048 What About Bob transcript (Bob Dole)

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[00:00:00] Amit: This is Famous and Gravy, a podcast about quality of life as we see it one dead celebrity at a time. Now for the opening quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity. This

[00:00:12] Michael: person died in 2021, age 98. He was a star athlete who lettered in football, basketball, and track, and he was voted best looking in his class.

[00:00:25] Friend: Good Lord, 98.

[00:00:29] Michael: Good run.

[00:00:30] Friend: Hank Aaron.

[00:00:32] Michael: Not Hank Aaron. He starred in Super Bowl commercials for Visa in 1997 and for Pepsi in 2001, and later made a cameo in a Pepsi ad featuring Britney Spears.

[00:00:46] Friend: Jim Brown.

[00:00:47] Michael: Not Jim Brown. After his death, president Biden said quote, he was a friend who I could look to for trusted guidance or a humorous line at just the right moment to settled frayed nerves.

[00:01:02] Friend: Jimmy Carter.

[00:01:02] Michael: Not Jimmy Carter, he is as of this recording still with us.

[00:01:06] Friend: I thought So.

[00:01:07] Michael: He came home from the war in Europe in a body cast. Mostly paralyzed. He spent 39 months convalescing much of it in surgery.

[00:01:16] Friend: Wait a minute. So we're talking about a political figure?

[00:01:19] Michael: During the 1996 election, he often lapsed into legislative lingo and referred to himself in the third person. He was faulted as having no overarching vision for his campaign or for the country.

[00:01:32] Friend: Bob Dole is in my head. No, Bob Dole.

[00:01:35] Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Bob Dole.

[00:01:38] Archival: I've had a lot of healthcare in my lifetime. I've spent a lot of time in hospitals. Uh, I'm the prostate pinup boy in, uh, Washington, DC I've, you know, I've, I've, you don't have to say it that way. Well, I understand that people have problems in America, and I think, I'm just hope I'm just as San Steve as present Ms. Clinton, but we have a different focus on how we get. Mm-hmm. Uh, but you actually, do you think that she could, should be on the cabinet? Uh, yes. I think she should be in the cabinet. In fact, I told the president I'd introduce a bill to change the law that would allow her to be in the cabinet that he had called me back.

[00:02:18] Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

[00:02:21] Amit: I'm Amit Kapoor.

[00:02:23] Michael: And on this show, we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and review their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer a big question, would I want that life today?

Bob Dole died 2021, age 98. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Bob Dole, the plain-spoken son of the prairie who overcame dust bowl deprivation in Kansas and grievous battle wounds in Italy to become the Senate majority leader and the last of the World War II generation to win his party's nomination for President died on Sunday.

He was 98.

That's the loquacious we've missed the last few weeks. You nailed it. There it is. The Mackenzie and obituary is back.

Oh my God. Did they go over to the top with it? The plain spoken son of the prairie. I love that. Oh, I,

[00:03:24] Amit: that's my new cuss word is that like son of the prairie. Next time I stub my toe, us son

[00:03:28] Michael: of a prairie.

It's so like poetic, right? It's so romantic. Son of the prairie overcame dust bowl deprivation in Kansas and grievous battle wounds in Italy, and there's so much going on in here. I'm wondering if you had this experience in getting, did you think of the movie Forest Gump as you were preparing

[00:03:47] Amit: for this in the life of Bob Dolf?

Yeah, I didn't, but I totally

[00:03:50] Michael: see it now. It's right there, right? I mean, there's so much. American corned, journeyman sort of elements to his stories. Yeah. It's not quite Alabama, right. But it's adjacent.

[00:04:00] Amit: It's Kansas. I mean, this is 1930s Kansas,

[00:04:02] Michael: 20th century. You know, American Romanticism, right? Dust Bowl, world War II party's nomination for president.

I mean, it's unbelievable. Oh hell. So, I don't know. I don't know. I

[00:04:13] Amit: dunno. Let's, okay, so I got, I got so excited by Dust Bowl Des deprivation. Tell me again what was after that? Okay,

[00:04:19] Michael: so plain spoken son of the prairie. Yes. Overcame dust bold deprivation in Kansas. Grievous battle wounds. Grievous. Battle wound Grievous.

Yeah. Grievous. Grievous. Thank you. I'm, I'm adding a I where there is no eye grievous battle wounds in Italy to become the Senate majority leader and last of the World War II generation to win his party's nomination for president. It's interesting to kind of compare this one against other first lines that we've done on the show, because oftentimes we're debating about omission.

That's not the case here. There's like almost an excess of inclusion of life facts in here. Yes. I honestly don't know that they need this overcame dust bowl deprivation. He was a kid. He didn't do, I mean, you know, his family was like in the Dust Bowl and he was raised in that era, but he didn't overcome shit.

Right. They're

[00:05:09] Amit: making him a little too much of a literary hero.

[00:05:12] Michael: Yeah, I think so. The previous battle wounds in Italy. Absolutely. And we are gonna talk more about that Senate Majority leader. Totally important. And I actually think this other idea that's in here lasted the World War II generation to win as party's nomination.

I mean, it's almost like they're trying to do a little too much compared with other dead celebrities that we've done on the show. This one is really going for it. They're really trying to make a hero out, Bob Doll to Well, and they're also trying to tell an entire life story. And of course it says he died at 98.

So is that more appropriate, I guess, for a political figure? Because here's the thing that's on my mind about all this. I didn't know most of this stuff to the extent that I knew Bob Dole at all. It was usually, it's a singular accomplishment, the 96 election period. Right? So a lot goes into being a presidential candidate of a major party, right?

And so I do think I can understand the impulse to want to tell more of a life story, but this is too much. Nobody voted for Bob Dole, even as a congressman because he grew up in the Depression. They voted for him for the war record probably in that he was a likable guy. Yes. I'm not getting

[00:06:18] Amit: a good read on whether you like this or not.

[00:06:20] Michael: Well, it's just so different from what we usually do. We've done a few other political figures, but it's been a while and I don't remember having to think through it like this. Like on one hand I love it because what an ambitious. First line of a obituary and, you know, kind of its grandiosity and, uh, is, is great.

On the other hand, somebody was feeling it. I don't know. I kinda think they went a little overboard here. So, yeah, I, I, I think I, I don't know. I'm still thinking it. What's your reaction to this? I like

[00:06:55] Amit: it. I mean, I'm, I'm entertained. Yeah. It's, I, I, you know, this, if this is the back of the book cover, then I'm, I might browse through a little more of the book.

[00:07:03] Michael: I just feel like the audience for this is the wrong person when he dies in 2021. There are, uh, a whole generation of people who were not born when he ran for president. Yes. And I feel like the New York Times needs to speak to that audience in line one. Yeah. God damn. So that's what's weird here is there's like so much and a big

[00:07:23] Amit: oversight, right?

Because we've, we've often held the position that the first line needs to do an introduction to the person. Yes. Tell the story, but also say in case you don't know. Here is this person.

[00:07:34] Michael: You don't wanna miss this. Right. It's filling an education gap for people who are like, oh, I actually did not remember, or I wasn't born in 96 or whatever.

I don't care enough about what was presidential politics in the mid nineties. So, okay.

[00:07:45] Amit: You've, you've taken me away from my excited cloud for a moment.

[00:07:49] Michael: Didn't want to pop your bob. No, you did. You did. Well, no, I think I, I think it's an

[00:07:53] Amit: important point. Okay. I'm, I'm ready to assess. All right. You go. So, I like the literary loftiness.

That always gets me. Yeah. You know, a good lyric. Yeah, sure. Always, always softens me. So I'm, I'm giving him a law for that. I do take your point is they need to highlight the one specific thing to which he will be remembered in decades. And just in case you don't recognize the name. Mm-hmm. Uh, so that's gonna land at an eight.

[00:08:15] Michael: That's a better score than I would've thought. Yeah. I'm giving it a six, but I think that they really dropped the ball in not saying he was the nominee in 96. And I also think that this is a little. I don't know if I wanna say biased necessarily, but a little too much leeway for a figure that I don't know if he is more worthy than say Nelson Mandela or Margaret Thatcher or Ross Barot for poetic license.

I can understand the impulse to do it, but I think it was misguided, so I'm giving it a six and I loved it. Before we move on, can we just take a brief minute to talk about why we're doing this episode? Yeah. I

[00:08:50] Amit: would like to know,

[00:08:50] Michael: please. I do think that there is a court idea of famous en Gravy of, let's take a look before the history books are written.

Yes. This speaks to that. I do think that this is a forgotten figure. Totally. I think it's also a pretty important category of fame. It's a tag on every now and then. It's a hard one for us to do cuz it's not a political show and we don't wanna talk politics. But it is a pathway to fame. And if we're talking about desirability, this is one way people get there if fame itself is desirable.

Yeah. And this is

[00:09:20] Amit: also a guy that became a pop icon. Yeah. And I think that what's, what differentiates him from another losing candidate that we may not be talking about so much anymore.

[00:09:30] Michael: That actually is my third point, norm McDonald. I mean, this gives us excuse to talk about Norm again. And you know, my initial reaction was like, oh Jesus Retu Bob fucking doll.

I have to say I am now genuinely excited to have this conversation. There's a whole bunch of shit I did not know.

[00:09:45] Amit: Yeah, there's a little more of like a David Bowie slash Yogi Barrow story buried info here. Yeah. Not to mention Forrest Gump. Yeah. Tom Hanks will come up again, I think. Oh,

[00:09:54] Michael: interesting. Yeah.

I'm gonna look forward to that. All right. Category two, five things I love about you. Here, Amit and I work together to come up with five reasons why we love this person, five reasons why we want to be talking about them in the first place.

[00:10:06] Amit: You are so eager. I think you need to

[00:10:08] Michael: start. Okay? I'm gonna use a term that you used in the John Madden episode, but it takes on a different meaning for me here.

Body positive. I did not know the. Story of Bob Dole being wounded in war. And I certainly did not know the story of his recovery. And I think that this is one of those things that launches a political career, but we really have to go back and like imagine the shit he went through in terms of bringing his body back to some level of functionality, which it never fully got back to.

This guy was a true athlete. 6 2, 1 90, loved football, loved basketball. And this is for his gumpy, too loved running. I definitely did not know what a key figure he was behind the Americans for Disabilities Act in 1990. He made that thing happen. And I think that part of it was because, you know, he never regained function of his arm and his shoulder after his wounds and you know, always had that clenched fist.

I didn't even know that about him. The I didn't know there. Yeah.

[00:11:12] Amit: Watch him

[00:11:13] Michael: sign an autograph or shake hands. It's World War ii. The injury, the wound that still causes pain. I don't, you always keep pen or rolled up paper or something in, in that hand. Why? Why is, I guess it's sort of a protective thing. It's sort of a signal to people, you know, that hand's occupied.

It's just gotten to be a habit now, I assume, and I die. There'll be a pen in my hand. If you look in the casket, I hope so. If anybody's listening, I want that done. Let me go back to the war wounds. You know, the, the allied troops are advancing. He's lieutenant. He goes out to rescue somebody who looks like they've been shot, and then he, he gets a blasted himself.

They did not know if his spinal cord had been severed or bruised, but he was straight up paralyzed. He couldn't move, and he laid on the battlefield for nine hours, and then when they got him out, like there was a nasty surgery, you know, I mean, he cannot move his legs, he cannot move his arms, and he doesn't know, like the doctors don't think he's ever gonna be able to move.

Let me read this. I passed the time staring at the dimly lit beige ceiling of the old hospital walls, counting the squares in the ceiling pattern, reliving the day on Hill nine 13, as if in a blurry, slow motion, asking myself the toughest question of all, why? Why me? Why did it happen? As one hour slowly turned to the next, I concentrated my thoughts on trying to move my fingers, toes, arms and legs.

A strange paradox began taking place as the sedatives wore off. The pain flooded in throbbing intensely throughout my body, but as uncomfortable as it was, I almost welcomed it. The sheer fact that I could feel pain was an improvement. I hadn't been able to feel anything for days. 39 months he was recovering cigarette ash would fall into his cast, so would crumbs and people wouldn't be able to clean it up.

And it developed this nasty smell. He almost dies twice. There's one moment where he gets a fever of 108 degrees before the war, he loved football. He was forced fucking gump, right? He loved running. And he went to Kansas to like play sports. He was recruited

[00:13:17] Amit: there for basketball. I mean, this is like one of the most storied

[00:13:20] Michael: basketball schools out there.

Totally. Right? And all this happens before he is ever in office, right? And he doesn't have dreams of like using this story to sort of win over America or anything like that. I think that the way he makes peace with his body wills himself to learn how to move again, and a lot of it was willpower, and I think it extends throughout his whole life.

So I mentioned the Americans for Disabilities Act. I think this also brings in the Viagra thing. Okay. Yeah. So actually, do you want to explain Viagra? Explain

[00:13:54] Amit: what the product

[00:13:55] Michael: is. No. Bob Dole's role in advancing knowledge of this drug. Yeah,

[00:13:59] Amit: so he became a spokesperson for Viagra. He was on TV ads. He was doing the very serious Viagra ads.

Yeah, there's no joking or laughter it whatsoever. When

[00:14:09] Michael: I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, I was primarily concerned with, really myself with the cancer. But secondly, I was concerned about possible postoperative side effects like erectile dysfunction. Ed often called impotence. You know, it's a little embarrassing to talk about Ed, but it's so important to millions of men and their partners that I decide to talk about it publicly.

I don't think I had put together the fact that he had a long recovery from war wounds. The Viagra piece to me actually, I don't know, puts it all into the same body. Positive idea. You know what I mean? Yeah. I follow that. I, it's kinda awesome. Yeah. Like good for him, right? When I say body positive, it's also like symbolic and representative.

There's a way in which he has a relationship with his body that a lot of us don't necessarily have to confront, and I think it's a kind of relationship that we should all aspire to have with our body. Thing. Number one, body positive. Okay.

[00:15:08] Amit: We'll take it. What you got? Number two? Number two. Do you read us

[00:15:11] Michael: weekly?

My wife loves it. Ah. And so I wind up looking over her shoulder more than I

[00:15:16] Amit: care too. Okay. So are you familiar with the section of they're just like us? Yes, I am too. So my number two is he's just like us. Bob Dole, when he retired from the Senate after his failed 96 presidential career, was really only Minorly involved in politics after that.

And one of his many pet projects and endeavors was, he wrote a few books that were about presidential wit and he took it upon himself to rank the top 10 funniest presidents in his opinion. Which is exactly something you and I would do. Yeah. It's such a ballroom conversation. Yeah. That is based on no science whatsoever, but it's just like, I'm taking this anecdote in this anecdote, and I'm framing this in two, A countdown list.

Funniest presidents of all time. Yeah. And so he did. And I just think it's great the fact that he actually thought that way and published it in a book. I appreciate it.

[00:16:07] Michael: I love that. I it's like, uh, shuffling around baseball cards and deciding who your favorite is based on certain traits. And he took the baseball cards of ex-presidents and shuffled them into

[00:16:18] Amit: the wittiest order.

Correct. And he did this when he was 84 years old. I need to know the list. Well, there's no spoilers. I'll give you the top four. Okay. Okay. You gotta go buy the book at half price. Books for the next, for the next six. Uh, number four, Theodore Roosevelt, uh oh. Teddy Roosevelt, of course. Number three, his cousin, Franklin Roosevelt.

Number two, Ronald Reagan, of course. Uh, and then number one, Abraham Lincoln. And he said Lincoln had a natural gift for sarcasm, which he learned to control. Nevertheless, had occasionally spilled out of one long-winded orator. He observed He can compress the most words and the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.

So apparently Lincoln was a concise, sharp witted, one-liner. This

[00:17:00] Michael: is an unbelievable segway. Can I go to my number three? Yes. My number three was his sense of humor and his sharp whip Al Gore. I think people are tired al now, aren't they? They wanted, they kind of wanted al to either go nuts or something, but he,

[00:17:13] Amit: he

[00:17:13] Michael: didn't, nothing really ever happen with Al thing about, I'm afraid if Al gave a fireside chat, the fire would go out.

You know, there's some funny shit he said throughout the years. So I wrote down a couple of them. His 1980 primary campaign crashed and burned, right? He wanted to be the, the Republican nominee. Uh, Ronald Reagan won it. He won just 607 votes in New Hampshire and the next day he said he slept like a baby every two hours.

I woke up and cried. Uh, also in 1980, uh, there was an anti-democratic wave in the Senate and he said if we, the Republicans had known we were gonna win control of the Senate, We would've run better candidates, which I think is a great dig. I think it's not that I necessarily love his sense of humor, I think it's good.

I think it's okay, but I think it's also like the way he uses humor to connect with people and to like, Normalize himself. I mean, I think it really does get back to your number two thing. He's just like us.

[00:18:08] Amit: Yes. What I had, and this is, I'm just gonna corollary your number three, is I had said, uh, that he thinks he's funny.

Um, but, but I mean that like in a nice way. Cause I don't find him, aside from a couple of lines, you just read like this whole idea of Bob Dole being the wittiest senator or I don't, I don't buy that at all. I just think he thinks he's funny and he tells a lot of jokes, but there's virtue in that. Yeah.

And that is what I like about, again, it's not that I love his sense of humor, but

[00:18:35] Michael: I love it greater on a curve here. Okay, so you're number

[00:18:38] Amit: four. Mine is married. A Democrat. Yeah. We're gonna get into this. We have a category about love and marriage, but Elizabeth Dole campaigned for Kennedy. Yeah. And worked in the Johnson administration.

Correct. And then Mary's Bob Doll, who's been in the Senate for a while. Right now they marry in 1972. We're gonna get into this in our marriage category. You know, for somebody that is the symbol of stalwart republicanism, for him to ask out this left-leaning liberal Elizabeth is a pretty bold move. So what's to like about it?

Um, well one, it's 1972. Right. But it's two. He is also a stalwart of Republican politics, but he's also separating, I think, belief and love. Yeah. And it's harder to do that maybe nowadays, but I think it was really, really hard back then to place, you know, hard above scroll. And I think that's what I like about '

[00:19:29] Michael: em.

I like your number four because I think it speaks to willingness to potentially have

[00:19:33] Amit: disagreements. Yep. I think so too. And I'm giving, I'm just gonna give Bob Dole, um, some diversity points

[00:19:39] Michael: for it. I, yeah, I like it. Number five. I got a small one, but I kind of love it. Okay. He has a porch named after him.

They apparently used to refer to it as Doles Beach. Uh, he loved to take meetings outside and he said it was the second best view in Washington DC Oh, of the

[00:19:54] Amit: Capitol? Yeah. Yeah. I saw this.

[00:19:55] Michael: Yeah. And like, you know, he'd go out there to like get his tan. Right. You know, and so I just, just from a legacy perspective, I want something named after me that is a hangout space.

You've been at parks before where like this bench was dedicated to somebody's memory or something. Yes. I think I want that like way more than I want, like a statue. I think that's great. And it's small, but it's, it was meaningful to me. Okay. I wanna play

[00:20:19] Amit: a little game with you. All right. So I'm gonna give you a choice of fountain or tree.

[00:20:24] Michael: I'm gonna go fountain. It needs to be something built. No tree lasts forever. Fountains potentially do. Plus I like water

[00:20:32] Amit: a lot. Okay. I like water a lot. Nice. Yeah. Stadium or library?

[00:20:36] Michael: Oh, library. No question. Okay. I don't need a bunch of people cheering. I need people reflecting. Uh, street or

[00:20:43] Amit: school? I like street.

Yeah. I mean, I've got nothing against early childhood education. Sure. I like street as part of a construct of a larger city and something that is used by not just children and parents, but it's actually part of an ecosystem of a city.

[00:20:58] Michael: Let's recap. So, uh, number one I said body positive. Number two. He's just like us.

Just like us. I love that. Number three, senses of humor. Graded on a curve. Very well put. Number four, married across the aisle, married across the aisle, and number five, a porch named after him. A balcony. Yep. Category three, Malkovich Malkovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malkovich, in which people can take a little portal into John Malkovich mind and they can have a front row seat right behind his eyes to his experiences.

What do you

[00:21:31] Amit: got? Okay, so Michael talked about the, I say war wound, but it was much, much worse than that. The near death experience that he experienced in World War ii. He was so terribly wounded that they had like just pumped him up with morphine waiting for the medics to come and they used his own blood to draw the letter M on his forehead to indicate he's already been morphine and if you put more in, it'll be a fatal dose.

Yeah. Like he was that bad. Yeah. When he makes it back home to Russell, Kansas, there's still more work to be done. The extent of his VA benefits for an hour and he needs more help that he wants the help of a specific private surgeon, I believe, who was maybe in Illinois. Yes. You're more or less this is right.

So let's go back to Russell, Kansas, not a big town. I think 2000 people. He's very much a hometown hero, right? We talked about him being this glorified high school athlete. They know he goes away to college for a. Goes and gets severely wounded. And so this town kind of rallies behind him. And in the town's drugstore called Dawson's Drug, they set out a cigar box basically to collect donations to get Bob Dole his next level of treatment.

Anytime they went through the drugstore, they would sign in and put sometimes 30 cents. Sometimes they would put up to $5 a huge amount back then. And together, collectively, they raised $1,800 in this very early version of GoFundMe and they give it to Bob Dole as basically a passageway to go get his treatment.

So that is the exact moment that I want to be Malcolm Bitched. Like the

[00:22:58] Michael: moment that somebody hands you over money and said, we passed the hat, the town

[00:23:01] Amit: rallied all the feeling that goes behind that. Yeah, I, I think it's very, very different from what we see right now in internet fundraising. I think there is a being seen and being validated and a reason to live that's happening in that moment of saying that.

$1,800. You know, we essentially got 90 cents per head of this town, chipping in for your survival to be individually recognized, seen, and somewhat heard that your life matters. Yeah. I'm going back to a Maya Angelou quote here of your life Matters. To receive that, to receive that box of 1800 hours, I think would be an extremely life-affirming moment after being in near death, like you said, hitting death almost twice in a body cast for near three years, probably looking upwards and around for reasons to go on, and I think this did it.

Yeah. And he kept that cigar box like in his Senate office for I think his entire duration. But the moment of receiving it, I think puts you in. A moment of belief. Yeah. A belief in the goodness of the world. Yeah. I think to experience that and see it through your own eyes can change your entire perspective on the world.

Yeah. It really stuck out to me,

[00:24:27] Michael: so in 1976 he's asked by President Ford to be is running mate. So Dole is on the ticket. There's a rally where he's talking about that moment and he totally breaks down. If I have done anything, it's because of people I have known up and down Main Street and I can recall the time when, when I needed help, uh, the people of Russell help and I think

it's really moving. It's hard to hear that without getting emotional. It's a good one. Am. All right. My Malkovich. Mm-hmm. I went the 1996 David Letterman appearance three days after losing his last attempt at the Oval Office. And it should be said like this guy really tried to be president a few times.

Yes. 1976, he's on the VP ticket, 1980. He tries to challenge Reagan 1988, which I definitely want to talk about later, cuz that's where I think he got super close. And then in 1996, this is like his last shot. I think that if you watch him in that clip with Letterman, Letterman really likes this guy. Uh, you used a phrase and I, I said to myself, geez, this is a very.

Eloquent. Very nice, lovely thing for you to have said. Uh, I, I think you said, I don't regard President Clinton. He's my opponent. He's not my enemy. That's true. And I, and I thought, geez, at, at the end of all of this, and just, you know, the highs and the lows and being slapped silly every time you turn around to be able to say something like that.

I, I thought it demonstrated a, a great deal of character. It's true though. I think he, I hope he felt the same way, but, uh, but he's fat. He's huge. 300 pounds. He's close to 300 pounds. Bob, is he that? Oh, yeah. Easy. I never tried to lift him. I just tried to beat him. But there is real true respect to go on that show.

A place where you've been kind of mocked in the, a place where, you know, Laugh at you after you've lost a, what has to be a devastating election and be like, yeah, there's such humility in it. I think the malkovich moment for me is Kurt draws back and you walk out on stage and like, okay, I gotta go to Letterman now.

What is going through his mind then? I mean I, I do think that there is a guy here who's more or less at peace with himself who must have committed to doing the show, but who also is sort of like happy to be with Letterman to kind of like, let's see if we can laugh at this a little bit together. Cuz that's what I need now.

I don't know exactly what's going on behind those eyes, but I want to be behind them right then.

[00:27:01] Amit: Yeah. I think there's some of that Bob Dole acceptance. Yeah.

[00:27:03] Michael: Happening. Yeah. So I gotta come clean with something. I completely missed the 1996 election for a very good reason. Alcohol and drugs. Not quite. Okay.

That's a second. Good reason. No, I was in the wilder. Oh, that was the wilderness year. That was the wilderness year. I was in the wilderness in Patagonia for three months, and we went into the woods in September, and it did not emerge until mid-November. So there was a period of time where a president had been elected, and none of us knew because the communications were such at the point that it word had not reached us yet.

Everything about the 96 election I've had to go and, uh, recreate. I, I didn't experience it

[00:27:42] Amit: at all during the time. Interesting. So that's my mal. I like it. It's a good one. Let's

[00:27:47] Michael: pause for a word from our sponsor.

[00:27:53] Amit: Michael, are you pro?

[00:27:56] Michael: No. No sir. I am

[00:27:58] Amit: antiquarian. What does it mean to be

[00:27:59] Michael: antiquarian? That means relating to or dealing in antiques or rare books, which is why

[00:28:06] Amit: I am antiquarian. Oh, cuz you like collecting rare books. Absolutely. And where do you find them? You just go to flea markets and scavenge the

[00:28:13] Michael: internet?

Absolutely not. I go to Half Price books. They have all kinds of, both new and used books. It's not like you're only getting the old stuff at Half Price books. They also have new, fresh books, you know, right, right off, right

[00:28:26] Amit: off the right out of the oven, including best sellers, including bestsellers. Right off the press.

Right off the Press, half Price Books is the nation's largest new and used book seller with 120 stores in 19 states.

[00:28:38] Michael: Half Price Books is also online@hpb.com.

All right. Category four, love and marriage. How many marriages, also, how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? All right, I'm gonna list out the facts and then we can discuss two marriages. The first wife, Phyllis, that's such a good name for Bob Dole's first wife. That is a perfect Phyllis Dole.

Phyllis. Phyllis Holden Doll. Um, oh, even better. I know it's good. Right? She was, uh, an occupational therapist at the Veteran's Hospital in Michigan. They were married in 1948, divorced in 1972. Bob was 25 when they were married. Uh, 49 when he divorced. This is like the tail end of his recovery. They had one child, Robin, born in 1954.

I read an article about Robin. It's hard to get information on her. The family dynamic I think in the Dole household is a little distant. Looks like he was pretty, not around a whole lot for Robin's upbringing and it sounds like Phyllis didn't care much for political life. Um, so as Bob is getting more and more successful as a politician, Phyllis is less and less into it.

1972 is when Bob and Elizabeth meet. She's 13 years younger than Bob. She is still with us as of this recording. Age 87. Married in 1975. Bob was 52. He died at age 98, so they were married 46 years and no children. Okay. For people who don't know who Elizabeth Dole was. She, you know, had a storied career in politics, was wound up being senator of North Carolina.

Her name was mentioned frequently as a potential candidate for the G O p for the Republicans, whether it was for vice president or for president. I think there was flirtations with that idea. Even when Dole was running, I saw him asked if he didn't get the nominate Nation for president with Bush won.

Like, what if Elizabeth was asked to be on the ticket? Then he's like, uh, I'm for it. I don't know. We haven't talked about it much.

[00:30:46] Amit: Hugely impressive person. She was president of the Red Cross

[00:30:50] Michael: Masters in Harvard and education, I mean, and one of the few women to come out of Harvard at that time.

[00:30:55] Amit: Yes. Um, this is not like the type of first lady that we associated with the sort of seventies and eighties type.

This was a

[00:31:02] Michael: Right. The, the chilling lady who's in the background being

[00:31:04] Amit: like a housewife or whatever. Yeah. She seemed and still is, I think pretty damn impressive. Yes, I agree.

[00:31:09] Michael: But I actually wanna step back from the category for a second because you and I were talking before. This recording about One of the things that makes political figures very hard to talk about on Famous and Gravy is that there's such scrutiny of their lives that we have an abundance of information about them, but it's also sort of more cordoned off.

We only ever get so inside the relationships. Yes. And I think that, I don't know, understanding of what we know and what we don't really needs to be called out as

[00:31:38] Amit: we talk about love and marriage. And I think also as politician, a celebrity, uh, in Bob Dole's case, there's also a vehement denial that there are anybody, but they present themselves to be right.

He's said out there like, there is no private Bob Dole. Everything you see is everything there is about Bob Dole. And that cannot be true. That's impossible. Right? It's impossible for anybody. But that was very much the way of politics. I think maybe up until recently. And to an extent even it's, it

[00:32:00] Michael: persists now.

I, I think it's still true. I mean, if you think about Hollywood, if you think about even musicians, like there's a stage persona, right? And that's. Part of why we are into them is a performance, I think it's true with politics, but they're performing the role of authenticity. Yeah. That's why there's so much contradiction to that.

[00:32:16] Amit: And at the same time, I think that's what actually makes them very interesting for this show. Mm-hmm. Because what our show is trying to do is we're humanizing them to get the actual lessons and the things that we think we want outta life. And if you really have to squeeze somebody to see beyond what is presented Yeah.

The more you're gonna glean. Because the more that you're gonna realize that whatever you saw wasn't exactly the entire picture. And you're gonna begin to see that everybody is a human and everybody has a story. And to me, that makes it more relatable and that makes more of. Truth in the lessons to be learned.

Well, so what do you see here? I mean, I see here a guy that got married at 52 years old and that's his lifelong power couple. Yeah. That's interesting as hell to me, huh? Like I had no idea. I assumed Elizabeth Dole was prior to getting married for this episode that she was with him since like the whole run.

The whole run. Yeah. But this is a guy with a failed marriage, some rocky parts of the first marriage if it ended. Yeah. And then everything you came to know him for spousely happened at the age of 52. Spousely. Spousely. Yeah. I mean that's a pretty remarkable story and it's pretty remarkable life lesson.

We're talking about a life that began after 50, A love life that began after 50 a partnership. This is all second half of life starting stuff. And

[00:33:32] Michael: then he called me and we talked for 40 minutes. We had all these mutual interests and friends and so on and um, and then he said goodbye. And then about two weeks later, he called again and we talked for quite a while and he said, well, maybe we could have dinner sometime.

And I said, well, that would be very nice. And he said goodbye.

And it was on the third call that he asked me out to dinner. And what I realized was he's a little shy, and I like that he's not somebody chasing women around Capitol Hill. You know, I, I really like that very much. So any conclusions you wanna draw, uh, from the love and marriage before we move on? Kind of feel like you said it.

I I believe it. Yeah.

[00:34:18] Amit: I said it. I, I'm saying they're surprising me that there was two and that she was his second wife. It seemed to work out very well. Seemed to me that he almost had no periods without sort of companions. I think that's true. I, I think, I don't know that there's such thing as an independent Bob Dole.

You know, who, who can be alone. Yeah. Uh, so I think the only conclusion to draw is there were two and that was a surprise. Yeah. And also, when you're a spokesperson for Republican politics and traditional values, two marriages may be the best outcome.

[00:34:45] Michael: Yeah. That's funny. All right. Category five net worth. I saw 40 million.

Yeah, this surprised me. Okay. So I got, I did a little more research on it. Okay. Cuz I was surprised as well. So I'm quoting from an article I read here in her 2007 Financial disclosure. Elizabeth estimated that she and Bob were worth a minimum of 14 million on a maximum of 49 in 1996. During Bob's presidential campaigns, the Doles estimated their net worth to be 2.3 to 7.7.

So that's quite a bit less, that's the same as around four to 13 in today's dollars. At the time Bob was earning about, uh, $150,000 salary as a senator, 10,000 per year in speaking fees and 1800 or so in military retirement benefits. I think, um, the commercials post 90. Paid off hugely. I think the memoir also sold, you know, to a certain audience while I was initially surprised at 40 million learning a little bit more.

I think they, the two of them both gained quite a bit in later years, and I think that plays into

[00:35:52] Amit: it. Yeah. And pretty wise investors. I think her specifically a lot of real estate investing of that money perhaps of that Viagra and Pepsi money. I mean, they're

[00:35:59] Michael: fucking, you know, senators, they, they probably know where to put their money.

Yes.

[00:36:04] Amit: But this is very surprising to me as the how rich he is. Yeah. As sort of a man of the people type of politician. Part of it I think is just

[00:36:12] Michael: pure longevity. The guy made it to 98. Yeah. You know, he had 20 years, 25 plus years-ish. Um, after he didn't win the presidency in 96. Yeah. There's a lot of go out there and make

[00:36:22] Amit: money.

There's a lot of time for returns to

[00:36:24] Michael: compound as well. Isn't that damn right. I mean, so I don't know. That's how I understood this

[00:36:28] Amit: number. Yeah, I can, I can be okay with it, but I think he's also, you know, he really used his defeat a lot to his financial advantage. No question about that. Um,

[00:36:38] Michael: and, and, and good for him for that.

No judgment. Okay. Category six. Yes. I'm looking forward to this one. Category six Simpson Saturday Night Live or Halls of Fame. This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons, as well as impersonations.

[00:36:54] Amit: This category was made for Bob. Do

[00:36:57] Michael: agree?

Uh, all right. The Simpsons. There are at least four episodes where he is mentioned he never voiced himself, which is a little bit unfortunate, one that really stands out to me, which is the Treehouse of Horror episode. Aliens come down and, and this is in 1996. I remember this one now. Yes. Yeah. And they, uh, the aliens take over Bob Doll and Bill Clinton's bodies, and because they don't know who the leader's gonna be when they say, whom are taking me to your leader, Senator Dole,

[00:37:24] Amit: why should people vote for you instead

[00:37:26] Michael: of president?

It makes no difference which one of us you vote for. Either way, your planet is doomed. Doomed. Well, a refreshingly frank response

[00:37:38] Amit: there from Senator Bob Doll

[00:37:40] Michael: Saturday Night Live. Obviously there's two impersonators, Dan Akroyd, but much more importantly Norm, McDonald's, VA and WW two, the big one, A war hero where somebody who'd jump in a grenade, it blow his damn arm.

Nine ways to Saturday. Senator, I have the utmost respect for your war record. Because I think we all do, uh, I saw quite a bit of action myself over in Vietnam. Yeah, you did a, did a hell of a job over there. Big victory for us really kicks some ass.

And Bob Dole did appear alongside Norm McDonald after he lost the election. This is after he's doing the rounds and goes the Letterman

[00:38:15] Amit: as well. Yeah, we'll definitely put that in the show notes. Yeah, it's uh, it's good stuff. Yeah. And Dole actually loved the impression too. Yeah. I was listening to interviews from Dole from like 2019 and 2020 and he's still talking about Norton nor McDonald and how weird that they died so close to each

[00:38:30] Michael: other.

Yeah. Halls of fame. There's no Hollywood walk of fame as you can imagine. There is a presidential Medal of Freedom that was given to him by Bill Clinton,

[00:38:38] Amit: which is kind of weird. Like the year after the defeat.

[00:38:40] Michael: Yeah. And he actually shows up and says, I Robert J Doll, oh, sorry. Wrong speech. Yes. Which I thought it was actually a pretty good joke.

And then Arsenio Hall, nothing, which is. Worth mentioning that Clinton's 1992 appearance where he played the saxophone or arcenio is a real moment. Yes. In presidential political

[00:38:58] Amit: history.

[00:38:58] Michael: That's true. It's a kind of funny, all right, so, you know, normally I'm very, very proud of how our criteria for fame. You know, do and do not sort of, um, measure this.

I think that there's a lot of people who don't know who Bob Dole was. Presidential losers are very, very rarely

[00:39:17] Amit: remembered. I think a lot of people under 30 would not have huge fan

[00:39:20] Michael: recognition, you know? Yet he is on Simpsons and Saturday Night Live. H how remembered is he gonna be? I mean, do we want to talk about that?

How famous was he? I mean, I, you know, how, how do we, how do we go after this here?

[00:39:32] Amit: So Simpson, Saturday Night Live to us, is a mirror of how famous you are at the time, but us it's also a bit of a predictor of longevity. Yeah. Of fame. Cause if you are important enough to be mocked, then we are giving credit to the writers and creators though, show that they're not just so doing current events.

Right. Right. They're doing stuff that they actually think has decent societal import. Yeah. I think he might be the exception there. I think there was a good 10 year run that there was a lot of Bob Dole relevancy. Yeah. Uh, but in the end, he's a, uh, just a losing candidate that grew up on the prairie and helped the prairie a lot.

I think there's a huge gap in longevity in terms of longevity of memory between the gold and silver medal here. Yeah. If you are a losing candidate to the presidency, I don't think your fame has a very long shelf life. All right.

[00:40:23] Michael: Category seven over under, in this category, we look at the life expectancy for the year somebody was born to see if they beat the house odds.

And as a measure of grace, the life expectancy for an American man born in 1923 was 56.1 years. He made it to 98. He beat it by 42 years. I looked it up. This is exactly the same number that Wapner. Oh, really? Yeah. Wapner was also 42 years. I was wondering if this is gonna be a famous and gravy record. It's tied for number one.

[00:40:53] Amit: Okay. We are gonna graph this at some point. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, no question. I mean, this guy was supposed to die Yeah. In his early twenties many times. Yeah. Um, or at the very least, like permanently disabled. Yeah. None of those things. And until lived 98 years old, holy son of a prairie. And pretty sharp.

[00:41:11] Michael: I don't know if you watched the clips of him in 2016,

[00:41:15] Amit: but even, yeah. Even 2019. 2020. Yeah.

[00:41:17] Michael: He's, he's lucid. I mean, he's

[00:41:19] Amit: with it. He's lucid, he's articulated, he's definitely weak. Right. He's always in a wheelchair. He has trouble standing. Right. Absolutely fine. I don't think that's, that's gonna happen. That's not, it has to be expected.

Yeah. Yeah. That's not, that's not an, uh, a strike against grace. Yeah. Desirable. Desirable moment. I You said it, I mean, you said lucidity. Yeah, absolutely. Why not? Okay. If I'm, if I'm Bob Dole and I'm,

[00:41:42] Michael: and I've, and I've had this kind of relationship with my body and its functionality for most of my life, and yet I am still lucid and with it, I think that, you know, if you couple those two things together, cuz my fear, you know, of aging is loss of bodily functions.

Right? Yeah. You know, he, he, he's been through that, he's learned those lessons long, long ago. I mean, he, he needed help going to the bathroom when he was getting, uh, when he was recovering from his war wounds. So like, yeah. I, I, yeah, I, I think in that sense, extraordinarily desirable.

[00:42:15] Amit: But are you asking, in an absolute sense, is it desirable to live

[00:42:18] Michael: to 98?

No, I'm asking, given the constraints of this dead celebrity. Yeah. Right.

[00:42:23] Amit: Yeah. I think, no question. Do you wanna, do you wanna go there in an absolute sense? Not today.

[00:42:28] Michael: Okay. Let's pause. Jennifer Flowers.

[00:42:33] Amit: Jennifer Flowers is alive. The rules are simple.

[00:42:37] Michael: Dead are alive. She is 72 years old. Still with us. Christ.

We are so old. John Cougar Mellencamp alive, very alive, still rocking in the free world at 71 years old. Uh, that would be Neil Young Charlton Heston and his cold dead hands. So I'm assuming he's still alive. His his hands are actually dead and hell, we lost him in 2008. Test your knowledge, dead or alive.

app.com.

Hey, famous and Gravy listeners. I have a podcast I want to tell you about. It's a really funny show, perfect for anyone who hates censorship. It's called Band Camp and it's hosted by the hilarious duo of Jennifer and Dan. Band. Camp is a comedy podcast where they read band books and try to figure out why they were banned in the first place.

This season, they're reading Harper Lee's Classic To Kill a Mockingbird, one chapter at a Time Out loud. If you think banning books is a slippery slope towards a not so great future, then Band Camp is definitely the podcast for you. Whether you're like Jennifer and curious to read the book for the first time, or like Dan and a little too Lazy to read it yourself, you'll love Band Camp.

It's a funny show and a great concept. We will link to it in the show notes. All right, category eight, this is where we get to the more introspective questions. Where we take our best guess at what we think it would have been like to have been this person first of these categories is Man in the Mirror.

What did they think about their own reflection? Ah, we actually have an answer. I'm gonna read from the book, if I may. This one leaps off the page for me. So he is at the hospital one day as mom and the nurses were helping me out, I looked up and noticed that somebody had left the bathroom door open. I could see a mirror in front of me, but I didn't recognize the image in the.

The last time I'd seen my reflection in the mirror, I weighed 194 pounds. But by now my weight had dropped to about 122. My arms and legs were so thin, I looked as though I'd been in a prisoner of war camp. My strong upper body once finally chiseled and toned by my lifting the concrete block. Weights now looked puny and concaved.

My legs had atrophied to the point that they looked like a crane's legs sticking out from under my pajama top. My eyes were sunk so far back in my head, I looked like a ghost. My right arm stuck out in a new triangular shaped brace and my left arm dangled awkwardly. When I saw myself in the mirror, I was horrified.

Who is that? I thought that can't be me. It's been more than 60 years since I first saw that image in the bathroom mirror. In the past 60 years, I've glanced at my full body in a mirror less than half a dozen times. I still don't look in the mirror except a shave, so I guess it just sort of sticks with you.

I think there's a lot of acceptance with this man. I don't think it's all about what you say in the mirror, but I think that you're never gonna get a clear answer to this question. I'm gonna say no. He doesn't like his reflection in the mirror.

[00:45:43] Amit: I agree completely. Uh, how do you pair this against your thing, number one, that you love of body

[00:45:49] Michael: positive.

Because it's not how I look. It's what it can do. And those are two different questions. I

[00:45:54] Amit: agree. He didn't like it and there's reasons for Yeah. Understandable. But no doubt he was handsome. Like even preimposed injury. Yeah.

[00:46:04] Michael: All right. Next category. Outgoing message, like man in the mirror. How do we think he felt about the sound of his own voice when he heard it on an answering machine or outgoing voicemail?

Also, would he have used the default setting or would he have recorded it? It him? I think you have a very clear answer here. This is the whole third person. Yes. Bob Doll talks about Bob Dole. Absolutely. Bob

[00:46:23] Amit: Dole is not home right now. Police message from Bob Do and Bob Dole, we'll call you back. Uh,

[00:46:27] Michael: and no question he would've left the message.

Did he like the voice? I think so. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have

[00:46:32] Amit: to think about this one too. I don't, and I think that's why, I think that's why he even has this whole third person. Thing as part of it is that he likes his own voice. Yeah. And he likes saying his name and he likes hearing his name.

Yeah. And I think that's kind of a weird meld between man in the mirror and the voicemail category.

[00:46:47] Michael: Bob Dole is a doer, not a talker. Bob Dole doesn't want you to watch this movie or that movie. And that's what Bob Doll's

[00:46:53] Amit: all about. The humility. Yes, he had. He would absolutely record it to his own voice.

He liked talking, he liked speaking. He left using his voice. I think anybody that serves in that type of role in the Senate for so long, yeah. Has a good relationship with his voice and with his ability to

[00:47:07] Michael: talk. Uh, I agree. I agree. Category 10 regrets, public or private. What we really want to know is what, if anything, kept this person awake at night?

I have nothing in the public category. I've got two in the private category, and they're both around presidential politics. 1988, the primary election, he came way closer than I realized to being. The president. Mm-hmm. In 1988, usually the primaries go Iowa, the New Hampshire. He took first place in Iowa. He got some bad advice in New Hampshire it sounds like.

I listened to a podcast where they really laid out the case. There was a campaign advisor encouraging him to do an ad where he would pledge no new taxes. He pushed back on that. He said, I don't wanna make those kind of campaign pledges. So the ad never ran and dole. Wound up losing unexpectedly despite what the polls had said to George h w Bush in 1988.

And he said, I knew in my gut that the primary campaign was over. And he also,

[00:48:09] Amit: I think in that same run in losing New Hampshire, like he kind of went off on Bush. He had kind of a Howard Dean type of moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:48:15] Michael: Totally. And Senator Dole, is there anything you'd like to say to the vice president?

Yeah, stop lying about my record. The other one I wanna talk about a little bit is, uh, his support for Donald Trump in 2016. Yeah. He was the only presidential candidate of the Republican party to show up for Trump in 2016. You know, without getting into the politics of that, I think why that's partly really interesting is because you would have thought Bob Dole was, was a never Trumper, he was such a, like, work across the aisle, seemed to be all about having friends in the Democratic Party.

It wasn't about an adversarial, acrimonious relationship. Not to mention the fact that there is that moment with Trump where he's chastised for, um, for making some fun of somebody's disability, doll seems like a very unlikely figure. So I was trying to think through, You know, what's he doing there? So there's an interpretation where he genuinely believes Donald Trump is like the man for the job.

Trump's also running against Clinton and you know

[00:49:14] Amit: Yeah. There's a VTA there, there's

[00:49:15] Michael: history there. Yeah. Yeah, totally. He did say after Trump lost the election in 2020 that I'm sort of trumped out. Yes. So kind of a surprising, uh,

[00:49:24] Amit: relationship with Trump. So in 2016 I can kind of get, because what we're talking about is regret potential.

We're talking about regret, but we're also talking about ability to be sort of self-aware and be fluid. Yeah. And I think for a guy of Bob Dole's age, loyalty to party was still paramount. Yeah. That's how I interpret is that he still had to do that as duty. Yeah, as duty essentially. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's convoluted and I think if we wanna talk about desirability, I think it goes, it's contrary to some of the things we talked about specifically in meeting his wife and so forth.

Yeah. I don't know that he at the time had duty to what's right. He held it seems to be the very same temperament of John McCain and all of. These contemporaries that said that, you know, something weird is going on here. I think

[00:50:06] Michael: he was actually really, truly friends with Biden and other Democrats. The Senate has this reputation, it's because they're, they're elected for longer terms and it's a body where more compromise is

[00:50:17] Amit: happens.

But the other weird thing is he voted for him in 2020. Yeah. I mean, that's some weird stuff. Yeah. I don't know. What I'm debating here is, is it truly a regret or not? So I think the fact that he voted for him again in 2020 points of the fact that 2016 is probably not a regret. Yeah. I don't know. But it's certainly a legacy.

Yeah. Right. One of the last things he's known for is casting his vote for Donald Trump in 2020. Amidst all of everything that had happened since 2016, which no matter what brand of Republican you are, you're gonna be associated.

[00:50:48] Michael: And then the, the guy he Trumps running against is an

[00:50:51] Amit: old colleague, right?

Yeah. Who is actually like, just a mirror of him, right? Really? I mean, he's He's a repetitive loser. Yeah. He's a guy that's run a million times and keeps totally getting lost. He's known as being very monetary by, he's talking about Joe Biden Biden now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Joe Biden is the Democrat, Bob Dole.

That's so

[00:51:06] Michael: true. It's a complete mirror reflection except one guy happened to get the timing right once, right? Yes. He doesn't look like a guy who spends a lot of time thinking about regret.

[00:51:16] Amit: Overall. It could be a regret, could be not introspective enough. Fair enough.

[00:51:22] Michael: All right. Category 11. Good dreams, bad dreams.

This is not about personal perception, but rather does this person have a haunted look in the eye? Something that suggests inner turmoil, inner demons, or unresolved trauma? I don't know. This is debatable to me. What

[00:51:35] Amit: do you see? I see some bit, but I see also that maybe he just doesn't even address it, you know?

Yeah. And this goes back to the point that I made a moment ago, is that maybe there just wasn't a lot of introspection to Bob. Do I think

[00:51:48] Michael: that's probably true? Yeah. You and I talk as a politician, you kind of are conditioned to a certain level

[00:51:52] Amit: of distance. Yeah. And so I think that's what he had. And it's a weird thing to observe from a point of desirability, because the whole point of this show is like, you don't examine yourself, you don't examine your life, and then you're gonna miss something.

You're not gonna be as fulfilled as your potential would allow. Yeah. On the other hand, you have the Zen Master type of quote, is that what you have is today and you have in the present and forget the past and forget the future and just, you know, deal with what's in front of you. It's a very difficult balance to strike.

And I don't think Bob Dole is doing it for a Zen reason. I think there perhaps could just be intellectual limitations. Yeah. But

[00:52:25] Michael: Or, or just how he was raised. I mean, the wiring, you know.

[00:52:28] Amit: Yeah. But I don't think there's a lot of interspection and dwelling. So if I'm gonna just go back to what the category says is, did the man rest easily?

And I think he did. Yeah,

[00:52:37] Michael: debatable

[00:52:37] Amit: one. Where do you sit on

[00:52:39] Michael: it? I don't know, man. I mean there's, I, I think I actually am gonna go bad dreams. I actually think ultimately that there's some time dedicated in the memoir to life as a son of the Prairie and the Dust Bowl and so forth. I think that was probably hard living.

And I do think that the trauma of being in war and being wounded in war is very real. And I think if this category is about like when all of your defenses are down in the middle of the night, you know, do the demons come and find you? I think they do. I think they're there. I think there are understandable demons, but I think that like there are some real, true, genuine horrors in this guy's life that maybe I don't totally see it in the eye, but I don't not see it.

And if I have to flip a coin on it, I'm going there, there, so I'm going bad dreams. Okay. All right. Category 12, cocktail coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. This may be a question of what drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person, or it may be that we think a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of them.

We are most curious about. Going coffee. Bob Dole, you know, has a reputation, at least at the peak of his powers for being a real work across the aisle, compromised kind of guy. I am of the opinion that the core problem with American politics today is really rooted in largely gerrymandering. The way we can now draw lines so that elections are decided ahead of time, that we've got 535 seats in Congress, but really only 30 to 60 of 'em are up for grabs in any given election cycle means that there is, the game is not about finding political alliances across the other side.

It's more about demonizing the other guy or the other gal, because that's how one benefits in politics today. I wonder if you could present that case to Bob Dole, let's say seventies, maybe even in the eighties, and say, Hey, if we don't do something about this gerrymandering thing, we are gonna lead to an American democracy where there's gonna be absolutely no.

Desire or incentive for politicians to arrive at Compromise and hear each other's ideas. And instead what we're gonna have is a media she machine where we are just screaming at each other across the aisle and fighting at the margins for very, very narrow victories where nothing gets done. If you could lay all that out for him, I wanna know what he thinks about that.

So I'm curious here, and I think a good cup of coffee would be a fun one to have. Okay. Be curious to hear what he and other politicians of that generation who ostensibly valued that vision of American democracy and maybe even still do. I don't know. I don't see it anymore. I wonder what he'd

[00:55:28] Amit: have to say.

I like that. I'm curious about that as well. Initially I thought cannabis and it was these contradictions that I was curious about. This Trump backing seemed to be contradictory to the type of person that he, uh, has always been. But then I, I thought about it and I thought that this introspective Bob Dole, like I think all that's buried way, way, way, way too down.

And I think we're gonna need something much more stronger than cannabis and I don't want to go there. Like, I'm not gonna go to a shaman with Bob Dole. Yeah. In Peru. So where I land then was cocktail, and I think I'm going right back to his impersonator, um, norm McDonald. Hmm. It's kind of the backyard, uh, cooler of beer type of thing.

I think it'd be more in a bar with Bob Dole. But again, I go back to this wit in this funny thing. He loves wit as a tool. He thinks he's funny. I don't really think he's that. So I wanna give him a chance. I'm just swapping jokes and spending time with Bob Dole. Oh. Because he prizes wit he prizes laughter.

Yeah. And we're just

[00:56:22] Michael: gonna go do that. Well, and you have some dad humor to you. Your ability to point out mine is razor

[00:56:27] Amit: sharp.

[00:56:29] Michael: Fine. I mean, the Norm McDonald episode go against the norm. Like, that was

[00:56:34] Amit: terrible. No, it was a lot of it I really like. But do that every fucking time we talk. I'm diluted about my sense of humor.

I I think it's really like poignant. You're

[00:56:41] Michael: very dull. Like that way Ed Capor is diluted about Alba

[00:56:44] Amit: Capor. Yes, I am. Sense of humor. So that's it. We're, we're just, we're having a ballroom session and it's just jokes. I mean, it's conversation that, that devolves into jokes, but that's all I want on Bob Dole.

Don't need any more access. Fair enough.

[00:56:58] Michael: All right. We've arrived the Vander Peak named after James Vander Peak, who famously said in Varsity Blues, I don't want your life.

[00:57:07] Amit: Ah,

[00:57:08] Michael: do you want Bob Doll's life?

[00:57:11] Amit: I'll tell you what the things that I do like about it, you know, the land,

[00:57:14] Michael: the case for and against

[00:57:15] Amit: the resilience.

You know, the bounce back, the life of service, the not having too many detractors, not a lot of people that hate pop old, no matter where you are on either side of the aisle, so to speak. The things we pointed to in humor and having the goal to rank funniest presidents, I think a lot of that speaks to kind of an.

Guy Nature in Bob do. And I like the every guy. I think there's a lot about me that's misleading that I don't like the every guy, but the every guy is very attractive to me. Yeah. The things that that bother me about him, there are these contradictions. We talked about the losing, I don't like that much losing.

Yeah. But I also don't wanna discourage people from trying, knowing that they're gonna lose, but it's a little too much losing for me. Yeah. And a lot of the things that I read in different obituaries and all, they say like Bob Dole, America's like lovable loser and it's always like, here is Dr. And Dry

[00:58:11] Michael: Bob Dole.

It's excuses, flaws like we like him, but remember he lost

[00:58:14] Amit: and it was just, there's too much mediocrity. You know? I think I would rather be like a really good non nationally known mayor than having that many lines of unsuccesses as Bob Dole had. That's not entirely a pride thing. I think that's an emotion thing.

I don't wanna just go through that process of, of. Trying and not being validated over and over again. Yeah. You know, you are a middle ground guy, but then you make these weird statements towards the end of your life. It doesn't all sit well with me in a package, and I don't dislike Bob Dole. This is by no means a political assessment, but I don't think I want to a, do the job just doesn't look fun to me and do not use this sound bite in my run for Senate.

Yeah. Um, and I don't think I wanna lose that much. The Constitution for Heartbreak is not strong enough, so No, I don't want your life, Bob do.

[00:59:14] Michael: Yeah. I mean, that last point really resonates. I don't like the job, but there's a different question that's sort of hovering over all this for me, which is, Your relationship to power.

One thing that's indisputably impressive about this guy is his willpower and his resiliency, his willingness to like fight to get as much of his body back as he can and to make the most out of his life that he can. This son of the Prairie, you know, even if he doesn't achieve the presidency, arrives at one of the.

Powerful positions in the most powerful country in the world. And he also does it at a time in history where it doesn't look that bad to me. I like the idea of being able to be in a position of power and exercise power if it can be done in a deliberative, respectful, hear ideas out and well-functioning democracy kind of way.

If it becomes personal and if it becomes about personalities and it becomes about acrimonious and and vicious the way it is these days. I hate politics today way more than I hated them or my understanding of 'em in the mid nineties. So it's a little bit of the question of what the Vander beak means.

Do I get to have Bob Dole's life when he had it? And it is more attractive to me when he had it, what he arrived at than it would be today. It's not necessarily that I would change any of my life decisions now, so that they could more reflect Bob Dole. Mm-hmm. And Bob Dole's trajectory, but, I actually really like this life in some really key ways.

It's storied. It's got a very ambitious first line of the obituary that has poetry around it. Right. You know, it is the stuff of novels. And I think even though politics is so full of bullshit, it's kind of fucking interesting behind the scenes probably, especially if it does have a little bit of a intellectual what's best for everybody.

Let's try and make the most of what we can. I also think he's, you know, when you said he is just one of us, I, I, you always have to be careful when assessing any kind of political figure because their whole goal is to be relatable. But I found myself relating to him more than I would've expected, uh, in, in the research for this.

And I kind of like that he used his re relatability to try and help people out, particularly people with disabilities. But I think overall people who are disadvantaged. I don't know that I would've voted the way he did or signed up for the same party he did, but I'm more favorable to it than I would've thought.

The family life gives me a lot of pause, I guess. Uh, I don't want a, a new wife halfway through life, but I do like the idea of being halfway through life and saying, I'm gonna do something new with myself. I don't wanna do that with a marriage, but I do want to do that with myself. Right. I think I talked myself into this summit.

I think I went, Bob Doll's Life. Life is gonna deal some super fucking shitty cards and it absolutely did for this man. And yet, you know, there's a resilience and didn't give up and makes it all the way to fucking 98 years old. Hot damn good for him. Michael Osborne wants Bob Dole's life. All right,

[01:02:28] Amit: Michael Osborne, you are Bob Dole and you are at the pearl gates saying in front of the pearl Gates is St.

Peter, who is the Unitarian proxy for all good things after life, you have the opportunity to make your pitch as to why your a unique contribution should allow you for a better afterlife. St. Peter, Bob

[01:02:48] Michael: Dole here. Bob Dole had an incredible life. It was in some ways about as uh, American as you can get raised in the Midwest in a loving family.

And I served my country and I was told incredible challenges as a result of being a soldier in the war. But I think the single most important contribution I had was that my story of recovering from the wounds of war was an inspiration to people. It lifted me into seats of power where I was able to lift those who were not able to help themselves out as much as possible.

I could help people out, and I saw an ability to help people out and raise them up. I served as a source of inspiration and I think I gave back everything that I learned as I was challenged myself. And I think that's the whole game, as Bob Doll understands that. So for that, I hope you'll let Bob Doll in

Famous and Gravy. Listeners, before you leave, I have a request. If you are interested in participating in our opening quiz where we reveal the dead celebrity, then send us an email. You can reach us at hello famous en gravy.com. Send us an email. We can find time for a recording. It's usually pretty fun and it only takes about five or 10 minutes.

We love hearing from you, so if you're interested, drop us a note. Thank you for listening to this episode. If you're enjoying our show and you don't feel like emailing us, then tell your friends about us. You can find us on Twitter. Our handle is at Famous En Gravy. We also have a newsletter, which you can sign up for on our website, famous en gravy.com.

Famous en Gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin Strang. Thank you for listening. Tell your friends. See you next

[01:04:52] Amit: time.