November 26, 2024 • 34 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time time time, time, Luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
The Michael Verry Show is.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
On the air.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Clifton Duncan is our guest.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
He is doing a new one man show on the
Great Thomas Soule. When I asked the question, it was
because I'm genuinely thinking about how I would do it
if I were doing that. I don't have the acting
skill you do. But I research people. I study them.
I say, I take them apart and put them back together.
I'm fascinated by by not just what people have to say,
especially someone like Soul who has so much to say.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
But how they arrived at that.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
You know, his experience with Milton Friedman and having been
in Friedman's class at the University of Chicago, and he says,
but I left the class and I was still a liberal.
And he goes to work for the Labor Department, and
then he realizes that the Labor Department does not care
about black people or employees, both of whom they claim
(01:08):
to and that when he pointed out that the data
was actually harmful to these people from what they were recommending,
that they said that doesn't matter. And that was the moment,
that was his aha moment, that was his his eureka,
oh my goodness, these people don't believe anything they're saying,
and it it transformed him and he went on to
be the man he is today. You know, I think
(01:29):
that's just absolutely fascinating. And that tells you this man
wasn't born into this, right. I mean, I've made a
transformation in my life from from what I think and
and where I am, and most of us have, and
in his I think that will I can. Sorry, I'm
thinking and planning this, this project for you. I'm writing
it in my head Clifton right now as we talk.
Uh and and I'm just imagining you have such a
(01:51):
great opportunity to tell that as just that is that
is fantastic. So what does it look like? I mean,
will this be a will you go on tour? Because
if you do, we're coordinating Houston for you and all
of our markets for that matter. But what do you
envision this looking like?
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Well, right now, the plan is to spend the next
six months developing, you know, researching and developing a first draft.
I've got a great line producer as well as some
great trusted friends who are New York sharp in terms
of you know, their ability to discern what's good and
what is not. So that's the first step, but then
(02:26):
as time goes on, what I want to do. It's
sort of like what a stand up comedian does, right.
They go around and they do all types of venues
to test out their material, because you don't know what
works until you do it in front of an audience.
The audience is the one who teaches you how to
do the show right. What you know, what moments are working,
what moments are clicking. When are they on the edge
(02:46):
of their seats, When are they listening? When are they
sort of unwrapping candies and coughing and wrestling through their programs?
When are they laughing? When are they you know, silent?
You know, are they gasping anywhere? And so you know,
I mean it's a piece of live theater and one
of the one of the great things about theater. And
you touched on this in your intro is you know,
it's just it's part of You're in this experience. You're
(03:09):
in the room with other people, other human beings, sharing
the same air, the same molecules, the same sound way,
it's the same space and experiencing something together. And that's
the magic of theater that you have, you have the
the relationship between the actor and the audience that you
don't get when you're doing TV and film. And so
that's really a big prospect for me, is that, you know,
(03:30):
just touring around and seeing how people respond and what
they respond to. And I always enjoy talking to people
after shows as well to see like what worked for
them and what didn't, and also seeing the country but
would also be nice. But then ultimately the goal is
to upload the show on the internet so that the
whole world can see it. And but that's that's only
after it's been you know, honed and tightened and and
(03:55):
performed before you know, a bunch of audiences, which is
again what comedians do before they film their own special.
So that's you know, it might be a grueling road process.
But there's already been a few people who have been like, yeah,
you know, come do it this.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
I somehow think you're up for a Clifton. You fell
to the depths, didn't expect it, had no net. We're
waiting tables and wondering what had become of your life.
And and somehow since then, you you have had talk
about a guy having a resurgence. You've had a pretty
darn good run yourself, and I think it's it's headed upward.
(04:29):
And I think now you're in control of your career
in a way that even though you were an accomplished
actor you could you were always at the at the
mercy of the casting agent. Now you're taking control of
your own career and the product you produce, and I
think that's I think that's very exciting.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I think that's very exciting.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Have you given a thought Have you given thought to
meeting Thomas Old, to conversations, to that process.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
Yeah, well, you know you mentioned before. I mean, he
is notoriously elusive. We say so initially, I mean I
was so excited. I didn't really think about it because
I figured I'm never going to get a response from him.
But I know people who know him, they're trying to
get in touch with him, or to get us in touch,
I should say, because you know, at the end of
the day, I was like, yeah, I'm so excited about it,
the idea, but be kind of weird to do this
(05:17):
whole play without without talking to him and you know,
hearing what he has to say about it. So we're
trying to get in touch with him, as you know,
it's very, very difficult to do so, and I'm like,
you know, the dude is almost one hundred years old,
so I kind of want to leave him alone and
so he can have you know, so he can sort
of you know, enjoy enjoy his time and not be
(05:39):
pestered by some you know, young gen X, old millennial
who wants to you know.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I guess talk about him.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
So but we're working on trying to get in touch
with him. And you know, just even a phone call
would be would be cool. The visit will be even better,
but you know, we'll we'll see how that pans out.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
The good news is there is a great body of
work out there, of interviews and I often quote examples
he gives in the book Basic Economics. And I studied
economics in college. I took a number of courses and
I've read my wife was in a PhD program when
she switched to law from economics. Economics is something I
read about a lot, is something I think about. It's
(06:20):
something I stay I try to stay on top of.
And yet he writes this book Basic Economics, which is
kind of economics for people that didn't go to college.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
And it is so beautifully written.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Because of the simplicity, Thomas Soul doesn't feel the need
to be inaccessible to show that he's brilliant.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
He does just the opposite. He makes the difficult understandable.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
And you know, I think Rush Limbo had a knack
for doing that on the radio, but Soul does that
with very complicated concepts, and then he'll use a little
anecdote of you know, when he was traveling in India
and this happened. That book Basic Economics is my favorite
of everything he did because of the accessibility and because
of the ability to democratize knowledge about simple scientific concepts
(07:08):
underpinning economics. And I think that that alone, if that
was all he ever did, would be amazing, and of
course he did so much more well.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I totally agree.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
You know, I think Basic Economics should be required reading
for all high school students in the United States. We'd
have a way, way different country. And I mean, he
wrote it to be accessible, and I was like, dude,
if even a dummy like me can understand what he's saying,
you know, that is that is a That's a great
gift to be able to, like you said, break down
these complex issues and simplify them for the masses. I'm
(07:38):
also thinking of someone like the physicist Richard Feinman. Feynman
was also someone who really championed simplicity. But the thing
about it is that even in the arts as well
and the craft of acting, you know, simplicity, simplicity, simplicity
is always key. Be specific, be simple. You don't need
a bunch of ornate you know, flowery language, or you
(07:59):
don't have to use a bunch of gestures or whatever.
Just get to what's simple and what's true. And that's
as true for I think Thomas Soul's work as it
is for acting as well.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
So it's kind of funny.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Now that I'm saying it's out loud, but.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
In a way that that approach to.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
Make something, make something simple and accessible, and it was
probably a good ethos to follow for what does do
you want to Mary?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
What do you want you want to meet?
Speaker 6 (08:25):
The Michael Barry Just to say the word and.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
I'll throw a asshole around it down.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Clifton Duncan, a celebrated, much respected stage actor, is our guest.
He is doing a new one man show on the
Great Thomas Soul and sharing some details about that with us.
When friends of mine from law school used to say,
you know, Michael, you're better than that. You're talking about
such simplistic things in such simplistic ways. I would respond,
(08:52):
and they never liked this. I would say, I sell
big Max, not caviar, because it's the masses. And so
many times we to distance ourselves in this ivory tower
from real people by using language that is hard to
understand and therefore disconnects, when the point is the ideas
should be universal and they should be accessible. And I
(09:13):
think that's that's one of the things that Soul does
so beautifully and so modest, because he does not attempt
to hold himself out as if he's a pontificating professor,
but quite the opposite.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
He tells a story about he was teaching at I
think it was Cornell.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I think it was Cornell, and he was talking.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
About how affirmative action had hurt the black students and
how he went to the admissions office and he found
that the students who were struggling the most were students
who were black and shouldn't have been admitted. And his
point was these students were going to fail out of
Cornell and fell out of life because of what would
happen when that student should have gone to Indiana or
Indiana State and they would have been an a student
(09:55):
and they could have built along the way. It's like
throwing a kid from high school into the pro into
the and they're not ready for that, and you think
you're helping them, but you're not.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Clifton Duncan is our guest.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
He's working on a project called Soul, a solo play
about an American genius. Now, I noticed recently you did
a GoFundMe and your goal was to raise ten thousand
dollars and in a matter of hours you had raised
seventy two thousand dollars with six hundred and twenty eight backers.
It is clear to me that there is an audience
for what you're doing, and more importantly, there are a
(10:27):
lot of people out here like our show that support
what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
That's got to be it's got to be humbling and gratifying.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
It definitely is, and on some level it's a bit daunting,
but after remind myself that people are very excited and
they want to they want to see me succeed, which
is great. But I think the biggest story about that
is that right now, the American theater industry is skill
reeling from its self inflicted wounds from the pandemic years.
(10:54):
And I mean, as one of the only people who
was saying publicly like, we shouldn't we shouldn't be doing this,
this is not the right way to go, going to
destroy the industry, and they're as of now, I mean,
Broadway still has not recovered from from their closures, their
theaters around the country which are truncating their seasons or
they're closing outright.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And you know, the.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
Leaders within the theater industry are just are talking about
how there's just you know, how it's so expensive to
produce shows, and you know, twenty percent of the audience
hasn't even come back, and donors are drying up in
the adiadiada. And I'm this one guy and within the
span of a couple of weeks, I raised almost one
hundred thousand dollars. So on one hand, it's a bit
(11:35):
of I take a little bit of joy in the
fact that these people who decided that I should not
be allowed to work for making me a very logical
medical decision for myself are sitting there wondering what the
heck are we going to do how we're going to?
You know, like I hear from my friends who are
still in the game in New York who are saying,
you know, own the stars are making money now, like
you know, the regular sort of jobbing journeymen, actors who
(11:58):
they make their living but you know they have to
hust to do it. That there's just nowhere near as
much money anymore. At the same time, what's also great
is that it indicates to me what I felt for
a long time, is that there is a huge, huge
audience outside of these deep blue metros who think they're
so much better than everybody else and think they're so
much more sophisticated than everybody else.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Like, no, you are on to something, right there, brother,
keep going.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well you know people, but people want
to see great arts and they don't want to you know,
made by people that don't hate them. And there's this idea,
you know, and I spent so much time around these people,
but they think everyone in Red America or flyover country,
so to speak, is some redneck groub or whatever they like.
They don't get it. They just don't get it. And
to me, I think the bigger story, it's bigger than myself,
(12:43):
is that there are people out there. I mean, there
are so many like sort of small donors to the
project who want to see succeed or I get messages
from people who say, like, I don't really have anything
to give, but I'm like yo, you know, like great
comments and good vibes are also accepted as means of support.
So there's a huge, untapped, massive people who are who
want to come and give their you know, and trade
(13:07):
their money and their time for a great experience at
the theatre in the arts. And that's that's really the
big story for me because I think more I suppose
I call the more conservative leaning, more right leaning, you
know whatever. One of my frustrations has been that, you know,
there hasn't been that much support for the for the arts,
but why would they write you know what I mean.
They've been so reviled by people who are making so
(13:28):
much of the culture. So it's just it's really gratifying,
you know, on multiple levels, but especially because it's it's
money coming from people that, you know, aren't they They
have been pushed out, you know what I mean, from
from the industry, and so that that's The bigger story
there is that there is a there is a a
hunger for for arts and for culture and for entertainment,
(13:49):
and that is the that's really gratifying for me, because
I'm like, dude, this is it, this is it right here.
There's way, way, way, way more people who outside of
New York and LA and trying to doing work that
appeals to those people, to me, seems like a much, much,
a much better idea than catering to the sliver of
(14:13):
people who adhere to these really sort of extreme left
wing views which just keep getting more and more insane.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
You Clifton Duncan is our guests, a great stage actor,
was in Broadway. He refused to bend the knee during
COVID and found himself out of a career, in an identity,
and out of great artistic talent and a whole lot
of grit. He is back and he's going to be
bigger than ever. He's got a lot going on. We're
(14:41):
going to get to that in just a moment, but
we wanted to talk to him about his new project,
a one man show about Thomas Soul.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
You wrote, Clifton.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Legendary producer Rick Rubin is open about the anxiety he
feels at the start of a new project. You just
don't know what the damn thing's going to be. That's daunting.
So now what's next? And then you tell about as
you read it, becoming Thomas Soul? Do you intend to
wear his black horn rim glasses? And we talked about
his afro earlier. Do you intend to do you intend
to appear to look like Thomas Soul?
Speaker 5 (15:12):
Well, of course, you know, and someone actually on that
post is on my substack, the State of the Arts,
and they posted about his glasses specifically, and he said,
you know, you could use as a form of a mask.
So in theater and acting, you know, you can sometimes
use maskwork to find different shades of a character or
different different modes of expression. And to me, the glasses
(15:32):
they're so iconic, you know, along with the frow, that
that's one of those things where you have to.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Incorporate it and do it.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
And I'm curious as to how the glasses would transform it.
I sort of see this moment in the show where
the dawning of the glasses becomes a pivotal kind of
moment that people kind of know because people know him
because of you know these glasses well, and.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
That sort of rumpled professor look he has, right, he's
not in any way stylish's.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
He's sort of like the professor in the paper Chase's.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
He's got kind of the hound's tooth uh off colored jacket,
but he always has to tie and he always has
the dress. But he's not he's not stylish per SE's.
He's sort of conservatively dressed, but it's very distinctive.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
You can.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
You know, I watch I watch everything on him on YouTube,
and when I'm flipping around because I've watched so much,
the algorithm, you know, puts more in my cueue to watch,
and I can always spot him, you know, you can
just glance at him. You can see that it's him.
It is interesting because the glasses, I think probably will
transform you because that's so unlike your look.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know I have I have.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
I'mly near sighted, so I have some glasses that I wear,
but they're they're not They're nowhere on a level of
of the of the soul glass with.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
The soul gods. I don't care if somebody deces fakes shoe.
You can't shoot him, Michael.
Speaker 7 (16:44):
It's been book simply the decency of the life available
to people. They weren't black, The families were intact, and
schools worked, and the neighborhoods were more or less safe,
and people were able to lead decent lives. If the
contrast between that world and the world we inhabit now
(17:04):
is owing so directly to liberal policies intended, so we're
told to help African Americans. Why do African Americans support
the liberal the more liberal of the two parties, the
Democratic Party, at the rates of ninety and more percent.
Why is the first African American president so deeply committed
(17:27):
to promoting and extending liberal policies. Why is his African
American Attorney general again so deeply committed to affirmative action
and other Why this makes sense?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Well, I don't think we could be enough hours to
answer all those, But to take the political thing, one
of the things I discovered in the research for mine
and from my book I'm currently working on, is that
leaders of groups that are lagging in countries around the
world almost invariably have counterproductive policies for them. And it
(18:04):
makes perfect sense because in so far as members of
lagging groups assimilate into the values and achievements of the
largest society.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
They don't need those leaders, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
And you see this, look at the history of the
Czechs in the nineteenth century. People are worried that the
Czechs are all learning to speak German. Well, at that time,
if you wanted to become a professional person, scientists, anything
like that, you had to use books that were written
in German, simply because the German acquired a volume of
(18:44):
literature centuries ahead of Czech And yet they fought to
and nail against that. If you look at the Sri Lanka,
one of the arguments that was made there to the
Buddhist leaders was that if we don't do something, that
the Tamil minority will assimilate members of the of the
of the sin Ealese majority, and then there will be
(19:07):
no Buddhists or sin Ealese in another several generations. And so,
I mean, there's no mystery to me as the why
Jesse Jackson says what he does, Al Sharpton and others
because that benefits them, but it does not benefit the
people they lead. And all the incentives off for leaders
to lead people into things that don't help the people
(19:30):
but help.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
The leaders, Clifton Duncan, Why do you think there has
been you know, six hundred and twenty eight backers, you've
had more than that since then? That was the number
I saw from a few days ago. Where do you
what is the source of this? Why do you think
people want He's not a well known guy, or as
well known as he should be considering his intellectual prowess
(19:52):
and his influence.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Why do you think people want to see this?
Speaker 5 (19:59):
Well? One, you know, I've built an audience over the
past few years just by speaking my mind.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
And so I think.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
The people that I've attracted to my work, or my ideas,
or my opinions, my persona whatever you you know, whatever
you might want to call it, they're excited about the
prospect of me doing doing something, especially given my story
in my background. And I think, again, soul is somebody
(20:27):
who among this demographic of folks is highly, highly revered.
And so I think the combination of those two factors
and people are really sick of the current traditional cultural
institutions just pumping out I mean everything from comic books
(20:47):
and video games to Hollywood. Right, They're pumping out this
content that or this material that speaks to one as
Soul would put a vision of the world, and it's
just not connecting with people. So I think there's an
excitement about myself. There's an excitement about seeing someone like
Soul brought to the stage in the manner of you know,
(21:08):
a third Good Marshall or James Baldwin or you know
Louis Armstrong and Paul Robinson have been done before. And
there's also just a sort of what's the u PG term,
sort of a middle finger to the established cultural institution saying, hey,
you know, we we're putting our money where we want
(21:29):
it to go, and we're not putting it like I
said before that we're not going to your theaters. We
want to see we want to hire this person to
write this play.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
We don't.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
We don't care about what you're doing, you know, over there.
And so I think it's it's a it's a it's
a mixture of things, and also a fourth aspect, now
that I think about it might be just I think
there seems to be a shift in the zeitgeist. I'm
in New York right now and I was hanging out
last night with a bunch of younger artists, and there
(22:00):
is a it was a much more heterodox crowd, mixed crowd.
There were some Republicans there, there were some you know,
lefties there, and I think a lot of people are
really more even in New York, are just really they're
more over all of this division and partisan nonsense than
I think we're being led to believe. Like it's sort
of an open conversation now, but about what the problems
(22:21):
are in terms of you know, quote unquote wokeness or progressivism,
whatever it is people are seeing, and I think they
really are being getting fed up with it. So, you know,
it also just might be the right place at the
right time. I mean, you know, that's what most acting
careers are anyway. But maybe in the cultural zeitgeist, it's
(22:41):
just that time where people are like, we're ready for this,
and this is what we want. So maybe I'm just
a lucky so and so by discovering, you know, striking
right at the right time, Well.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I have you here.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
You have certainly peaked a number of people's interest in
who is the man behind this voice and this experience
of how he got there, and we've gone deep into
that in the past. But before I let you go,
I want to let people know what you're up to
and how they can support you.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
You're doing a podcast.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
Now, yeah, thanks Michael. So, I mean I do have
a podcast, but I haven't recorded an episode in a while.
It's the Clifton Duncan Podcast, but I will resume shortly
with some fantastic guests. I also have a sub stack
aka newsletter called The State of the Arts, which I
try to post weekly, but you know, things are really
(23:34):
busy lately, so it's a bit more difficult. But my
thoughts about just the state of our cultural institutions, and
it's the intersection both that and the podcast. But the
tagline is, you know, the intersection of art, entertainment, culture
and society. So it's a bit of current events, bit
of politics, but mostly art and culture and how they
(23:56):
intersect and how and how they influence society. I'm also
on at Clifton A.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Duncan.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
That's probably my biggest platform right now. I'm also on
Instagram at Clifton Duncan Online.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
And finally I.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
Have a YouTube channel which is just my first and
last name, Clifton Duncan, and you know you can find
my podcast on there. Some performance videos as well, which
I hope to post more of so that's my digital
footprint and now people can find me and find out
more about me.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
I'm very proud of what you've done, making lemons, making
lemonade out of the lemons that were dealt you. I
told you when we spoke several years ago that you
are a very dangerous man, because the most dangerous man
is a black man with an independent mind in America today,
(24:47):
and you have dared to be dangerous by being independent.
You may not recall, but you and I share a
birthday of November tenth, so one of the love of
Thomas soul and a birthday of November tenth. I'm minded
by looking at your Twitter page, Clifton Duncan, we look
forward to seeing this production. We wish you the absolute best.
(25:08):
I'm sure some folks are gonna want to contribute to
your to your to your fundraiser for that to help
you put this on, and I will be as well.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
And good luck, my man, good luck. You're doing great
work and making a difference. Michael, thank you so much.
It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
Ramond King of Ding and this other guy, Michael.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Barry, my friend David Malesby, who's the executive director of well, no,
because Ramone's making David malls be jokes because they're big buddies.
Who's the executive director of Camp Hope and Ramone spends
a lot of time with David. They record the Camp
Hope podcast together. Well, I laughed because he's Ramone said,
(25:54):
he's not your friend. I don't want y'all think I'm
laughing at David Malsby. I wouldn't do that. Ramones basically
saying that David doesn't like me, which could be true.
Could be true, because I'm you know, I can be
difficult to be around. But David Ballsby sent me something
recently that I really liked is Johnny Carson and Ramona
(26:15):
and I love Johnny Carson telling the story of how
he first met Red Skelton. And there's going to be
a point to this at the end of it. But
for some of our older listeners, you you probably love
Red Skelton, and I know I do. I just thought
it was a great story. So I'm constantly consuming content,
(26:38):
and some of it I want to share with you.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
So here was the story.
Speaker 8 (26:40):
Let me tell you how I first met Red Skelton.
I may have told a story on the air before,
but When I first came to California in nineteen fifty,
I was doing a show at KNXT, the local CBS
channel on Vine Street, was right across in the Hollywood
ranch market, and I had a five minute television show
in the morning from one from eight.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
To fifty five to nine.
Speaker 8 (27:00):
Well, if you take the half hour station identification time,
it really comes down to four and a half minutes, right.
He was sponsored by a coffee from the Midwest called
Butternut Coffee. So by the time you take out the commercial,
I had three and a half minutes a show, and
I had a little too flat, and I had the
door on two saw horses. That was my desk, very
(27:24):
little money, so I would come in and do some
jokes on what was going on on the paper. And
one morning, just for the fun of it, I had
the stage manager just run in front of the camera.
Couldn't even see what was I says I read. I said,
that was today's guest, Red Skelton, and we don't have
any more time to talk with him because of the
limits of our show. I got a call on the
telephone from Red Skelton, who watches a lot of television.
(27:47):
He's a television fan, and he's watching the local kid
the local station near Los Angeles do the show. He says,
would you like me to come down and be on
the show? I said, you've got to be kidding. Next morning,
he gets in his car, he drives down from his home.
Red Skeleton shows up at KNXTO and I was been
a fan of Red since I was a kid.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
He says, what would you like me to do?
Speaker 8 (28:10):
And I said, well, if you don't mind nothing, And he.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Said, what do you mean.
Speaker 8 (28:15):
I said, I just want you to sit behind me
and I'll do the show and you just sit there.
He said, okay, So I came on. I'd do my
three minutes of jokes and so forth. At the end
of the show, I turned around and I said, and.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
What's your name?
Speaker 8 (28:27):
He said, and you would say I'm Red Skeleton, and
I would say A likely story, and I say, thank you,
We'll see you tomorrow. This went on for about seven
or eight shows. This man got in the car, drove down.
I didn't let him for six days, and the final
day we opened up the show and I found the
kenny the other day at home.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
I still have that little.
Speaker 8 (28:47):
Segment and I was bound and gagged my hands were tired,
and the gag and Red was set there and did
the three and a half minutes, did the commercial and everything.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
That is the way we met.
Speaker 8 (29:01):
Most times I ever had my life where I was
hanging around CBS in the fifties when you were on
the air and all those great shows came out, playouts
in ninety and Bob Cross being our link letter and
all those great shows were working.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
There was a lot of fun.
Speaker 9 (29:13):
Yeah, it's what You're a wonderful man to be around.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
You taught me a lot. I stole a lot from you. Yeah, yes,
I did.
Speaker 9 (29:18):
No. No, it's like the students. They say, Johnny was
with you at one time. You helped him guest. I said, no,
nobody helps you get started. If you've got talent, they
can put you behind a brick wall, you'll come through,
you know.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
That's so that's what you have.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
And I know we play this on the fourth of
July every year, but we cannot talk about Red Skelton
without playing the Red Skeleton Pledge of Allegiance version. That
is my absolute favorite, although Charlie Daniels is just be
a close second. So it's kind of like Paul Harvey.
(29:53):
It's timeless.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
So here we go.
Speaker 9 (29:55):
I remember a teacher that I had. Now I only
I went. I went through the seventh grade. I went
to seventh grade, and I left home when I was
ten years old because I was hungry.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
And I used to do this.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I work in the summer and I go to school
in the winter. But I had this one teacher.
Speaker 9 (30:08):
It was the principal of the Harrison School in Vincennes, Indiana.
To me, this was the greatest teacher, a real sage
of my time. Anyhow, he had such wisdom. And we
were all reciting the Pledge of Allegiance one day and
he walked over, this little old teacher, mister Lasswell was
his name, mister Lastwell, and he says, I've been listening
(30:34):
to you boys and girls recite the Pledge of Allegiance
all semester, and it seems as though it's becoming monotonous
to you. If I may, may I recite it and
try to explain to you the meaning of each word.
(30:55):
I me, an individual, a committee of one.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Pledge dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without
self pity allegiance, my love, and my devotion to the flag,
our standard old glory, A symbol of freedom. Wherever she waves,
(31:26):
there's respect because your loyalty has given her a dignity
that shouts freedom is everybody's job.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
United.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
That means that we have all come together states, individual
communities that have united into forty eight great states, forty
eight individual communities with pride and dignity and purpose, all
divided with imaginary boundaries, yet united to a common purpose.
(32:01):
And that's love for country and to the republic. Republic
a state.
Speaker 9 (32:10):
In which sovereign power is invested in representatives chosen by
the people to govern, and government is the people.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
And it's from the people to the leaders, not from
the leaders to the people.
Speaker 6 (32:26):
For which it stands one nation, one nation, meaning so
blessed by God, indivisible, incapable of being divided.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
With liberty, which is freedom, the right of power to
live one's own life without threats, fear, or some sort
of retaliation, and justice, the principle or quality piece of
dealing fairly with others, for all, for all, which means,
(33:08):
boys and girls, it's as much your country as it
is mine. And now, boys and girls, let me hear
you recite the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to
the flag of the United States of America and to
(33:29):
the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all. Since I was a small boy,
two states have been added to our country, and two
words have been added to the pledge of Allegiance under God.
(33:54):
Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is
a prayer and that it would be eliminated from the
school school h
It's that time time time, time, Luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
The Michael Verry Show is.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
On the air.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Clifton Duncan is our guest.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
He is doing a new one man show on the
Great Thomas Soule. When I asked the question, it was
because I'm genuinely thinking about how I would do it
if I were doing that. I don't have the acting
skill you do. But I research people. I study them.
I say, I take them apart and put them back together.
I'm fascinated by by not just what people have to say,
especially someone like Soul who has so much to say.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
But how they arrived at that.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
You know, his experience with Milton Friedman and having been
in Friedman's class at the University of Chicago, and he says,
but I left the class and I was still a liberal.
And he goes to work for the Labor Department, and
then he realizes that the Labor Department does not care
about black people or employees, both of whom they claim
(01:08):
to and that when he pointed out that the data
was actually harmful to these people from what they were recommending,
that they said that doesn't matter. And that was the moment,
that was his aha moment, that was his his eureka,
oh my goodness, these people don't believe anything they're saying,
and it it transformed him and he went on to
be the man he is today. You know, I think
(01:29):
that's just absolutely fascinating. And that tells you this man
wasn't born into this, right. I mean, I've made a
transformation in my life from from what I think and
and where I am, and most of us have, and
in his I think that will I can. Sorry, I'm
thinking and planning this, this project for you. I'm writing
it in my head Clifton right now as we talk.
Uh and and I'm just imagining you have such a
(01:51):
great opportunity to tell that as just that is that
is fantastic. So what does it look like? I mean,
will this be a will you go on tour? Because
if you do, we're coordinating Houston for you and all
of our markets for that matter. But what do you
envision this looking like?
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Well, right now, the plan is to spend the next
six months developing, you know, researching and developing a first draft.
I've got a great line producer as well as some
great trusted friends who are New York sharp in terms
of you know, their ability to discern what's good and
what is not. So that's the first step, but then
(02:26):
as time goes on, what I want to do. It's
sort of like what a stand up comedian does, right.
They go around and they do all types of venues
to test out their material, because you don't know what
works until you do it in front of an audience.
The audience is the one who teaches you how to
do the show right. What you know, what moments are working,
what moments are clicking. When are they on the edge
(02:46):
of their seats, When are they listening? When are they
sort of unwrapping candies and coughing and wrestling through their programs?
When are they laughing? When are they you know, silent?
You know, are they gasping anywhere? And so you know,
I mean it's a piece of live theater and one
of the one of the great things about theater. And
you touched on this in your intro is you know,
it's just it's part of You're in this experience. You're
(03:09):
in the room with other people, other human beings, sharing
the same air, the same molecules, the same sound way,
it's the same space and experiencing something together. And that's
the magic of theater that you have, you have the
the relationship between the actor and the audience that you
don't get when you're doing TV and film. And so
that's really a big prospect for me, is that, you know,
(03:30):
just touring around and seeing how people respond and what
they respond to. And I always enjoy talking to people
after shows as well to see like what worked for
them and what didn't, and also seeing the country but
would also be nice. But then ultimately the goal is
to upload the show on the internet so that the
whole world can see it. And but that's that's only
after it's been you know, honed and tightened and and
(03:55):
performed before you know, a bunch of audiences, which is
again what comedians do before they film their own special.
So that's you know, it might be a grueling road process.
But there's already been a few people who have been like, yeah,
you know, come do it this.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
I somehow think you're up for a Clifton. You fell
to the depths, didn't expect it, had no net. We're
waiting tables and wondering what had become of your life.
And and somehow since then, you you have had talk
about a guy having a resurgence. You've had a pretty
darn good run yourself, and I think it's it's headed upward.
(04:29):
And I think now you're in control of your career
in a way that even though you were an accomplished
actor you could you were always at the at the
mercy of the casting agent. Now you're taking control of
your own career and the product you produce, and I
think that's I think that's very exciting.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I think that's very exciting.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Have you given a thought Have you given thought to
meeting Thomas Old, to conversations, to that process.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
Yeah, well, you know you mentioned before. I mean, he
is notoriously elusive. We say so initially, I mean I
was so excited. I didn't really think about it because
I figured I'm never going to get a response from him.
But I know people who know him, they're trying to
get in touch with him, or to get us in touch,
I should say, because you know, at the end of
the day, I was like, yeah, I'm so excited about it,
the idea, but be kind of weird to do this
(05:17):
whole play without without talking to him and you know,
hearing what he has to say about it. So we're
trying to get in touch with him, as you know,
it's very, very difficult to do so, and I'm like,
you know, the dude is almost one hundred years old,
so I kind of want to leave him alone and
so he can have you know, so he can sort
of you know, enjoy enjoy his time and not be
(05:39):
pestered by some you know, young gen X, old millennial
who wants to you know.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I guess talk about him.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
So but we're working on trying to get in touch
with him. And you know, just even a phone call
would be would be cool. The visit will be even better,
but you know, we'll we'll see how that pans out.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
The good news is there is a great body of
work out there, of interviews and I often quote examples
he gives in the book Basic Economics. And I studied
economics in college. I took a number of courses and
I've read my wife was in a PhD program when
she switched to law from economics. Economics is something I
read about a lot, is something I think about. It's
(06:20):
something I stay I try to stay on top of.
And yet he writes this book Basic Economics, which is
kind of economics for people that didn't go to college.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
And it is so beautifully written.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Because of the simplicity, Thomas Soul doesn't feel the need
to be inaccessible to show that he's brilliant.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
He does just the opposite. He makes the difficult understandable.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
And you know, I think Rush Limbo had a knack
for doing that on the radio, but Soul does that
with very complicated concepts, and then he'll use a little
anecdote of you know, when he was traveling in India
and this happened. That book Basic Economics is my favorite
of everything he did because of the accessibility and because
of the ability to democratize knowledge about simple scientific concepts
(07:08):
underpinning economics. And I think that that alone, if that
was all he ever did, would be amazing, and of
course he did so much more well.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I totally agree.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
You know, I think Basic Economics should be required reading
for all high school students in the United States. We'd
have a way, way different country. And I mean, he
wrote it to be accessible, and I was like, dude,
if even a dummy like me can understand what he's saying,
you know, that is that is a That's a great
gift to be able to, like you said, break down
these complex issues and simplify them for the masses. I'm
(07:38):
also thinking of someone like the physicist Richard Feinman. Feynman
was also someone who really championed simplicity. But the thing
about it is that even in the arts as well
and the craft of acting, you know, simplicity, simplicity, simplicity
is always key. Be specific, be simple. You don't need
a bunch of ornate you know, flowery language, or you
(07:59):
don't have to use a bunch of gestures or whatever.
Just get to what's simple and what's true. And that's
as true for I think Thomas Soul's work as it
is for acting as well.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
So it's kind of funny.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Now that I'm saying it's out loud, but.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
In a way that that approach to.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
Make something, make something simple and accessible, and it was
probably a good ethos to follow for what does do
you want to Mary?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
What do you want you want to meet?
Speaker 6 (08:25):
The Michael Barry Just to say the word and.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
I'll throw a asshole around it down.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Clifton Duncan, a celebrated, much respected stage actor, is our guest.
He is doing a new one man show on the
Great Thomas Soul and sharing some details about that with us.
When friends of mine from law school used to say,
you know, Michael, you're better than that. You're talking about
such simplistic things in such simplistic ways. I would respond,
(08:52):
and they never liked this. I would say, I sell
big Max, not caviar, because it's the masses. And so
many times we to distance ourselves in this ivory tower
from real people by using language that is hard to
understand and therefore disconnects, when the point is the ideas
should be universal and they should be accessible. And I
(09:13):
think that's that's one of the things that Soul does
so beautifully and so modest, because he does not attempt
to hold himself out as if he's a pontificating professor,
but quite the opposite.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
He tells a story about he was teaching at I
think it was Cornell.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I think it was Cornell, and he was talking.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
About how affirmative action had hurt the black students and
how he went to the admissions office and he found
that the students who were struggling the most were students
who were black and shouldn't have been admitted. And his
point was these students were going to fail out of
Cornell and fell out of life because of what would
happen when that student should have gone to Indiana or
Indiana State and they would have been an a student
(09:55):
and they could have built along the way. It's like
throwing a kid from high school into the pro into
the and they're not ready for that, and you think
you're helping them, but you're not.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Clifton Duncan is our guest.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
He's working on a project called Soul, a solo play
about an American genius. Now, I noticed recently you did
a GoFundMe and your goal was to raise ten thousand
dollars and in a matter of hours you had raised
seventy two thousand dollars with six hundred and twenty eight backers.
It is clear to me that there is an audience
for what you're doing, and more importantly, there are a
(10:27):
lot of people out here like our show that support
what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
That's got to be it's got to be humbling and gratifying.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
It definitely is, and on some level it's a bit daunting,
but after remind myself that people are very excited and
they want to they want to see me succeed, which
is great. But I think the biggest story about that
is that right now, the American theater industry is skill
reeling from its self inflicted wounds from the pandemic years.
(10:54):
And I mean, as one of the only people who
was saying publicly like, we shouldn't we shouldn't be doing this,
this is not the right way to go, going to
destroy the industry, and they're as of now, I mean,
Broadway still has not recovered from from their closures, their
theaters around the country which are truncating their seasons or
they're closing outright.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And you know, the.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
Leaders within the theater industry are just are talking about
how there's just you know, how it's so expensive to
produce shows, and you know, twenty percent of the audience
hasn't even come back, and donors are drying up in
the adiadiada. And I'm this one guy and within the
span of a couple of weeks, I raised almost one
hundred thousand dollars. So on one hand, it's a bit
(11:35):
of I take a little bit of joy in the
fact that these people who decided that I should not
be allowed to work for making me a very logical
medical decision for myself are sitting there wondering what the
heck are we going to do how we're going to?
You know, like I hear from my friends who are
still in the game in New York who are saying,
you know, own the stars are making money now, like
you know, the regular sort of jobbing journeymen, actors who
(11:58):
they make their living but you know they have to
hust to do it. That there's just nowhere near as
much money anymore. At the same time, what's also great
is that it indicates to me what I felt for
a long time, is that there is a huge, huge
audience outside of these deep blue metros who think they're
so much better than everybody else and think they're so
much more sophisticated than everybody else.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Like, no, you are on to something, right there, brother,
keep going.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well you know people, but people want
to see great arts and they don't want to you know,
made by people that don't hate them. And there's this idea,
you know, and I spent so much time around these people,
but they think everyone in Red America or flyover country,
so to speak, is some redneck groub or whatever they like.
They don't get it. They just don't get it. And
to me, I think the bigger story, it's bigger than myself,
(12:43):
is that there are people out there. I mean, there
are so many like sort of small donors to the
project who want to see succeed or I get messages
from people who say, like, I don't really have anything
to give, but I'm like yo, you know, like great
comments and good vibes are also accepted as means of support.
So there's a huge, untapped, massive people who are who
want to come and give their you know, and trade
(13:07):
their money and their time for a great experience at
the theatre in the arts. And that's that's really the
big story for me because I think more I suppose
I call the more conservative leaning, more right leaning, you
know whatever. One of my frustrations has been that, you know,
there hasn't been that much support for the for the arts,
but why would they write you know what I mean.
They've been so reviled by people who are making so
(13:28):
much of the culture. So it's just it's really gratifying,
you know, on multiple levels, but especially because it's it's
money coming from people that, you know, aren't they They
have been pushed out, you know what I mean, from
from the industry, and so that that's The bigger story
there is that there is a there is a a
hunger for for arts and for culture and for entertainment,
(13:49):
and that is the that's really gratifying for me, because
I'm like, dude, this is it, this is it right here.
There's way, way, way, way more people who outside of
New York and LA and trying to doing work that
appeals to those people, to me, seems like a much, much,
a much better idea than catering to the sliver of
(14:13):
people who adhere to these really sort of extreme left
wing views which just keep getting more and more insane.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
You Clifton Duncan is our guests, a great stage actor,
was in Broadway. He refused to bend the knee during
COVID and found himself out of a career, in an identity,
and out of great artistic talent and a whole lot
of grit. He is back and he's going to be
bigger than ever. He's got a lot going on. We're
(14:41):
going to get to that in just a moment, but
we wanted to talk to him about his new project,
a one man show about Thomas Soul.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
You wrote, Clifton.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Legendary producer Rick Rubin is open about the anxiety he
feels at the start of a new project. You just
don't know what the damn thing's going to be. That's daunting.
So now what's next? And then you tell about as
you read it, becoming Thomas Soul? Do you intend to
wear his black horn rim glasses? And we talked about
his afro earlier. Do you intend to do you intend
to appear to look like Thomas Soul?
Speaker 5 (15:12):
Well, of course, you know, and someone actually on that
post is on my substack, the State of the Arts,
and they posted about his glasses specifically, and he said,
you know, you could use as a form of a mask.
So in theater and acting, you know, you can sometimes
use maskwork to find different shades of a character or
different different modes of expression. And to me, the glasses
(15:32):
they're so iconic, you know, along with the frow, that
that's one of those things where you have to.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Incorporate it and do it.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
And I'm curious as to how the glasses would transform it.
I sort of see this moment in the show where
the dawning of the glasses becomes a pivotal kind of
moment that people kind of know because people know him
because of you know these glasses well, and.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
That sort of rumpled professor look he has, right, he's
not in any way stylish's.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
He's sort of like the professor in the paper Chase's.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
He's got kind of the hound's tooth uh off colored jacket,
but he always has to tie and he always has
the dress. But he's not he's not stylish per SE's.
He's sort of conservatively dressed, but it's very distinctive.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
You can.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
You know, I watch I watch everything on him on YouTube,
and when I'm flipping around because I've watched so much,
the algorithm, you know, puts more in my cueue to watch,
and I can always spot him, you know, you can
just glance at him. You can see that it's him.
It is interesting because the glasses, I think probably will
transform you because that's so unlike your look.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know I have I have.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
I'mly near sighted, so I have some glasses that I wear,
but they're they're not They're nowhere on a level of
of the of the soul glass with.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
The soul gods. I don't care if somebody deces fakes shoe.
You can't shoot him, Michael.
Speaker 7 (16:44):
It's been book simply the decency of the life available
to people. They weren't black, The families were intact, and
schools worked, and the neighborhoods were more or less safe,
and people were able to lead decent lives. If the
contrast between that world and the world we inhabit now
(17:04):
is owing so directly to liberal policies intended, so we're
told to help African Americans. Why do African Americans support
the liberal the more liberal of the two parties, the
Democratic Party, at the rates of ninety and more percent.
Why is the first African American president so deeply committed
(17:27):
to promoting and extending liberal policies. Why is his African
American Attorney general again so deeply committed to affirmative action
and other Why this makes sense?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Well, I don't think we could be enough hours to
answer all those, But to take the political thing, one
of the things I discovered in the research for mine
and from my book I'm currently working on, is that
leaders of groups that are lagging in countries around the
world almost invariably have counterproductive policies for them. And it
(18:04):
makes perfect sense because in so far as members of
lagging groups assimilate into the values and achievements of the
largest society.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
They don't need those leaders, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
And you see this, look at the history of the
Czechs in the nineteenth century. People are worried that the
Czechs are all learning to speak German. Well, at that time,
if you wanted to become a professional person, scientists, anything
like that, you had to use books that were written
in German, simply because the German acquired a volume of
(18:44):
literature centuries ahead of Czech And yet they fought to
and nail against that. If you look at the Sri Lanka,
one of the arguments that was made there to the
Buddhist leaders was that if we don't do something, that
the Tamil minority will assimilate members of the of the
of the sin Ealese majority, and then there will be
(19:07):
no Buddhists or sin Ealese in another several generations. And so,
I mean, there's no mystery to me as the why
Jesse Jackson says what he does, Al Sharpton and others
because that benefits them, but it does not benefit the
people they lead. And all the incentives off for leaders
to lead people into things that don't help the people
(19:30):
but help.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
The leaders, Clifton Duncan, Why do you think there has
been you know, six hundred and twenty eight backers, you've
had more than that since then? That was the number
I saw from a few days ago. Where do you
what is the source of this? Why do you think
people want He's not a well known guy, or as
well known as he should be considering his intellectual prowess
(19:52):
and his influence.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Why do you think people want to see this?
Speaker 5 (19:59):
Well? One, you know, I've built an audience over the
past few years just by speaking my mind.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
And so I think.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
The people that I've attracted to my work, or my ideas,
or my opinions, my persona whatever you you know, whatever
you might want to call it, they're excited about the
prospect of me doing doing something, especially given my story
in my background. And I think, again, soul is somebody
(20:27):
who among this demographic of folks is highly, highly revered.
And so I think the combination of those two factors
and people are really sick of the current traditional cultural
institutions just pumping out I mean everything from comic books
(20:47):
and video games to Hollywood. Right, They're pumping out this
content that or this material that speaks to one as
Soul would put a vision of the world, and it's
just not connecting with people. So I think there's an
excitement about myself. There's an excitement about seeing someone like
Soul brought to the stage in the manner of you know,
(21:08):
a third Good Marshall or James Baldwin or you know
Louis Armstrong and Paul Robinson have been done before. And
there's also just a sort of what's the u PG term,
sort of a middle finger to the established cultural institution saying, hey,
you know, we we're putting our money where we want
(21:29):
it to go, and we're not putting it like I
said before that we're not going to your theaters. We
want to see we want to hire this person to
write this play.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
We don't.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
We don't care about what you're doing, you know, over there.
And so I think it's it's a it's a it's
a mixture of things, and also a fourth aspect, now
that I think about it might be just I think
there seems to be a shift in the zeitgeist. I'm
in New York right now and I was hanging out
last night with a bunch of younger artists, and there
(22:00):
is a it was a much more heterodox crowd, mixed crowd.
There were some Republicans there, there were some you know,
lefties there, and I think a lot of people are
really more even in New York, are just really they're
more over all of this division and partisan nonsense than
I think we're being led to believe. Like it's sort
of an open conversation now, but about what the problems
(22:21):
are in terms of you know, quote unquote wokeness or progressivism,
whatever it is people are seeing, and I think they
really are being getting fed up with it. So, you know,
it also just might be the right place at the
right time. I mean, you know, that's what most acting
careers are anyway. But maybe in the cultural zeitgeist, it's
(22:41):
just that time where people are like, we're ready for this,
and this is what we want. So maybe I'm just
a lucky so and so by discovering, you know, striking
right at the right time, Well.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I have you here.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
You have certainly peaked a number of people's interest in
who is the man behind this voice and this experience
of how he got there, and we've gone deep into
that in the past. But before I let you go,
I want to let people know what you're up to
and how they can support you.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
You're doing a podcast.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
Now, yeah, thanks Michael. So, I mean I do have
a podcast, but I haven't recorded an episode in a while.
It's the Clifton Duncan Podcast, but I will resume shortly
with some fantastic guests. I also have a sub stack
aka newsletter called The State of the Arts, which I
try to post weekly, but you know, things are really
(23:34):
busy lately, so it's a bit more difficult. But my
thoughts about just the state of our cultural institutions, and
it's the intersection both that and the podcast. But the
tagline is, you know, the intersection of art, entertainment, culture
and society. So it's a bit of current events, bit
of politics, but mostly art and culture and how they
(23:56):
intersect and how and how they influence society. I'm also
on at Clifton A.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Duncan.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
That's probably my biggest platform right now. I'm also on
Instagram at Clifton Duncan Online.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
And finally I.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
Have a YouTube channel which is just my first and
last name, Clifton Duncan, and you know you can find
my podcast on there. Some performance videos as well, which
I hope to post more of so that's my digital
footprint and now people can find me and find out
more about me.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
I'm very proud of what you've done, making lemons, making
lemonade out of the lemons that were dealt you. I
told you when we spoke several years ago that you
are a very dangerous man, because the most dangerous man
is a black man with an independent mind in America today,
(24:47):
and you have dared to be dangerous by being independent.
You may not recall, but you and I share a
birthday of November tenth, so one of the love of
Thomas soul and a birthday of November tenth. I'm minded
by looking at your Twitter page, Clifton Duncan, we look
forward to seeing this production. We wish you the absolute best.
(25:08):
I'm sure some folks are gonna want to contribute to
your to your to your fundraiser for that to help
you put this on, and I will be as well.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
And good luck, my man, good luck. You're doing great
work and making a difference. Michael, thank you so much.
It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
Ramond King of Ding and this other guy, Michael.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Barry, my friend David Malesby, who's the executive director of well, no,
because Ramone's making David malls be jokes because they're big buddies.
Who's the executive director of Camp Hope and Ramone spends
a lot of time with David. They record the Camp
Hope podcast together. Well, I laughed because he's Ramone said,
(25:54):
he's not your friend. I don't want y'all think I'm
laughing at David Malsby. I wouldn't do that. Ramones basically
saying that David doesn't like me, which could be true.
Could be true, because I'm you know, I can be
difficult to be around. But David Ballsby sent me something
recently that I really liked is Johnny Carson and Ramona
(26:15):
and I love Johnny Carson telling the story of how
he first met Red Skelton. And there's going to be
a point to this at the end of it. But
for some of our older listeners, you you probably love
Red Skelton, and I know I do. I just thought
it was a great story. So I'm constantly consuming content,
(26:38):
and some of it I want to share with you.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
So here was the story.
Speaker 8 (26:40):
Let me tell you how I first met Red Skelton.
I may have told a story on the air before,
but When I first came to California in nineteen fifty,
I was doing a show at KNXT, the local CBS
channel on Vine Street, was right across in the Hollywood
ranch market, and I had a five minute television show
in the morning from one from eight.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
To fifty five to nine.
Speaker 8 (27:00):
Well, if you take the half hour station identification time,
it really comes down to four and a half minutes, right.
He was sponsored by a coffee from the Midwest called
Butternut Coffee. So by the time you take out the commercial,
I had three and a half minutes a show, and
I had a little too flat, and I had the
door on two saw horses. That was my desk, very
(27:24):
little money, so I would come in and do some
jokes on what was going on on the paper. And
one morning, just for the fun of it, I had
the stage manager just run in front of the camera.
Couldn't even see what was I says I read. I said,
that was today's guest, Red Skelton, and we don't have
any more time to talk with him because of the
limits of our show. I got a call on the
telephone from Red Skelton, who watches a lot of television.
(27:47):
He's a television fan, and he's watching the local kid
the local station near Los Angeles do the show. He says,
would you like me to come down and be on
the show? I said, you've got to be kidding. Next morning,
he gets in his car, he drives down from his home.
Red Skeleton shows up at KNXTO and I was been
a fan of Red since I was a kid.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
He says, what would you like me to do?
Speaker 8 (28:10):
And I said, well, if you don't mind nothing, And he.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Said, what do you mean.
Speaker 8 (28:15):
I said, I just want you to sit behind me
and I'll do the show and you just sit there.
He said, okay, So I came on. I'd do my
three minutes of jokes and so forth. At the end
of the show, I turned around and I said, and.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
What's your name?
Speaker 8 (28:27):
He said, and you would say I'm Red Skeleton, and
I would say A likely story, and I say, thank you,
We'll see you tomorrow. This went on for about seven
or eight shows. This man got in the car, drove down.
I didn't let him for six days, and the final
day we opened up the show and I found the
kenny the other day at home.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
I still have that little.
Speaker 8 (28:47):
Segment and I was bound and gagged my hands were tired,
and the gag and Red was set there and did
the three and a half minutes, did the commercial and everything.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
That is the way we met.
Speaker 8 (29:01):
Most times I ever had my life where I was
hanging around CBS in the fifties when you were on
the air and all those great shows came out, playouts
in ninety and Bob Cross being our link letter and
all those great shows were working.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
There was a lot of fun.
Speaker 9 (29:13):
Yeah, it's what You're a wonderful man to be around.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
You taught me a lot. I stole a lot from you. Yeah, yes,
I did.
Speaker 9 (29:18):
No. No, it's like the students. They say, Johnny was
with you at one time. You helped him guest. I said, no,
nobody helps you get started. If you've got talent, they
can put you behind a brick wall, you'll come through,
you know.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
That's so that's what you have.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
And I know we play this on the fourth of
July every year, but we cannot talk about Red Skelton
without playing the Red Skeleton Pledge of Allegiance version. That
is my absolute favorite, although Charlie Daniels is just be
a close second. So it's kind of like Paul Harvey.
(29:53):
It's timeless.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
So here we go.
Speaker 9 (29:55):
I remember a teacher that I had. Now I only
I went. I went through the seventh grade. I went
to seventh grade, and I left home when I was
ten years old because I was hungry.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
And I used to do this.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I work in the summer and I go to school
in the winter. But I had this one teacher.
Speaker 9 (30:08):
It was the principal of the Harrison School in Vincennes, Indiana.
To me, this was the greatest teacher, a real sage
of my time. Anyhow, he had such wisdom. And we
were all reciting the Pledge of Allegiance one day and
he walked over, this little old teacher, mister Lasswell was
his name, mister Lastwell, and he says, I've been listening
(30:34):
to you boys and girls recite the Pledge of Allegiance
all semester, and it seems as though it's becoming monotonous
to you. If I may, may I recite it and
try to explain to you the meaning of each word.
(30:55):
I me, an individual, a committee of one.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Pledge dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without
self pity allegiance, my love, and my devotion to the flag,
our standard old glory, A symbol of freedom. Wherever she waves,
(31:26):
there's respect because your loyalty has given her a dignity
that shouts freedom is everybody's job.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
United.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
That means that we have all come together states, individual
communities that have united into forty eight great states, forty
eight individual communities with pride and dignity and purpose, all
divided with imaginary boundaries, yet united to a common purpose.
(32:01):
And that's love for country and to the republic. Republic
a state.
Speaker 9 (32:10):
In which sovereign power is invested in representatives chosen by
the people to govern, and government is the people.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
And it's from the people to the leaders, not from
the leaders to the people.
Speaker 6 (32:26):
For which it stands one nation, one nation, meaning so
blessed by God, indivisible, incapable of being divided.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
With liberty, which is freedom, the right of power to
live one's own life without threats, fear, or some sort
of retaliation, and justice, the principle or quality piece of
dealing fairly with others, for all, for all, which means,
(33:08):
boys and girls, it's as much your country as it
is mine. And now, boys and girls, let me hear
you recite the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to
the flag of the United States of America and to
(33:29):
the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all. Since I was a small boy,
two states have been added to our country, and two
words have been added to the pledge of Allegiance under God.
(33:54):
Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is
a prayer and that it would be eliminated from the
school school h
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