Jay Zabriskie: All the Faces Looking Back

E441 Jay Zabriskie is a production manager and instructor at LA Film School, and has been in the industry for decades. I sat in on his class, “African American Images in American Cinema,” and asked him to be on the show to discuss it. Jay is also in my short film, The First, as Mr. […]

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here.
Thanks for listening to another episode of Hey,
Human podcast.
Before I get into it all, I wanted
to take a moment.
The last couple weeks, I have not been
putting out the show because
I'm in LA, and it's been
a lot.
And

(00:28):
I was evacuated
once, twice, almost three times from different locations
because the fire
fires
were raging
and moving so quickly.
They were saying that at a rate of
acreage
gobbling up about
3 football fields a minute.

(00:48):
I don't know if you can wrap your
head around that. I can barely wrap my
head around it. When I evacuated my place,
I could see the flames.
And doing the math in my head,
I was pretty scared.
And that night
was hurricane force winds. It was a
crazy

(01:08):
amount of wind.
The palm trees were dropping their fronds, like,
I mean, everywhere.
Everywhere, everywhere. And as I was driving away,
I was trying to swerve to miss palm
fronds, as were everybody else. And,
yeah, it was like a whole thing. And
then the second place I ended up by
the way, shout out to the people that

(01:32):
took me in. They did not know me
personally.
One woman knew me a little bit, but
I was with other people. Everybody was sort
of moving from place to place because
everywhere we went, it became unsafe, and we'd
have to go somewhere else. So I want
to thank, specifically,
Jenny,
and I want to thank Karen and Mike,

(01:52):
who so graciously
let me into their homes and let me
stay and spend the night and fed me
and kept me safe,
and everybody had dogs, and that was so
wonderful, because
it was really traumatic and scary
and uncertain, and I thought for sure my
place was gonna burn down.

(02:13):
It didn't,
but I really thought it was gonna,
and those dogs
and one cat,
who was as old as the hills,
kept in
company, and were so loving and wonderful,
as were the humans.
And,
yeah, so I didn't put out the show
for 2 weeks because
been dealing with all of that, Ended up

(02:34):
going to see my family for a few
days
and to breathe some fresh air because the
air in LA is really toxic right now.
I already have issues with my voice in
general and been coughing and things, so it
was good to get away. All that to
say,
I just
I'm trying to articulate it. I've been trying

(02:56):
to think of how to talk about all
of this.
There are people that
lost everything,
literally everything, other than maybe the shirt on
their back and the pants on their legs,
and
it's super traumatic for everyone. This
I I cannot begin to describe what it's
like to see the decimation.

(03:16):
It's horrific.
And
watching this town come together and love each
other and help each other and
the survivor guilt for people whose homes didn't
burn down,
the grief that everyone's feeling,
just the level of trauma is so high.

(03:37):
And to the thousands
of people that came in
to save us, the firefighters,
the EMTs,
and the police, and,
all of everybody, the evacuation route planners and
the people at the WatchDuty app, who kept
us all sane and insane at the same
time, but thank God for that app. And
thank you, John and Kathy Penny, my lifeline

(04:00):
through much of the
crises that we endured. They were so kind
to let me tag along
to all their different
friends' houses.
I would have lost
myself
had I not had them as a touchstone.
And also, just the prayers and love and

(04:22):
that everyone around the world poured into
our town. Boy, did we feel it. I'm
telling you,
powerful
amount of love.
Thank you for that as well.
It's,
something I'll never forget, for sure,
and
it's it's a humbling,

(04:44):
horrifying experience. I know I've probably said that
word a few times, but I felt like
it was important to speak to it and
of it,
before going into the episode. I know some
people are wondering,
and thank you for everybody that reached out.
And for those who didn't totally get that
too, I mean, what do you say to
people? I don't know.

(05:05):
You can't really say, how are you doing?
Because
nobody's doing well.
But we know that we're in your thoughts,
just like,
man, all the tragedies,
all the horrors of this world,
the one thing that is
clear to me is that when given the
opportunity
to come together, it's really it's beautiful to

(05:28):
see humans helping humans and
animals, too. Oh, God, the imagery of the
animals. I can't even go there.
All that to say
is just, thank you, and we're back online
with the show. And,
I hope it gives you

(05:48):
a little bit of escapism.
And
whatever you're going through, wherever you are in
the world,
I love you, and
I am here thinking good thoughts and radiating
them out.
There is just so much stuff, y'all. Oh,
my God.
There,
If you give blood, give blood.

(06:10):
That's a really important thing
just in general and everyday life saving kind
of thing. If you're feeling like you might
be in crisis,
at least in the United States,
you can dial 988,
and there's people on the other line
who will answer and be there for you
emotionally. And and if you need it physically

(06:30):
as well and can call someone. I don't
know what the numbers are
worldwide. I'm sure every country has its own
number. Probably every state has its own number.
But I know in America, it's 988 you
can call. So please,
it's a it's an insane time in general,
and
we need you here. Don't give up. Stick

(06:51):
around,
please.
And if if you need someone,
please reach out.
And
yeah. Alright.
This is episode
441,
and my guest is Jay Zabriskie, who is
a really good friend. Love him to death.
He teaches at L. A. Film School and

(07:12):
has been in the film industry for decades.
I sat in on one of his classes,
African American images in American cinema,
fascinating,
cool class,
hard to watch at times, of course,
and so incredibly important.
And I asked him to be on the
show to talk about

(07:33):
his what he knows about the history
and
and really, I guess, sort of a recap
of the class here on the show. I
I mean, there's so much information. You can
only get so much on the podcast, but
I'm really glad he said yes. And, oh,
also, he's in my short film, The First.

(07:54):
He plays mister Heka. And,
yeah, I just love Jay. He's the best,
and I hope you do too. And in
other news, I just finished
a really good book. It's called In My
Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger.
I really love Sebastian's work, so I was
excited to read this. It's really good. I

(08:16):
highly recommend it.
Other stuff, check out hey human podcast.com
for links and to learn more about my
guests and the show. Hey Human Podcast is
on YouTube under official Susan Ruth. I'm on
patreon at susanruthism,
TikTok, Instagram,
susanruthism
susanruth.com
to learn more about me and my other

(08:36):
artistic
endeavors. Find my albums on Spotify, Apple Music,
or wherever you get your music. Rate, review,
and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast on Apple,
Iheart, and Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcast. It's pretty
much everywhere.
And thank you for listening.
Be well. Be kind.
Be love.
And here we go.

(08:58):
Jay Zabriskie, welcome to Hey Human.
Thank you. It's good to be here. Lovely
to see you, friend.
Yes. I know. Isn't that nice to have
a chat with a friend? Yeah. It is.
It it makes for a different kind of
conversation.
I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So firstly, we're gonna talk about what shaped
you as a person growing up.

(09:20):
But in reference to Jay was kind enough
to be in my short film, The First.
He played mister Heckeff, which is great in
the opening scene. I got to read a
book upside down in French. Yeah. You read
a book upside down. Well, nobody knew it
was upside down. No. No. Yeah. But it
is it is funny to know that now
watching it.

(09:40):
But you you know, a god can do
that kinda thing. That's true. I flipped it
around. You know? Yeah. Just to show off
a little. I I was totally comfortable reading
it upside down. It was great.
You teach at LA Film School. Mhmm. And
I was lucky enough to sit in one
of your classes. Thank you for that invitation.
That was a lovely day. I was honored

(10:02):
to have you. Yeah. It was really fun.
And thank you for being here. You were
very kind to say yes. So let's jump
in
and start with, where are you from? How
did your upbringing shape you? It's funny. I
was ready to talk about,
African American images. So We're gonna do that
too. Oh, absolutely. No, I know. What shaped
me? Well, I I will tell you, honestly,

(10:22):
I'm a child of the sixties. I was
very much aware,
although I was too young to participate in
any of the civil rights activities,
but I was very aware of it. My
father, I think, in particular, had a great
deal of influence on me because
he certainly was an intellectual.
And he introduced me to James Baldwin, and

(10:42):
he introduced me to,
W. E. B. Du Bois
and and the black writers of the time,
historically and and currently. Dick Gregory
was an amazing comedian,
very, very active in the civil rights movement.
And so I had that kind of background.
And, also,
when the New York City school system went
on strike,

(11:03):
I actually
was a child who went to the Black
Panthers breakfast program. So I was aware of
this this entity called the Black Panthers, you
know, on top of being aware of the
Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, SNCC,
aware of the March on Washington and all
these, you know, these things that were going
on,

(11:23):
at the time.
So I I just think I was aware
of of civil rights. I was aware of
human rights. I was aware, you know, what
it meant to be a thinking person, I
guess. And
in the work that I do now with
the students, I try to
encourage them to do the same thing,
to think outside of the things that we're

(11:44):
doing.
I'm not supposed to have political
discussions in my class,
but
invariably,
they come up because filmmaking is about life.
Filmmaking is about things that are going on
around you. So how can you not discuss
the things that are going on around you?
And I'm very interested in what the young
people in my class have to say, and

(12:06):
and are are they thinking about these things?
So those are the kinds of things I
think that shaped me. Were your parents particularly
political?
No. No. My father was was an atheist.
My mom was
a
certified public accountant.
She was very independent.
When my parents divorced,

(12:26):
she managed to
raise me and
my 3 brothers,
as well
as pursue her career,
becoming a certified public accountant, which is hard,
one of the few African American women to
do so at the time,
and was quite successful at it. My dad
was in banking.

(12:47):
They shared numbers clearly when they were Yeah.
They did. It didn't transfer to me.
Yeah. I'm not big on numbers.
But but, you know, when you talk about
things that shape you,
I will tell you this. My grandparents had
a lot to do with it too.
My grandma my grandparents survived the depression,
and they were able

(13:08):
to buy property out on Long Island in
an area
that
very few black people did,
in in the Hamptons.
We still have some of that property left.
But my grandmother used to wash people's clothing,
my mother's mother, in the, in the depression,
and my grandfather
painted flagpoles in the, for the US Navy.

(13:31):
So, you know, I'd come out of this
lower middle class work ethic.
My mother's father
was a chauffeur and
a bank guard,
in New York. And, for black people, this
was very rare. A black owned bank?
No. No. No. Dry dock savings bank. Very,
very much a a white owned bank. It's

(13:53):
no I don't think I think dry dock
was was bought
by another bank, but growing up, it was
Drydock.
At any rate so, you know, I have
this I have this sort of can do
background from from my parents and my grandparents.
These are all very American
industrial
put your head down and work type positions.

(14:13):
Very much so. Very much so. But it
also made me very aware
of the position of African Americans in white
society.
My father chafed at that and and paid
penalties for that because he
was very much he was a very intelligent
man and very outspoken man
and really did not like

(14:34):
the
vessels that he was
put into. He wanted to be an architect
and,
felt that there was no no place for
him to be to be an architect. So
he he went into banking and and so
forth. Ultimately ended up in the state department
and and did very well,
Not, you know, not in the diplomatic side,

(14:56):
but on the the nuts and bolts side.
That's that's, where I come from. You know?
Where are you in the birth order of
your siblings?
I'm number 1.
Eldest child.
I'm number 1.
Regardless.
Ask me. No. No, I am. Ask my
brothers. They tell me I picked on them.
Very close in age? 18 months for my

(15:18):
nearest one,
7 years for the next one,
and then
20 years for the for the third one,
because my mother decided to marry again after
my parents had split. And, she had another
another child. Yeah. I didn't pick on him
too much because he was a baby. So,
but, the other brother certainly felt that I

(15:38):
had picked on them. I I don't have
that memory. I I don't think so. Well,
like I say, every child grows up in
a different family. It even in in their
own family, every child grows with different parents.
I think every sibling has a completely
different they have shared experiences.
But in general, I think every child has
a different experience and a different set of

(15:59):
parents growing up in a family. I think
that's a good point because, you know, as
they say,
you know, you can never step in the
same place in a river twice.
And so
your parents are maturing as, you know, the
next sibling comes along. So they meet different
parents that have experiences and they know what
not to do,
what to do,

(16:20):
as I certainly have learned. My own kids,
yeah, that's a that's a good that's a
good observation. But, see, that's why you're such
a good writer.
You know? The human experience is such a
key one. Oh, yeah.
Growing as you grew up in New York
then. Yeah. Completely. I'm a I'm a New
York kid. I love New York. I I
was just there over the holidays.

(16:41):
It reminded me what I love about it
and why I let why I didn't
not unhappy that I left, you know? Because
I got off the plane in LA and
it was balmy and sunny. I was like,
oh, yeah. Yeah. It is lovely and sunny.
Growing up, especially as a first child in
the family
and an understanding of of blackness

(17:03):
and moving through those spaces as a as
a black boy, a black man,
and having parents who, you know, who have
come up in the American dream.
Did it did it alter, do you think,
maybe your experience from other people you knew
or friends
of people you went you know, high school
friends and things?

(17:24):
Well, you know, it's funny because I would
say that
okay. Let's see if I can put this
in perspective.
My
path
was I went to an all black elementary
school. And then
right around that time, they decided that it
was a great idea
to ship me off to a white school,

(17:47):
to try to, you know, to integrate it.
I don't know who was supposed to benefit
from that, but I was really happy where
I was because I went to
I had to take 2 buses and 2
trains to get to the school.
And I'll never forget, my mom
I was 12, I guess. And my mom
said, okay. Now I'm gonna show you how

(18:09):
to get to school. So she went with
me. Took time off from work,
went with me, put me on, this is
the 1st bus. This is the 1st train.
It's the 2nd train.
This is the 2nd bus. This is where
you get off. Now you remember how we
got here because you're going to come home
by yourself. I got a bus pass and

(18:29):
that was it. Nowadays, you would never put
your 12 year old boy or girl on
a on a on a New York City
public
train, bus, whatever.
I don't think, anyway. But, that was it.
And I went to school and,
I remember coming home one day very upset.

(18:50):
And the reason I don't remember, actually, my
mom had to remind me of this. We
had a school dance.
And, you know, when you come from
an all black environment,
that's it's kind of hermetically sealed, you know?
The teachers are white or black, whatever, but,
you know, you're very comfortable in your

(19:10):
neighborhood. And I was. My, you know, my
my my all my friends were the same.
You know, their parents were some parents were
cops. Some parents were sanitation workers. Other parents
were bus drivers. So it's very working class,
middle working middle class
kind of neighborhood.
And so I go blithely along to this
new experience,
you know, not particularly thinking that I'm integrating

(19:32):
or even caring that that's what I'm doing.
So I asked this girl to dance, and
she said, I don't dance with animals.
And I was, like,
really, really blown away by that. It was
very, very painful.
And the reason I'm telling you this only
because I completely wiped it out of my
memory, and my mom reminded me one day,
and I said, wow. I I didn't I
didn't remember that.

(19:53):
Anyway,
persevered at the school. All of my friends
were white because I was one of very
few African Americans there. I was in the
music program,
and we tried to get a jazz band
together and do some things.
I ended up
swimming,
you know, turning adversity into swimming. And,

(20:13):
the kids there were cool eventually with me,
and I was cool with them. And, you
know, it was my first touch of Italian,
Worked a lot of Italian Americans at this
school.
And maybe that's why I love Italy so
much. No. I I have no idea.
So I'm not sure how old you are.
So I'm not does that mean that you
were part of that first wave of of

(20:33):
integration?
Yeah. But see, I I don't know because
I don't know how New York fit in.
Right. Because everybody did it at a different
time. Right. I I'm not I mean, you
know, New York chose to do this. But,
yes, I I'm I'm up there. I'm I'm
I'm a I'm a solid boomer. Believe me.
That's a lot of trauma to to send
kids into this sort of new

(20:55):
without any kind of help or support.
None.
Yeah.
None. None. This was after the breakfast program,
I think.
My timeline my timeline may be a bit
but I'm pretty sure it was. Did the
Black Panther environment
empower you to
deal with some of those challenges? Or I

(21:17):
mean, at 12, no one's really thinking about
all this kind of you know, the social
and political ramifications
of how America is trying to shift
toward
better,
for lack of a better word, a better
future.
We're
still working on?
Work in progress. Work in progress. I would
have to say no because I don't remember

(21:39):
any kind of political discourse. They were just
feeding kids and making sure they had something
to do after school.
Exactly. Exactly. Because the school system was on
strike. You know,
in
retrospect, I I see what was done to
to dismember the Black Panthers. And it's a
shame because,
yes, they had this this violent rhetoric and
this tough guy stance, but

(22:01):
there were some really wonderful things that they
did in in black communities across the country.
And women you know, black women,
were very, very involved and and did not
get the attention, I think. The image of
the Black Panthers is, you know, Huey Newton
with the gun and the thing and,
you know, The way he talks about Angela
Davis as much or any yeah. Mhmm. And

(22:22):
the what black women did for
the vote. Yeah. Well, that's a that that's
another we could do another whole show on
that. Yeah, for sure. Anthony Vaughn (3six forty

seven) (22:29):
Black women were very involved in the
suffragette movement. Yeah. Anthony Vaughn (3six forty seven):
And had nothing to show for it, at
the end of it.
And of course,
memory glosses over a lot of things,
but I don't really remember
being particularly
politically active
at this point. I was just reacting socially

(22:52):
to what was, you know, what I was
dealing with
and trying to keep good grades because that
was, you know, that's part of the family
thing. You gotta get good grades.
Now my brothers
and, you know, I always tease them. I
said, because they all had it easy. So
after I was the guinea pig with this
stupid
integration thing, they opened up new schools in
our neighborhood, you know, 15 mile radius, middle

(23:15):
schools and so forth. So my brothers went
to that middle school, and then he went
to prep school, and then he went to
Yale, and, you know, they had all the
good stuff. You know? I'm slugging along at
public school,
public middle school, public high school,
but I'm quite proud of them. You know?
One went to Yale. The other one went
to Dartmouth. So I'm proud of them.
And when you headed off to college, did

(23:37):
you already have in your mind
to be in the filmmaking
world? Was that something that came later?
No. What happened was in middle school, I
was in music.
I loved music. In high school, I continued
that. And then I found out there was
this thing called,
acting theater.
So I started acting

(23:59):
and,
that was my thing,
music
and art.
When I got to NYU,
I honestly did not know what I wanted
to do. I didn't even know that there
was a film program. I didn't know anything
about that. Loved movies like everybody else, you
know? So I'm thinking around and I I'm
thinking, well, okay, since Since I don't know
what my major's gonna be, let me get

(24:20):
rid of all the basic courses, get past
all of this, and then I'll declare a
major when I figure out what I wanna
do.
Then I discovered there was this thing called
film,
a film program.
I had 2 very special teachers,
Martin Scorsese
for directing
problems class and,

(24:41):
Martin Martin who wrote that, Taxi Driver.
He was writing writing teacher.
Oliver Stone was in my class, one of
my classes,
and I was able to catch up with
him a couple years ago and, you know,
reminded him of it. And and we talked
about that period of his life. He didn't
remember me, but I remembered him,

(25:03):
because we were all these wet behind the
ears kids in this class,
and there was this intense brooding presence
in the class, and that was Olive Stone,
who, had already
been, at that point, had already
first volunteered,
with a, like an NGO type,

(25:23):
organization
in Nam
and had been going back as a soldier
in Nam and now was now was in
school. So when he came back, you know,
he was
a pretty serious
pretty serious person. I I don't know if
if he had already written.
It was Midnight Express, I think it was.

(25:43):
I think he
had.
College was, you know, that's what I was
into, and I I had no idea, you
know, how amazing Scorsese was.
He had just done he had done Boxcar
Bertha.
He was in that the corpsman group.
And,
you know, I was just lucky to have

(26:03):
him for that that one semester.
Then he's gone, you know, doing his thing.
How are you looking at cinema up until
this point? Because I think this will segue
nicely into what you teach now. But how
are
you taking in the cinema that you're experiencing?
Well,

(26:23):
you know, it's funny because I kinda begin
my presentation to my students this way. I
was exposed to
to a lot. I mean, I I love
I love the program. I mean, when I
came through the program, it was kind of
new.
So a lot of things, you know, developed
as a program matured. You know? So I
I'm I'm aware of all the all this
amazing

(26:44):
filmmaking and production being being done.
Very little of it
had African Americans in it. In fact, I
don't honestly remember
in any of my film history classes
being shown any films by African Americans or
that that involved African Americans.
I believe I found these on my own,

(27:04):
things like nothing but a man, because that
came out in 64,
Ivan Dixon. It was just my own curiosity
to to find this. Television, of course, was
was evolving, and and I was aware of
Bill Cosby's work and so forth,
not I Spy, because, you know, like every
other young kid, I was really crazy for,

(27:25):
spy stuff. I didn't
wasn't really
appreciative,
shall we say,
of the groundbreaking
work that people like Sidney Poitier,
Paul Robeson. I was not even aware
that there was such a thing as as,
black filmmakers
of the teens and and twenties.

(27:46):
Oscar Micheaux.
No. Never heard of
them. I bet they, I bet they're, they're
taught now at NYU and, and all other
film schools. And I know my students have
never heard of it because they all come
up to me. I mean, I'm, I'm really
honored
when I know that they're actually listening and
they say thank you because we've learned something

(28:07):
we never knew about before.
And, I
wanted to read you this this quote because
it's something this, by the way, was an
amazing called Black Cinema Regeneration,
Regeneration
at the it was at the Academy Museum.
But I was flipping through this and
apropos of what we're talking about,

(28:28):
James Baldwin said in 1968,
it is of the utmost importance that a
black child
see on the screen on that screen,
someone who looks like him.
Our children have been suffering from the lack
of identifiable
images
for as long as our children have been
born. You know, I certainly fell into that
category. You know, certainly in other arts like

(28:50):
music, I was aware,
partly because of my father, of, of the
literature of African American writers. I was aware
of the music, obviously,
the jazz greats.
But my dad was so eclectic that he
introduced me to people who were not,
you know, like, for example, you know, everyone
has heard of, Louis Armstrong or, John Cole

(29:12):
Coltrane. Right? But maybe not Youssef Lateef, maybe
not Pharoah Sanders. These were guys who are
on, you know, on a cutting edge,
that contributed greatly
to to our music, to the music of
America. To kind of come back to where
I am now,
to find out and discover
the richness
of work of African American artists

(29:34):
from the very beginning of cinema,
is very gratifying.
And I really hope
more students are aware of this. That's not
taking anything away from the contributions of female,
directors because there were quite a few
in the early years, female directors who were
fighting against the system
to try to break through. Asian Americans

(29:56):
have the same complaints that that we have
had. You know, having whites in yellow face.
I've watched on channel 9
in New York. They used to have a
thing called the $1,000,000 movie. They used the
theme from Gone With the Wind, was the
$1,000,000 movie. And so I would see,
things like the Marx Brothers, and I would
see,

(30:16):
Charlie Chan, you know, which was a horrible
representation of Asian Americans, but that's what was
there. Cartoons are even worse. Yeah. Cartoons are
way over the top. I you know, when
I was sitting in your class
and
I I knew going in, of course, that
there was going to be things that would
likely make especially 20 year olds, the students,

(30:38):
really uncomfortable,
you know, to be Mhmm. Faced with the
truth of things when so many people are
trying to ignore
historical
accuracy.
Right. I'm curious.
How do you
experience
your kids, your students experiencing
those things?
I approach it this way. I say pretty
much at the start

(30:59):
that I'm gonna discuss some things
that are, going to be uncomfortable.
And I say none of this is designed
or intended to make anybody feel bad about
themselves.
I say, y'all didn't do anything.
And then I take I I kind of
mash
massacre a quote from,

(31:21):
Ava DuVernay's wonderful movie origin,
where I say,
something to the effect the character in the
movie says something to the effect that, you
know,
we're living in this house
that was built by others,
and it's got broken windows and rugs messed
up and, you know, whatever, blah, blah, blah.

(31:41):
You didn't build this house. We didn't build
this house,
but it's on us
to fix this house.
And that's what I say. I'm looking for
allies in this and information makes us allies.
That's what I want. I don't wanna make
anybody feel bad.
You know, what, what, what use is it
to say, well, you know, white folks did
blackface and they were, you know, and they

(32:03):
they produced these horrible images of blacks and
Asians and so forth. So, it's your fault.
Well, that's that's absurd.
No, but I want you to join me
in recognizing
that it was absurd. And what what will
you do now? What can you, as a
creative person, do now
to add to the conversation that improves this
house that we are now living in? Which

(32:25):
is interesting too to think that the school
would say, as do many schools, make sure
that there's nothing political
discussed. And it's it's hard to not because
politics
and
social justice and
sociology
and all of they're all in bed together.
You can't have one without the other. They

(32:46):
all
meet each other. Absolutely. Plus, we're creative people.
We are aware of what's going on in
our lives. We wanna make films about the
things that we're experiencing.
Are we experiencing this political stuff?
The sociological changes, the effects of, artificial intelligence,
and its implications,

(33:07):
and social media, and what it's doing to
children, and to adults, and relationships, blah, blah,
blah. All rich fertile ground
for thinking people. But see, I think that's
exactly the danger.
Because if, for example,
this new administration is successful in destroying the
department of education,

(33:27):
If they are successful in making it so
that only the states have control of the
the educational,
norms or guidelines for everybody,
we're gonna have some really stupid people. Well,
it was certainly ignorant. It will cause an
incredible division. Sorry. I meant ignorant. Yeah. It'll

(33:48):
it'll cause an incredible division of of knowledge.
And,
well, knowledge is power. We know that that
is a fact.
It will only
divide us more because
the quote unquote elites or the educated, which
I I think, unfortunately, those two words have
now become synonymous. They're not. They're not at

(34:09):
all. No. But they've they've, you know, intellect
or education
or a lack of ignorance has been vilified.
Yes.
Yes. My big issue, of course, is a
willful ignorance. That's what that's what it breaks
my heart. That's what makes me very sad.
That willfully, I don't wanna know things
Yes. Stance. Because it's so painful.

(34:30):
It is. That leads us back to not
wanting to have a good an honest discussion
of history
as opposed to
really looking at what was done.
It's also a big f u to most
of the people on the planet that don't
look like you or act like you or
worship like you or talk like you, whatever
they like you part of it is. Yes.

(34:51):
Absolutely.
Also, how do we begin to break down
these divisions if we don't learn about each
other? Yeah. It seems like a really lonely,
angry
existence.
Yeah. This is completely off topic, but
I started listening to Shaboozy,
and that led me to Jelly Roll.

(35:13):
These are people I never would have heard
because I don't do country music. Right?
And Jelly Roll has a song called I'm
Not Okay
that
tears me up
because it is so full of pain.
And I'm thinking,
these are the people that the democrats
missed.
They don't understand

(35:35):
that there's a lot of people,
you know, who are not
okay.
They're not doing okay. They're working hard. They're
not doing okay.
And part of the problem is, the people
who are telling them,
who are pretending to be listening to them,
are actually exploiting them. When they find out

(35:56):
if they ever find out what Trump really
thinks of them and what his administration
intends to take away from them I mean,
not even just Trump. I mean, I would
just they'd say politics in general. Like, Trump
is representative of a lot of things that
you and I. Maybe not everyone who listens
to this show believes that, but you and
I certainly believe he's representative of a lot
of things that we

(36:16):
do not hold dear.
However,
politics across the board that's that's the great,
23 Ski Doo that has been done to
people is that they have been told to
worship at the feet of whatever political party
they
reflect
in their minds that they think they're they're

(36:37):
a part of. But that party
really only cares up to a point. Well,
of course. You know?
Yes. Yes. Well, I you know, the point
is we're stuck with this. You know? We
have 2 parties. That's it. You know? It's
not like, Italy with its chaotic,
you know, or or Europe with its, you
know Six parties.
6 parties and, you know, and they're all

(36:57):
fighting. And maybe that's a better way. Now
we're getting really existential with it, I suppose.
It's just power
versus the people that have no power. And
that's really
the bottom line. Mhmm. And anytime the people
that don't have power start to use their
voice and look around and say, hey, you
know what? If I'm gonna speak up, I'm
also gonna speak up for these other people
that don't have a voice. And then the

(37:18):
people in power say,
oh, oh, no. No. No. No. No. No.
No. No. No. We like our power. We
don't want to have any power. No. I
I mean, I think that's the conundrum. You
know? How do you give voice to the
voiceless? And and, you know, isn't that the
problem with populism?
Right?
You know? Because if if that if the
populous is not informed,

(37:40):
then they're gonna make some really bad choices.
If we go back to talking about film,
and there's the idea of, oh, only certain
looks or certain faces or certain Mhmm. You
know, men doing this and not you know,
a chick film or,
oh, if there's black people in this or
Asian people in that, you know, whatever it
is. There is a hierarchy of the money

(38:01):
crunchers saying this has value and this doesn't,
which is why it's so exciting when
shows like Abbott Elementary
or movies like origin or, you know, whatever
it is. Actually,
these things make 1,000,000 of dollars, by the
way. They do. You know, maybe there are
some cracks, you know, because some of these
projects are slipping through. I I don't know.

(38:23):
I mean, let's go back to the seventies,
all in the family. How the hell did
that ever get on the air? You think
that would get on the air now? We
treasure that. You know? Talk about pushing boundaries
and making people face
the realities of who we all are. Right.
But normally, I found a way
to
to talk about politics
in a humanistic way that allowed us to

(38:45):
laugh at it and and made us think
about it. You know, Archie Bunker was representative
of a certain way of thinking.
Mhmm. And,
Meathead
was another thing. And they would clash, and
and and that's how he would get the
ideas out. And Edith would be in the
middle, you know. And then all of a
sudden, you know, Archie would try to do
something to put Edith down, and she would

(39:06):
just smack him back, and he would be
surprised.
But I think you spoke to it earlier
in that the thing that Norman Lear did
is that he wasn't also afraid to show
Archie's pain.
Absolutely.
Absolutely. Archie was a a was a a
a three-dimensional,
character, but that's why it worked.

(39:26):
And maybe that's we need to get back
to that. Maybe when we when we start
talking about these people who are are being
left behind, we we paint them as three-dimensional
people. The line in Jelly Roll's thing is
I'm I'm not okay, but I'm gonna be
alright.
That gives you a much fuller picture. It
really made me aware of
how much there's a group of people that

(39:47):
I'm not aware of, how much they are
hurting. It's a pretty small planet.
Isn't it? And it's the only one we
have,
you know? There's this rush to go to
Mars. I'm like, why? We're just gonna go
there and bring the same crap over there.
I mean, we do it here. We go
to Austin because Austin is a cool place,
and then we all bring our condominiums and
our, you know, California attitudes or whatever. And

(40:07):
now Austin is not as cool as it
used to be. Right? I get the excitement
of space and the wanting to
adventure outward. I completely understand. But also, I
find it difficult
to think here's somebody who can afford to
really
fix
some problems at home, you know, here on
the planet
and chooses to look at the how do

(40:28):
we go to somewhere else? Mhmm. And maybe
start messing that one up. I I have
my personal things around that. I think that
it has to do more with mining rights
and has little to do with saving humanity.
Because the first people that get to mine
Mars are gonna make a freaking fortune.
Absolutely.
That's that's what it really is. In my
opinion, that's what it's about. I don't think
it's, just a matter of your opinion. I

(40:50):
think you're absolutely correct. I think it's a
reality.
I just read today that there is a
discussion about
how soon we're gonna be ready to do
mining on the moon.
Yeah.
Why would we wanna mess with the moon?
Because the moon affects the tides and a
lot of things on earth.
Do we really wanna go up there and

(41:10):
start chipping away and taking things away and
pounding and blowing shit up? I don't think
it's a good idea. I do not think
it's a good idea.
Yeah. I know. It is it's I'm not
even a scientist, and I don't think it's
a good idea. Yeah.
But again, sometimes I wonder how much
people really consider humanity. I don't think a

(41:30):
lot. When it comes to money,
humanity is
not at the top of the list of
let's make sure. Right. Well, I mean, it
kinda syncs up with what we're discovering about
UnitedHealth,
Group, right, as a total. Mhmm. Because it
was clear that they had a policy of
denying claims
as a profit center to the extent that

(41:52):
there was a person called the denial nurse,
that this person's job I don't know if
it was a female, could have been a
male.
Their job was to simply deny claims,
find a reason to deny the claim.
Well, why do we have insurance? What am
I paying the the for the insurance for
if you're gonna cover me? And then you
find out there's,

(42:12):
something called a benefits manager that's in between
the pharmaceutical
company and your doctor. We don't even need
that person, but they're
all these profits and It is bonkers.
I'm in Italy.
Yes. They take half your salary for taxes.
That's true.
But
I had an accident 20 years ago while

(42:32):
I was there.
Busted up my head,
bleeding all over the place.
They rushed me to the ER,
patched me up, follow ups, you know, stitches,
care, everything. You know how much I paid?
0. The taxi ride over maybe.
I mean, why are we paying so much
for health care? We have not the best

(42:52):
health care in the world. We have the
worst health care in the world.
Yeah. It is a good switcheroo, ain't it?
Lot of this country's got a lot of
switcheroo ing going on. Yes. That's what little
switcheroo. Yeah. A little shell game. I think
they're called shell games.
Right? Follow follow the peanut and then good
luck. Well, you discover
that there's no peanut. I grew up around

(43:13):
Times Square when they really had real shell
games. You know, before
Giuliani came and turned it into Disneyland,
there was there was real life on the
streets, you know, guys selling watches, you know,
Like that scene in, in Shaft. You know?
He's got 12 watches up his arm. He
says, hey, brother. I bought a timepiece.
That's that's the Times Square I remember. Alright.

(43:33):
Let's get back to you. The the full
title of this class that you teach, one
of the classes African American images
in American cinema.
I only get as far I start from
the very beginning, which is,
an image called the cake walk, which is
a,
black and white silent image
of these black folks all gussied up in

(43:55):
their Sunday best,
making fun of white society. I think that's
what the cakewalk is about, and they're just
dancing and prancing and having a great time.
And it's just so much fun to watch
them very unselfconsciously,
doing this.
And that's the first,
images that that I'm aware of, motion picture
images I'm aware of of, African American people,

(44:16):
in cinema, followed the next year by something
called the kiss,
which I really gotta see if I can
get a clip of that, which and add
to my lecture, because I have, some still
photographs.
But it's a black man and a black
woman, and they kiss, and it's a big,
you know, close-up, and it's a big deal.
But I go all the way I can
only get as far as the blaxploitation,
period.

(44:37):
And I I think it's a good place
to stop
because it really was the beginning of this
explosion, in my opinion,
of, of black directors and actors and so
forth
that was never
was never able to be put back into
the box.
Because out of that, we have Spike Lee,

(44:57):
and Ava DuVernay, and Julie Dash, and,
just so many wonderful, amazing
directors.
Now
the amount of directors that are African American,
it's like 5 or 6 pages when you
do a Google search. Did you I can't
remember. Was Gene Roddenberry with the interracial
kiss
between, Kirk and Uhura? Yes. It's definitely part

(45:19):
of my class. The first interracial kiss on
on television.
I love telling that story because Nichelle Nichols,
who played lieutenant Uhura, was telling it. Roddenberry,
who was
really so far ahead,
of his time, I I think he stands
on the shoulders of of Rod Serling, who
also
was, I think, a humanist. So the whole

(45:40):
point of Star Trek for
for those of you who are probably looking
at the the 17 variations,
but the original Star Trek was very groundbreaking
because it was the first time there was,
a group of multiracial
people on the bridge of a of a
ship, a starship in this case.
Lieutenant Uhura was a black female communications

(46:02):
officer.
James Kirk, of course, was the captain.
Anyway, in 1968,
as this first iteration of Star Trek was
coming to an end,
there was a script
where they
get captured by this
planet
where the people on the planet can make
Kirk and Uhura and,

(46:23):
Spock
and nurse,
can't remember her name, nurse, I want to
say nurse Ratchet, but that's one clue of
cuckoo's nest. That's cuckoo's nest. Yeah. So that's
not right, but the nurse,
they were a couple.
And,
these people are making them do stupid things.
They're prancing around. They're dancing. They're, you know,
whatever.
At any rate, they get the idea that

(46:45):
they're gonna make Kirk and Uhura, kiss.
So the the the studio knows they have
the script, and the deal was
that we're we're gonna shoot it 2 ways.
We're gonna shoot it with the kiss, and
we're gonna shoot it without the kiss.
Certainly, because the southern markets are not gonna
really like to see this.
Right? It's bad enough that they're together touching

(47:06):
each other. We're talking
1968. Right? Just before
Hoot Kiss was coming to dinner,
came out, I believe.
They shoot the scene with the kiss. Right?
Now they're running out of time. It's golden
hour. And golden hour in film, for those
of you who don't know, is extraordinarily
expensive. Right? It's double time heading into triple
time. It's very expensive. So they wanna get

(47:27):
this done.
So they do 2 or 3 takes with
the kiss. This is on film, by the
way.
And,
they get to the point of the director
says, okay. Let's do the one without the
kiss.
Alright. Now
they do it
supposedly.
Now
nowadays,
when a director is working a scene, they
get to see
what the camera sees.

(47:48):
So in those days in 68, there was
no video village. There was no television monitor
or whatever to be able to see what
was going on. So the only person that
knew what really happened was the camera operator.
And he wasn't talking.
So they get to the next day
and they're screening the dailies.
Dailies are the film that is shot the
day before is processed and then screened for

(48:11):
the director, the producer, in this case, the
studio, because they really wanna see how this
kiss thing worked out.
So they're showing this they're showing it and
there's the kiss. There's the kiss. It's great.
And they say, okay. Let's see the one
without the kiss. So they put that take
up on the projector
and lo and behold,
Shatner,
instead of not kissing her,

(48:32):
he
I'm sorry. He doesn't kiss her. But what
he does is he turns, he bends her
down and he looks straight at the camera.
He spikes the lens
blowing the take. So it doesn't matter whether
he kissed her or not. He can't use
the take.
So now they have to use the kiss.
And that was, I'm sure that was deliberate
on Roddenberry and Shatner's part. I don't think

(48:52):
Shatner did it on his own.
But Roddenberry Shatner
made so that the kiss
is was,
shown.
And I I give them high marks for
for having done that. That was the year,
by the way, for those of you who
don't know, 1968 was a very, very pivotal
year. Martin Luther King was killed in April.
Loving versus Virginia

(49:14):
was decided by the Supreme Court, which allowed
that interracial marriages
were legal,
and it was unconstitutional
to prevent interracial marriage. Sidney Poitier
was in a movie, called guess who's coming
to dinner.
So all this is going on at the
same time, and then you have the kiss.
Pretty powerful year.

(49:34):
Again, it's impossible for cinema not to be
political if it's doing its job. But the
fact that that's political makes me crazy. It's
not. It's not political, but we've made it
into politics. Like, the first time, 2 women
kiss or 2 men kiss. That's a big
Sure. That's political. Right?
I just I think it's so fascinating that
along the way,

(49:55):
which
actors and or actresses were acceptable
in whichever like, is a Dorothy Dandridge more
acceptable or is,
Bruce Lee, for example? You know, why is
that more acceptable? Or that that sort of
idea that there were certain actors and actresses
who

(50:15):
everyone could embrace for whatever
particular reason.
I always think that's really interesting. It it
is. And and one of the things I
talk about in my lecture is the difficulty
for people like Dorothy Dandridge
and, Lena Horne,
Hazel Scott to be accepted and to find
roles.

(50:36):
On the on the male side, you had
Hara Belafonte,
you know, who was a heartthrob,
you know, for many women, black and white,
which was part of the of the problem.
I mean, an amazing amazingly
talent
multi talented And activist.
Very much so. He was an activist
and and never shied away from that. He

(50:57):
and the horn, both were part participants in
the
civil rights, the march on Washington. There's a
great PBS
interview
with
Belafonte.
I'm gonna leave some people out, but Belafonte
is in it.
Believe it or not, Charlton Heston
is in it. Mister pry the gun from

(51:18):
my cold dead hands. He was part of
it. He was very much on board, with
the ideas behind the march on Washington.
Marlon Brando was part of that group. It
was a discussion during during the the March
on Washington.
I'm pretty sure it was PBS.
I guess my point is, what I what
I hope that the students will walk away
with is an appreciation

(51:40):
for
how we got to where we are now.
And the responsibility
of
that I think they have to be charged
with
about exploring
our world now,
knowing where we have come from, knowing the
the way media,
the way film had been used in the

(52:00):
past. What can they do now
to to enlarge the conversation,
to to encourage
dialogue among people,
to to share the experiences.
One of the things that I say to
them is, please do not make another Marvel
hero movie.
Make something that you care about, really care

(52:22):
about, know, not just another action movie. I
love action movies. I'm a John Wick fan.
No question.
Okay.
But make something that means something to you,
you know, that that will open up people's
thinking,
hearts.
I don't know if they'll be getting that
message. Let's see.
Some are. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, you

(52:43):
were you were talking about Bruce Lee and
Dorothy Dandridge, and I was just thinking they
basically basically had the same problems
just later. You know, Bruce Lee,
amazingly talented, you know, had done the string
of successful
Chinese kung fu movies, came to Hollywood, and
they they just said, nah, you know, you
you know,
nobody wants to see

(53:03):
you do this stuff.
And he wanted that part really badly,
you know, but they they couldn't
imagine they couldn't imagine an Asian man
being who's a real kung fu artist walking
through the wild west doing kung fu. They'd
rather have a white guy
who didn't know kung fu, who was all

(53:24):
faked in camera trickery. I remember being really
upset about that
because,
I was a Bruce Lee fan,
and I was studying kung fu, Kung Fu
S.
I was glad that the show was on
the air,
but I remember saying,
that should be Bruce Lee. I mean, this
guy doesn't even know what he's doing. There's
all kind of I did. I think Bruce

(53:45):
Lee taught David Carradine, didn't he? Yeah.
Mhmm. He took a lot of irony about
a lot of people.
A lot of people,
studied,
when he opened up his school.
He,
he he worked with a lot of Hollywood
actors.
And he was sexy.

(54:05):
I mean, he would've done it would've it
he would've done real well. But again Yeah.
Do you like water? I'm like, I'm already
there, buddy. That's right.
I'll get all the people. Every time you
see me, you turn into water.
Yes, sir. I wish I had that power.
But yeah. No. I I I think that's
the thing. It was a limitation
and a and a desire to to control

(54:27):
the truth about things.
If America's interested in kung fu, why not
go to the source? You know, why would
you take a pale imitation?
I'm not trying to make a pun here.
No pun. Yeah. Intended. Yeah. But it's a
pale imitation. You know? Yeah. And did the
world end when Kirk kissed lieutenant O'Horn? World
didn't end.
You know?

(54:49):
It's not gonna end now if because we
understand
the true history of racism and slavery and
and cultural misappropriation.
World's not gonna end. We're gonna know more
about what went on.
You know? Every time someone says to me,
well, you know, why should I feel guilty
about it? You shouldn't feel guilty. I don't
want you to feel guilty. I want you

(55:10):
to help me make it better.
By your feeling guilty, you're sort of saying,
well, there's nothing to be
done. You know, I feel bad. I don't
want you to feel bad.
Yeah. It's interesting. I read some some woman
was talking about how her kid came home
and he was crying because, you know, they
had learned about I don't remember if it
was the holocaust or slavery. It was something

(55:30):
terrible that history has
has done. And,
you know, she said, oh, my kid was
crying and I don't wanna and I thought,
that's a good thing. Your child is experiencing
something called empathy. That's beautiful.
That's actually something to encourage in people.
Yeah. We want we want more empathetic people.
I'm hoping that I wanna I wanna say

(55:51):
better minds. I don't know if that's the
correct word, but I'm hoping that Better angels,
maybe. Better angels. We will we will appeal
to the better angels, and we will prevent
the,
elimination of history, true history being taught in
in school.
I I'd like to see civics brought back.
I'd like to see people understand how government

(56:12):
really works,
understand
that it's you know, the president can't do
everything. Then the vice president can't do anything.
That's for sure. Yeah. The vice president, you
know, responsible for the president does is kinda
silly. It is silly.
But people just don't know. But that's the
thing. Ignorance
is a powerful tool for the people that

(56:34):
wield the power.
Well, yes. It's a very useful tool. Yeah.
Mhmm. Yeah. No. I agree.
Yeah. So as an instructor, I have to
push back against that.
Yeah. And I'm glad you do. I really
did enjoy your class. It's excellent. And I
really enjoyed watching
your students take it in because
it's the seed.

(56:54):
Well, that's good. I I must admit, I'm
so busy talking that I don't even see
that. Yeah. I'm focusing on what I'm trying
to say.
But I I I take pride in introducing
them to people that they've never heard of
before, like Oscar Micheaux, and understanding that Hadda
McDaniel
got an Oscar.
You know? A lot of people don't know
that. You know? 1st black woman to get

(57:17):
an Oscar. To understand that there were
many, many
black owned film production companies
in the twenties,
They they did a lot of work.
Amos and Andy, the the the black man
who played the television version of Amos and
Andy, his name is Spencer Williams,
was in many of these early

(57:39):
race films
and continued to direct race films,
in the forties and, and fifties, even though
he was
in the fifties playing this
shucking and jiving
character, Amos and Andy.
You know? People should know that Bill Cosby
was a very successful comedian before he became

(58:00):
America's dad. He was a very successful comedian
who was in a a really cutting edge
TV show called I Spy. And, you know,
people in my generation, we revered Bill Cosby
for that. You know? Richard Pryor came along.
It was like, oh, this is amazing. We
got 2 guys that are just hilarious. You
know?
Have you ever seen Richard Pryor's bit about

(58:22):
God when he comes on stage and yeah.
I have I've I've listened to his albums.
I used to try to do it, then
the one with the monkey running around is
like,
It's tricky for people like Bill Cosby, of
course, because, like you said, a brilliant comic,
brilliant
at everything
that he did,
and

(58:43):
America's dad and beloved.
But the truth of the matter is, you
know, also a monster. And that's a really
interesting thing Yes. I think for people to
understand is you can be both things. Yes.
You can be brilliant
and do
incredible bodies of work and be a terrible
person. A lot of our arts,
a lot of our history is that. Mhmm.

(59:05):
Yeah. I agree. Yeah. I I don't shy
away from that. I I say that. I
say that in the lectures. We didn't know
at the time that he was a monster,
that he was drugging women all the way
back
when he was doing I Spy.
It's so weird because I'll it'll come across
my timeline is The Cosby Show, and I
freaking love that show. I'm sorry I love
it, and I love A Different World. And

(59:27):
I watch these shows, and somewhere in the
back of my mind, you know, the little
birdie is saying, yeah. But yeah. But I'm
like, yeah. But, shit, it's so good. Yeah.
Yeah.
It was so beautiful. It's like, how do
you hold both those thoughts at the same
time?
That that's really not
that unusual.
I mean, for example,

(59:48):
I talk about the the minstrel man. Al
Jolson. Al Jolson.
Al Jolson,
you know, made a fortune singing and playing
in blackface.
And I asked my students, I said, well,
look at this clip. You know, he's singing
mammy
in blackface,
and they're cutting to his mother, who is
white. I said, didn't anybody notice that there
was a discrepancy here? Why is he in

(01:00:09):
blackface?
What's the need for him to be in
blackface singing mammy to his real mother? Well,
maybe cinema mother who's sitting there white, looked
like a nice little sweet old white lady.
Didn't that bother didn't anybody say, wait a
minute. This is this is stupid.
But at the same time,
while he's making these, you know, kind of
negative,

(01:00:30):
images of African Americans,
as a person, I think he actually appreciated
African American culture. I think he respected
African American,
entertainers and musicians.
And I tell I tell the story
to 2 men,
who were who I learned about at NYU,
by the way. The 2 men who,

(01:00:51):
Noble, Sissel, and Eubie Blake
were at the top of, of of African
American,
you know, music,
musical theater. They had done
a,
very successful show called Shuffle Along,
and Shuffle Along was basically like the Hamilton
of the day. I mean, anybody that was
anybody,

(01:01:11):
black, white, purple, whatever, went to see shuffle
along on Broadway.
Anyway, so these 2 successful artists are trying
to have dinner
in Connecticut.
That's the north.
And the restaurant owner would not serve them
because they were black. This is real life.
This is real life. And Al Jolson happened
to run into them, and they told him

(01:01:33):
what's going on, and he
made sure that they had dinner.
So
a small thing,
but an important thing because it balances it
out.
So
why, you know, why on one hand is
he doing these negative images, but at the
same hand, as a real person,
he's helping out doing something

(01:01:56):
very
activist. Right?
And I think that's the point. These two
things can both be true. Why is Step
and Fetchit? Step and Fetchit was so successful
making these horrible images of African Americans,
only to be resurrected by the NAACP in
1974
because they felt that
his character was like a Loki type figure

(01:02:18):
figure.
Felt that his character,
you know, usually worked his way out of
situations because he knew more about things and
was able to trick so called superior
people. But as I tell my students, it's
still very painful to watch. And I love
playing that clip
and have them guess what the hell he's
talking about because his patois is so

(01:02:40):
weird.
And, you know, even after dozens of screenings,
I still can't understand everything that he's saying.
He doesn't talk like that in in real
life,
you know, but he created this persona.
Fred Astaire.
Fred Astaire does this thing in a a
movie called swing time where he's,
you know, supposedly

(01:03:01):
paying homage to Bill Bojangles Robinson, who had
revolutionized
tap dancing for everybody.
And everybody recognized that Bo Bojangles was was,
you know, the king. Right? Yet he does
this thing in Swing Time, where he's dressing
up in his clownish outfit in blackface,
you know, and that is supposedly

(01:03:21):
honoring
Bojangles. Well, it's not. It's making you know,
it's saying, hey. I can take the best
from the best and make fun of you.
Well, in reality,
Bojangles
was just a master and was an amazing,
dancer. People like Savion Glover looked back at
his work. The Nicholas Brothers looked back at

(01:03:43):
what Bojangles contributed
And, Gregory Hines. I produced a
documentary
for Italian television and
we got to interview the Nicholas Brothers. We
got to interview Gregory Hines.
Unfortunately, Savion Glover's management
would not allow us
to do that, which was a shame. Brenda

(01:04:05):
Bufalino is a a white tap dancer who
comes to mind, who we interviewed. What's the
doc called?
This is Tap. I don't think it was
shown here. I'll tell you why. First of
all, it was produced for Italian television, although
everybody speaks in English and so forth.
The producers,
because we couldn't get to Simeon Glover, the
the executive producer, I should say, took the

(01:04:25):
film, went back to Italy. They cut it
together, and they decided they wanted to to
have Savion Glover in the movie one way
or the other.
So what they did was, without our knowledge,
they came back. They hired some of the
crew that we had worked with without our
knowledge. They didn't hire me back,
bring me back to New York.
They

(01:04:46):
went to see Savion Glover perform.
And with a hidden camera,
they shot his performance, pieces of his performance,
and they put it in the movie.
Nope.
And I go,
if you lost your mind, you can't do
that.
I was furious. We couldn't do anything about
it. They had done it, cut it into
the movie. It's in the copy that I

(01:05:06):
have, but we can't show it.
You know?
And and also the way they shot it
is crap.
You know, when we shot people performing, we,
you know, we did we have, you know,
good camerawork, you know, so forth. And it
really, really bothered me because I really I
really liked,
what the work that we did. The Italian
director

(01:05:27):
was upset
because he knew that they had done wrong,
but it was the executive producer who
intended it to that's that's it. And then
he gave his girlfriend producer title. Of course.
He He had done zip on the film.
I actually did nothing on the film. But,
Jay, you are amazing.
Well, thank you. I feel like all of

(01:05:49):
the
the timeline
of what you could be teaching is so
vast.
I really hope the school
gives you the opportunity to have it be
I don't know how it works over there
if it's just everything as a singular class.
But if you get the opportunity to pitch
it to them and say, give me a
whole semester or however long the school

(01:06:10):
year lasts Yeah. Take it, please, because I
think it's really important. I am interested in
in the the TED talk concept. I would
really,
the TED talks that I've seen are about
an hour.
So I would really have to
restructure it
and really have just sort of key highlights
because

(01:06:31):
there's just so much in our history. You
know? I mean, that's the thing. I'd love
for you to do a TED talk, but
what I really want is for you to
do an entire series.
Well, I don't okay. I don't know if
you can do that. You could do a
series on your own and film it and
then sell it to a PBS or a
Nat Geo or a Discovery or I don't
know all those channels, but, you know, something
like that. That'd be pretty badass.
Alright. You produce it, and I'll I'll I'll

(01:06:53):
Let's do it. Let's make it. Let's do
it. Okay. We'll do it. I've been collecting
bits of, you know,
information, historical information,
that this, you know, keeps coming. I've got
I've got a folder full of stuff that
I I can't
put into the, lecture. Okay. We're gonna talk
about this. K. Jay, thank you for being

(01:07:14):
on the show. I really appreciate it. Thank
you for having me. It's a pleasure. Thank
you for listening, everybody.
Bye.
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