Kelsey Grammer: A Brother Remembers

0:00That was my ticket. They called me a while later and said, we think we want to put you in another movie. So I'm really excited about it.

0:20Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally. Today, I'm always happy to have, back for the second time, the brilliant Kelsey Grammer, one of the smartest, talented, accomplished actors I know. And he has written an amazing book. It's called Karen, A Brother Remembers. And it is unlike anything you have ever read. So let's get to the bottom of all of it with Kelsey Grammer.

1:03Where am I finding you in the world today, Mr. Grandma? Sir, I'm at the house in Holmby Hills in Los Angeles. Okay. All right. So you're here in wonderful CA. Yeah, sunny Southern. You're in Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara in my little studio. I'm so glad you're back. You're a two-timer now. I know. Isn't that something? How about that? I know. This little podcast has survived long enough to have people returning. returning or as they say on Saturday Night Live, you're a friend of the show. There you go. Okay. We got to get into your book. Okay. I mean, your new book, Karen, A Brother Remembers. I've never read anything like it.

1:44And it is, it's an amazing, no matter what I say about it, I'm never going to come close to setting it up. So I'm going to let you do it. How would you describe it to people? because as a writer, I was blown away. Oh, thanks, man. Thank you. Very kind. I mean, thank you for reading it. Karen was given to me as a mission through a medium. I mean, I write about it in the book. We said, Karen wants you to tell her story. And so I was, oh, well, how do I do that? And so about three Octobers ago, I started just jotting down notes in a way, thinking what would I possibly do? But what does this mean?

2:25Am I supposed to tell this to my kids? Am I supposed to just relate it to some friends or whatever? And Karen being your sister. My sister, yeah. Who was murdered. Yeah. And after a while, after about 20 pages of writing down notes, I started to realize, oh, this is a book. I finally just realized I was going to commit myself to writing her story as I knew it, but as it unfolded through my eyes and as it unfolded through the life we lived together, the life I've lived since her, and the life I've lived sort of with her in my memory and in my heart all the time. And we were very close as brother and sister.

3:00And so I wanted to introduce her to the world. I wanted to introduce my sister, Karen, to the world I know, to the people I know, to the culture that I'm part of, but also for them to get to know her. Some people have asked in the past, why didn't you talk more about this part about yourself and all that? And I said, well, it's Karen's story. It's not really my story, but it is. it's relevant to include myself in it. And so that's what I did. It's definitely a stream of consciousness style, which I, of course, rejected when I was 14 years old and I read part of the artist as a young man. I thought, James Joyce, please, this is just annoying.

3:38But when I started to write, I just thought the only way to do this is to actually just have it spring up out of my thoughts and out of my memory and have the memory just sort of spill onto the page. And that's how it happened. Well, to me, that's the most, there's so many things that wrap in it, but your ability to trust yourself to write in that style is an unbelievable accomplishment. It's hard enough to put yourself out there, but to put yourself out in a sort of, it's not even really a, I don't think it even qualifies as its own genre. so few people write in that style. You must have at times you're like, oh my God, this has to be more traditional.

4:20I have to organize this with an inciting incident.

4:26I did not have that instinct. I just thought I have to tell this this way. And it started to fall into place in my head. I thought, well, I have to go here now. I have to go there now. Stuff like that would happen. I have to plot my next sort of move. But then I'd start to write and then something would pop into my recollection. Like I'd go, oh, I have to go down that road. I have to talk about that. Like when I'm in my old hometown and I realized the tree in front of my yard is gone, the tree that I used to climb all the time. And I hadn't even really thought of it until that moment. So in that moment, it's just there's an immediacy between me and the reader.

4:59There's like I'm holding the reader's hand and that we're going to take this trip together and that I've made one condition. I'm never going to lie. And so it just comes out as it's just truthful. It's a truthful recollection and a journey into my sister's life, my past with her, and the life we live together today. For those who don't know, give me, as much as you're comfortable, it's such a violent, sad, tragic thing that happened to her. Walk us through what that was like and how she passed away. On July 1st, 1975, Karen was abducted by three men who ended up raping her and killing her. They killed her about six hours after they took her.

5:47And that's been the prime tragedy of my life. I mean, I always used to say, it's Karen's tragedy. It's not necessarily mine, but it was mine too. And I get to discover that.

6:06in the writing I get to discover that and I realized I have a right to claim it as mine and to actually try from that kind of position to help other people who have been in the same position who have lost someone the same way because it is absolutely surreal and awful and there's no amount of writing that can actually make it feel okay there's nothing about it that is easy or simple it's just the obligation started to be that I had to find a way to try to help people get off of the death of their loved one and get onto the life they had with the loved one. That the book had a kind of mission. And that maybe that's what was being channeled to me through Karen originally, through this gal, Esther, who was a channel I know, who first brought me the question or the request to write the story, to tell the story.

7:02I think the motive is actually to try to square at least somewhere the grief with the joy. At least have them sort of stare at one another evenly instead of have that one day so outweigh the rest of it because her life was wonderful and our time together was wonderful and she was a fantastic person. And that's why I wanted people to know about her. do you feel um it's clearly that you do but do you do you have that wonderful thing one of one of i don't know the things that makes it easier for people who pass on where you know you can hear their voice you can know what they would be saying about literally any subject yeah comes up in your life you're like i like it's like they might as well be next to you because you know exactly what they would be saying or reacting to that's funny i talk about that in the book as well but i say It's simply like, gee whiz, I know I've really liked having her around.

8:00You know, it's really been great. I mean, I have turned to her in my thoughts throughout my life and just said, hey, what do you think of that? Isn't that something? So her being here has been a part of my life. I mean, it's the same with my grandparents and my mom and everybody else. They're all, you know, so-called gone. But, yeah, I still carry them with me all the time. And I'm always having this sort of dialogue. And that's what, it surprised me. I guess what happened was in the very first, like 10 pages is the first time Karen's voice kind of comes into it. And that is what happened. I just suddenly heard her going like, you know, that's enough, right?

8:39They get it. Oh, wow. Oh, this is what we're going to do. I was going to say, who is your editor? Now we know. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. You're the best editor you could have possibly had. Yeah. The truth, the truth meter. how you've you've had a long relationship with mediums i i same with me as well and and um describe because people ask me well what is a medium and what do they do and so i know you've hosted shows about them produce shows about them yeah yeah but but but to the like person who maybe has never really heard of a medium or thinks it's all hogwash what what would you best describe them as?

9:24Well, in my studies, and I did produce the show Medium, so full disclosure, it's something I really dived into a long time ago, several decades ago, and part of that was, I guess, a discovery about Karen and just a discovery about things that are unknown to us. But it came to me through a couple of different sources that mediumship is meant to heal, meant to help heal people. That's really all it is. Now, there's a lot of people walking around going like, I think I'm a medium and you know you gotta be careful about them you have to be careful with the whole area I mean of course a lot of my more fundamentalist Christian friends are you know real dubious about it and you know it's probably smart to be dubious about it it's probably you know I get that but then I'll counter with well you know when St.

10:09John was up there with the having revelation revealed to him he was in a cave with a bunch of voices. And I thought, well, surely that was some sort of mediumship. So they rejected sort of out of hand, except when it's holy text. And I think, well, I think there's a real argument to be made for that Jesus and all sorts of people have come through mediums throughout our history in order to help us, to help understand things. When I was doing my investigation into mediumship before we did the show, I had a session with one of these really famous guys. And he explained, oh, yeah, that the aqueduct system in Egypt was channeled because they needed water.

10:53It was a drought. And it came from God through a medium. And that sort of makes sense to me. So I've gone down that path a bit. My barometer for whether or not someone's gifted is it comes from a woman I knew named Dolores who said, Well, you know, if I'm sitting here with a watch in my hand, I'm saying there's a guy here named Jack. And I'm sorry, I'm getting something from him. And you're sitting there going, mm-mm, mm-mm. And the guy's name is Jazz. She said, knock it off. Give me, you know, give me a little help on this. It's not going to be a crime for me to get Jazz or Jack right or wrong.

11:37So I started to understand that if you are sitting with somebody, a blind sitting where they don't really know anything about you. Now, in our situation, it's hard for people to actually give us blind reading. But if you're in a situation with, if you're sitting with somebody who's talented and they're getting 70 % of it right, that's pretty impressive. You know, that's more than a normal person would just be able to guess. So I'm gentle about it. I'm not a harshly judgmental person about, well, you have to get this exactly right, this exactly right. But if they're in the area and then they start to relay some information or a message about something like, you know, you got something in your drawer, take it out and finish it.

12:22And it turns out you've got a film script in there. I mean, okay. Well, what do you do when they're so right? So right. Yeah. They're like, oh, wait a minute. Okay. They somehow have Googled something in my family tree that led them to the... Because check this one out. I'm sure you have your greatest hits as well. But so this is a medium that I've talked to a bunch based on this. So there's a Bob here, Bob, Robert, Bob. I'm like, yeah. And it's the strangest thing. He's dressed like a golfer, but he's holding a bunch of pies. And I was like, my grandpa had seven holes in one. Wow. And when I would go to Bob, when I would go back to Ohio to meet him, he owned a restaurant and he would greet me at the airport with boxes of pies.

13:25That's fantastic. That's pretty good. I mean, what do you do with that, right? You just have to roll over and say, okay, tell me more. That's pretty impressive. It's always amazing to me the things they... Do you ever have people in your life that you think would come up in readings that just don't make as much of an appearance as... For example, my mother rarely shows up. Rarely. Interesting. And then I have the great actor Bill Paxton, who was a great friend. And that fucking guy is everywhere. everywhere. Oh, that's great. He's everywhere. I liked him. I liked him a lot. I heard you and Kelsey on that podcast.

14:10You guys are talking about everything. That's great. Wow. Well, you know, you'd think, I mean, I did, I've thought about him some and thought about his energy and how it was probably a real surprise to be, what am I dead? What's happened here? Exactly. What the hell? I don't know what he was in there for, but it was obviously a procedure that was not meant to end up in that way. I sure liked his work. I mean, he was so funny in Aliens. I mean, he was great. Game over, man. Game over. He's so funny in it. He was just a really, really terrific, you know, energy. And I think that I don't know why that would disappear.

14:48Of course, it didn't. So, you know, I get that. I get that. I have. Now, on the other hand of it, I think because you're of my era and you'll know the players in it, my late great manager, who by the way also shows up, Bernie Brillstein. Oh, wow. Yeah. Who was nothing if not opinionated and colorful, shall we say. And he famously represented every classic Saturday Night Live person from the original Aykroyd, Belushi, Gilda cast. And we once were talking about heaven. And he goes, it ain't there, kid. And I go, why would you say this? If it was, Belushi would have called.

15:38That's pretty funny. That's pretty great. So he's still colorful. Still colorful.

15:59You have so many people who transitioned past. Well, let's talk about that. Yeah. And you've spent so much time in this. Yeah. What do you think happens to us when we leave this earth? I think we have a lot of choices. You know, I look to that Christ line all the time. My father's house has many mansions. What does that mean? It's to be one of the most. You can go to almost any place you want to go. The one that you've decided is important to you. And the mansions are, you know, your choice. There's a series of choices you're given. Or you just get to take. You know what I mean? I don't know if they're presented to you as a series of options.

16:42I think once you step off this place, you get to go discover places. And I think there are some. I've been told there's some folks that go between heaven and here, get to go back and forth. That's what Bill said to me. He literally said to me, he said, buddy, I've been coming back and forth. I've been so busy. Yeah. I was like, oh, okay. I think it's pretty cool. And so you get, the thing I'm pretty confident of is like, God is good. God is love. And there's no way you're not going to be able to be in touch with the people you love. That that love is always going to be there. And you're always going to be able to access them in some way.

17:17Now they may, but of course the gulf is going to seem impenetrable and difficult. unless, of course, you end up finding a reliable sort of mediumship stream where you feel close to them. I mean, in terms of the writing that I did, that became my mediumship. That became my connection to my sister. It became, it was an effortless connection. It was extraordinary. And it's been there all along, but it became more specific than it had been before. So you're saying that through writing it, that you now have developed the ability to do it, almost yourself without a proper medium. Yeah, that's exactly what happened.

17:55Yeah. It just was, you know, and I've messed around with all sorts of things. You know, there's a lot of these people doing planet journeys and all this crap, you know. Yeah, right. Sure. Oh, yeah. No, looking for the divine feminine. Yeah. Okay, fine. So, but when I've, I've had crickets during a lot of that, you know, I've tried a couple and I've thought, well, this didn't really work out for me. but in the writing, I started finding like, oh, this is just coming right through. I'm just getting all this. And so that was pretty great. I'll tell you a little sidebar. This is something I realized a while ago.

18:32So Kate and I were doing something together and she sat there and as we were talking to our group that we were with, she said, I kept seeing Mary. Before we started this, everybody was saying, we're trying to get in touch with the divine feminine. and so but we're in southern california and you know so kate says i kept seeing mary and they go mary i mean what is wrong with you people the the most sort of the quintessential expression of the divine feminine in human form is probably mary yeah you're like i take away but i thought we're in southern california i thought it would be katie perry it'd be somebody like yeah You just have to giggle and sort of sit back and stand right in front of you.

19:21But, okay, you don't want to see. It's fine. Were you always interested in this? I don't know. How would you describe this type of thinking conversation that we're having? I guess it's a sort of a metaphysical orientation. You know, I guess it would have to be that. that you kind of, you are balanced sort of on the fulcrum, you know, between material and spiritual, that you understand that both are kind of walking with you hand in hand and you're, you know, some days you see more of that. Some days you're lost in the other and pulled in another direction. But if you have those moments of reflection, if you take a time out in your life for meditation, stuff like that, those notes kind of play a little louder, I think.

20:05And I was always that kind of kid. I mean, I was doing yoga when I was, you know, 14 and surfing and yoga and, you know, sit and try things. And I'd have meditative moments, but I'd feel this extraordinary energy and surrounded by bliss. And, you know, that was pretty great stuff. I mean. What kind of meditation did you practice? I started out with Hatha Yoga. There was a guy named Richard Hiddleman. Wait a minute. I remember. I feel like I remember here. It's like, well, in those days it was Est and there was Hatha Yoga. That's what he sort of came after that time for me. I remember that guy.

20:41Remember that? What's it? Warner Earhart. Yeah, right. It was like, what the hell? Right. He came and went. And there was TM for a while. Yes. Oh, TM is very much out there still. One of my great friends was sitting there, you know, sort of beyond any working definition of gay. He was very flamboyant. and he was saying to somebody, so I was talking about my secret mantra, right? And so I finally said, I'm going to tell him. He told like three other people and they all had the same one. No. He was flabbergasted. And they all felt really betrayed by it all. I've always wondered about that. They let the cat out of the bag.

21:26He's my son of a bitch. So that's funny. Your secret mantra is you're very hot. Yeah, right. I'm very hot. I'm very, very hot. I'm very, very hot. Was it easy for you to meditate when you first started? Because when I first started, it was brutal shutting down the radio in my head. Yeah, yeah. It took a while. Yeah. Of course, I was younger then and I did sort of, you know, I kind of left it behind. but prayer became a different prayer became more what I got into now you know in my later years and that seems to be pretty available but you just got to take that minute to go still you know get your mind still and that was a muscle I developed actually when I was younger I guess I can still call on that's been helpful but yeah when I was younger it took a long time to get there and then suddenly I just sort of went oh there was a great trick that he said, listen, listen to the inside of your ear like a seashell for the sound of the ocean.

22:29And I started to get that, and that really helped me. Do you, what's your, do you have like a ritual you do every day, every morning, every night, or how does it practically work out for you? Not so much. I agree today with what happens, you know. I tend to come and have a cup of coffee. Oh, yeah. I might start reading something. I might read from the Bible. I might read from Science and Health, which is a Christian science thing that I grew up with. I'll read from Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, which is a very powerful book. And really interesting, really sort of a functional set of things you can practice to just sort of be on your way in each day, which is great.

23:10But otherwise, I just sit and listen. And what I've been doing the last three years, of course, was sitting down and writing for a couple hours every day. What was that? Again, I love writing, but what you wrote is so outside the realm of, I mean, it was a mediumship, really. So it's not like you're writing like a traditional author would because you're waiting for the medium. Talk about the muse. You have to have a muse to write. But on top of that, you've got to now have this extra layer of mediumship. How would you? I don't know. I'm thinking about this. I once talked to Peter Schaffer. Did Peter Schaffer write Equus?

23:53Equus, yes. Equus, yes. Yeah. He was talking about how when he was involved in writing that, he was in the characters. He was in it. He was in it. And at one moment where he said, and I had this revelation that came to me, he said, you couldn't do it, could you? You couldn't do it. That's why you did it. That's why you stabbed the horse. and I thought, wow, this is, so that was very similar to what I was going through. For instance, when I put myself in proximity of the guy who killed my sister, who was the actual murderer,

24:36I suddenly had insight into what he might have been thinking, which I'd never done that before, and that came through the writing, I think. I was just open and available to what might be truth. I think it was true. I think he wanted to impress his friends. I'd never thought of that before. Wow. Until I was writing it. I want to be like they are. I want to be cool. I want to kill somebody. That was his motivation. And the first thing he said to his sister when he was done with what happened with Karen, he just walked in and said, I just killed a girl. It was like, somehow I'm important. Now I am somebody.

25:13and I never felt that before. And now, of course, it just inhabits me when I think of him. He's still alive and keeps coming up for parole. Every year, every two years? How does that work? Every couple of years. It was funny, one year, it was like three times he came up for something. It was some sort of halfway house or some sort of this kind of release and that kind of release. And that's when I got the famous statement from the woman who works in the corrections department. She said, it's called the criminal justice system. It's not called the victim's justice system. That's like, yeah, okay.

25:46That's amazing. I haven't heard that one. That's amazing. That really explains it because there's a whole industry around this stuff. Lawyers, all kinds of people. And, you know, whatever their motivation is, I think, well, I think they're not seeing things clearly, honestly. But I do think there's a part of them that is a kindness, a fairness thing that they believe in. but they never on the side of the victims. No, it sure doesn't seem that way. On the side of the guys that killed people. It's so weird. And I think, well, who are you? Why do you go down that road and why do you think it's important that you did that?

26:25Some will say that it's a Christian thing, but I don't really think that's what Christ would say. I mean, he'd say, you'll be with me in heaven on this day, but because he asked for his forgiveness. if the fellow next to him on the cross hadn't asked for his forgiveness he doesn't say it to the other guy he didn't say it to the other guy we're all going to have a party up there it's like you'll be with me it's pretty interesting you went to the you've been in the same room with this man the guy who was sort of the ringleader Michael Corbett was his name he was convicted of the murder because he gave them the gun that they held her with that they abducted her with they showed her a gun and they said come with us I'd never read this before I'd read it in a police report and the police report was a mixed bag for me because it was really really sad and hard but it was also really enlightening and I could hear Karen and what they'd written about it from this guy, Larry Dunn's statement that was taken in New Orleans months after the crime.