeah. We got—After Del left to go back to Second City, he was there and gone a couple of times. He was fired and he was rehired and fired again. And, um. Then we started a show called Dream Theater, and people would stay in the audience and they would tell us their dreams, and then we'd improvise off those dreams. It sort of like what you do off, uh, ASSSSCAT now, taking some bits of what they said, but our stuff was weird and it wasn't always funny.
And I remember one night seeing, uh, John Belushi and a bunch of people from Second City sitting in the audience and not a smile. Not a giggle, not a laugh. It just was deadly. You could hear the crickets in the room, and it was...[Laughs]
We did a thing one night, our improv group got hired by, uh, the Wrigley company. We went up to the Wrigley building.
Connor Ratliff That's the chewing gum?
Bill Ratliff The chewing gum, and we had to—They turned a—put us in a room, sitting around a table and they turned on the tape recorder and they said, "Just improvise about chewing gum."
We got hired for the same thing once for, uh, F8, it was called. It was—V8 was going to come out with a fruit drink called F8, and we had to improvise for about an hour or so. They paid us to go in. I think we each got $25 to improvise about F8.
Connor Ratliff Is that supposed to be like fate?
Bill Ratliff No, it was fruit juice.
Connor Ratliff No, I know, but like “eff-eight” looks like “fate” if it's...
Bill Ratliff Well, any kind of ideas that we could come up with, and none of those ever amounted to anything, either. But the ad agency was so desperate, they hired us to come up with ideas that they could steal.
Connor Ratliff Did you think, did you have a feeling that you were good at when you were doing it?
Bill Ratliff I thought I was okay. I would have liked to have done it longer. But I only did it about six months because then we get the chance to come back to the TV station in Jeff City and I left it, and then...I thought it was very helpful and I always thought it helped me on the air and doing TV, doing the weather because that was all improvised, and doing the kid show, which was all improvised. But I'd like to have done more with the group.
I'm kind of like my dad. I like the security of a job and a paycheck, and knowing that something's coming next week. So when I got a chance to go back to the TV station, that kind of was it for me. And it—Because it wasn't that much money, but it was steady and it was, you know...Then you came along and then your sister came along and I was comfortable with that. And in a nice rut, I guess.
Connor Ratliff Right. And the instability of, of show business was not an appealing—it was not enough of a draw.
Bill Ratliff I think the, uh, the amount of rejection you get would kill me. I, I don't know if I could take what actors go through in getting that constant rejection. Rejection is tough. Are you comfortable with a hit and miss?
Connor Ratliff I mean, I've had to get comfortable with it because I don't have a choice. I mean, that was a big reason why I took such a long break from it was because I needed to get to a place where. Where it didn't matter as much in a way, which it's strange because now I kind of have slowly put myself into a position where, you know, I have to get a certain amount of work or I'll lose my SAG health insurance. And so that does make me need it a little more and rely on it a little more. But it's...I don't have the same feeling about it that I used to have .
Bill Ratliff That, um, may change now with this—It's interesting to see what's going to happen on that with the whole virus thing.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. I mean, everything's unstable now. So even if I had gone for a secure and steady, uh, line of work, everybody's kind of in the same boat right now.
Bill Ratliff For a comedy podcast, this is going in the wrong direction, don't you think? [Laughs]
[Jazzy guitar strumming fades in]
Connor Ratliff I mean, it's comedy adjacent, I think. I don't know whether this is a comedy podcast, if it ever was.
[Music continues]
Connor Ratliff Here's a fun question. Do you have a favorite Tom Hanks performance?
Bill Ratliff Well, Forrest Gump, of course, and Saving Private Ryan. I think he was very good in that.
Connor Ratliff So you like ‘90s, ‘90s Hanks. That's your, that's the sweet spot for you.
Bill Ratliff Yeah.
Connor Ratliff Did it change your feeling towards him at all? I know mom got very, uh, mom took it very personally.
Gretta Ratliff [Laughs] Oh God, um....
Connor Ratliff You claim to me that you stopped watching Tom Hanks movies after I got fired, but then—
Gretta Ratliff And then you busted me.
Connor Ratliff Then in conversation you casually—
Gretta Ratliff Well I forgot!
Connor Ratliff You casually mentioned how much you liked The Post, and I said, "That's a Tom Hanks movie." And [laughs] you said—I thought you didn't go see them. Because I've been going to see them this whole time.
Gretta Ratliff What was my...and what I said...?
Connor Ratliff You said, "I went to see that for Meryl."
Gretta Ratliff [Laughs] No, he's, I mean, let's face it. He's good in everything.
Bill Ratliff Well, you gotta remember, Mom's Irish. She's born in Ireland. And the Irish forgive and forget, but never forget they forgave. And, uh, they hold grudges for hundreds of years. And, uh, they never forget.
[Music fades]
And so, um, that didn't surprise me. No, I, I was disappointed, but I thought, well, well, I thought the whole "dead eyes" thing was kind of silly, but, uh, the more I thought about it over the years, I think it's because you were too tall.
Connor Ratliff For that character and that scene?
Bill Ratliff For the character, when I saw the actual show itself, the guy is much shorter than the other characters and he's, although there's no lines, really, very few lines that he has, their looks are kind of comic looks. He's kind of a comic relief in a way. And if you were the same height or taller than the other actors, I don't think it'd have worked. Sorry to say that, but I think the guy they picked was a good choice.
Connor Ratliff I mean, I agree with you, Dad. [Laughs]
Bill Ratliff [Laughs] And as though you—I find you very funny, you wouldn't have been funny in that part. [Laughs]
[Blues piano song starts]
Connor Ratliff [Laughs] You—That's a hard note you just gave me.
Bill Ratliff I know. That's—I just thought about it. That's, that's not good to say to you. I said...I crushed your already fragile ego.
Connor Ratliff No, I think it's fair. I just was surprised by it.
Bill Ratliff [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff Uh, I didn't ask, I didn't ask for that note, and you gave it anyway.
Bill Ratliff Oh, I hope you get over it. I hope this doesn't scar you for life, now that I...zapped you like that.
Connor Ratliff Now I'll do a whole episode about what you just did to me.
Bill Ratliff [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff You're really happy with yourself.
Bill Ratliff [Laughs] Yeah, I am. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff You really liked that.
Connor Ratliff It took me a few weeks before I realized something that it might sound like a bit of a stretch, but the news broke that Tom Hanks had the coronavirus, and the next morning I was out of a job. A show business job. It's only the second time in my entire life that I have been let go from a job, and it is mind-boggling to me that there was, once again, a Tom Hanks connection, however indirect. I mean, I know this is not a similar situation at all, but still, that's weird, right? I mean, we saw those headlines that night and 12 hours later the tour was over.
I apologize for making this all about me, although that is kind of baked into the cake at this point, right?
One bit of good news in this whole situation is that there have been updates about Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson recovering, and it looks like they're going to be okay. And if you follow them on social media, the things they have both been posting are the kinds of things that are a comfort in a harrowing time, including, I have to say, a genuinely solid typewriter joke by Tom Hanks on Instagram.
So, I want to end by quoting something Tom Hanks said in one of his recent posts. He said, "It's going to take awhile, but if we take care of each other, help where we can, and give up some comforts, this too shall pass," which is what my mom always says. And Ryan Miller said it too earlier in the episode. I guess it's kind of a cliche now, but maybe that just means everybody's saying it because it's true.
Dead Eyes is a production of Headgum Studios. It was created by me, Connor Ratliff. It's written by me and it's mostly me that you hear talking, including now. The show is produced and edited by Harry Nelson and Mike Comite. Special thanks to my guests, Ryan Miller and all the musicians in Guster, whose music you heard bits and pieces of in this episode. Adam, Luke, Bryan, Dave, Rebecca, and Bridgid. Miss you guys. And also of course, to my parents, Bill and Gretta Ratliff.
If you like Dead Eyes, please do all the things that podcasts tell you to do. Subscribe, rate, review, follow us on Twitter @deadeyespodcast, and talk about us nicely on social media.
I'd like to dedicate this episode to the memory of Adam Schlesinger, who, among his many accomplishments, was nominated for an Academy Award for writing the title song for the movie That Thing You Do. It's a song that makes you feel happy to be alive, even when you're down in the dumps. Adam was someone I hoped I might get to talk to for this podcast someday, and he was taken from us too soon.
Stay safe, everybody. We'll be back with another episode before too long. Thanks for listening.