It was a Ray Romano kind of weekend

From a podcast to the movie theater to a sweet memory from the 92nd Street Y

This is going to sound very petty.

I was listening to the Jake Gyllenhaal episode of Armchair Expert, and decided I’d had enough. I will likely finish it up at some point when the mood is right, but I was not in the right frame of mind to hear more from a guy who grew up in a swanky family and was recognized and appreciated for his talent at a very young age.

I pivoted to Marc Maron’s WTF episode with Ray Romano, who didn’t start making a living as a performer (enough to quit his day job) until he was 30. Despite having never watched Everybody Loves Raymond, I have a special place in my heart for Ray. Stick with me and I’ll explain why.

I didn’t have any feelings about him, positive or negative, until I saw him as Hank Rizzoli on Parenthood, when I quickly switched from apprehensive to adoring. I was initially irritated by the addition of a new character when the show was already juggling so many of them, but he won me over, especially in those scenes after Hank read a book about autism (to better understand one of the other characters) and realized he had some issues of his own to deal with.

I suspected Parenthood wouldn’t come up on the podcast, and it didn’t, but it was a great listen anyway and changed the course of my weekend for the better.

At the beginning of their conversation, Marc and Ray sounded like two guys who hadn’t seen each other in a while and had just run into each other at the bus stop. I felt like I was sitting on the other side of their bench, eavesdropping as they rattled off their health issues, compared cholesterol levels, discussed statens, and talked about their aging parents (“They get very vulnerable and weird,” said Marc). If I were 20, I’m sure I’d have been bored by all this, but I’m not and I wasn’t. Plus, it was funny; neither one expected the topic to be so fruitful!

Ray brought up that he used to do a lot of health jokes back in the day, and now he wishes he was as healthy as he was then. “That’s how neurotic I was,” he said, reminding me of what happens when I see photos of myself from my 20s and 30s and remember how they used to horrify me. When I see them now, I’m always shocked by the realization that I looked just fine. Maybe even cute.

This is the second podcast I heard this weekend where people older than I am talked about how your 50s are great—the other was Wiser Than Me with guest Fran Lebowitz, who said all American presidents should have to be in their 50s, an idea I can get behind. The consensus seems to be that aging doesn’t start to get weird until your 60s.

Note to self: Enjoy your 50s more.

Ray told Marc a great story about working on The Irishman with Robert De Niro, and he tells it much better than I would. I’m only mentioning it to tempt you to listen to the whole thing.

Did it work?

About halfway through, they started talking about Somewhere in Queens, the movie Ray co-wrote, directed, and stars in.

When Marc asked him about a specific scene and Ray said he had a story about it, I hit pause. I didn’t want to hear the rest until I saw the movie, so I asked Nat, my 19-year-old, if he wanted to go. We saw the 4:10 show that very afternoon.

(I should’ve done the same thing with the Smartless interview with Steven Spielberg; I paused it when he started digging into detail about The Fabelmans and never got back to it because I still haven’t seen the movie!)

We both really liked Somewhere in Queens—both Ray and costar Laurie Metcalf were pitch-perfect—and I made the right decision when I hit that pause button; I’m glad I didn’t hear them talk about the scene until I’d watched it. Nat and I had a good talk about the movie on the way home, and he said he’d probably go see any movie written and directed by Ray.

Same.

You knew I had a Ray Romano story coming, right?

When Nat was just a wee little 14-year-old, I took him to see The Big Sick, which we both loved.

At 14, Nat had just reached the age where we could share pop culture experiences that weren’t specifically for kids. When your kids are small, you join them where they are, watching their shows and movies. Don’t get me wrong, this phase is great: It led to me Phineas and Ferb and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, as well as the eminently quotable Thomas the Tank Engine.

When I saw the 92nd Street Y was doing a Big Sick panel with the writers and actors, I bought us tickets, and we ended up in the front row. On the panel: Kumail Nanjiani, Emily V. Gordon, Zoe Kazan, and Ray Romano.

Less than ten minutes in, Emily asked if there was anyone in the audience born after 1992, so I pointed to Nat, clearly the youngest person there. The whole panel turned their attention to him. Ray asked Nat, “Have you heard of Judd Apatow?” and after getting a no, asked, “Have you heard of me?” Answer still no! Ray explained to Nat that he used to be on a TV show, which was a thing Nat could watch on his phone. It went on and on, to our great delight.

From then on, whenever a topic related to sex came up or someone swore, Ray would say “Not in front of the kid!” He also kept gesturing to Nat, sort of like the way Jim used to do to the camera on The Office.

Later on, they asked Nat his age and what he thought of the movie, complimented him on his Alamo Drafthouse T-shirt, joked that one of the audience questions was for him to answer, and included him in a birthday video they were making for Judd Apatow.

Nat was full of jittery energy the whole way home on the train and couldn’t sit still. (Do you blame him?) I posted a photo of him on Twitter, tagging the panel members who had Twitter accounts, and Zoe quote-tweeted.

He was still such a kid! These days, 19-year-old Nat is long and lean at almost six-foot-four. I should probably pick him up a new Alamo Drafthouse T-shirt (and commandeer his old one).

Here’s the full panel. The first conversation with Nat starts at about 9:40.

If you’ve seen The Big Sick (and you should, it’s still on Amazon Prime), you’ll love the panel. Their comments about it are enlightening whether or not they’re speaking to my first-born.

I have plenty of other podcasts to talk about, but I’ll save that for the next issue, since none of them are about Ray Romano or either of my magnificent children.

I will, however, take a moment to plug my own podcast, as one does. Tony and I had much to say about the Star Trek: Picard series finale, and we also talked about the Strange New Worlds trailer and the announcement of the first Star Trek TV-movie, which will star Michelle Yeoh.