Do What You Love
[Music]
[Applause]
at the end of our first season of
everybody loves raymond i asked raymond
where he was going on his hiatus the
little vacation that you get between
seasons one and two if you’re lucky
enough to have a season two
and i said where you going and he said
i’m going to the jersey shore
and i said oh that that’s nice uh have
you ever been to europe and he said nah
i said why not and he goes uh i’m not
really interested in
other cultures even his own even his own
culture italy
and then a light bulb went off and i
thought we got to do that episode
we gotta send him over there with that
attitude
and send him back with mine someone
who’s excited about travel in italy the
food in italy and the scenery and the
people
and the experience of travel
and i wanted him to have
that feeling that i had when i was 23
years old
i i had never been anywhere until that
point where our family didn’t have a lot
of money i think we went to atlanta for
a bar mitzvah
once when i was nine and maybe went into
a condo in miami from a relative when i
was 12.
that was it and those were great
uh but when i was 23 i got a cheap
flight
to paris a courier flight and uh
i had a few magical days there it blew
my mind
and then i took an overnight train to
florence and in that
train ride overnight was this young
italian couple about my age also about
23
they were dating this young couple and
they worked in the bakery
in florence and they gave me places to
go when i would
when i would come to florence we stayed
up all night in that train car and we
were
drinking and having fun and they said
visit the bakery so of course the very
next day i didn’t know anybody in
florence except them
my new friends and so i went and i’ll
never forget
danya her that was the the girl’s name
her
dad ran the bakery and he looked at me
and he said america john wayne
1983 uh he then sat me down and
proceeded to feed me
he gave me every pastry in the shop and
because i was american imagine this
everyone else on the block the lady with
the sandwiches
the lady who had the the
the pizza place a chocolatier came they
sat me outside the shop
and they started bringing pasta and
stuff it was mind-blowing
dania and daario and i became
friends and then later i brought monica
to italy and introduced her and then
later
they came to new york with their whole
family the parents and their little new
baby because they had been married
her name was geneva they all stayed in
my one bedroom apartment
it was crowded but we’re friends for
life
so that’s what can happen
i wanted raymond to understand just a
little of that
because i think the world would be
better if we all could experience a
little bit of someone else’s
experience it took about five years to
convince him
to get on a plane but when we did it
what i saw happen to the character that
i wrote you know
ray gets woke in the show
happened to the person i saw it happen
to him
he was ricocheting around piazza’s going
phil did you try this pizza it’s
unbelievable oh look at this gelato have
you had the
lemon it’s unbelievable yes yes grave
had it
and that got in very deep to see your
friend
get turned on to this great part of
life i think we all do what we do
because we like turning people on to the
stuff we like
that’s how you know that’s what friends
are right so
that got in very deep now i didn’t know
that a show for me could come out of
that
we had another four years to run on
raymond lasted nine years
and after that i thought well everybody
else wants me
to do another sitcom because that’s
where the money is so
i tried to do another sitcom uh but the
business had changed in the nine-year
bubble i was in
doing raymond and it wasn’t so welcome
anymore this type of show meaning a
family show
with uh jokes that were not so
blunt or uh rough
uh but it turned out that people now
wanted
the hip and edgy type of shows and
that’s not really my wheelhouse as i
guess you could tell
by looking at me and to be fair
i didn’t really want the kind of shows
that they were doing either so
i kept striking out and it wasn’t for
lack of trying i
kept trying but in the back of my head
was this
was this idea what if i could do the
travel show what if i could do the
travel show
now i wrote a book in the meanwhile
about how to make a sitcom
i wrote about my travels in that book
because
everything in raymond came from
something that happened to us in real
life
and i also made a movie during that time
i made a movie because the
russians called this is true they asked
me if i wanted to turn my sitcom
into everybody loves custa
yes and so i agreed to do this if i
could film the whole thing
and now this would be the first time
that i personally would be
on camera and i enjoyed it
i wasn’t acting or anything i just
enjoyed editing it
i enjoyed the story of what was
happening to that guy who i understood
to be a character
a kind of schlemiel that stuff happens
to and
people noticed and uh i started to get a
little traction from my other idea which
was this food and travel show with maybe
me as the host because it had worked
in russia and i even skyped with my
parents
from russia which would become a big
part of the
travel show as well now the agents when
you come to them after having
created and run a sitcom that was
successful
you come to them and say i would now
like to host a
travel show they’re not jumping up and
down they’re not excited
there’s no real money in that but they
said if you’re gonna do it let’s go
first to the travel channel that’s that
they have the most money so let’s go
so we have a meeting with the head of
the travel channel at this time
and he says to me i gotta be honest with
you uh we’ve done some research and we
found that our audience really
isn’t into travel
i said oh my what are you going to do
he said well we’re going to do shows
that are travel adjacent
i said well what the hell does that mean
and
they said well an example would be a
show like
pimp my rv meaning we take an rv
and we pimp it out meaning decorated
inside
and we don’t we don’t go anywhere
so it’s travel adjacent i said ha okay
well thanks anyway
and he said oh and we’ve done some
research and the only food that
people are interested in is barbecue
good to know thank you uh can i go now
to pbs maybe because i think they might
be interested in this type of show i’d
like to do the
travel show with a food focus because
that’s my main interest when i travel
and i’d love to do it
uh no first you’re gonna go to the food
network then if you’re interested in
food
oh okay i go to the food network meet
with the head of the food network i am
not making any of this up
and the head of the food network says
we’re kind of getting away from the food
thing
really yeah we’re doing shows that are
more food adjacent
yes everybody’s doing things that are
next to something they’re not actually
doing anything
uh they do competition shows now they’re
not really
interested in the food and by the way if
the if they are interested in food the
only
food that americans are interested in
said don’t tell me barbecue they said
that’s right how did you know
because i met with the travel channel
which is the same owners
as the food channel now can i go to pbs
yes i can go to pbs i go to pbs
i tell them my idea they say well what
would the show be like
and i said well it would be me going
around
trying to get people to travel by
showing them the best places in the
world to
eat and and you what do you bring to it
i said well
i would say i’m exactly like anthony
bourdain if he was afraid of everything
and that worked they got it they
understood
they said they’ve been looking for a
show a food and travel show with humor
for years so after 10 years of trying to
do this
of banging my head against this
particular spot in the show business
wall
you know i just picked the spot that i
really really liked after
striking out with sitcoms
i got through and i called my brother
why my brother because he was already a
producer
for facebook videos so he had some
experience producing
things he also was a producer on the
network side of of comedy central
and he his his shows had already won
some emmys
so he was qualified and i wanted to work
with him
and i said quit your job and come to
this show with me because what show
they’re gonna see
pbs is gonna be six episodes on the air
of going around the world and eating
he said really you got that show i said
yes he goes what are they gonna call
this show the lucky bastard
i said quit your job and come with me
and produce the show with me
and we’ll call our production company
lucky bastards
and that’s what we did and we did i’ll
have what phil’s having
for pbs we went to paris and barcelona
and
italy and tokyo and hong kong i
considered it
you know earth’s greatest hits i was
trying to get
mr and mrs america two-thirds of the of
us
don’t even have a passport so i wanted
to start with popular tourist
attractions tourist site
and it seemed to go very well and then
guess what pbs didn’t pick up the show
even though it had worked very well and
was a hit for them
i think they couldn’t raise the money i
don’t know why
but here comes netflix and then i got to
do
somebody feed phil and it’s been the joy
of my life
to work with my brother to travel around
to meet these people
to meet new friends and to make new
friends over
the internet and over social media right
and
and just have the the time of my life
i really think there’s no more mind
expanding thing
we can do in life than travel and
the reason i use food is because food
is the great connector and for me laughs
are the cement and i’m using food and
hopefully my stupid sense of humor
just to get you to think about traveling
you know take that little baby step off
the couch
and go it’s going to make your life
better listen if somebody gave you a
house
would you spend your whole life in one
room of the house
no you’d want to check it out so
we only go through once people i want
you to see the whole house
i’m taking everything i learned about
how to make a show and it’s in the
service
of everything i love in life
family friends food
travel and laughs these are the values
this is what i like now i wish for you
what i had
doing something you love with people you
love
and i’m gonna leave you with this little
bit of advice
the best advice i ever got it was from a
showrunner named ed weinberger
and when i was writing the pilot for
raymond he told me this
do the show you want to do because in
the end they’re going to cancel you
anyway
this is a very good philosophy of life
do the show you want to do because we
all get canceled
one day so live your life now i know
it’s a crazy time full of
uncertainty and maybe we’re not
traveling
so soon but i’m very confident that we
will
i think as soon as there’s a vaccine
that we trust
we’re going to be out there again and
the world’s going to be waiting
so if it’s all a crap shoot anyway
live your life
you