Episode 376 - Douglas Taurel

Summary

Podcast Summary: Cleared Hot - Episode 376 with Douglas Terrell

Introduction

In Episode 376 of Cleared Hot, host Andy Stumpf welcomes Douglas Terrell, an accomplished actor and playwright, to discuss his impactful one-man show, The American Soldier. Douglas brings a wealth of experience and a deep commitment to raising awareness about the challenges faced by veterans and military families.

Background of Douglas Terrell

Douglas Terrell's journey into acting and playwriting is marked by diverse experiences and geographic relocations. Born in Los Angeles, Douglas moved to Houston, Texas, during his formative years when his father, a merchant marine, sought better job opportunities. His early life was characterized by frequent moves and exposure to different cultures, eventually leading him to New York City in pursuit of an acting career.

Impact of 9/11

Living in Hoboken, New Jersey—mere minutes away from the World Trade Center—Douglas was deeply affected by the events of September 11, 2001. He recounts the immediate aftermath, detailing the heightened security measures, the chaos on the subways, and the profound sense of loss. Reflecting on this period, Douglas shares:

“Whenever Scott... I can remember everything about it. And I just remember that day. I went in early, I woke up, it was a beautiful day... So I came out, first plane hit at 8:46. [00:30]”

Douglas's firsthand experience of 9/11 not only shaped his personal life but also fueled his passion for storytelling through his play, aiming to encapsulate the emotional and psychological toll of war and its aftermath.

Development of The American Soldier

Driven by a desire to shed light on the invisible wounds of post-traumatic stress (PTSD) and the struggles of veterans transitioning to civilian life, Douglas embarked on creating The American Soldier. His research spanned extensive historical periods, from the American Revolution to contemporary conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He explains:

“I started researching stories about veterans, just war stories... It led me into a rabbit hole... I started collecting clippings and stuff that moved me a lot.” [04:50]

Despite initial rejections from various festivals and challenges in finding a director, Douglas persevered. His breakthrough came at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where positive reviews and heartfelt interactions with veteran audiences validated the importance of his work.

Reflections on Acting and the Military

The conversation delves into the contrast between traditionally trained actors and the modern landscape of acting driven by digital platforms. Douglas critiques the lack of formal training in many contemporary actors, emphasizing the depth and authenticity that comes from rigorous study:

“Everyone wants to be famous. I mean, right now, man, you could be a YouTube star or TikTok star, an OnlyFans star... And you, you can be famous, rich. And you've never... you don't even know who Shakespeare is.” [68:35]

He advocates for the enduring value of classical training and the profound connection it fosters between actor and character, which he believes is often missing in today's fast-paced entertainment industry.

Personal Experiences and Reflections

Douglas opens up about his tumultuous relationship with his father, marked by verbal and physical violence. These early life challenges influenced his coping mechanisms and his dedication to creating authentic portrayals of veterans’ struggles. He shares:

“My dad was kind of a verbally violent. He was also violent, you know, but he was very verbally violent in the house... I developed a mechanism of going numb.” [51:00]

This personal history underscores the emotional depth Douglas brings to his performances and his commitment to breaking the cycle of trauma within his own life and through his art.

Interactions with Veterans Through His Play

The American Soldier has become a conduit for Douglas to connect with veterans across the nation, facilitating meaningful dialogues about their experiences. He recounts numerous encounters where his play has provided a platform for veterans to share their stories and find solace:

“She said, I don't know if you know what you're doing, but I hope you don't stop because it's really important.” [75:45]

These interactions affirm the play's significance and reinforce Douglas's mission to honor and support those who have served.

Conclusion

Douglas Terrell's The American Soldier serves as a poignant testament to the sacrifices of veterans and the enduring impact of war on individuals and communities. Through his dedication to acting and playwriting, Douglas not only tells compelling stories but also fosters a deeper understanding and appreciation for those who serve. As the episode concludes, Douglas leaves listeners with a heartfelt message:

“I thank you for everyone's service. I think it's important that we remind that we keep these stories alive. I think it's critical as a society that we remember those who are willing to raise their right hand to fight for us and not forget.” [119:47]

Notable Quotes

• Douglas Terrell [04:50]: “I started researching stories about veterans, just war stories... It led me into a rabbit hole... I started collecting clippings and stuff that moved me a lot.”

• Douglas Terrell [68:35]: “Everyone wants to be famous. I mean, right now, man, you could be a YouTube star or TikTok star, an OnlyFans star... And you, you can be famous, rich. And you've never... you don't even know who Shakespeare is.”

• Douglas Terrell [75:41]: “I keep the fist of the society and the fighters together. And they were able to always be connected and they always understood each other.”

Further Resources

To learn more about Douglas Terrell and The American Soldier, visit theamericansoldiersoloshow.com.

Transcript

[T-Mobile Representative]

With T Mobile. No trendspotter has to deal with trendspotty service because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network. Switch now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com keepandswitch up to 4 lines of your virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device, credit service support in 90 plus days device, knowledgeable carrier and timely redemption required. Card has no cash access and expires in six months.

[Andy Stumpf]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. Before I forget, first podcast shirt of the year just came out. It's pretty simple. It says surrender with a line through it meaning don't surrender. Link to it in the show notes shop cleared up podcast.com get one if you want, don't if you don't My guest today is Douglas Terrell. He is an actor, a thespian if you will. And honestly, this is my favorite part about the podcast. This is what I enjoy the most. Being exposed to people that I probably never would have had the chance to be exposed to. Sitting down, having a conversation with them about what makes them tick specifically, and I'm going to read this right from his website. He has a play called the American Soldier. His words from his website, which is the American soldier solo show.com to raise awareness of of the struggles of veterans and military families face when they either come home from war, transition out of the military, and of course the invisible wounds of post traumatic stress. More importantly, I want to help those who have no connection to the military better understand what service to our nation sincerely means. He describes what the play is, so I'm not going to get into that, but it's fantastic. I love the concept. It spans multiple generations, multiple wars. It's really cool. And he has a skill that I just will never have. The ability to get up and perform in front of people. The desire to be an actor who. Good, good on you. No way in hell am I ever participating in that. I don't know if there's anything that can make me feel more uncomfortable and I don't really know why, but whatever. Irrelevant when it comes to the show. Today's episode is going to be 376 with Douglas Terrell. Before we get into that, give me a brief one minute. Let's pay the bills here real quick. Today's episode is brought to you by Montana Knife Company. Let's dive right into the website and see what they currently have to offer. Now, I've said this many times. If you're a friend, a friend. If you're a fan of the podcast, you're probably going to have heard the episodes I've done with Josh Smith. He is the founder of Montana Knife Company, the youngest Master Blade Smith. Real overachieving asshole, if you will. The knives he make, the makes are right down the road in Frenchtown, Montana, about 90 miles from where I'm sitting right now. Born and bred in Montana. Montana. Inspired, but truly, truly a global brand. They are exploding. I'm looking at right now the Mini Speedgoat. Their rotating banner across the top shows a small variety of the knives that they have to offer. I'm just going to rotate down and it's going to show you the stuff that they have in stock. Some of the versions are going to be sold out, but you'll, you'll, you'll tell immediately different blade types. Chef, butcher, meat eater edition knives, collaborations. This is a great chef knife. The meat church chef knife. I'm just going to click view all and let's see what they have to offer. Actually, I'm going to go up here to just shop knives, all knives, not the ones that are in stock. I'll talk about that in a minute. I'm just going to scroll through this for those of you who are watching along on video, you can see the ridiculous amount of offerings that they have. You'll also notice that the vast majorities of these say sold out. And the reason for that is, is that they sell out within 60 seconds, 120 seconds. So be quick. When you get the notification that they're back in stock, they're releasing them Thursdays and Saturdays. You can sign up for text and email notifications. They oftentimes will do drops outside of those dates. Be fast. If you get the chance, get one. All I ask is this. First support a really cool brand founded by really cool people that are bringing jobs back into Montana. They're actually building a massive warehouse in Missoula right now. Production facility. Secondly, if you're going to buy something at some point in time in their purchasing portal, they're going to ask you how you heard about Montana Knife Company. Do me a favor, Put down cleared hot or Andy Stumpf, whichever one of those options actually present themselves, because I'm not sure, or both or don't put anything down. It's up to you. But that's how you can help me.

[Douglas Terrell]

Help help them.

[Andy Stumpf]

Let's get back into the show.

[Douglas Terrell]

Okay.

[Andy Stumpf]

I got the red smoke. Sun run north and south.

[Douglas Terrell]

West of the smoke, west of the smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, with it, baby. Give it to me.

[Douglas Terrell]

I mean it. You're clear. Hot.

[Andy Stumpf]

Copy.

[Douglas Terrell]

Cleared hot. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

The subways from a New Yorker. I mean, obviously almost every day that goes by, that's not happening.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, when you don't. So after 9 11, New York was the fucking safest place you could ever be in.

[Andy Stumpf]

How was it before? And actually what brought you to New York? Are you from nyc?

[Douglas Terrell]

No, I'm from Houston originally. Well, believe it or not, I was born in la. My dad was a merchant marine. Lived there for about eight, nine years. And then my dad got tired of driving to Long beach to the Union to get work and so he decided to move to Houston where the Union was closer so he can ship out of Galveston and yeah, all the ships.

[Andy Stumpf]

Going out through the Gulf and all that.

[Douglas Terrell]

Okay.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yep.

[Douglas Terrell]

So we moved to Houston. So I grew up in Texas. Basically my life as a kid was in Texas. And so I became an actor. I can go into that story, how I got into it. But when I got to, we moved. I moved with my girlfriend at that time in 2000. And so that's why I got to New York. And it was great, man. It was really. New York was a lively place. It was exciting, it was fun, you know. And then, you know, 911 hit. And so after 9 11, like the security in 911 was insane in New York because post 911 because everyone was looking. I mean, if you farted the wrong way, they were going to pull you to the side. It was all about terrorism. It was all about. I mean, we had, I mean, Apache helicopters parked on Bryant park.

[Andy Stumpf]

So I feel like that should be Thursdays. Those things are awesome.

[Douglas Terrell]

They are awesome. They are awesome. And I remember looking at them thinking, fuck, man, am I. Is this real? Like, am I living in a movie?

[Andy Stumpf]

Because you say in the. In the pretty close proximity to 911 that happened because I can't imagine they kept them there for a long time.

[Douglas Terrell]

No, for about six months, man.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay, that sounds about right.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, about six months, six years later.

[Andy Stumpf]

That.

[Douglas Terrell]

No, no, no. But my point was like, all the subway stops had guys with AKs. Every subway stop, I mean, it was.

[Andy Stumpf]

AKs or M4s or.

[Douglas Terrell]

I don't. What's the difference between an AK or M4?

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, you may know, other than almost everything. Okay, so an AK is a traditional European eastern block.

[Douglas Terrell]

How about a big gun?

[Andy Stumpf]

That probably would be. My Guess is an M4 or AR based platform. 762 by 39 is an AK47. It's a large round and I think, what is it? 5, 5, 6 by, I don't know, 35, something like that for a 2, 2, 3 round. People are gonna eviscerate me in the comments because I should know, but I never cared because I just stuffed them in my magazine and never paid attention. My guess would be if you're talking about police.

[Douglas Terrell]

Police and soldiers. And soldiers.

[Andy Stumpf]

If it was soldiers, US soldiers. Definitely an M4 platform, not an AK.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, I mean they were on all the platforms. So they were. So the place was locked down, you know, and so. And then slowly, like you said, that kind of dissipated. I mean, I remember flybys around Hudson on the, on the Hudson river, jets for. And that went on for about a month. So that. That type of security kind of lasted for almost 10 years really. Because, you know, then. Then the wars in the Middle east started and then New York was like always the center for attention and so you could, I mean you could be completely comfortable. I was there in 2000 with my wife, now girlfriend. Then 3, 4 o'clock in the morning. Walking by yourself, her walking by herself. Not a thing was gonna happen to you because there was cops everywhere and there's like attention and everyone was looking and if you look funny. And then we had to deal with the anthrax or they're on the subway car. So it's a complete different world. And then Covid happened and you take cops away and then you get people who get burned alive on subways.

[Andy Stumpf]

I had heard that as far as it. I mean, there's a horrible question to ask, but I had heard that jumping off of those platforms in front of the trains is one of the methods that people will choose to end their lives.

[Douglas Terrell]

That. I don't know. I mean. Yeah, I don't know. I.

[Andy Stumpf]

Rough one.

[Douglas Terrell]

That'd be a rough one. I'm sure if you're doing that, you have other issues. I mean, I'm sure. Yeah, I don't. I don't know about that. But I do know that that's not the way I want to go.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

Of getting in front of a. A moving subway. But I mean, there are stories of people who have jumped on, on the platforms to save other people. There was a really famous story of a guy, a construction guy or a maintenance guy who. Somebody fell. I think it was a. Somebody was having a seizure and he jumped and fell on top of him. And the subway went over him. And he saved him, in fact. And I think he was. I think he got invited to the. One of the inauguration. Not inaugurations, the presidential speeches and State of the Union. State of the Union. Thank you. And he got an award or something.

[Andy Stumpf]

As he should.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Where were you guys on 9 11?

[Douglas Terrell]

So I lived in Hoboken, New Jersey, which is right across the river. It's in fact, Hoboken probably lost more people from the five boroughs. So Hoboken is considered the Sixth Borough. It's in New Jersey, but it's literally right across the river from the Hudson. So it's like from my door to times square is 20 minutes.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Douglas Terrell]

So a lot of people lived in Hoboken. A lot of finance guys lived in Hoboken because it was. So it was cheaper, it was quieter.

[Andy Stumpf]

They travel in for work and out for home.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yep, exactly. And so I was a personal trainer at that time. So I would take the path, which is a version of the Jersey subway, and I would go from there into the World Trade Towers. And that was my commute. I'd wake up around, depending what client I had. I wake up at 6 or 7 in the morning, take the path, and all of them, all the trains, the every subway line, the ferry, they all emptied out in front of the World Trade Towers.

[Andy Stumpf]

Like from underground. You'd come up the stairs. Yeah, yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

And my biggest regret is never taking a picture of inside the World trade towers around 7 or 8 o'clock in the morning, because it was like a sea of humanity. It's hard to.

[Andy Stumpf]

If you think every human being on earth was there.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, but no. Yeah, but no one is. No one is bumping into each other. I mean, it's like, it's a. It's a choreography that everyone knows where they're going, they're. Everyone's going to work. Right. So you have your path. They have their path. You know how to dodge. And they had these stairs that went forever up. In fact. Have you been to the 911 Museum?

[Andy Stumpf]

Yes.

[Douglas Terrell]

Okay.

[Andy Stumpf]

Very, very moving. Hard to actually walk through.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yep. For me too. Especially being there and seeing the whole thing. Yeah. But they had. So they, they give a version of those stairs when you're going down into it, when I think it's by, you know, where the blue wall is. There's. Right there. But they went forever. Right. And they were, I think, four and four. Four going up, four going down. Obviously in the morning. The four going up.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yep.

[Douglas Terrell]

And the. I mean, the four going out were empty. And the four going up. And so you would get up, get your coffee, you get your muffin. And. And that was my path. So I'd get into World Trade Towers in the morning, I get a muffin, I get a cup of coffee, I'd walk out. I'd walk from Cornwall street all the way up to Whitehall street, which was about a 10, 15 minute walk. And usually if the weather was beautiful, that's what I would do. Specifically, I was a big history buff. So there was Trinity Church right there. And so I would always go to Trinity Church if I had time. And I'd read. I'd memorize monologues because I was fascinated and just addicted to learning stories about, you know, who was buried in that cemetery. You know, if it was, you know, I think the one of the Adams kids were buried there. And then you kind of felt like you're walking through American history. That's where America really started, really. You know, right there and around Whitehall street at Trinity Church. And it's the beginning of Manhattan. And So while on 9 11, my first client was at 9 in the morning on that beautiful day. And you know, to this day, I'll never forget that day because it was such a big, beautiful day.

[Andy Stumpf]

I've heard that from a lot of people. Like just crisp, beautiful, clear day.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, it's it. In fact, whenever Scott, man, I don't know if you've heard of Scott, man. He. He came and saw my show.

[Andy Stumpf]

And I feel like I have heard the name, but I don't know the context.

[Douglas Terrell]

Pineapple Express.

[Andy Stumpf]

Gotcha.

[Douglas Terrell]

So he saw my play up in Detroit, and we went for dinner afterwards, and I was telling him, he was asking me, you know, why I wrote the play. And so I was telling him and I said. And I was describing the day, and he was like, that's probably a version of PTS that you have. And I never really thought about it to that point because I can describe it in detail, everything in detail. And not that I have pts, but the way he was explaining it to me because you know, it in so much in detail. And to this day, if I walk out on a beautiful day when there's not a cloud, weather's around 70, 72 degrees, spring or fall, you know, September, I'm right back there, I can remember everything about it. And I just remember that day. I went in early, I woke up, it was beautiful day, So I went in early, get a cup of coffee, and I was gonna walk. So you could either walk from the World Trade Towers or you could take A subway, if you wanted to, to where I worked at. But it was such a beautiful day. I said, you know, I'm gonna walk, I'm gonna walk today. So I came out, first plane hit at 8:46. So I was at the, I was at the. Underneath the World Trade Towers and the World Trade Towers.

[Andy Stumpf]

You were underneath at the subway station when that hit?

[Douglas Terrell]

I was, no, I had just walked out.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay, but did you hear the airplane coming?

[Douglas Terrell]

So not the first one. So I walked out around 8:00 in the morning, 8:15. I got to the gym at about 8:30. And then the first plane hit, 8:46. Didn't even hear it really. I had a client at 9 who came in early and he was freaked out. He had just walked out when the first plane. He was literally walking out when the first plane hit. And for people who don't know, World Trade Towers were huge, massive. In fact, when they were up, you didn't even notice the Manhattan skyline when they fell down. It was the first time you noticed the Empire State Building. So being in a quarter a mile from them, they're just like towering, towering over you. In fact, when I first got to New York, I remember being really lost. I had a map, trying to find my way to go to auditions. And this older lady said, son, where are you going? And I said, well, I'm trying to go to north, the north side of Manhattan. She said, well, let me show you something. You see those buildings over there? That's south. And if you know where south is, you know where north is. And if you know north is, you know where west is, you know where east is. She goes, whenever you get lost, just look up and you'll see those two towers. And you could be. I mean, you can be all the way up in Spanish Harlem. You could see them forever, man. You could see them coming in from Connecticut, driving, you could start seeing them. So I got to the World Trade Towers, to my gym. I had just walked out of 9 11. It was a beautiful day. I remember just walking on the side, just thinking, looking at the Trinity Church, drinking my coffee, eating my muffin, getting there. And then my first client at 9 o'clock was there early and he was all freaked out and he's like, something happened at the World Trade Towers. And I said, well, what happened? He said, I don't know, something's going on. I go, well, let's train, man. I mean, sure, it's nothing, dude. And at that time, everybody thought I was a Cessna.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

No one knew what it Was. And so I started training. And then the second plane hit, which I believe was at 9:03 or 9:02, and that one felt like turbulence on a plane. That one you felt, I don't know how it hit it or what, but you felt, I mean, everything shook and then everyone stopped. And I remember putting the dumbbells down and we walked outside and just, I remember the scene looking like that, either that year or the year before Godzilla came out. And there's a scene in the movie of Godzilla where everyone's climbing over the taxis and looking up and looking at Godzilla and they're like, ah, you know.

[Andy Stumpf]

Problem is there's like 17 movies.

[Douglas Terrell]

It was like the latest one in 2000, I think.

[Andy Stumpf]

Another one, honestly came out this month. I, I, you want to talk about a franchise that's really getting its money squeezed out of it.

[Douglas Terrell]

Godzilla.

[Andy Stumpf]

That and Superman. They're redoing that one for them.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, I know. I can't watch Superman anymore, so.

[Andy Stumpf]

What Superman can't you watch?

[Douglas Terrell]

I, I just, I'm a Christopher Reeve guy and, you know, I was so, you know, being old and that's my movie and, and I think I watched the second one after that, but then with Cavill. Yeah, Built dude.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

Looked like freaking Superman. I mean, they both. Christopher Reed was pretty ripped too, when you look at him. Not comparatively, no, no. But for that time he was pretty ripped, for sure. It was pretty ripped. Yeah. But, yeah, so I just remember Cross crawling over the cars and thinking, man, this feels like Godzilla. And then just seeing the buildings up and then people were, you know, panicking. Some people were crying. You know, I had, I was pretty numb through all that. You know, I grew up in a really kind of turbulent childhood, and I had a lot of insanity in my life. And so, you know, a lot of screaming in the house and stuff. And so I kind of develop a mechanism of going numb. Whenever there's a lot of stress, I'll just, I'll just go numb.

[Andy Stumpf]

And do you recognize when you slip into that place?

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, pretty fast.

[Andy Stumpf]

Like, is it intentional or subconscious?

[Douglas Terrell]

I think it's subconscious. You know, I thought about that times, but like, if there's a lot of something going on, I just, I just go numb. My heart, I can literally feel my heart calm down. And I think a lot of it is hiding. When my dad was screaming a lot, you know, and I would a mechanism of trying to calm myself down and I would hold my little sister as well.

[Andy Stumpf]

How do you get yourself out of it?

[Douglas Terrell]

I think consciously I would Just come out of it. You know, it's kind of weird. It's like you feel it and you see it, but you're controlling it. You know, it's kind of like you're out of mind in a way.

[Andy Stumpf]

Almost like a third person view.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. You become like kind of third person view. Like you can feel yourself getting numb. You know, you're in a dangerous situation. I mean, it would happen on the subway sometimes, like crazy would happen. Subway. And I would just go. I would feel myself go numb. And I just start. I can notice my. My surroundings really well. And then I'd start thinking about an exit of some kind. Like, what am I going to do? What should I do? Yeah. And that's. It's just something that I think I learned through trauma, you know? Yeah. And So I remember 911 being pretty peaceful, you know, I knew it's. Things weren't right. Things were crazy. A lot of the girls were crying, they were freaking out. And what was really weird, I remember 911 is cause we were in a gym. So there were treadmills and all the treadmills had TV, so you could see what was happening on 911 on the TV, but you were right next to it. So it'd be kind of like us watching TV and some disaster going on over there.

[Andy Stumpf]

And you can see it on the horizon.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. And then where you'd walk out the front doors and like that's right here. And so I would go in and out, in and out from the gym. It was a big glass building. It was a beautiful building. And I remember thinking, man, that's. That's. I wonder what's going to happen. So I walked outside. You couldn't call anybody? I couldn't call my girlfriend. All the lines were locked up. Satellite. Satellites were jammed. And I remember just standing outside and looking at the buildings and thinking what was going on?

[Andy Stumpf]

Hold on a second. What? Satellites were jammed.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, I mean, phone lines jammed. But they were satellite. A tower. Sorry, the tower. Yeah, the towers. The towers.

[Andy Stumpf]

The fuck were you using satellites for?

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, and. Yeah. And so, you know, and then. And then we started watching people jump.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. It's not often talked about the number of people who made that choice.

[Douglas Terrell]

No, no. And that was, that was really surreal. And I remember being next to a female trainer and she just completely broke down and I grabbed her and I said, let's go inside. It's okay. And then people were talking about it. In fact, the part of the 911 museum that I can't do is that part they have a video section. And you know when you go through the museum on the right corner, they have a video section showing that. And they show that lady who. The infamous lady who. She pulls her dress down for her last sentence of dignity.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

And she jumps and where were you.

[Andy Stumpf]

When they started to fall? Not the people, the buildings.

[Douglas Terrell]

So right there. So I went back inside, and I can't remember what time the first building fell, but I saw it on TV falling. And I remember thinking, holy, that's right out there. And I remember I ran outside. The building had completely fall by time. I come outside, but I saw the fume of smoke coming. And what I try to tell people is. So it was a big glass building. Glasses. Imagine this whole room just glass. And it'd be like someone just dumped a bucket of gray paint. And I remember seeing the smoke coming down and I remember telling this guy Bernard. I said, but he was a trainer. I said, bernard, put the towels again. That's kind of like my mechanism. I started thinking about an out. And so I said, put the towels underneath the. Underneath the doors. This shit's going to be coming in. So we started grabbing towels, putting them in. Because I work construction when I was in high school, so I knew there was a lot of asbestos in the building. The shit you think about when you're.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

Under stress. And I was thinking, just, I don't want to breathe asbestos in. So we put that in and then it'd be like that curtain behind you. It just went great. It just went completely gray. So, you know, you're dealing with that. You're trying to, you know, digest what happened there in 9 11.

[Andy Stumpf]

And did you hear them falling, the buildings?

[Douglas Terrell]

No, I didn't hear them. I didn't hear them fall. I could hear the rumble of the smoke. That's what I do. I could hear the rumble and the smoke and to this day, the car alarms. As the smoke. Every car alarm went on, it was going on non stop. You can hear that. And you can hear because the debris had hard stuff in it. And it was hitting glass, breaking glass. Like, it wasn't smoke. It was literally like a, you know, a blob of metal coming at you. And it was just. You could hear that noise. So we closed the doors. Really. Pandemonium was really breaking out back then. I remember thinking, what are we doing? What's going on here? I mean, this is kind of crazy. And, you know, you. You try to talk to people, you know, I remember talking to a guy named Vishnu. He was Indian and he Was really, you know, freaked out about it. And I said, look, man, just. We just got to keep everybody in here. Let's don't let anybody out until someone says, let's get out of the building. And then we saw the other building fall down. And then I was like, holy. And we put more towels in, and then we just sat there. Kind of like everybody went numb. Everybody in the building went numb. We were trying to figure out, you know, what does this mean? You know, what do we do? You couldn't call, you couldn't get a line out, and you just. We just. I remember everybody got around two or three treadmills because you couldn't see outside. You didn't want to open the doors. And also, people were banging on the glass doors to get in. So we would open the door to get in and smoke would get in. And on this, after the second building, I remember an African American woman. She had blood down her face. She had one shoe on. I remember that heel. And we let her in and she was just completely. Just emotionally distraught. And we sat her down and we had a bench on the side. We sat her down on the bench. We gave her water, and she was just. She was just. She didn't know what happened. And so we went back to the TVs to see, like, what the fuck is going on? You know, you started. You know, by then we knew it was a terrorist attack. And we stayed there for probably an hour. And then I remember a fireman, a big dude came, busted the door open. And he was a big dude. He was probably like 6, 3, 6, 4, you know. And, you know, fire guys, they got all the gear on, and they look even bigger with all the gear on. And he just said, I want everybody get the out of here right now. And he had this look, and I'll never forget that. Don't fucking question me. Don't fucking answer. Ask me a question. Get the fuck out of this building now. Everyone jumped. We said, yes, sir. We grabbed our stuff. Everybody started grabbing. I grabbed towels and I started giving them to people to put over their heads to cook through the smoke so they wouldn't breathe in the smoke.

[Andy Stumpf]

Was it clearing at all at that point?

[Douglas Terrell]

No. Fuck, no. Literally, he kind of. He had. Him and a couple other guys started leading us in a line, and we were being led to the fdr, which is on the east side of Manhattan. And so I grabbed my two clients. I had a 9 and a 10 o'clock. And my guy was really freaked out. He was a small guy. He Was a lawyer. His name was David. I haven't talked to him in years, but I hope he's doing well. He was really nervous. Great guy. And I grabbed him and I grabbed this other client of mine named Marlena. And they didn't know what to do because they both lived in New York. And they had basically sealed New York from 34th street down. You couldn't go anywhere. So I said, look, I lived in Hoboken, so I said, look. And everybody was being evacuated to Hoboken in Jersey City. They're the two cities on the. On the. On the west coast of. On the west coast of Manhattan. Going, Going, going west. So. And all the ferries were there. They were bringing ferries from Connecticut. So they were basically ferrying everybody from 34 down all the way across to Hoboken, New Jersey. So I grabbed them, we left. We went through the smoke. I remember walking on the fdr, thinking, this is what it must be like to be a refugee. A refugee. I mean, this has to be like it. I mean, we were walking with towels. No one was talking. We were all just walking upside at fdr. Silence. You would hear crying in the back. You'd hear, you know, some yelling and screaming, but for the most part, everyone was just marching, marching up. We were going to a spot to get on the ferry to go back to Hoboken. I grabbed my clients. And that was the first time I saw Manhattan without the. Without the World Trade Towers, because we're on the Hudson River. And so we were seeing things from tv. We saw the towers come down, but we didn't get a perspective until we got on the ferry, until we were on the Hudson River. And I remember the Hudson was. Got. The ferry got in the middle of the Hudson. And I remember just looking back and just not seeing the towers, which was surreal, right? Because for so long, you just always assumed that these buildings were there. And then that. And then you couldn't really see the skyline because the smoke was just. I mean, it was just like I always describe it, it looked like some big giant brought a hibachi grill, and it was just smoking all of lower Manhattan. It was. And that smoke lasted for. For months, man. For six months. For a year. I mean, the fires went on for almost two years down there below. They were so hot, 1600 degrees Fahrenheit. And so I grabbed my two clients and I took them home. They're, you know, they had made. I can't remember. I think they. I believe we had cell phones. I can't remember how they called but they had called family. They had gone on a call out, and they were waiting for them in New Jersey, and they got picked up. Both of them got picked up by friends and family. And then Hoboken is only a square mile. So I brought them home. They left. My wife was there, girlfriend. Then she was like, oh, my God, you. You know, the whole thing, you know, hugging me, you know, and so. And then she goes, are you okay? And I said, yeah, I'm. I'm good, man. And I remember. The other thing I remember is being starving because I hadn't eaten anything, and my adrenaline just kicked in. I think my adrenaline finally had come down. I go, I'm starving, man. Let's go get some food. You know, an emotion hits people in very different ways. And I just remember thinking, I'm hungry. I want to go eat. And there was a great Italian bar right next to the apartment we rented. Everyone was in it, watching tv. It was an old place called Leo's, had been there from, you know, the 50s. And we went in, people were watching, and people were, you know, trying to kind of grasp the news. And I sat down, I ordered a spaghetti bolognese. She ordered lasagna. And I ordered two beers. And I remember my wife got a beer, and it was flat. My girlfriend, and she wanted to complain about it.

[Andy Stumpf]

And I said, not today.

[Douglas Terrell]

That's what I told us. Erica, look at the tv. Drink the beer.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

And I think she didn't. She just. She snapped. You know, she was not there where everybody was at, you know, because she. She didn't experience it. And then once she kind of snapped, like, oh, I know. What was I.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's a very nearly impossible thing to compute.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. Yeah. And so we. Yeah. And we ate. And then, you know, that's kind of where. And that was 2001. I only been in New York for, you know, one year, you know, and then you go back, and I had. I had thoughts of leaving. Like, well, you know, I came there to be an actor, to pursue my dream. I'm like, well, I don't. Maybe I should leave. You know, maybe this is not what I want to do.

[Andy Stumpf]

Why'd you choose New York over la? And let me tell you, I don't know much about the acting scene.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

But for most people, and maybe this is something from TV and movies, where do young people go when they want to be discovered? They head to the West Coast. To la.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

Why you chose New York over that?

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, back then, there's really two cities. There was New York I mean, there was New York or la. Those are the two cities you would go to.

[Andy Stumpf]

If same industry though, like, same. Yeah, obviously type stuff, movie type stuff was existing.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, for the most part. I mean, film and tv, like, if you have no passion in theater, you're going to go to la. And if you have passion for theater, but both film and TV meccas are. It's New York or la. Well, it was easy because my wife was going to grad school and we were just dating at the time and she's, you know, I, I was ready to get out of Houston and I said, look, listen, I, I can't do this and I want to get out. And I was going to go to LA because I was born in la. And she said, listen, you know, I'm going to go to grad school. Why don't. Wherever I get accepted, let's go together. And if it doesn't work out, you know, we're in a city that we both want to be in, you know, we're not in, you know, Topeka, Kansas. And I said, yeah, sure. So she got accepted, she got a full ride to nyu. So, okay, let's go to New York. And, you know, I had had success going east always as, as, as a young man, I went, I got a scholarship to go to Ole Miss from Texas. My first acting job was in North Carolina. My parents actually met in New York. So I thought, I'll just keep going east, you know, maybe east is my direction. And. Yeah, and so that's why we were in New York. And so that happened. And then, you know, you know, you try to. It was, you know, it was so surreal. And I remember the, when we were talking about camaraderie before we started, that's when New York was magical. It was really the most magical place you could have ever been. People would stop, they would help you. And I remember the, on the west side and this, this went on for, for a long time. All the fire trucks going back and forth, right? And people clapping. Kind of like Covid, but in a more sincere way. You know, everyone had an American flag. It was the most patriotic, you know, the country had, had ever been. It was just, it was a wonderful place. You know, people were looking out. You know, it was a scary place too, because you would read on the paper, you know, okay, Taliban is choosing next targets. Anthrax in the subways. And you'd be on the subway going, oh, fuck. You know, you'd be like, you know, and you look at it, you look at people like you know. You know, don't make a funny move, dude. Because, you know, and. And so it was a great place. It was a great. It was. It was wonderful, man. It was just. It was. Gosh, it was just really fun, and it was safe. It was kind of a love fest. People wanted to help each other. And then. And that's kind of how I got really addicted to what was happening in the Middle East. Because, ironically, is. My father was very patriotic. He was a Syrian Jew, Argentinian Syrian Jew. And he was always grateful to this country, and he was always grateful to what. What America did during the Second World War. And he was very proud American. And I got my patriotism through him, which is ironic because we had a kind of a turbulence relationship. And he would always watch this. I don't know if you remember this documentary called the War at the World at War.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't think so.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, it was an old documentary, and he watched. It was basically the Hitler. Hitler documentary. And he would watch that over and over, and he used to drive me nuts. In fact, I would lie on the couch sleeping when he would watch that. So. Yeah. So I, you know, I felt really. I wanted to find out what was going on in the Middle East. I was always the character, you know, I always, always had the character. If you punch me, I'm gonna punch you back. So I wanted revenge, you know, I wanted those guys to be punished. You know, I was one of the people who, you know, who wanted the Iraq war. I. I. So was I. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Time and context is a. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

Not a good decision. Yeah. And it's hard.

[Andy Stumpf]

You were directly tied to the monetary value of the military industrial complex.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. Unless you were part of Halliburton. You did well.

[Andy Stumpf]

I think they did okay.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Shareholders might have been happy for about two decades. Probably still are to some degree.

[Douglas Terrell]

For sure. For sure.

[Andy Stumpf]

Why'd you leave New York? Because I was asking how. Where you came from here today, and you said, back in Tejas.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, well, I mean, Covid just couldn't do it anymore.

[Andy Stumpf]

They changed the city that much.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, dude, it's. Joe Rogan left. The reason why Joe Rogan left LA is the reason why everybody left. It's hard to explain to people the insanity that happened there on both coasts. I mean, you see what's going on in the fires in the California fires right now. And when you read why they're happening.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

You're like.

[Andy Stumpf]

But one of the main reasons why they're happening is the Santa Ana winds, which are uncontrollable but they're a yearly event.

[Douglas Terrell]

True.

[Andy Stumpf]

And I used to experience them because I lived in San Diego. When those suckers would turn on, it feels like a hair dryer coming out of the eastern California mountains.

[Douglas Terrell]

But having your water reserves filled with would help.

[Andy Stumpf]

It would.

[Douglas Terrell]

Would help, yes.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't mean, man. Yeah, of course. Undoubtedly it would help. I'm reading reports of 80, 90 mph sustained wind. I don't know if there's enough water in the world to stop that.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, well, that I don't know about. I mean, that I don't know about. But when you read that what was happening, like the insanity of the decisions that were going, the budget cuts and all that, you're just like. And then, you know, I mean, you couldn't breathe, man. I mean, you couldn't breathe. I mean, they were. I mean, they were in your living room, they were in your kid's classroom. The theaters were. Everything was shut down. You were fighting with everybody. You were yelling with everybody. Your friends that you thought were friends were not your friends anymore. It's really hard for people to understand the isolation that happened when you weren't part of that mantra. You got kind of pushed out and, you know, that's why so many people left both codes and they're still leaving. But. Yeah, that was 2022. Yeah, you just. It's. It's really. For me, it's actually quite, quite emotional. I was really. I loved New York. I mean, I. I mean, I built my career there. My kids were born there in Hoboken. I raised my family there. I made my mark as a. As a guy there. You know, I experienced the most probably traumatic thing besides maybe Pearl harbor or something firsthand. The people are great in New York, you know, besides the politics. They're phenomenal people, you know, hard working, you know, Irish, Italian, all over the place. The city, the energy is amazing, especially if you're in the arts. If you're an actor, you know, that's. You know, that's. Where do you want to be? You know, I mean, I would study. I studied at Carnegie Hall. You know, I was next to the history. You know, I'm. Again, I'm a massive history buff. So, you know, where I studied in Carnegie hall was a half floor. The building had half, half floors. And it was below Marlon Brando's apartment, his old apartment. And I would touch that. And so it was. I mean, there's a. It's just. It's just. It's hard to explain, but it's New York is an amazing place when it's functioning, when it's being run right. It's. It's crazy. Like you can put up with the insanity when the insanity doesn't come in your bedroom and doesn't with your kids school and when everyone leaves you alone. Right. You know, I mean there was. New York is always crazy. I mean you have to be insane to live there to pay those rents and to be on the subway. I mean you have. There has to be a payback, right? So yeah, so you know, that's. So I did that and then, you know, I started getting really. I started reading the paper every day and I started getting really addicted to what was happening in the Middle East. And then I guess around 2007, 2008, I started reading stories about guys struggling, you know, and guys who couldn't pay their bills.

[Andy Stumpf]

And by guys you mean soldiers.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they're in the paper all the time, you know. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

I have never been a huge fan of. I guess I consume it digitally and you know, the Times never had a subscription even on digital. So.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, Paper guy. Yeah, the New York Times. Well, I mean back then the New York Times was considered the New York Times. You know, it's gone, you know, off course, to say the least. But back then you read the New York Times like it was also as an actor, they had this great thing that they would have the upcoming Off Broadway. Off Off Broadway and Off Broadway and Broadway plays they were coming up and they would review them. And so when I was. I love research. I'm addicted to research. And so I would read that section, I would see who the playwright was, who the director was and I would research them. I'd find their contact and I reach out to them and that's how I would find work, right? And I would say, hey, you know, you know, I. This is how I saw. I saw your congratulations on a great reading. You know, I'm a great review. You know, I think I'm right for your work. You know, I love to send you my stuff. And you would. And that's how I would network. And that was. So I would read that, but then you would read what was going on in the Middle East. And so, yeah, I started collecting clippings and stuff that moved me a lot. And then I decided like around 2007, 2008, you know, maybe I should write a play. I didn't think it was going to be a one man show. I said, I'm going to write a Play. So I would go to the New York library and I would research stories about veterans, just war stories. And I started with the revolution. Ironically enough, my idea was. Because I think it was 2007, 2008, Iraq was. They had elections, and it was a big deal in Iraq. I think Saddam had already been. Had fallen. And I remember videos of people, like, using their thumb. I mean, their finger to vote. And I remember thinking, gosh, man, these people are. You know, at that time we were thinking, you know, we're liberating them and they're getting to vote, you know, and here in this country, no one votes. You know, no one votes, man. Don't they understand the sacrifices going on? We should vote. We should vote. So I had this idea of kind of writing a play and reminding people of the revolution. Excuse me. Just gonna. My eye tears. And. Yeah, so I, you know, I would. So I would go research the revolution, you know, and when you research, I mean, I would literally go look at microfish, you know, and I started. You get into a rabbit hole of research. And then I started reading about the Civil War. Then I started reading about, you know, Vietnam. And then I started reading about, you know, all the wars, you know, and then I would see stories of what was happening in the Middle East. And I started reading this. This thread about how we haven't been taking care of our vet since the revolution, you know, I mean, Joseph Plum, he fought in the continental army under George Washington. And he talks about how they never got paid. And a lot of minutemen, when they came back after the revolution, they became indentured servants because the pay they were promised, they never got. And so to survive, they basically became indentured servants to blacksmith. And then the Civil War, same thing. So I started kind of like, what the is going on, man? You know, So I started researching. So it led me into a rabbit hole. And so I started collecting. And I would xerox letters, and I would Xerox. I would. And then I would. I. I started. I got into microfish, which. And if anybody knows. Doesn't know what micro fish is, there's.

[Andy Stumpf]

A lot of people that don't know what microfish is.

[Douglas Terrell]

It's pretty fun. I mean, you could. You can go in a rabbit hole because you can.

[Andy Stumpf]

Michael, do you know what micro fish is?

[Douglas Terrell]

No.

[Andy Stumpf]

We're so old.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. Yeah. But you could look up any year, any day from any newspaper all over the world, for the most part, and you can read what was going on. And I have this fascination about the past. I just I've always have people always ask me, if you can go 100 years forward or 100 years backwards, where would you go? Hmm. And where would you go?

[Andy Stumpf]

Do I take. Do I get to take the knowledge with me, or is it a clean slate?

[Douglas Terrell]

You can take the knowledge with you.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'm going backwards. I'd be so rich.

[Douglas Terrell]

Okay. But only to experience. Only to experience. Like you were gonna put in a. They're gonna put you in a bubble case or a bubble. You can only watch. Yeah. Forward, you go forward. Why would you go forward?

[Andy Stumpf]

Because I can't put my finger on the pace of our evolution and trajectory. I just am fascinated to know where it leads.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. You know, I'd be interesting to learn what it was to be like in the early 1900s.

[Andy Stumpf]

We kind of know what that was.

[Douglas Terrell]

Like, but to really look at it.

[Andy Stumpf]

Sure.

[Douglas Terrell]

Firsthand.

[Andy Stumpf]

But you can gather some information about it now. True forward, you can gather none.

[Douglas Terrell]

Mm.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'd rather be a cosmonute. Go forward.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, what if I said you can go back to, like, 1500? Are you. Obviously a stupid question. I was gonna say, are you a military buff? But are you?

[Andy Stumpf]

I'm not.

[Douglas Terrell]

Are you a history buff?

[Andy Stumpf]

I am neither a military buff nor a history buff. Or the combination of the two. A military history buff.

[Douglas Terrell]

Okay.

[Andy Stumpf]

Just because you serve in the military doesn't necessarily mean you are steeped in all the knowledge.

[Douglas Terrell]

No, no, no. But maybe at that, you might have a passion, like, generally. And you listen to this. Grant battles or something resoundingly. No, no. George McClellan. Okay.

[Andy Stumpf]

I still think I would go forward because that's the true unknown. Even the 1500s, we could. We could make an approximation based off the information that we do have, because we do have information.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

We don't know about tomorrow, though. And I'm telling you, with technology, the pace that things are evolving, I gotta see it a little bit.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, No, I hear you.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. So I promise, you'd be in your little bubble and somebody come cut you in pieces with your lightsaber, and you wouldn't be able to come back with any information.

[Douglas Terrell]

No, that's true. And what. What's even scary is if you go forward and you realize you don't even exist.

[Andy Stumpf]

I was gonna say you go forward and it's just black, and you're sitting there like.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

You're go backwards 20 years.

[Douglas Terrell]

We're all. We're all. We're all holograms.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. You're like.

[Andy Stumpf]

Or just. The world's not there anymore. It's even scarier because we're idiots with nuclear weapons and somebody decided to let one off the chain. And, yeah, you're just in the shadows. Like, can we rewind 20 years and you're still in the shadows? Like, shit, can we rewrite 20 more and just figure out exactly what happened and where we could warn people. I don't know if they'd pay attention.

[Douglas Terrell]

No, probably wouldn't, because people don't. But, yeah, So I would. I would collect this information and I would look at micro fish, and then I started getting really passionate. I started getting really digging into the, you know, our history and how we treat our soldiers. And so I had a. I mean, this went on from about 2007, 2008, to all the way about 2013. Really. And I would. You know, I'm like a dog with a bone, you know, once I get into a project, I don't. I won't let it go. And so I would be in between auditions, when I had time, I would go to New York Public Library also. I fucking loved it. You know, I loved reading about it. I love, you know, reading about stories of the Civil War and the revolution, like, reading about how, you know, they're hard people. They were hard people, and they were. And they were strong. And then, you know, you just learn some fascinating things like, you know, how illiterate a lot of the revolutionary guys were, you know, And I would read their diaries. You know, today I go eat monkfish, tomorrow we eat monkfish. Looking forward to go marry. Eat monkfish. You know, it's fascinating, you know, reading that, you know, and then you come across somebody like Joseph Plum or Ebenezer Fox who were really literate and they kept these amazing diaries, and you're like, holy shit. You know, or. Same thing with the Civil War, you know.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, I knew. I know that you're laying the foundation for the play that you. The play that you wrote. What got you interested in acting in the first place?

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, man. Well, I was dumped by a chick, and I wanted to impress her. So. All right, so we'll go back.

[Andy Stumpf]

And so you landed on acting.

[Douglas Terrell]

So.

[Andy Stumpf]

All right, so I must be like, I'm gonna go to the gym, sculpt my guns, get a beach body, an eight pack, find a hotter chick.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And walk around with her. No, you're like, hold on, Shakespeare.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, I didn't have many skills going on, right? So when I graduated. So the thing is, so I'm blind in my left eye. And so when I always. Yeah, blind, blind. Yeah. So when I was 4. So I had an accident. And so.

[Andy Stumpf]

Hold on. Do you think you're going to escape without talking about the accident?

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, well, I mean, it's. I mean, my sister threw something and basically took my eye.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Douglas Terrell]

And my dad wasn't there, and so. Yeah, so kind of. That's how I grew up. But what was going to say? So I. So when I played football in high school and so when I graduated. When you play football in high school, you're always, you know, like, all the recruits are trying to call you because you're like, on this. A list of recruits to get you to come and join. And I remember sitting. I had a waterbed. Do you ever have a waterbed?

[Andy Stumpf]

No, I'm. I'm gonna gauge Michael's knowledge on this one, too. Have you ever experienced a waterbed?

[Douglas Terrell]

I mean, I know what they are. I don't know. I've never.

[Andy Stumpf]

Have you ever seen one in real life?

[Douglas Terrell]

No.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay. Just making sure.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

His. I tell you what, his life experience compared to ours, I worry. Not about him, but I worry.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, you worry.

[Andy Stumpf]

Even though. First off, here's a question. Who ever thought that a waterbed was a good idea?

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, they were great because they would stay cold.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. They would also destroy your back due.

[Douglas Terrell]

To no well support. I mean, when you're 14, 15, that doesn't matter.

[Andy Stumpf]

True.

[Douglas Terrell]

And there are also benefits that we both know about that.

[Andy Stumpf]

Are you talking about sexual benefits? Riding the tide? Yeah. I can't. I have no experience with that on a waterbed. I just. I think of it from the perspective of if I had to write a list out of things that I would not like, accidents that I wouldn't want to have happen in my bedroom, about 100 gallons of water would be one of them.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, the biggest. The biggest pain in the ass of a waterbed is if you've got an air pocket in the bed.

[Andy Stumpf]

The biggest pain in the ass of a waterbed is if it breaks.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, well, I never had one that broke, but, yeah. Anyhow, I had a waterbed. So these recruits would call me and they would say, hey, you know, I heard you just, you know, you just finished high school and you played football. I think you'd be a great Marine, you know, once you come recruit. And I said, well, that sounds great. I just gotta let you know that I'm also blind in my left eye. And he'd be like, oh, well, maybe.

[Andy Stumpf]

It'S not for you.

[Douglas Terrell]

I think you're gonna have a good life, son, but I don't Think maybe the Marines is for you. And then like, I don't know, a couple weeks later, the army would call, same story.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

And I would tell him, I think you're gonna have a good life, son. But I don't think the military is for you. And I think the Coast Guard called and I believe, yeah, I think in the Navy. In the Navy. And I remember I would get these phone calls. So when that finished, I really thought that that was my last connection to the military. I was like, I'll have no connection to the military. I would never think about the military.

[Andy Stumpf]

But acting was not some burning passion. Doesn't sound like there was a family history of people coming from that world.

[Douglas Terrell]

No, no. So what happened was. So I was, I was always a good student in high school, but I got high before my SAT fucked that up. Not a good. I would advise you not to take your SAT high or drunk.

[Andy Stumpf]

Can't you take it again, though?

[Douglas Terrell]

I did, but I, you know, my parents didn't have much money, and so I just figured they're not. I'm not gonna go to college.

[Andy Stumpf]

Walk me through that decision process of taking the SAT and getting high first. You're like, I know what, this is a really important test, so I'm just gonna mellow out a little bit.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, I never, I never even studied for it. I never even prepared for it. I mean, I just assume I had to take. You had to take it.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

And I just remember thinking, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to do well in school. I'm not going to go to college. I didn't see, I didn't see an opportunity for me to go to, to go to college. I just didn't see it. So I just doesn't matter. And so of course that, you know, not a good decision, but I, My plan really was to go work with my dad, you know, on the ships. I figured I'll just get a job, make some good money. He made okay money. And I thought, you know, you know, as a 17 year old, 18 year old, I'll be fine with that.

[Andy Stumpf]

You know, you mentioned earlier there was some trauma involved in your childhood.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

What was going on there?

[Douglas Terrell]

So my, my dad was kind of a verbally violent. He was also violent, you know, but he was very verbally violent in the house.

[Andy Stumpf]

How were his parents towards him? Where did he.

[Douglas Terrell]

He kind of grew up in the. He grew up in the street. You know, he came to this country with nothing. He didn, you know, in retrospect, as I look back My dad passed now. He passed about five years ago, six years ago. No, it's okay. But I'm just thinking when he passed, but I don't think he. I don't think he knew how to love. Right. I don't think he was. I don't think it was ever taught to him. And, you know, and for his mind, because he grew up in the streets, came to New York. I mean, he had some issues in New York, you know, and then he got his second chance, and he kind of built a life. And for him, if you had milk in your refrigerator and a stereo in your room, you were doing good, you know, and that was his version of success as a father to us, you know, I was one of one of five, four sisters. Three were stepsisters, and my mother was Colombian, and she had come from her first marriage with three daughters when she was 16. So there was just a lot of violence, a lot of yelling, some physical violence between my parents. That's kind of where you learn your mechanisms. You know, you learn how to. You just learn how to hide and you learn how to. You know, I think. I think when you. When you ask, you know, is it conscious or subconscious? I think it's a part of both, because I think you force yourself to ignore it. Right. To make it go away in some way, either. Hiding under. I mean, I would hide under. We had a bathroom sink, and I would hide underneath the bathroom sink faucet, like a cabinet. You know, I would get inside of it or underneath the bed or in the closet. I would go in there until things would subside. And then, you know, that shit proceeded through high school. You know, by then you. You get like, here we go again. You know, you kind of. You know, you're like.

[Andy Stumpf]

Did you guys ever talk about it as you got older, as a man? Did you discuss.

[Douglas Terrell]

No. No.

[Andy Stumpf]

Really?

[Douglas Terrell]

Between me and my dad?

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

No, no, no.

[Andy Stumpf]

What do you think would have happened if you would have brought it up?

[Douglas Terrell]

I mean, you would have. I would have had to. Been more. We both would have had to. Been more emotionally intelligent to do that. I don't know. I think he probably would have said, I did the best I could. And he'd said that. He said that a lot, you know, and he did. Into a degree.

[Andy Stumpf]

I think the important part is what you just said. To a degree.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Have you ever apologized for his behavior?

[Douglas Terrell]

No, no. You know, it goes so deep, man, with my sisters, because, you know, they were his stepdaughters, and so that caused a lot of stress financially as well. You know, my mom was great. My mom is the reason why I got to go to college and how I got my life. But I don't think she was as, you know, as you get older, you see your parents as people, you know, when you're there, and you kind of get retrospective, and you start looking at when you're younger.

[Andy Stumpf]

They're the answer to every question problem that you have.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

How much distance do I have from this right here? Is this good?

[Andy Stumpf]

I think so. Michael, you let me know.

[Douglas Terrell]

Just a little closer. Okay.

[Andy Stumpf]

He gets really, like, get in there, you know? Yeah. As you get older, you realize your parents are 100% human being.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. They were trying.

[Andy Stumpf]

Stumbling their way through life just like you are.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. And it was harder for them. You know, things were harder. You know, you think about what your mother had to do. She had to fucking wash diapers and, you know, and make baby food. You know, like, life was much harder back then for. Especially for immigrant parents who. Who were considered outcasts, you know.

[Andy Stumpf]

Is your mom still alive?

[Douglas Terrell]

My mom is still alive. And my mom was also patriotic. I remember when I was in school, they would give you kind of like a census, you know, it was basic, you know, male, white, Hispanic, or African American, something. And I would. I knew I spoke Spanish. I speak fluent Spanish, so I would check Hispanic. And I remember I told my mom that one day, and she said, don't you fucking ever do that again. I came to this country for you to be American. Don't fucking throw that away. Never click Hispanic again. You're an American. You were born in this country. I had you in this country. You're an American. So. And it's funny, these little seeds that your parents plant in you, they flower in different ways as you get older. Right? You don't. I said, okay, sure, I'm an American.

[Andy Stumpf]

Say back down to football.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And so heart's broken.

[Douglas Terrell]

Hearts broken.

[Andy Stumpf]

Revenge will clearly be.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, so my mom play. So my mom was not going to allow me to go work with my dad. She goes, you're going to college. And so she basically. I partied a lot. I did drugs. I experimented with everything. Everything. And so she said, you're going to go to college, and you're going to get away from your friends. So without me knowing, she had drove into. She had driven to Lufkin, Texas, to find out how can she get her son enrolled in junior college in Lufkin, Texas.

[Andy Stumpf]

How did she pick there?

[Douglas Terrell]

I think she threw a dart the furthest away.

[Andy Stumpf]

I was Going to say, I mean, that is not near Hoboken.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, no, I was in Houston. I was in Houston. And so I remember she goes, you're going to Angelina College. I said, what? She said, you're going to Angelina College. You're going to get a two year degree. And I said, okay. And she says, it's not even negotiable. You're going to college. You're not going to go work with your dad. If you want to work with your dad afterwards, you can. But right now you're going to get a two year degree. You know, she came from that class where education was so important to her, you know, and she wanted me to have an education. She wanted her kids to. She wanted her kids to be college educated. So she packed a duffel bag and a couple things. I can't remember what else. And you know, football. I think I took a football with me. Who knows, in case I was gonna throw football with someone.

[Andy Stumpf]

Takes up a lot of space in the suitcase.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. And she dropped me off and she sat me in front of the dean, you know, and I remember and the dean, and the dean said, well, if he keeps a. I had, I actually was a good student. Besides my SATs, I had a, I had a B average and I had a really passion for math and so I took, you know, advanced algebra and I was really good at it. And he said, well, you know, he's got all the core classes and he seems, he's got good grades. He says if he wants to go to major college afterwards and if he, he has to maintain a C average year and if he, and if he maintains a B average, he can go into major college without a four year school, without his SAT scores. So I said, okay, great. So I was going to major in business as a business associate degree. It was like the first week of class, there was this black kid and he stood up and he says, I'm going to be an actor. His name was Marcus Wiley. And I will never forget him. He's like, I'm going to be an actor. I'm going to be famous. And I remember I had just broken up with my girlfriend. I dated her. I dated her all through high school. She was a junior when I was a freshman. So I was kind of like, damn.

[Andy Stumpf]

You'Re swinging in the big leagues.

[Douglas Terrell]

I was, I was, I was swinging in the big leagues. And so I was devastated. And the irony about this story is that I broke up with her and then she got with someone else. And I was like, why did I Do that. I should have never done that. It teaches you be careful what you wish for. And, you know, I was full of myself and I learned life quick. Life quickly taught me a lesson of humility.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

And so you heard this guy say.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'm going to be an actor and famous. And you're thinking, I'm going to do it. Me too.

[Douglas Terrell]

I'm going to do it. Because she was going to Stephen F. Austin, which is not too far from Lufkin. So it was only like 30 minutes away. It's a four year school, not too far up. And it was in a town called Nacogdoches. And I said, well, can anybody audition? And he said, yeah, yeah, man, you should. Auditions open auditions right after class. So I went. I used to break dance really bad. And my audition was to be an alligator.

[Andy Stumpf]

What?

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, well, she. It was a children's show. So she said, you know, can you. You know, what. What kind of animal can you do? And so I used to do the centipede. Remember the centipede? And break dancing. Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Are you aware that alligators don't move like that?

[Douglas Terrell]

Fucking did. I know. So I would do the centipede and I would make a noise as an alligator. So anyway, she cast me and.

[Andy Stumpf]

All right, so your first role is a centipede. Alligator. My God.

[Douglas Terrell]

Centipede. Alligator.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Douglas Terrell]

And then before we get off, I want to give you this gift. Okay. But, yeah, so she loved what I did. She cast me in another children's show. And then she said, were you then like a giraffe?

[Andy Stumpf]

Horse?

[Douglas Terrell]

No, I played a monkey. I played an alligator. A monkey. And then I. And then I played with another animal. I played a parrot.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay. What was the first human being you played?

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, so then what happened was. So she goes, you know, you're really good as an actor. If you major in theater, I can give you a theater scholarship, you know, and it'll pay for your books, it'll give you a little bit of money.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Douglas Terrell]

So I thought, sure. And so I told my mom, she goes, do it. You know? And so I was able to keep my business associate degree and major in theater. So I started studying acting. And I never thought myself actually mean studying acting.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

Do you.

[Andy Stumpf]

Do you study people? Do you study mannerisms? Do you study dialect?

[Douglas Terrell]

It's everything. You start reading plays, you start studying playwrights, you read the classical plays, you read Shakespeare, you work on, you know, you know, how to move your body, you know, basic acting stuff. You know, how to. You make weird noises and basically what they're trying to do is get you out of yourself.

[Andy Stumpf]

The self consciousness.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, but I. Because so I moved a lot too. You know, I lived in. I was born in la, then I moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Then I moved to Bogota, Colombia. Then I moved to Houston. So I was the outs. I was the new kid a lot. And then a lot of. Then there was divorces, separations, then I would go to another school. So my self mechanism was being a jokester. Extrovert.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, the forced extrovert.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. And so I would always make people laugh. And I became a really good of studying behavior. I knew who to stay away from and who I can kind of become friends with. And so it was acting. Being a jokester was really easy for me. And so then the second year at Angelina, she cast me in a real play. I played a drunk. It was a play called God's Favorite by Neil Simon. It's a really well known play. But I. It was. It's the modern story of Job where Job loses everything. And I played his drunk son. And they would have these competitions and you would do these plays against other junior colleges around the state. And I got best in acting. And it was. The play was, you know, putting on a glove. I knew how to be drunk. I knew how not to get along with my dad. I knew how to, you know, be depressed about it. I knew how to be. I knew how to yell about it. So it wasn't a hard stretch, but they loved it, you know, and I was awarded. And so. But what was really cool about it is I never really saw myself as an actor. And that second year, all like the staff, they started to look at me like a real actor. And so then that year finished, I was going to go work with my dad. And we were having these competitions where everybody was going to audition for major universities. And I went. And again, I guess my lack of confidence, I didn't prepare anything for it. And I had my. My theater director. Then he goes, well, you're going to audition for the schools, right? And I said, no, no, no. His name is Mr. Vaughn. And I said, no. I think on. I think this was great. I. I was able to pull the wool over people's eyes. I got some money, but I think I'm done with the acting gig. He goes, you're. You are get up in my hotel room. You're going to memorize this monologue and you're going to audition. And I said, are you sure? He goes, yeah, you're going to memorize it tonight. You can audition tomorrow. And the play, the monologue he gave me was a play from Tally and Son. It's a dead Vietnam soldier who comes back to his life. He's dead, and he kind of watches his family move on.

[Andy Stumpf]

Oof. That's a rough optic.

[Douglas Terrell]

It was. It was. It's a beautiful play. And some people are depressed. Some people have moved on, and it's his whole interaction watching his family. That's the second act. So he gave me that. Which is ironic, right? Because this is what I do now, is telling stories of dead soldiers.

[Andy Stumpf]

Today's episode is brought to you by Element. Now, some people see this and they say, lmnt. Just like on the can that I am holding up in front of the camera. And some people call it that. It's called Element, or actually call it both. It doesn't really matter. What are we talking about? We're talking about electrolytes. We're talking about salt. We're talking about potassium. We're talking about magnesium. We're talking about really easy, portable. In these little travel containers, you can hear the shake, a variety of flavors. And now they have sparkling Element. This stuff is awesome. There's a refrigerator in the studio off camera. Obviously, it would make no sense to have it on camera, stocked full of those. Both Michael and I, after a nice day of jiu jitsu, we try to do jiu jitsu and then come in and do the episodes. We both are slamming one of those things, and it drastically helps. I do remember what recovery felt like before, and I remember what recovery felt like after. And because I'm an idiot, I ignored the advice of my good friend Rob Wolf, who is one of the co founders, who was talking about all the benefits of rehydrating with an electrolyte beverage, to which I, of course, said, yeah, and didn't do that. So I felt like I got run over by a steamroller every time that I trained jiu jitsu. Now, I still feel like that to a degree, but my recovery is faster and my brain works better. In the days that I train, that I sweat, that fluids are pouring out of me, and I rehydrate with Element, my brain just works better. I'm not a scientist, but it feels like the electricity is moving through my body in a much better fashion. They do seasonal stuff. They do stuff where you can get hot chocolate. It's a variety of different types of salts. Thousand milligrams of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium, 660, I should say milligrams of Magnesium that's just in one of these little packets. Looks like it's the exact same thing on the sparkling. I highly recommend these. I would say dilute it more than you necessarily think. I personally think their recommended dilution is still a little bit strong for me and I'm also trying to increase my hydration so I double that. I'll pour half of that into a bottle of water, slam it, half of it, nurse that one a little bit longer. And that works for me because I'm killing two birds with one stone. It's used by athletes. You could use it for keto or paleo diets. It is very adjacent friendly to those type of diets and it makes an absolute difference in performance and recovery. If that sounds like something you want to mess around with or Explore, go to Drinklement.com ClearedHot here's what you're going to get. A free element T or element. Like I said, sample pack with any purchase. And don't forget to try the sparkling. The element sparkling. It's 16 ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water and there's a variety of flavors just like in the packets at will. So that is drink lmnt drink limamikenovembertango.com Clearedhod let's get back to the show.

[Douglas Terrell]

I did that play and I got a full ride to Ole Miss. So I went to Ole Miss. They called me up, they said, we love what you did. I think you'd be great here. And I went up to Ole Miss. I had three other offers and I went to Ole Miss. I don't know if anybody knows Ole Miss, big party school, Oxford, big football town, beautiful place in Mississippi. You had to wear a tie. Got there, I went to a football game with a bunch of girls and I called my mom and said, mom, I'm going to Ole Miss. I said, I'm going to take out some money and I got some money from the scholarship and this is where I'm going. And so I went there. I always kept that monologue in the back of my pocket and that's really where my acting career kind of really took off. Now I didn't really become a train actor yet. I was still around and still doing my thing. And anyway, I went through college.

[Andy Stumpf]

What do they cons? What's considered to be a trained actor?

[Douglas Terrell]

Movement, voice, you know, you study the classics again. Keep studying the classics. That's the basics. Playwrights, you have pieces under your belt. You've done a lot of training on voice, vocal projection.

[Andy Stumpf]

So I'm Trying to. I'm just trying to array this against Hollywood. What percentage of the actors that people are generally seeing on the big screen.

[Douglas Terrell]

Would be considered a trained actor now today, probably zero.

[Andy Stumpf]

I was just gonna ask that, because I swear I just saw. I think it was Russell Crowe. He was asked about an acting method, and he. His answer was, I don't know what that is. I just figured it out.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, I've heard him say that. But in fairness, there's probably a thousand.

[Andy Stumpf]

People that tried that path, too. For him to be in that spot, to be able to see. Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

And he'd been acting since he was a kid.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Douglas Terrell]

Really young. Well, not as a kid, but as a teenager. And so his quote, no method figuring it out. Figuring it out was doing work for a long time and being mentored, probably.

[Andy Stumpf]

By people who had figured it out.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, yeah. And working with other people.

[Andy Stumpf]

So why do you think in the modern era most people are not trained actors? What are they in this? Figure it out. Train as well.

[Douglas Terrell]

Because everybody wants to be famous, man. No one wants to train anymore.

[Andy Stumpf]

Do you think it shows in the final product?

[Douglas Terrell]

I think so.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, what do you think of modern cinema? Is it dog?

[Douglas Terrell]

I don't think it's dog, but here's the litmus test.

[Andy Stumpf]

This is probably the most important question I'll ask you today. Maverick. Good movie or bad?

[Douglas Terrell]

The. The last Top Gun. Correct answer, carefully, with a seal.

[Andy Stumpf]

Pete Mitchell is a national treasure.

[Douglas Terrell]

Okay, I. I was gonna say I liked it. I mean, I liked it. I mean, it's top, you know? You know, it's Tom. It's Tom Cruise, man. It's good, you know, I mean. I mean, his movies are. I mean, what are you like, the guy as a human being or whatever his personal life is? His movies are entertaining, man. You know, and I've.

[Andy Stumpf]

No, I'm messing with you. It's my wife's least favorite movie, so I put it on TV all the time.

[Douglas Terrell]

Really?

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, it's so good, man. It's so good. I mean, it's a great movie, man. I mean, I watched Top Gun when it first came out, you know, and.

[Andy Stumpf]

So she has one question about it, and there's no real answer to it. Why would they pick some guy who'd been in the military forever? Aren't there younger pilots who could be doing this? Why does it have to be him?

[Douglas Terrell]

Because he's top. Because he's Tom Cruise.

[Andy Stumpf]

I know. I try to explain that, but she's like, no, really, how does it really work? I'm like there is no Pete Mitchell for real. That's not at that age of like 100 people.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, yeah. No, that's a good movie. I mean, I think cinema is great now, man. I just don't think, you know, people. I mean, look, I'm. I'm sure.

[Andy Stumpf]

So is there still value to the traditional acting path then? If they're able to create what they're creating now without it?

[Douglas Terrell]

I mean, the world has changed so much now, Andy. I mean, the whole world's so different now. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you see it in the military. You probably look at it sideways how it's different now.

[Andy Stumpf]

Different. But I don't judge the difference. I just acknowledge that it is, you know, it's not for me to say better or worse, but it certainly is different.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. For us. I mean, everyone is on this phone now, you know, and so.

[Andy Stumpf]

But is that better or worse for actors?

[Douglas Terrell]

You know.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, also, what does it mean to be an actor? Because you see people who certainly have no training in any traditional sense of the world, but they might have millions upon millions upon billions of people who are watching them. I mean, does that make them an actor or actress? I mean, I don't know the answer to that.

[Douglas Terrell]

No. I mean, that's the thing. Everyone wants to be famous. I mean, right now, man, you could be a YouTube star or tick tock star, an only fan star. And, and you, you can be famous, rich. And you've never. You don't even know who Shakespeare is. Yeah, you know, that's fair. So it's just a different world now. You know, I'm, you know, I don't want to age myself, but I'm in a older demographic and so I love studying art. You know, I love the through line. I love. I mean, one of the beautiful things about my play is I love seeing the audience in the footlights, just seeing their heads silhouetted. I just, you know, I love creating character and I love. But I mean, there's more of us out there. It's just different. Also, theater's dying. Theater is struggling right now. Covid didn't help. Their reactions to Covid didn't help. People are stuck to their phones. Getting butts in seat is always difficult. It's just a very different world. And to be honest with you, as an actor, I don't know where it's going. I don't know theater specifically, just the whole business. And so, you know, everything is streaming. Everyone is freaking out. You know, money's getting tighter, projects. I mean, you know, I don't know if you saw the gold get.

[Andy Stumpf]

AI.

[Douglas Terrell]

AI.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'm talking about being able to damn near do anything from face to voice to background to extra.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, everything. And, you know, people's attention span is not good. You know what I'm saying?

[Andy Stumpf]

I think it's better than most people would give it credit for if they can find something that's compelling.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, like this. This medium. This medium seems to have penetrated. You can do this for two, three hours, right?

[Andy Stumpf]

What do you think that is? Meanwhile, you know, and I don't know anything about TikTok, so what I'm about to say is based off what I've heard other people say, it's a 15 second churn. That's a big gap between the couple hours that you and I will sit down and talk. And I think people, a person could be a fan of both. I. I think people have the ability to have a longer attention span than they're given credit for. They're just constantly bombarded by. With shorter attention span stuff.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. I think. Well, I think we're at the end of the day, we're still human and we want to learn. I mean, I'm sure you, you're still. I'm sure you still have a hunger to learn constantly.

[Andy Stumpf]

I actually, I started Jiu Jitsu six years ago, and what I love about it is it can't be mastered.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. And I want to do Jiu Jitsu and I'm dying to get into it.

[Andy Stumpf]

What's holding you back? Don't sit here if you're about to say I have to get in shape first. No, no, I mean, I'm Michael, come over there and get you.

[Douglas Terrell]

No, I'm okay. Shave. It's just, I don't, you know, I've got so many aches and pains from working out. So many. I'm like, my shoulder hurts, my back, my knees.

[Andy Stumpf]

Like Jiu Jitsu will fix all those.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure.

[Andy Stumpf]

Zero injury sport.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

There's no wear and tear.

[Douglas Terrell]

So I'm like, I mean, do I have the time to. I mean, I've seen my friends have taken Jiu Jitsu, walked around with black eyes. I'm like, do I want to do that? Right?

[Andy Stumpf]

It's a gentle art.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, it's a gentle art. So that's the only reason. But I. My son wrestles and he's a good wrestler.

[Andy Stumpf]

I just enjoy that it can't be solved.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And a lot of people, I think, get lost in the winning or losing I think it's more about just constantly getting better. And if you can't. If you can't master it, that means that your ability to microscopically get better because you might have to reduce your optic down to that size to notice the improvement, then it's still there. And I think that's pretty awesome.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's. I think that's why this medium works, because people want to learn. I mean, that's how I found you. I found it really interesting. I found.

[Andy Stumpf]

Again, how did you find it? Did you get somebody share a clip with you or. I don't know if I've ever. Have we ever asked anybody how they found the show, Michael?

[Douglas Terrell]

I don't think so.

[Andy Stumpf]

I think you can see it.

[Douglas Terrell]

I'm curious. I think I found you. Have you ever been on Megyn Kelly's podcast?

[Andy Stumpf]

Not that I'm aware of. If I have, I'm sorry, Megan, for not remembering. Yeah, I don't think I have.

[Douglas Terrell]

I was. Someone shared your clip to me again, because what I do with my play and vets people share me all kinds of crap. Oh, I bet. And so I came across it. I loved your intro. Clear, hot. And I love the beginning. And I'm. I remember thinking, oh, the radio call. Yeah, I love that. And I remember thinking, huh?

[Andy Stumpf]

And so had all four people who claimed to be. So it's a person. And I actually have a very good friend who, with 100% certainty and specificity, knows exactly who it is. So there's the person in that radio call, which, for everybody listening to this, it's not me. I've never claimed it's me. I've had no less than four people reach out and tell me that that person is them. And none of those people were the person that my very good friend knows well.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. Well, I think it's a badass intro. It's one of the best.

[Andy Stumpf]

Sweet.

[Douglas Terrell]

It's a pretty sweet intro.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

And if you're like military in history, you're gonna get addicted to it.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. Especially modern era.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. And so, yeah, I think that's how I came across you. And I just thought, this is really interesting, you know.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, here we are.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. And here I am. And I've always. Always looking for platforms to share the play because of how important I feel that it is. It's become this new artistic mission of mine. And it's hard to get pressed now, man. It's really hard to. People just don't care. They don't want to talk about it, you know, you know, the world's become so politicized now that unless they don't.

[Andy Stumpf]

Want to talk about theater in general or the subject matter of your play.

[Douglas Terrell]

The subject matter of the play. Well, let's get into.

[Andy Stumpf]

Talk to me about the play so we can kind of unpack maybe why that is.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, so the plays. So what happened with the play is based off of letters from vets from the revolution through the Iraq and Afghanistan. And so I kind of put it together and I'll just take a one step back and how the play became the play. When I finally got it up in 2015, a lot of festivals had told me no. And one festival, it was a whole journey. I couldn't find a director. No one knew what to do with it. And I even threw the play in the fucking trash can. My wife pulled it out. She said, stop being a baby. Why don't you just memorize a monologue, go find a director, show them what you're doing. So I did that. And so I, you know, I did it for five people. They're like, yeah, it's kind of interesting. And then when I finally got like a 20 minute version of it, I did it at the Bowery Poetry Club at the Lower east side for a festival called Mano a Mano, which actually had denied me earlier. All the festival had denied me. And so when I finished the play, it's based off a letter from vets from the revolution through Iraq and Afghanistan. When I finished the play, I was just so happy, man, that I fucking got this project up because I've been researching it since 2007 and I didn't know what to do with it. I couldn't find. And I was getting so frustrated. I mean, I would talk to directors and they would say, I don't think anybody's into it. You know, I don't know what you want to do with that, you know. And they'd have all kinds of different ideas.

[Andy Stumpf]

So how do you do it? Are you playing a character that is the person writing the letter?

[Douglas Terrell]

No. I play 14 characters and each character is trying to come home either spiritually, physically, or emotionally.

[Andy Stumpf]

So this is through the lens of 14 different soldiers throughout the history, except one.

[Douglas Terrell]

One guy comes three times. He's kind of like the narrator of the play. He starts the play in the beginning. He talks about discipline. He goes, I learned three things in the military. First thing I learned was discipline. And he goes through a monologue and I do a scene.

[Andy Stumpf]

Does he get up at 4:30?

[Douglas Terrell]

What's that?

[Andy Stumpf]

Does he get up at 4:30 in the morning.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, we don't know, but we can assume he gets about 4:30. He gets yelled at a lot. It gets yelled at.

[Andy Stumpf]

Is his name Jocko? Are you out there playing Jocko?

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, I played. I sound like Jocko in that first monologue.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay. He is well known for his approach to discipline and waking up at times that I prefer to be sleeping.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. You know, I even shared the play with him when he first came on Twitter. I shared it with him. And we follow each other and every once in a while we'll send a message. And I told him about the play.

[Andy Stumpf]

And please tell me he sent you a one word response of good.

[Douglas Terrell]

Good. He said, good. Or I once asked him, you know, what about? It was a couple years back. I said, man, what about no Netflix? He goes, negative, negative.

[Andy Stumpf]

He is a bespoke human being.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, yeah. He's stoic. He is the definition of modern stoism.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. All right. So through the lens of soldiers.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Except for guys there. Three times.

[Douglas Terrell]

Three times. And so. But when I first performed it, when I thought that that was going to be the end of it, a gold star sister came up to me. She had lost her brother in Afghanistan and she was really, really emotional. And I really had thought, Andy, that that was going to be the only time I was going to do this play. That was it. And she said, I don't know if you know what you're doing, but I hope you don't stop because it's really important. And she had told me about her brother and. And that was, you know, I thought, maybe I'm kind of on to something. It was only 20 minutes. You know, it was a lot of guys there in the time you cranked.

[Andy Stumpf]

Through that many people in 20 minutes.

[Douglas Terrell]

Say what?

[Andy Stumpf]

You were able to make it through all those characters in 20 minutes?

[Douglas Terrell]

No, at that time, it was only like six characters.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay. I was gonna say, holy. That's like two minutes per letter.

[Douglas Terrell]

I know.

[Andy Stumpf]

And the end.

[Douglas Terrell]

The end, which my work today, with people's attention. No, the plate now is 90. 90 minutes. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

I didn't say, my goodness, yeah, no.

[Douglas Terrell]

It'S 90 minutes, man. And so anyhow, my director, who I had paid to come on board, he was like, well, maybe you're on to something. He goes, well, do you want to keep going? And I said, yeah, man, I think, you know, maybe I can find another festival and I like to do this play. He says, well, let's work on it a little bit more together.

[Andy Stumpf]

Let me ask you this.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

You wrote this. You put the time in to do all of the research, which I bet felt more like a passion project anyway. Or it was diction or something. Just a gravitational pull for you.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

You're the one up there performing. It's a single person show. What is the role of the director if you're the only person up there and you did all that leg.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, a lot. You know, he's giving a shout out.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'm not saying it negatively, I'm just curious.

[Douglas Terrell]

No, no, no. I mean, you know, go here. I think you. Look, this is a good move for you here. Sit here.

[Andy Stumpf]

So objective outside feedback.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, to. To a degree. Sometimes if you're struggling with a piece, you know, I think what this character is going through is this, you know, I think this is, you know, asking questions.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Douglas Terrell]

Like, why is he doing that? You know? And you're like, I don't know. Well, you need to figure that out. I think that's what. That's what you're struggling on. You don't know why he's saying those words.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Douglas Terrell]

And so they kind of, you know, kind of like a shepherd, you know, but at the end of the day, it's your butt on the. It's. It's your ass on stage. So we did it. We flushed it out to 50 minutes again. I thought this was just going to be a passion project. I had struggle with it. I would. I mean, I would sit in bed every night saying, please help me find a director. Please. I would. I believe in incantations. And so I would just tell myself, please let me find a director. And I don't know, I.

[Andy Stumpf]

Is that like witchcraft?

[Douglas Terrell]

Kind of. But it works, man. Like, if you want something, always work. It does. It does.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't think that's true.

[Douglas Terrell]

No. I think if you. If you ever. If you're something you want, Andy, and you stay in bed every night and you say it, why do you have.

[Andy Stumpf]

To be in bed? Is this like a kink?

[Douglas Terrell]

No, no, you don't have to be in bed, but you need to say it.

[Andy Stumpf]

I just said you're in bed. So.

[Douglas Terrell]

But I think if you put it out there, it comes. It comes to you. I really do believe that. So anyhow, I found my director.

[Andy Stumpf]

I think there's a lot of people out there saying every night in bed that they want to be rich and famous that are not would. Might argue against that particular premise. But that's neither here nor there.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, well, I can dive into that, but I Think if you tell yourself you want something enough and you believe that that's what you're going to do. Thought leads into behavior. Behavior leads into action. Action leads into character. Character leads into results that I can buy into you. Right? And so, yeah, if you just sit there and you're eating juicy Fruits and bon bons, you say, I want to be a billionaire.

[Andy Stumpf]

Classic pairing, though.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. If you. Jelly donuts, I want to be a seal and. Oh, you don't, do you know you're not going to be a seal.

[Andy Stumpf]

You have not seen the fat seals that I have seen.

[Douglas Terrell]

Are they getting fatter?

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't know, but there are guys I worked with that if asked to find their dick with their clothes off.

[Douglas Terrell]

But that's now rescue mission. That's post seal, right? No, you mean while in combat. No way.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

Really?

[Andy Stumpf]

Yes.

[Douglas Terrell]

So everybody has this. Everybody has this perception that, you know, at least when you're in combat or you're in the military as a seal, when you're in, when you're enlisted.

[Andy Stumpf]

Now we're talking people who have an extraordinary amount of PSI tension on the belt buckle and top button on their pants.

[Douglas Terrell]

What is the pressure? You mean pressure?

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean their stomach, their belly pushing out.

[Douglas Terrell]

How the fuck can you be a SEAL when you're, when you're fat?

[Andy Stumpf]

That is a good question because supposedly there's standards that are supposed to be.

[Douglas Terrell]

But when you, when you were in combat, was anybody fat next to you?

[Andy Stumpf]

Yes.

[Douglas Terrell]

Really?

[Andy Stumpf]

Yes. I'm not saying it was the norm.

[Douglas Terrell]

Chubby or fat, I mean, out of shape or both.

[Andy Stumpf]

We're talking land whales that. Am I blowing your mind right now?

[Douglas Terrell]

Fuck yeah. Yeah. I mean, because you have this. I mean, as a civilian, you have this perception. Soldiers, I can see that. But you as a, you have a perception that like Special Op guys, Green Berets, Rangers, seals, that you guys are going to be in the tip top. Tippity tip tip top.

[Andy Stumpf]

Top of your shape from a performance perspective and ability, you know, to shoot, move and communicate. I'd say that that's true. Special operations at large. I can only speak for the community I came from, but I'm gonna reach out tonight to some buddies of mine that span the special operations community. And I'm gonna ask them, did you ever serve with anybody that was fat? And I hesitate to use terms like always and never, but I feel like there's a really high level of certainty. I'm gonna get some feedback that, you know, meal team six or gravy seals, we're not the only people dealing with that issue.

[Douglas Terrell]

Ah, well, I would have never thought that. I would have never thought that.

[Andy Stumpf]

That is people, man.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, yeah, but I mean, you know, certain disciplines require certain things, right?

[Andy Stumpf]

It's a grind.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, that I do believe. But, I mean, and it.

[Andy Stumpf]

At some point in time for people.

[Douglas Terrell]

They just give up.

[Andy Stumpf]

I wouldn't say they give up. I'll say their standards are more on a slide rule than etched into stone.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, well, I mean, I guess I can understand the grind to a degree, because I used to be, you know, when I trained, and I was always really lean, really in shape. I was addicted to it. But I would have these, like, now we have two kids, you know, I was like, you know, give me the Mac and cheese. You know, like, I've. I've done dieting, but so I understand.

[Andy Stumpf]

Mac and cheese is a gift from heaven. Oh, dude, I'm not a religious man at all, but it's a gift from heaven.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, it was lobster.

[Andy Stumpf]

Now you're talking my wife's language. She's powerfully Italian.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, I. Your wife Italian?

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. You ever watch the old movie Tron movies?

[Douglas Terrell]

I didn't actually okay.

[Andy Stumpf]

Their outfits. You know, it had, like, the neon, and it's actually funny if you go back and look at it now, the special effects were just absolute dog.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

But they would drink from the water and it would make them glow more. And I feel like that's lobster Mac and cheese for my wife.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, she glows.

[Andy Stumpf]

She could just a pasta. She could be having a shit day or like a hard day on the mat. She's a jiu jitsu coach.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, she really?

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, she's a world champion black belt.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, gosh.

[Andy Stumpf]

And. But, like, if she's having. She's had a day, and you get some. You get some Mac and cheese, a little lobster Mac, and she just starts glowing.

[Douglas Terrell]

Is that how you guys met? Through Jiu Jitsu?

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, she used to beat my ass.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, really? Yeah, that's. You have kids?

[Andy Stumpf]

I have three kids from a previous marriage.

[Douglas Terrell]

How old are you kids now?

[Andy Stumpf]

21, 19 and 16.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, that's cool. 15 and 11.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, it's wild.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, it's definitely wild watching your kids grow up. Watching my son, yes. It's.

[Andy Stumpf]

What's really wild is sitting here watching me blow your mind about fat seals. I'm so happy that I could provide this optic for you.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, no, that definitely blew my optic, but, yeah, I just would have never thought that. But so I. Anyhow, I did. I took the play. My Wife is from Scotland and so I had perform in this festival called the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It's a huge festival for theater. Broadway goes there, West End goes there.

[Andy Stumpf]

Are they looking for things that perhaps they want to bring back? What's the purpose of this?

[Douglas Terrell]

Everything. It's everything. You know, when I did it in 2005, there was 1500 shows. When I did it in 2015, there was 3500 shows. And I think it's even bigger now. I mean everyone's going there for all kinds of reasons. But it's three weeks, it's in Edinburgh, Scotland and so I've been there.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's a beautiful place.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, it's beautiful. I got married there at the Royal Lyceum Theater. Yeah, yeah, I used to, I used. Before my mother in law passed away. But we used to go there all the time to see her. And it was a second home to me, Scotland. So my wife said I was going to do at this festival called the New York Fringe Festival and they went bankrupt. So I didn't have a festival. And she goes, let's just take you to Scotland. You've performed there. We can stay at my parents house. You can do it there and it'll be great. So that's what we did. I took it to Scotland. I didn't even have a name for it. I called it the American Soldier because you had to put a name down to apply to it.

[Andy Stumpf]

Blank would probably be tough.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, it was called Brother's Keeper, Brothers in Arms and then it just didn't feel right. And my wife just call it the American Soldier because that's what you're doing. You're doing the American Soldier.

[Andy Stumpf]

What do you call it now?

[Douglas Terrell]

It's the American Soldier. It stayed there, it just stayed that way. And so I performed. And so for people who don't know about the Fringe, it's like it's very acceptable if you suck for people to get up and walk out of the theater. It's kind of cool to go there.

[Andy Stumpf]

What I am talking about.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. And you.

[Andy Stumpf]

Do they say anything on the way?

[Douglas Terrell]

They don't really say anything but they're quite happy walking out with their pint of beer. You can bring a pint in and if you suck, they just. You can literally see people.

[Andy Stumpf]

Real time feedback.

[Douglas Terrell]

Real time feedback. We don't like your play. So you're always hoping to. And it's, it's very common to only have like five people in your play. Three people in your play. I mean in the audience.

[Andy Stumpf]

Is that tough as A performer to have that small of a crowd.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, it's tough. I mean, there's an old saying, you know, if there's, if there's, if, if there's more people on stage than there is in the audience, you should probably shut down your play. But because it was a one man show, I could get away with it.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, I mean, you'd have to have a very small audience.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. And so. But before I went to Edinburgh, you needed press to go there. And so there was this one Off Broadway theater in New York called the. It's called 59 East 59th and did a festival called Eastbound to Edinburgh. And any play that was going from New York to Scotland, you could perform for a weekend there. And anybody who didn't want to go to Scotland could see the plays. They were going from New York there and so they heard about my play and they said, we'd love to have you in the festival. Would you like to do it? I said, yeah, let's do it. So I did it. And I was still thinking that this is not going to be much. And I was nervous. And I remember a reviewer from the Huffington Post, she was reviewing another play and she saw my, the name of the play, the American Soldier. Now this is 2015. We were deep into the Middle East. She goes, I like to review your play. Can I get a ticket? And I remember thinking, fuck, I don't want my play reviewed because it's gonna. She's gonna hate it. Because I still didn't have my confidence in me. I. The last time I did it was for those eight people on the Lower east side of Manhattan. And I was really just trying to get this play up. And it was really for me, you know, it was just for me to do it. And she gave me a fucking crazy review. Positive. She just loved it. So I was able to take that to Scotland and put it on, you know, use it as press, use it in the magazines. Cause there's so many shows that people are trying to filter out. Yep. What not to see. And so I was using Flawless and Powerful by the Huffington Post everywhere. At that time, the Huffington Post was a big, big piece of media.

[Andy Stumpf]

Still is in some circles.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, some circles. So it was three weeks, Ron. First week I had about more people than normal because I had family there, my wife's family was there and I had some friends there. So I would always get eight, nine people in the audience, you know. And that piece of Post brought in somebody from the Amnesty International award for the United Kingdom. And they go around watching plays for theater excellence and they give a voice to the voiceless. So she saw my play on the end of the first week and after that my play sold out and I was nominated for an Amnesty Award. And out of 3500 shows, I was shortlisted in the top 100 plays to go see. So the place was packed and everyone's seeing it. And what was really cool there is that I didn't, I was always nervous doing the American Soldier. But what I didn't understand there is that a lot of Aussies, Scots and Irish were, were dealing with pts as much as Americans were for sure. And they were fighting in the same, same battles we were. And I would finish the play and I would just get swarmed by, by these guys and families and they were like, and they would share their stories with me and they'd be emotional and they were saying, you know, you know, I fought here and I fought there and gosh, you know, you, I know you're doing the American Soldier, but this is our story.

[Andy Stumpf]

You know, is it more nerve wracking to perform in front of a small audience or a packed house?

[Douglas Terrell]

For me it's more probably. I don't know if it's more nerve wracking. It's more. You have to really drum yourself up for a small house.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

You have to kind of focus and like, you know, why am I doing this?

[Andy Stumpf]

Do you get nervous when you go on?

[Douglas Terrell]

I don't, I don't. Again, go back to that ability. I've always had an ability. In fact, actors have come up to me. I mean, when I was studying with Wynne Hanman, a very well known acting teacher, I was in class with Gretchen Mall. She was a very well known actor. She was the girlfriend to Matt Damon and Rounders. I don't know if you saw that.

[Andy Stumpf]

Oh yeah, I know you're talking.

[Douglas Terrell]

She was in my class. Chris Cooper was in my class. So I was in class.

[Andy Stumpf]

Rounders is a good movie, great movie. Sleeper.

[Douglas Terrell]

It's a sleeper. It's a great movie. But I mean, actors would always tell me, you know, you always had to present your, your work in front of a, in a scene. And people always say people like actors would, would look for drugs to take to calm their nerves down.

[Andy Stumpf]

Really?

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. I swear to God. And I don't know if that's a.

[Andy Stumpf]

Great profession to pursue.

[Douglas Terrell]

No, I remember one guy particularly, because I get so nervous. I don't know how you do it, you know, and I'm like, just breathe, man. It's just, I You know, people ask me that, that I did an interview not too long ago, but I experienced so much trauma that making a fool of myself in front of people was the least thing that I was worried about. Like, it just didn't even hit your radar. It wasn't even on the spectrum. Like, if I fail, to this day, if I fail, I've had a good run. It's all about the journey for me now. I mean, obviously, I'm. I've been able to develop some. Some understanding of where my life is going now and. And some perspective, you know, about the journey. Like, here I am. You know, my acting has brought me in front of a Navy seal. I would have never in a fucking million years thought I wouldn't put that.

[Andy Stumpf]

Much on a pedestal.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, I will.

[Andy Stumpf]

I could tell you some stories where you might rethink your orbit of the world for that job title.

[Douglas Terrell]

Well, for me, it's. It's a. It's a great pleasure and honor to be in front of you.

[Andy Stumpf]

But also, I'm not a SEAL anymore. That was over almost a decade and a half ago.

[Douglas Terrell]

I'll exalt. Vet, Hero. Veteran.

[Andy Stumpf]

Definitely not a hero.

[Douglas Terrell]

Okay, veteran.

[Andy Stumpf]

Fair enough.

[Douglas Terrell]

Fair enough. So. But it's all about the journey, right? And so I. So I always had the ability not. I mean, you know, I had a little bit of anxiousness coming here. Sometimes in. At the Kennedy Center, I have a little bit of anxiousness, you know, but, you know, I just, you know, I look at perspective, I tell myself something that I learned when I would get a little bit anxious or a little bit nervous. I said, these are energies and just kind of, you know, enjoy them and, you know, imagine that, you know, this is gonna be the last time you're gonna have a conversation with this guy or this person or this moment and make the most of it. And so that would kind of. That will always calm me down. But, yeah, so I never got nervous, so to say anxious. Yeah, you get. You get. You get a little bit anxious. Natural human being.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

But you focus. But having nobody in the audience or three people in the audience, that's got.

[Andy Stumpf]

To be tough to get. Put it on, like an A plus performance.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. And so you have to. You have to kind of like, you know. You know, like, you know, what am I?

[Andy Stumpf]

I'd say switch the optic. Like, listen, this is a practice rep that we're going to give to everything.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

You know what I mean? Whatever you got to do, talk yourself into it. For sure. How do you do the play? Do you Go sequentially through time. Do you bounce around a little bit?

[Douglas Terrell]

I bounce around. So I start off with the rev, with the. I start off moder. The guy with discipline, he says, I learned three lessons in the military. And he goes through discipline. And then I go to the revolution. And then I go to Vietnam. And I go to a mother who says goodbye to her son, Eleanor Wimbish, who I know the family now. She's son died in 68 in a helicopter crash. And she goes to the wall and she says bye to her son. And then after the Vietnam peace, I go to. Oh, I'm sorry. After. After the Vietnam. After the second. After the first. First lesson, I go to the revolution. Oh, I did revolution, then the Vietnam piece. Then I go to second lesson. And after the second lesson, that same character comes back out and he talks about teamwork. What I learned is about teamwork. He makes fun of a soldier, and then he realizes, you know what I've realized that we're all in this together. And no man's above another man. And the way you survive is by helping your fellow man. And that's his second lesson he learned in the military. And then I go to World War II. I do an Iwo Jima letter. And that kind of gives the realities of war. It's a really graphic piece. And then I go from there. I go to Vietnam. Vietnam, Johnny. Smoking a joint, talking about what being in the jungle's like. Talking about people marching and protesting back home, but also wanting to get back home. And after Vietnam, I do a jacked up guy from Iraq who doesn't know which way is home. He wants to be there with his guys. He wants to come back home. Can't. No matter what his wife says. It's so meaningless and senseless. Some of the lines, you know, I try to explain this to my wife and my friends, but they'll never understand. They'll never understand. I go to that piece, Iraq. And then. Then I play a Afghanistan. I play a woman who. She's alone and her husband is on three deployments to Afghanistan. And she talks about, you know, I'm making dinner tonight. And I realize that I forget that when I'm preparing dinner that Mike is leaving us tonight. And then we're gonna have to sit alone at the dinner table. And then I play her son who talks about. I miss my dad. I miss when he goes away. It's not really. It's. It's hard for him for me to say bye to my dad. I promised him I'd be really Strong. I don't think I'm doing a really good job. And then I play a father who loses his son to suicide. Kevin and Joyce, Lucy, who I know really well now. And then I play a female vet who loses her eye in combat. Nancy, who I met during COVID And then I go to the Civil War. And then I go to. Back to Afghanistan. I play a one armed soldier who loses his arm in combat. He's Hispanic. And then I go to World War I. Irving Greenwald. I wrote a play for the Library of Congress and a lot of his materials from that play. He fought in the Lost Battalion. And then I go to World War I. And then I finished a play with the last monologue. The same guy comes out again, and there's a guy he was making fun of in the middle, and he talks about now that guy loses his life in Afghanistan by an ied and he's an Army Ranger. And when they say goodbyes, they all put their Ranger tab at the memorial for their fallen soldiers. And then he says, I realize now I'm part of an amazing history, but what I realize now is I'm part of a brotherhood. And he marches away. And that's the play.

[Andy Stumpf]

Out of all those acts, is there one that's more difficult for you to do than others?

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, the. The son, the father who loses his son. That, that one is always in my play. There's always a father, son through line. Again, this life is weird. It's a love letter to my dad. Even though I didn't get along well with my dad, I guess it's that looking for that, Looking for that father, son relationship, you know, so those were pieces that always spoke to me really emotionally. You know, when the mother says goodbye to her son, you know, I. So I have a great relationship with my son. And I made a point of breaking the cycle that I had with my dad.

[Andy Stumpf]

Not uncommon. Yeah, well, there's basically two ways it goes. Yeah, you stop the shit from rolling downhill, or you keep it up, picking up, and you start hucking even more.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. You hook even more. So we, you know, in fact, today my son called me and he was telling me his time on the 40 yard dash. He played sports and, and he got, I'll say it on this podcast, he got the highest English. He's. He's a really smart kid. My wife's really smart. But his English teacher pulled him aside and said, you got the highest score on the English final exam out of the whole he's in ninth grade. Out of the whole ninth grade.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's awesome.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. He was really proud and he told me and I should be. Yeah. And I said, it's badass, son.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. Are you doing uniform changes? What are you wearing up on.

[Douglas Terrell]

So I wear. I wear kind of a version of a costume, you know, combat boots, you know, green pants and a green fatigue T shirt and a version of a version of a dress up army shirt. And that's kind of my only costume. I use props a lot. I use props. I use.

[Andy Stumpf]

What kind of props you got out there?

[Douglas Terrell]

Cups, whiskey bottles, beer cans, candles, diaries.

[Andy Stumpf]

On the stage. Is it a largely open stage?

[Douglas Terrell]

So the stage is usually. It's a flag behind me, six by nine, American flag.

[Andy Stumpf]

Are there pictures of this online?

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Michael. What would Michael put into Google to pull that up? Because we can look at it on the TV and you can describe it for the viewer.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. Www.theamericansoldiersoloshow.com I mean, that would probably be.

[Andy Stumpf]

A good place to start.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Michael's a master Googler. God, this TV does weird. I know. There you are. Okay.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, you can scroll down. I think I'm trying to think where I have my. More images. Yeah, you'll see as you come down. You'll see images.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's got to be wild being up there just by yourself.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

You might be impressed with the job title of Navy seal. I would rather get shot at over and over and over and over and over and over and over again than get up on stage by myself and have to do some like this.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. I always left because I used to reach out to if. Can you scroll the other way? No, the other way. Yeah. Yeah, right there. Again, my life. I find it funny that that guy's going to be the dod, we think, and I think.

[Andy Stumpf]

How do you think that'll play out?

[Douglas Terrell]

I think he's gonna become the dod.

[Andy Stumpf]

I don't think it'll be easy, but I think he'll. The margins will be in his favor.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, I think so. I think with what's happened with the, like the woman getting burned on. In the subway in New York, I think people are realizing that's not really.

[Andy Stumpf]

A DoD issue, though.

[Douglas Terrell]

No, it's not. But it's the culture issue that is pushing the other direction that people are gonna try to push away from.

[Andy Stumpf]

I do believe that life and politics intertwined is a little bit like a pendulum.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

And I do believe that the reason that the outcome of the election was what it was and the color changes on the map were. What they were is because people, whether they were vocal or not, before, during or after the election, they voted in the booth and always they voted.

[Douglas Terrell]

Your pocketbook.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, they voted that the pendulum may have gone a touch too far. So we're going to. Course.

[Douglas Terrell]

Correct. Yeah. And I think that's why. I think that's why he'll get through it.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. Keep on scrolling down there, Mike. Let's see what we got.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, yeah, you can. There's links. You know, that's a great story right there. So that. So I did the play in New Jersey once, and that's been. I've become friends with all these vets. I mean, I get messages from vets all the time, you know, and that's been why I will. I mean, I can tell stories about vets who really broken down in the Q&As, but this one was a very. I was in New Jersey and I finished a play. I did a Friday, Saturday and Sunday performance. And I remember I saw this old older lady. Her name is Rose. And I saw her after the show and she gave me a big old hug and she was really complimentary of the work. I saw her on Saturday as well. I said, didn't I? Were you here yesterday? She goes, yeah, I needed to see it again, son. I just think what you're doing is so special, so beautiful. Then I saw her on Sunday with two friends. She had brought two older ladies as well, and they were all civilian nurses who went to Vietnam to help the Red. To help the Red Cross. And she wrote me this note. I have this letter. And so I asked her permission. Everybody who I have here, I have their permission. And I said. She said, if you ever hear a bird singing in the trees, that's me singing your prayers. And I was.

[Andy Stumpf]

I mean, okay, of all the things people could ever say. I did not think you were going to say that.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I can tell other stories, too. I mean, if you go. I mean, if you go up to the menu. I'm sorry, I forgot.

[Andy Stumpf]

Michael.

[Douglas Terrell]

Michael. I don't know why I was.

[Andy Stumpf]

Or Michelle.

[Douglas Terrell]

Michelle. Michael, if you go to. Oh, so I'm sorry. Scroll down. Keep going down. Veteran letters. Keep coming down. I'll tell you, it's just. Keep smoothly coming down. Keep coming down. Keep coming down. Keep coming down. Keep coming down. Keep coming down. Right there. Go up. Right there. See? Read veteran testimonials. Right there. Yeah, click that. And if you go up a little bit, see that Chopper? Yeah, that chopper one on the far left.

[Andy Stumpf]

The Apache. Yep.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. So that guy. No, not that one far left. That was the Vietnam. She was a very powerful message. She saw my. She saw me in Iowa. So I kept his. He. He asked me to hide his name. I did it in the place taking me everywhere. I mean, I've done chocolate factories, the Kennedy Center. I did on Bannerman island. Right across from West Point.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. How many times have you performed it now?

[Douglas Terrell]

Man, I've done the play now 10 years now, but it's been in over 40 cities, 35 states.

[Andy Stumpf]

Do you want to continue doing it? Are you thinking ahead the future to a new project, or can you do both simultaneously?

[Douglas Terrell]

I think you do both simultaneously. For a long time. I was wondering if the message was not wanted anymore.

[Andy Stumpf]

It's going to Wayne and Wax.

[Douglas Terrell]

I definitely believe you, Wayne. When you say Wax, you mean like.

[Andy Stumpf]

Crash, Ebb and flow.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. That's what's happening. But I keep getting bookings. People keep wanting to see. And that was kind of when I reached out to you, because I've seen. It's been really interesting. The play has so many different layers, but it's been really interesting. When I go to small towns. Toomo, Iowa. Champaign, Illinois. Red Hook, New York. A lot of the people who love the play, who want to see the play, are an older demographic that are trying to remember the America that doesn't kind of exist anymore. And they're holding on, and they're in these small towns that has that. It's been hollowed out by all the manufacturing. They're gone. There's no jobs there. And all the young people have left. And I've kind of noticed this layer in the past couple of years, you know, as I've been doing three, four years now, I've been. And doing the play in these small towns. I mean, I did the canning center this year, which was D.C. big, you know, city. But it's been really fascinating me to see what we've done to the small town with the manufacturing, all the jobs being shipped away. And these small towns now are being held by old Americans, American veterans from Vietnam, Korea, some from Iraq, you know, and. And they're trying to hold. And they're trying to hold on to a. They're trying to remember or hold on to a version of America that is. It's been forgotten or is being ignored. And I find that parallel really fascinating to me now because as we ignore vets, vets are struggling, especially with the debacle of Afghanistan recently. Now we're. It's the same parallel what we've done with the manufacturing jobs in our town and these small towns that are being hollowed out, completely hollowed out, because the young base is leaving, because there's no work there, because there's no jobs there. And so the only thing that's left there basically is old Americans who grew up there who haven't left, and immigrants who are, you know, the waiting tables or whatever. And they're the ones who are holding the. The town together in a weird way. But. But slowly these towns are really dying out, you know, And, I mean, I was just in Bloomberg Penns. I did it twice there. They brought me back, and I mean, I was the fire mart. I mean, they made me the parade marshal.

[Andy Stumpf]

And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

[Douglas Terrell]

It was cool. But then, you know, they. You know, they. They had like, the high school kids and they did the Pledge of Allegiance and they did. They sang the Star Spangled Banner. And so it's small towns that are trying to hold on, you know, and. And then when they see the play, they're like, why doesn't everybody see this play? How come no doesn't know this play? So I have found that. And I don't know what. What the answer is or what that means, but I found that a parallel track between how we've treated a lot of our vets and what we've done to our manufacturing jobs in our small towns. Does that make sense?

[Andy Stumpf]

It does. I can see some parallels there.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, we've lost, you know, when NAFTA started, probably around a million jobs that have been kicked out. You know, two out of three jobs are overseas now, so I don't know what that means, but I do know that it is kind of cool doing the play in these small towns and giving these guys I don't know what hope or feel good, you know, making them feel good about, you know, what they did, what they served, what. What the country means to them.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

I mean, that's kind of.

[Andy Stumpf]

I think it reminds people what the cost is.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. Yeah. I think. I mean, well, I think that that's what's really. You asked me about them, you know, can I keep going? And I wonder about that, you know.

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, do you want to.

[Douglas Terrell]

Where I get really turned on is when at the end of the play, vets are coming up to me and sharing me their stories. That's. The play is really it's 90 minutes, but it's kind of like two acts. You have the first act, which is the play, and then we have a Q and A afterwards, which started organically because I couldn't get off stage because people wanted to find out what my deal was. You know, did I serve, Which I did not. Why am I doing it? Where'd you get the material from? You know, what's the deal?

[Andy Stumpf]

I wonder if you could almost create an extension of it or another play based off the interactions you've had with vets after.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Because you're probably bombarded with stories.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, dude, it's endless. I mean, I've had stories. I mean, I guess we can. I'm talking. I mean, so this guy right here. So when I did it at Bannerman, jc. Yeah, his name is. We'll just say his first name is John.

[Andy Stumpf]

But easy. Don't be doxing, people.

[Douglas Terrell]

Big dude. Big guy. He's probably 6, 4, 6, 5. And I. I was outside in front of Bannerman island, and he was standing like this in the. In the back. It was outside performance. And I remember thinking, this guy's gonna give me the riot act. Like, you know, this guy's gonna tell me, who the do you think you are doing these play, doing these letters?

[Andy Stumpf]

Just because people are big sometimes doesn't mean they're scary.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, well, when they don't smile, it kind of. It leans into scary.

[Andy Stumpf]

That's called an rbf.

[Douglas Terrell]

What's an rbf?

[Andy Stumpf]

Resting Face Resting. It's taught in the military.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. So he was a medvac crew chief gunner. And anyhow, he came up to me and he says, can I talk to you? And I said, yeah. And he just broke down in tears. This big old dude hugging me, crying. And then we sat down, we talked, and he told me his son was serving in Syria, and he was dealing with pts, and he was worried about him. And we talked about the play. We talked about what it meant, and he's a great guy. That was in 2017. He texted me all the time, keep doing what you're doing. Keep doing what you're doing. Yeah. And then there was another. I mean, there's. I mean, if you go back, I can. I could. I mean, I know all these stories. You know, candy, clothes. She. You know, she talked about pts. Scroll down a little bit. So this guy here. So he saw me in New Hampshire. He took his life, unfortunately, Rest in peace. But he, you know, saw me in New Hampshire, told me a story.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

And his mom called me and let me Know that.

[Andy Stumpf]

Is that Arlington on the left?

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Have you been?

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, yeah, plenty of times.

[Andy Stumpf]

I. I don't have the words for how overwhelming that sea of white headstones is.

[Douglas Terrell]

Oh, man, it's. It's quite somber, it's quite hollow. Hollow ground there. Yeah, I've been there many times. Every time I go to dc, I try to go.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah.

[Douglas Terrell]

So, you know, these people, they write me their stories, you know, they write me their letters and I've become friends, you know, with, you know, Kevin and Joyce. Lucy. They lost their son. He took his life and he fought in Iraq and. And that was a crazy story because when I was performing it, they. Throughout the whole time, someone would always say, hey, I know that. I know that letter. And I said. And I. And then I thought by luck, by chance, that I am. That I pick this guy's family or something, you know, and then he says, no, but. No, but it's like my grandfather, it's like my mother or like my dad, but in Cape Cod, this guy stands up because I know that family. Those are the Lucy's. And I was like, holy. That is because I know the character's name, Jeff, Lucy. And he says they would want to meet you. And so he hooked me up with them. The father, father wrote a book and I was nervous when he called me. And a lot of, especially the gold star families, they're just really grateful that I'm keeping their families. Their.

[Andy Stumpf]

Their name's not forgotten.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, the name's not forgotten. And they text me all the time to. Every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, I get a beautiful message from Kevin. Kevin, Lucy. They came and saw my play for the first time in Connecticut last year, I think it was. Which was kind of, that was kind of scary doing his, his son's story, his story about his son in front of them.

[Andy Stumpf]

I bet they loved it.

[Douglas Terrell]

They did, they did. They were. They're beautiful people, man. They're so supportive and. And they always tell me, you know, thank you for not forgetting. And then, you know, Eleanor Wimbish, there's, you know, Dear Bill letter was a very famous letter. So, you know, I do these letters and by, you know, you do the play long enough and you start knowing the families and they start reaching out to you and. Yeah. And so you wonder, you know, do I keep going? You know, but you know, I mean, 30,000 vets have taken their lives since, since nine, 11.

[Andy Stumpf]

Far more than killed in combat, for sure.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, seven around, I think seven at seven or a little bit more than seven died in combat I think it's.

[Andy Stumpf]

In the low eights, but again, yeah, seven or eight say it's very, very, very safe to say that the suicide deaths have eclipsed that.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, it's times four. Yeah, it's times four. And one of the things that a lot of the vets have always told me who have seen the play, I've said the play is really important because it reminds people what, like you said earlier, what the sacrifice was.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah, the cost.

[Douglas Terrell]

The cost. And they want people to know, but they can't say it. And so I think that's been the success of the play. The success of the play has been that it. It depicts reality. It's a clearer version. I mean, I have veteran. I've become friends with a lot of veteran therapists as well. Equine therapist, canine therapists. And they've all said, you know, this play is so great because it's the only way I can explain to people what PTS is. It's the only way I can explain it. And so how it keeps going. I mean, I was in Texas just last year, and when I finished the play, I was talking gab. People in the theater. And I saw this guy up in. Sitting down, and he was just staring at me. This was just last year and Thanksgiving in Fredericksburg, Texas. And I just. I looked at him, the corner of my eye and thinking. I said, are you all right, man? I said, do you want to talk? A lot of times they just want to talk to me privately. And he started walking down the theater, down the steps, and he just literally fell in my arms and broke down. And he had done, like seven deployments. He was a marine. And he told me all his buddies have taken their lives. He was the only one left. And so I never know what to say, really, besides nothing he can't say. Yeah. I told him not to give up. I told him to talk, find passion. And I tell him, you know, like, I have a line in the letter. You know, you owe it to the guys who didn't come back to stay here. I mean, what do you say? I mean, any suggestions?

[Andy Stumpf]

I listen usually.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Try to remind people that nothing is permanent unless you make it. Nothing lasts forever. High points, low points. Might seem like it's going to, but it doesn't.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

Unless you make a really shitty choice.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, I get that question a lot.

[Andy Stumpf]

Yeah. You know, starts with being able to listen, hear them out here, hear how they're feeling. Yeah. It's a tough one. It's a tough one for sure.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. So you wonder you know how much important the play is. But like this year, I mean, I'm supposed to go back to Virginia to the American Revolution Museum. I just got called and they want me to perform it for. What's the base on Kentucky and Tennessee? Is that the 82nd?

[Andy Stumpf]

Could be. Not super familiar with the army bases.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. There. They want me to bring the play there. Apparently some generals want to see it. Where else am I going? The Citadel?

[Andy Stumpf]

Well, we can do better than that. I mean, unfortunately, I got to get you back to the coffee shop in like the next 10 minutes.

[Douglas Terrell]

Great.

[Andy Stumpf]

Where can people reach out to you.

[Douglas Terrell]

To that website, the AmericanSoldier.com?

[Andy Stumpf]

Is there a contact down there? Like, somebody hears this and they're interested, they want to bring it to wherever they are. That's the place to do it.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah.

[Andy Stumpf]

What do you want to leave people with? Closing thoughts wise, I think.

[Douglas Terrell]

But before close, I want to give you this.

[Andy Stumpf]

What is it?

[Douglas Terrell]

All right.

[Andy Stumpf]

So I'll be a dildo wrapped inside of that.

[Douglas Terrell]

Damn it. I have a friend of mine who. Who hunts.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Douglas Terrell]

He's a big time hunter and he makes these knives.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Douglas Terrell]

And that left the card. Well, anyway, you don't need to.

[Andy Stumpf]

If only we were connected via electronic means.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah, but It's@squidlow creations.com. i told him. I gave it to him. I give him a shout out. But it's a really good metal. He's a big time hunter. I can tell you, if I had time to tell you. An alligator hunter. We used to go out. We used to go sharp. We used to go gator hunting.

[Andy Stumpf]

Please tell him thank you for me. That's awesome.

[Douglas Terrell]

Yeah. Yeah. So at Squillow Creations.

[Andy Stumpf]

Okay.

[Douglas Terrell]

And so I wanted to give you that. Thanks for having me here, bro.

[Andy Stumpf]

Of course. What do you want to leave people with?

[Douglas Terrell]

I thank you for everyone's service. I think it's important that we remind that we keep these stories alive. I think it's critical as a society that we remember those who are willing to raise their right hand to fight for us and not forget. Because, you know, as a nation, if we forget these stories, I think in a way, kind of like what I was talking about, the towns, we start hollowing out ourselves as a nation.

[Andy Stumpf]

I agree.

[Douglas Terrell]

And I think it's important. And the Greeks knew that, you know, the Greeks used to. The Greeks would. They would have ceremonies. The Cherokees knew that. And so I kept the fist of the society and the fighters together. And they were able to always be connected and they always understood each other. And so when they had to do service or sacrifice, they were willing to do it because they knew the people behind them were gonna knew their knew their sacrifices. And I think that's important. So, yeah, I think that's what I would like to leave. I'm just grateful to be here, brother.

[Andy Stumpf]

I'm glad you made the trip, man. Yeah, we'll do it again for sure. Thank you for coming out.

[Douglas Terrell]

All right, man. Bye. Bye.

[T-Mobile Representative]

With T Mobile, no trendspotter has to deal with trendspotty service because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network switch. Now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to four lines via virtual prepaid card. Left 15 days qualified unlock device. Credit service port in 90 plus days. Device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required card is no cash access and expires in six months.