>> rose: welcome to the program. we start on broadway with "sticks and bones" written by david rabe starring holly hunter, bill pull uhm and chair berlin. >> you can kind of build around that or destroy what the reputation is or enhance it and my goal was to do both and humanize in a more complicated psychology that that was presented as ozzie and harriet but also to cut my way through the value. part of my satisfaction with production is that, the play itself has -- is an experience beyond its political content you know, whereas, in '72 it was very difficult to do that. >> we conclude this evening with

the singer-songwriter john mellencamp. >> i think great songwriters have the ability to realize that there's always another song. and some people think oh, i have written -- i had a guy once ask me, a very famous songwriter ask me, he said, john, have you ever had a writing block? and i went -- i won't mention his name but i just said, man, look our the window. there's so much to write about, how could you possibly have a writing block? i couldn't possibly cover all of the topics that i feel i need to write about if i just wrote every day, day in and day out. >> "sticks and bones" and john mellencamp when we continue. >> funding for charlie rose is provided by the following: dicialght funding provided by:

♪ ♪ captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: "sticks and bones" won the tony for best play in 1972. it tells the story of an american family torn apart by their son's return from the vietnam war. written by david rabe after his own return from the war. the play has returned after four decades. the"the new york times" called a full frontal attack on a hypocritical society. here is a look at the play. >> no legged boys and one-legged

boys, all of them, i have to get to queens, st. louis, redding -- i don't have time for coffee. i have deliveries to make all across the country. >> there's something wrong. it feels wrong. where are you? are you here? >> i don't know these people. >> soldier, it's not for you to feel this way. >> don't you hear me. >> please, please -- >> damn you. >> joining sus the playwright david rabe, holly hunter and richard chamberlain. i'm pleased to have all of them at the table. welcome and congratulations. >> thank you very much. >> is this the right time for this play to come back. >> it seems to be. it seems to be the right time. it was the right time for me to get a glorious production. >> putting together the right director and the right cast. >> which you're not in control of. i mean i tried to get it on numerous other times and it didn't work and i feel kind of grateful that didn't happen now. >> because? >> >> because this is such a good

production. >> rose: and also with timeliness coming out of iraq and vietnam and i just interviewed the secretary of defense and one of the singe that we talked about is how suicides are rising in terms of people returning for all kinds of reasons. some people are surviving things they previously didn't survive because of medical care but the fact is still there that the issue of how we treat veterans is still an issue. >> yes. rose: from vietnam. >> you know the term ptsd didn't exist at the time. i would never say i had it but i was certainly messed up and made in a sense was justified but. >> you were in a medical unit. >> and i was slightly removed for the most time in serious action. >> but when cause came back you didn't jump in antiwar protest

like john kerry did. >> i still felt an allegiance to the soldiers but i also felt that, after i spent a little time back home, the experiences crept in that there was nothing at stake, that the country was running perfectly normal, everybody was doing fine, even though -- and i came back early. i came back in '67. so the protests were just beginning. and so i felt -- i just looked around and this crept up into my psyche that this was wrong and that there was no need for it and that, other than the kind of domino theory, if you recall. >> and you wanted to say in this case -- you know we look back at the family, like what we think of as a perfect sort of mid american family. >> yeah. i mean i wanted to -- i took the ozzie and harriet as a kind of -- >> even the names. >> i wanted to have the

archetypes and the theatrical tradition of having archetype kel names in greek call and then you can kind of build around that or destroy what the reputation is or enhance and it my goal was to do both and humanize in a more complicated psychology than was ever presented as ozzie and harriet. but also to kind of cut my way through the values. i was -- at the time. but i wanted very much to present -- see i think part of my satisfaction with production was that, the play itself is an experience beyond its political content. you know, whereas, in 72 it was very difficult to do that. >> rose: what does that mean the play itself is an experience beyond the politics of it. >> the theatrical nature of the play itself.

>> rose: in other words it's about family and disappointment. >> also the pure theatricallality of it but family and the relationships and in many ways -- not many ways but the father is the main character, which was really impossible to make clear in '72. the pressures demanded that the vet be the main character, and yet he isn't. plus people wanted him to be a little more sympathetic than he turns out to be because he is so demanding. >> of the play or the actors' interpretation. >> the play. david, as he comes home and as he builds his anger, what he success for 1 pretty -- it's almost undoable. you can't do it. he wants a form of madness, for everyone to admit what is going on and that the dead is everywhere and he brought them home with him and they should all agree that is true and good.

>> how did you see the father's praise here? >> there was a curiosity, i guess. i never think of i'm playing the lead part. but i think the fact that, you know, the play itself a lot about the characterize, people that are there around the returning vet as much as it is the roman catholic churching vet with the focus on this family that has existed with all of itt although conflicts and everything but has existed in this comfortable way and then all of that gets challenged. so for me, it was a chance to really get into what my father was in world war ii and deal with that and that was that generation and ozzie is that guy that didn't get to go to world war ii, didn't get to go into active service and there's lots of buried things that go underneath that and david wrote a play which everybody and holly is playing the buy and all of

the other younger brothers have their conflicts that get kind of heated up because of the result of this, which i think is probably why, you know now it's -- 50 years, they're starting the 7 years anniversary of the vietnam war and it's 50 years and the government is spending $07 million to commemorate the war and we're going back into all of these issues, and there are 6,000 people on a petition or i don't know how many, who started saying, hey it was a mass dell and -- it was a massacre and legally called that's and we're going to get back into those issues but just looking at the families and the vets that came back they come back surviving things that they didn't before, so there's no limbs and the concussive blasts that are now a part of contemporary warfare that range from, you know,

breaking down doors to policy and our understanding what the brain is doing in that trauma and it's so heightened now and we're just getting to the point that we need to realize that we need to look at the families around these vets, too, so that way there's a sociological thing. >> someone mentioned on the program recently that when a soamger goes to war his family goes with him. talking about the agony for the person who is remaining at home. they go through whatever he or she goes through. >> that's very much what this play is about. you know, on the cover of the play, it says, you know, by david rabe, the vietnam place. and this is a family play, you know, taking place during the vietnam era, and it very much is about how the vet kind of implodes the family. >> rose: tell me about the mother's attitude? >> well, i think that it's so

interesting that david chose to name the two characterize ozy and harriet. as the play is going on, that's had more and more resnance for me, but i don't think me or bill like paid a lot of attention to that television program. but the americana, the super structure of the american family after world war ii is something that is very much part of like ozzie and harriet, of the safety and the victory, the luxury, the life of plenty that i think that we as a country experienced after world war ii, and it collides with the vietnam in the '06's. >> cultural revolution as well as post war. >> yes. so i think for the play to be sitting on that precipice is

really interesting for us to experience now as a cast. >> rose: barns wrote in the "new york times" in 1972 it is a shattering indictment of that moral condition known as middle america and its rising flood tides of human conformity. >> well, i mean, i'm sure that -- i wouldn't say that's exactly true. i guess in a way. i view it more as the need to have these firm rules and guidelines for any family or society of when things are so you know when things are ok and then david comes in or the vet comes in and he is shattering all of that so that it throws everybody back on them selves and into kind of a self examination and then how far he wants to take them leads to

something that could be called what card called it but i don't look at it that way myself. doesn't mean it's not true but that's not how i view it exactly. there's a larger issue of just trying to stay sane and you expect certain things to be in certain places and when you walk down the streets of new york you just expect that the people coming towards you, you will gently part for each other. but you do. mainly they do. and you do. otherwise you wouldn't get anywhere. >> rose: well that's true. but if they're looking down and they don't see you -- but you're welcomed back to the table. >> thank you. i was going to say i happened to see on the tv yet a clip from ozy and harriet and i was struck bit fact that nobody can do that anymore. there was a native tee about the people, a goodness about the

people, simplicity about the people that no actors could do now. it just doesn't exist anymore. we're 250 fraught and sophisticated. >> what's the role of the priest here? what does he bring to the table. >> it's curious. it kind of brings religion into it. and my priest, he is a very successful priest. he decided to be a priest because it could give him a certain place in the community. what ozzie has always longed for, the respect and et cetera and he organizes sports events and he does all of the things priests do and he does them rather well. he just doesn't happen to have a calling. he just doesn't know that. she good at it. and he's never been busted before. he goes up to david, the young man who has come back from vietnam to straighten him out. he understands he has been a little troublesome and he goes upstairs to straighten him out

in his bedroom and he gets totally blitzed. i mean totally blitzed, until he, by david, who won't have any of the nonsense that my character is spewing and i think think character actually never recovers from that. i think he remains a priest and he does priestly things but he doesn't believe it anymore and probably starts hitting the bottle, she so destroyed by this guy. >> rose: take a look at this. this is an early season where holly expresses her concern about david's behavior since his return. here it is. >> there's something wrong with stephen. he's been home days and days and speaks only when spoken to. there's no bounce in his step. no smile. he is not happy to be here and not once has he touched me or held me and i don't think he has even shaken your hand.

has he shaken your hand. >> i don't mind that. >> now he is talking to himself. what about that? do you mind that? he mutters and. >> no. >> yes. and it's not a regular kind of talking at all. it's very strange. it's very strange. >> spooky? i never heard him. >> i followed the sounds. i was in his room. he laid there speak. >> he was speaking? speaking what? >> i don't know. i couldn't understand. >> was it words? >> kind of funny and fast. >> i bet it was prayer. >> i know prayer when it hear it and it wasn't praying that he was doing. >> today's "new york times" critic is brantley and he he said pull i am make's case as one of theater's classic male

losers. he finds his vitality and existence under siege. does that resonate with you at all? >> sounds good! well, you know, i think it's a measure of great pride for the cast in this production for the play that has not had a major play in new york or any revival for 42 years and for us, when we're trained in trauma and things and you look at death of a salesman and long day's journey into night and these great plays and i feel and i think we all agree it's one of those kind of quality plays for american drama in the 70s, one of the most important family dramas that there is so i feel like getting that review is just important for reinstating the play. wouldn't you say? >> yeah. i totally agree. >> do you feel a sense that this this is important that this is being said now think? >> well i think david rabe is

one of the great american play writes so to be part of this and to feel the resonance of the words and the landscape that stretches out before us every night as we tell this story from beginning to end, it's very -- it's very -- it's very impactful and very special. i feel privileged to be part of this play. >> same here. >> and you know that's certainls certainly -- that's a rarity. it's a rarity to have an intercession with something that you feel has greatness. >> rose: you said about david he is -- >> about a play write who is livingths is not something that this is hallowed ground from it would be centuries ago. this is david rabe now and it's very special. >> you said he's not afraid of the dark. you said that about david.

>> i don't believe. no. did i? >> did you say it or -- >> it's a head long dive into the dark. >> do you have any family members that came back from vietnam. >> three. >> and experienced all of the things, some sense of what those returning veterans experienced in the sense that, a, the country was not -- in a sense the country was not paying the price, the veterans were paying the price; and secondly, they were not accepted for the sacrifices they made for the country. >> i think there was shame involved and the people felt a sense of shame, a national shame ant vietnam and i think that the vets were often thought of as kind of crazy, you know, that there was a kind of shunning. >> but that was so desperately

unfair to the returning veterans as if the war was their fault somehow, which, of course, it wasn't. >> my three family members did not experience that kind of -- >> the adult race of all of -- >> no. rose: i think you said you thought the theme of the play is denial. >> well, it's certainly absolutely one of the most potent themes that i think resonates with every single person alive, their relationship to truth. my own relationship to truth. everybody here. it's what do you believe, what do you know, what do you deny, what do you pretend, all of these things happen to us on a daily places. and this play deals with the everyday and the profound of what do you fake and how do you lay to yourself.

>> rose: could you have written this without having gone to vietnam or was that an essential connection. >> i assume it was. >> i don't think i would have written it otherwise. i'm sure i wouldn't have as a matter of fact. but who knows. i might have written something else. but i did and it's hard for me -- >> rose: when did it start for you, writing this play. >> well i had come back, you know, at that time, you -- i was getting both my tour was over and i was getting out of the army in the same day or two. so i flew back and the next day i was out of the army. i flew to san francisco and i was out of the army and i went back to my home down dubuque. and that's when it started to -- >> rose: germinate? >> yes. and you were aligned with the guys and the circumstances and find your buddies and the people that you can count count on. and after a few months, i don't remember how many, maybe fave or

six, i went back to graduate school. i had dropped out of graduate school and knocked around a year which is how i got drafted. i was in theater at villa nova and you know, one of the teachers there, bob hadley said you must have something going on. i was brooding and carrying on, to write about. and slowly i started all three of these plays, all four of these, pavlo hummel and -- >> doing four? >> i was doing them all and it was sequential and i jump to the other and pavlo and "sticks and bones," although what turned into streamers was written first before it turned into anything. and then villa nova was a wonderful place at that time in terms of creativity and i had a production of "sticks and bones." >> rose: how long did it take to

finish them all. >> streamers didn't finish for seven years after it started. and i would write. but the other three were more or less finished fairly within a couple of years i would say or three years. >> do actors tell you things about your characterize. >> yes. when things are -- you know there's revelations and it's also kind of just amazing nuance in line readings that you see at times and thrust of character that you haven't quite anticipated you know. and that's certainly happening in this production throughout. >> in the scene that we saw, bill reaches his hand over to touch your knee and you take it off. was that instinctive or what was that? >> i don't know. i wasn't seeing

some of the most exciting that you will get get because serve

scrambling to recover and adapt. and in the presence tent. it's really fun. >> when somebody misses an entrance where it's light, man, everybody slightly levitating and it's just kind of fun. >> it gives you opportunity. >> yeah, yeah. >> it's live. >> take a look at this. this is another clip. where father donald talks to ozzie and harriet and explains how he sees the priestly role. here it is. >> you know, religion is fluffed up a lot lightly but i think there's a relevancy, much, much larger than the credit most due. we're growing, and our insights when we have them, are twofold. i, for one, have come recently to understand how very often what seemed to be spiritual problems are, in fact, problems of the mind rather than the spirit. not that the two can in fact be

separated. so what we must do is apply these theories to fact. at which point we would find that mind and spirit are one. and i, a priest, am a psychiatrist. and psychiatrists are priests. i mean that. am i rambling? i feel like i'm rambling. >> oh, no father. >> no. [laughter] >> was that supposed to make sense? >> i think it made perfect sense. >> rose: it makes sense when you said the play -- you found the play was both a tragic and funny. >> yes. one of the amazing things about this play is that you can't put it in the box. you can't put it in a net. you can't say what it is or what it's really about. well it's about some things. but it changes with lightning

speed from fantasy to reality, to tragedy to total -- what's the word, denial, and it's like -- it's amazingly complicated and wonderfully so, i think. >> david, if you were writing it today, would it be different? >> do you mean -- >> in other words if you take the play that you wrote, stab, sticks and bones and had to do with the return from vietnam because you lived more years, 40 years -- no. >> rose: but here is an opportunity to change something if you wanted to to did you consider that, because you had more insight or experience? >> i take it with the small lines here and there and put everything back. >> but it's really minor stuff, nothing essential. then i changed lines for logistical purposes, if they

were doing blocking that i thought was good or if lines could be changed to facilitate that or be cut to facilitate that. but nothing of the essence of the characterize or play or story. just logistical stuff. >> have you written the play that you think that you were here to write? >> i have i have a few more. >> you know, you say, look because of who i am, how i feel, what i have experienced there's one combination of things that i need to put in one play that will have bigger, wiredder than anything i have done. >> that's a very big question. >> i will do my best. but i think i have looked at this play -- >> i like to see him

uncomfortable. >> i mean i look at this production of this play frankly because i think the dimensions in it are tapped and that i had either lost track of or had beaten out of me over the years. >> rose: its about history too because it reminds us because we have been through wars. >> recently it was said it was like a time capsule. it was time capsule of that time and yet it was of this time too. >> rose: exactly right. one more clip. this is -- well it explains itself. here it is. >> you're shaking. you're trembling. >> for a while. just a while. stay away. that's all i ask. >> what? >> stay the hell away from me. >> stay away? how far away? how far away, ozzie? i will move over here. is this far enough away, ozzie? >> it's in my hand, my feet,

there's darkness in me. i wake up each morning and my fingers -- >> it is so painful to see the way you have no love for people different from yourself. even when your son has come home to tell you of them. you have no right to carry on this way. he didn't bring her back, didn't marry her. we have those two authenticate to thank god for. when are you going to stop thinking of yourself. we don't matter. only the children. when are you going to straighten out your thinking? you have got to straighten out your thinking. >> sticks and bones is playing at the persian square. it will be there through december 14th. all right. are seats available? >> tight but they're there, i guess. >> be urgent. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪

>> john mellencamp is here, a singer and songwriter and is as you know a member of the rock'n'roll hold of fame much hills career spans nearly four decades and some of this popular songs include hurt so good, jack and dianne and pink houses. his passion not american heartland is well-known. along with willie nelson he developed the farm aid concert. ghost brothers of darkland county, written by stephen king and directed by t. bone barnett. the words are the concerns of a songwriter acting his age. i am pleased to have john mellencamp pack at this table. did you hear what i said? this is what the new york times said. i read and they said, the words

pawn the trouble love power god freedom go mortality. the concerns of a songwriter act being his age. >> that's important. rose: to act your age. >> it's important to act your age. yeah. i learned that lesson when i -- in the late 80s. it's a funny story. i went to see james brown when i was, i don't know, 1966, 1965. charlie, he was unbelievable. it was just -- he was on fire. i went to see him in the late 80s, early 90s, and he tried to do the splits and they had to come and help him up. and i thought to myself, if my career everlasts that long, remember to act your age. because, you don't want to be doing the splits on stage and having somebody come help you up. put he taught me a little

lesson. it's like, ok, you were that when you were 25. you will be this as 45 and this as 65. and if you have a career that lasts that long, it's important to act your age. >> rose: but you have had a career that lasted that long and it continues. >> well, i tried to not look back at what i did when i was 35 and look forward to what i'm going to do when i'm 65 and not get caught up with what people expect me to do or not do. or look i always say to people are you john mellencamp. and i go. yeah. you were probably expecting a much younger version. people see these records and the album covers and that's what theyer. >> why do you call it plain spoken? because it is. >> because it is. and that name has been around for a long time. my friend tim white who died who

was editor billboard magazine, years ago. 1988 i made a record and he said let's call it plain spoken and i said no it doesn't work and the title hung around in 34-head and the record i thought it was suitable for that. >> what has my friend t-bone burnett done for you. >> t-bone and i have made three records together. >> this one. >> he executive produced that fun. >> because you're producing it. >> well, she busy you know. he would come down and check in on us and check in and change this, change that. >> would you listen. sometimes. occasionally. you know, charlie, you know me. don't talk to me when i'm not listening, right? >> rose: you have always stayed in indiana. >> right. >> you don't know west coast and east coast for john medical mellencamp, always in the

heartland. >> i always thought i would be better off keeping to myself. i have never really been part of anything. i never have been part of the music business, never have been part of any established, you know -- the only thing i have ever been a part of is farming really. >> kneel was just here. >> i love neal. she a great guy. >> has a heart. >> yeah. a sweet guy. and i always enjoy seeing neal. >> listen to side a, troubled man. sometimes there's god, the isolation of mister, the company of cowards, tears in vein. side b, the brass ring, freedom of speech, blue chacialghts the courtesy of kings and lawless times. troubled man. what is that? >> i'm going to play that here in a second. >> rose: i know you are. >> "troubled man" was an i had that came to me. i try tried to write it

originally in 1991 but i was not mature enough to write it yet. you get to be a certain age and i start coming into realizations about yourself and things that you have done and things that you wish you hadn't done and you kind of start taking stock in who you are and -- >> rose: what are your regrets. >> i don't really have any regrets. i'm just saying, you do stuff -- you know it's like the frank capra movie, it's a wonderful life. what would it be without george you know? and i think you start looking at your life and the good things that you have done for people and the things that you may have done that hurt people. >> why troubled man? >> why troubled man? i would say that if you knew the song, you would say, john, you wrote this about me. >> rose: most of us, huh? >> yes. it's about small things that

most men, i think, in our age bracket, have experienced and felt, and i think this song covers that topic. >> john medical encamp has spent nearly 40 year career figuring out where he fits in the american grain and he has never inhabited traditional folk and blues setting as personally as this his 22nd album. does that ring true to you? has never inhabited traditional folk and blues imbued settings as personally as his 22nd alpum. >> i don't even know what they're talking about. truth is, if you're a songwriter your head just becomes -- when i was a young songwriter john mellencamp was in the way because i would say i want to write about this. and when it would start to go someplace else i would bring it back. but as i have gotten

older i let the songs go where they want to go and i get out of my own way and i let the thoughts come in because -- song writing is kind of channeled. it comes into your brain. and if you try to guide it then you're kind of getting in the way. so after all of these years i have learned to get out of my own way, let the song go where it wants to go and be happy for the happy surprise of what you have just written. sometimes, charlie, it happens to quick that you don't even -- i barely have time to write it down. >> rose: here is what you say in troubled man. too late came too early for me to face face self. >> i think that's pretty true for everybody. when our life finds trouble, we don't want to deal with that too much. and keeping secrets and keeping our self at bay and dealing with who we are seems to be pret

common business for the human race and so you know that's just a global statement. >> do you study other songwriters do you look at them and see what they're doing and see what you have to learn from them. >> i'm always learning from other people. but the biggest thing is i will hear something and say, how did they do that? as 63 years old i'm still amazed of the magic that some people can produce, and i'm still -- i still love music and i still am in awe of like how did they do that? >> they're in awe of you for the same reason. >> you don't think about that stuff. >> i hear you. you're not thinking about yourself but they are. what do great songwriters have? >> what do they have? >> what spraitsz good from great? >> i think great song writers have the ability to realize that there's always another song.

and some people think oh, i have written -- i had a guy once ask me, a very famous songwriter ask me, he said, john, have you ever had a writing block? and i went -- i won't mention his name but i i said, man, look out of the window. there's so much to write about. how could you possibly have a writing block? i couldn't possibly cover all of the topics that i feel i need to write about if i just wrote every day, day in and day out. >> what do you do every day, day in and day out? >> uhm -- >> rose: you're own the road now or you will be on the road january through august. >> what i do do every day, if i'm at home? >> rose: yeah. >> i paint. i start painting at 9:00. i quit painting at 7:00. i have dinner. >> rose: all day you glaint yes. somebody brings my food to me at

lunch and i paint. i watch the nightly news, talk on the telephone, do business. >> rose: dinner. >> in indiana there are not a lot of places to have dinner. it's not like new york where you go out with people. you just kind of have dinner and talk on the phone and do some business and go to bed and do it again the next day. >> you have said and may have said this to my colleague at cbs, anthony mason -- >> mason. >> he was a nice guy. rose: a great guy. and he gets music like few people do. tell us about it, what you told him about spina bifida. >> you know, spina bifida, when i was born with it, in 1951, they didn't really have any i had what to do with kids with spina bifida. they just let them lay there and die basically. and they had three kids at the hospital at the same time that i

had it. they went to my parents and said look this kid is going to die if we don't try something. do you mind if we try? they said well, it's a choice of death or trying, try. so they separated on all three kids. one kid died on the table. the girl made it until she was about 14. and she was in a wheelchair her entire life. and me, i didn't even know i had it until i was 10 or 11 and somen kid came up to me at school and said what is that big scar across your neck. i can't see the back of my neck. so i went home and asked my parents and i said what is this big scar? i got a hand mirror you know and started looking. >> rose: this is the story of a doctor too. >> yeah. so anyway i -- my parents just downplayed it. they said oh, don't worry about it. so as i got older, i started realizing what a miracle it was that i was alive.

but this young doctor just tried this experimental surgery that just worked on me and consequently became like the first step in dealing with the spina bifida. and charlie, this is 1951. they operated on people with shears and screwdrivers. think about it. the doctor was a great guy. he looked at me and goes what is your faith john? i said i don't have much faith sometimes. and that's all he wanted to talk to me about was faith. you of all people should have faith. >> is a song going to come out of this? >> probably. i don't know. anything is -- charlie, if it's out there, it's available. even if it has been written, it's mine. >> as bill murray said to me on the program, you have to be

alert and available. >> that's right. rose: alert and available. >> he is exactly right. rose: why do you think you won't write anymore hits. >> i don't think that -- i don't think that that's available. radio is so different than what it used to be. i'm botch the age. if you listen to what is on the radio today it has nothing to do with what i started to do or what neal young does. we're just not in that field of music name. >> but you still have a good life. >> yeah. >> i mean you're going to tour. >> yeah, listen -- >> neal is on a tour. >> listen, charlie -- >> and painting too. there are a lot of similarities here. >> he is. rose: yeah. >> he got that from me. >> dillon did too probably. >> this guy is copying me! can't have an original thought! >> rose: does a song come to you, does a lyric come or does

the music come? >> it all comes together for me generally. >> you hear both at the same time. >> you know the idea -- it just comes and you start writing and i can't even keep up with it. so it's nothing i have thought thought about. i'm working with a guy on ghost brothers right now who is a writer, not steve but there's another writer doing transition and he has to think about it. and he says i will come back in two days and i'm like no, no, no, we need it in 10 minutes, not two days. we need it now. >> so you know all different people have different process. >> how is your health? >> you know, as good as can be expected for a 63-year-old man. every year counts you know. for a guy who has been -- probably smoked 10 million cigarettes. >> no. >> why don't you?

>> why don't i what? >> stop smoking. >> charlie it's the only thing i do well. >> you are hopeless. >> only thing i do well. >> are you easy to be with? >> no. i'm impossible to deal with. >> what is it that makes you impossible? >> i have been in a rock band since i was 14. i do things my way. i wrote it in a song a long time ago. i do things my way and i pay a high price. that's the price i pay. because i'm not a very good collaborator. i don't play well with the other kids. so when you bring that home or into a relationship, it doesn't really work. you know that charlie. i'm not going to throw myself in there without bringing you down with me. >> rose: no more of this, ok?

>> right. >> have you heard of spotify? >> yes, i know all about spotify. if you want to get into the internet with me, i can. because what happened and what should have happened with the internet is that the internet should have been treated as just another delivery system. but everybody acted like it was a miracle. but it was the same miracle as radio. the record chemical weapons should have dom forward and gone wait a minute, google, yahoo, you can't have this lawless land where people can do this and that. you can't do that. if they would have treated it the same way as they treated radio or television, we would still have intlerkt although property that wasn't considered to be free to everyone. but it was the lackadaisical attitude and confusion of people

who controlled, intellectual property that let it go away. so gwendolyn what we have is, if somebody was to ask me should i become a songwriter, my answer is no. because there's no way to make any money. no way to make a live. >> the jenny is out of the bottle. >> that's right. >> and they will say, well, we pay -- listen, i have to get like a million plays on some of these little plays to make 16-cent. >> really? i'm going to make 16-cent. >> a million plays to make 16-cent. that's the kind of pay they have. >> is there a place you can go online on the internet and see your paintings. >> i always looked at my paintings as a hobby the last 40 years but now i have a gallery here in new york. >> to you really? >> yes. aca gallery. >> so you can go there and see your paintings? >> he. >> yes. >> i will be there. >> plain spoken is a new album

by the incomparable john mellencamp, part of the american song book. thank you. >> appreciate it. >> pleasure to have you. >> always good see you go charlie. always good to be seen. >> yes this. we go out, "troubled man" by john mellencamp. see you next time. ♪ ♪ it's the wake of all evil a universal mess ♪ i've always found trouble even at my best

♪ no hopes to get better until they put me down to rest ♪ i am a troubled man ♪ ♪ ♪ anxiety and sorrow underneath my skin ♪ self destruction and failure have beat my head in ♪ i laughed out loud once

i won't do that again ♪ i've always traveled the hellfire road ♪ and tasted the sweet smell of sin ♪ i am a troubled man ♪ i am a troubled man ♪ i am a troubled man ♪ i am a troubled man ♪ so many things have gone through my hands ♪ i am a troubled man

♪ people up on the east side ♪ people on the gravel road ♪ people of many colors ♪ whose stories have never been told ♪ too late came too early for me to face myself ♪ i am a troubled man ♪ i am a troubled man ♪ i am a troubled man

(oh lord) ♪ i won't do anything but hurt you if i can ♪ i am a troubled man ♪ i am a troubled man ♪ ♪ ♪ >> rose: for more about this program and other episodes visit us i don't believe at pbs.org and choorlyrose.com.

captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> rose: for more about this program and other episodes visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com.

>> funding has been provided by the coca-cola company supporting this program since 2002. american express. additional funding provided by:

report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. funded in part by -- thestreet.com and action alerts plus where jim cramer and fellow portfolio manager stephanie link share their investment strategies, stock picks and market insights. you can learn more at thestreet.com/nbr. wall street and washington. the two intersected today when some of the biggest names in business from walmart to exxon mobile asked the president about some of the biggest issues facing their companies and the economy. >> and there's one matter that could keep business leaders up at night in the new year. we'll tell you what it is. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for wednesday, december 3rd. >> good evening, everyone. i'm sue