A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity

by Bill O'Reilly

  Early in my career, I wasn’t focused on the big picture as I am today. That was natural, since I was trying to find my way through the TV jungle, and the foliage was dense. But always I reacted when I saw someone treated unfairly. It is that passion, more than anything else, that has made me successful. Folks can feel it through their television screens. You might not like me, but it’s obvious there’s a real person looking right back at you. Sometimes, though, he’s cranky.

  Things I Wish I’d Known Earlier

  To wrap up this book, I want to dispense a few tips….

  Calling them “words of wisdom” would be a stretch, but you may find the following observations amusing. First of all, if you believe in God, you know that the Deity has set up life as a series of challenges for us. When we’re young we have great energy, but we’re usually stupid. That’s what George Bernard Shaw meant when he said, “Youth is wasted on the young.” Many of us wise up as we get older, but then naps become a priority. It’s just the way it is and always has been.

  In my fifth decade, I began having conversations with myself. I should have started sooner, but I was too busy talking about myself to figure out that conversing honestly with yourself is a very fine tool for self-evaluation. So if you see me mumbling while walking down the street, that’s what that’s all about. And these conversations are tough. Often, they’re about what I should have done. Monday-morning quarterbacking. Hey, meathead, you should have asked Hillary Clinton this; how could you have forgotten to hammer President Bush with that?

  Questioning yourself sharply keeps the mind sharp. It creates a personal no-spin zone. Make a mistake? Identify the reason you made it. Then it’s less likely to happen again. Rationalizing is stupid. That’s what children do. I can’t tell you how many times folks call me on the radio trying to justify bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior.

  “O’Reilly, how can you blame Iran for killing American soldiers when we supported the shah in 1956?” That kind of nonsense.

  Another thing I’ve learned rather late in life is to rehearse stuff. No, not my TV script, but real life. Say you’re going on a date. Well, think about the person you’ll be with: what are his or her interests? Consider the evening carefully before you begin socializing.

  Same thing at work. If you have a big event there, think about how you’re going to approach it. You don’t have to memorize stuff; just walk your mind through the schedule. You’ll be amazed at how much more relaxed you’ll become, and as some of us know, a calm mind leads to creativity.

  Sadly, I didn’t do any of that as a younger person. I just barged in there. I still feel sorry for some of my dates. By the time I actually figured out who they were, it was closing time. Often, my self-absorption was truly amazing. Luckily, I was fairly entertaining in a shallow kind of way, so I got away with some foolish behavior. The standard line my friends have about me is, “Well, you know what he’s like.” Indeed.

  But, really, it’s so easy to look forward and learn from the past. Just talk to yourself once in a while. Level with you. I know that sounds like the title of a dopey self-help book, but it’s a worthwhile strategy.

  Remember that song “The Gambler”? The key lines are these:

  You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.

  Now, I’m not a big Kenny Rogers fan because I can’t get past the plastic surgery, and the chicken was just so-so, but there’s plenty of wisdom in that chorus from his 1978 hit song. Especially when it comes to dealing (bad pun alert) with people.

  Throughout my life, I’ve known some very great women who have gotten involved with flawed men. The ladies all had one thing in common: they simply would not acknowledge the guy’s weaknesses when most everyone around them saw them clearly. The women either rationalized the bad behavior by saying things like, “Well, that’s just the way Bruno is,” or they ignored it entirely. Both responses always lead to disaster.

  Men are another matter. They often let their, well, primitive drives do their thinking, if you know what I mean…and I think you do (as Joe Bob Briggs put it). For both sexes, the ability to read people is a survival necessity in our complicated world; there’s no question about it. But keep in mind a couple of things. Most folks do not change. Hitler was a bad person from the jump. Evil is not acquired. It is enthusiastically embraced by evildoers. For some reason, they enjoy harming people. The dope dealer selling meth or heroin to a kid (or even to an adult) is not misguided. He or she is evil.

  When it came to social concerns or situations, it was rare for my father to offer advice. But he did tell me this: “Watch how a person treats his mother. If he can’t treat her decently, you don’t want to know him.”

  You can add this to that: Watch how adults treat children. If a man abandons his child, there is no coming back for him; he’s swine. Same thing for a mother. And if an adult abuses a kid, nothing can turn that evil around, because damaging a child lasts forever.

  I’m thankful I’ve always had good instincts when it comes to associating with others. As we’ve discussed, most of my friends are longtime amigos. Of course, I’ve made some mistakes in evaluating folks and have paid the price. But when it comes to friends, I’ve always had high standards, and that has saved me much heartache and betrayal. But know this: I’d rather be alone than be with someone I can’t trust. I am comfortable solo.

  So when someone you know does something wrong, beware. Don’t just overlook it. Find out more. And if the conduct continues, quickly cut your losses, even if you are not the target of the bad stuff. Because, in the end, a deeply flawed person, one who embraces and excuses bad behavior, will get around to hurting you. The scorpion will sting, because it’s his nature. Have no doubt.

  When I was a young guy, I lived on fast food. Burgers, fries, deep-dish pizza, and fried seafood dominated my diet. Don’t do that. Food affects everything you do and will kill you early if you don’t wise up.

  As a bachelor, I never cooked. Never even thought about it. Why cook if Burger King is over there? So I ate in restaurants all the time, chowing down on whatever tasted good. That meant loads of salt and sugar, not too many Brussels sprouts. Even when I visited Brussels, I avoided the sprouts. I ate fries.

  With that diet, it is truly a miracle that I am still walking around. These days, I’m not exactly Jack LaLanne, juicing up all my meals, but most of the time I avoid fast food. And when I do succumb, my stomach punishes me for two days.

  Of course, as a predictable baby boomer, I blame the bad diet of my younger days on my parents. As you may know, boomers are big on laying their bad habits off on Mom and Dad. In my house, we were big on the Mediterranean diet. Kind of. It was only after I had actually traveled to Italy and Greece that I figured out ravioli doesn’t always come in a can, and if you can, and if you order SpaghettiOs in Naples, someone will hit you.

  Anyway, my folks ate what their folks ate, which was inexpensive food blasted with salt. In the summer, barbecues were big. On Sunday, some kind of roasted meat made an appearance. If Rachael Ray lived in my house, she would have been in tears every day of her life.

  Above all, there was a culinary routine. The following menu was fairly consistent in the O’Reilly house. Please keep in mind that my mother bought cereal in the economical “ten-packs.”

  Sunday

  Breakfast: French toast, real maple syrup, bacon, and milk

  Lunch: Campbell’s chicken noodle soup, tuna sandwich, chips

  Dinner: Pot roast, mashed potatoes, Jolly Green Giant peas, ice-cream sandwich

  Monday

  Breakfast: Sugar Pops cereal, English muffin, grape jelly

  Lunch: Bologna sandwich on white with mustard, chips, cookies

  Dinner: Sloppy joes (if you don’t know, you don’t want to know)

  Tuesday

  Breakfast: Sugar Frosted Flakes cereal, crumb cake, butter

  Lunch: Tuna sandwich, chips, cookies

  Dinner:
Pork chops, noodles “Romanoff” (fake cheese on noodles), canned wax beans, Jell-O with whipped cream

  Wednesday

  Breakfast: Rice Krispies cereal with sugar, Entenmann’s jelly doughnuts (excellent)

  Lunch: Ham and American cheese on white with mustard, chips, cookies

  Dinner: Hot dogs, baked beans, Tater Tots (awful), chocolate pudding

  Thursday

  Breakfast: Cocoa Puffs cereal, white toast with strawberry jam

  Lunch: Olive loaf on white with mustard, chips, cookies

  Dinner: Tuna “casserole,” green beans or lima beans or string beans, ice pop

  Friday

  Breakfast: Cornflakes with sugar, frozen waffles with real maple syrup

  Lunch: Tuna sandwich with lettuce, chips, cookies

  Dinner: Fish sticks (breaded and dreaded), spaghetti with canned tomato sauce

  Saturday

  Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, sausage, white toast

  Lunch: Hot dogs or hamburgers

  Dinner: Flank steak, baked potato, beans of some kind, Entenmann’s chocolate cake (extraordinary)

  Also, there were a variety of Hostess and Drake’s snacks available in my house, which were often used as bribes to “calm down” us kids. Big items were Ring Dings, Sno Balls, Devil Dogs, Twinkies, and Hostess CupCakes. Of course, the sugar rush provided by these waist busters did little to calm down any kid. In fact, they’d keep you up another couple of hours at night. Loved them.

  If it’s true that “you are what you eat,” then I am one sweet guy, simply because of cereal intake alone. Today, however, I am big on healthy food. Oatmeal in the morning, soups with vegetables for lunch, and nonfried fish for dinner. I’ve always been a boring guy, and now I am even more so. I still love cheeseburgers, but if I eat one every five weeks, that’s a lot. Tragically, there are no longer any Ring Dings in my house.

  If I could, I’d eat nachos every day. But I can’t. I work sixty hours a week, and my fuel has to be premium. Nutritious food is the most important factor in staying healthy. I wish I had known that at age twenty-five. But, again, it was my parents’ fault that I did not.

  Perhaps my antismoking, antidrinking posture slightly mitigated the junk-food diet. My mother smoked at least a pack a day, so my sister and I became well acquainted with secondhand smoke while sitting in the backseat of the family’s Nash Rambler. Combined with the car’s extensive exhaust fumes, the clouds of cigarette smoke made it seem like Shanghai back there. But remember, in the 1950s and 1960s, smoking was expected. If you weren’t puffing away, folks in Levittown would wonder what exactly was wrong with you. Even my father would have a Marlboro once in a while, although he never became addicted, as my mother did.

  As for drinking, there was lots of it among adults in the neighborhood, but my parents were always sober. My mother would have a little wine now and then; my father would drink Piels beer at dinner. However, my dad made it clear to us that anyone who got drunk was a lush. In my house, that was not a good thing.

  Of course, most kids in Levittown sneaked cigarettes out of the house and would smoke them in the woods or wherever. I did that for a very short time but found it boring and truly distasteful. I never cared about being “cool,” so wasting time puffing on a Winston had zero appeal for me. Therefore, after a few dopey trips to the forest, I banished cigarettes forever.

  Throughout my teen years, it basically came down to orange soda, Carvel ice cream, and double cheeseburgers. The diet of champions. Since I played four sports, I didn’t get fat. Since I played four sports, I didn’t get high. But, sad to say, there was nothing the sports could do about my personality.

  The nuns were fond of saying that cleanliness was next to godliness, but few in my class cared much about that. But the nuns were correct! Grooming is so important in America that I wish, as a kid, I had been subject to some formal training in it rather than just platitudes. We had one bathroom in my house, and to call it small is to insult Mickey Rooney.

  Because my father was at heart a military man, daily showers were required, but looking spiffy was not a top priority. And since all my friends looked like me, who even knew what spiffy looked like? Of course, Ann-Margret was plenty spiffy, but, hey, that was Hollywood, not Long Island. Most of us in Levittown had pale white complexions topped with bad haircuts and that was that. Once Elvis appeared on the scene, the haircuts got even worse. And don’t even mention the Beatles.

  It was upon entering Chaminade High School in 1963 that I first saw the flip side of grooming. After phys ed, we were required to take showers. Presto, an astonishing array of grooming stuff appeared in the locker room, thanks to the rich guys. Sprays and gels and lotions were all set in motion. Up to that point in my life, I understood Johnson’s baby powder, but that was about it. However, the swell guys had all kinds of exotic personal products, and even had nifty little compact leather cases in which to store them. Wow.

  All men are created equal, but from then on, training makes the difference. Ask any Marine, Navy SEAL, or Army Ranger and they will confirm that. My parents were clean and neat, and my father might even slap on a little Aqua Velva or something in the morning. But, again, in my house there was little emphasis on appearance or personal presentation. And, again, this is very important in America. So working-class kids like me were behind the grooming curve. I believe this remains the case today all throughout the country.

  Living in London during the 1969–70 college term drastically altered the bold, fresh guy’s “presentation.” British students typically dressed in Harris tweed jackets and flared trousers. At the time, prices were very low in Great Britain, so my American dorm mate, Edgar Royce, and I cruised Oxford Street for groovy clothes and actually bought some. This was a far cry from Mays department store in Levittown.

  When I returned to Marist College for my senior year, my new wardrobe won me points with some of the coeds, who were used to seeing college boys dressed like gardeners. But you should have seen the looks from my guy friends when I showed up to my Marriage and the Family class wearing a blue blazer. Priceless.

  The United States is a great country that honors values and freedom, but many Americans also worship attractive looks. So please understand that appearance and speech are ultra-important to achieving success. In my early youth, I spoke with a pronounced New Yawk accent and dressed like one of the Dead End Kids. My parents regarded that as a matter of course, simply the natural order of things. But the more quickly you figure out that you will be judged by how you look and how you sound, the easier your life will be. Santana might get away with singing, “ain’t got nobody that I can depend on.” But you can’t. That is, if you want to work in the lucrative white-collar world.

  These days when I go to the beach, I see many young kids covered with garish tattoos and showing off pierced faces. What are their parents thinking? Someday, one of those beach kids might want to earn some decent money by working for the Factor. Let me be blunt: a dragon tattoo on your neck is not gonna help in that quest. I remain a working-class guy by choice, but my staff has to present itself in a certain way, because we are dealing with some of the most powerful people on earth. Street smarts are great, but looking like you just got paroled from Sing Sing is not. Life is hard enough. Don’t make it more difficult by cutting down your vocational opportunities because you want to look like Eminem. Okay?

  Finally, I want to tell you about one thing I still haven’t mastered: patience. Even though I am successful and supposedly bright, I still let myself get annoyed in certain situations that I should simply disregard. For me, it’s all about expectations. If I go to a restaurant, for example, and the service is bad, it ticks me off. I know, I know…I should just let it go, either leave or tough it out. But no, the bold, fresh guy often has to confront the manager and explain the source of my disenchantment. Usually, I do this quietly, but I still do it. Why? Because it is not the way things should be.

  Now, I know this is stupid. So what if the steak tart
are takes an hour to get out of the kitchen? Actually, I never eat anything tartare. That sounds like a band of ancient Asian marauders. But my point is that bad service is small stuff. And, as we all know, you don’t sweat the small stuff.

  But sometimes I do.

  Jesus would not sweat the small stuff. Neither would Gandhi. They were big-stuff guys. Mostly, I try to be a big-stuff guy, too. But sometimes I fail.

  Tardiness also drives me crazy. I should overlook it, but, somehow, I see it as an insult. Your time is more valuable than mine? I have to wait for you? Of course, things happen, and I am fine with valid reasons for delay. However, to be late just because you can eliminates you from my dance card.

  When I interviewed Senator Hillary Clinton in late April 2008, she was forty-five minutes late. Her Secret Service guys told me she is almost always tardy. Of course, I was being well paid to wait for the senator, but I noted the situation. By the way, when Hillary finally showed up, she didn’t mention being late. Interesting.

  My father tended to sweat the small stuff, so, like the bad-food deal, maybe I can blame him; perhaps it’s genetic. The nuns certainly sweated every little thing. Therefore, I feel comfortable blaming the Catholic Church for my impatience, which I believe is considered a venial sin. Remember, I am a baby boomer and, as noted earlier, we are the absolute best at assigning blame to others for our own failings. In fact, we have honed this technique to a degree never before seen in America.

  If there’s any good in being impatient, it’s that it can help at work. The Factor staff is quick. No fooling around. When they get an assignment, boom, they’re on top of it. Partly, that’s because they don’t want me prodding them with salty language, but mostly it’s about pride. We do three hours of commentary a day—one on television, two on radio—and always meet our deadlines. In my opinion, the Factor staff is the gold standard in the TV news industry. Our ratings prove it.