Before you get going, could I say something?
Yes, please.
Can I say thank you for what you bravely
did more than 20 years ago that Bryden and myself can speak
our truth and tell our stories?
Thank you for what you did.
[AUDIENCE CHEERING]
I mean that.
Thank you.
Bless you.
Thank you.
We're gay as heck!
Yeah.
There's a lot of gay as heck people out there.
They just have to be braver as heck, that's all.
So how are you here?
I saw you on GMA this morning.
I know.
How do you do that?
There's this wonderful contraption called an airplane.
Right.
You get in that, and you just fly out west.
Yeah.
And yet you have this energy.
I know.
Don't know how you do it.
Well, I'm still living off of vacation
at the end of the year.
How long were you on vacation?
For about 2 and 1/2 weeks.
We were too.
Where'd you go?
Stayed home.
Ah.
Staycation.
Those are good.
Yeah, well.
Yeah.
This time it was.
So where'd you and Amber go?
Thailand and Vietnam.
Had you been before?
No. it was beautiful!
I'd never been.
Never been.
I'm a proud Air Force brat, love to travel,
never been to that part of the world.
It is magical.
Absolutely magical.
Yeah, I bet.
So you just-- what did you do?
Nothing?
Well, normally I do nothing.
That's a tree pod.
That's where we had lunch in Thailand.
And let me tell you, this is the first time
that Amber and I have taken an extended vacation--
just the two of us.
Usually we have family and friends
who are buffer zones for me so I can sit on the beach and read.
She's more adventuresome.
So I had to get out.
And she said, let's go to lunch.
And I go, great!
And then next thing I know we're in a tree pod.
And we're having lunch like, 300 feet up in the air.
It was fantastic!
Well, it the stuff cold by the time it gets to you?
I mean, how do they get--
They come in on a zip line.
I see.
Yeah.
And it was a great place.
Soneva Kiri.
And it's called No News, No Shoes.
Wow.
No News, No Shoes.
As soon as you land there, they take your shoes.
There's no TV.
And I said, no problem.
No news, no shoes, no problem.
Is that easy for you?
Because that's your entire life is just information just kind
of flooding you every day.
I love that.
I love being able to give people accurate information
and let them make their own decisions.
But, yes.
I can unplug just fine.
Really?
Oh, not a problem.
Yeah.
Not a problem at all.
Yeah.
Because I would think that would be really, really hard too.
And also when you go home and to have all that information
in your head to just go to sleep and let go of stuff.
Well, when you get up at 3:15 in the morning like I do,
it's a little easier when I come home to go to bed.
But I get up early in the morning.
I meditate.
I know that you do that as well.
Yep.
We have the same Bob.
Bob Roth.
He's great.
And so it really helps me settle all that-- all that
information.
Because you know, the news cycle, there's a lot going on.
But I'm so glad that you settled the shutdown.
You know, how you--
Yeah.
As soon as this gets out, you know, I mean--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
We've seen it.
So we're fine.
But when the world sees--
I think you really have solved it.
For sure.
If the cats can do it, so can America.
So do you have--
I know that every year who have a new motto for--
what's the motto for 2019?
My sweet sister, Dorothy, back home
in Pass Christian, Mississippi.
She always comes up with a motto.
And this year, my life is serene in 2019.
So the hashtag is serene in 2019.
Oh, that's great.
Yes.
[AUDIENCE CLAPPING]
How can it be serene if you get up at 3:15 every morning?
Really?
It's testing me already.
What?
We're a week or two in?
Yeah.
But no.
It's just-- it's a peak-- you know this.
It's a state of mind.
I'm eternally optimistic.
And I've often said this.
Optimism is like a muscle that gets stronger with use.
I say that a lot.
So every day you do great interviews.
But what interview did you love the most of everything
last year?
Oh my gosh.
I sat down in November.
You may have heard of this woman.
Michelle Obama?
Mm.
Yeah.
Michelle Obama?
[AUDIENCE CHEERING]
We spent the day together.
We spend the day together in Chicago,
went back to her old house, saw her old high school.
Yeah, I saw that.
And I saw her with you at Costco.
I mean, did--
Yeah.
You were really helping her.
Well, I helped her.
It became a number one best seller because of me.
Yeah, exactly.
But yeah, I saw that with you spending the whole day
with her.
Isn't she fantastic?
She is.
And to see her light up when she's around young people--
when she went back to her old high school and an old dance
class that she had been in, and there was a poster of her
when she was a dancer there.
But she is just--
she's something so special.
Yeah, she really is.
Incredibly special.