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The Smoke Trail, hosted by Smoke Wallin, is a journey into awakening consciousness, weaving authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests to unlock high performance and perfect health. Each episode delves into spirituality, leadership, and transformation, offering tools to transcend trauma and find your bliss along the way. It’s a reflective space for achieving peak potential and inner peace in a distraction-filled world.
Smoke: I owned� Awesome.
Smoke: Tony, welcome to the Smoke Trail.
Tony Denison: Nice to be here.
Smoke: I'm super excited to have� have you here, and, to welcome Tony Dennison, who's a very accomplished actor, and,
Smoke: you share your hometown with my wife, which is, she grew up in the Bronx, but you're, you know, a little�
Tony Denison: Harlem originally, yeah.
Smoke: Yeah. And I'm just super excited to just share some stories and talk a little bit about your journey, and�
Smoke: What's been important in your life, and share it with our listeners.
Tony Denison: Okay, my pleasure.
Smoke: Well, first of all, you've played some really cool roles over the years, and
Smoke: You know, in your, your, the, the cop story that you were in, which was the.
Tony Denison: The original one, Crime Story, you mean?
Smoke: Yeah, Crime Story, that was pretty cool. I remember that back in the day.
Tony Denison: It was a lot of fun.
Smoke: And, and I know you've had lots of roles in lots of� lots of TV and lots of movies, too.
Tony Denison: Yeah, I've done� I guess I'm more noted for TV than I am for movies, but I've done my fair share of movies, yeah.
Smoke: Yeah, the Gotti� the Gotti profile.
Tony Denison: Oh, it was called, yeah, it was called, Getting Gotti, and it was based on a true� the true� the Diane Giacalone, who brought the first case against him. And she would have been successful, too, but as the story goes, I mean, there was,
Tony Denison: A juror who was on the take, or something like that.
Tony Denison: And they couldn't understand why Gotti was so, you know, cock-sure about everything, and they� because they had a lot of stuff.
Tony Denison: You know, but this guy� there was never� he was never gonna be found guilty, because this guy was on the take. That's� that's� that's what I've seen on documentaries and other stuff, and that's what we put inside our� the movie we did.
Tony Denison: And, what's her name? Lorraine Bracco, she played Diane Giacolone. And it was funny, Lorraine and I are families. Her mom and dad and my mom and dad belong to the same Sons of Italy lodge.
Tony Denison: in, in Hicksville. And, so I didn't know Lorraine. I mean, I met her once when she guest-starred on, Crime Story.
Tony Denison: series I had done, you know, back in 86, and
Tony Denison: also based on a real character, but anyway, I, she, she then� we then did this together, and we got to know each other much more, you know, much, much more, and her husband at the time was Eddie Almos, who had worked for Michael Mann, who had produced the show I had done, Crime Story.
Tony Denison: So we, you know, it was very nice, and we got to� and we're still, you know, friendly to this day. I mean, we don't hang out, because she mostly lives in New York, but, you know, I feel I could call her at any time if I, you know, was doing a movie, and I'd like her to be in it, and, you know, hopefully she'll call me, you know.
Tony Denison: I don't know, but I'm not� I wasn't a Nona, that movie they did about the Italian grandmothers, but I don't� but I think,
Tony Denison: I think what's his name was the executive producer on it, and certainly he was gonna play any role that I would write for. I can't think of his name now, but anyway, apparently it was good, good, well received.
Smoke: Well, funny story, Nona, so we just watched that, like a month ago, and it was� it was a great film, but� and really fun, heartwarming, and all that, but�
Smoke: I was doing a 72-hour fast.
Tony Denison: Ugh. Yeah.
Smoke: And and we don't watch a lot of movies these days, like, we're just, like, just not what we do these days. I've watched a lot of movies, but I kind of don't watch a lot these days. And my wife, Anitra.
Smoke: pick the movie, and she's like, let's watch a movie. I'm like, alright, you know, I'm on a fast, I'm like, alright, you know, okay. She picks Nona. Are you kidding me? Like, I'm like, I'm sitting there watching, like, the greatest, like, Italian food being made, like�
Tony Denison: Right, exactly.
Smoke: All the movies. Of all the movies.
Tony Denison: You know, that's crazy.
Smoke: That was� that's crazy. Well, we're� you're� We got connected through Jack Maxwell, who was, actually gone�
Tony Denison: Good friend, great guy.
Smoke: Yeah, Jack's a great friend of both of ours, and he was on the podcast earlier, and this is actually episode 31, so I think Jack might have been episode 2 or 3.
Smoke: So�
Tony Denison: Okay, cool, cool.
Smoke: Yeah.
Smoke: Alright, well�
Tony Denison: The guy I was thinking� the guy I was thinking about before was Vince Vaughn. He played the� yeah.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: I'm sorry to interrupt. Go ahead.
Smoke: No, no, all good, all good.
Smoke: But, you know, what I� what I love about your story, you know, you've obviously had a really remarkable career, still active, you're still acting and doing� doing things, yeah? Oh, yeah.
Tony Denison: In fact, Jack Maxwell and I, we wrote a screenplay together called, Last Stop Coney Island.
Tony Denison: And, we wrote it with, really two really good roles for us to play. And now we're trying to get some extra actors that I know who may be able to help us get it going.
Tony Denison: I'd like to think that of myself would be enough, but apparently, you know, it's not ever enough.
Smoke: Yeah, no, I've actually hung out with Jack while he was writing on his little device, you know, parts of�
Tony Denison: He's a rider, Jack, he's a good writer.
Smoke: Yeah, and my wife, Anitra wrote a couple songs, I think, that might be part of something if it all works out, so�
Tony Denison: Without a doubt. Like, I told Jack, I said, you know, we get� when we get this off the ground, I said, in a sense.
Tony Denison: We are the gods on this project, you know, lowercase g, and you know, we make all the decisions and write all the characters and all that, so if we want our characters to suddenly pick up a guitar one day and belt out a song, they can do it, you know, because we wrote it.
Smoke: Alright, well, if you guys need an extra who gets killed or something, you know, I'm available.
Tony Denison: Well, there's mob� there's mob stories, there's mob� there's mob connection in the big time, so yeah, that could happen.
Smoke: I agree.
Tony Denison: My character could, what, give you a whack or something?
Smoke: All right, awesome. Well, speaking of God, I think, you know, you found a higher power at some point along the way. I understand from your story, and I'd love just to hear from your own words, but, you know, you were, living the high life, and partying hard, and�
Smoke: you know, acting and doing what we all do at a certain age, I think. And then, something came over you, and you decided, enough is enough. And I think you told me, 31 years sober?
Tony Denison: 32-year show, but yeah, the one thing I wasn't doing was acting, actually. I was just�
Tony Denison: I was gambling, I was running an illegal gambling club, and I was doing, like.
Tony Denison: I mean, insane amounts of cocaine, and I was drinking an equally insane amount of scotch every day. And this was my life for the last�
Tony Denison: I guess the last 9 months of whatever that existence, that whole� you know, Cabal and�
Tony Denison: not cabal, the whole milieu that I was involved in, which was horrible. But at the time, you know, I thought I was cool. I thought I was, you know, I thought I was the coolest thing on Earth. And, you know� Well, now you can be in the NBA, by the way. What?
Smoke: Now you could be in the NBA.
Tony Denison: Yeah, well, I mean, like, when that story broke, I thought to myself, oh, just now you realize that they gamble in� I mean.
Tony Denison: There's been so many gambling movies made, and, you know, point shaving, and all kinds of stuff that goes on. It's like, they just got caught, that's all. I mean, this stuff is, like, it's so widespread.
Tony Denison: the implication is there. You know, so once, you know, once, you know, in for a penny, in for a pound. And it's like the one thing that you wish�
Tony Denison: you know, it wasn't happening. You wish that there was some purity left, especially in sports. I mean, there's none in politics, there's none, you know, anywhere else in life, but you'd like to think that in sports, that there would be.
Tony Denison: Because it's just people, you know, competing at a level, you know, just an athletic level, basically for the love of the game. It's like in my business, like in acting, it's like, I do what I do because I love it.
Tony Denison: I mean, I really, really love it. I mean, I found something in my life that I finally� because I was late to acting. I was, like, I think I was, like, 28 years old or something when I got involved in it. And, but once I got involved in it, I mean, it's like�
Tony Denison: grabbed me, and I was like, fucked.
Tony Denison: And, and, you know, this one time�
Tony Denison: I remember I was on the set of Crime Story, and I was talking to somebody, because I was having so much fun, and I said to this one guy, this other actor on the show, I think it was John Polito, God rest his soul.
Tony Denison: he played Phil Bartoli on the Crime Story shows, and I said to him, I said, you know, I said, I don't know, I said, I said, I would do this for free. I said, so the sound guy comes over to me, and he goes, hey, I heard you say that on the tape, you want me to record that and send it to him? No, no, no, no!
Tony Denison: But I mean, but he once also said to me, you know, doing this, no matter how hard the work might be that particular day, long hours, because you work a lot of long hours, but nothing compared to what my dad did. My dad was a truck driver.
Tony Denison: Drove tractor-trailers around Manhattan, for Christ's sakes. We're talking, like, you know, these 40-foot tractor-trailer jobs. You know, nothing I� I may say work might be challenging one day, because you're tired, because you work a lot of hours.
Tony Denison: But he� I was once complaining about� same sound guy, and he comes over to me, he goes, he says, look, he goes, no matter what you're doing, it sure beats staying home watching reruns of the Beverly Hillbillies, doesn't it?
Tony Denison: And I was like, oh yeah.
Tony Denison: Oh, yeah. I actually met Max Baer at an event, and he turned out to be a big fan of mine from Crime Story, and he gave me some advice. He said to me, he goes.
Tony Denison: Take your work seriously, but don't take yourself seriously. He goes, you'll have a great time on the ride. And sometimes you forget, sometimes you start to take yourself� I mean, I was never one of these guys who, you know, don't you know who I think I am? But I used to think, like, sometimes, well, like, I'm�
Tony Denison: Time magazine gave me a great send-off, said I was the best villain of the decade, and how come I'm not getting, you know� and it's just�
Tony Denison: just sometimes it doesn't work out that way. Sometimes you have to sit on a bench. Sometimes, no matter how good a batter you are, they have to take you out of the lineup.
Tony Denison: You know? Yeah. Because in baseball all the time. You know, great, great ballplayers get� you're on the bench, we're taking you out, we're gonna shake up the lineup a little bit. Because people tend to be complacent, even in baseball. And but�
Tony Denison: But a lot of times, then when you get back up to the plate, and you're back in the lineup.
Tony Denison: And it's like� you know? So, I'm not immune to making less than stellar decisions, or less than stellar choices, in my life, but, I like to think that when I do make one, I learn from it, you know, and that� in my sobriety.
Tony Denison: in a sense, helps me do that. You know, I've said before on different interviews that I've done that I,
Tony Denison: My wife was here, she'd get a kick out of this, because she said, you only say that, you know? But what I say is that I, I, I'm, I'm, I, I'm,
Tony Denison: I have blue-collar values and a gold-collar profession.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: my mom and dad, I remember when I got Crime Story, you know, and I wasn't even getting paid that much money back then when I first started out.
Tony Denison: But my mom and dad, it was like the equivalent, they even said, it's like, oh, Anthony, you know, it'd be nice if your sisters, I know they're not in the acting, but maybe they can win the lottery, too. They'd looked at it as winning the lottery.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: And it was the only comparison they could make, because the amount of money I was being paid compared to what my dad made, driving a tractor was like�
Tony Denison: It's like, who?
Tony Denison: Who makes that kind of money?
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: And so� Yeah, so�
Smoke: Well, what I love is� two things. One, finding something you love. This applies to�
Smoke: any� anything in life, if you can find something you love that you can make a living at, what a beautiful blessing, right? Like, what a� what a wonderful thing to have, and what I wish everyone would get, right? And it's like� but you had to take some risks to get there. You know, and I'm sure people were like.
Tony Denison: As a side note, just as a side note, whoever invented flavored water.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: I hope they're vacationing right now in the Riviera, just enjoying life.
Smoke: Well�
Tony Denison: That was great.
Smoke: Funny story, I wrote a paper at Cornell when I was in college in the 80s about bottled water, and then I started a company in 91 called Cameron Springs.
Smoke: Which we sold to Nestle in, 2000. So, I got in the business, you know, that was pretty early days for the bottled water, but�
Tony Denison: Yeah, I'll say.
Smoke: But I'm still working, so it wasn't� it wasn't like.
Tony Denison: Wasn't one of these billion-dollar sales, okay, I get it.
Smoke: But it was a cool experience, and my son� my second son is named Cameron, after the water company. So, I got a� this is a funny little side story. We were negotiating with Nestle, and we were about� I mean, it was about a million dollars apart, which, you know, it wasn't a giant deal, but it was a big number.
Smoke: And, and they were like, smoke.
Smoke: you know, compared to all the other companies we bought, we're valuing you full value, and, you know, they're going through all the reasons why they can't give me any more. And I said, listen, I've got a 10-year-old son who's about to turn 10. He� his�
Smoke: identity is tied up with this water company. Like, all his friends know it's Cameron Springs, he's Cameron, you know, he's, you know, we sponsor all the school stuff, and, you know, it's like, it's the kids' water company. I got a million dollars of therapy ahead of me.
Smoke: And they laughed at me, and they're like, you know, that's not a reason for us. And I'm like, okay, we walked away. And we said, no, we're not gonna sell it. Six months later, they came back, they gave us the million dollars.
Tony Denison: Oh, God, that's great.
Smoke: Yeah, and he's a good kid, he didn't need the therapy, but.
Tony Denison: How did you get to handle smoke? How'd that come about?
Smoke: You know, I think, it's on my birth certificate, so it's, it's.
Tony Denison: Oh, so it's legit?
Tony Denison: Oh, it's not a nickname that stuck with you, okay.
Smoke: No, it's my middle name, but it's, but, I� we have some American Indian in us.
Tony Denison: I was gonna say, Native American, yeah.
Smoke: And there was a fire when my mother was expecting me, so there's a whole story around that, and this whole epic story. So we all got kind of an earth name and a regular name. Also, I think my parents were a little hippie-ish, so, you know, combination of those things.
Smoke: I can tell you this, it got a lot better after middle school. It's like a boy named Sue, you know?
Tony Denison: Oh, right, right, right.
Smoke: Kids are tough, right? You know, having a name like Smoke, I was a scrawny kid, you know, and, it, it, you know, it was, it was a, like, it made me who I am, right? It, like, made you kind of, I had to be, you know, resilient.
Smoke: everyone made fun of it, but, you know, by high school, I was a wrestler, and grew a little bit, got a little bigger, and it's been a good name since then.
Tony Denison: Alright, it's a cool name, though.
Smoke: Well, thank you, thank you. There's every� I've heard every joke there is, but� feel free. Alright, well�
Tony Denison: I'll try to think of one, if I heard, if I remembered one.
Smoke: So, you were� you were partying hard, you were drinking�
Tony Denison: What happened was, I'll say it this way, I was working in a theater company in New York.
Tony Denison: it was called the 13th Street theater Company, it was on 13th Street between 5th and 6th in Manhattan, and I was doing a couple of plays there, and I was immersed, you know, literally submerged in theater. And, and then what happened� things� you know, I don't know, I just�
Tony Denison: little bit of� once in a while, because I remember in college, I used to snort some cocaine in college, but when college was done, I didn't seek it out, look for it more and more or anything.
Tony Denison: But I always drank, you know, and I was not one who could really, ever really hold his liquor, in a sense. I mean, I always went past the when point, you know, and 9 out of 10 times wind up getting sick, you know, having an upset stomach of throwing up and whatever.
Tony Denison: But I still like the feeling of the difference of when you� suddenly you're, like, one way, then the next minute you're another way, and that other way, I look forward to all the time.
Tony Denison: But, so I was, bored. I was getting bored with stuff, and I wanted more.
Tony Denison: And then I left the theater company that I was working at, because it just� I just� I couldn't�
Tony Denison: the accommodations there, I was living there at the theater and stuff, and it just wasn't enough, so I started working at these, blackjack clubs, dealing blackjack, because I was making really good money, and I could work whatever hours I wanted, and be available to do auditions and stuff during the day, but one of the�
Tony Denison: The hazards of being at those places is that
Tony Denison: You start to, there's a lot of people come in, they have cocaine.
Tony Denison: And cocaine became, you know, a very friendly commodity that people would, oh, hey, you know, or they would sell it to you very inexpensively, or whatever.
Tony Denison: And, so a little more and more, I started, like, doing more and more Coke, and booze was always free at those places. So I was just drinking a lot of my Johnny Walker Black, which is my favorite drink.
Tony Denison: And, and then what happened was I decided, I can get more of this if I open my own place.
Tony Denison: So then I wound up getting a guy to come and partners with me, and we opened up our own place, and the next thing you know, we were, you know, we were doing okay. I mean, we were making a lot of money, but the�
Tony Denison: proportionately, my intake of cocaine and booze grew exponentially with, you know, how much more money was coming in. So then it got to the point where he had to leave because
Tony Denison: He was married and had kids. I was married, had no kids, and he just had to leave, because he just was not able� I mean, just� we were doing so much cocaine.
Tony Denison: And when he left, I was doing the place by myself, and then I just went�
Tony Denison: I mean, it was like on an express train to hell.
Tony Denison: And, my wife at the time, she left me. You know, we got back together later on, we broke up much� many years later, but we got, you know, she left me, and I was just a crazy man.
Tony Denison: And and then I hit my� sort of a bottom. Not the bottom that they talk about in AA, which is the�
Tony Denison: incomprehensible and demoralized bottom, but this is the bottom more of finances, you know, I had owed money to, like, very serious people.
Tony Denison: And I was just a wreck.
Tony Denison: So, I got sober, and it was only, like, it only lasted about, like, 6 to 9 months, somewhere around there, and then I got rid of the club, got back with my wife, and then I, you know, gave up� gave up everything, gave up, you know, like I said, gave up the club, and started paying off debts that I owed and stuff, and got back into the acting business, and�
Tony Denison: All that stuff was going alright, and then I caught a break, and I got Crime Story.
Tony Denison: About a year and a half later. And I got Crime Story, next thing you know, my whole life turned around. I was in Chicago shooting the series, and
Tony Denison: And then we went to Vegas, and then subsequently, I've always wanted to move� I wanted to live in LA because of the weather, so when we were in Vegas, I said, look, we don't have to go back to New York, let's go to� let's go to Los Angeles. So we went to Los Angeles, moved to Los Angeles, loved it here, still love it here, I've been here since.
Tony Denison: Since, 70, since 86, 87.
Tony Denison: And, because I just love the weather. I mean, today it's like 80 degrees, you know.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: Like, yesterday, it was 80 degrees, and this is.
Smoke: Yeah, we lived in Westlake Village and in.
Tony Denison: Oh, yeah, it's nice, dude.
Smoke: Ventura, before we came here to Sedona.
Tony Denison: Yeah, Ventura's very nice. You know, anyway, so we,
Tony Denison: So, you know, so that was it. So I just commuted to Las Vegas to do the show the second year, and then� then the show got canceled. It was sad, because it made no sense why it got canceled, but it did. And then I was, like, you know, hustling around, getting more jobs, I got different stuff, and�
Tony Denison: And then I just, like I said, I� I� I� Went back to drinking.
Tony Denison: I didn't go back to drugs ever, thank God, but I went back to drinking, and then, little by little, I just got to be�
Tony Denison: so removed, you know, emotionally and physically from the entertainment industry that, even though I wasn't running a gambling club, I was just, again, isolating. And then I hit my bottom then, in 93.
Tony Denison: And this time, that was that pitiful and incomprehensible, demoralized bottom that they talk about. And I knew I couldn't do this anymore. So this was, like, 9 years later.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: After I had left New York, and and then I� that's it, and then my whole life turned around.
Tony Denison: when I finally, you know, went to my first meeting.
Tony Denison: And then I started to understand things that were missing in my life.
Tony Denison: And, that I didn't stand for anything. Like, they say, you either stand for something or you fall for everything. And I was falling for everything. I mean, I didn't have any beliefs. I didn't really believe in anything.
Tony Denison: And then that started to� I started to build a foundation, you know, albeit it was a spiritual foundation, but it was a foundation� it wasn't religious, because I'm not even remotely religious, but it was a spiritual foundation, and I started to say.
Tony Denison: eventually, over the course of the first 6-7 years of my sobriety, I learned that it's more important to be happy with who I am, and not what I am, or what I have. And when that started to take hold.
Tony Denison: Even� and I lost everything, like, when I was about 6 or� about 6 years or so, I lost everything I had. My wife and I split up, I lost this beautiful home in the� I mean, gorgeous home in the valley, overlooking the whole valley, and, you know, all that stuff, and no money, and a month or two for complete and total bankruptcy.
Tony Denison: And, so�
Tony Denison: Little by little, I just started to learn that there were more important things in my life than stuff.
Tony Denison: Stuff is great, don't get me wrong. I mean, you know, I like stuff. Who doesn't like stuff?
Tony Denison: But it can't be the motivator, can't be the progenitor of everything I do.
Smoke: Yeah, it's the attachments to the stuff that has to go, right?
Tony Denison: Yeah, the attachments have to go. But to want it, it's okay to want it, just�
Tony Denison: you know, like you say, in Sicilian, my mom and dad are Sicilian, like, you know, statazi, take it easy, take it easy.
Tony Denison: And so the more I take it easy.
Tony Denison: the better it off, the better it got for me. And then, little by little, like, after about 7 years.
Tony Denison: my career started to come back to me. I started to get more work, and then I got the closer and major crimes, and then I worked for the next 14 years, you know, making 10 times what I made before that happened. But before that happened, I had to go�
Tony Denison: I had to go to the bottom, you know, an emotional bottom, and say, okay.
Tony Denison: None of that stuff matters. It was hard to say, but it didn't.
Tony Denison: You know, what was the most important things to me was happiness. Happiness, love, happiness, you know, and self-respect. Because at the end, I think I said this already, I use this expression a lot, but at the end of the day, all you got is your dignity.
Tony Denison: You know, it's all you got is your dignity. And if you lose your dignity, what the hell, what are you worth?
Tony Denison: You know, then you're anybody's fool.
Tony Denison: And I� I mean, when I was doing drugs and drinking the way I was, I� I may have� I probably knew how to spell dignity, but I didn't� I wasn't practicing it as a verb. It was just, you know, a noun, you know?
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: And, and then life has changed. I mean, now�
Tony Denison: nobody does what� does this stuff perfectly, but I'd like to think that I'm a hell of a lot better off emotionally than I was
Tony Denison: you know, before I, you know, hit that bottom, And,
Tony Denison: Well, that's sort of second bottom, the spiritual bottom of not having anything.
Tony Denison: And,
Tony Denison: So I'm appreciative of that. I mean, like, right now, I'm sort of going through a period of time
Tony Denison: Where not much is happening again, and I'm thinking, oh my god, not again, this is crazy. But I'm just� the difference is, you know, I have a little more money in the bank than I did then, you know, but it's not a never-ending supply of money. You know, I've got to work, I've got to do something, so�
Tony Denison: interestingly enough, Jack, you know, the story idea that Jack came up with, you know, and then we collaborated on the script,
Tony Denison: it's pretty good, and, you know, I think we're gonna be able to sell it. So, I mean, again, it's not gonna be, like, you know, we're not gonna have, like, 7 dwarfs coming with buckets full of gold and dumping it, you know, in the front door of my house, but it'll be some good scratch.
Smoke: Yeah, no, I think it's� I think I'm excited about it. I think it's gonna be great. You guys are�
Smoke: It's perfect. It's a great story. I've heard little pieces of it, and as Jack was working on it with you, and that's awesome. Well, you know, you had�
Smoke: something, maybe different, but something of the same, like, you heard a voice at that point when you were at, kind of, rock bottom. Will you tell us that story?
Tony Denison: Yeah, the night that I decided to get sober again in 1993,
Tony Denison: Like I said, I had everything. I had this beautiful home, I had, you know�
Tony Denison: my beautiful wife, and our cats, and nice cars, and, you know, the view home, which in California, you know, oh, you got a view home, you know, and we had all that.
Tony Denison: But at the end of the day, it was like, it just�
Tony Denison: it just was never enough, you know, because I was addicted to the stuff.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: And, I wanted more, more, more. You know, how come? Why not? Why can't I? You know? And, so� so that one night, I was, like I said, I had been drinking.
Tony Denison: But this one night, you know, because the only thing I could drink at that point was wine. My� this big, you know, wooden leg capacity for scotch was gone.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: Oh, so the only thing I could drink was wine. And one night, on just 3 glasses of wine, I went crazy.
Tony Denison: I mean, certifiably insane.
Tony Denison: I mean, the fact that I didn't get
Tony Denison: My light's knocked out by somebody, or get arrested, or, you know, get into a bar brawl is beyond me.
Tony Denison: And, but anyway� So I got back home.
Tony Denison: And I remember I was, like� I walked to my backyard, because I was just still, like this, you know, like, crazy, like, why am I getting mine? Things weren't happening for me.
Tony Denison: And, I basically sort of collapsed, you know, next to the pool, you know, in the backyard, and I'm lying there.
Tony Denison: And I remember I was looking up at the moon, it was a full moon, it was March 8th, 19,
Tony Denison: it was March 7th, I'm sorry, March 7th, 1993, and I looked up at this full moon, and I was just looking at the full moon, and just�
Tony Denison: And then I just went like a werewolf. I was howling at the moon like a werewolf.
Tony Denison: And, and then, two coyotes howled back, and I thought, oh my god.
Smoke: I've become a savage. Wild animals know what I'm saying. That's their language.
Tony Denison: You know, hang on, Tony, we'll be right there, you know, we'll bring you some stuff, you know, it was crazy.
Tony Denison: And then, we lived on an easement, because I said it was, like, a view home, and there was, like, 4 homes on the easement. So I� I hear this voice.
Tony Denison: So clearly, because I was� I started crying, I was, like, convulsing for, like, 10-15 minutes, just slobbering cry.
Tony Denison: And then I heard this voice, and the voice said, It's over. You're done.
Tony Denison: You need help. So I looked around like this, thinking it was my neighbor, because I thought I woke him up, because it was� at this point, it was only really, like, maybe 8 o'clock at night, you know, but I was loud, and it was dark, because it was March, so it was winter.
Tony Denison: And, well, whatever winter is out here, you know.
Smoke: But anyway.
Tony Denison: And it was nobody there. Nobody there. And I just said to the voice, I said, okay.
Tony Denison: And so I said, okay.
Tony Denison: And I tried to stand up.
Tony Denison: And I could not. I could not stand a crawl on my hands and knees.
Tony Denison: Because I was still so wobbly. And this is, like, now, two and a half hours later, maybe three hours later.
Tony Denison: And I crawled into the house, and I made a call to a guy I knew, who I wound� he had about 3 years of sobriety, but later on, I wound up sponsoring him. And,
Tony Denison: Anyway, so,
Tony Denison: I gave this� I gave this guy a call, and then he was the one who said to me, you know, let's� why don't we go to a meeting? And I was like, I didn't want anything to do with meetings, I'm done, you know, what do you� I did that in New York, it's nonsense, and he goes, alright. And then he asked me if I could stop drinking for 90 days, and I said, well, I did it once before. He goes, well, try it again.
Tony Denison: Okay, so 90 days later to the day, I'm out having dinner with the same guy.
Tony Denison: And he said to me, how you doing with the no drinking? And I said, well, I said, you know, I was, like, trying to be coy, and I said, you know, I think it's, like, 90 days today, and I knew that because I'd marked every day off on my calendar.
Tony Denison: And he said, well, if you hadn't had a drink, let's go to a meeting.
Tony Denison: And I gotta tell ya, Smoke, I was scared to death, because I thought I was gonna have to go someplace and say, hi, my name is Tony, and I suck at life, and I'm a failure as a man, and I'm stupid. You know, because look what's happened to me.
Tony Denison: But I remember how I felt that night in my backyard.
Tony Denison: that howling at the moon, and crying, and just feeling like I had no soul, nothing, you know, substance.
Tony Denison: And I just said to myself, I'd rather go someplace and have to sit on a stool and wear a dunce cap
Tony Denison: you know, in front of men and women, or whatever it was, didn't ever feel that way again. So I said, alright, let's go. So we went to a meeting.
Tony Denison: And it was in place out here, it was called the Original Radford meeting. So we went to this meeting, and my life changed that day. I went in that meeting, and everything changed. Everything changed. And I started�
Tony Denison: You know, like I say to people, I have, like, certain heroes in my life. My mom and dad, God rest their souls, they're my heroes. It's two wonderful people.
Tony Denison: You know, my mom came to this country when she was about 2 years old, so effectively, she was an American, you know? My dad came when he was about 11, 9 or� 9, 10, or 11.
Tony Denison: But again, they were still children, and they came to America And, but�
Tony Denison: The stuff that they helped me with, even though we were loggerheads a lot of the time,
Tony Denison: But when we finally found peace with one another, I have to say that, like, they're the most influential people in my life.
Tony Denison: But� so they're, like, my main heroes in my life, but I have other heroes, like, I have�
Tony Denison: heroes like Shakespeare and, and, and, and,
Tony Denison: and Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain. I mean, these are, like, real heroes. And,
Tony Denison: And I� but there's a hero that I have.
Tony Denison: And, you know, I haven't looked at his stuff in a while, but, Joseph Campbell.
Tony Denison: And he writes about, you know, the hero has a thousand faces, and basically the journey of the hero, the travails, and the traveling that� and the travails that face this journey, this hero. And I like to think that�
Tony Denison: All of us, the people especially who decide to get sober or stop drinking.
Tony Denison: Go temperate, so to speak, and do it for the rest of their lives. Do it for as long as they can, even if they're not working a program.
Tony Denison: That they get to a point as a hero, okay?
Tony Denison: That, everything in their life, all around them, all the known stuff around them, just sucks so bad.
Tony Denison: That they say to themselves, I can't take this anymore. I gotta get out of here.
Tony Denison: And off in the distance, they can look off in the distance, and it may seem dim, or not legible or clear, but something's there, like a sound or a light, or something. And they say, you know what, I don't know what that is out there.
Tony Denison: But it's gotta be better than this. Just gotta be better than this.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: We start making that movement towards men and women, especially in recovery.
Tony Denison: And I'd like to think that the minute we take that first step, We become heroes.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: Caveat to that is that we� we become heroes, but
Tony Denison: When the night� when night falls, and a new day comes upon us.
Tony Denison: whatever we were doing yesterday to be heroes, you know, is only a reference. Today, we have to create that heroism all over again. We have that to look back on. Like, I always say to people, you know, in the rooms, I said, you know, they go, you have 32 years of survival. I said, I have 32 years of consecutive yesterdays.
Tony Denison: And of those 32 years of consecutive yeses, there's a lot of things I learned and I saw and observed and tried and done that I can borrow from. But as far as, like, today, today, Friday, for me and you, it's a�
Tony Denison: the time is coming at us in the same time. So, whatever it is that we're experiencing is all new, and so we have� it behooves us to dig down and become even more heroic again.
Tony Denison: And sometimes we do it piecemeal, and sometimes we do it, you know, with a largesse, you know, and
Tony Denison: But whatever ways, we gotta do it. Otherwise.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: Unhappy.
Tony Denison: That's beautiful.
Smoke: You know, I didn't do a program, but I also had a voice that spoke to me. It was on plant medicine, but I was�
Tony Denison: I was having an argument with myself, and�
Smoke: you know, I was� I was never a drinker like that. I was a heavy drinker, and I could always handle it. I could drink all night, go to dinners, drink, and then I could wake up in the morning, work out, go to my� go do business, do it again, do it again, but, you know, I did that for a long time. That's probably why I drank as long as I did, because I could.
Smoke: But at some point, I just had this, you know, discussion with a voice, and it was like, you're done, and I'm like, no, I'm not, what� maybe� I'll just cut back. And I had all this pain.
Smoke: And then, this went on for, like, an hour, and then I was like, alright, I'm done, and then the pain went away, and I stopped. And it's been two and a half years for me, but the, the clarity of my thinking, my brain, after about 75 days, was like.
Smoke: whoa. Like, it was a totally different experience. But one of the things that I experienced, and I don't know, you know, when you said you love that feeling.
Smoke: So, what I realized after is, when I� when I went through my journey, which was facing a lot of trauma and childhood stuff, and cleared it out, and, you know, a lot of shadows.
Smoke: I realized that I had a fan going on, it was like anxiety, but it was like a fan going on in the back of my head all the time. And when I drank, it went away.
Smoke: So it was like, oh, I'm back to me when I would have a drink. I would be like, oh, now I'm clear.
Smoke: But the fan went away when I dealt with my trauma, my shadows and stuff, and when I cleared that stuff out, I didn't have the fan anymore, and there was just no need. So it was just kind of a natural thing.
Smoke: You know, but we're all on our own journey, but, you know, I think the�
Smoke: the power of the groups, like the 12-step group is incredible. I mean, there's a guy named David Hawkins who wrote Power vs. Force, I don't know if you've ever experienced.
Tony Denison: Sounds like a great title.
Smoke: I'll send you a link, but he mapped consciousness, right? So, from the low lows, when you're in depression, and all the way up to, you know, where the Buddha was, and Jesus, and, you know, the high enlightened people are. And at 540 in his scale, it's unconditional love.
Smoke: And that's a very high level. It's a log scale, so it's a very, it's a very powerful field. AA, the 12-step groups calibrate at 540.
Smoke: So, it's the power of that field of unconditional love that lifts people up who join it that help them sustain it. Which is why when people stop� a lot of people, if they� if they haven't done a lot of the work to get their own consciousness up.
Smoke: if they stop going to the meetings, they� they revert back to drinking, because if you get away from the field, it's like, it helps� it helps hold everyone up who's in it. It's like loving hands of God around you.
Tony Denison: Huh.
Tony Denison: 540?
Smoke: 540, yeah.
Smoke: Yeah, on this scale of consciousness, it goes from 0 to 1,000, so if you're in low depression and, you know, at your worst worst, you're in the, you know, you're at 50 or 100, or you're� but it's logarithmic, so as you get up past 200, you're in positive territory. At 540, you're in unconditional love.
Smoke: Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, like, the great founders, avatars of religions were at a thousand.
Tony Denison: Yeah, because I believe in unconditional love is who and what my higher power is about.
Smoke: Yep.
Tony Denison: No, it's not� there's no gender to my higher power. I mean, that would be limiting my higher power if I gave it some kind of a gender, or definition, or form.
Smoke: It's more of an energy field.
Tony Denison: It's an energy field based on a feeling that I get, yeah.
Smoke: Yeah, no, no, you're tapped into Source. That, you know, it's God, it's Source, we have lots of names, right? I love� one of my friends calls it Cosmic Heart.
Tony Denison: Cosmic Heart? Yeah, it's a nice title.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: Do you� I mean, do you go to� do you attend meetings?
Smoke: No, no, but I'm hugely supportive of it, and I do a lot of spiritual work, a lot of meditation, I read a lot of material, I'm inundated. I moved to Sedona because of this, so, like, I'm doing a lot of�
Smoke: Consciousness work, and, you know.
Smoke: and it� so I'm lifted up. I'm lifted up every day. I'm in a super high field, but I've been fascinated as I've learned about it, because it is that energy field that holds people up, and it's� we give it to each other. You know, someone told me, you know, as we heal ourselves.
Smoke: Humans become the medicine to each other.
Smoke: You know, and it really works that way. You know, when you heal yourself, and you're there lifting others up, you're the medicine for those people that need lifting. And so� and that's true of, like, all of society. I mean, we're all, we're all in this journey alone, and we're in it together. And, you know, as we get ourselves right, we help each other.
Tony Denison: Right, right.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: So, it's interesting. 540, I didn't know about that.
Tony Denison: I mean, I know that, like, I'd studied�
Tony Denison: I'd studied the Kabbalah for a while.
Tony Denison: And, you know, they talk about the 10 levels of consciousness in Judaism, that, you know, and, like.
Tony Denison: Number� number one is a thing called, I think, Keta.
Tony Denison: And when you reach that place, that's, like, ultimate awareness, ultimate knowledge.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: But along the way, like, you know, I forget what, what number, like, number 5 or 6 was on the chart.
Tony Denison: But again, that was a place where
Tony Denison: Like, you had a greater chance of attaining, you know, but you could go beyond that, but it just� to get even to, like, you know, 605, it was like� it was, you know, some real, you know, rock scaling there, you know, real climate, mountain climbing.
Smoke: Well, Earth is� this� you know, I think of Earth as, like, this is Earth school. This is school for our spirits, for our souls, and�
Smoke: it's� it's real purgatory. I mean, we have heaven on earth, and we have hell on earth, and�
Smoke: the reason it's Earth School is that we have the opportunity in human life to increase our consciousness level and to attain those higher levels. And, you know, that Kabbalah stuff, I'm not as familiar with it, but I've read part of the Zohar, and it's the same. In all these religions.
Smoke: all the true spiritual texts talk about the same things, and, you know, as you clear away your own baggage, and you get right with yourself, you can� our natural state is love. Our natural state is� I agree.
Smoke: It's� it's the stuff we� our ego minds put in� in the way blocks it, right? It, like, blocks the sun, and when the clouds go away, it's bliss. It really is, so�
Tony Denison: Well, I remember when I,
Tony Denison: I guess I was about 8 years sober, so it was during that period of time when nothing was happening for me, and I� I remember I used to argue with people all the time about the Bible, you know, and so I decided, let me read the damn thing. I never read it, really.
Tony Denison: And so I read the Bible, you know, I read it, like, about one and a half times. I started reading it again a second time, just to sort of polish up what I read before, and I said, oh, you know, one and a half is fine.
Tony Denison: You know, and so when I read the Bible, I came away from the Bible, and there were so many different things in there, and so many metaphors, because it's not like I want to argue with anybody, whether it's the literal Word of God or not, it's like�
Tony Denison: Oh, if that's what you believe, fine, you know, good for you. Just don't beat me over the head and tell me I gotta believe that. But there's some wonderful things, and there's really great metaphors, and there's some really great stories. And one of the most interesting stories, I thought.
Tony Denison: was, because they said, you know, that Jesus said he came forth.
Tony Denison: It was� the name is really not Jesus, that's a Latin thing. It's Yeshua, was his name. But he came forth to change not one yod or one tittle of the law, those little marks on the Hebrew letters. And
Tony Denison: And so�
Tony Denison: they said to him one day, I don't know if it was in Matthew, or maybe it was Luke, they said, rabbi, and they referred to him as rabbi, because when they did make some of the translations, and the Aramaic, and the Greek, and some Hebrew, they would refer to him naturally as Rabbi.
Tony Denison: And so they said, Rabbi, what are the greatest commandments? You know, and he said, he's credited with saying, you know, obviously written down so many years later, but that the greatest commandment is
Tony Denison: you know, to love and honor thy Lord thy God with all their, you know, heart, mind, and soul, so to speak. I know I'm paraphrasing it.
Tony Denison: And then he said� and the second one is to love one another. And, you know, when I� having just, you know, when you just freshly read the Bible.
Tony Denison: That's not a commandment, that's not one of the ten.
Tony Denison: You know, so I said, oh, so that's like the 11th commandment. Love one another.
Tony Denison: Yeah. You know, and so� and I, like I said, I started looking back at certain things in my sobriety and in my life, and I realized that love was a verb.
Tony Denison: And it was the thing that was missing my whole life, loving myself, you know, and then transmitting that love to others. You know, because the primary purpose is to stay sober and help another alcoholic to achieve sobriety. So, one of the ways you do that is by loving the other person that you're helping, but you gotta first love you.
Tony Denison: Because how can you talk about, you know, all the benefits and the joys of being sober if you're not taking care of yourself? You know, the whole idea of the oxygen mask, you know, put it on yourself and then assist the people next to you.
Smoke: True, Tony. You know, the� so 540 is unconditional love, 600 is traditionally what the traditions call enlightenment, and in Christianity, that would be the Christ consciousness.
Tony Denison: Consciousness.
Smoke: in a Buddha� in the Buddhist tradition, it would be the Buddha mind.
Smoke: But it's basically seeing the divinity in yourself and everyone else. So, we are God, we are God manifest in flesh, and once we recognize that, but you can't recognize it in everyone else until you love yourself. You have to get good right with yourself.
Tony Denison: Right, well, God� Jesus said, also.
Tony Denison: he says, ye are like gods. If you tell one mountain to move from here to there, it'll be done. But he never says it'll be done in an instant.
Smoke: And I'm thinking to myself.
Tony Denison: ye are like God's. So, I know that from reading other people, like Emmett Fox, and C.S. Lewis, and people like that, they say that
Tony Denison: the metaphors in the Bible, like troubles, I mean, mountains, signified your troubles.
Tony Denison: So you could� Jesus was saying, or� Yeshua was saying, you could tell one group of troubles to move from here to there, and it'll be done, but He never says it'll be done in an instant.
Smoke: Right.
Tony Denison: But if ye have faith like a mustard seed.
Tony Denison: You know, and you look at a mustard seed, you go, that's all the faith you need? But it's gotta be, like, concentrated, can't be� can't be any� can't be any space in that space inside that seed. It's gotta be, you know, compact, you know�
Smoke: Absolute devotion, absolute faith, yeah.
Tony Denison: to the Christ, the Christ consciousness.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: You know, and I always thought about that. I said, oh, so he's saying, you know, that's why, like, when they say, oh, that Jesus� that Jesus was God, and it's like, I don't know, man, I mean�
Tony Denison: You know, granted, the prayer is called Our Father, not my Father, you know, and so, like, we're all children of God, and He just happens to be one who's�
Tony Denison: like you said, has expanded his consciousness to a level that you think, damn, man, you could turn water into wine? Yeah, why not? I mean, people say to me, oh, you believe that stuff? Sure, I believe it. Even before reading the Bible, I believe that man is capable of so many incredible things. Our minds are like, holy moly. I mean�
Smoke: And our awake mind, right, our conscious mind, is, you know, it might be� I think it's even less, but they say 5% of our actual mind. So we have our giant�
Smoke: capability, which is in our subconscious, in the� in the, in the, Eastern religions, they call it the karma, but it's� our subconscious mind is�
Tony Denison: very all-powerful, right? Right.
Smoke: But our awake mind is this little piece of it, and as we clear away the debris, we get more access to that bigger mind. It really is true.
Smoke: But it's funny, you know, I'm with you on this. Like, again, I wasn't religious or spiritual, and when I started on this journey, I was like, oh, I don't know anything. I literally had big gaps. Like, my wife grew up in Catholic school in the Bronx and, you know, that whole thing. So she was� she called herself a recovering Catholic, but�
Smoke: But she had� she had a lot of information, like, she knew a lot from school, right? From, like, growing up that way.
Smoke: I didn't, so I read everything. I read, I, you know, I read, you know, a bunch of Christian stuff, I read the� I read the, a bunch of the Buddha, I read the Bhagavad Gita, and the Upanishads, and some of the, you know.
Tony Denison: Did you try reading� did you try reading the Quran?
Smoke: I've tried a couple times, I haven't gotten very far.
Tony Denison: Me neither. I've tried, I've tried twice, you know, and I get in there, and it just seems so�
Tony Denison: It just seems violent, and I mean, it just� it just, like, it seems like it doesn't have any patience for anything else.
Smoke: Interesting story about that. The Quran actually calibrates at 700, so it's quite integrous.
Smoke: But Muhammad, he calibrated over 700 in his life, but then he� we think something happened, he had a stroke or something, because when he turned 39, he dropped under 200 to non-integrity, and he led wars, right? He led wars, so�
Smoke: there's a lot of misinterpretation of the Quran because of their founder ended up being a warlord, too, so there's a lot of, you know, this is not a popular thing to talk about, but it's a�
Smoke: Yeah, there's a whole body of work on this I'm happy to share. But, but what's cool is that, you know, like you said, like.
Smoke: I'm not one who, like, reads everything and says, oh, verbatim, but the things that are in common across all these religions are the core truths. And, you know, the thing is, humans are the ones that have kind of fucked up religion, right? You've got�
Tony Denison: Exactly.
Smoke: You had the pure teachings of Jesus, you had the pure teachings of the Buddha, you had the pure teachings of Krishna and, you know, and the Kabbalah, but then you've got, like, the Council of Nicaea in the 400s.
Smoke: They got together and they voted on what went into the Bible.
Tony Denison: Right, and what didn't go in?
Smoke: Yeah, and so some things got left out, some things got put in. You know, I mean, this� not everybody will like this, but Revelation is non-integrous. Like, that book in the Bible is not part� it actually calibrates below 200, so if you throw out� so the� so Christianity went from the 900s
Smoke: Down to 600, And down even below that, but if you throw out Revelation.
Smoke: then, and you just talked about the New Testament, you actually get� the calibration of the Bible goes from 600 to, like, 850.
Smoke: So, you know, it's just� it's fascinating to me. Like, I love, like, the fact that you can even, you know, look at it this way, but� but it's like, look, the core teachings are what� you don't even need to read all this stuff. If you understand that it's about love, God is in all of us, and it's, you know.
Smoke: everyone we look at, it's God looking back at you. And if we treat everybody that way, what a world it is, right?
Tony Denison: Well, have you, have you read anything by a guy named, Anthony, Father Anthony DeMello?
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: Yeah, he was cool, I liked him a lot.
Smoke: Yeah, because he really blended Christianity, you know, Catholicism, with the Eastern stuff.
Tony Denison: Religion, yeah.
Smoke: Yeah, exactly.
Tony Denison: Somebody told me that, who knew of him pretty well, they used to say to him, Anthony, when you go out there and you, do your lectures that, you know, that the church was paying for.
Smoke: Because could you mention Jesus once in a while?
Tony Denison: Because he would talk about the Buddha, and, you know, and Krishna, and all this other stuff, and so� and then he'd say, oh, and, you know, and Jesus, you know� Yeah.
Tony Denison: Because it's� I mean, I don't know. Again, at the end of the day, it's,
Tony Denison: what's his name? Wayne Dyer? You know Wayne Dyer? Sure. Wayne Dyer said there's the� I do some meditations of Wayne Dyer, and his thing is, like, you know, all the�
Tony Denison: the sounds in meditation, like, they all come from the same� like, all the names of God come from that same sound, like, you know, God, Buddha, you know, all� it's basically awareness. It's like.
Tony Denison: It's almost like, you know, when they say your ha-ha moment, your aha! You know, that's basically what it is. And at the core, I think, of all religions.
Tony Denison: Is that they're brought together by like-minded people.
Tony Denison: And� and the thing was that they love each other, because they all have, like, their
Tony Denison: symbiotic mind, they're all like, oh, okay.
Tony Denison: But the ones that, you know, where they get a little screwed up is when they decide they're gonna go and resonate at that 200 level, like you were talking about, and go
Tony Denison: Nobody else.
Smoke: Well, when the church took over the Roman Empire.
Smoke: you know, it merged with political power, and so the teachings changed, the motivation changed, you know, and so, you know, it had its dark days and everything else. I was just in Cologne, Germany, I'm working on a deal, I'm selling a company in California to a company in Europe.
Tony Denison: And we were in Cologne a couple weeks ago, and I got to go to the big cathedral there, which is� Yeah.
Smoke: Omnificent. It's incredible.
Tony Denison: I don't think I've seen it, but pictures have seen pictures of it.
Smoke: Yeah, they have three� they have two of the three Magi relics there. Like, the three wise men, like, two of the relics are there. It was pretty wild.
Smoke: But I� but I asked the lady, I said, you know, we took the tour, it was really amazing, and I realized, like, I've read a lot of Meister Ehrkhart, if you� I don't know if you've ever read any of his stuff.
Tony Denison: That name sounds familiar, yeah, yeah.
Smoke: He was� he was a really enlightened, you know, Catholic, he, I guess he was the Franciscan, but he, and he, he, he, his ministry was there in Cologne at that, you know, around the time when that was being built. I said, do you have anything for my stericard? She said, oh, I think we do.
Smoke: No one's ever asked that. And she said, go around to the back of the cathedral, and up in the window is Meister Erkart's hat. So I went around there, and I took a picture of the window, it's kind of way up high, but he was one who was�
Smoke: basically, the church got mad at him, because, you know, this is, like, during the time when they were, you know, persecuting people and all that stuff, because he recognized Christ consciousness, which is recognizing divinity within, it's within all of us, and it's just, it's just, you know, once you get to a certain level, you see it.
Smoke: Anyway, I'm a huge fan of his work, but it was kind of cool to see his hat.
Tony Denison: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just,
Tony Denison: It's somehow, like a lot of churches or a lot of religions, they would rather you focus on the things that they want you to focus on.
Smoke: And not the things that you choose to focus on.
Tony Denison: You know, and it becomes� and it's like�
Tony Denison: it's more important, it's like I said, like, when Yeshua was killed on the cross, okay?
Tony Denison: I don't doubt that that happened.
Tony Denison: Okay, because the Romans came there to just massacre these people. I mean, what's his name? Pontius Pilate was the equivalent of sending, you know, like, Heinrich Himmler to, like, to that part of� to Judea, and it's� I find it�
Tony Denison: At the best, at the very least, laughable.
Tony Denison: that he would say, I find no fault with this guy. He was sent there specifically to kill Jews. I mean, so all of a sudden, he's gonna say, oh, this guy is special, and I don't know what to do with him? No, I mean, so when they went there to figure out what happened, Anthony of Egypt and Gregory, to put the� they're eventually leading to the Council of Nicaea.
Tony Denison: their findings, you know, they were there, and they go, well, what are we gonna do? We can't tell Constantine that the Romans were responsible for all the mayhem and the� Right. So we're gonna say the Sanhedrin, that was their fault. They said, give us� give us Barabbas, which there was no� I mean, there's nowhere in anybody's laws anywhere where the Jews had the right on the night of Passover. Like, as if the Romans would say, oh, let's celebrate Passover with�
Tony Denison: give a flying fuck, you know? And it's like, well, give us Barabbas. So, the Romans did, because why? Once the Jews said, okay, you go ahead and kill him, that they� they literally massacred this guy? I mean, you know, flayed him with whips and stuff, and then that wasn't on the behest of the Jews. So, you know, this whole thing, and they have all this stuff that they get caught up in.
Tony Denison: And you want to say.
Tony Denison: God almighty, man, I mean, it's like� it's� anyway, I mean, I can go on and on about this stuff, but it's, you know, I think at the end of the day, it's, like, really important for people. When I run into people, like, I know this one evangelical guy, and he's whacked. I mean, you know, he's just whacked.
Tony Denison: And I say to him, look, I said, there's so many things in the Bible that� I said, this is something that happened two, three hundred years after Yeshua was crucified.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: Who was alive to tell them where the Via Della Rosa, where the trail of blood was located? Who? Nobody was around. They were already, like, two generations gone. I said.
Smoke: Yeah, it was like the deadline.
Tony Denison: believers are gonna keep track of it?
Smoke: Yeah, like, the desert people, you know, they all calibrated really high, but they would tell the story. It was all verbal, right, until it got really.
Tony Denison: It's all the oral tradition, yeah.
Smoke: Yep.
Smoke: Yeah, it's really fascinating.
Smoke: To me, but, you know, all those women who were there at the cross, you know, all the disciples scattered, right? They were hunted, and they were, you know, fearful, or whatever, they all ran.
Smoke: All those women who were there at the cross, who witnessed the resurrection.
Smoke: they became enlightened at the cross. You know, there's something called transmission, right? The� you know, when you get with a very enlightened, you know, teacher, there's a transmission of energy, which� Right.
Smoke: your energy field can receive. You can't necessarily activate it until you're ready and you're, you know, you've done all your own work.
Smoke: But all these women that were there, and there were probably a lot more than just a handful, there was probably a lot of women there. They became enlightened, and they were able to see His Spirit leave the cave and come out, and, you know, the resurrection, they witnessed it because they were enlightened.
Smoke: And that's how Christianity spread, really. Like, all those people that got enlightened from
Smoke: Yes, well, you know, spread it. So it's really fascinating, but, it's not� again, there's no true religion, there's no� God never said, go kill each other, never said do any of this stuff, so anything in.
Tony Denison: Not a chance.
Smoke: A religion that is about war, is about, hurting anyone else.
Tony Denison: Well, that's why they have the big schism between the Christians and the Catholics. You know, in the one version of the Bible says, thou shalt not kill, and the other one's thou shalt not murder.
Smoke: Right.
Tony Denison: you can't be killed� we gotta have a right to go kill people, because, you know, if we don't like them, and they're not believing in our haha moment, you know, we can't have the right to want to slaughter them. And so, but if we can't kill anybody, then what good are we? You know?
Tony Denison: And so it's just so funny. But I mean, again, if somebody comes along, and I've had some real theological debates and discussions with some high-ranking people, you know, in different letters, you know, in religious studies and stuff.
Tony Denison: But no one yet has been able, nor have I ever been able to convince them, but I've left them with questions that they could answer, you know, but no one has been able to convince me that it's the literal Word of God. But if you believe that.
Tony Denison: Good for you. I mean, if your life is happy, and you don't want to beat somebody over the head because of it.
Tony Denison: Believe all you want. I mean, you know, what difference does it make to me? But the minute you differentiate from the norm, from what
Tony Denison: apparently of the teachings of the Holy One, then you lose me. You just lose me.
Smoke: Yeah, if we stick to love yourself, love your neighbor, love your brother, do no harm.
Smoke: You know, there's some really basic natural law that is common across everything, and and it� and it's� those are the truths, so�
Tony Denison: The breathing you hear is my dog, Dolly. She came in.
Smoke: Dolly, come here. Dolly!
Tony Denison: Dolly, come here, come on, come on up, up, up, up, up, come on, up, up, up, Dolly, up, Dolly!
Smoke: Dolly!
Smoke: I would have invited Bodie, but she's, she's our 10-month-old, Aussie Doodle. She's my trail dog.
Tony Denison: She's, she's 4 years old, gonna be 5 in March.
Smoke: Awesome. I'm in February.
Tony Denison: Awesome. I love the little creature.
Smoke: Well, Tony, I so appreciate this conversation. It actually went in a direction I didn't even expect, but I love your knowledge of it, and just your open-mindedness about everything, and�
Smoke: I think the message is really clear, and if there's someone out there who's, you know, thinking about�
Smoke: you know, what's next? You know, I think a lot of, my audience is my peers, my friends who run companies. They're successful people, generally, like, you know, they've made a lot of money.
Smoke: the� but they're, like, they're probably asking, like, is there more? Like, you know, I've already� I got the big house, I got the second house, I got the this, that, and they're like, it's kind of empty feeling, right? And it's�
Smoke: It's a beautiful place to be, because there's so much more than any of that stuff.
Tony Denison: Well, I'll tell you, one of the things that I, you know, where a lot of, I guess, Christians, be they Catholics or whatever, where we come to a definite agreement with, and I always say this is, like, one of the strongest things in the Bible, and especially in the New Testament, when,
Tony Denison: Satan apparently appeals� appears before, I'll just� just call him Jesus for lack, you know, and after� during the fast.
Tony Denison: You know, when he's finishing his fast for the Passover, before Passover, and he says to Jesus, is it not written that if you throw yourself off of this mount, like Mount Sinai.
Tony Denison: And the angels of God will come and scoop you up before you basically stub one toe. I mean, I'm paraphrasing, I don't know how originally transcribed in the original Hebrew, or even in Latin.
Tony Denison: And Jesus' answer is really interesting. He says, yes, it is true. So then Satan says, well, then jump.
Tony Denison: Improve it.
Tony Denison: And the answer that Jesus gives, or is accredited with giving, is.
Tony Denison: it's� I don't need to prove it to you, it's enough that I believe it, that I know it. Not believe, but that I know it, because knowing is� is almost like being factual about how you feel. And and he goes, it's enough that I know it.
Tony Denison: And I always thought about that, it's like, you know, like, somebody once said, right action needs no defense, you know, when I was an AA, so when you get to the place where you think, no, I� whatever's going on for me right now with this particular knowing or belief, or starting out as a belief that becomes a knowing, you,
Tony Denison: Certainly.
Tony Denison: you're at a place where it's like, you've reached some kind of level. I don't know if you're at level 5.
Tony Denison: But you're above level 2, for sure, if you're so comfortable with that.
Tony Denison: You know, like, I tell people, you know, like, I don't know when's the last time you rode a bicycle, but if you've ever ridden a bicycle in your life, if I gave you a bicycle today, would you say� do you say you believe you could ride it, or do you know you could ride it? The answer is, I know I could ride it. So, that's what� that's what attainment is like, is knowing.
Smoke: Yeah, it isn't� knowing it. I think that's a great word. I love that, because it is, that's what it feels like inside, and�
Tony Denison: Oh, that's music.
Tony Denison: He says it's enough that I know it, anyway.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: God, you were gonna say?
Smoke: No, once you have that knowingness, and you have that inner love, you have it to give. You can give it to everyone. And, you know, it's not like you don't have discernment. I mean, there's people that are doing idiot things, and� I mean, Jesus and Buddha said the same thing. All sin is ignorance.
Smoke: You know, they know not� they know not what they do, Father, right? So it's� it's� they just don't understand that they're not doing right, and they're just earlier in their journey than we are.
Tony Denison: Well, I'd read somewhere the simplest definition for sin was simply to miss the mark.
Smoke: Yeah.
Tony Denison: Just to miss the mark.
Smoke: Yep.
Tony Denison: I think it's like an archery term or something like that.
Smoke: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Smoke: So�
Tony Denison: You know, I've missed the mark a lot of times in my life.
Smoke: No.
Tony Denison: And then�
Smoke: Look, I love how we started, and you were talking about, you know, you never let it get to your head as you became a really successful actor, and the humility came through.
Tony Denison: Teachability, the state of being teachable, yeah.
Smoke: Yeah, and that's been my experience, is the more I learn, the more I move up in the� whatever the numbers are, doesn't really matter. You know that, oh, there's more above you. So just stay humble, because you never know. Like, you know, there's always more to learn, there's always higher levels of consciousness.
Tony Denison: Oh my god, is there ever?
Smoke: The humility is what keeps us grounded.
Tony Denison: Yeah.
Tony Denison: Yeah, so, like, you know, basically, with a series of British films, the carry-on movies, Carry On Regardless, Carry On Nerves, you know, Carry On Clio, so it's like, for me, it's like, carry on regardless, you know, just carry on until somebody comes along with a better idea.
Smoke: Absolutely, I'm with you.
Smoke: Well, Tony, thank you, thank you, thank you, I so appreciate it.
Tony Denison: I had a great time, I mean.
Smoke: Yeah, this is fun, and we'll get together in person sometime with Jack.
Tony Denison: Sure, I'd love to do that. I love that. Where are you exactly? You're in Sedona?
Smoke: I'm in Sedona, yeah, you can kind of see it's a little bit,
Tony Denison: Oh, yeah, look at that, Jesus.
Smoke: Yeah, that's my� one of my windows. And, yeah, I like to hike, and it's a great spiritual community, so�
Tony Denison: John Ford would love to have shot that stuff.
Smoke: Yeah, it's incredible. It's an amazing place. Come out anytime. Jack's been up here.
Smoke: And, you know, we hike and we meditate and, you know, whatever, like, that's what we do, so it's, good stuff. But, I get to LA, you know, fairly regularly, so, you know, we'll try to get all of us together and break some bread.
Tony Denison: That would be wonderful.
Smoke: Alright, my friend, thank you.
Tony Denison: Okay, Smoke, be well, man.
Tony Denison: God bless. I just�