Michael J. Fox appeared as a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Monday (April 6, 2009) to promote his new book Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
.Here is the full transcript of that interview where the two discuss Parkinson's disease, stem cell research, and even call out Rush Limbaugh for his stance on stem cell research and his treatment towards Michael J. Fox.
Fox will also appear on Larry King Live Wednesday night (April 8, 2009) and a transcript will be made available here at StemCellWeblog.com shortly after.
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Stewart: Welcome back, my guest tonight, an actor and best-selling author whose new book is called Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
, please welcome back to the program Michael J. Fox![Fox appears, crowd applauds]
Stewart: Take a bow! Nicely done. Howdy howdy.
Fox: Cool. You gotta bigger shot than you had the last time I was here.
Stewart: You were here 10 years ago, the very first show that I did.
Fox: Yeah, cause I was on your show at MTV but -
Stewart: Yes
Fox: But yeah I think I was the first guest.
Stewart: The first time I interviewed you was on the MTV show and you told me a story about doing rattle snake venom shots.
Fox: No, Cobra. Cobra.
Stewart: That's it, Cobra venom shots!
Fox: I was in Thailand doing Casualties of War and, just you know, 6 months in the jungle with Sean Penn, you drink cobra blood. It sounded good.
Stewart: Can you milk Sean Penn's fangs and get the juice out of them, or is it-
Fox: I don't know, I've never given it a shot.
Stewart: Next time.
Fox: I was only able to feel for the Cobra.
Stewart: Let me show you something, this a picture,this is the first I've interviewed you on our show, this a picture of it, here's what's crazy, ok, you haven't aged. I look like a child. Look at that, you haven't aged. What the hell is going on here?
Fox: You look sophisticated. I mean I use the Just for Men, which is..
Stewart: I actually color mine grey, I find it adds to the decrepid look I've been going for.
Stewart: Look at this thing [Holds up book] I appreciate this book, because I too suffer from shortness. So I found some inspirational -
Fox: That's it, that's what the title means.
Stewart: How do you, you've been able to keep a pace, a tenacity, with this in terms of bringing awareness to the disease, how do you keep up the energy, focus, the mindset to keep going?
Fox: First of all there is no other choice, you wanna keep going. I love my life I have a great life I have a great family and, um, I just kind of stumbled out of this thing that once I was diagnosed in '91 with PD and I kinda kept it a secret for like 7 years and it was a lot of time to work it out. I did a lot of stupid things, I drank too much, I kinda got crazy with it. It's not like I burst out of a coccoon of ignorance and all of a sudden had a handle on it, but it's like anything, once you accept it and you fix it in space and you say this is this and this is isn't anything else, this is not going to go away anytime soon and I have to deal with it, then you start to open up to all of the stuff thats around it and you say, wow, this gives me an opportunity to help people out, this gives me an opportunity to look at things in a way that I might not have looked at them before and to kind of be a little more serious than the jackass I've been for the past 35 years and writing books and a new kind of appreciation for my family and a relationship with my kids, where I don't have to kind of teach them lessons, hoping they'll pick up things from the way they see me deal with -
Stewart: And how do the kids, cause that's a really interesting thing for kids to see their father be vulnerable. Is it difficult for them? Because, you know, I find that the most difficult thing for my kids is the idea that I'm actually not a superhero, because when they are that little, literally, like, if you can reach a glass up there, they're like, my god..that's like Everest. Have you been able to be vulnerable with them?
Fox: Yeah, absolutely. It just is what it is. They still think your cool in other ways, they know.. With my youngest daughter, to have a conversation with her and just say like my brain works differently than your brain. Your 7 years old and to have that conversation, not that its bad or good or scary or not scary or whatever, it just is that thing. In a way, they love you being honest with them. That's as heroic as you really need to be with your kids, you just need to be honest with them.
Stewart: Your saying I have to be honest with my kids? I'm not sure I can live this book.
Fox: It helps.
Stewart: Dammit. Now what's going on, have you seen any progress, you know, one of the things that you've had to do is, you've gotten involved with the political community, because as somebody who is an activist for cures and an activist for Parkinson's, you've now been exposed to the Washington political community. What's been worse, the diagnosis, having to deal with politicians?
Fox: Politicians are alright. The tricky thing is its like wedge issues, you know how this stuff works, when I get involved with the stem cell thing, its like if you are a conservative republican and stem cells is an issue thats important to you its probably like 3 on your list, you know, its way up there. If you're moderate, democrat, you probably would like to see it happen but its 8 or 9 on your list, so you see politicians know how to work that gap and -
Stewart: I was stunned, you know, when you got involved with it, the idea that your motives could be impuned. That was the craziest part about this this that I ever saw and I've always wondered, I didn't talk to you after that happened but -
Fox: Well that's when it got fun. People think that's when it got bad for me, but that's when it got fun. When Rush Limbaugh, I can barely say the name.
Stewart: So many of us have that issue.
Fox: But when he kind of launched his attack, I just had this moment where I went, oh my god, is that predictable, is it that cartoonish that you attack the messenger in this way and not be with the merits of the science at all, and -
Stewart: Its absolutely that cartoonish.
Fox: It was that cartoonish. But what was great was that it then allowed me to start a dialogue, start a conversation, we basically hijacked the last 2 weeks of that midterm election, talked about stem cells, which nobody wanted to talk about. And it was, other than the fact that I was deadly serious about it, it was kind of like there was a Mary Prankster thing to it -
Stewart: You couldn't believe the theater of it. When your daughter asked you about that, did you have to explain to her, "his brain works differently"? Its diseased.
Fox: That presupposes.
Stewart: Um, as always, its just a pleasure seeing and always a pleasure talking to ya and uh, man, your one of those guys, you walk in a room, and just everybody feels better, I don't know how you do it.
Stewart: Always Looking Up, its on the bookshelves now, Michael J. Fox!
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