Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
At 14, Staten Island-born Glenn Scarpelli achieved official teen hearthrob status as Alex on the long-running sitcom, One Day at a Time. In part one of our interview, he discussed his childhood experiences performing on Broadway; as Archie comic-strip character; and as part of the Bloodhound Gang on PBS’s educational show, 3-2-1 Contact.
Since his pinup days, Glenn has gone on to start his own TV station and personal lubricant company with longtime partner Jude. He discusses how coming to terms with his sexuality has paved his unique personal and career path; as well as the premises behind Sedona Now TV and Green Love Lube.
So, just to clarify, you were just telling your business handlers that you were quitting—you weren’t telling them you were gay at that point?
No, I was totally in the closet still. In fact, I stayed as far away from that as possible. But I got my privacy. I lived in Manhattan; I actually fell in love with someone and we moved in together—and of course, in those days we were “roommates,” you know…
Well, I know you had mentioned—I think it was in the interview that you did with Out.com—that you felt really isolated as a result of not being out, at least in the entertainment industry. So was that a daily thing weighing on you, or to what degree did the actual pressure of having to be in the closet affect your decision to kind of go away from it for a while?
It was the main reason for my decision. When everybody knows your every move—I mean, today, it’s worse. My God, with the way the media is. People who are famous today, it’s so, so tough. Everybody knows everybody’s little move. But in those days, for me it was… stay the hell away. I wanted to someday walk into a gay club, or a gay bar, and if I did, it would be known. And I did not want that. It was more about my privacy, that was driving me crazy
I loved the business, I loved acting—I still do, but what you have to put up with — it’s part of the job. If you’re going to be famous, you’re not going to have privacy, period. And if you don’t like it, don’t be famous. And that’s when I got realistic and said, “Okay, I don’t want to be famous!”
Well, it was probably for the best that you did that because you may have avoided a lot of destructive vices.
I honestly think I’d be dead. That’s how bad I think it really would have been for me to have to live a lie for my whole life, and what I would have needed to go through. What wound up happening, Justin, was that I fell in love with this guy and he wound up having AIDS.
Gary, right?
Yes. He was a theatrical manager. He discovered Elijah Wood. In fact, I ran into Elijah at the Scream Awards last year and he was like, “Oh, my god, Glenn, I haven’t seen you in 16 years!” and I’m like, “Yeah I know, shut up. I sound so old!” [Laughs]
That’s so cool.
But honestly, the fact that I was able to process who I was and that whole part of my life—and him getting sick, and losing him—I needed that privately. I wasn’t ready to do that publicly. I just wasn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it.
That’s a pretty intense life education. I mean, after you decide to make that choice to focus on your personal life so you could be openly gay to some degree at least… then to deal with the whole AIDS thing, it must have been pretty overwhelming.
It was. Back in ’87, he was diagnosed. It was bad back then, the amount of discrimination and the amount of hatred towards gays. People thought that God wanted gays dead… I mean, it was bad, dude. So coming to grips with myself in the midst of all of that, and then having someone in my life who did have AIDS, was so big. I did myself a huge favor by taking all the other stuff off my plate: overachieving, wanting to be famous. And looking back, I’m so grateful that I did. I don’t think I could have handled all of it. There was too much to process. I needed to have my fears, look at them, process my emotions, and get real. And it’s very hard to get real in Hollywood, honestly.
Being in New York was a way more anonymous, real environment. Eventually, we did move back to L.A. together. And I did a few little acting things, only because I was asked to by people I’d worked with before. But it wasn’t like I was back in the industry. I didn’t have an agent. I wasn’t auditioning.
Didn’t you do an after-school special in the early ’90s?
I did; and I did an episode of MacGyver; Both of those were directed by a friend of mine named Harry Harris, who I’d worked with. But it wasn’t like I was pursuing it or wanting publicity because of it.
You went to NYU to study directing?
Yeah, I went to NYU film school, which was an amazing experience. That school rocks. And where it is rocks, and the whole life of it, and the other kids I met. It was great, because they were all film students and nobody really gave a shit about TV. Which was awesome, so that I didn’t have that whole thing about where I’d come from and all that jazz. I was just one of the other students, and that’s really what I wanted in my life at that point.
I spent one summer at their dorms on Canal Street.
Yes! I partied in those dorms!
I took one film course there. I could tell it was a really good school for that, just by the way the professor taught and the students that were there—it was really thorough and serious!
Yeah, and in an artsy way. They didn’t teach mainstream stuff; it was about the emotions behind it. It was about storytelling — not making a hit movie.The curriculum wasn’t about how to win an Oscar; it was about how to make a really good movie. That’s important. When you grow up in Hollywood, it’s always about the overachiever, like, “What can I get? How do I get in this newspaper?”—blah-blah-blah. That’s the strife of having a career. And college was not about that at all, it was just about the art form itself, and that I loved the most. But, I didn’t graduate NYU film school. I wound up leaving a year early. I did three years there, and then Gary had gotten pretty sick and he wanted to move to L.A. to perpetuate his career.
Okay — I was going to ask you what made you decide to move back out here.
It was him. I had owned a condo out there since I was a kid, so we moved into my condo—I had been renting it when I was gone. He had discovered some really good people: Jonathan Taylor-Thomas from Home Improvement was one of his clients. A lot of kids were starting to work in L.A., and he just felt, for his career, he wanted to be there. It was a really tough period for me, because I didn’t really care about living in L.A., honestly. I was happier than shit in New York.
Yeah, it seems like that’s the best place to be for what you were trying to accomplish, even personally, just to learn about yourself—as a gay man, anyway. But one thing I really loved about L.A. was its Gay and Lesbian Center. I just think that’s a great resource.
It’s awesome.
But overall, the day-to-day living, you get so much more in New York.
Yeah, but New York’s tough. Everything’s got its ups and downs, you know. It’s a hard lifestyle. When I was going to college, it was great. But now I go back and I visit my mom, I love visiting; but I also get enough of it. Every day you just feel like you have to push and shove to do your thing. There’s something to say for that, but I got tired.
My main home now is in Sedona, Arizona. My partner, Jude and I have a TV station here. But our whole lube company is really a California-based company — we manufacture it in Ventura. It’s organic aloe that is grown in Ojai, California. We’ve put a lot of aloe farmers to work, which is awesome. And we have a condo in West Hollywood — which, if you’re going to be gay in L.A., West Hollywood is so fucking great! It’s the spot. It feels like New York with good weather. We have this condo on this street that’s got tons of condos, and everybody at 6:00 is out walking their dogs — hot guys everywhere! Everybody’s healthy and it’s very motivating. I love it there. So to go out there and kick up your heels and do our thing; do all the promotions we’re doing for the lube—it’s so fun right now. But I spend most of my time in Sedona.
When you first moved out to L.A., didn’t you have your own digital editing company?
That’s really where my heart has been. I know there’s a part of me that’s an actor, but there’s really a part of me that’s an entrepreneur. That’s one of my passions. I’ve opened companies and then I’ve sold them. I’m the guy that helps get it all off the ground. After awhile, just running a company isn’t as exciting as starting one. I had a production company with some partners, and then I left that and started what you’re talking about, the digital mastering facility. We worked with Tracy Chapman and Blink 182. MCA Records, RCA Records, Geffen Records—they were all our clients.
I knew all the A&R people. We did work for MCA Black Music, which was really big in the 90’s. We’d have big stars come into the studio. We also did a lot of radio edits, where we’d cut out all the curse words. We did tons of that. It was what you would consider post-production for music. It was called G.K.S. Entertainment. I sold my shares in that company in ’98. I had just met Jude and fell madly in love with him. He was living in Sedona; I was living in L.A. I had lived in Sedona two other times before that. I couldn’t make up my mind whether I wanted to be in L.A. or Sedona and I kept moving back and forth.
They’re probably different as night and day!
They’re worlds apart. And I’m like, “Am I just totally psychotic, that I love both these places? How do I love both these places?” But, Sedona’s the place I came to after Gary died. I felt it nurtured me and healed me; and I made some wonderful friends. I was able to be sad here; or happy here—whatever it was, I was able to be my most real, here in Sedona. Nobody here is in show business. That was just awesome, to have dinner parties and talk about other things besides show business. How great was that? I’d never known that.
But I never was able to find my path in Sedona until I met Jude. Number one, it’s really hard to be gay and single in Sedona. It’s a small town. You’re not meeting a whole lot of cute guys that are gay. You meet a lot of straight guys that just tease the shit outta ya [laughs]. It gets frustrating when you’re hot for some guy and he’s checking out girls.
Tell me about it! So, you ended up starting the Sedona Now TV station when you moved there with Jude. What made you want to start a TV station?
Well first of all, by starting a TV station, we’re not working for the man. So we certainly could do whatever we want. So that part is creatively cool, unlike when you’re an actor and you’re hired — going on auditions and waiting for someone else to make a decision about you. We’re that person—we’re at the top of the chain. So, it’s a bigger fish, small pond, maybe. But because I’ve always loved being behind the camera, this gave me a lot of opportunity to do that. We’ve done documentaries on the Native American reservations in the area; we’ve done really cool things that I’ve had a personal passion for. So by doing a station that’s all about Sedona, our main market is tourists. Sedona has 17,000 people that live here, yet four million visit every year. That’s the main market. We’re two hours away from the Grand Canyon, and there’s only two hotels up at the Grand Canyon. If you’re visiting the Grand Canyon, you normally stay in Sedona. You do all the fun things like Jeep rides, airplanes, helicopters, ballooning—all that! And the red rocks… the hiking is amazing. You go back in time when you see areas of Sedona with no civilization, and it’s just awesome. I love it —I need it to help me center.
Our whole TV station is about things to do and see in Sedona. Yet we’ve had so many opportunities to have fun with that, in doing documentaries about different people. We also sponsor the Sedona Film Festival; and I’ve had the opportunity to interview some great people, like Nick Nolte. I was nominated for a Rocky Mountain Emmy for that interview as “Best Host.” Our station has been nominated four times for Rocky Mountain Emmys. So it’s very rewarding.
So, Sedona Now is shown at local hotels and lodging?
Well it’s shown to everybody. It’s a cable station. There’s only one cable provider in Sedona, which makes it very easy for us. Ninety-five percent of hotel rooms have NPG cable. And the ones that don’t have NPG cable, we’ve worked out deals directly with the hotel where we broadcast off of a DVD in their tech room; and the station is still seen in their hotel to help promote businesses around town. It’s basically what you would see if you go to Disney World and turn on the television. It tells you about all the different things you can do, and hints, like, “Oh, if you want to do this, get there early!” That sort of thing.
Do you see it as something you’re going to continue to be involved in, or do you think you’re going to sell it and go fulltime to the lube company?
I don’t think we’re selling it. At this point, I love it; I love my life in Sedona—I did it for that reason. The other two times I lived here, I never could find my place. Sedona Now TV really gave me my place here in this town.
It’s a great way to be in the community.
Yeah! It’s also done great things for the community. We give back in so many different ways and work with different charities. It’s very fulfilling and rewarding that way; and because it is so established, we are able to add something new on our plate with the lube company.
How did you come up with the concept of Green Love Lube?
Well, in June of ’08, our house burned to the ground. Two weeks later, Jude and I got married in California, before Prop 8. Then, a week after that, we went to Bali, Indonesia. A few of our friends gave us the trip as a wedding present. This was all within a matter of three weeks. It was the craziest fucking time of my life. I’m like, “Oh, my God! Usually one thing happens and it’s huge; but like, three things are happening that are huge, right now, in three weeks.
It’s like a made-for-TV movie!
Yeah, exactly! We’ll get Valerie to star in it. She’s the TV queen [laughs]! So, we got to Bali and we met this wonderful family, and we totally connected with them. They’re the ones that own the organic farm up in Ojai. They mentioned that they were growing all this aloe and organic garlic. They have an organic food product called Garlic Gold, which you can find in Whole Foods. So, they know how to get a product on the market.
Anyway, they were sharing with us that they wanted to make this aloe for feminine dryness. We didn’t make much of it. But we became very close friends on this trip, and since then, we talk all the time. They said, “Hey, remember we were telling you about the aloe? We have the first feminine dryness product.” And we said, “You know, that’s also a personal lubricant; and gay men use a lot of lube.”
We said, “You should really think about expanding your vision for this product and think about marketing to the gay community.” Now of course, they didn’t know anything about the gay community. So they started to look into it. About 52 percent of lube sales is women over 40, and 42 percent of lube sales is gay men. So it’s a huge market. They were really into doing this, and they started calling us all the time and asking us questions. They started sending us the product to try, and originally, it was just too damn sticky. We were like, “Dudes, we can’t fuck with this. Sorry.”
We’re very picky about our lubes, sorry. We need them wet. So we really helped develop this product by saying, “Well, it needs to be this; it needs to be that.” Then, they found this fantastic formula that just started to really work good. I mean, I love it. I love the way it feels—it’s clean; it’s organic; you don’t feel sticky and like you have to take a shower right away; it doesn’t stain the sheets. It’s amazing, it’s really a great product and we started to really dig it and start using it. Then we went up to their house on the farm in Ojai, and we were hanging out. They started to ask, “How do we get into the gay market?” We said, “Hey, look. We want to be a part of this. We’re not just going to offer you all our expertise—we want to own it.” They were relieved, because they really didn’t know anything about marketing it like that. The gay market is its own breed of people. Let’s face it.
So that’s what happened. We wound up owning the company and now Green Love is specifically ours, and we private-label it through them. They still manufacture it. They’re not responsible to sell it, to brand it, nor to market it. They didn’t come up with the name—we did all that.
How did you come up with the name?
Originally, because it was organic, one of the first questions Jude asked was: “Is it edible?” They said, “Well, it could be, you could put flavors in it.” So, we said, “Let’s work with the scientists for the flavors.” We actually had a lube-tasting party in West Hollywood. We invited all these people over. Everyone tasted the lubes in different flavors, and what won was the one that tasted like berries, which we call “berrylicious”. So we decided to call the product “Eat Me.” Well, when we started to really get out there and market it, although “Eat Me” is something people totally remember—and I gotta tell you, gay people love that; it’s just fun — the fact is, if you get lube in your mouth, it usually tastes like shit, right? So, this product is great: first of all it’s condom-safe. Second, if the lube gets in your mouth, it tastes delicious.
But we realized that we needed to create different brands for different demographics. It’s basically the same lube but differently packaged. We took Eat Me and looked into the different events we wanted to sponsor and all the different things we wanted to get involved in. We got involved in Equality California; we talked to the Gay Games out in Germany. We asked them, “What would it cost us if we wanted to put the logo on the backs of a shirt for your athletes?” They said, “We would never put the words ‘eat me’ on the back of someone’s shirt.” So, we realized we needed a brand that is more charity-friendly, more corporate-friendly, not as vulgar—although I don’t find “Eat Me” to be too vulgar.
It’s more of a perception thing.
Yes, exactly. So that’s when Green Love started to live. And we realized, okay, the company is really about Green Love. Eat Me is the edible brand, but Green Love is the one that we’re certainly getting out there to more of the masses. Even women — because of course we sell to women also — seem to like it. Lesbians love Eat Me.
The names are so different, it’s almost like two different entities.
I know. And honestly, Green Love is not edible. We went fragranced with Green Love.
So you would have problems if you said, “Eat me” when you had Green Love on! Now, the product is 95 percent organic; and aloe is the main ingredient. These days, we hear about aloe in a lot of different ways, especially when it comes to being healthy and natural. So what is it exactly, and what makes it make the lubricant?
Well, aloe is the main ingredient. What keeps it slick and wet for a long time is, it’s enriched with vitamin E. That was the key; that’s when we came aboard, because once they put the vitamin E in, we were like, “Okay, now this is lube.” Up until that point, it was really not working for us.
The reason the label reads 95 percent organic is because the aloe is 100 percent organic, but the other five percent is a sodium benzonite. That’s a saline preservative. It’s a natural ingredient, but we’re not legally allowed to call that organic because it’s a natural ingredient that the researchers realized we had to do stuff to — like cook. As soon as you take an organic ingredient and do something to it you have to call it natural, not organic. The sodium benzonite gives the product a shelf life.
The thing about organic is, it’s organic because it’s alive and it’s supposed to die—that’s the whole point of why it’s so good for you. We realized retailers needed longer shelf life. That’s just what you need to do to get a product into the market.
What makes the product hypo-allergenic?
Well, it’s hypo-allergenic because it’s pH-balanced. One of the things it’s pH-balanced for is the vagina, because women have a problem putting plant life inside themselves. But if someone is allergic to aloe, you’re going to have a problem with this product!
But why organic lube is important, is that everything else out there has such horrible toxins in it. I don’t care which one you use; they all carry horrible toxins — the same kind of toxins that are used to make antifreeze and oven cleaner. Glycerin is one of them. Let’s take water-based lubes, for example. There’s silicon-based and then there’s water-based. People always think, “Water! That’s gotta be good for you.” Jude and I have always used water-based up until this point. But they have glycerin, and glycerin is actually a petroleum product. So even though it sounds good, it’s highly toxic.
We did toxicity tests on ours compared to other lubes. And let’s say—on a scale of one to 10, zero being water, 10 being the most toxic, most lubes fall between a five and a seven. Our lube ranks at one, which is a notch above water. That’s what we are striving for, to maintain that kind of quality. Because, a lot of what’s going on with the green market these days is really branding.
Yeah, I was wondering: even with Clorox, you know how they came out with a whole green line and everything? With the reputation these big companies have, is it truly “green”?
That’s so true. Parabens are a really bad thing. You hear a lot about it—that they’re in shampoos and women’s makeup, and it’s really bad for your skin. People should watch out for the word natural, compared to the word organic. Whatever products—under your sink; products you wash your hair with—companies can get away with a lot, saying natural. I hope that our country can put more restrictions on that sort of thing, so that people really know what they’re buying. So, a lot of what we’re doing with our marketing is educating people. That’s what it takes to really get this product off the ground.
The Green Love product is labeled as “Jungle Scented.” What does that mean?
Jungle Scented is a mixture of a few different fragrances that we created, and we just named it Jungle ’cause it sounds hot. But it’s got a little Tahitian vanilla… it’s a potpourri of a whole bunch of flavors that, when put together, we really think is cool. Plus, when we went to Indonesia, we met these people in the jungles of Borneo. We hung out and cohabitated with the orangutans in the middle of the jungle, which was totally fun.
How do you go about marketing a product like this? Did you have existing connections or ideas?
Well, there’s different avenues. It’s so wild, because the sex market is so huge that it’s almost a little overwhelming. We have to set our priorities.There’s so much that Jude and I have realized we have to back up and pinpoint certain markets and ways in which we’re going to do this, and stay focused. It’s really been a challenge for me. I get so multitask crazy that I want to hit it all at once; and it doesn’t work that way.
You have to focus on one long enough to penetrate it, right?
Yeah, pardon the pun [laughs]. Basically we’ve been marketing mostly in California and we’re going to work our way through the country. We wanted to try Pride season out west, so we hit a lot of Pride festivals. We had booths at some of them. We just got the company off the ground in May. L.A. Pride is where we debuted, on June 12.
We’ve been in development for two years, but it didn’t get good until this year. We weren’t able to put all the pieces together and get the funding until springtime. But one of the really cool things: of course, AIDS and HIV have been a part of my passion, and Jude’s passion, for a long time. We’ve worked with a lot of AIDS charities and done fundraisers. It’s always been something we love. And we tithe two percent of the proceeds to AIDS charities right off the bat — and that will be going up as the product picks up.
Which organizations are you partnering with?
Well, right now it’s all going into an equity account. So that money is still looking where we want to put it. We’ve talked to the Elton John AIDS Foundation; we’ve talked to AMFAR, and then a few other research laboratories, ’cause we’re very into making sure that we’ll find a cure one of these days.
It’s amazing just how long it’s taking.
Well, it’s the pharmaceutical companies, that really, I think, don’t want this cured. Like, they don’t really want cancer cured. Everybody’s making too much money off of the fact that people are sick. So we have a little trouble in our world right now with greed, because it’s not clear—What is your intention? Well, your intention is to make money, so therefore it’s worth it for people to be sick, rather than healthy, or else how are you going to make money? That’s a problem in our whole setup. But meds have come a long way; and the face of AIDS is not what it was. One of our concerns for that is the youth. In the big cities, specifically, AIDS is on the rise for 18- to 25-year-old’s. Those kids didn’t see the face of AIDS.
It’s not in the mainstream media as much anymore.
And God bless it, people don’t die from it anymore. I mean, you can, but these kids see it as more of a bad STD. That’s how they see it. Now granted, the cocktail has come a long way: it was 23 pills at one point, then it went down to 18 pills, and now I think there are some that you can be on for three or four pills a day. So it’s come a long way, but still, the younger generation just thinks, “Okay, I can fuck raw, get AIDS and have to take pills for the rest of my life. Who cares?” Well, those pills, number one, are not usually covered by health insurance. I know a couple here in Sedona with both partners HIV-positive. They spend 16 grand a month on these fucking pills. Number two, it still takes a toll on your body.
The pills are highly toxic. We care about toxins in our lube—my God, it’s nothing compared to how toxic the cocktail is! So one of our things is to always educate and share with younger generations the stories that we saw and what we did. One of the opportunities that we got this year which was awesome—we got a chance to go to the International AIDS Conference in Vienna. We’re going to be posting video on our Facebook page really soon—webisodes of all the different events we’ve been going to and the growth of our company.
Also, in Washington, D.C., we have a friend that is one of the top gay lobbyists on the Hill. He has a home here in Sedona, as well. He was the one who suggested our involvement with the convention. Through him, we got very involved with United Nations’ AIDS office. What we learned was, every country in the world, including our country, not only has prevention programs for our own country, but prevention programs for Africa. A huge amount of money is donated to buy condoms and lube to send to Africa. Like, by the millions and millions. So, our goal was to get our lube involved in the prevention programs, which we have. It’s very rewarding, to know that our product can help save lives. I’m thrilled. I didn’t think lube could take us down such a helpful and profound road.
Do you see Green Love lube more as a sex product or an intimacy product?
I think it goes back to something we touched on, which is, there are different demographics for this sort of product. When you look at the overall scope of lube on the planet, and you’re looking at 52 percent women over 40, we’re gonna get soccer moms that are gonna buy our product. Then ,we get bareback power bottoms that are gonna use our product [laughs]. So, I certainly don’t judge it.
I’m pretty sexually open; and so is Jude. I think that’s why we’ve been able to connect the way we have, because nothing flusters us. I think that our manufacturers saw that in us, that we can really sell this product — because we totally get the range of the type of client and customer that really buys this sort of thing. So, we’ll approach it differently, not only our marketing but also our conversations and how we talk to people. I think you have to be somewhat chameleon to have a product like this. For instance, we’ve done tons of radio shows. Like on OUTQ, I will talk like they talk on OUTQ. And I’ll have fun with it. Then we did this one show that was this Dr. Ruth kind of lady talking to us; her whole audience was women. And it was very different.
So I think there is a chameleon kind of energy that Jude and I have, just in general — to be able to open a TV station in a small town in a red state, and be two out gay guys…we’ve been able to walk a very fine line in knowing how to relate to people. We also presented at the Trendy Awards in West Hollywood. It was basically gay porn stars and the different charities in West Hollywood. It was a really sweet event. Porn stars were onstage and they were playing—they didn’t get naked, but they simulated sex.
So we got onstage. Our product its white and it’s thick. So, Jude was like, “Hey, you wanna see a load on a teen star’s chest?” He ripped my shirt off and started pouring our lube all over my chest. It was fun, and we could totally go there. But that whole vibe at the Vienna conference is not about sexuality at all. First of all, it’s not a gay disease; it’s an everybody’s disease. Plus, it’s not only transmitted through sexuality anymore. It’s through bad needles, and drug addicts… there are so many different ways that bodily fluids can be given, that it wasn’t about that at all. So then, Jude and I snapped into our “We’re talking to researchers and doctor” mode — and we can go there with this product too.
So, you sell it through the website. Is it available anywhere else?
We’re still working on the deals to get it in adult shops. Right now, our goal is to get into the online shops. Good Vibrations is a big one for a lot of straight people, too. There’s Adam and Eve, where a lot of our straight friends go. We just started asking people, “Hey, do you use lube? Where do you buy it?” That’s how we started our research, honestly. Manhunt is huge for the gay market. I mean, at some point a gay man is eventually going to find his way to Manhunt.
I think it’s really cool that not only is Green Love a gay-owned business, but it’s owned by a gay male couple that’s been together long-term. How important is that in terms of making this project, for lack of a better word, explode?
Jude and I connected from the moment we saw each other. Within a week we were living together. We moved quicker than lesbians. [Laughs] And then we got the dog, and the rest was history. So, we’ve always just connected. We met in L.A.. Jude was living in Sedona and I had lived in Sedona—he was living in the room I used to live in, when I met Jude.
For the first three years, I was still in L.A., running G.K.S. Entertainment. He’s always been an architect, all his life. He was doing landscape architecture, and he actually got a chance to work for Norman Lear, who produced One Day at a Time. That was kind of ironic. So, for the first three years we had separate jobs. Then, we moved to Sedona, opened the TV station together, and that just really worked for us. There’s not a lot of couples that can play and work together. It’s a lot. We certainly come across our shit and have to breathe; but that’s just in any relationship. We do pretty damn good for guys that live and work together.
Basically, these companies are our children, and they reflect us and have both of us in them. We’re good in bouncing stuff off each other, which is where we come in the most handy. We’re honest with each other. If it’s not working, or if he doesn’t like an idea, he’d be, like, “Dude, that just totally sucks.” [Laughs]
Well, it’s been a real pleasure talking with you. I really thank you for your thoroughness and for just being such a cool guy!
Cool, dude. I like you too, man, I’m so glad we’re friends.
Thanks so much again, Glenn. Have a great week! Talk with you soon.
