December 30, 2024 • 34 mins
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time time time, time, Luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The Michael Very Show is on the air. Clifton Duncan
is our guest.
Speaker 3 (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 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 not just what people have to say,
especially someone like Soul who has so much to say,
(00:44):
but how they arrived at that. 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
(01:04):
people or employees, both of whom they claim 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
(01:26):
be the man he is today. You know, I think
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.
(01:48):
Uh and and I'm just imagining you have such a
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.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
But what do you envision this looking like?
Speaker 4 (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.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
What is not.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
So that's the first step, but then 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?
(02:45):
When are they on the edge 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 life 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
(03:06):
of You're in this experience. You're in the room with
other people, other human beings, sharing the same air, the
same molecules, the same sound waves, 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
(03:29):
for me, is that, you know, 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 will also be nice.
But then ultimately the goal is to upload the show
on the internet so that the whole world.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Can see it.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
And but that's that's only after it's been you know,
honed and tightened and and performed before you know, a
bunch of audiences, which is again what comedians do before
they film their own special.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
So that's you know, it might.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Be a grueling road process, but there's already been a
few people who've been.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
Like, yeah, you know, come do it.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I somehow think you're up for At 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 have had to 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.
(04:28):
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 (04:45):
I think that's very exciting.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Have you given a thought Have you given thought to
meeting Thomas Old, to conversations, to that process.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Yeah, well, you know you mentioned before. I mean, he
is notoriously elusive, shall 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.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
The idea would be kind of weird.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
To do this 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.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
Him alone and so he can have you know, so he.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Can sort of you know, enjoy enjoy his time and
not be pestered by by some you know, young gen X,
old millennial who wants to you know, I guess talk
about him. 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
(05:56):
that pans out.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
The good news is there is a great body of
workout 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,
(06:18):
is something I think about. It's 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, and it is so
beautifully written. Because of the simplicity, Thomas Soul doesn't feel
the need to be inaccessible to show that he's brilliant.
He does just the opposite. He makes the difficult understandable.
(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 excess ability and
because of the ability to democratize knowledge about simple scientific
(07:07):
concepts 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 5 (07:14):
I totally agree.
Speaker 4 (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 messes. I'm
(07:37):
also thinking of someone like the physicist Richard Feinman. Feineman
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.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Be specific, be simple.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
You don't need a bunch of ornate you know, flowery language,
or you don't have to you 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. So it's kind
of funny now that I'm saying it's out loud, but
in a way that that approach to make something, make
(08:16):
something simple and accessible, and he was probably a good
ethos to follow for the quote, So whats.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
Do you want to right?
Speaker 5 (08:22):
What do you want?
Speaker 6 (08:23):
Do you want to meet?
Speaker 7 (08:24):
The Michael Barry just to say the word and I'll
throw asshole around it for god.
Speaker 3 (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 try 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
(09:13):
I think 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 3 (09:28):
He tells a story about he was teaching at I
think it was Cornell. I think it was Cornell, and
he was talking 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 fill
out of Cornell and fell out of life because of
(09:49):
what would happen when that student should have gone to
Indiana or Indiana State and they would have been an
a student and they could have built along the way.
It's like throwing a kid from high school into the
pro into the pros and they're not ready for that,
and you think you're helping them, but you're not. Clifton
Duncan is our guest. He's working on a project called Soul,
a solo play about an American genius. Now, I noticed
(10:11):
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 lot of people out here like our
show that support what you're doing. That's to be it's
(10:31):
got to be humbling and gratifying. It definitely is, and
on some level it's a bit daunting. But after reminding
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 a skill reeling from
its self inflicted.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Wounds from the pandemic years.
Speaker 4 (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. You're going
to destroy the industry. And they're as of now, 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, and you know, the leaders within the
(11:15):
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 idiadiada. And I'm
just 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 of I take a
(11:36):
little bit of joy in the fact that these people
who decided that I should not be allowed to work
for making 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 they make their living, but you
(11:59):
know they have to hustle 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've felt for a long time, which 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 something right there, brother, keep going.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Well, you know, people want to see great arms 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.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
They don't get it. They just don't get it.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
And to me, I think the bigger story, it's bigger
than myself, 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 is a huge, untapped, massive people
(13:02):
who are who want to come and give their you know,
and trade 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
(13:23):
for the arts, but why would they write you know
what I mean, that they've been so reviled by people
who are making so 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,
are they they have been pushed out, you know what
I mean, from from the industry and so that that's
the bigger story.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
There is that there is a there is.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
A a hunger for for arts and for culture and
for entertainment, 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.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
And trying to.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Doing work that appeals to those people, to me, seems
like a much, much, a much better idea than catering
to the sliver of people who adhere to these really
sort of extreme left wing views which just keep getting
more and more insane.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
You Clifton Duncan is our guest is a great stage actor,
was in Broadway. He refused to bend the knee during
COVID and found himself out of a career and 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.
(14:41):
We're 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. You wrote, Clifton.
Legendary producer Rick Rubin is open about the anxiety he
feels at the start of a new project.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
You just don't know what the damn thing's going to be.
That's daunting. So now what's next?
Speaker 3 (14:58):
And then you tell about out as you writ 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 Tomas Soul?
Speaker 4 (15:11):
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 it as a form of
a mask. So in the 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 they're so iconic, you know, along with the frow,
(15:35):
that that's one of those things where you have to
incorporate it and do it. 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 the you know,
these glasses well and and.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
That sort of rumpled professor look he has. Right, he's
not in any way stylish's he's sort of like the
professor in the paper Chase. He's 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. He's sort of
conservatively dressed, but it's very distinctive.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
You can.
Speaker 3 (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 cue 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 6 (16:28):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know I have I have.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
I'm justly near sighted, so I have some glasses that
I wear, but they're no, they're nowhere on the level
and how U of the of the soul glasses with
soul godless.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I don't care if somebody do this streaks shoot you
can't shoot him.
Speaker 6 (16:42):
Michael past It's been rebooked.
Speaker 8 (16:46):
So it's the comparison between progress simply the decency of
the life available to people. They weren't black, The families
were intact, and schools work, and the neighborhoods were more
or less safe. People were able to lead decent lives.
If the contrast between that world and the world we
(17:07):
inhabit now is owing so directly to 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.
(17:28):
Why is the first African American president so deeply committed
to promoting and extending liberal policies. Why is his African
American Attorney general again so deeply committed to affirmative.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Action and other Why this makes a no sense?
Speaker 1 (17:48):
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 from 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
(18:09):
makes perfect sense because in so far as members of
lagging groups assimilate into the values and achievements of the
larger society, they.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
Don't need those leaders, you know. And you see this.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
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 literature centuries ahead of
(18:51):
Czech And yet they fought to with a nail against that.
If you look at the Sri Lanka, one of the
uguis that was made there to the Buddhists leaders was
that if we don't do something, the Tamil minority will
assimilate members of the of the of the sin Ealese majority,
(19:12):
and then there will be no Buddhists or cent 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 of leaders to lead people into
(19:33):
things that don't.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
Help the people but help the leaders.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
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 and his influence.
(19:59):
Why do you think people want to see this?
Speaker 5 (20:04):
Well?
Speaker 4 (20:04):
One, you know, I've built an audience over the past
few years just by speaking my mind.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
And so I think.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
The 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 get especially given
my story in my background. And I think, again, soul
is somebody who among this demographic of folks is highly
(20:36):
highly revered. And so I think the combination of those
two factors and people are really sick of the current
traditional cultural institutions is pumping out. I mean, everything from
comic books and video games to Hollywood, right, they're pumping
out this content that or this material that speaks to
(21:00):
one as Soul 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, a third Good Marshall or James Baldwin or
you know, Louis Armstrong and Paul Roberson have been done before.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
And there's also just a sort.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Of what's the a 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 it to go,
and we're 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.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
To write this play. We don't. We don't care about
what you're doing, you know, over there.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
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.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
In the zeich I'm in New York right now.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
And I was hanging out last night with a bunch
of younger artists and there 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.
(22:23):
Like it's sort of an open conversation now, but about
what the problems 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
(22:45):
the cultural zeitgeist, it's just that time where people are like,
we're ready for this.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
And this is what we want.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
So maybe I'm just a lucky so and so by discovering,
you know, striking right at the right time, Well.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I have you here.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
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 (23:17):
You're doing a podcast now.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Yeah, thanks Michael.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
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 busy lately, so it's
a bit more difficult. But my thoughts about just the
(23:44):
state of our cultural institutions, and it's the intersection both
that and the podcast that 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
are and culture and how they intersect and and how
they influence society. I'm also on Twitter at Clifton A Duncan.
(24:08):
That's probably my biggest platform right now. I'm also on
Instagram at Clifton Duncan Online. And finally I 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.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
Which I hope to post more of.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
So that's that's my digital footprint and now people.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
Can find me and find out more about me.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
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,
(24:52):
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 reminded
by looking at your Twitter page, Clifton Duncan. We look
forward to seeing this production. We wish you the absolute best.
(25:13):
I'm sure some folks don't want to contribute to you
to your fundraiser for that to help you put this on,
and I will be as well.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And good luck, my man, good luck. You're doing great
work and making a difference.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Oh Michael, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
It's always a pleasure, Ramond the King of Ding, and
this other guy, Michael Barry.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
My friend David Malsby, who's the executive director of Well,
you know, 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
(25:59):
he's Ramone said, he's not your friend. I don't want
y'all think I'm laughing at David Malsby. I wouldn't do that.
Ramone's basically saying that 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 Maallsby
sent me something recently that I really liked. It's Johnny
(26:20):
Carson and Ramona 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
probably love Red Skelton, and I know I do. I
just thought it was a great story. So I'm constantly
(26:43):
consuming content and some of it I want to share
with you.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
So here was the story.
Speaker 9 (26:47):
Let me tell you how I first met Red Skelton.
I may have told this 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 across in the Hollywood Ranch market,
and I had a five minute television show in the morning,
one from eight to fifty five to nine o'clock. Well,
if you take the half hour station identification time, it
(27:09):
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
(27:30):
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.
Could even see who 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.
(27:54):
He's a television fan and he's watching the local kid,
the local station near Los Angele 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.
Read Skeleton shows up at KNXT and I was been
a fan of Red since.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
I was a kid.
Speaker 6 (28:15):
He says, what would you like.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Me to do? And I said, well, if you don't
mind nothing.
Speaker 9 (28:21):
He said, what do you mean. I said, I just
want you to sit behind me and I'll do the
show and you just sit there.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
He said, okay.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
So I came on.
Speaker 9 (28:29):
I'd do my three minutes of jokes and so forth.
And at the end of the show, I turned around
and I said, and what's your name? And I said,
and he 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, he drove down.
I didn't he let him for six days and the
(28:50):
final day we opened up the show and I found
the Kenny the other day at home. I still have
that little segment and I was bound and gagged. My
hands were tired, and the gagler and read the set
there and did the three and a half minutes, did
the commercial and everything.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
That is the way we met.
Speaker 9 (29:07):
Most times I ever had my life. Where was hanging
around CBS in the fifties when you were on the
air and all those great shows came out, playoffs in
ninety and Bob Cross being our link letter and all
those great shows were working.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
There was a lot of fun.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
Yeah, it's what You're a wonderful man to be around.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
You taught me a lot. I stole a lot from you.
Speaker 6 (29:24):
Yeah, oh yes, I did.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
No.
Speaker 10 (29:26):
No, it's like the students. They say, Johnny was with
you at one time. You helped him gets 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.
Speaker 7 (29:36):
You know.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
That's so that's what you have.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
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,
(30:00):
it's timeless.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
So here we go.
Speaker 7 (30:02):
I remember a teacher that I had, now only I
went through the seventh grade. I went to the seventh grade.
I left home when I was ten years old because
I was.
Speaker 6 (30:09):
Hungry, and I used to hear this.
Speaker 7 (30:11):
I work in the summer and I go to school
in the winter. But I had this one teacher. 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
(30:32):
his name, mister Lastwell is. He says, I've been listening
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
(30:55):
try to explain to you the meaning of each word.
I me an individual, a committee of one.
Speaker 11 (31:09):
Pledge, dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without
self pity, allegiance, my love, and my devotion.
Speaker 7 (31:22):
To the flag, our standard old glory, a symbol of freedom.
Wherever she waives, there's respect because your loyalty has given
her a dignity that shouts.
Speaker 6 (31:39):
Freedom is everybody's job. United.
Speaker 7 (31:44):
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.
(32:08):
And that's love for country and to the republic. Republic
a state in which sovereign power is invested in representatives
chosen by the people to govern, and government is the people,
and it's from the people.
Speaker 6 (32:27):
To the leaders, not from the leaders to the people.
For which it.
Speaker 12 (32:33):
Stands one nation, one nation, meaning so blessed by God, indivisible,
incapable of being divided.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
With liberty, which is freedom, the.
Speaker 7 (32:53):
Right of power to live one's own life without threats, fear,
or some sort of retaliation, and justice the principle are
qualities of dealing fairly with others, for all for all,
(33:14):
which means 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.
Speaker 6 (33:30):
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the.
Speaker 7 (33:33):
United States of America and to 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
(33:56):
to the Pledge of Allegiance Under God.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
Wouldn't it be a pity
Speaker 7 (34:03):
If someone said that is a prayer, and that would
be eliminated from schools to
It's that time time time, time, Luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The Michael Very Show is on the air. Clifton Duncan
is our guest.
Speaker 3 (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 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 not just what people have to say,
especially someone like Soul who has so much to say,
(00:44):
but how they arrived at that. 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
(01:04):
people or employees, both of whom they claim 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
(01:26):
be the man he is today. You know, I think
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.
(01:48):
Uh and and I'm just imagining you have such a
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.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
But what do you envision this looking like?
Speaker 4 (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.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
What is not.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
So that's the first step, but then 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?
(02:45):
When are they on the edge 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 life 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
(03:06):
of You're in this experience. You're in the room with
other people, other human beings, sharing the same air, the
same molecules, the same sound waves, 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
(03:29):
for me, is that, you know, 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 will also be nice.
But then ultimately the goal is to upload the show
on the internet so that the whole world.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Can see it.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
And but that's that's only after it's been you know,
honed and tightened and and performed before you know, a
bunch of audiences, which is again what comedians do before
they film their own special.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
So that's you know, it might.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Be a grueling road process, but there's already been a
few people who've been.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
Like, yeah, you know, come do it.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I somehow think you're up for At 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 have had to 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.
(04:28):
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 (04:45):
I think that's very exciting.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Have you given a thought Have you given thought to
meeting Thomas Old, to conversations, to that process.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Yeah, well, you know you mentioned before. I mean, he
is notoriously elusive, shall 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.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
The idea would be kind of weird.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
To do this 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.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
Him alone and so he can have you know, so he.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Can sort of you know, enjoy enjoy his time and
not be pestered by by some you know, young gen X,
old millennial who wants to you know, I guess talk
about him. 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
(05:56):
that pans out.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
The good news is there is a great body of
workout 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,
(06:18):
is something I think about. It's 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, and it is so
beautifully written. Because of the simplicity, Thomas Soul doesn't feel
the need to be inaccessible to show that he's brilliant.
He does just the opposite. He makes the difficult understandable.
(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 excess ability and
because of the ability to democratize knowledge about simple scientific
(07:07):
concepts 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 5 (07:14):
I totally agree.
Speaker 4 (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 messes. I'm
(07:37):
also thinking of someone like the physicist Richard Feinman. Feineman
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.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Be specific, be simple.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
You don't need a bunch of ornate you know, flowery language,
or you don't have to you 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. So it's kind
of funny now that I'm saying it's out loud, but
in a way that that approach to make something, make
(08:16):
something simple and accessible, and he was probably a good
ethos to follow for the quote, So whats.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
Do you want to right?
Speaker 5 (08:22):
What do you want?
Speaker 6 (08:23):
Do you want to meet?
Speaker 7 (08:24):
The Michael Barry just to say the word and I'll
throw asshole around it for god.
Speaker 3 (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 try 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
(09:13):
I think 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 3 (09:28):
He tells a story about he was teaching at I
think it was Cornell. I think it was Cornell, and
he was talking 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 fill
out of Cornell and fell out of life because of
(09:49):
what would happen when that student should have gone to
Indiana or Indiana State and they would have been an
a student and they could have built along the way.
It's like throwing a kid from high school into the
pro into the pros and they're not ready for that,
and you think you're helping them, but you're not. Clifton
Duncan is our guest. He's working on a project called Soul,
a solo play about an American genius. Now, I noticed
(10:11):
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 lot of people out here like our
show that support what you're doing. That's to be it's
(10:31):
got to be humbling and gratifying. It definitely is, and
on some level it's a bit daunting. But after reminding
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 a skill reeling from
its self inflicted.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Wounds from the pandemic years.
Speaker 4 (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. You're going
to destroy the industry. And they're as of now, 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, and you know, the leaders within the
(11:15):
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 idiadiada. And I'm
just 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 of I take a
(11:36):
little bit of joy in the fact that these people
who decided that I should not be allowed to work
for making 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 they make their living, but you
(11:59):
know they have to hustle 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've felt for a long time, which 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 something right there, brother, keep going.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Well, you know, people want to see great arms 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.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
They don't get it. They just don't get it.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
And to me, I think the bigger story, it's bigger
than myself, 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 is a huge, untapped, massive people
(13:02):
who are who want to come and give their you know,
and trade 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
(13:23):
for the arts, but why would they write you know
what I mean, that they've been so reviled by people
who are making so 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,
are they they have been pushed out, you know what
I mean, from from the industry and so that that's
the bigger story.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
There is that there is a there is.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
A a hunger for for arts and for culture and
for entertainment, 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.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
And trying to.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Doing work that appeals to those people, to me, seems
like a much, much, a much better idea than catering
to the sliver of people who adhere to these really
sort of extreme left wing views which just keep getting
more and more insane.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
You Clifton Duncan is our guest is a great stage actor,
was in Broadway. He refused to bend the knee during
COVID and found himself out of a career and 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.
(14:41):
We're 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. You wrote, Clifton.
Legendary producer Rick Rubin is open about the anxiety he
feels at the start of a new project.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
You just don't know what the damn thing's going to be.
That's daunting. So now what's next?
Speaker 3 (14:58):
And then you tell about out as you writ 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 Tomas Soul?
Speaker 4 (15:11):
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 it as a form of
a mask. So in the 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 they're so iconic, you know, along with the frow,
(15:35):
that that's one of those things where you have to
incorporate it and do it. 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 the you know,
these glasses well and and.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
That sort of rumpled professor look he has. Right, he's
not in any way stylish's he's sort of like the
professor in the paper Chase. He's 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. He's sort of
conservatively dressed, but it's very distinctive.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
You can.
Speaker 3 (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 cue 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 6 (16:28):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know I have I have.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
I'm justly near sighted, so I have some glasses that
I wear, but they're no, they're nowhere on the level
and how U of the of the soul glasses with
soul godless.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I don't care if somebody do this streaks shoot you
can't shoot him.
Speaker 6 (16:42):
Michael past It's been rebooked.
Speaker 8 (16:46):
So it's the comparison between progress simply the decency of
the life available to people. They weren't black, The families
were intact, and schools work, and the neighborhoods were more
or less safe. People were able to lead decent lives.
If the contrast between that world and the world we
(17:07):
inhabit now is owing so directly to 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.
(17:28):
Why is the first African American president so deeply committed
to promoting and extending liberal policies. Why is his African
American Attorney general again so deeply committed to affirmative.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Action and other Why this makes a no sense?
Speaker 1 (17:48):
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 from 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
(18:09):
makes perfect sense because in so far as members of
lagging groups assimilate into the values and achievements of the
larger society, they.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
Don't need those leaders, you know. And you see this.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
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 literature centuries ahead of
(18:51):
Czech And yet they fought to with a nail against that.
If you look at the Sri Lanka, one of the
uguis that was made there to the Buddhists leaders was
that if we don't do something, the Tamil minority will
assimilate members of the of the of the sin Ealese majority,
(19:12):
and then there will be no Buddhists or cent 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 of leaders to lead people into
(19:33):
things that don't.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
Help the people but help the leaders.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
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 and his influence.
(19:59):
Why do you think people want to see this?
Speaker 5 (20:04):
Well?
Speaker 4 (20:04):
One, you know, I've built an audience over the past
few years just by speaking my mind.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
And so I think.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
The 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 get especially given
my story in my background. And I think, again, soul
is somebody who among this demographic of folks is highly
(20:36):
highly revered. And so I think the combination of those
two factors and people are really sick of the current
traditional cultural institutions is pumping out. I mean, everything from
comic books and video games to Hollywood, right, they're pumping
out this content that or this material that speaks to
(21:00):
one as Soul 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, a third Good Marshall or James Baldwin or
you know, Louis Armstrong and Paul Roberson have been done before.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
And there's also just a sort.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Of what's the a 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 it to go,
and we're 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.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
To write this play. We don't. We don't care about
what you're doing, you know, over there.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
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.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
In the zeich I'm in New York right now.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
And I was hanging out last night with a bunch
of younger artists and there 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.
(22:23):
Like it's sort of an open conversation now, but about
what the problems 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
(22:45):
the cultural zeitgeist, it's just that time where people are like,
we're ready for this.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
And this is what we want.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
So maybe I'm just a lucky so and so by discovering,
you know, striking right at the right time, Well.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I have you here.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
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 (23:17):
You're doing a podcast now.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Yeah, thanks Michael.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
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 busy lately, so it's
a bit more difficult. But my thoughts about just the
(23:44):
state of our cultural institutions, and it's the intersection both
that and the podcast that 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
are and culture and how they intersect and and how
they influence society. I'm also on Twitter at Clifton A Duncan.
(24:08):
That's probably my biggest platform right now. I'm also on
Instagram at Clifton Duncan Online. And finally I 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.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
Which I hope to post more of.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
So that's that's my digital footprint and now people.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
Can find me and find out more about me.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
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,
(24:52):
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 reminded
by looking at your Twitter page, Clifton Duncan. We look
forward to seeing this production. We wish you the absolute best.
(25:13):
I'm sure some folks don't want to contribute to you
to your fundraiser for that to help you put this on,
and I will be as well.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And good luck, my man, good luck. You're doing great
work and making a difference.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Oh Michael, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
It's always a pleasure, Ramond the King of Ding, and
this other guy, Michael Barry.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
My friend David Malsby, who's the executive director of Well,
you know, 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
(25:59):
he's Ramone said, he's not your friend. I don't want
y'all think I'm laughing at David Malsby. I wouldn't do that.
Ramone's basically saying that 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 Maallsby
sent me something recently that I really liked. It's Johnny
(26:20):
Carson and Ramona 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
probably love Red Skelton, and I know I do. I
just thought it was a great story. So I'm constantly
(26:43):
consuming content and some of it I want to share
with you.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
So here was the story.
Speaker 9 (26:47):
Let me tell you how I first met Red Skelton.
I may have told this 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 across in the Hollywood Ranch market,
and I had a five minute television show in the morning,
one from eight to fifty five to nine o'clock. Well,
if you take the half hour station identification time, it
(27:09):
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
(27:30):
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.
Could even see who 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.
(27:54):
He's a television fan and he's watching the local kid,
the local station near Los Angele 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.
Read Skeleton shows up at KNXT and I was been
a fan of Red since.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
I was a kid.
Speaker 6 (28:15):
He says, what would you like.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Me to do? And I said, well, if you don't
mind nothing.
Speaker 9 (28:21):
He said, what do you mean. I said, I just
want you to sit behind me and I'll do the
show and you just sit there.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
He said, okay.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
So I came on.
Speaker 9 (28:29):
I'd do my three minutes of jokes and so forth.
And at the end of the show, I turned around
and I said, and what's your name? And I said,
and he 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, he drove down.
I didn't he let him for six days and the
(28:50):
final day we opened up the show and I found
the Kenny the other day at home. I still have
that little segment and I was bound and gagged. My
hands were tired, and the gagler and read the set
there and did the three and a half minutes, did
the commercial and everything.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
That is the way we met.
Speaker 9 (29:07):
Most times I ever had my life. Where was hanging
around CBS in the fifties when you were on the
air and all those great shows came out, playoffs in
ninety and Bob Cross being our link letter and all
those great shows were working.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
There was a lot of fun.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
Yeah, it's what You're a wonderful man to be around.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
You taught me a lot. I stole a lot from you.
Speaker 6 (29:24):
Yeah, oh yes, I did.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
No.
Speaker 10 (29:26):
No, it's like the students. They say, Johnny was with
you at one time. You helped him gets 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.
Speaker 7 (29:36):
You know.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
That's so that's what you have.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
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,
(30:00):
it's timeless.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
So here we go.
Speaker 7 (30:02):
I remember a teacher that I had, now only I
went through the seventh grade. I went to the seventh grade.
I left home when I was ten years old because
I was.
Speaker 6 (30:09):
Hungry, and I used to hear this.
Speaker 7 (30:11):
I work in the summer and I go to school
in the winter. But I had this one teacher. 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
(30:32):
his name, mister Lastwell is. He says, I've been listening
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
(30:55):
try to explain to you the meaning of each word.
I me an individual, a committee of one.
Speaker 11 (31:09):
Pledge, dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without
self pity, allegiance, my love, and my devotion.
Speaker 7 (31:22):
To the flag, our standard old glory, a symbol of freedom.
Wherever she waives, there's respect because your loyalty has given
her a dignity that shouts.
Speaker 6 (31:39):
Freedom is everybody's job. United.
Speaker 7 (31:44):
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.
(32:08):
And that's love for country and to the republic. Republic
a state in which sovereign power is invested in representatives
chosen by the people to govern, and government is the people,
and it's from the people.
Speaker 6 (32:27):
To the leaders, not from the leaders to the people.
For which it.
Speaker 12 (32:33):
Stands one nation, one nation, meaning so blessed by God, indivisible,
incapable of being divided.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
With liberty, which is freedom, the.
Speaker 7 (32:53):
Right of power to live one's own life without threats, fear,
or some sort of retaliation, and justice the principle are
qualities of dealing fairly with others, for all for all,
(33:14):
which means 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.
Speaker 6 (33:30):
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the.
Speaker 7 (33:33):
United States of America and to 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
(33:56):
to the Pledge of Allegiance Under God.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
Wouldn't it be a pity
Speaker 7 (34:03):
If someone said that is a prayer, and that would
be eliminated from schools to
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.