Episode 111, February 15, 2025 - Jean Shepherd Marathon, Part 5

In this Jean Shepherd Marthanon we will play:

1. From September 3, 1960, The MONY sign,  Shep plans to make the first purchase at the new Paperbook Gallery.  Three hundred copies of "I Libertine" will be given away.  Og and Charlie on the shore of Lake Titicaca: the first clam is eaten.  The commercial for "The Electronic Workshop" (one of the sponsors) features a monaural component system for $150! 
2. From September 4, 1960, A ride on the caterpillar.  Being on the "art studies" mailing list.  Don't vote!  The revolt of the British bus drivers.  A taste of slumgullion.  Getting the itch.  
3. From September 10, 1960, Shep describes his visit to Guantanemo Bay,  Cuba.  Shepherd on the Voice Of America?  What would the world think?  Drawing objects and really seeing them.  A phone call from a "lovable girl" and a "dynamic man of action. " 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to air checks. Here is more of the Gene
Shepherd Marathon on w R in New York City from
September third, nineteen sixty. The money sign Ship plans to
make the first purchase at the New paper Book Gallery.
Three hundred copies of our Libertine will be given away
Og and Charlie on the shore of Lake Titty Kaka.
The first plan is eaten. The commercial for the Electronic Workshop,

(00:43):
one of the sponsors, features a monaural component system for
one hundred and fifty dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
The end, slowly, but surely, inevitably. Of course, I'm going
to get a letter from a friendly type who's going.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
To say, dear mister Shepherd, will you please speak up
a little louder.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
We're not hearing you well in Staten Island. Now, look,
the master plan is slowly being unfolded to me, and
I figure within the next four or five weeks.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
I might be right down to the veritable core of it.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Now I can't explain it to you anymore than just
to say that the master plan, I mean, you know,
the master plan that the Gordian knot of life, this strange,
convoluted puzzle of existence. Aye, the twisting labyrinthian river of eternity. Well,
what's beginning to make sense. It's beginning to slowly unfold.

(02:17):
And not more than fifteen minutes ago I had one
of those those those startling moments of clarity and lucidity
that come to man maybe four or five times in
a lifetime. Now, this, this problem of the moment of lucidity,
is one that has been bugging people for many years.
Have you ever had this sensation? All kidding aside, this

(02:41):
this sensation of walking down the street. It might come
any moment. It might come five minutes before you go
to bed, you're brushing your teeth, you're mad. It might
come just before you're getting ready to eat a salami
sandwich or down.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
An egg cream.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
And by the way, I was in a very swank
restaurant the other day, one of the kind you know
that has the court of in leather booths, sort of
semi circular court of in leather booths, and it has
these these waiters who moved back and forth with black
suits and black looks, carried great big maroon colored menus
with them and sort of lurk in the darkness, and

(03:15):
this quiet music being played somewhere people, and the guy
in the next pussy is I'll have an egg cream, please,
Oh you know, in spite, I'll have an egg cream.
I'll have an That's like, my mother came all the
way out. I'll never forget the time I took her
to this fancy restaurant. She came all the way out

(03:35):
from the Midwest. You know what it's like in the Midwest,
Any of you, If any of you ever sat down
to a meal in the Midwest and a Midwestern restaurant,
Well here I figured that she had come out of
the desert. I was in the East, the fate East,
the East of Golden Promise. What was it that Thomas
Wolf used to call Manhattan the unfabled Rock?

Speaker 4 (03:57):
And I was here.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
I mean, we're all here, how fortunate wed we are
the fortunate few, I mean, out of the billions of
people who live all over the world. You realize how
lucky we are. We're here? You are you? You just
think who you could have been? Oh boy, you break
out in the cold sweat when you realize who you're,
how lucky you are to be, so you know, so

(04:21):
real and right, you know, I mean, oh, come on,
let's cut out all the fooling around. Let's admit it.
Let's cut the kidding out. Huh, Let's cut out all
this jazz, all this editorializing. Let's admit it. Here we are,
We're us and by George will sure right. Anyway, my mother,
living out there in the great inverted bowl of the Midwest,

(04:43):
was still in the center of the veritable storm, I
of the of the desert itself, right out there in
the Midwest. I guess you don't know what it's like,
but sometimes out the Midwest night goes on for over
four months, and all you can hear is the sound
of the natives chewing and once in a while lowing
to one another as they bump on the street corners,

(05:05):
and then they move apart. In search. Search, It's the
eternal quest, of course. Oh, by the way, how are
you doing in your quest? I mean, you know the search? Well,
this day came to pass when there had been an
exchange of letters, and it had been decided that my
mother was going to come out and visit me in
the unfabled East, and there were all the preparations were made.

(05:28):
A stock of wedgies was laid in a stock of
sequent tinseled lady. Gowns were purchased and were altered to
fit the particular type of tinseled lady that.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
My mother is.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
All things were done so that so that it would
be right and real. And finally she arrived and the
first day I took her to this this restaurant. A
matter of fact, it happened to be an Indian restaurant.
You know, well, I'm thinking, what is it that she
she will like more than anything else, more the least
like the Midwest. I took her to this Indian restaurant. Now,

(06:04):
I don't particularly dig Indian food. On the other hand,
you know, it's Indian food. There's something about Americans, by
the way, that make them just insatiably curious about other
people's food, insatiably curious, and vaguely they feel vaguely inferior
to it. You know, there's hardly any place you can
go in Europe where they have little American restaurants, just

(06:30):
a little American restaurant where you get a bad Hamburger,
a genuinely bad hamburger, I mean bad in the American way.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
You don't find them there.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
There are a few places in Rome, as a matter
of fact, you know, there's a rash of places opening
up here and there, like say, for example, in Brussels
and Paris and in Rome called the Californian, but they're
not at all, like they're not the Californians like here,
they just call them the Californian. Somehow, California seems to
be definitely American to the Europeans. There's no place called

(06:59):
the Inn, the Annon, or the Hoosier, just the Californian.
And you go in there and it's strange. It's not American,
and it's not the Italian. It's just blah. It's not
Californian certainly. And so there is this thing in Americans
who when they feel like they really want to go
out and do it, you say, really want to lay

(07:21):
it on thick, they go to.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
A foreign restaurant. I don't know what there is to this.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Why you always feel when you're eating this stuff that
you should like it because you're in such exotic surroundings
and it's a very special occasions, and so you eat it.
I'll remember this moment with my mother, and so we
get to this Indian restaurant and they had a big menu,
all full of curries and one thing. And I'm sitting there.
I'm the New Yorker, now, you know, I would just

(07:48):
like to know, just for purposes of my own particular statistics,
how many people are living in New York. How many
Manhattan nights are people who have let's say there are
they are immigrants from Iowa, or from Ohio or from Utah.

(08:11):
Millions and millions. You have no idea what a what
a terrible lure this place is to people who live
outside of this place. And of course, once you're here,
you're here, you know, and just like all of mankind, you.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
Feel vaguely dissatisfied with it.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
You just have to no matter where you are, you're
you're gonna be, You're gonna be unhappy. It's it goes
all the way back to original sin. So please don't
ask me to discuss that this morning. Why we are unhappy?
What is bugging? Get said? That goes into the next semester.
And I don't think the class is ready yet. And
so so here comes my mother, loaded with original sin,

(08:50):
out of the Middle West, you say. And I'm sitting
here in the unfabled, in the unfabled East, in the
golden Rock of Manhattan, loaded with Original Sin both of us.
You say, my mother has seniority. However, in the original
Sin department, I'm just a neophyte working on it. So
we go to this jazzy restaurant, and of course it's
one of these places with nine dollars cover charge and

(09:11):
the whole bit, and the punjabi type waiter comes up
with a turbine and all know it's going on. He
has a long crease. You know, what is it, This
long wagy knife that they carry in their belt, and
the whole business, you know this oh sahi sagi. He's
bowing from the waist back and forth, and you feel
like anyven now the ASP is going to show up
and Daddy Warbucks and someone's going to get be headed

(09:32):
before this is over. And so we're going through this
whole business, and he finally brings us a forty seven
dish curry. You know it is this type of curry,
you know, where everything your little dishes of condiment all
over and you sprinkle egg yolks, and you sprinkle egg
whites and toasted almonds, and you sprinkle toasted coconut on things,
and the steam chicken and all we're really swinging there

(09:54):
and all this stuff is piled up, and my mother
is keeping her own console. She's not saying anything. She
is wearing her tourist wedgies, and she is not opening
her trap. And of course I'm saying, Oh, isn't this great? Mom? Boy? Yes,
please more water? Isn't this great? Mon?

Speaker 5 (10:12):
Hey?

Speaker 2 (10:12):
I bought some water here? Have you ever had seventeen
dish curry? You need nothing but water? You sluice it down? Hey, Ma,
isn't this great? Water?

Speaker 4 (10:20):
Please waiter?

Speaker 2 (10:21):
And you're eating away there and the lights are dim
when you can hear Indian music being played from the loudspeaker.
And suddenly she says, for the first time, what was
really on her mind? I knew something was bugging her.
She says, I don't like to put on the dog.

Speaker 4 (10:40):
I don't like to put on the dog.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
I said, well, Ma, what do you mean putting on
the dog? You're here, it's New York, this is you know,
this is Manhattan, and I'm taking you out for a
good time.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
Now, we're not putting on the dog. Silence. She continues
to shovel away at the rice.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
But MA, I mean, aren't you having a good time?
She says, yeah, yes, very good time, very very good time.
And it's that it's that kind of statement. It's the
kind of look in the eye that says, yes, I
am having a good time.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
And slowly the walls are beginning.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
To sink down into the into the into the thick
carpets and the Punjabi. The Punjabi waiter looks exactly like
the guy I have been buying my egg creams from
in this little chromium plated joint at Seventh and Broadway
ever since I came to New York, you know, the
same guy who sells me and so so it it's

(11:39):
not working. I said, well, ma, look look mom, look,
why don't you relax? And there's a long pause, and
she says, why don't you? Said, I I am a
relaxed I'm relaxed. Look all those people see. Look, this
is New York. This is the way people in New
York live. And all the while, people from New York
were coming in and I out of this restaurant and

(12:01):
she says, they're all putting on the dog, all of
them putting on the dog, and I don't like to
put on the dog. Ten minutes later, we're out in
the cold, sweet air of seventh Avenue, bitingly. That air
is sweeping over us, and I had nothing more to say.
I began to slowly understand that all of mankind is,

(12:22):
in one way or another, putting on the dog. Do
any of you happen to know the meanings the origins
of that expression? Are there any people out there who
are dog? Put her honors? And so I'm beginning to see,
you know, as it begins to unfold, that there is
a meaning to this master plant. I'm not going to
be the one to put on the dog.

Speaker 4 (12:43):
There is a little meaning in it.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
And I'm getting into a cab not more than twenty
five minutes ago, in a moment of lucidity, I'm getting it.
I mean real lucidity, you know that kind of lucidity
that you have that lasts for about fifteen seconds. Just
suddenly everything is clear and brilliant. The idea they are
like crystal, They're carved out on a beautiful stone, and
they're a parent. And then a minute later you've forgotten

(13:07):
what they were. And so I'm getting in the cab
and then I begin to realize that there is a
master plan that I am being contacted by the infinite.
I get into a cab, a little Studebaker nineteen fifty
nine Studebaker Lark that was all battered, pushed in, bumpy
and kind of dirty, but nevertheless doubtedly struggling through life,

(13:28):
a little yellow cab.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
I get in, and just.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
As I get in, I see the name on the
door of this cab company in red block letters inscribed
on the yellow background. I had gotten into an aggressive cab,
believe it or not. I rode here to the station
and a cab marked the Aggressive Cab Company. And as

(13:52):
we approached the studio, it was beginning to soak in
more and more and more the aggressiveness of this cab
that I I was in, and the aggressiveness of the
entire life that most of us are trying to lead.
And I began to understand too, that there are two
types of people there there. There are the aggressive and
the defensive. There are those who are always slowly running backwards,

(14:16):
always that they appear to be walking towards you. Have
you ever known a guy who seems to be walking
towards you, and as he walks towards you, you'll get
the distinct impression that he's running backward as fast as
he can. There are there are the aggressive, and they
are the defensive. There are those who are up on barricades, waiting,
waiting to see the whites of there comes another. All

(14:38):
the whites just don't fire. Don't fire yet, give him
a chance. I'll see whether he's friend.

Speaker 4 (14:44):
Are you smoking more now? But enjoying it?

Speaker 6 (14:46):
Last?

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Al, I.

Speaker 7 (15:05):
Have a real cigarette today.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Camel is the best tasting cigarette of all. That's why
you get complete satisfaction each and every time you light up.
The best to myco makes that. Now there's just there's
just nothing I can do about it. I can't. I
can't help it. I can't go away from it. I

(15:38):
cannot retreat from it. I just cannot escape from it.
I've tried to. I've tried to. I've tried to, and
I can't do it. What I'm trying to say here,
I guess is in a sense put in another way.
But one of the writers of letters to me put

(16:04):
in his letter a few days ago, he says, you know, Shepherd,
He said, I can't help but feel that you look
at life exactly the way I do, and that is
you look at it as one big circus. Now, there's
nothing wrong in that for some reason or other, I

(16:24):
have noticed that people who cannot look at life that
way vaguely suspect that there is something very deeply wrong
with people who do, and they also feel that there
is something not quite trustworthy about them, and they're probably right.
They are probably right. I can't explain it anymore than

(16:48):
to say that that there are a few people I
have known. I know that this is one of my problems.
That I have tried to become serious about things. I
say serious. I say it in big capital letters. I
have tried to become deeply serious about certain things that
I have started out to do, and.

Speaker 4 (17:10):
It has never really worked.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
I can't explain this, and I've tried to explain it
to myself. I've tried to go down underneath the surface
to find out why this is, what kind of defense
mechanism this might be. I know all the psychological clichetes
about it, but still, and at the same time, it
is an interesting phenomena. And occasionally you will see a

(17:35):
guy who has this look in the eye of the
one who, no matter what happens, can't help but see
life as though he's sitting in some kind of a
box seat and he's looking out. And it's not a
three ring circus. It's about a ten million ring circus.
And there are aerules. There are guys being shot out
of cannons. There are guys wearing clown suits walking around

(17:59):
with little with little dogs. There are chicks uh hanging
by their teeth from long swinging silver chains from up
near the top of the up near the top of
the tent. There are guys selling popcorn. There are freaks.
I mean, the whole business and the whole the whole
shooting match, as my mother would say, is a gigantic

(18:21):
circus and we all have a ticket to it, and
we are all at one and the same time, both
audience and participants, because the circus is nothing, believe me,
without without an audience. A show is nothing without an audience.
And this is not an old actor or actress cliche.
You know, there's always there's always some one of the

(18:41):
one of the things that makes me just turn inside
out and turn up around the edges, like old lettuce
is when I hear some actor or actress being interviewed
by one of the friendly, kindly obsequious interviewers on which
certainly radio of bounds and the interviewer is always saying, well,
miss miss stand we all know that you're a magnificent woman,

(19:03):
and a magnificent actress, and a fantastic artist, and a
much finer human being than any of the rest of us.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
Miss Stanley. I'm so excited, Miss Stanley.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
Miss Stanley, could you tell us how it feels to
be such a fantastic, magnificent, magnanimous, fully rounded, endowed actress.
I mean, how does it feel like? And then there's
a pause and she says.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Well, I first of all, I'd like to say that
I do everything that I do for the wonderful audience.
I can say this that my life would be nothing
without all those wonderful little people, the little people who
come in from the Bronx and from Queens and from

(19:51):
the Middle West, who come and make up that wonderful
audience that every night I give my all four.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
I can say that my.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Life would be nothing without the little people. And I
want to think, now that I've been given the opportunity,
I would like to thank each and every one of
you little people, all the little people out there to
whom well I've dedicated my life you have given us
in the theater, so much, all of you little people.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Well, let me say this, if somehow you could blot out,
if somehow magically you could imagine a circus. Can you
imagine walking into a dark, cavernous tent, a huge tent,
a black tent, a black tent made a strange black material,

(20:43):
flying black flags, and there's black sawdust leading to the tent.
You walk in a black night to this tent, and
you notice that there are lights, beautiful colored lights, red green, yellow,
orange lights. And you hear the sound of a calliope playing.

(21:05):
This is the coliope you see, You hear the sound,
You hear the sound of great activity going on in
this black tent. And as you walk along this black, black, long,
twisting black sawdust trail, you finally come to where the
man is taking tickets. He looks at you with unseeing eyes.

(21:26):
He just stands up.

Speaker 8 (21:27):
And go on, five minutes a big show is about
it beginning, or five minutes about the beginning, let's go,
come on, come on, And.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
You're the only one, you're the only one, and you
walk past him. He doesn't even bother to sell you
a ticket, nor does he bother to take a ticket.
You just know that you don't have to pay, and
you walk on through and you slowly part those canvas doors,
and inside is a circus, a circus, and it's in

(21:55):
full swing. There's a beautiful girl wearing a pearl colored
bathing suit's swinging by her teeth from a silver trapeze.
And there's a man standing up there, way high, atop
a tightrope, and he's walking across, very very carefully, carrying
a long silver balancing poll. And on each end is
a small kinkajew bear, followed by a New York Times

(22:16):
reporter each one. And they're all going across, and the
clowns are dancing and they're leading little dogs. People are
being shot out of guns boom, and there's no audience.
There is no audience, And somehow you know that you're
not even an audience, that you are invisible and do

(22:37):
not exist. I'm possi black, I'm poss He can't be.
You see, it's a frightening thought, isn't it. It is
a frightening thought that there is a show without an audience.
And so you see the ludicrousness of this. It is
impossible to create the same. It's just like creating an

(23:00):
ocean without water. You cannot do it. Can you imagine
an ocean or a desert without sand just doesn't exist,
does not a hot day without heat. No, there is
no show without those who come to see.

Speaker 4 (23:17):
And that's the way with this fantastic circus of life.
Are you? Are you as a.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Performer in the circus of life? Are you a tight
rope walker? Yes, it's getting pretty close to home. Ehe Fred.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
There is step by step you put your foot.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Forward is another one, and down below the band is going,
you know, a long drum rope. And the announcer has said.

Speaker 8 (23:50):
Now, Charlie Murchison.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
The devil beyond all their devils.

Speaker 8 (23:56):
Will attempt the deathly fang feet, but he alone has
been able to accomplish. He is going to live the
life of Charlie Murchison, a dangerous feet beyond the comprehension.

Speaker 9 (24:10):
Of all mankind.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Will you please be quiet in the audience.

Speaker 8 (24:15):
Mister Murchison's life is one of the most dangerous lives
that I've ever been lived on the face of the
fantastic gulbe and now here he is, Ladies and gentlemen
in the center ring Charlie the magnificent Murchison, please be
quiet and do not move.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
All this dangerous act is being drawn to a conclusion.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
Did the drums start rolling?

Speaker 2 (24:47):
And you, Charlie Murchison, slowly begin to move one foot.

Speaker 4 (24:51):
Before the other.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
On the vast tight rope of life, one foot before
the other.

Speaker 4 (24:59):
You're carrying your back. Is this the type of performer
you want to pay?

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Or on the other hand, are you this type of performer?
Are you this type of performer?

Speaker 10 (25:10):
The ladies and gentlemen in the center ring.

Speaker 8 (25:17):
Ladies and gentlemen, Charlie Murchison, the low renowned clown who
has entertained all the clown heads of Europe, all the
outstanding mo goos of Madison Avenue. Charlie Murchison, clown extraordinary.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
And then you begin to go through your act, carrying
a beach ball on your nose, bouncing up and down,
hoping that there'll just laugh a little bit, just a
little bit, and thereby get you off the hook again.
And all your clothes are raggle taggle, and your great

(25:56):
painted face a big tear has been painted.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
Your left eye.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
And there you go, Charlotte Murchison, clown the extraordinary, out
there working with the Indian clubs, again. Oh dream uh eternal,
what are you this kind of a performer? Stop at
you stop ho.

Speaker 11 (26:19):
Ho, whilst middle ones, Oh yes, hold it, maybe you
are this sort of performer.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
There's suddenly heard throughout the big top of life, the shrill,
shocking note of a whistle. Attention, please, attention, please, ladies
and gentlemen. Daredevil cannon ball Mapplier James Maplier, citizen ordinary,

(27:03):
will now attempt the death defying fantastic.

Speaker 12 (27:09):
Feet of being shot out of the mouth of an
eighty eight millimeter cannon, un aided by nets, and unaccompanied by.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Any artificial means whatsoever.

Speaker 8 (27:23):
Ladies and gentlemen, this particular feet has never before been
attempted by any mortal human being in the gigantic circus
of life. We respectfully command total silence while this death
defying feet is carried to We hope a successful conclusion.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
And then slowly the drums begin to ROLLO, this time
in a funeral dirish room. And there you come out,
dressed in a black suit of tights, wearing a black
football helmet and a black look for the room. You

(28:14):
stand there before the crowd, and you bow graciously, as
Boris Karloff would bow to the left, to the right,
and to those in the center, with infinite dignity and
with infinite sorrow. You are about to give your all.

(28:40):
And then several men dressed as a firing squad, dressed
in ceremonial fatigues, wearing ceremonial beards, leads you to a
platform that leads to the breach of your gigantic cannon,
from which you will be shot with a last wave
of TraFi. You are inserted into the breach and the

(29:07):
drums begin to roll faster and faster, broom, broom. Maybe
this is the type of performer you are, Hey, in
the vast circus of life, I have known several one
shot man ha ha, and.

Speaker 4 (29:26):
Then then and then then how about this time? Maybe
you are this type.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
This is the type who scurries through life, scuttle, scurries
through life, hardly seen by the others. His voice is
the only thing that has heard, and occasionally, when something
is needed, he is there to provide that small service.
You know, many people retreat from life by being always
of service. That's all they are that they just want

(29:50):
to be of service. Just just let me, let me help,
let me help, that's all. Just that don't hurt me.
But let me help here. Let me they're they're easy boy.
Let me tie your shoes for you, now there there,
let me smooth your This is another type screaming through life.
And you see them, you see in this vast circus
of life. Actually you don't see them because they kind

(30:12):
of get in the way of the main view. But
when you need them, they are very handy. They're wearing
white hats and they're wearing white coats, and they have
big bags slung around their shoulders, or maybe a big box.
And sometimes the bag contains popcorn. Other times the box
contains fresh hot dogs, or maybe maybe a small refrigerator

(30:36):
full of beer. And this type is going around ice
called ice cold beerir ice cold beer, Aah, ice cold beer,
eyes cold We got an ice cold ice called how
many two? Would you please pass this down to the
down the islid eyes cold beer, ice cold beer, eyes
cold beer. Always opening beer bottles, always passing ice cold

(30:56):
beer to others, always trying to make change on the run.
I'm always trying to keep out of the line of vision.
I is called Bert. Excuse me, man, I say, I'm sorry, ma'am,
excuse me, get out of the way.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
Will you for crying out?

Speaker 2 (31:10):
Get out of my way? I'm trying to see. Can't
you see eyes called bear? Eyes called? Are you this
type of performer? Mmm?

Speaker 4 (31:20):
Hey?

Speaker 2 (31:21):
And then then there's another type, of course, there's a night,
a very definite type of performer in this vast circus
of life, who is not even inside the tent. You see,
he's not even inside of the thing. He's standing out
in front. He's wearing a checkered vest, he's wearing a

(31:41):
Derby hat, and he.

Speaker 8 (31:43):
Is shouting, had heard I had had a five minutes
the big shows, I want to begin five minute of the
big shows about to beget hay, everyone, come on, come on,
the big shows want to begin a five minutes five minutes.
Let's go and fire minue of the big shows.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
They want to begin high Maybe you're this type of performer.
This town abounds in them, It abounds in them. Did
I tell you about the guy I met a couple
of weeks ago who had the Castro account? Did I
tell you about the guy I met about three or

(32:18):
four months ago who worked in an agency. Get this
one and put this right on the top of your
head and think about it for a moment, I will
not even mention the agency, nor will I even mention
the people involved. But he worked in an agency that
handled the Hungarian Freedom account, believe it or not, and

(32:39):
he told me that the day that the Hungarian Freedom
revolt came up, the reason that all the confusion resulted
and ensued was that the account man on the Hungarian
Freedom account was out of town on a three day
trip to the coast, and they couldn't contact him, and
they didn't know what to say that the Hungarian freedom
fighters as they were being shot between the eyes, and

(33:03):
I said, what are you talking about?

Speaker 4 (33:06):
What we had?

Speaker 2 (33:07):
The Hungarian account, the Hungarian Freedom account. What did you mean?
The Hungarian Freedom account was handled by an agency, and
it had and it had an account executive who handled it.
So of course, can't you just see the president of
the country getting on the phone calling up his agency

(33:27):
and says.

Speaker 8 (33:28):
Now it hit the fan, It has hit the fan.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Will you please get a hold of Marchison, the Hungarian
Freedom account executive. Hurry out for crying out loud. Either
that or the agency man is red hot calling the
president and he is saying, look, now, look, our business
is public relations. How much how much trouble do you
think we can get you out of? And so maybe

(33:54):
you're one of those performers who is not even somehow
involved in life, and somehow thinks that life is one
vast mercantile situation, one vast market upon which you can
only capitalize if your voice is loud enough. Right, all right,
maybe you're this type of performer more and more, and

(34:16):
then then maybe you're this sort. This is another sort entire,
there's another kind, there's another type, and this type usually
usually actually is well, let's put it this way.

Speaker 4 (34:29):
Let's see this type of performer.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
As she enters the ring, the big, the big announcer,
the tall thin man wearing the black cutaway coat and
the white the white high water pants, carrying the whip,
wearing the long silk hat, steps to the microphone, and
he says, ladies and gentlemen, now the world famous bareback writer,
Madame Lasaza, the most beautiful, world famous bare back rider

(34:53):
in all of circustom, is now set to entertain us
in the center ring. And the band goes and out
comes this big, beautiful white percheron horse with large brown
liquid eyes. And there is this chick, there is this

(35:15):
chick standing on one itsy bitsy toe wearing this itsy
bitsy little, itsy bitsy white sequin thing, waving at all
the crowd. Hello there, Hello, Hello everybody. I'm cute. Hello
my school, I'm so cute. Oh, you so wonderful. And

(35:36):
the giant percheron, who is usually a male of one
kind or another, quietly glumps around the middle of his
big brown liquid eyes. I'm so cute. Hello, And the
band is going.

Speaker 13 (35:52):
A pretty girl is like a melody, aladd.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
And then finally, off the off the ring, and out
out into the night, goes miss beautiful. Now you know
this performer, of course you do, of course you do,
of course. And then there's another type of performer in
the vast circus of life. And this is a thin,

(36:21):
angry type wearing black horn rim glasses, who sits in
the darkness under the stands and counts the receipts and
sits there with a comtometer machine at her side, pinging,
and all the while the band is playing no no, no, no, no, no,

(36:45):
hop up. She hears it, she's part of it, but
she never sees it at all. Poying, ping, Oh, vast
circle of humanity oh, vast centered ring of life.

Speaker 13 (37:10):
Blotto too. Oh lord, did it he loved.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
Purple?

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Oh? All always chasing rain boos? Oh what do you mean,
I'm always chasing rainbows?

Speaker 4 (37:43):
I know what I'm after. Oh yes, Oh.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
There are other performers, of course, and some of the
saddest ones of all. The last the last clown has disappeared,
the last bareback rider has gone into the shadows of
the tinsil tent, the tinsils work and sleep tent. And
then on the scene come these people in the rumpel.

(38:10):
Close on the scene, come these these guys who are
vaguely shaggy, and these women who are very lumpy, carrying
pails and mops, and you see them moving around in
the darkness, sweeping up, and you know what, They're sweeping up,
sweeping up, hosing it down, working away out there in

(38:33):
the darkness, just working their lives away, sweeping up the
mess that everybody else has left behind, sweeping, grubbling. And
I would venture to say that this is probably the
greatest percentage of all, This is the greatest number of
all the performers. The sweepers up though never's they're never

(38:55):
even awake when the show is going on. They don't
come to work till three o'clock in the morning. Philosophically speaking,
the show has long since passed. When they pack their
simple lunches, their sad simple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
and apples and their five cent pies, they are plaints

(39:16):
of half cold instant coffee and they pack it all
into their lunch box and they go off to sweep up,
to sweep up, just to sweep up. And these people
begin very early in life, you know, in fact, every
one of the performers begin early in life. The little
one standing on her toes on top of that percher

(39:38):
on hoo wu was doing that at the age of
two and being encouraged. Isn't she cute me? And all
the while she's galloping around the center ring in the
living room for whatever frustration she wants to work out oOoOO.
And all the while, the little kid who is two
years old is already beginning to retreat to the spot

(40:01):
directly behind the potted palm where he is preparing to
sell his popcorn.

Speaker 4 (40:06):
I hope somebody needs a popcorn arrow, maybe a sandwage.
I'll go get it.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
For them, and they won't they won't be mad at me.
Then I'll get some I'll get some candy for them.
I'll make things happier. And all the while, some little
kid is preparing to be shot from a gun as
he does his only little thing that he can do,
and that is stand on one foot on the window
ledge three stories above the street. Hey, get him on.

(40:31):
What's the matter with you for crying out loud? Donald?
How many times have we told you to stay off
that window ledge? Donald is just preparing to stand on
the window ledge all of his life. Donald is prepared
to be a one shot man. But boy, what a shot.
That's all Donald is preparing for. And then, of course,

(40:53):
you know, as you slowly grow into your role, the
the the externals begin to be used, one into the other,
until you can hardly tell the girls standing on the
bare back horse from the girl down below there who
tries to look like the girls standing on the bare
back horse, but who nevertheless is chained eternally to her
mental comptometer machine, and is eternally counting the eternal tickets,

(41:17):
no matter how she dresses.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
And then, of.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
Course there are three or four or five who inevitably
must come out in their raggle taggle clothes, bouncing a
beach ball on their nose, even at the age of two.
Come on, come on.

Speaker 12 (41:35):
Come on, come on ahead, ahead, aheadadadadad ahead of.

Speaker 8 (41:39):
A big circus on our life is about, and again
the big circus of life is about. But again, the
biggest circus in the history of all the world, the world.
Let's go, let's go, let's go.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Let's go. For just one dollar one do one?

Speaker 9 (41:50):
Do one?

Speaker 10 (41:50):
Do one?

Speaker 14 (41:51):
Not?

Speaker 8 (41:51):
I'll say, the biggest circus, the biggest surprize circus, the
biggest wonderful, wonderful surprize circus all and you're a part
of it, sir.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Come on, come on, come on one. How many did
you say?

Speaker 9 (42:01):
One?

Speaker 2 (42:01):
Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
We'll be back in just fifteen minutes.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
This is wr Radio, your station for news. What are
you here in the best of circles? Shafer all around?

Speaker 9 (42:17):
The people?

Speaker 2 (42:19):
All the pleasure doesn't fade after one or two.

Speaker 15 (42:24):
You get that first peer pressure, each peer crew.

Speaker 5 (42:28):
Now that's why you're here in the best of circles.

Speaker 7 (42:30):
Chafer all around.

Speaker 16 (42:39):
Shaeffer invites you to watch the Parade of American History,
a Freedom Land, USA, along with the recreations of great
events of our past.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Schaeffer has been invited.

Speaker 16 (42:46):
To show you as it's brewing in nine, eighteen forty
two and as it is today. Come out and see
that original Shaffer Brewery, the home side of America's oldest
lagger beer. And while you're there, pick up an entry
plank for the Schaefer My best gal. It's exciting, easy
to enter at valuable prizes can be yours. This is

(43:07):
wr AM and FAM New York, owned and operated by
RKO General. See the four star motion pictures Song Without
End together with the magnificent stage show.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
Now at Radio City Music.

Speaker 16 (43:17):
Hall, Song Without End at the w R time signal
one o'clock.

Speaker 17 (43:29):
James McCarthy reporting or up to limited reports. Stay tuned
to this station now the news. A ragtag army made
up mostly of volunteers from all walks of life began
laying seage on the Congo's Kasai Province in a move
to liberate the valuable mining state from the Central Congo
government forces and install Albert Kalangi as its provisional head.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Just a short while ago.

Speaker 17 (43:51):
Klang is the self styled president of the mineral rich
Kasai area who was forced to flee his government seat
by forces of Congole's Premier Patrice Lamumba some time ago.
At the time Lamumba's forces invaded Kasai and took control
over much of the area, Kalanji charged that the Congo
premier's troops were being led by Czechoslovakian military advisors and
raising Communist arms and munitions. This was later confirmed by

(44:13):
a communist leader in Leopoldville, who told reporters that the
Reds were more involved than most people thought, adding you
don't think they the Congolese could do this by themselves,
do you. The volunteer force of Kolanji estimated it anywhere
from two hundred and fifty to five hundred men crossed
the River La Blache from another breakaway state, Katanga, and
are headed for Laputa in central Kasai. Katanga's premier, Moshi

(44:36):
Chambei is said to have armed the Klanji rebels and
offered military advisors in the battle, but this has not
been confirmed.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
More news In a moment.

Speaker 18 (44:44):
Say, baseball fans, do you have an inquisitive youngster who
as the knack of asking just the baseball question that
stumps you or do you yourself sometimes wonder about a.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
Baseball question or two.

Speaker 18 (44:55):
If Saul, here's big news about an exciting new book.
It's the Mutual Baseball and and it's Baseball's biggest one
dollar value. Edited by Van Patrick, the Mutual Baseball Annual
is like sixteen major league yearbooks rolled into one.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Over two hundred action photos.

Speaker 18 (45:11):
Plus biographical sketches and pictures of almost two hundred stars.
You get a sweeping view of the nineteen sixty baseball season,
as well as the home schedules and rosters of all teams,
and an extra bonus, an all time record section.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
So if you want the answers.

Speaker 18 (45:28):
To baseball questions, get the Mutual Baseball Annual. Just send
one dollar to Baseball Mutual Network, New York eighteen, a
two dollar value for only a dollar, or to your
copy today.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
That's one dollar to Baseball.

Speaker 18 (45:42):
Mutual Network, New York eighteen, Well America.

Speaker 17 (45:49):
It appears as though Soviet Premier Nikita Krushev will be
alone in his publicity seeking appearance at the UN General
Assembly this month, as diplomatic observers claim the West leaders
have adopted a stay away policy. The observers said the
first round of consultations between President Eisenhower, French President de
Gaul and Britain's Prime Minister McMillan favored this policy, but
they have left the door open for possible new developments

(46:11):
and won't commit themselves to the.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Meeting until some time next week.

Speaker 17 (46:15):
The highway death toll is reaching staggering proportions today as
Americans try to raise the grim Reaper on the nation's robes.
Paul Jones, information director for the National Safety Council, gives
us the details.

Speaker 14 (46:27):
Sixty one lives already have been lost on the highway
in the accidents since the Labor Day weekend holiday began
last season. While this is running slightly behind the Labor
Day toll last year, it is catching up at such
a rapid pace that every mortist should double his care

(46:50):
and try to prevent every possible accident. The thirty hours.
The first thirty hours of the holiday period have been
food to be the most dangerous drive.

Speaker 9 (46:58):
Accordingly, please.

Speaker 17 (47:01):
The first Russian freighter to take grain and cotton from
the black seat of Cuba's left Odessa for Evana, where
we'll exchange its cargo for Castro sugar. Six right oil
tankers are also in this convoy, too empty again for
Castro Sugar to help it.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
See. I'm walking along. I'm just paying attention only to
my own world. I'm walking along on Sixteenth Street the
other day and just reading signs. There are those of
us who read signs, and then there are those who
apparently never see this world around us. One of the
most significant signs here in New York is a sign

(47:37):
that flashes M N Y off and on M N Y.
Do you know that I was in New York for
over three months before I realized that that wasn't a misspelling. True.
I had no idea what this meant, and I just thought, well,
it's New York, you know. And I used to walk

(47:58):
up and down Broadway at two o'clock in the morning
and that thing would go and why, I.

Speaker 4 (48:03):
Said, why doesn't somebody get that thing fixed?

Speaker 2 (48:05):
This is beginning to bug mem and why M and why?
It would just flash and then there would go m
O N y M and why M and why m O.

Speaker 19 (48:23):
N y.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
And underneath it would say three one four three one
five M and why And then there would be a
little yellow pole or something go cool and it would
be a green star at the top and why. And

(48:48):
I'm walking along Broadway trying to figure out why aren't
they getting that thing fixed? Everybody is seeing it all
over town, this misspelling. This is awful, you know, So
either you look at it or you don't. You know,
I find that most people don't, and those who don't

(49:09):
always figure that those who do are a little bit
out of their minds. What's this young man speaking about? Well,
I'm walking along Sixteenth Street the other day, madam, how
do you feel this one? I'm walking along sixteenth Street
on the west side, and I notice in through one
of the doorways, you know that there's the little anti
room or the lobby into one of these office buildings

(49:31):
where there's the automatic elevator that goes up and down,
and there's this big directory hanging in there with all
the little white letters, and that tells where everything is.
And then there's usually two or three big signs to
say barber shop to the right, or coffee shop to
the left, or there's an arrow that points and says
telephones that way. Has it ever occurred to you that
one of the major industries in New York is telephoning. Honestly,

(49:52):
it really is one of the major industries here in
New York City is just plain telephoning. I don't mean
getting anything done about it. I mean just telephoning. There's
always a line of people standing in front of a
telephone booth, telephoning. If you could somehow get get get
a corner on that market, if you could collect one
cent on every one of these these, don't worry somebody

(50:15):
is Excuse me, madam, I can't help it, you know,
don't feel sorry for the phone company. Literally itsy bitsy
pink phones. Now they're light up in the dark. I
could see Wallace Barry. He's rushing. He rushes into the

(50:38):
he rushes into this room to the phone calls. Some
disaster has happened, and he grabs a hold of his
little itsy bitsy this little John Quill yellow phone, the
one that lights up in the dark. He's trying to
dial it in. His finger can't fit into.

Speaker 8 (50:52):
The Come on, man, come in now, come on.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Man, hurts, I'm out of this phone, and his fingers
caught in the dial. Excuse me, madam. So I'm walking
along sixteenth Street and I look in there there's a
big sign says coffee shop, and there's another big sign
that says barber shop that way, and then above it
there's a sign that says the Margaret Sanger Bureau. And
there's a great big blue and white sign and all

(51:18):
it says it's fertility one flight up. Well, I saw
that one and I walked on little ways and then
this is beginning to soak down into my consciousness. You're
going to understand the nature of our fears. Who would
like to shoot an arrow into the air with me?
I mean, you know, not worry much about where it lands,

(51:41):
you know, just.

Speaker 4 (51:44):
Up it goes.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
Mo o n y m N y.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
Mo N y three one six.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
Well. I suspect, though, however, that these are the little secrets.
Speaking of secrets, we have with us today the Village Voice.
We've been keeping it neatly secret here for the past
exteen minutes, and we have with us the Village Voice today.
And in case any of you are interested on the
current issue of the Village Voice the front page, I

(52:20):
have a small sketch which I did of the new
Village Voice office.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
I would like to.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
Point out that if you are visiting the village over
the weekend, you know this is the day that the
big art show gets underway down there officially, that is,
and right in the heart of Sheridan Square, now directly
across the street, as a matter of fact, it's directly
angling across the street is the paper Book Gallery. But
the Village Voice has a new office. And more than that,

(52:51):
I'm of course you know my involvement with the Village Voice.
Did I ever tell you how this first started? This
is something that might be of some inn to you,
but it's a strange thing how a long involved period
of your life will begin. Usually it begins quietly on
cat's feet. Often you're not even aware of it. And

(53:14):
I'll tell you I was not aware of this when
it happened. I used to do the all night radio
show here at War, as you know. It's funny thing
how I got involved in that too. That's another story
which we'll wait for other days of revelations to come.
Revelations of course in capital letters, ancient carved stone letters.

(53:35):
But I was doing this late night radio show and
I was hot boy. We used to do it out
at Carteret, New Jersey. And I don't know whether you've
ever worked out there, Jim, But in August or in
July when the Carteret New Jersey Transmitter House has really
worked itself up to a ladder. About two o'clock in
the morning, when the heat is laying over the Jersey

(53:57):
bogs out there, it is just unlo believably hot in
that building, with that fifty kiloa transmitter going and no
ventilation at all. And I used to sit out there
wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and work all night,
just slave all night, trying to dredge things out of
my mind, trying to see what was right down there
in that dark little Have you ever read Freud's definition

(54:20):
of the ID? You know about this little thing, this
beautiful definition, I remember when I first ran into it.
I would suggest, if you're looking up things today, I
would suggest you look up Freud's original definition of ID,
and you will find that there are many poetic overtones
to this thing. And it describes that little gray, furry

(54:43):
creature that's within each one of us, Jim, that little gray,
dark creature which none of us really know anything about,
which has no connection with logic, which has no connection
with mores morals, which has no connection with the learned
way of life, but which nevertheless lurks underneath that surface
of each one of us.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
Even you, madam, I have no idea what you're talking about.
I have no little gray, very creature living with inside
of me, mister Shepherd.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Oh no, Well, I'm out there working late two, three
o'clock in the morning, and I'm dealing with this little gray,
furry creature of the id, the ego, the super ego,
and all the rest of the layers, you know, And
I'm digging and digging and digging and out of the darkness.
One late night, oh boy, well, it must have been
four o'clock in the morning, I got a telephone call

(55:34):
from this guy, and all he said was, I'm Ed Fancher,
and I have this little unsuccessful newspaper, and I sure
would like to have a piece from you once. I'd
just like to say hello, because I figure you're fighting
the same fight. I don't know what it is either,
but it's the fight. And so a couple of days

(55:54):
later we had we had a cucumber sandwich somewhere, and
that was the beginning of all of it. And right now,
The Village Voice is one of the most important new
journals in America. It really does truly have an international
readership and also an international reputation is very seriously read

(56:16):
in many of the.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Union from September fourth, nineteen sixty A ride on the
Caterpillar being on the Art Studies mailing list, don't vote
the Revolt of the British bus Drivers. A taste of
slumgullion getting the itch.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Now hang on, here we go?

Speaker 10 (56:36):
Are you ready? I mean, are you waiting?

Speaker 19 (56:39):
Ready?

Speaker 10 (56:41):
Are you ready to open up like a clam out
of the soft, warm, waving waves of springing out of
the soft the soft singing birds of note. Now hang
on we go. Don't care. Look, I don't want you

(57:40):
to think just because the flower squeaks when I walk,
just because I have problem on the teeth.

Speaker 19 (57:47):
I don't want you to think.

Speaker 10 (57:50):
Said I don't know what's going on just because I
sometimes let my shoes get out tied. Sonny, Oh, I
don't you think I.

Speaker 19 (58:01):
Don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 10 (58:05):
Let me tell you how I lettle lord go. When
I was a kid, it's a whole shooting match, boulders
down to a mess a pottage. A mess of pottage
was just brushing my whole. Man used to use. You say,
it's nothing but a MESSI pottage. Actually he meant porridge porridge,
OpEd me a cream wheat, lumpy cream wheat and cold

(58:28):
a Messa pottage. You know, just because I got these
cheery trees.

Speaker 19 (58:34):
He kill you.

Speaker 10 (58:34):
What that old lady sit down down to the s
Crawberry Festibo a couple of weeks ago. She said, let
me s let me stand you up against the wall
from what I'd like to take a picture here. You're
the most colorful native I've seen in this town. And
I'm just a tourist and I'd like to take a
picture of you back to show my daughter Rain. She

(58:55):
stood me up against the wall there, and after she
was through taking a picture, I said to her, right,
why are you taking Why? Why'd you take my picture?

Speaker 19 (59:02):
Lady?

Speaker 10 (59:05):
She says, because you can cheery cheeks like like like
like Santa Claus. Santa Claus, Santa Claus. All my life,
you've been telling me I look like.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
A Santa.

Speaker 19 (59:17):
All my life.

Speaker 10 (59:18):
I would like to grow up working like Santa Claus.
When I was ten years old, I had to play
Santa Claus at the church Christmas festival cause I looked
like Santa Claus. I begin to hate Santa Claus. See
buddy troubling at you. That was the biggest joke down

(59:39):
at the hardware story when I was twelve, where's your radars?

Speaker 20 (59:44):
An?

Speaker 10 (59:46):
I was as at the nordboard, Why am not Santa Claus?
Wellam not the Santa Claus? M I'm sure like me
to tell you his story, a bedtime story, Sunny, I
tell you a bed damn story. One time, I'm walking

(01:00:07):
down by the eye and the railroad tracks over past
the evening yards. I'm walking along, and it's a sunny
summer afternoon on them long June afternoon. It's you have
once in awhile seemed to go on forever. I'm walking
all this beautiful day. I had come up to these
two bumps, these two hoboes, just a couple of bows

(01:00:31):
sitting there by the side, and and they're cooking up
some slum gullion.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
I'm walking along, just j let's.

Speaker 10 (01:00:41):
Go in the next track, sun, Just let it go
in the next one that you're the next one. And
I'm walking along there and I s I see these
two bowls. I guess maybe I was about fifteen at
the time, and I had been told every since I
was a little kid to watch out for hoboes to
watch out for these bombs. And I'm walking along kind

(01:01:05):
of on the other side of the track, trying to
pretend like I don't see him, and all of a
sudden one of 'em called out, and he said, hey, Sonny, sonnay,
come here, and nothing I could do. So well, I
went over there. You see what he wanted. And the
big ones said to me, then he held, you like
some slum We just about to throw it away? Would

(01:01:29):
you like some slumgullion? Well, I was a kid. The
kid is always hungry, and it smelled off good, and
so I said, sure, uh, some smoke. Slumgullion? Is that
what it is? And the man laughed and said slum gullion.
Everybody knows what slum gullion is. M So I ate

(01:01:56):
the slum gullion. It was cooked up in the campus,
made his super can. Oh, it was good, was awful good.
It was made out of onions from the fields, hamburger,
red beans and fire and sky.

Speaker 19 (01:02:17):
And ground.

Speaker 10 (01:02:21):
I hate that slumgullion. And I never been the same since.
I never been the same since, Sonny. I'd come home
and my mother. You never knew your grandmother did you,
And she says to me, what that stuff you've got
around your mouth? There have you been eating? You've been

(01:02:41):
spoiling yourself again. I said no, Mom, she says, I
can tell you been eating what you been eating? Slumgushion, slumgullion, slumgullion. Mom,
would you get slum done by the eurie tracks? You

(01:03:06):
mean you've been eating with hoboes? Yeah, hobos. You have
spoiled your supper. And how many times have I told
you not gonna go down by those railroad tracks with
those bombs? Did I get a tanning when my father

(01:03:26):
got home when he heard about me eating slum gullion
with the bombs down by the tracks? M But I've
never been the same mm since. I have never tasted
anything as good as that slumgullion. Ever, I have tried everything.

(01:03:52):
I have tried everything, never teasted nothing as good as
that stool. That's all it is. It is stool made
out of onions, hamburger, red beans, and fire the sky.

(01:04:16):
Guess you can't get that in the supermarket, the sky.

Speaker 19 (01:04:21):
Of mean.

Speaker 10 (01:04:23):
Or a fire.

Speaker 19 (01:04:25):
Earth.

Speaker 10 (01:04:28):
That's just just a story.

Speaker 19 (01:04:29):
Now you go and go to bed.

Speaker 10 (01:04:32):
Don't mean nothing, son, Just remember I'm not Sanding, I'm
not Santa Claus. And you get some sleep.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
This time of the year, you know, you get Have
you ever had the itch?

Speaker 19 (01:05:26):
You know what the itch is?

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Do I have to tell you what the itch is?
I mean, you're alive just like I am. The terrible itch.
I get this awful itch.

Speaker 10 (01:05:34):
In the springtime and in the fall.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
I have drunk loans some water.

Speaker 10 (01:05:40):
I have drunk loan some water.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
But the thing that is the most pernicious, deging, driving thing,
I don't know. I think that it's what makes us.

Speaker 10 (01:05:52):
Do all of this ridiculous stuff is the itch.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
You know, it has never been recorded that the carabell
have the itch, or a beaver or a rattlesnake ever
gets the itch.

Speaker 10 (01:06:04):
You know what I mean by the itch?

Speaker 21 (01:06:07):
I it's just the itch.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
It's the itch to to to to go to to
go to mars, to think further than your mind can think.
It's kind of run faster than you can run nither there.

Speaker 10 (01:06:20):
You know, it's the itch.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
And it's this kind of day that does it even
more than other days. It just sitting there like a clear,
beautiful piece of crystal.

Speaker 19 (01:06:29):
Do you wanna hold it?

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
And you wanna jiggle it around in your hand, and
you want the light to go filtering through it and
picking up all those blue and yellow highlights.

Speaker 10 (01:06:38):
It's that jiggling thing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
It's that oscillating thing, you know, speaking of of getting
the itch.

Speaker 19 (01:06:47):
The uh I mean it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
It shows everywhere all kinds of ways. It uh, it's inescapable,
so many ways.

Speaker 19 (01:07:00):
Do you think this is?

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
It's Oh no, it's the old crowd. It's it's everybody again.
It's everybody I've ever known again.

Speaker 10 (01:07:14):
Hey, there's there's Esther.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Hey, hey, Esther, Esther, Esther, Jane Ada Berry. What's she
doing beating a based drum?

Speaker 22 (01:07:22):
There's there's Alex Charles Waite, hell al for crying out loud.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
There's Gasser. I'm a second platoon. Hey, Casser, I thought.

Speaker 10 (01:07:34):
You were dead. Oh they're all here again.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Oh every what?

Speaker 10 (01:07:43):
I look at the confetti.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
And look there's mister Spaun, mister spawn. When did he
take up baton twirling?

Speaker 19 (01:07:53):
Hey?

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
Hey spawn, mister.

Speaker 22 (01:07:55):
Spaun, My high school principal didn't take up the time turf.
It's leading the parade for marching past.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
Wow, what an image. How would you like to have
your past suddenly March. Hey, hey, think of that, talk
about a horror mystery.

Speaker 10 (01:08:16):
Not a horror mystery ready a terreb scene of stark
abject terror.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
Speaking of abject terror.

Speaker 10 (01:08:23):
This is w R A M and FM, New York'll.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
Be here until one o'clock in the morning. And among
other things, we have with the paper Book Gallery, and
they have just opened a brand news store on sixth
Avenue right at eighth Street. Well, it's about three doors
off of eighth Street, next to the Howard Johnson, which,
you know, if you really begin to understand what the
Howard Johnson is in American life, when you see it

(01:08:49):
in the middle of the village, there is nothing more
out of place in Greenwich Village than Howard Johnson. It
is totally completely out of place. And it reminds you
of the American Embassy in New Delhi, you know, and
I have a suspicion that Howard Johnson is the tourist embassy.
It's the one thing they can cling to. It gives

(01:09:10):
them one feeling, one small feeling of security. Or right
next door, maybe three doors away, is the new paper
Book Gallery. And one more note, if you haven't done it,
do it it soon, because they are not going to
go much longer. This is going to be the end
of it pretty soon.

Speaker 19 (01:09:27):
And it's this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
If you do not have the paper Book Gallery, the
paper Book Gallery Catalog, put a quarter in the mail
and get it off as soon as you can. Oh,
by the way, when you send for this catalog, you
get more than that. You get about nine pounds of
material that comes in a great, big, fat envelope, And
for at least thirty seconds you will feel vaguely important.

(01:09:48):
When you get this in the mail, and I'll talk
to Marty and we'll see if we can get it
sent in a plain sealed envelope. Then you'll even feel
more important. The one that says adults only and at
the top it's his official bit business. But what this
thing is really it's one hundred and five or one
hundred and six pages. It's a big fat catalog of

(01:10:10):
all the major paper books that are being printed and
that are available from all over the world today, and
they're all available through the paper book galleries. It's a
good reference work. It has thousands and thousands of titles.
All of them are categorized under the theme of the
work involved, for example, poetry, drama, et cetera, et cetera, philosophy, phrenology, chicanery.

(01:10:35):
Oh yes, they're all listed there, and you will find
them listed under subject. And this thing is one hundred
and six or one hundred and eight pages, millions and
millions of titles, and it's all there, and it's just
for a course. As a matter of fact, the quarter
doesn't even begin to cover the expenses involved in making
this thing out to you. And especially if you're a student,
I think you'll find this particularly valuable, and even more

(01:10:58):
so if you live outside of the New York area.
The paper Book Gallery is one of the biggest mail
order paper book organizations in the world today. They mail
their stuff all over the world all the time, and
as a matter of fact, their retail market or over
the counter market is a small, just a small part
of their overall business. And if you don't know about

(01:11:20):
the paper Book Gallery, just drop a quarter into an
envelope and send it to paper Book Gallery, or just
write paper book. That makes it much easier. Paper book
box sixty, paper book box six, oh, New York, twelve,
New York. And don't don't send it off to me,
because I will merely go across the Street and buy

(01:11:41):
two cups of coffee and a piece of pie. It's
paper book gallery, paper book box sixty, New York twelve,
the New York. This is the address, paper book box
six oh, New York, twelve, New York. And then a
couple of weeks shore Oh, and one more thing too.
You will be on their mailing list. That this is

(01:12:01):
not a sucker list. They do not give it to
anyone else. Nor do you know that one of the
big businesses today, of course, is buying lists of one
kind or another. You know that you are on a
list that has bought and sold. Many of us are
on sucker list. And you know they found out some
interesting things about the sucker, and that is that he
will buy time and again on the same thing. So
this business of once burned, that just doesn't work with mankind.

(01:12:24):
It might work with cats, but it just doesn't work
with people. That we have all been to a war,
and we are all just as sure as I'm sitting here,
before all of it is over, before the last page
has been written, we will be to more. But once burned,
it means nothing. Once you're burn you just want to
go back and try it again.

Speaker 19 (01:12:43):
If the old.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
Business of the wet paint and the red button. You
can't help but reach out and touch the red paint.
Nor can you help but touch the red button, the
one that says total destruction, if only to see what
it feels like, the old feeling again. Of course, that
it's going to be all right. You'll start all over
again and start rebuilding. But if you haven't sent for

(01:13:04):
this thing, drop a quarter in the envelope and just
mail it to paper book Box six oh, New York, twelve,
New York.

Speaker 10 (01:13:15):
The uh implications are onerous. And speaking of the onerous,
speaking of.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
The crowd of the honors, stop stop hold it out.
Just put your hand on it, Just hold you put
your hand on it. Look, can you imagine a scene
like this now this since it is late and I
presume that that the chickens are chickened out by this time,

(01:13:41):
and there's just us left. Hey, this is the Labor
Day weekend, isn't it. You know? In in in radio,
people who work in this strange world of television, radio
and showbiz of one kind or another, there is absolutely
no no differentiation made hardly at all of I don't
know one holiday.

Speaker 19 (01:14:02):
From the next.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
Just once you know, I'd really like to have a
Christmas off just once. You know, really, I'm really have
a genuine holiday. Holidays are things which are almost abstractions
to us in this business. It suddenly occurred to me,
this is the Labor Day weekend. No wonder, there's nobody
out there were our big machine here. We have one
of these IBM audience counters. It's a vdor system, and

(01:14:25):
it is just registered that we have seven between seven
and eight listeners tonight. Yeah, it's varying because there's one
guy who is just not He's looking for something he's
not going to find, you know. He keeps oscillating, going
back and forth between that Spanish station way down at
the end of the dial and me. You can't tell
which is more surrealistic, but the business, you know, of

(01:14:50):
the audience. So here it is. It's suddenly it's it's
the Labor Day weekend. This is, dear dog, this is
the end of it all in the beginning of something
else again, beginning of another phase. And we have arrived,
you know, we are we are here, and it's it's
again all in the mind that this Sunday is no

(01:15:10):
different to me than last Sunday. You know, the one
before that, another one before that. But it is in
effect and in actuality different. It has to be, it is,
I mean, it had better making Now are you ready?
Since we've only got seven listening tonight? Everybody else is
out of town, that's in capital. Where do they go

(01:15:31):
when they're out of town?

Speaker 19 (01:15:34):
What?

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
What is out of town? I've never gone out of town?

Speaker 13 (01:15:36):
What is out there?

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
What's out there?

Speaker 19 (01:15:40):
But I know what?

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
Well, I'm maybe it is oblivion out there? But why
do they want to go there?

Speaker 16 (01:15:50):
Then?

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
What what brings them back here?

Speaker 23 (01:15:53):
Then you say, what what?

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
What strange attraction does that out there have? And then
ultimately we have here a great movement. But now this
is the point that we'd like to make, since the
kids are gone, since obviously the chickens have chickened out,
nobody else is in town except us. There is a
certain type of person who will not go out of town,
and here we are. I'd like to draw an image

(01:16:18):
here for you that I think is the kind of
image that most of us are always brushing off, and
yet it's the image that creates us. Can you imagine
about three o'clock in the morning, you're.

Speaker 10 (01:16:34):
Lying in bed, you're just lying and you see and
you've had oh you've slept a little bit and then
you awaken, you slept.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
It's a kind of just a nothing sort of night.
It's not hot, it's not cold, and you're just lying
there flat you see, and just bringing in real or fair.

Speaker 10 (01:16:53):
Almost just a suggestion.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
No no, no, no no no, no much lower than
that much no no no no no no no no,
way down, way way down, way down, way down. So
you can hardly hear it. Way down. Now lower than that,
lower almost off, almost off, even lower than that, now
even lower.

Speaker 19 (01:17:16):
That's good.

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
Now I want this for a special reason. Now bring
it up just a hair now, put your hand on it.

Speaker 10 (01:17:24):
Hold it there.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
Now, I'm showing you how radio production is done. So
you're lying flat out, seeing, you're.

Speaker 10 (01:17:33):
Just lying there and the sheets are kind of clamming
that you haven't changed your sheets since Wednesday. It is
now Sunday. You're lying there looking up at the ceiling,
and once in a while that beam of light crosses,
you know a beam of light the cars passing by, and.

Speaker 2 (01:17:54):
You can hear the Venetian blinds ratsming. A little bit
occasion when the breeze comes in you're lying there flat,
and then something begins to norway. You begin to sense
that there is a sound.

Speaker 10 (01:18:06):
In the air, a sound that shouldn't be there, just
on n three o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 19 (01:18:13):
Sound. Where is that? What a you? Wha? What is that?

Speaker 10 (01:18:26):
It must be somebody's radio.

Speaker 19 (01:18:32):
Don lookt d dot.

Speaker 10 (01:18:38):
And the clock keeps ticking away, just a steady ticking.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
And then the refrigerator goes out.

Speaker 10 (01:18:55):
In the next row, the sink keeps.

Speaker 19 (01:18:59):
Stripping you pdicting caddict deing ding.

Speaker 10 (01:19:06):
A fan of light goes skittering across the scene and.

Speaker 19 (01:19:10):
Down the wall and into the rug king.

Speaker 10 (01:19:16):
There goes another one chasing him.

Speaker 19 (01:19:19):
M deg de do.

Speaker 10 (01:19:25):
Then you drift off just a little bit, yea fully
dream that you can't remember.

Speaker 20 (01:19:33):
You can't see it, and it wake you up again. Yeah,
that's kink ding ding k ding badd dan de break
thick a deen dick adict dee d Whose radio that is?

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
What?

Speaker 19 (01:20:00):
What is there for? Whose radio that is?

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
And then you get out, You walk across the rocket
and you stand looking side where he say the Venetian blinds.
You don't have anything on.

Speaker 19 (01:20:15):
You don't want anybody to.

Speaker 10 (01:20:16):
Look in the street light peers in too clearly.

Speaker 19 (01:20:20):
You look out, you look down at the parking.

Speaker 10 (01:20:23):
Lot across the street. It's empty, of course, it's coming from.

Speaker 19 (01:20:40):
I I. It's I I.

Speaker 10 (01:20:41):
It seems to be coming from everywhere, just everywhere. You
walk away, not Venetian blind. You go into the kitchen,
he drink some milk. You are now awake. You go

(01:21:06):
back into the bedroom. You pry apart the blinds and
look out for real as time, and you.

Speaker 21 (01:21:15):
See somebody walking past down below on the street. And
somehow you can recognize.

Speaker 10 (01:21:25):
'em, even though you're seventy five feet away and it's dark,
you can recognize 'em. It's your third grade teacher, Miss
robbing thattte what can the wordly? She doing a sixth avenue?
This is insane, hey, miss Robin Robin. Oh, can't be

(01:21:48):
it's ridiculous. And she disappears, and another dark, shadowy figure
it's it's mm. That's your cousin Warren. It's your cousin
who was killed in the war.

Speaker 19 (01:22:03):
Oh, this is.

Speaker 10 (01:22:04):
Insane, This is odd, this, this is insane. Whose radio
is a And Wren disappears around the corner, and there's
another shadow we figure. You're afraid to look, but you
can't help.

Speaker 19 (01:22:24):
But you gotta look.

Speaker 10 (01:22:28):
Oh hear, I'm singing. It's all the past.

Speaker 19 (01:22:32):
Oh who is that one?

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
It's the chick she took to the Valentine party.

Speaker 10 (01:22:43):
What's your name?

Speaker 19 (01:22:46):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
Mary Jane Spafford, Mary Jane Spafford for crying out loud.

Speaker 10 (01:22:51):
She is still eight years old.

Speaker 19 (01:22:54):
Hold the devil.

Speaker 10 (01:22:56):
I can recognize her. You stand there and you can't leave.
It stays that way, three o'clock in the morning. And
every one of them, each one of them, every one
you've ever known, every one in your life, goes walking past,
one by one on the dark sixth Avenue in life. Cool. Oh,

(01:23:29):
I wonder when is it my turn? When am I gonna?

Speaker 19 (01:23:34):
When is it my turn?

Speaker 22 (01:23:45):
Look at home, Hope, look at that I Oh no, no,
I'm not here, not her. Oh hey, hey, hey, Wesley,
Hey West do you remember Wes. I'm sorry, Wes for
she's not listening.

Speaker 10 (01:24:05):
I'm listen.

Speaker 2 (01:24:08):
You already been looking out here. Hey hey.

Speaker 1 (01:24:14):
From September tenth, nineteen sixty, shep describes his visit to
Guantanimo Bay, Cuba. Shepherd on the Voice of America, what
would the world think? Drawing objects and really seeing them,
a phone call from a lovable girl and a dynamic
man of action.

Speaker 4 (01:24:31):
I believe that it was in November.

Speaker 2 (01:24:37):
The winds were rising, and out there lay castro land,
dark and mysterious, and the lights of the base were
just beginning to go on on tiny beard points. Get mo,
I'm looking out of the window the porthole of you

(01:24:58):
came back and sat down on the edge to the
steel bunk. In came a commander, a friend of mine
who's developed a tropical heat rash in the last couple
of days. Sweat's popping out on his brow, that intense,
oppressive heat of pre hurricane, which if you've never if

(01:25:21):
you've never experienced, it cannot be told. It's just like
you know something's going to happen, you know it. He
looks out of the porthole a little bit without batting
an eye. He says, six and one half a dozen
of the other. I say, Brad, what do you mean?

(01:25:44):
And all the while, the metal loud speaker hanging on
the bulkhead was playing rock and roll music. I love you,
I love you, my teenage bay, I'll be I love you,
I love you, my bay beef. I gave you my ring,

(01:26:06):
you gave me yours. I love you, I love you,
my bay beef, and the announcer then at the conclusions
number your g b y the Gitmore Radio station, the
US Navy station in Gamo Bay. We now continue the
top forty favorites for all of your semen out there

(01:26:27):
on the USS little Rock, the USS Spring. I love you,
I love you, I love you. And this loud speakers
roaring through the ship, and the gray lowering clouds are
coming in from the east, and the dark, the dark,
and Nigo of Castro Land is looking at us. And

(01:26:48):
all Brad could say was six of one half a
dozen of the other? Six of one half a dozen
of the other? Are you smoking on? Oh God, enjoying it?
Less than you should change to camels?

Speaker 7 (01:27:06):
Tobacco makes the best.

Speaker 2 (01:27:07):
Snowy the one half a dozen of the other. And
by George, she was right. It is six of one
half a dozen of the other. Now, I don't know
whether or not this is a particularly Midwestern expression. Is
this expression?

Speaker 4 (01:27:24):
Has this expression ever been used here in the East?

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
Six of one half a dozen of the other? Do
you realize the philosophy that this thing states, the implications
that it has six o one half a dozen of
the other. It is a deep seated understanding. It's not
a belief, a deep seated understanding that it's all the
same in the end anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:27:48):
Six one half a dozen of the other.

Speaker 2 (01:27:50):
Let me tell you when you're sitting you're sitting in
a tropical bay, and you can see that wind coming
down from the east, Hurricane Donna is approaching, and you're
looking out over that dark glow towering castro land, that
strange enigma, that enigma where the first name basis does
not work. When you sit there on that steel deck

(01:28:11):
and feel that breath of hot air, and then you
go out at two o'clock in the morning and you
throw a line in and you fish for barracuda, and
that light touches the edge of the water and that choppy,
heavy hard water, and you see those fish moving along
down there, just moving along past the iron sides of
that ship. You play around, look a little bit, and

(01:28:36):
you can see the lights out there. You begin to
know what the expression means. Six of one, half a
dozen of the other. I noticed a very fascinating thing
about the first name basis from.

Speaker 4 (01:28:45):
Now that there are few people in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
In fact, I don't know any other people in the
world who are so fanatically addicted to being loved and
liked as the Americans, and almost always on the most
superficial of levels, because in our own family relationships, the
superficiality of our involvement is almost overpowering millions of kids,
millions of adults. It's all, in fact, almost all of

(01:29:12):
our literature, almost all of our plays, are about how
come nobody loves me? How come I can't how come
I can't make it with anybody? I'm such a Why
don't they love me? Why doesn't she love me? And
this is what almost all of our plays are about.
It's fascinating if you've yes, this is speaking of love,

(01:29:32):
This is w O and Enigmas, this is wr AM
and FM New York, And we'll be here until one.
If you are an observer of the theatrical scene, you
realize that almost all of our plays in the last
four or five years have somehow dealt.

Speaker 4 (01:29:50):
With that issue. How come they don't love me?

Speaker 2 (01:29:54):
How come they don't love me? Why? It's a pretty
fascinating thing, you see, Because these little things which we
pick as entertainments, the little night by night entertainment things
are very much indicative of the basic fears that we have.

Speaker 4 (01:30:11):
Even though the writers.

Speaker 2 (01:30:12):
In many cases do not sit down to write about
the basic fears, their basic fears as individuals come out
on the paper. And so it's quite obvious if you
get out far away enough from the chores, that the
desire to be loved that the first name basis is
a terrible thing with Americans.

Speaker 4 (01:30:31):
It's an awful thing.

Speaker 2 (01:30:33):
And as a matter of fact, it shows up in
our newspapers constantly. Khrushav is called Khrush or k by
most of the tabloids here in New York. Why mister
Nixon is invariably called Dick by newspapers.

Speaker 4 (01:30:48):
Who like him.

Speaker 2 (01:30:50):
Kennedy is called Jack by those who like him. Ike
is never anything but Ike. He's just plain old, friendly
golf swing and Ike. And this is a pretty fascinating thing.
I listen to radio interviews as I sit on the ship.
They're constantly being piped through various can programs from the States,

(01:31:11):
and I hear serious type interviewers who sit down and say, well,
this afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, we're very privileged to have
doctor Charles Wattanabby with us. Mister Wattabbi, Doctor Wattonnabby is
the inventor of the semi oscillating rotating elliptical, a new
method of hydro nuclear submission. He's here this afternoon to

(01:31:34):
talk to us about the future of mankind on the
basis of the reciprocal oscillating theories of Oswalt Spangler. Now,
doctor Wattaabby, you don't mind if I call you Frank?
Do you hear on the radio? Of course we have
just liked to you, of course not, of course, not, sir.
I don't mind if you call me Frank. Well, Frank,

(01:31:54):
I'd like to ask you where you got your first
interest in the submission theory of the ulternate nuclear a
duo sonics that you've written such a wonderfully entertaining book
that I heard Jack Parr talk about on the Jack
Parr Show the other day. Frank, Well, Charlie.

Speaker 24 (01:32:15):
There was at the University of Southern California had been
involved in the physical ed program there. In one afternoon,
I inadvertently I attended a physics lecture under the idea
that I was attending physical ed lectures of a little
problem with the cataloging there and by George. Within fifteen minutes,

(01:32:35):
I found myself interested in moments of inertia, where it
was just a few short hops and jumps to quantum theory.

Speaker 2 (01:32:42):
And here I am.

Speaker 25 (01:32:44):
Now I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:32:46):
Very good thing, Charlie. Well, frank it's this fascinating thing.
Our listeners are very intrigued, as you know, by the
whole business of nuclear sonics today, and we'd like to
ask you a little bit about that. But first the
word from our sponsor. Then there is a sixty second poison,
a lot of gamble. Then he returns. Now, Frankie, I

(01:33:09):
would like to I'm sitting out there. This guy hasn't
They don't know, they never will know. They have.

Speaker 4 (01:33:15):
They have worlds completely apart and opposed.

Speaker 2 (01:33:19):
And yet one is Charlie and the other's Frankie. They
belief that is somehow, if you call a man by
his first name, he likes you. Fidel has called Fidel
by most of the newspapers, and the Cubans cannot understand. Well,

(01:33:39):
there's that dark lowering land out there, and you see
that wind. And then later that night, I'm sitting in
the O Club and I'm watching a group of eight
or nine or maybe ten couples people who had been
in this area, the Guantanamo Bay area for a long time.
I don't know whether you know anything about Guantanamo Bay.

(01:34:00):
It's just the big naval base, the US naval base
in Cuba, and it's.

Speaker 4 (01:34:04):
On the far eastern end of the island. You know,
it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:34:08):
Most people think of Havana as Cuba. They just think
of Havana as Cuba, and yet Cuba is a long,
narrow island that's around five hundred or so miles long.

Speaker 4 (01:34:18):
You know how far five hundred stretches.

Speaker 2 (01:34:21):
If you were to go five hundred miles from New York,
where would you be directly down the coast be a
long way from home, and way down the coast from
Havana lies Guantanamo Bay. Between Guantanamo Bay and Havana, which
is the area that's right up near Florida, this is
the Havana area. There is almost a trackless wilderness, great

(01:34:45):
rising mountains, long stretches of plantations, and finally almost nothingness
all the way down in the far eastern end of
the Havana or the Cuban island. Even you can't help
but think of it that way the Cuban Island, and
then that that island points in the general direction of Haiti,
which is just a short distance from Guantanamo Bay Port

(01:35:07):
of Prince. And at the other end of that island
is the Dominican Republic, which is the home of the Trohelioistas.
And so this, this, this semi circular area down that
that that strange web basket of intrigue and motion and darkness,
long glowering, lowering clouds that come whistling down it.

Speaker 19 (01:35:33):
It.

Speaker 2 (01:35:33):
It is an excellent place to suddenly find yourself contemplating
your American naval And I don't mean that, excuse the expression.
It has nothing to do with the US naval forces.
And although it does peripherally, I suppose. And and to

(01:35:53):
to see to see them sitting, you know, here's a
group of eight or nine or ten officers and their
wives sitting around talking. Never once do they ever mention
the strange, very precarious situation of their lives at Guantanamo Bay.
And for days on end, I would talk and listen

(01:36:15):
to them. No one ever mentions it. No one ever
mentions it. And they're planning next week's party, next week's work,
next week's everyone buries himself in work, fantastic work, struggling
and struggling up at three in the morning and tibet
at two the next morning.

Speaker 4 (01:36:32):
Work, work, work, Have no idea how these people work.

Speaker 2 (01:36:35):
And it's I suppose, the one thing that most people
have chosen to forget, you know, to forget.

Speaker 4 (01:36:41):
The more you work, the more you.

Speaker 2 (01:36:42):
Get involved, the better off you are, I suppose. And
this is really an American trait. It's a fascinating American trade.
And so I, in fact took the initiative on a
couple of occasions. This is not what about this.

Speaker 4 (01:36:58):
Sort of a shrug of the shoulders. How can you tell?

Speaker 19 (01:37:01):
You know?

Speaker 4 (01:37:01):
Well, how about what's going on to the Oak Club?

Speaker 2 (01:37:04):
And haven't I.

Speaker 4 (01:37:06):
Rum eh, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:37:08):
And it goes on and all the while, behind the counters,
in all the in all the little shops, and in
all the clubs at Guantanamo Bay and Gitmo are Cubans
keeping their own counsel, selling your cigars, uniforms and hair tonic,
selling you drinks, selling you malted milks, smiling occasionally. And

(01:37:34):
I'm riding in a car with one of them, and
I say, well, what about this? He says sir, it
is not good for me to talk of this. I said,
wh wh wh What do you think? What do you think? I?
I cannot see nothing good coming from it? We well, yes,
but how do your friends feel? I? I I it

(01:37:57):
is not good for me to talk of this. It's
just like trying to talk to some kind of a
crossword puzzle, with all kinds of words going all different directions,
of different lengths, and desparate meanings.

Speaker 4 (01:38:09):
Disparate do you prefer that?

Speaker 2 (01:38:13):
And so in the end you can only look out
at that long gray island and say six of one,
half a dozen of the other, six of one, half
a dozen of the other. And on the way back,
I'm riding along. I'm just drifting along.

Speaker 4 (01:38:27):
And I just came back here.

Speaker 2 (01:38:29):
By the skin of my teeth, helicoptering over from one
island to the next, and finally grabbing a MAT's plane
and whistling in down here, just around the hurricane and
above it, and sailing on one wing until finally here
we are back back in the land where there's a
sign that hangs. There's a sign that hangs on a

(01:38:49):
parking lot at forty third and second Avenue. I saw
this not more than a half hour before the show.
Not responsible for anything.

Speaker 4 (01:38:59):
That's all a signed And I thought, bye, Georgia, I
am home.

Speaker 2 (01:39:07):
I am home because it's going to be a gay
theatrical season. I am home because the musicals are going
to be more musical than ever. The small cars are
going to be bigger.

Speaker 4 (01:39:18):
I feel good about that.

Speaker 2 (01:39:19):
I read a little note on the paper on the
way back. I pick up an old paper, says Charlie W. Brownson,
head designer of the Watanabe Motor Car Company, which made
quite a little splash with its new compact car last week, says,
We're going to be the first compact car to give
people wider seat room, longer foot room, bigger headroom, and
larger motor room, the first compact car to slip down

(01:39:43):
the hill again. And he said it with a ring
of joy in his voice, and I knew I was
home again. Yes, sir, that's my baby. No, sir, I
don't mean maybe, yes sir, that's my baby now. Oh
by the way, Oh by the way, No.

Speaker 4 (01:40:01):
Don't dude. Look now.

Speaker 2 (01:40:05):
Look what I'm merely saying is that it is six
to one half a dozen of the other Did they
ever use that expression here in the East, did they really?

Speaker 4 (01:40:15):
They did?

Speaker 2 (01:40:16):
Hey, then we're on firm, solid American grounds. You and
I both understand each other, right right, Tolreno. I'll never
forget the time my program was broadcast over the Voice
of America.

Speaker 19 (01:40:29):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:40:29):
This was seven or eight years ago, and I was
doing a program in Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 (01:40:37):
I got a call one night from a man. He said,
Shepherd down from the Voice of American and we're putting
on programs of unusual quality. We'd like to broadcast them
around the world to let people know that we don't
only have just guys that play the top forty, we
don't only have guys that sit around and interview other guys.
And we'd like to put the show on. I said fine,

(01:41:00):
And so they recorded about ten or twelve weeks of programming,
and that's the last I heard of it until one
day I got a letter from a friend of mine
who was an engineer in a Voice of America transmitter
somewhere in the far far flung East way off someplace
way out there, hanging on to the edge of China
or someplace India, and he said that he was sitting

(01:41:23):
at the control board one day and all of a sudden,
who comes on but shepherd, shepherd going along there, saying
six on one, half a dozen of the other right rooney, Yes, sir,
that's my baby. It's going to be all right, folks everywhere,
it's going to be okay. Just don't rock the boat.
And he hears this coming out of that loud speaker,
and racing above me was a man with a high

(01:41:44):
pitched voice translating the right of William Smith. He's translating
me into urdu baby. Yes, folks, yes sir, that's my baby.
And then I sang, yes, sir, that's my baby. No sah,

(01:42:06):
And he was right.

Speaker 6 (01:42:09):
Runny, way out wait running, And it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:13):
Was weird thing.

Speaker 4 (01:42:14):
He said, great Scott.

Speaker 2 (01:42:16):
And and the only image that that I could that
I could draw out of this was two tribal two
tribal men, two ancient herders, sitting in their goat skin
tent somewhere up near the Afghanistani Pass with their camels
grazing quietly next to the tent on little rocks and
pieces of dirt. And they're sitting there and their ancient

(01:42:39):
wheezy battery radio is picking right. Yeah, it's gonna be
all right, folks, What did they think, those urdu Urdic tribesmen?
It was broadcast I understand later in forty seven languages.
Out there in that dark void, which is described by

(01:43:01):
many people one of the most fascinating feelings that you
get when you get away from America and see all
those things. The Lebanese coast, you see Beirute, you see Damascus,
you see it. You know you walk. Have you ever
wondered what the ground feels like when you're walking along
the Damascus road? You ever wondered how the water tastes,

(01:43:25):
for example, in crete? And they have water there and
just like we had Yah. The world is a kind
of myth to many people, and to those who who
do the touring, it is a show. It's kind of
like a big show that disappears when they come back
to the States, and the voters by and large look

(01:43:47):
upon that dark void out there as and this is
in Capitol. There's the rat hole into which you pour
your money.

Speaker 4 (01:43:57):
Yes see, that's my baby, don't mean maybe?

Speaker 26 (01:44:05):
When it comes to flavor, Winston has a difference. The
difference is filter blend, and only Winston has it filter blends.

Speaker 2 (01:44:16):
The reasons why Winston.

Speaker 26 (01:44:17):
Tastes good like a cigarette should. Yes, today smokers, No,

(01:44:41):
it's what's up front that counts. An upfront ahead of
the filter. Only Winston gives you filter blend rich golden tobaccos,
specially selected and specially processed for true full flavor and
filter smoking.

Speaker 4 (01:45:00):
It tastes good like a cigarette should.

Speaker 2 (01:45:02):
Trial Winston. Good morning, friendly natives out there, is there
is there anyone out there who knows or.

Speaker 4 (01:45:12):
Who has any idea of.

Speaker 2 (01:45:15):
What the This goes back into dark, dark long passageways
in our history. You know, America has been dotted with
all sorts of aphorism creators. And what generally passes for
wisdom in America is merely the repetition in new forms.

(01:45:37):
And when I say forms, I don't even mean they've
been changed in content. I mean in new formations, the
repetition of these various aphorisms, the constant pleffor of books
on how to live successfully positive thinking took my way
right all the way up to the top, and I
found that there are twenty eight flavors there are, and oh,

(01:46:01):
a man of hard driving energy you.

Speaker 4 (01:46:02):
Can get to there that point at top.

Speaker 2 (01:46:05):
And of course the aphorisms, the aphorisms are are a
substitute for really looking at the world and thinking about it.
So wisdom today has become a kind of mixing around,
shifting of all these various little aphoristic jingoistic ideas. Every
day and every way, I grow better and better. This

(01:46:27):
is obviously not true, patently untrue. Every way and every day,
each of us grows older and older, and the glands
grow less and less active, the muscles grow less and
less ready every day in every way. However, on the
other hand, I grow better and better, and the mind
grows more and more like a concrete.

Speaker 4 (01:46:48):
Block in most people's cases.

Speaker 2 (01:46:50):
But nevertheless they repeat every way, every day I grow
better and better, until finally get you get to the
situation like this kid, Did you read this little news
note the other day? Only in our time? Believe me,
I am collecting a million of these things, and I'm
putting them in giant file cabinets, which I will bury
two hundred feet deep six minutes before I finally kick off.

(01:47:12):
This is going to be my own time capsule has
nothing to do with newsreels of Elsa Maxwell, has nothing
to do with filmed interviews of Jack Parr talking to notables,
just you know, kind of an attempt to preserve what
it really was like.

Speaker 4 (01:47:26):
And listen to this. This is what it really is like.

Speaker 2 (01:47:28):
Please please, I'm met a cotton music. Please. This is
a note from Louisville, Kentucky, A note that comes out
of the dark void.

Speaker 4 (01:47:38):
The home of the land, the home of the brave,
the land of.

Speaker 2 (01:47:42):
The brave and the beautiful. I've often felt that there
will be a day when somebody will rewrite national anthem,
the Home of the board and the land of the beat.
Here is a note from Louisville, Kentucky. Nestling on the
Sylvan shores of the Ohio River. Out there in the

(01:48:05):
deep inverted bowl of the Midwest, beautiful blush country strides
stretching from one end of the horizon to the other.

Speaker 10 (01:48:12):
The breadbasket of our vast continent, this beautiful country.

Speaker 2 (01:48:19):
Louisville, Kentucky. A sixteen year old youth sentenced to life
in prison, said he turned to crime quote well, because
there was nothing interesting on the television and nothing to do.
Harold Lee Howard has been in and out of jail
since he was twelve. He will serve at least eight

(01:48:39):
years in the state reformatory before he is eligible for parole.
Howard was sentenced yesterday in criminal court after pleading guilty
to armed robbery in connection with the tavern hold up.
We because there was nothing interesting on the television.

Speaker 4 (01:48:58):
Nothing to do.

Speaker 2 (01:49:09):
Body. Oh yes, another note this from New York City.

Speaker 4 (01:49:15):
Of the Babylon of our time.

Speaker 2 (01:49:18):
The heart, the heart, the nerve center of the thinking people. Right,
I say yes, right where the thinking is New York.
If a new teacher fails to adjust properly to the
community and the school system, he can create an unfavorable
public image for himself and the schools. Doctor W. W. Thisson,

(01:49:42):
professor of Education at Marquette University, reports nothing about education.

Speaker 4 (01:49:50):
Nothing about what he says.

Speaker 2 (01:49:52):
Reminds me of the little news note that appeared in
Time magazine about the guy who was teaching school up
some in northern Michigan Peninsula and he had read Albert
Kim Hughes The Stranger. Do you know what cam Hu
was saying? Do you know what he tried to say
to people? And he had five or six youngsters in

(01:50:15):
his class who seemed to be above average, and so
he recommended that they read Commune The Stranger. He was
fired forth right and sentenced to ten days in jail.
Nothing on the television, Yes, nothing on the television.

Speaker 4 (01:50:36):
So I kind of got bored.

Speaker 2 (01:50:39):
Figured out godon and knockle off that SO station down
the corner, and little excitement. And then after that I'd
buy Linda Jaya mart big old big boy Hamburger. We'd
take a ride in my four to seventh fud and
we'd had four or maybe Lexington. Maybe go up to Sincy,

(01:51:04):
go on Vine Street and juke it up a little
bit and have a ball. There's nothing on television. Course,
nothing to do around here. Figure I'd go down and
knock off the s O station. Well, of course, I
teach you miney funny guy, a strange kind of public image.

(01:51:26):
Nothing do around here, not even in good television. To
to to. I have a feeling that one hundred years
from now, psychologists are going to call this the w
P A T syndrome. Yeah, in MA and LL for dreams.

Speaker 4 (01:52:06):
It's a Jim.

Speaker 2 (01:52:10):
I am a carnivore. You're speaking of carnivores. It's there's
a fascinating new development. Of course, I've always been I've
been fascinated by the by the growing spread of turnpike ism.
To me, one of the great isms of our time

(01:52:31):
is the drive, the urge to build roadways that have
no beginnings, no ends, that you just go, go, go, go.
The basic restlessness of man knows no bounds, Just go.
This is turnpike ism. Giant roadways that you can that
are so high up off the ground that you can't
see the land on either side of them. You know,

(01:52:53):
you can ride practically from coast to coast now on
turnpikes and not see a single living human being that
is not wearing a Howard Johnson form. Just you whistle
across the land because you secretly hate it in one
way or another, even though you proclaim your love for
it constantly. You never look at it.

Speaker 4 (01:53:11):
You know, you've never to you said, never look at it.

Speaker 2 (01:53:14):
I'll never forget the looks on the faces of the
natives of a little town called Highland, Indiana. Have you
ever heard of Highland, Indiana? Highland, Indiana was a little
crossroad town outside of Chicago that used to have these
gigantic traffic jams every weekend. People are all there and
they're buying watermelons and arguing, going into the drug store
and having a lemon Coke, and they're sweating, and they're

(01:53:35):
all in the middle of Highland, Indiana until one day
it was announced in the state capitol that they were
going to build a giant viaduct as part of the
state highway turnpike system. And of course, up to this point,
all the people in Highland, Indiana had been mad at
the tourists every weekend, and all the tourists had been
mad because they had to slow up in Highland, Indiana

(01:53:55):
because of the stoplight there, these stoplight they a common enemy,
of course, was these And then the day came when
they put the via oct over. There hasn't been a
person in Highland, Indiana for centuries since. They just stayed
around with your water manage, nothing to do but looking television.

Speaker 4 (01:54:12):
This is w o R Radio, your station for news.

Speaker 5 (01:54:18):
Here comes the vand with a brass buttoned high stepping
march version of a Shaper beer song.

Speaker 25 (01:54:30):
In the best of circle.

Speaker 2 (01:54:50):
That it's fair food in the past, Serve.

Speaker 5 (01:55:07):
You're a band of friends, first beer, pleasure, every beer through,
Serve Schaeffer all around.

Speaker 27 (01:55:15):
This is w R seven ten and w r FM,
New York Old and operated by RKO General at the
w o art time signal exactly one o'clock.

Speaker 17 (01:55:33):
James McCarthy reporting for up to the minute reports. Stay
tuned to this station now the news. Uncle Sam decided
it would be better a fred Premier Khrushchev and his
one hundred and thirty five man Communist delegation intent on
visiting the United Nations stay close to the UN from
the time they arrive.

Speaker 2 (01:55:52):
The official word is that the Red leader.

Speaker 17 (01:55:53):
Cannot travel off Manhattan Island, where the UN building is located.
Peter Tulley, press officer for our State Department, tells us
of the United States decision.

Speaker 9 (01:56:02):
The question of assuring the necessary security for mister Khrushchev
and the Soviet delegation has, of course been complicated by
the hostile public statements of the head of the Soviet
government and by the destruction of an American plane over
International Wars by Soviet action and the continued illegal detention
of two American flyers. The United States government therefore requests

(01:56:27):
that arrangements be made for mister Khrushov to reside in
the closest convenient proximity to the headquarters of the United Nations,
and that his movements other than those connected with a rival,
and departure be limited to those required by his official mission,
not beyond Manhattan Island.

Speaker 17 (01:56:46):
It was also learned today that the President of the
United Arab Republic, Gamal abdel Nasir, will attend the forthcoming
UN General Assembly session in New York. It has been
commented that the UUR leader is coming due to outside
pressure from the left.

Speaker 2 (01:56:58):
More news in a.

Speaker 5 (01:56:59):
Moment, when excess stomach acid brings on painful heartburn, remember
in a way no other ant acid does. Choose and
choose alone stops acid pain in the heartburn zone.

Speaker 2 (01:57:13):
It's a medical fact.

Speaker 5 (01:57:14):
Choose the chewing gum and acid stops acid pain in
the heart burn zone. You see other and acids quickly
go into your stomach right through the heartburn zone higher up,
but chewing Choose releases two proven medicines and a steady
flow that effectively soothes away acid pain in the heart
burn zone and goes on to neutralize excess acid in

(01:57:35):
your stomach. Choose brings fast, thorough relief as no other
ant acid does, and chooses minty refreshing and no chalky aftertaste.
So next time you suffer heartburn from too much acid,
remember choose and choose alone for acid pain in the
heart burn zone, try it. Choosehooz the chewing gum ant acid.

Speaker 17 (01:58:04):
The United Nations Command in the umbattled Congo's breathing somewhat
easier today as a result of an official decree from
the Congolese military command that all native soldiers lay down
their arms and end the bloody warfare in that trouble
torn nation. If obeyed, this order would end the fighting
in Kasai Province, which broke out again last night, and
then Premier Patrice Lamumba's planned invasion of secessionist minded Katanga,

(01:58:25):
where this section was being initiated at the request of
Congo President Kasavubu. Premier Lamumba once again demanded that UN
Secretary General Doc Commershuald and his aides stop interfering with
the Congo's internal affairs. He also said he still wants
white UN troops to get out of the Congo. Hurricane
Donna brushed past Miami area today with rains and heavy
wind gusts up to ninety seven.

Speaker 2 (01:58:44):
Miles per hour.

Speaker 17 (01:58:45):
The tropical storm is now headed toward the northeast and
Tampa Bay area, second most populous in Florida, hurricane flags
continue to fly along the Florida coast for more than
three hundred miles, and residents are worn to prepare for
the deadly Lady. A new communist drive has been reported
in the in America Today in Form sources claim that
the Reds are making all possible plans to infiltrate and
cause the downfall of the government of Salvador, a pleasant

(01:59:07):
little country of coffee lakes, volcanoes and hardworking people. Salvador
has already witnessed a number of communist style disturbances since
last month. That's the news, James McCarthy reporting.

Speaker 2 (01:59:19):
Listen, everybody, Charlie's going to be sociable.

Speaker 23 (01:59:22):
Now is the time to refresh without filling. So enjoy
a pepsi wherever you are. It's the light refreshment.

Speaker 2 (01:59:28):
But Charlie, is that being sociable?

Speaker 19 (01:59:31):
I know?

Speaker 2 (01:59:31):
Okay, the song says it better, I think, So stay.

Speaker 23 (01:59:37):
Here, be sociable, Have a pepsi, always have enough pepsi
on hand, Get extra cartons, get a case, be really sociable.

Speaker 25 (01:59:49):
This is wr Radio, your station for you, real direct.

Speaker 27 (02:00:15):
This is w o R seven ten M w o
R f M, New York, one of the stations of
r k oh General.

Speaker 4 (02:00:25):
Like a marin Freud.

Speaker 2 (02:00:27):
Uh, we're here until one o'clock this morning, this afternoon,
tomorrow yesterday. If so facto in ha particular conk in
s spit Louk, I will award the brass figulig. Now
this may have I've heard about five lines in my
life as a kid that impressed themselves very greatly on

(02:00:50):
my mind, like a waffle just shoom stuck right down
in there, and I will award the brass figligi with
bronze oak leaf palms. If you can tell me who's
said in s gricular conk in s spittel Lauc, this
is a famous radio line in st spittle Lauc, you

(02:01:14):
would say, I will ward the brass figligy with bronze
oakley speaking of brass figligees. Very fascinating little development here
in radio. There's been a lot of talk recently about
radio of doing this and going up and down and sideways,
and a couple of years ago, uh there. Of course,
the transitions that have gone on have been part of

(02:01:38):
the radio scene are almost cataclysmic.

Speaker 4 (02:01:41):
It's it's difficult to understand.

Speaker 2 (02:01:42):
And oh, one point that has impressed itself upon me,
and that is that we have a tendency to separate
people from the things they create, including radio. A large
number of people will say, well, yeah, I mean, but
the radio, the race is terrible, and people will let
me say that it's terrible because the taste of most

(02:02:05):
Americans is pretty bad.

Speaker 4 (02:02:08):
This is an unfortunate fact of the matter.

Speaker 2 (02:02:11):
Movies turn out the dream world because this is what
most people want. And I know the old argument says, well, yes,
but you created it. No no, no, no, no. One
small group of people cannot create a whole national psychosis.
Just impossible that Hitler couldn't have been Hitler unless large
numbers of Germans secretly felt the way he said his

(02:02:33):
philosophy was conceived. In other words, you just don't create
a whole image like that. It has to be there
in the beginning. It's another one of the great dreams
that Americans seem to have more than most people, is
this that we can separate the governments of every nation
that we don't like from the people. In other words,

(02:02:55):
Khrussehav doesn't really represent the people of Russia. That the
Communist gme there is really not the Russian people, and
it's this great illusion that we can separate the things
that have come out of the people from the people themselves.
That Hitler didn't represent. All the Germans know that Castro
does not represent the Cubans. Well, this is a questionable

(02:03:18):
thesis that Ed Sullivan and Jack part do not represent
American taste.

Speaker 4 (02:03:23):
Oh yes they do, of course they do.

Speaker 2 (02:03:26):
That the people we elect president represent our taste rather
than our thinking. It's a matter of taste, it's a
matter of disposition.

Speaker 4 (02:03:35):
And you can never.

Speaker 2 (02:03:36):
Separate what people do on a large scale from what
they really secretly want. And television is the way it
is because most people secretly want it this way, even
though they protest loudly about it.

Speaker 4 (02:03:49):
And this is quite true of radio.

Speaker 2 (02:03:52):
And there has been an interesting little development that that
is the development of specialty programming in radio. And all
sorts of advertisers are backing various programs that are considered
non commercial in the ordinary sense.

Speaker 4 (02:04:06):
Now, what is a commercial program.

Speaker 2 (02:04:08):
Commercial program is not necessarily a program that doesn't have listeners.
A commercial program is considered a program that quote doesn't
really sell goods. Well, of course, this is a questionable
thesis too. What they really mean is quote a program
that isn't immediately bought up by sponsors. That gets quite complicated,
this double think that goes on within the area of

(02:04:30):
public or mass communications. And the thing that I would
like to note here is that more and more really
fine sponsors are beginning to use specialized programming in radio.
Here's an example of it. When I first came to
New York, there was one place that I wanted to
go and did for a short time. I'll tell you

(02:04:51):
this by way of a kind of confession. I am
a frustrated artist. I mean not painting type. I love
to do line drawing.

Speaker 4 (02:05:00):
This happens to be my particular disposition.

Speaker 2 (02:05:05):
I've fooled with oils, I fool but the thing I
enjoy I enjoy drawing. I love to draw, and I've
been drawing ever since I was about three when I
began to work on pumpkins.

Speaker 4 (02:05:15):
I was a pumpkin man all the way up through
my fifteenth birthday.

Speaker 2 (02:05:19):
I used to occasionally draw airplanes and once in a while,
ocean liners. I was great with ocean liners. I love
to draw ocean liners coming directly at you. Well. When
I came to New York, which was about nineteen fifty,
four fifty five. The first thing that I did was
to enroll in a couple of choruses. You'll find my
name and the roles there at the Art Students League.

(02:05:40):
This is a world famous institution, and that's on fifty seven,
so you've probably walked past it a million times. But
there are a lot of things about the Art Students
League which many people do not understand, and one of
them is you can enroll anytime.

Speaker 4 (02:05:55):
It's not like a regular school. This is a school
for artists.

Speaker 2 (02:05:58):
You can enroll anytime, you can drop any time, you
can change instructors anytime, and you can go as long
as you like, and you can study what you like.

Speaker 4 (02:06:07):
And the history of it is interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:06:09):
It was eighty five years ago that a small, a
little tightly knit group of art students formed this organization
called the Arts That's why it's called the Art Students.

Speaker 4 (02:06:18):
League of New York.

Speaker 2 (02:06:20):
Back around the time when the expressionistic field of painting
was beginning to flower, gigantic, great billowing smoke was rising
out of Europe. The American artists formed the Art Students League,
and their idea was to was to help each other.
Their idea was to train one another, not train really
but work with one another. You know. It's a very

(02:06:40):
interesting thing about drawing. I've worked with artists. The most
recent artists that I have gone out with and spent
some time sketching around with is Don Kingman, who's a
superb watercolorist who, by the way, has the cover on
the current Reporter magazine, A Reporter, by the way, I
think consistently has the best covers in America. And Dong

(02:07:03):
we were talking about drawing, and it's funny, you know,
when when a man draws and you watch him draw,
you learn a great deal of about the way his
eye works and the way his brain works. It's what
a man sees. This is This is really the essence
of all drawing. It's what you see. It's not how
it is that you put it down on the paper.

(02:07:24):
It's what you see. If you see the essentials in
a form, even though you can't draw, you will get
the essence of that creature down. You know, many of
the finest artists, many of the great for example, characters,
not really caricatures, because I don't particularly fall into this area,
but many of the of the fine sketchers that we have,

(02:07:45):
the pen and inkmen often are not really good drawers.
They have fantastic eyes. They can see what their world
is like. They look they look at a chest of drawers,
and they see that chest of drawers, They really see it.
Most people walk through life and never really see much that.
If I were to ask you to describe now here's

(02:08:06):
an example of that. Now, all of you go into
your office. Are large numbers, large numbers of you go
to your office every day. Probably some of you have
been going to your office for maybe ten or fifteen years.
Can you describe to me the doorknob on the door
to your office.

Speaker 4 (02:08:23):
Can you tell me what color it is?

Speaker 2 (02:08:27):
Can you tell me what metal it's made of, how
it feels in your hand, what shape it is. Very
few people really see the things they live with. Thet
They couldn't come near to drawing a telephone because they
hardly ever look at a telephone.

Speaker 4 (02:08:43):
They hardly ever see the curves of a phone and
the block.

Speaker 2 (02:08:47):
The chunkiness, the solidity, they kind of aggressive rockiness of
a telephone.

Speaker 4 (02:08:53):
If you could just draw that rock you don't have
to draw.

Speaker 2 (02:08:56):
The details, you know, the little wires and the little
knobs and the little dial. It's that rockiness everyone would say, oh,
that's a telephone. Right away, they say, what a great telephone,
because you have gotten what the telephone says, not the
little visits of the eyelash. That's why when most people
draw up people, they get all hung up with eyelashes
or how in the year you see, because they never

(02:09:17):
really honestly see the person. They don't see the tilt
of the neck on an individual, they don't see the
way the person holds his shoulder. All you'd have to
do would be to just draw the line of the
neck and the shoulder, and you would have a perfect
picture of anyone. You know, you don't have to fool
with the nose and the eyes and all this. But anyway,

(02:09:38):
we're getting into this business of drawing. All I can
say is that one of our new sponsors is the
Art Student League. And if you have a little vague
interest in drawing, I think you will find this a
fascinating way to spend the night or two every month.
I think, really it'll open your eyes to looking at
the world. This is the first step at looking at
the world is to look at objects. To look at

(02:10:00):
the way a chair kind of stands out and other
chairs retreat are you aware that some chairs retreat from you?
Other chairs represent humans more than any other thing.

Speaker 19 (02:10:10):
I know.

Speaker 2 (02:10:11):
Some chairs crouch, other chairs sort of sort of lurk,
and other chairs stand there very aggressively, and they just
stand there and when you're sitting on them, you're not
really sitting on that chair. That chair is allowing you
to rest on its knee for a bit, you know.
And there are chairs that just lay flat and just

(02:10:32):
say I am here, I am Come and take me.

Speaker 4 (02:10:36):
It is very fascinating thing chairs.

Speaker 2 (02:10:38):
And if you look carefully at chairs, you can see
a lot about the backsides of the people, you know,
and also the just to look at a glass, to
look at a spoon. It's a great, great esthetic thrill
to suddenly discover the world of vision. And this is
the thing, I think, more than anything else, that you

(02:10:59):
get when you go to a really reputable and I'm
not recommending any sure course or sure track to becoming
a seeing individual, but you will be surprised what you
don't see. And if you would like to find out
something about the Art Students League, which I don't even
have to discuss their reputable standing in the field, their

(02:11:21):
addresses two fifteen West.

Speaker 4 (02:11:23):
Five to seven.

Speaker 2 (02:11:24):
They're right near Carnegie Hall on the uptown side two
five two one five West fifty seven. And if you
would like to get an illustrated eighty page booklet about
the Art Students League, which is one of the really
great institutions in its field. It's the largest in the world, incidentally,
and one of the most respected in the world, send
a note to Art Students League at WR New York eighteen,

(02:11:48):
New York at Art Students League, WR, New York eighteen,
New York, or you can call them at Circle I
think the best thing to do is just call them.
I am not a writer myself. Call them at Circle
seven and there's nobody going to come out and grab
you off to a life class. That just sends you
the brochure and tell you when you can register and

(02:12:08):
what you can take. And I think you'll find it
a ball. It's Circle seven, four or five one. Oh.
You know. I'd like to say this that my feeling,
such as it is for the world, what little I
might have, and it's always a tiny bit compared to
what is offered, began when I really began to look

(02:12:29):
at things. And I'm saying things because the minute you
look at things, you understand more about people, because people
create things in many ways in their own image they do.
A sterile chair represents in many ways this sterile outlook.
A sterile glass just standing there, a nothing glass that

(02:12:51):
is used by a large number of people represents a
nothing attitudes. Nothing attitude towards glass really does, and that
means also, of course, towards yourself in some ways I'll
never forget. When I first went to Europe, one of
the intriguing things that I noticed, first of all was
the great difference in the tiny things that are found

(02:13:14):
throughout Europe, the great difference from those same tiny things
that we have here. For example, soap dishes look very different,
believe me, in Dublin than they do here. There's a
completely different concept of a soap dish. The faucets that
pour hot water into the washing bowls in a Dublin

(02:13:34):
hotel do not look like the faucets we have here.
There's a there's an ornateness, there is a sense of
bugles blowing and trumpets going every time you turn on
the hot water, because it is much more of an
event there. Hot water is just accepted here, you know,
just a thing you have. That's all.

Speaker 4 (02:13:52):
Well, a sink that's in the.

Speaker 2 (02:13:55):
House that pours water is a comparatively new and interesting
and very dramatic thing to the Irish. So they have
dramatic faucets. Think round gold faucets and you turn it,
the water comes out and it's an incident. Well.

Speaker 4 (02:14:10):
Telephoning is another thing too that you find in France.

Speaker 19 (02:14:13):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:14:14):
For example, the French have very flowery telephones because the
French are very formal people when they talk back and forth,
and so their telephones have mother of pearl handles on them.
Their telephones have little golden, little golden garlands all over them,
and they're all sorts of carved wood handles and things.
And talking to somebody there is much more of a

(02:14:35):
formal affair. They even have formal forms of their language usually,
so it goes all the way through the telephone. Telephoning
here is much more very official sort of things. See,
and it's a kind of let's say, impersonal personalization. And
so our telephones are called personalized because we can get

(02:14:57):
them in six different colors. Eighty seven billion pe people
of course have the same colors, but it's called personalized.
No one would think here in America of really having
a truly personal telephone, like one with a pair of earplugs,
a plug into your ears and is made of whalebone,
you know, made of whalebone, with a great big pearl

(02:15:19):
horn that looks into your face and has two eyes
painted on it.

Speaker 4 (02:15:23):
Now, this would be a real phone.

Speaker 2 (02:15:24):
You know, you could sit there every day and talk
to the phone God. And the phone God is the
next and by the way, is already growing as a
deity in our society. There will be a phone God
within the next ten years. Well, as a matter of fact,
you know that there is now a saint that controls television.
You know this is a well there will be a yes,
oh yes, there's a saint that's in charge of television

(02:15:47):
and acting and the theater. Well, there will be a
saint in within the next hundred years. I think that
we'll have something to do with telephone conversations, you know,
which is a modern art form here in America. It's
a it's it's I have a feeling that, you know
how a hundred years ago they would collect the letters
of certain people like O. Henry Adams and the Wallpole

(02:16:10):
and so on. We're known for their great letters. Well,
the men of today will be known for their great
telephone conversations. Some guys pour their whole personality into that
little plastic knob there that they talk into, and they
have no personality outside of that. You come in and
you see him, and I sit there kind of sweat
and look.

Speaker 4 (02:16:27):
But get him on the phone.

Speaker 2 (02:16:29):
You know, they just sort of they just ooze through
those wires and it's it's their art form. Just as
many artists are nothing when you see them. Many writers
are terrible in person. I mean they they are in
moral a lot of ways. I mean they they're cruel,
they're angry, they're they're selfish, measly people. But give them
the paper and they suddenly become the real hymn you see,

(02:16:50):
which he wants to be, and he pours it all out. Art, incidentally,
is largely a means of translating the human soul into
form that it doesn't take. It's largely transmuting lead into gold,
or conversely, often it's making gold and to lead. And
so the artist who might be a very secretive, little nasty,

(02:17:15):
mean person in life, in real life, who is cruel
to people, who is very dishonest, who is Oftentimes a
person of very very questionable basic mores becomes a completely
reversed person on the paper. And it's always sad to
a lot of people who read certain artists or who

(02:17:35):
look at their paintings, who say, Boh, I'd sure love
to meet that guy. He thinks just like and he
and I why he's why, you know, And they meet
this guy and he's sitting there and he's flashing people
with whips.

Speaker 4 (02:17:50):
Well, of course he only loves on the paper.

Speaker 2 (02:17:53):
It's like that problem we talked about a couple of
weeks ago of the East seventy liberal who is only
liberal as long as the waiter brings this stuff real
quick and the bootblack cleans his shoes perfectly all the time,
then he's then he can be liberally. You know, speaks
incessantly of it. Speaking of the incessant speak, this is
w O, R, A, M and FM. And I'll be

(02:18:14):
here until one. If you would like to call the number,
it's circle seven four five one oh. Just pick up
the phone and call them and say, excelsior, I would
like to tell you that this booklet no, I better
not circle seven four or five one oh. It's the
art students League, and you can you know, speaking of

(02:18:37):
art forms, of course, you know that one of the
major art forms of our time is the turnpike, and
it's completely losing control of itself, just like we are losing.

Speaker 4 (02:18:45):
We're losing the point of many things today as.

Speaker 2 (02:18:48):
We get further and further. I remember reading a beautiful
essay by Edmund Wilson about the whole business of sex,
and Wilson, who I think is one of the most
and certainly one of the most perceptive and consistent social
commentators in America. Wilson was remarking at great length in

(02:19:09):
this particular little booklet. And incidentally, if you're interested in
this book, I would like to recommend this to you.
Last week, when I went to the opening of the
new paper Book Gallery, which is on sixth Avenue, right
next to the Howard Johnson's, right down to the Tourist
Embassy at sixth and eighth, I went in there and

(02:19:30):
I did something I've always wanted to do. I made
the first purchase in a new store, and I walked around,
I looked at things, and I finally selected Edmund Wilson.
I had been looking for this to come out in
paperback and there it was, and so I bought it.
And the title of it is a Piece of My Mind,
A Piece of my Mind Reflections at sixty by Edmund Wilson,

(02:19:54):
and it is the reflections of a mature man who
has read, who has seen a great deal of the world,
and who now has arrived at a point where he
feels he can say something about it. And one of
the things he was talking about was the whole business
of sex in America, particularly, which has become a kind
of ritualistic business. All the plays are written about it,

(02:20:15):
and the whole point of it has been lost. It
has been completely lost in most of our activities in
the field. And this was really driven home to me
when I'm looking at a paper this morning getting ready
to go on the air, and it was the yeah,

(02:20:36):
it's an ad for one of the companies here in town.
I don't know which one it is. Is one of
the stories which we will not mention, but it's a
store that sells women's clothing. And this is an example
of just exactly what Wilson was talking about. It shows
a whole group of Brigide Bardout type line drawings and
all these chicks sitting around and they're wearing bras and slips,

(02:20:58):
that's all they're wearing.

Speaker 4 (02:20:59):
And there's all all.

Speaker 2 (02:21:00):
Kinds of these little line drawings, all these girls, you know,
the ponytails saw and looking very extremely Playboy magazine ish,
And there they are. And it's an ad for school clothing,
new school clothing for girls. And the heading of the
ad says, the lovable girls get ready for school. The

(02:21:20):
lovable girls are presumably, of course, there are other types,
or else there wouldn't be any such statement made. The
lovable girls get ready for school. And then in the
little subheading it says, it costs so little to be lovable.
It costs so little to be lovable. And this is

(02:21:43):
a fascinating thing that we seriously believe that we can
become lovable by buying the right things. And it doesn't
really cost very much to be lovable. And I'm surprised
now when I see this. It has dawned on me.
There's been little bells ringing in my head. This is
literally quite true. Many people honestly do feel they can

(02:22:04):
buy their way into being lovable or charming, or honest
or reliable or sober or industrious. As a matter of fact,
I fully see in the future, I fully see different
courses on sincerity. It really doesn't cost much to be sincere,
to be honest.

Speaker 4 (02:22:21):
Take our new.

Speaker 2 (02:22:22):
Thirteen week course Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays and honesty.

Speaker 4 (02:22:26):
You'll find it.

Speaker 2 (02:22:27):
It's fun. It's really no problem at all. It costs
so little to be lovable girls. Is there is there
a girl out there who honestly?

Speaker 4 (02:22:37):
Who honestly?

Speaker 2 (02:22:38):
I just want to hear one girl who is really lovable.
Will a lovable girl who is getting ready for school
give us a call? I'm sure that all of us
this is purely from a laboratory standpoint. This is really,
honestly just a laboratory example. I just want that, very
very I'd like to talk to a lovable girl who
is getting ready for school, who has spent very little
in being lovable, but who has made judicial person and

(02:23:00):
has been unable to therefore become the lovability model of
all those around her. Is there a lovable girl with
us this morning? Come on now, Oh, don't be bashful,
I really want to know. I would like to talk
to a lovable girl. Come on, and while we're waiting
for the call to come in now, we won't use
your name. We just seriously want to know whether there's

(02:23:22):
a lovable girl. I would like to recommend that if
you are going to make the village scene, that you
drop into the New paper Book Store, which is a
beautiful little store and I understand has been a raging
success the first week. This is a little store that
is on sixth Avenue. It represents the culmination of a

(02:23:42):
lot of work and sweat and effort and dreaming on
the part of Marty Geisler, the guy who who is
the operator, owner and conceiver of the whole paper book
gallery idea. You will find a news store right on
sixth Avenue. Just goes straight down sixth Avenue into the
village and at sixth and eighth Street. It is on
the west side across sort of an angle cross there

(02:24:04):
from the subway station. It's a door to downtown from
the Howard Johnson's there. This is the New paper Book
Gallery and they're open until two o'clock this morning.

Speaker 4 (02:24:15):
Else swinging thing.

Speaker 2 (02:24:16):
They have millions and millions of titles there or another thing.
They have another thing. They now have in the original languages.
They have paper books from over twenty five countries in
the original languages. If you're interested in Portuguese or Spanish,
or French or Italian, you'll find the original volumes, the
original printing, the original in the original language on sale there.

(02:24:40):
It's a very intriguing place to visit, and I think
you'll find the paper Book Gallery in a sense, has
become a kind of institution in the village, much more
than just a place where books are sold. Their other
galleries are over on Sheridan Square at tenth Street where
tenth hits Seventh Avenue South, you know this area, And
then right down the ste there's one at third Street,

(02:25:03):
third Street, right off right back of the NYU campus
and right next to the paper Book Gallery, which is open.
And as I said, though two there is Ying and Yang.
Now I'm constantly getting calls from people after the show
asking me to please give them the address. Well, don't
call and ask me look it up. So it's saying

(02:25:25):
calls you get. So. I had a crazy thing happen
about a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 4 (02:25:32):
I came into the station very late. I was doing
some work here and it's.

Speaker 2 (02:25:37):
A wild thing. Suddenly the phone rang in the office
and one of the girls who was working here picked
up the phone, and it was about midnight or some
crazy hour like that. Picked up the phone and says, hello,
what And some woman is calling up the radio station
to ask Jeane Shepherd, what the what the address of
Ying and Yang? As I said, I said to the girl, well,

(02:25:57):
tell her to look it up on the book.

Speaker 4 (02:25:59):
For crying out loud. I'm not Ying and Yang. I
may be ying, but I have very little yang in me.
I mean.

Speaker 2 (02:26:04):
She says, we'll look it up, and the woman got
very angry. I wonder whether or not Jack Parr gets
calls from people asking him to please tell him where
I can buy buffering, I mean, or does Jerry Moore
get on the phone and have to argue with people
whether whether or not the big size of Saltha paddock
is better than the small size.

Speaker 4 (02:26:26):
I don't know what it is.

Speaker 2 (02:26:27):
Do I seem to be particularly vulnerable or what? I'm
afraid so I'm just like a human pin cushion here.
I would like to recommend that if you are going
to make the village scene, drop into Yin and Yang.
It is really a nice little restaurant and you'll find
them at eighty two West third Street. If you don't

(02:26:47):
remember where it is. Look it up in the phone book.
Please do not call me. Eighty two West Third Street,
ying and Yang. It's very simple. It's you get on,
get in a cab and say take me to Third Street,
eighty two West. All there is to it, you can walk.
Just get down, get off on the sixth Avenue subway,
get off and walk east on third Street and you

(02:27:10):
get there. That's all very simple. And they are open
on Sunday. They have a bar there, and their food
is magnificent. And one thing I would like to again
recommend highly even if you don't buy anything else there,
just go in and have a plate of their chicken
wing or dirbs. They are magnificent, really something.

Speaker 4 (02:27:28):
Out of the ordinary.

Speaker 2 (02:27:30):
Just go in and have this and go and please
wear a jacket, by the way, I mean please, yeah,
just just for me, you know, No, I don't give
a darn. I mean really, go in your sackcloth and
ashes for all I care. Incidentally, Macy's by the way
is showing a wonderful line of sackcloth and ashes, sport coats,
little pockets for the ashes, and made a genuine sackcloth

(02:27:52):
that scratches. And they're also bringing out a wonderful line
of hair shirts. As you know, we're having a little
truck with conscience and one thing another in America, and
so some of the best sports were people in the
country are taking advantage of this and giving us a
chance to wear off our frustrations. And I think of nothing.
I can think of nothing better than a beautiful dark

(02:28:14):
gun colored hair shirt to wear down to the office
under your regular shirt. You're thurn. I have a reminder
of the mortality of man, the basic sinfulness of all.

Speaker 4 (02:28:27):
It costs so little to belove.

Speaker 2 (02:28:29):
Is she there? Well? All right? We now, ladies and gentlemen,
have a lovable girl on the phone. Now I don't
want any kidding around. Now you really are lovable? Now wait, now,
just a minute. Now, you say, who feels that you're lovable?

(02:28:49):
They feel that you're lovable. Well, when did you first
become lovable? Madam?

Speaker 4 (02:28:54):
A good many years?

Speaker 2 (02:29:00):
You are?

Speaker 4 (02:29:00):
You do think you're lovable?

Speaker 6 (02:29:05):
All right?

Speaker 2 (02:29:06):
Uh? When you first began to trade in lovability? Did
you find that you had success from the very start?
It took a number of years to build up the
know how of lovability. It's not easy than to be lovable.

(02:29:32):
I see, well, do you agree with this ad that
says it costs so little to be lovable?

Speaker 4 (02:29:39):
You don't agree with it.

Speaker 2 (02:29:40):
You mean it does cost a lot. You're really not lovable.

Speaker 25 (02:29:49):
I don't think.

Speaker 2 (02:29:51):
Now, wait a minute, are you chickening out? And Adam,
are you saying to me that you're not truly lovable?
You're just playing at it.

Speaker 25 (02:30:02):
Inside?

Speaker 2 (02:30:04):
I see, I see. Well that's a very uplifting, madam.
I mean I I don't mean this as a play
on words. It had nothing to do with this ad
we're talking about. But it's a very uplifting madam.

Speaker 4 (02:30:15):
And uh, I find that girl that you want to
hear from somebody who's.

Speaker 2 (02:30:25):
Oh, you've proved that you're lovable by having two children,
they see. Thank you very much, ma'am. Okay, thank you,
dear uh interesting, I think, George, uh all, all right now,
I'll tell you then as long as as we've uh

(02:30:47):
talked to a lovable girl, you heard what you had
to say about lovability. I'm also intrigued by another thing.

Speaker 4 (02:30:54):
Recently.

Speaker 2 (02:30:54):
I have been noticing ads in more and more areas
that say dynamic men of action really no power. Like
I'm driving along the other day and there's a great
big ad for a gasoline, and it shows this guy
who looks kind of mad, and his eyes are sort
of sort of crinkly, and his skin is leathery, and
he's wearing his shirt torn open at the neck.

Speaker 4 (02:31:15):
It wasn't it wasn't unbuttoned, it was torn open.

Speaker 14 (02:31:17):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:31:17):
There's kind of a big tuft of hair coming out,
and he's sitting there and his hair is cut real short,
and above him it says men of action and dynamic courage,
no real power. Obviously, guys who are mad and have
have narrow eyes and tear their shirts open know all
about gasoline octanes. Now I'd like to talk to a

(02:31:38):
genuine man of action, a dynamic man of action out
there who knows power. Also who knows real cigarettes because
he's a man of action. You know, we have this
feeling about men of action who know about cigarettes and
who know the real taste of real beer, and who
know the subtleties of the various gas lean octanes that

(02:32:01):
are available to the less. I have a feeling that
in the end, ed, you know that in the end,
there is going to be a special gasoline for the timid.
I mean, because most of the world is composed of
the timid, and there's going to be a picture this
little mister peepers type. And it's a shy, retiring man, know,
the kind of gasoline that gives them the safest, most

(02:32:22):
secure feeling of trailing the pack the easiest possible way,
and it throws out a wonderfully comforting smoke screen behind
you as you go. No one will see where you've been.
Is there a man of action out there? More lovable girls?
Oh well, I don't mind talking. Excuse me? No, no, well, oh,

(02:32:45):
we don't have time to mess with.

Speaker 4 (02:32:47):
This is lovable things.

Speaker 2 (02:32:48):
And while while while we're trying to get through to
a man of action who honestly knows.

Speaker 4 (02:32:52):
Hey, did you read that great little bit? I'm telling
you we are getting we are getting really out on
the limb. We are getting to be a in a way,
We're goingning to be something like right out of Alice
in Wonderland.

Speaker 2 (02:33:05):
Did you read about what happened in the Turnpike? This
is all also, by the way, going into my own
time capsule, here's a little note comes from Miami. Now,
there is no place that is more drive in Motel
Turnpike conscious state than Miami. That whole business. In Florida,
all the turnpikes are going everywhere now, and listen to
what happened in Miami. It says there is a new

(02:33:27):
multimillion dollar expressway providing swift north south travel to the
western end of the city, but motorists can't tell where
to get off. The State Road Department explained that a
shortage of aluminum tubing has delayed erection of directional signs.
Guy eight miles out to see You know, it's like

(02:33:50):
a flywheel you get on the turnpike. I'd ever tell
you about the time I got on the turnpike once
looking for Valley Forge, and I wound up a little
bit west of Harrisburg. You get on this giant machine
and you just keep going. You can't stop. You know,
numbers go past, and it doesn't make any difference. After
a while, turnpike travel becomes a phenomenon in itself.

Speaker 4 (02:34:09):
It isn't where you're going to that counts.

Speaker 2 (02:34:11):
The reason they didn't put the directional signs up there
was this a Freudian thing, obviously, because the direction isn't important.
The travel is the most important thing. Getting on the
turnpike is more important than getting off the turnpike. Getting
off the turnpike means you're out in that rotten old
world out there, you know, where people have holes in
the street and they fist, fight and argue and sit

(02:34:33):
in hedges and glower and smoke short fat cigar. You
know you don't want you want to be on this
smooth concrete ribbon to paradise wherever that is, you know.
And so the idea of putting up the directional signs
only comes as an afterthought.

Speaker 4 (02:34:48):
Believe me, have you ever.

Speaker 2 (02:34:49):
Wondered why so many turnpikes you can't tell where you're
going half the time. You whistle right back, and you
whistle past at one hundred and eighty miles an hour
past these little it'sy bitsy signs that are set there
because going there is not really that important.

Speaker 4 (02:35:02):
It's being on the turnpike that's important. It's much more important.

Speaker 2 (02:35:06):
Why more guys talk about their vacations in terms of
how far they went, how much gas mileage they got,
how fast they got there, how many hours of travel
one guy did? The final thing? Did you hear about
the guy that spent his two week vacation on the
turnpike here This past summer. In fact, it was this summer.
It was in June or July. He got on the

(02:35:27):
turnpike I think it Willow Grove outside of Philadelphia, and
he headed his car west and he just continued to
stay on the turnpike for two full weeks and did
not turn his ignition off once. He went something like
ten thousand miles on turnpikes, just drove round and round
and round. He saw more turnpike signs, more big signs

(02:35:47):
that say slow up, more big signs that say sixty miles,
but resume speed. That's all he saw his whole two
week vacation, and he was given coast to coast news.

Speaker 4 (02:35:56):
Notice about it.

Speaker 2 (02:35:57):
The most idiotic feet I've heard in years. I saw
nothing but Howard Johnson's for two solid weeks. And the
kids who are sitting in the back, and his old
lady's sitting next to him, and they're all sweeping out
this great adventure boy. Just just see this guy, you know,
he's on that Miami Turnpike and he's doing the drag

(02:36:20):
goes past him, there, goes in alpha past him. Palm
trees are whistling. It's been now four hours. He has left.
He has left West Palm Beach, and it's been four hours.
They should have been twenty miles past Miami already. The

(02:36:45):
kid in the back seat and he stops. Shut up
with him. There goes a helicopter whistling over him. In
The helicopter is from the local radio station, and every
once in a while it breaks into his radio set
and says.

Speaker 15 (02:37:07):
Here traffic commissions on the Great Northwestern Eastern Southern Highway
from Gama Traffic Circle seventy four. An accident at traffic
Circle fourteen and Clover, Levania, brought to you by the
International Automobile Insurance Coordination of the Maria.

Speaker 2 (02:37:30):
We will be back in five minutes.

Speaker 8 (02:37:32):
I'm just spotting into the raption and we'll give you
the details.

Speaker 2 (02:37:35):
I'm finding.

Speaker 4 (02:37:40):
Guys whistling along.

Speaker 2 (02:37:46):
Now, look, why don't you tell us that back?

Speaker 8 (02:37:48):
And then last Howard Johnson for KLANA.

Speaker 15 (02:37:53):
Is Charlie Brown reporting from our auto rotating helicopter.

Speaker 2 (02:37:58):
We are now Clover four Oh what madness, Oh what madness?
Whither goest though? And then finally, did you read this
beautiful movese note that came out of Long Island. Listen
to this guy? Can you please give me my American music.
This is an American odyssey. Not only are the turnpike

(02:38:21):
drivers in Miami whistling on far down into the keys
just by sheer momentum inertia, but listened to this one.
A motorist who sought to recover fifty cents in tolls
that he had paid and the hutcheson River Parkway was
in jail today because he had written quote a threatening
letter to the State Highway Department.

Speaker 4 (02:38:43):
The motorist, Walter M.

Speaker 2 (02:38:45):
Weber, a thirty four year old handy man, was arrested
yesterday at his home and Uniondale, Long Island. He acknowledged
having written the letter because he felt he said he
felt impelled.

Speaker 4 (02:38:57):
Quote two flint from my rights and more money.

Speaker 2 (02:39:02):
According to the police, the letter contained a threat that
mister Webber would steal some dynamite and blow up the
Westchester County Roadway unless his toll payments were returned.

Speaker 4 (02:39:12):
I'm gonna blow it off.

Speaker 2 (02:39:14):
I'm gonna from dynamite, now blow it up. Mister Webber
said that three weeks ago, while taking a quiet pleasure
ride with his mother and his aunt, stopped at a
parkway tollgate to ask directions. According to mister Webber, He
gave the attendant twenty five cents and received a set
of confusing instructions that brought him back to the same

(02:39:34):
toll booth forty minutes later, this time from the opposite direction.
He said. The collector then stuck out his hand and said,
give me more money, demanded a second toll. Judge Albert
Seymour ordered him committed to the Nassau County Jail in
East Meadow in Lure in view of a five hundred
dollars bond. I'm gonna blow it up.

Speaker 4 (02:39:59):
Hey.

Speaker 2 (02:39:59):
You see, he made the great mistake of not realizing
the basic reason for turnpikes. Mister Webber, I must tell
you you don't fit. The basic reason is not to
get somewhere. Get that out of your head. It's to
be on the turnpike. That's the basic reason for turnpikes.

Speaker 4 (02:40:20):
Get it out of your head, cut it out.

Speaker 2 (02:40:23):
Stop thinking of cars as things to take you from
one place to the next, things to sit in on
your big old fat duff on the big old overstuffed
cushions there and just sail. Get it out of your head,
mister Webber, Poor ol mister Webber's not hearing us. He's
in his cell where they don't allow radios. Born ap

(02:40:50):
a pleasure ride with his mother and his aunt. His
mother and his aunt, the dream the American. I see
sixty miles basic limit, twenty eight miles to the next restaurant,
gas filled station.

Speaker 4 (02:41:11):
Repairs handy, Yes, sir, that's my baby knows. Oh you
mean there's somebody out there. We're making this.

Speaker 2 (02:41:29):
I'd like to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, we're doing
a laboratory survey today to contact lovable people who are
being made as you know, the object of many great
advertising campaigns recently. And I hope do we have here
a dynamic man who understands true power? I see, Hello, sir,
you are dynamic. You are dynamic?

Speaker 4 (02:41:52):
Well when did you?

Speaker 2 (02:41:53):
Would you please speak? It's very discouraging to hear a
dynamic man speak in such an almost in all double voice.
So hit it, man. You've been spending ten since a
gallon more than your car can use. How do you

(02:42:15):
mean that?

Speaker 14 (02:42:21):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (02:42:21):
Well, I see?

Speaker 2 (02:42:23):
But doesn't it give you an additional feeling of power
and genuine dynamism? Though when you have that extra octane
in the tank, you still can't hit more than forty
even with the extra octane. But you must have it.

Speaker 4 (02:42:42):
But yes, I understand what you mean there.

Speaker 2 (02:42:44):
In other words, the power is there, and that's enough.
It's enough to know that it is a comforting feeling
in this in this day, sir, of crumbling morals and
the ideals. You know, you realize that President Eisener recently
had to appoint a committee to decide what America's ideals were.

Speaker 4 (02:43:04):
You've heard about that, haven't you.

Speaker 2 (02:43:06):
Well, it sounds to me like you'd be a good
man to talk to this committee because obviously you have
found something that you can hold on to through the
additional octane in your gasoline. Right, do you feel that
your life has taken on a new direction since you've
discovered that your let's say, your stream of life is
directly connected with your gas tank.

Speaker 19 (02:43:28):
I'm getting somewhere.

Speaker 2 (02:43:30):
I don't know where I'm going, but well, thank you
very much, sir, and we hope you get there. We
hope you get there soon. I thank you, sir. That
was a dynamic man who just called him to tell
us his basic philosophy of life. And could you hear
him out there? It's very sad to relate that this

(02:43:53):
dynamic man did not hit the mic very hard, but
I think that he was, you know, the spirit was there.

Speaker 4 (02:44:00):
Speaking of the spirit, if you would.

Speaker 2 (02:44:02):
Like to fly the coop, I don't know whether or
not there is much coop flying done lately in this neighborhood. Anyway,
it has been a long time since I've really flown
the coop myself. But if you feel the urge to
fly the coop and really do it up brown, I
would suggest that you contact your travel agent and do
it via luft Hansea. In fact, they have a special

(02:44:22):
flight which leaves on Wednesday, called the Fly the Coop flight,
in which all the windows are shrouded and every passenger
is given dark glasses as he comes aboard. His name
is cleverly disguised in the manifest lists, and he'll be
able to make it without so much as even the
breath of scandal. So I would suggest you contact your

(02:44:43):
travel agent at Lufthansa and find out how you can
get to Central Europe without anybody in the block being
even aware that you. You know, that's the saddest thing
of all, really, when you come back from some wild
place and you get back and you find that nobody
even knows you've been going, nor do they care. I
walked into the station and ask, but I just left
Cuba twenty four hours ago, and I said, oh, oh,

(02:45:03):
for crying out loud. So you know, I mean, it's
not quite the same anymore. But yes it is. That's
the secret. So why don't you do it? Via Lufthansa.
I mean this is an airlines, I mean an airline.
You move through the air with the greatest of grace

(02:45:24):
and speed like an arrow. The'll flyest under the sun, scuttling,
scurrying over the face of this this moving sullen globe
like an arrow, a silver dart in the air, and
all this for the price of an ordinary passage. Make
it roofed, Hansese, and go right to Munich and begin

(02:45:44):
to you know, just sit for a while, a little beer,
and then head off into the Alps.

Speaker 4 (02:45:53):
Looft Hans.

Speaker 2 (02:45:55):
Now, look, I know, I know it's connected with the
same problem.

Speaker 4 (02:45:58):
You gotta go, You just gotta go.

Speaker 2 (02:46:01):
In fact, man's basic restlessness has been one of the
On the other hand, you see, there are two ways,
to two incidental ways to look at this. It's like
it's like the way it's like the way old Freddy.

Speaker 4 (02:46:13):
It's like the way old Freddy put it. Oh was
it Lonnie?

Speaker 2 (02:46:16):
Yeah, I think it was Lonnie, Old Lonnie when they
when they put the thumb on him baron Mowiview and
he was dragged, kicking and screaming away and he was
incarcerated in the local jug and finally sentenced for life imprisonment. Well,
and yes, I did it because there was nothing good

(02:46:37):
on television. It wasn't really much do around here. So
Jenny little mee, we'd just gotten it. And now forty
six Hudson, the old forty six Hudson the mind, he
really goes, he really Bear's got dual cobs. We went down,

(02:46:58):
we knocked over that s O stage. Of course it
did it because there's nothing much to do action, nothing
much on tailor Vision. This is WR Radio, your station
for news.

Speaker 25 (02:47:13):
New for you, for you, for you.

Speaker 5 (02:47:17):
The Journal American announces a dramatic million dollar expansion program
for the Sunday edition. Eighteen new attractions for all the family,
with many of your old favorites now on the Sunday
Journal American for the first time, here is a new
concept in service for newspaper readers, A new dimension never
before explored by any New York newspaper. Read A full
page family Guidance Forum with latest information on health, beauty,

(02:47:40):
home decoration, childcare, good manners, romance, social problems. A full
page of top fashion tips with photos of latest fashions.

Speaker 4 (02:47:54):
Bab bah bah bah boo bee bah babbo bah bah babbo.

Speaker 25 (02:48:00):
Bab bab.

Speaker 2 (02:48:05):
Bab bab bab bab b b b rap up Uh,
hey baby, it's itsy bitsy me ba b.

Speaker 13 (02:48:30):
Ram mambo.

Speaker 2 (02:48:34):
Nada. May I ask you A pertinent question that occurred
to me today at the office. A pertinent hypothetical question.
Rat I am in great voice tonight? Baby? You realize

(02:49:01):
that if I could play something, I could be a
fantastic jazz musician because I got all these great ideas.
But I can't play nothing.

Speaker 13 (02:49:10):
Doo doo doo doo.

Speaker 2 (02:49:12):
Dow do dood.

Speaker 4 (02:49:16):
Listen to Chromatic.

Speaker 2 (02:49:25):
See. I'm sitting on my dof today trying to outlive
my lunch, feeling fat and rotten. I had been out
with the guy from the cuttinger agency, and we had
been laughing it up and drinking it up, and it
occurred to me, see when I'm sitting here we're over

(02:49:48):
at Li mamre tone lou mahmi tone, which is as
you know, expense account heaven?

Speaker 4 (02:49:58):
Are you listening to me? The chickor reno.

Speaker 2 (02:50:02):
Hey, you look fantastic without your pants, Bubba. That's why
they invented Venetian blinds. Baby bah bah bah bab. You
always have the feeling that you can see through them,
but you really can't. You know, I'm really belting it

(02:50:29):
out here. Oh you mean you really want to know
what my pertinent hypothetical question is. I did not know
that you had heard me. This is an unexplained pleasure
needed and I might say considerable surprise.

Speaker 4 (02:50:50):
You know, I don't know what it is why I
have this.

Speaker 2 (02:50:53):
I have this uncontrollable I have this uncontrollable tendency to
be sarcastic.

Speaker 4 (02:51:05):
Okay, here it is. I have come back from lunch.

Speaker 2 (02:51:09):
I'm sitting there he boo bah bah boo bah bah boo.
By that listen, Mulligum has no ideas that I haven't
had before Mulligan had him well blah bah boo boo
boo boodie bah bah boh bean. He was just lucky
enough to have an old man who bought him a
baritone sacks when he was nine. My old man bought
me a pair of shoes with a pocket for a

(02:51:33):
knife on the side. Who he immediately disarmed me. He says,
no kid's gonna carry a knife and his shoes in
my family. So I went around with a clothes pin
in that pocket, put the flap button down. It looked
like I had a knife. I'll never forget the time

(02:51:57):
that Estra Jane finally reached over across the aisle, unbuttoned
the flaps, is can I use your knife? And pulled
out the clothes pin. Yeah, do you do? That was
when I began to hate my old man. It has
not stopped since. All right, So it's twenty dollars an
hour it costs. I mean, it's good for laughs. So

(02:52:19):
twenty dollars laugh is a better laugh than a three
dollars laugh. Hee boom bah bah boom ba, especially when
you're laughing at yourself, you know, and your old men
do do do do, and everybody around you. Bah bah
bah bah bah boo boo boo bah bah de bah

(02:52:40):
boo boo boo boo.

Speaker 4 (02:52:41):
Boo boo b oh.

Speaker 2 (02:52:43):
By the way, why is it that you not only
put the bolt across the door with the chain, you
double locket and you put a chair up against it.
What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that if
somebody gets into this place it's gonna be I mean,
like Johnny bar the door. You will not, are you?

Speaker 4 (02:53:06):
I mean just a little suggestion, of course. I'm I'm
I'm getting off the subject again.

Speaker 2 (02:53:12):
Ba ba baby, I'm razmatazz to it. You see he's searching.
Now that's supposed to be a great He's not making
it there hear him. Whenever I feel like I'm not
doing it, I put this one on, you know, and
I can I can hear both of them fooling around

(02:53:33):
trying to you know. Bah booh bah bah bah bo
bob b d oh. All right, you want it now
my pertinent hypothetical question. Okay, see I come back, I
come back from lunch. Ah bye ba bo ba. I
like endings bye ba boo.

Speaker 23 (02:53:53):
Uh boy oh wow wow wa wow wah.

Speaker 2 (02:54:06):
I just pours out there like it's on sliced peaches.
Ba ba did well now here it is. I am
sitting on my duff after I have had this fantastic
fried soul in bouter Wire, Molier Moliere, Rimbo Rambo, Rimbaud.

Speaker 1 (02:54:34):
Well, that's it for air Checks this week. We will
have more Gene Shepherd next week. I can't always tell
how long each episode is going to be, but we
keep on doing this until we hit the last episode
in nineteen seventy seven. Air Checks is normally a three
hour podcast uploaded weekly and can be heard every Sunday
on the k TI Radio network. See you at the
same time and same channel.

Speaker 2 (02:55:05):
That's