Bill Robertson-Learning Life Lessons from Our Pets

Show Transcript

Bill Robertson: Learning from Our Pets

[00:00:00] Bob Gatty: Have you ever wondered why your dog or cat seems to know when you're having a bad day? Why is it that my pup is so comforting when things are going sideways? Is it part of their DNA? Our guest today, Bill Robertson, is the author of a new book, Uncle Bill's Animal Tales, Life Lessons for Adults. Stay with us.

[00:00:24] Bill's book is about his experiences with animals and how he feels they are our greatest teachers and healers. Bill heard from a psychic in Ghana years back who believed that the pecking order of consciousness on a planet is one, trees, two, animals, and three, human beings. So why is number three constantly trying to overtake numbers one and two? In 1997, Bill got clean and sober and tells about how his cat helped to wake him up and put down the drugs and booze and that his two dogs since then have helped keep him sober. Bill's from Boston originally, and I won't hold that against him because he likes the Red Sox, where he worked in corporate America for many years and ran a sketch comedy show out of Boston and New York called heavily medicated fairy tales. I don't know where that title came from. Maybe he'll tell us. Anyhow, he's written for a kid show on PBS, sold two scripts to Lifetime, and wrote and produced a feature film, Paradise, a town of sinners and saints, used on a musical comedy that he produced in LA and Austin, Texas, to rave reviews and sold out houses.

[00:01:47] Bill, hey, welcome to the Lean to the Left podcast. Looking forward to this one. 

[00:01:52] Bill Robertson: Hey Bob, I'm so happy to be here. 

[00:01:55] Bob Gatty: I'M glad you're happy to be here because I'm glad to have you here. Hey, the subject of your book is really fascinating. What was going on in your life before your cat and dogs intervened?

[00:02:08] Bill Robertson: Oh, Lord. Being in corporate America, I ended up becoming the head of staffing for a very large investment firm and was filling jobs left and right. And my philosophy at that time was work hard, play hard. And, I grew up in the in, in corporate America in the 80s. And back then in the 80s, it was about limousines and cocaine, make as much money as you can and party until the wee hours of the morning. So what happened is I had a big ass job. I had Lincoln town cars picking me up. I had tons of people reporting to me. And my drinking and drugging was getting bigger and bigger. So what was happening was the hole in my chest was getting bigger and I had to keep filling it with more drugs and alcohol because that's what an alcoholic or addict does, and after getting clean and sober, then we fill it with being of service and God and working the steps of, if you're in a recovery program, but what happened, I had a cat.

[00:03:13] That this cat taught me so many lessons over the years. He lived to be 20, but at the time I was living in Boston, I had a really bad hangover and I was making breakfast and, cats can come in and just start meowing and going, in between your feet and feed me. And I was like, Casey, come on, man, just give me a break.

[00:03:35] And I took my foot and I put it on his side and just tried to push him out of the kitchen. Yeah he slipped on the linoleum and fell on his hip and got up and started limping and it just hit me. I was like, Oh, my God, I just without trying to I just abused my cat because I have a bad hangover. So later on in the day, I swear to God that cat walked past me was not limping until I went Casey, you were right, and then started limping.

[00:04:06] Again, all right, I swear to God, I was like, you son of a, I was like, Oh my God. And it really, there's certain moments in our life when we get a awakening, this saying I love that's pain pushes till the vision pulls. And the vision was pulling me at that time. I had tried to get sober many times.

[00:04:31] And I went to my first recovery meeting in 1977. And then I was told if I ever drank again in 1987, I was at a barbecue with a bunch of people and this guy made chicken salad with his hands and he had hepatitis. Out of us, 10 of us got hepatitis. And my doctor said to me, Bill, if you have a drink again, you'll die.

[00:04:56] You're going to die. Your liver is so messed up. So for a year and a half, I didn't drink. And I totally convinced myself, if I have a drink, I'll die. So I smoked a boatload of pot. And and then I was out at a club. And a friend of mine said, Bill, do you want something to drink? And I said, I'll have a Perrier with a lime.

[00:05:13] Because that's what you drank in 1987 when you didn't drink booze. And he tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a Heineken. And I went out for another 10 years. Oh, man. And then I was struck sober on April 18th, 1997. The situation with Casey had happened about maybe within the year, within that year, which kind of woke me up.

[00:05:38] And then I was struck sober and I haven't had a drink or drug since. I have 26 years of sobriety, knock on wood. And I have it for today, just for today. 

[00:05:49] Bob Gatty: Congratulations on that. So Casey was the cat. Casey 

[00:05:54] Bill Robertson: was the cat and Casey taught me and this will. Loop back to my book, fast forward, I moved to LA and Casey was now 20 years old.

[00:06:05] I was giving him fluids in his neck because he was old and we was trying to help him. And all of a sudden I developed really bad sciatica in my hip where I could barely walk. And my vet said, Bill, you'll know when it's time to let him go. Like when it's going to be time for us to make a decision to put him down.

[00:06:25] ThAt night, I'm laying on my living room floor and I got my arm extended and Casey came over and laid down and extended his paw and touched my hand. Okay. And right at that moment, I knew it was time. I took him to the vet the next day. The vet said, I'll see you on the other side.

[00:06:45] Injected him. And when I felt... His spirit leave his body because I felt like I was just holding the container he came in. Yeah. I got up to walk. My sciatica was gone. Wow. Wow. Wow. Gone. I truly believe the cat was showing me, Bill, this is the pain I'm in. You gotta let me go. Wow. And I've had a lot of situations like this happen.

[00:07:14] Since I've been sober because I'm awake to see it, if I was drinking and drugging, I'm sure the signs were all over the place, but I was clouded. I had clouded eyes. I wasn't awake for it. So when I heard Maladoma Patrice Sommet, a mystic from Ghana who wrote a book, I can't remember the name of it, but Maladoma Patrice Sommet say the pecking order of consciousness on the planet is trees, animals, and humans.

[00:07:42] It made sense to me because trees give out unconditional love. Yeah. They give out oxygen until we cut 

[00:07:51] Bob Gatty: them down to build more houses and gas 

[00:07:53] Bill Robertson: stations. It's ridiculous, so think about it. Indigenous tribes understand. The importance of the pecking order, so they honor everything they replenish when they went out to kill animals to eat.

[00:08:09] They prayed over them, right? They thanked the universe for what was given to them. It's not brain surgery. It's called greed and self-centeredness run amuck. It's self will run riot. 

[00:08:24] Bob Gatty: Oh man. I'm telling you what I mean. It is just so disgusting what's going on today with our environment and the greed.

[00:08:32] In my opinion, this whole business of climate change is caused in part, at least, by the greed of human beings. Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, so that's for another time. Sure, 

[00:08:48] Bill Robertson: I'll definitely come back. Anyway, go ahead. Alright, 

[00:08:51] Bob Gatty: now you write in the promo copy for your book on Amazon that animals can be our best healers and teachers.

[00:08:59] Exactly. What did they do to help you get clean and sober now? You've talked a little bit about what your cat Casey did, but beyond that, so 

[00:09:12] Bill Robertson: after Casey died I felt and I was single at the time. So I felt the emptiness in the house. So I volunteered at an animal shelter. Okay. My spiritual center, once a year, we'd send like 700 of us out into LA and we would, clean places and, work at women's shelters and paint schools and do all these things.

[00:09:38] And I was in the parking lot at our spiritual center and they had all the booths out and this guy says to me, you're going to be the head of the Critter Crusade. I'm like the Critter Crusade. He goes, Yeah, I just have a feeling you need to do that. And I had just lost the cat. So I went, Okay, I'll do that.

[00:09:57] So I had 30 people. I called around to different animal shelters to see who would need assistance on that day that we would come in and clean and paint. So after that day was over, I went back and continued to volunteer. And I used to walk this cocker spaniel, and it gave birth to 10 puppies, five didn't make it, four big boys, and my little girl Sophie, who's right in my arms behind you.

[00:10:24] And Sophie had dwarfism. I thought that was politically incorrect, but that's what it's called. And it's either that, or she was a little person dog. But anyway. She was 

[00:10:35] Bob Gatty: four legged. A dwarf dog. You still have a dwarf dog? 

[00:10:40] Bill Robertson: And I said, oh, it's the runt. No, she has dwarfs. And I'm like, okay. So I Googled it and it was, I guess it's pretty pop.

[00:10:47] Not popular, but it's something that happens. She was bolt legged, loaded the ground. She had an underbite. She was the cutest damn thing you've ever seen. She was just a, so I was debating on adopting and I was either gonna adopt her or there was this pit bull that had one eye. That turned out was howling all the time.

[00:11:05] You 

[00:11:05] Bob Gatty: Go for creatures that are like what's the word I'm looking for? 

[00:11:10] Bill Robertson: What? You need help. Who needs help? They're truly rescued, right? So this other dog, Lucky, who they used to take out of his cage and put him in the bathroom so he'd be closer to everybody out there. And if you had to use the bathroom, this pit bull was in the bathroom.

[00:11:27] It was just like, I was hoping, I'd be lucky using the john. But anyway I was cleaning up the top where all the, where the five puppies were, and they had a round pen, and the four boys were all standing up with their paws, looking at me, and Sophie was sitting next to them, because she couldn't raise her paws, and she just turned and looked at me like, are you going to get me the hell out of here or what?

[00:11:50] I took her. And that dog taught me so many lessons in patience, compassion. They teach us to be humble. They give out unconditional love. I heard a long time ago, the reason why they die before us, like way before us, is that they came here already understanding unconditional love. And their job is to teach us before they move on.

[00:12:21] Think about almost every dog I've ever met. The only ones that snip at you they're scared or they've been trained to be mean. Other than that, it's unbelievable. I truly, and I see it in all dogs that they have this unconditional love. So they've been with me through thick and thin in 2020.

[00:12:42] My relationship ended in March. My dad died in July. And my mom was killed in a car accident in November. Oh my God. What a horrible year. It was a bad year. My two dogs, Sophie and Tucker, we had to name them Sophie and Tucker. Cause that's Sophie Tucker. Okay, star picture up behind me. That's Sophie Tucker.

[00:13:07] Everyone thinks it's my mom. But somebody gave it to me. It's a picture of Sophie Tucker. But anyway they were by my side, I'd be on the floor crying, they'd come over and sit in my lap. They would there you just and I've heard story after story of how animals show up to teach us something. Think about a big part of it is patience, because we don't, I'm not there.

[00:13:33] I'm not Tucker's owner. I'm Tucker's guardian. I'm Tucker's, I'm Tucker's protector. And, and you've heard this a million times, but they're part of our life. We're their whole life.

[00:13:48] We're their whole life. So I honor Tucker, and she gets me frustrated at times. She peed in the house the other day, and I gave her the bad dog thing she can barely hear. She just looked at me like, really? I'm gonna go if I have to go. I'm 15, for God's sakes, I'll come over and lick your hand later, and you'll totally forget about it, and then I realized right after I was bad, I looked at her and I went, you know what am I, what's the, she doesn't know she can. So I went over and I hugged her and gave her a kiss on the forehead. Anyone who abuses animals or children, I think should be given the longest sentences possible and reach therapy, throw them into it because it's horrible.

[00:14:28] Yeah, they need, think about it, they trust 

[00:14:31] Bob Gatty: us. Yeah, those people should be cellmates of Donald Trump. 

[00:14:37] Bill Robertson: Oh, now that's even too good for them.

[00:14:40] Bob Gatty: All right, hey, how can our listeners recognize their connection with animals in the home and in nature, actually? 

[00:14:49] Bill Robertson: How can they recognize? Yeah. All right. I truly like the story I told about my sciatica disappearing. Yeah. I think there is, and it's a choice. I feel like we've been given choices in our life as human beings.

[00:15:05] We can make, that's the freedom that we have as a human being. And I think it's for me, I can only speak for myself. I talk to my dogs. I communicate with them. I watch them. I listen to them in regards to their movement of what they need. If Tucker needs to go out, she goes to the back door and barks and I let her out.

[00:15:26] It's communicating with them in a way that it's the same thing in nature. I've got a picture of Tucker. This happened over COVID. She's laying in the backyard and right at the end of her paw is a bird. Just looking at her, yeah it's 

[00:15:42] Bob Gatty: was Tucker about to eat the bird 

[00:15:45] Bill Robertson: or don't know. Not at all was making new friends.

[00:15:47] She was sick of me. So she wanted to. But if you think about it, George Washington Carver said, and I'm paraphrasing a little bit that nature is fickle, but it will share its secrets with you in the silence. I believe walking in the woods, being at the beach, meditation, and literally I've done it with my dogs, show me what I need to know in a way that I can understand to help.

[00:16:24] I did that with Casey. And that's when that cat laid down and touched my hand with its paw. And the next day, I had to let him go. There is a, I believe through the silence. I go up to trees and put my hands on trees. If you haven't done it, I highly suggest you do it because you will feel the energy in a tree.

[00:16:49] When I was in my early twenties, one of my neighbors, he'd been our paper boy. And I went back to visit my parents. I was working in Boston and the kid had stolen his older brother's keys at a party, same house I used to party at because they had other kids. And he got in a car and drunk. He drove it into a tree and died.

[00:17:11] And all these people put flowers around it. So it was down the street from where I lived and my parents told me hit that tree. So I was wearing my little business suit and I walked down to the tree and I was in my early to mid twenties. And I, for some reason, I put my hands on the tree. The energy shot through my body from this tree.

[00:17:36] Just this energy just shot through my body. And I just started bawling, just started crying. And I didn't really know the kid that well. He was a paper boy. I was like 10, 12, 15 years older than him, but there was that. I'll never forget that. I just got chills telling you that my hair standing up on my arms.

[00:17:56] Just I remember I grabbed that tree and ever since then. When I remember to do it, I go over and I put my hands on trees. There were also a lot of mystics and people that feel, and even scientists that know that the roots of trees are communicating under the ground with each other and that there's major energy sources in them.

[00:18:18] How do you think he made avatar? He learned about James Cameron, understood the power of 

[00:18:25] Bob Gatty: trees. Hey, do you have any advice for people who don't have pets in their home, but are dealing with stress and anxiety or challenges to overcome like you had with alcohol and drugs? Yeah, 

[00:18:39] Bill Robertson: I do. One would be volunteer.

[00:18:43] So important. And if you want to volunteer at an animal shelter or shelter for humans or wherever, but volunteering gets you out of your head. And if you want more self esteem, do esteemeable acts. That's the key to getting more self esteem, which then relieves anxiety. What 

[00:19:02] Bob Gatty: do you mean by esteemable 

[00:19:04] Bill Robertson: acts?

[00:19:05] Esteemable acts is doing something for other for others doing something That makes you feel good because it's a win. It really is. People will say I'm being selfish, but no, you're not. We're here. We need self care. It's like the old adage. If you're on a plane and they tell you when the mask comes down, put it on yourself first, so then you can help the person next to you.

[00:19:25] Yeah, no sense. You put it on them and then you croak, it doesn't make any sense. So I think volunteering and being of service is so key to everything, even in, and I have to be careful because I don't, there is a tradition in my sobriety that I don't mention the organization that I have gone to in order to get clean and sober.

[00:19:47] It's in our traditions. So there is a big thing that when all else fails, Yeah, be of service to others. Okay. It's so important. It's the key. I think it's one of the only reasons why we're here on the planet. I think there's only two reasons why we're here. One is to get to know more about who we are on a regular basis.

[00:20:10] Who is this being within this container that needs to drop 30 pounds. And being of service to others, really do that and meditation. And the thing about meditation and I love it. I hear this all the time. I don't know how to meditate. Oh, I tried. I don't know. Shut up. It's so it really the key to meditation is asking yourself why you want to meditate.

[00:20:36] But what do you feel is the purpose? There's millions of different ways to meditate. There's no set rule. It's all it is. It's about quieting the mind and people like, Oh, my mind just won't stop. I have the chatter. It's a practice. That's all it is. Life is a practice. I'm practicing every day to be a human being 

[00:20:57] Bob Gatty: You know what?

[00:20:58] That kind of surprises me that you went that route with with your answer. I would have thought you would have said get a dog. 

[00:21:06] Bill Robertson: That's, yeah, but you said for people that don't have them, of course, get a dog. And if you're going to get a dog, adopt, don't shop. Yeah, there you go. But there's a lot of people who, and this is the unfortunate piece, they can't afford a dog.

[00:21:20] Yeah. Now, I'm going to share something of how you can afford a dog. There, more and more organizations are giving away free food, other things like that. You just have to research it. And there's a thing called Care Credit that saved my ass. You just go online and Google it. And it's a, it's a credit card that you can also use for yourself for dental work.

[00:21:43] But almost every vet takes it. So whenever just two days ago, I had Tucker at the animal hospital, because my vets on the other side of town, it was five o'clock rush hour in LA. She stepped on something or something happened where her right leg shot up in the air and she couldn't walk and she was crying and screaming.

[00:22:02] And I'm thinking she's 15, she slipped a disc or a hip on, I'm going to have to put her down. Got to the animal hospital, the bill, and this was cheap, was 750 bucks. The last time she was there because she had a stroke about four months ago, and she's okay from the stroke. That was 1, 200. So I put it all on care credit.

[00:22:26] And then what then I she has pet insurance. So then I submit to the pet insurance, the 1, 200 one, the pet insurance picked it up 100%. What 

[00:22:36] Bob Gatty: pet insurance 

[00:22:37] Bill Robertson: do you have nationwide? Okay, but the key is you have to make sure that the vet and you just tell them I mean, this is the key with vets. You have to tell them Listen, I can't afford that.

[00:22:50] You need to tell me another. Is this essential that my dog have this right now? If they go? No, you want to be careful. This doesn't happen in the future. Oh, you know what? Go away. Yeah, I'm gonna do that unless it is essential to their life right now. Or I have money. You can negotiate totally and you need to ask them before they do anything.

[00:23:12] What's the price on this? What's this going to cost? But care credit has made my life so much easier when it comes to this 

[00:23:19] Bob Gatty: care credit work. 

[00:23:20] Bill Robertson: Is it? You know how I learned about it. My first dog Sophie had was vomiting and diarrhea, all this stuff. And they thought she had cancer and the bill just kept going up and they kept telling me what it was going to be.

[00:23:33] And they said to me at the hospital and what they turned out, they had to do an endoscopy and they pulled out pieces of a toy that she had swallowed the stuffings of a toy. But they said, Bill, do you have care credit? And I went, what are you talking about? They called them, put me on the phone with them and they gave me a, now this was me and this was years ago.

[00:23:54] They gave me a 5, 000 credit line. You have six months to pay it off with no interest. Okay. And now being with them for a while, I have a year to pay it off with no interest. 

[00:24:05] Bob Gatty: Okay. Okay. Okay. 

[00:24:08] Bill Robertson: It really helps when you get a 2, 000 vet bill. Yeah. You want to save your dog, so there's different ways to figure it out and how to do it.

[00:24:17] And a lot of vets in different places now especially like Petco and others, PetSmart, they're doing like free vaccination days, things like that. I will always have a dog in my life. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:24:31] Bob Gatty: I know the animal shelter humane society here locally where I got my dog Boomer, um, offer discounted vet care.

[00:24:45] You can go there and pick up supplies. I picked up a couple blankets, a crate I don't know what all,

[00:24:53] Bill Robertson: And the thing you have to realize that there's no regulations. Yeah, it's like our medical insurance. If you go to a doctor and they give you a bill, do not pay it. I'm telling you, do not pay it until you get a medical evaluation sheet from them that breaks everything down.

[00:25:11] And there are sites that you can go to where if you go to a hospital in your town. Another hospital over could charge you 20, 000 difference in an appendectomy. There is no regulation for them to say, this is what you have to pay. They have a guide and then they can charge whatever the hell they want.

[00:25:33] Vets do the same damn thing. Yeah. Yeah. So when they tell you this is what it's going to cost, you've got to have, you got to have the kyones. To be able to say, you need to bring that down. 

[00:25:45] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about your book. Where'd the title come from? 

[00:25:53] Bill Robertson: Sure. When I was growing up.

[00:25:56] Yeah, I know when I was growing up in Attleboro, Massachusetts, which is in the bowels of Massachusetts. It was, there were like 15 guys that I hung out with, they consider themselves to be a gang, they, we dealt drugs they, they would break into houses and different things. And I would say to them, listen, you really don't want to break into that house or no I don't think we should be stealing that person's car.

[00:26:24] And one of them said to me one day. Oh, shut up. You're such an Uncle Bill. Now, if you remember, there was a show called Family Affair back in the 60s with Brian Keith, and his name was Uncle Bill. Okay. And for some reason, this kid remembered that. It was like, you're such an Uncle Bill. So my neighbor, my neighborhood all called me Uncle Bill.

[00:26:45] Then I got to college, and this dear friend of mine, she just passed last year. She said, Hey, uncle Bill. And I'm like, who told you that I get into corporate America? Somebody called me that. One of my neighbors calls me that now. I'm like, what the hell? And I do have niece. I do have a niece and two nephews, right?

[00:27:04] But, and godfather like five times over. But I don't have any kids myself. And it's stuck now. Most of my friends don't call me that anymore, here. But growing up and a friend of mine. Said, Bill, you need to write a book. You have so many stories about your experiences with animals. And I said, yeah maybe I throw the uncle bill title.

[00:27:25] So my next book is called uncle bill. Doesn't drink anymore. Thank God. My next book. That's pretty cool. 

[00:27:33] Bob Gatty: All right. You had a career in corporate America. You mentioned it a little bit. You aged out, you said it. Age 60. Exactly what did you do in this career of yours? The one where you were riding around in limos and all that kind of 

[00:27:50] Bill Robertson: stuff.

[00:27:51] I started as a headhunter. And then I was recruited. I'm not going to mention the name of the company, but I was recruited by a large corporation and I ended up running staffing for them. They're the people who manage your 401k. So it was a big company. I was recruited to a. com. That was a kind of like monster.

[00:28:11] It was called us jobs that when I can mention, cause they're out of business. And then and then I got into the RPO business. I can mention names. It's on my LinkedIn. What's RPO is recruitment, placement, outsourcing. So what they do is they hire me as a recruiter and then they would contract me out to a large corporation.

[00:28:34] There was another large investment firm. That was my client for seven years. I was on salary and I was as if I was a recruiter for them, but I worked remotely. And then I worked for an insurance brokerage firm at the end where I was a a staff corporate recruiter. Now they call us talent acquisitions managers.

[00:28:54] Ooh, so I was a talent acquisitions manager for this company, but I had always written at the same time. So I worked two careers for a long time. And then in 2020, I got laid off during COVID. And then I was making a movie at that time. So I figured You know what, I've been doing this for over 30 years, I'm gonna take a sabbatical from recruiting and I'm gonna, I'm gonna make this film that kind of fell in my lap.

[00:29:21] My lead producer used to run Robert Duvall's company for 11 years and he's, he saw the stage production of Paradise, which is a bluegrass musical comedy that ran here in LA and that at a regional theater in Austin, Texas. And he said, Bill, what about turning it into a low budget film? And I went, what?

[00:29:41] And we made it into, I raised the capital, and then we made the movie, and now Artists View Entertainment has picked it up, and we're now waiting for a release date. That is 

[00:29:53] Bob Gatty: very cool. Very cool. sO that's how you shifted from your corporate job to the arts, 

[00:30:01] Bill Robertson: really. I had been doing the arts forever when I was at and I'll just say when I was at Fidelity years ago, they got a kick out of the fact that I ran heavily medicated fairy tales out of New York and out of Boston.

[00:30:14] And and they wrote an article on me in the Fidelity news. It was so funny. And when I wrote for the PBS Kids show, Diddy Doodle Works, I wrote for Talking Crayon. I was also in Corporate America, and both Lifetime movies even the one that they made, because they made one in 2019 that we, that I wrote and sold.

[00:30:35] That I was still doing Corporate America at the same time. I just always, because since 1997, I've been able to work remote. Yeah, so I can write and run my own schedule and I made sure I filled jobs. I never got in trouble, all of that. And I just liked doing both. Okay. I'd like to only do one now.

[00:30:57] So I'm hoping this continues, but why do you only do one now? That's all I do now. All I do now is write. I picked up an agent. I've got scripts out all over town, but we also have a writer's strike going on. And an actor's strike going on. And my agent is a big union person. So right now I'm waiting on the film to sell.

[00:31:16] And that's where our distributor slash sales agent is out pitching it. Okay. It takes a long time. Yeah. 

[00:31:26] Bob Gatty: On your Facebook page, you posted this quote. Living life to the fullest is taking chances, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, and knowing that it's all part of the journey for the greater good. Can you explain that?

[00:31:41] Bill Robertson: Sure. Like I mentioned earlier we've been given choices. And I can take chances and be vulnerable and don't have to be perfect. I read something just today. The goal is excellence. It's not perfection. And there's a big difference if you're not taking, I, I know more people who are so afraid to fail, they never get started.

[00:32:10] Yeah. And they have to remember failure is a gift. It's a gift. It teaches us what we have to do in order to achieve the goal. Any of these like writing in Hollywood, everyone thinks, Oh, Bill, that's so glamorous. There's absolutely nothing glamorous about it at all, right? The Oscars and the Emmys were set up originally because people working in this industry understand it's a factory town.

[00:32:37] Yeah. It's the only time for them to be like, Hey, let's pat each other on the back for busting our balls for the past, how many years there's absolutely nothing glamorous about it. And the heavy paydays go to the big names. So other than you're just working your ass off. And it's a lot of a lot of turn downs.

[00:32:56] I had to take chances. I had to be vulnerable. And, success isn't about, for me, success isn't about how much money I have in the bank, although it's nice. That's the gravy. I think the success is allowing yourself To be your true nature to trust in the process and to be able to say, I tried right.

[00:33:25] Nothing worse than not. Nothing worse than hearing someone say, I was too afraid to try. 

[00:33:32] To me it's not a life wasted. I don't think anything's wasted, but I think, why not experience it, because we don't know what's on the other side. Have you seen, I just want to mention this, have you ever seen the movie Defending Your Life?

[00:33:48] No. With Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep and Buck Henry and Lee Grant and Rip Torn, Defending Your Life. I've seen it like 15 times. I'm gonna just tell briefly, it's so important to watch. It's a comedy. When you die, you first go to judgment city, and they pick a certain amount days of your life and you go before judging and and prosecuting and a defense attorney, and you have to prove that you've walked through fear in your life.

[00:34:20] And if you have. Then you move on in the universe. If you haven't, you have to come back again. It's a brilliant film. It's so funny. It's Merrill. It's my favorite Meryl Streep film. 

[00:34:33] Bob Gatty: She's one of my favorite actresses.

[00:34:35] Bill Robertson: Absolutely. You will not find her more likable than you will in this movie. She is so likable.

[00:34:42] Okay. 

[00:34:44] Bob Gatty: Now there's another side to you that we haven't talked about. You recently appeared on a podcast. That was billed as how to never stop being yourself. Unapologetic, coming out expert. Can you talk about your coming out 

[00:34:59] Bill Robertson: experience? Oh, being gay? Oh, sure. Heh. Oh my god. I dated women for as a teenager in my twenties, the whole thing.

[00:35:12] I knew there was something different though. There was something, and I fell in love with women. Yeah. And And then I started, and I had thought about both. So I thought maybe I'm bisexual, but then it gets too confusing. Who are you going to bring to the prom? It's just a tough call.

[00:35:29] I'm kidding. And so I, it was the eighties. Okay. AIDS was kicking in? I didn't know much about it at the time, and I came out in 1984 and I remember when I told my mom the Edith Bunker of the crowd, she was like, oh and then 

[00:35:52] Bob Gatty: She goes. Sounds like Edith. 

[00:35:55] Bill Robertson: Yeah. So she goes. So now do I treat you like a homosexual or a bisexual?

[00:36:01] And I said, first off, mom, how many do you know? She was like, and then she was like, but you can't tell your father because he'll have a heart attack and die. And I'm like, oh, great. Thanks. And he had already had a couple of heart attacks. He had a bunch and he was, he was a Baptist.

[00:36:17] He carried his Bible in on D Day. We still have that Bible. He read it every day. And so a couple of years go by and he, and she was funny because she was like you know what? Your friend, Sam is gay. Why don't we tell your father that he's gay? Cause your dad really likes him. I'm like, what? Where is your logic?

[00:36:37] So finally I get the call from my mom. yOur dad asked me, is Billy gay? And I said, you'll have to ask him. And I said that means yes, mom. And he, and she goes, I know, but I didn't know what to say. So you need to come down to Cape Cod. Cause he wants to talk to you. I'm like, Oh, Lord. So I get down there and he's sitting watching the Red Sox play.

[00:37:00] And as soon as I walked in, he goes, we need to talk about your problem, but your problem, I looked and I said, no, we need to talk about your problem. He goes, all right, let's go for a ride. So we got in the car, we went for a ride and being a gay male, I got to tell you, a lot of the stories are not as good as this one.

[00:37:19] People coming out, they're pretty horrible. Actually, this was my dad said everything I would want my father to say, keep in mind, he was a card carrying Republican Baptist. And he said to me, Bill, I don't have to agree with your lifestyle, but I love you and you're my son. And that's all that matters. God, that makes me want to cry.

[00:37:39] So we came back, we sat and watched the Red Sox game. And then over the years, it was funny. Whenever you'd hear me mention a woman's name, Hey, my friend Sarah, who's Sarah? Tell me about Sarah. I'm like that. She's a friend. And he would corner my female friends at parties. Do you love my son? Yeah, I do love you.

[00:37:57] No. Do you love my son? He's gay. What if he wasn't? What? What are you doing? My favorite is this, though. He called me one day out of the blue. Bill, I've gone through the entire Bible. And I don't see where you're going to go to hell. And I went, thanks for sharing. And in 1992, my partner at the time died of AIDS.

[00:38:20] Okay. And I had sent him home to Dayton, Ohio, to be with his family over the holidays, because he was born on Christmas Eve. And I went out there to see him because his kidneys had failed, and we had to make decisions and all this stuff. And he slipped into a coma. And I called my dad. Yeah. Because I knew in being a, I'm not a Christian, but in him being a Christian, he walked the talk of the teachings of Jesus.

[00:38:50] He didn't go by what we can see now as being, a bad interpretation of things. And he was, he walked the talk of unconditional love. And I called him and he cried on the phone with me. And after my partner was cremated, they have a rock, they had a rock garden in the front of their house where like they would bury their dogs and my parents were big dog people.

[00:39:15] And I don't think there were any other relatives there and they said, Would you like to have Tim's ashes put in the rock garden. And that was a huge thing for them. And I said that, that's really great. Thank you. I have a photo of my dad digging. The ashes to put them in there. Wow. My coming out experience, the AIDS epidemic was going on.

[00:39:38] So after I was out, I never went back in. And and we were marching and we were getting involved with ACT UP and, Larry Kramer and those people, because the Reagan and Bush administration was not acknowledging anything and people were dying. I had three or four friends commit suicide after getting diagnosed with AIDS.

[00:40:02] I I never, I stayed negative, and but it, I saw it, Devon, my partner turned into a 90 year old overnight. It was horrifying. He got dementia, didn't know who I was and you watch people who were so healthy when I met him and he was positive, we just practiced safe sex and and then he just declined so fast and people, the East coast.

[00:40:27] Boston, New York, or and even L. A. and the West, they claim to be, where we're more liberal. I gotta tell you, though, I never met people so compassionate and loving and treated him better than anyone I had seen treat him was in Dayton, Ohio. And they were all my friends. I was part of a support group of people taken care of.

[00:40:47] We were all caretakers or caregivers taking care of our partners dying. And they were like, Bill, you're not going to the Bible Belt. Are you out of your mind? Yeah, I remember walking into his room and he was black and there were five black baptist ministers in his room when I walked in after flying in from Boston.

[00:41:06] I'm like, Oh, my God, they stopped what they were doing. And they all came over and introduced themselves to me. You must be Tim's friend, Bill. Okay. And I got that the whole time I was there. There were a couple people that were a little on edge. But yeah, the nurses were not wearing gloves or masks. They were like, I was told not to get close to my patients.

[00:41:25] I don't believe that at all. I'm going to, I'm going to be as close as I possibly can. That woman cried with me. Wow. That's amazing. And in Boston, there was a sign on his door that said quarantine. A lot of the people didn't speak English. They left his food outside his room. I'd get there. I turned into Shirley MacLaine from Terms of Endearment.

[00:41:46] I was like yelling and give me a pot and a, give me a, a a mop and a pail and I'll clean his room. They weren't even cleaning his room. It was horrible. He got, when He worked for a large hotel chain as a banquet waiter, and he took a broken lamp out of the trash, and they fired him because they knew he was HIV.

[00:42:08] And it turned out he had AIDS. And I had to fight with their HR department, and then I got ACT UP involved, which Larry Kramer ran, and they were going to send 250 people into the lobby and shut down the place. They gave him his job back. They worked him triple shifts until he dropped. He never got better and died four months later.

[00:42:30] Incredible. Horrible. I'll never set foot in that place. 

[00:42:34] Bob Gatty: That's really a hard, that's really a hard story but a lot of young people today are facing the same question about their own lives and the way things are, it's not easy. Do you have any advice for them when it comes to their decision about coming out and how to do it and what to do and what not to do and all that kind of thing?

[00:43:00] Bill Robertson: I think the first thing you have to realize. And everyone has a different approach. I am I'm not a Bible guy, but I am an energy of the universe guy, God guy, I believe in there's a power greater than myself out there that I tap into all the time.

[00:43:17] For me, that helped. But I think what also helped, and I'm not going to swear, but you have to understand that this is your life. And right now we know we only know that we get one, and you might have to let certain people go for a little while. If they truly love you, they will come back to you. If they don't, it's their loss.

[00:43:45] But I think, within the gay community, a lot of us choose our families. I was lucky enough to have a family, my sister at the time, this is a good example. When AIDS kicked in, she wrote me a letter and said, Billy, I can't let you around my kids because of AIDS. And this is back when they thought you could get it from a drinking glass.

[00:44:09] And she's a born again Christian. And I said to her, I wrote her a letter. I think she called me and told me that. And I wrote her a letter and said, do you think this is the way Jesus would have handled it? I said, as far as I'm concerned, you're gone. You're out of my life. You need to do some research. And she said, oh, she went to this little clinic someplace.

[00:44:28] I said, no, you need to go to Boston University and do your research. Other than that, you're not my sister anymore. And I let her go. Okay. Two, three months later, she got back to me. She wrote me a letter and she said, Bill, I want to apologize. I went to BU, I did the research, and I have nothing to be afraid of, and I want you around my kids.

[00:44:53] So people do come back into your life if they want to, but I just, it's almost I don't know if this is good advice or not, but I think you have to be true to who you are no matter what, and give yourself some time. It's, it might not be something that happens overnight.

[00:45:13] It took me a little while to come out. I was actually homophobic. One of my friends said to me, bill, you are homophobic. And the usually anyone who's homophobic is getting ready to come out. And that's usually the case. If someone's really major homophobic, they're in the closet and they don't know what to do with the closet.

[00:45:31] Oh, very often I'd say 90 percent of the time. And. So it's being empowered. And then it's in the good news is because of technology today, you can find support groups all over the country, and there are LGBTQ centers everywhere. But just I think the key is being true to who you are. And then from there, because if you're confident, Other people respond to that.

[00:45:59] If you're hesitant and fearful, some people smell that fear and that's what they attack. You can't, you have to allow yourself. to be vulnerable, but with courage. 

[00:46:12] Bob Gatty: Now, Bill are the challenges facing the queer community worsening these days? And if so, why? 

[00:46:20] Bill Robertson: Oh, Lord. Yeah, I think it feels like the 80s again to me.

[00:46:24] It really does. It feels and the unfortunate thing is It's lack of education around everything, and our gay community needs to be better at making people, like Harvey Milk. Harvey Milk helped me come out. Do you remember Harvey Milk? Yeah, I do. There was a documentary made, Harvey Milk, or The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, that won the Oscar in like the early 70s, I think it was.

[00:46:54] And he said, if everyone came out, there'd be no discrimination because everybody would know somebody who's gay, your butcher, the mailman, whatever. And when I heard that was the trigger. That helped me come out. So today, I wish they'd stop using the Bible. Oh my God. There's nothing, it's been so misinterpreted.

[00:47:21] I've talked to experts that have gone to Italy and studied with these people and they really misinterpreted the Bible. Man shall not lay with man has nothing to do with being gay. It has to do with, Oh, this is so horrible. It was okay to rape women, but don't rape men. If you're going to go into another, because then you're humiliating and shaming them.

[00:47:45] And that's why it's in the Bible. Okay. It's about border wars. That's nothing to do with. And the other part was they need to, this is what they came up with later. We all need to populate because of border wars. So I think religion and people are leaving the church they're looking for spiritual centers They're looking for other alternatives because they don't want to be told they don't want to be they don't want to be taught hate they don't want to be taught hate and I think today and I hate to say it and people Trump and even DeSantis and in a lot of the others And Trump, the irony about Trump, he, he was a Democrat for so many years now, and he only tapped into the haters because he knew he'd get their votes.

[00:48:36] He got the bigots behind him. He didn't give 

[00:48:38] Bob Gatty: a shit. He did it. He went to the other side because he saw that where he could jump, work on people's emotions and get 

[00:48:46] Bill Robertson: their support that way. I think it's gotten out of hand and I do feel this whole left and right. I get it.

[00:48:54] There needs to be a middle and but people are when people are attacking gay people. It's out of fear. Yeah, they just don't know enough if they really got to know people, they'd be like, I'm gonna, I'm going to men's meeting in my recovery and there's about total there's about 40 guys straight and gay.

[00:49:13] There's no more than 20 on each call, and there's no attack on being gay, it's all, we all have recovery in common. If we'd all look at what we have in common more than what we don't, I just think the world would shift. And, but gay people, we need to be strong, because... It's feeling in the 80s, we were all, we all were holding hands.

[00:49:39] We were all fighting back because it was life or death. But what the right doesn't know or doesn't understand, if they piss us off enough, it's going to be trouble. Because gay people will not take this. They just won't. And now we have more power than we ever did. We're a huge voting block.

[00:49:59] Absolutely. We need to organize better to make sure right now there's over 400 laws. If you go to the ACLU's website, there's over 400 laws that are not laws. What are they called bills that are on the dockets across the country. It's closer to 500 that are anti

[00:50:22] Most of them are against trans and I don't know enough about the I had a friend in his fifties, um, who, Became a trans woman. When he first called me, he was a comic. I thought he was kidding me. I was like, but David, he's Bill, I'm been dealing with this. I went to his wedding. I watched this kid get born, it was, and this is what he was dealing with.

[00:50:46] And I had no idea. So I've been learning more and more. And I have some teachers that live in my neighborhood. And I was asking them about, do you think a child or someone is. 14 or 15 can really make a decision on that. And they have all convinced me. They were like, Bill, they're not just, it's not a whim.

[00:51:09] They're working with a psychologist or a psychiatrist. They're talking to parents, the family, they've looked at the childhood growing up. They've, it's been a long time coming. It wasn't just a snap decision. Of course, the right uses the Bible and God, and I guarantee it. They're hoping Jesus comes back.

[00:51:29] I think they should be worried about it because if he ever comes back, he's going to first thing he's going to do is tip over some tables and then he's going to say, that's not what I meant. Yeah, they totally got it wrong. I do think it's all politicized I think it's all out of fear, and it's for some reason they feel like their life is being challenged.

[00:51:50] And I'll end on this part isn't it ironic that most of the people on the right who push against that. They end up having a kid in their family who's either gay or trans. Yeah, isn't that the truth? 

[00:52:00] Bob Gatty: Always. Okay, so you have this new book in the works. You mentioned it briefly. I want to know about it. What's it about?

[00:52:08] And when's it going to be done and all that? 

[00:52:10] Bill Robertson: So there's different levels of alcoholism. There's low bottom, medium bottom, and high bottom. I was a medium bottom. I lost my scruples, but I got to keep my furniture. The the book is called Uncle Bill Doesn't Drink Anymore. Thank God.

[00:52:26] So it's going to be humorous heartfelt and harrowing because there was a lot of stuff that went down that I witnessed being in the wrong place. I saw a 16 year old boy shot in the head and killed, by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So it's going to be a history. Of my alcoholism and drug use, and then it's also going to be solutions based on how I've been able to stay clean and sober for 26 years.

[00:52:54] it's not going to be sensationalized. It's going to be a series of stories. I like to write in short stories like I did in my first book. So one can put it down and pick it up again later, but the reason I'm writing it since COVID, a lot of people struggling with drug and alcohol abuse right now, suicide rates through the roof.

[00:53:17] I go to a lot of meetings and I'm on zoom and they're called zoom babies. They got sober during COVID, and, alcoholism, that's why I mentioned low bottom, medium bottom, high bottom. I've met people that were CEOs of companies that were up here as a high bottom drunk and Even though they had all the money, didn't make any difference.

[00:53:41] I heard a story when I first came in, this guy used to go to meetings. He was a beautiful man. He had the most beautiful girlfriend. He had an incredible car. He had a big job. And whenever anybody would ask him how he's doing, I'm doing great. Doing great. He blew his head off with a shotgun. 

[00:53:58] Bob Gatty: Yeah. You're doing really great.

[00:54:00] Bill Robertson: Look at all the people of celebrities recently that have committed suicide who appeared to be doing okay. Alcoholism and addiction is a mental illness. And until we, and it's been, it was coined that by the by the AMA a long time ago. Yet people don't look at it that way. They think I'm not that bad.

[00:54:22] Yeah, you have to be rigorously honest. So the book is going to be rigorously honest. I'm hoping I'll have it out by the beginning of October or the middle of October. That's what I'm hoping. And then I'm doing a series of Uncle Bill books. Yeah, the third one's going to be Uncle Bill Found God.

[00:54:42] You want to know where? thAt'll be a third one. And it's like I said, I'm not a Bible guy, so it'll be more spiritually based. And then I'm going to do another one on recruiting on how to interview for jobs, but I don't know if I'm going to make it an Uncle Bill book, but I, I prepped and coached people for years on how to interview and it will be humorous though.

[00:55:04] Okay, 

[00:55:05] Bob Gatty: Good. So where can people find your, you have the one book now. Yes. Yeah. And that's on Amazon. Amazon. Okay.

[00:55:14] Bill Robertson: All right. And I'm just going to use Amazon from now for now. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:55:18] Bob Gatty: Okay. How can people connect with you though if they want to reach out to you? 

[00:55:22] Bill Robertson: I would, You can find me on Facebook if you want.

[00:55:25] I know I gave my info to you on that, but also an easy way. Go on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn and reach out to me that way too. That's always an easy way. And then I'm on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And so I'm on all three of those. My, it's a picture of me and my dogs.

[00:55:44] Or it's just my dogs. So you'll yeah, you'll get a sense of that. But yeah, feel free to reach out to me and especially If you're dealing with alcohol or a drug addiction problem and you need you know, some advice or suggestions is better than advice. Let me know and I can help direct you to some different places.

[00:56:03] But Okay, there's help out there for everybody. You just have to make the choice to check 

[00:56:10] Bob Gatty: it out Okay, Bill. Listen, thanks very much. It's been great talking to you. I enjoyed it immensely. I hope that I hope our listeners and viewers get some benefit from this discussion.

[00:56:25] Thanks again.