Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

This week on Here’s the Thing – Alec sits down with fellow Long Islander Billy Joel – at the piano – for a conversation about life and the musical choices he’s made.

Joel joined his first band at age 14 and became the third best selling solo artist of all time in the United States. He’s sold more records than The Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna, but at this point, he says, the “rock star thing” is something he can “take off...

This week on Here’s the Thing, Alec talks with Grammy-winning guitarist Peter Frampton. “Sound is very inspirational to me,” explains Frampton – and it always has been: he started playing guitar before he was 8 years old.

Frampton talks about his musical roots in England, playing in bands like The Preachers and The Herd. At age 14 he was playing at a recording session produced by Bill Wyman, who he says is “sort of like my mentor, my older brother...

This week, Alec talks with Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at UC San Francisco, about our country’s addiction to sugar. Children today are the first American generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, in large part due to obesity. According to Lustig, this obesity often comes from eating too much sugar.

Sugar is hard to avoid. A recent study reveals that 80 percent of the 600,000 food items in America are laced with added sugar...

This week on Here's The Thing, Alec talks with late-night legend David Letterman. Letterman describes his early years on TV in Indiana; his decision to try radio despite a boss who said “You will never be heard of again”; and his eventual journey to LA where after 3 years at comedy clubs he found himself on The Tonight Show. As Letterman says, "that's not supposed to happen."

Letterman’s been doing the Late Show for 30 years and he says for a long time he “just didn’t do anything else...

This week Alec talks with playwright Jon Robin Baitz, whose Broadway play, Other Desert Cities, is up for a Tony later this month.

Baitz grew up in Brazil and South Africa -- transferring to Beverly Hills High School for his final year of school where he says he “became friends ... with fellow freaks.” He’s been writing ever since -- even though “writing plays has always been very tricky...

This week Alec talks with opera singer Renée Fleming, whose singing voice has been described as "double cream." Fleming remembers her professional debut -- “I was just jelly at the end of the first rehearsal” -- and celebrates her long association with The Metropolitan Opera...

This week on Here’s The Thing, Alec talks about the financial crisis with Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist. Stiglitz shows no restraint when unleashing criticism of presidential policies -- on both sides. Of President Barack Obama’s financial-industry rescue plan, Stiglitz said that whomever designed it was "either in the pocket of the banks or … incompetent." Stiglitz talks to Alec about growing up in Gary, Indiana and how that impacted his decision to become an economist...

This week on Here’s The Thing, Alec talks with Robert Osborne, host of Turner Classic Movies. Today Osborne plays the role of ambassador to a bygone era. We hear the journey he took to get there -- which could have been a classic movie itself.

Osborne tells Alec about meeting Lucille Ball: “If it had been Lana Turner I met or somebody I wouldn't have been able to talk, but it was Lucille Ball...

Alec talks with Kristen Wiig -- who catered, did floral design, answered phones at a law firm and handed out peach samples at a farmer’s market -- all before landing her current gig, as a cast member on Saturday Night Live.

Kristen says she loves performing, but admits there’s also a “big part of me that’s just like: don’t look at me.” Kristen talks about auditioning for SNL, and the prospect of life beyond SNL: “I mean that’s my family, it’s my heart, it’s New York to me...

Alec talks with Herb Alpert, legendary trumpeter and co-founder of A&M Records, the independent record label Alpert eventually sold to Polygram. In 1966, Alpert’s band, The Tijuana Brass sold over 13 million records, outselling The Beatles.

Alpert talks about the thrill of signing musicians like The Carpenters, Cat Stevens, and The Police but also reveals what it was like to lose -- and slowly regain -- his trumpet voice over a period of nearly 8 years...