Episode 120, April 19, 2025 - Jean Shepherd Show Marathon, Part 14 - Airchecks

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Welcome to air checks. Here is more of the Jane
Shepherd Marathon on w o R in New York City
from September fifteenth, nineteen sixty four, a remote broadcast from
the Disney exhibit in the Eye b M People Wall
at the New York's World's Fair.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
A Nigerian native would think, going through this jungle section
here of Walt Disney, Anna, well, it's Papa and the
yard wide. We are now moving into another dark, dank cavern,
making a big right hand turn, and ahead I see
an enormous ballet of slightly drunken penguins.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
I'm not sure it's pepsicola.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
They've been drinking, but they are swinging and it's all
part of this peculiar. I guess the word really would
be almost surrealistic.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
Or anthrope morphological.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
World of Walt Disney.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Air is an enormous plastic dragon holding a golden umbrella.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Over his head.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
The air is becoming icy cold now, and as we
move into the Arctic section of the World of Walt Disney,
we wave a farm Farewell, who knows where we will
land next? You careful that Mexican volcano it is about

(02:02):
that we erupt and now I am standing in front
of the IBM People Wall, under the shade of the
stainless steel trees that, through the beneficence of IBM, provide

(02:22):
a little shade out here in this great, vast wilderness
of machine metal and sun known as the New York nineteen.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Sixty four World's Fair. This people Wall, by.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
The way, fulfills the deep psychological urge that mankind has
always been prone to, and that is the desire to return,
if at all possible, to the pre natal state. The
enormous IBM egg is resting above us. In just a
few moments, this vast throng of people who have come
from far and wide are about to be swallowed up

(02:56):
by an egg. They're providing a deep psychological sense of
satisfaction as IBM, through its vast technical resources, has finally
made possible man's eventual return to his pre beginning state. Now,
in just a few moments, I believe the people Wall
is about to ascend.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
It's a wild sight, let me tell you. It's as
though you're.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Looking at some great canvas painting with thousands of grant
wood faces peering out at you. You can see the
look of the solemn Baptist. You can see the look
of the angry protester. You can see the look of
the sullen man who gave up years ago to a
defiant life. You can see children hanging there. In short,

(03:41):
you are looking at a cross section of all of
mankind about to be swallowed up by great Mother IBM.
Just outside of the pavilion here, the fountains are going
full blast, the American flag is flying high, the sun
is beaming down, and there is a peculiar air of
fearful expectancy among the people here who are on the

(04:03):
people Wall. Somehow, the concept of a people wall reminds
me of China and the great ten thousand mile Wall,
where millions of peasants gave up their blood to provide
the sustenance of that great symbol of antiquity. We here
in America are not to be outdone by the older civilizations,
and we're moving forward. In just a few moments now

(04:25):
the people Wall will rise. The egg is ready, it
is yawning above us, and in just a few moments,
this great mass, this moiling throng of humanity, will be
swallowed up and become the veritable yoke in a great
seed of praise to Americans' technical prowess and its superiority
in the field of business machines.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Let's see, now.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
There goes an airplane on its way over to LaGuardia.

Speaker 4 (04:53):
There goes a helicopter overhead.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
And now the machinery. Here we hear the sound of
a bell. Now this significant. The people are tensing. Now
the stainless steel trees are rustling quietly in the fall breeze.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
I don't know whether or not.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
They've arranged for the foliage on the stainless steel trees
here to change with the seasons, but I suspect that
next year, after all the bugs are ironed out of
the fair, that might probably be accomplished. The fountains are
rising through crescendo. Now there is a note of restlessness.
Now I detect among the people and the people wall.

(05:28):
It is as though they are being held from the
egg itself.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
This is a period of tenseness.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
As many of you who will go to analysts know,
the business of attempt to go back.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
To your origins is not easy.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
It's always attendant with all kinds of problems of one
kind or another. I see high atop the people wall
a delegation, but appears to be a small Iowa town.
Their box brownies are clicking furiously, and the sound of
film being expended is one one of the more comforting
sounds out here at the World's Fair. I suspected underneath

(06:04):
it all the Eastman Kodak people have a hand in
many of the vistas. That's one thing that must be
said about the fair. They have cleverly.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
Marked all around the fair what they call.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Picture spots that have all been precomposed so that all
the proper things are shown in the pictures.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
When you get home.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
There are no drunks by the way, lying under benches
in the picture spots.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
Here at the fair, I.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Can hear now, yes, yes, here is a is a
what appears to be a mechanical man.

Speaker 5 (06:33):
You hear today, You know I always got a kick
out of any.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Of the freds on some of your fate.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
This is a mechanical man who has been lowered from
the shell of the egg, and he is now suspended
in a strange mechanical contrivance and looks somewhat like a
gas burner hanging over the edge of the people wall.
The people This is the information machine that looks really
at what it called out here is the IBM egg.

(07:02):
Nobody is listening to him, by the way, as they
sit there. That's interesting to watch. As the pitchman tells
him about it, they all sit and scratch and look.
It's one good thing you got to say about people.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
They're not so.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Easily They're not as easily lead as the great pitchmen
of the world seem to think. They're just sitting there,
resting their bunions for a while and digesting their hot dogs,
and they're planning on the pizza immediately following the show
in the information egg, here at the IBMS, and here
they're going.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
To now watch this.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
This is a great sight. I say, don't go into
the IBM show. Just stand and watch the people all rise.
It's fantastic here they go. Listen hear the sound they
ruse in the oyds.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
As the people rise into the great yoke of.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Mother IBM, the breeze is blowing, cooling out through the
stainless steel foliage, and the people wall is slowly rising
out of sight to display a gigantic American flag hanging
symbolically over our electronically controlled fountains.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Ave Ave and peace be with THEE.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Enjoy your ride into the great great yoke of the universe.
Goodbyeo people wall We shall return to.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
THEE on the morrow.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Dear, dear, and now, as the gentle sound of the
Transcribe music emitting from the manyfold colored waters of the
Fountain of the Planets, we are standing in the sunlight
next to the Claireal exhibit, where thousands of short, fat ladies,

(08:54):
girdles creaking, stand in line under the searing hot sun
to try their hand at six very colored wigs. How
will you look as a redhead or a blonde, or
a brunette or a ravishing, dark eyed, flashing girl of
old Spain. See yourself in a new hair color, in

(09:18):
a new hairdoo. And above the Clareal exhibit there is
a garland of what appears to be stainless steel, tastefully
painted irises with pennants of a medieval hue floating high
over them and back. Silhouetted against it is a revolving
symbol of America's simplest five cent candy, the Life Saver.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Oh, by the way, right next to the Clareal exhibit.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
I don't know whether it's done deliberately or not is
the scott Paper exhibit. They have many products, but this
is this is a one one. Again one of the
more interesting sides of the fair to watch these women
standing in long lines here and they have a big
sign that says no men allowed. But I don't know

(10:04):
many men who would even care to come, although I'm
sure that there are a few that have tried to
crash the line. In fact, I know that some have
actually gone through, But that's another story. It's the Clearal exhibit,
and I'm curious. This is the thing that immediately occurs
to me here is this is probably closer right here.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
This kind of.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Feminine mistake and this gigantic feminine egotism that is shown
here at the Clearal exhibit is probably more significant as
an exhibit than anything else that I've seen yet at
the fair as a.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
Commentary on our culture.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
That I don't see an exhibit that says, men, try
yourself on a new two pay How would you look
with sideburns?

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Men?

Speaker 2 (10:49):
How would you look with a bristling set of George
Bernard Shaw whiskers?

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Now, this is a female world out here, and.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
I suspect that archaeologist looking at this exhibit digging up
this one a thousand years from now would realize immediately
that he has uncovered.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
An actual religious temple.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
And you can hear the music building up in the
background now and we're looking out over the lagoon and
the Fountain of the Planets.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
The women continue to move.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
In in a long, solemn, totally mirthless line. This is
a line that is a very serious line. Charlie is
being called. God knows where Charlie is, and actually only
God cares.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
And so now once again we return to our.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Surrealistic tour of this peculiar pop art exhibit known as
the New York World's Fair. By the way, one thing
you can see from this side, this lady's side of
the lagoon, which is the Claial exhibit, you can see
a direct shot through the Equitable Life Assurance Society of
the United States demograph or demo graph, as I heard

(11:58):
a guy from Iowa pronounce it the other day. It's
an enormous scoreboard just to tell you how bad the
population is getting in the United States. And that, coupled
with the Clareal exhibit, gives you some idea of the
effectiveness of the fertility right. That is undergone out here,
and so we hope to God you find Charlie honey.

(12:18):
We are now moving on to another one of the
areas of the fair.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
From October sixteenth, nineteen sixty four, remembering L. Pierce as
a poor salesman. Selling seeds is not an easy task?
Why painters drink too much? Parts of the opening and
closing themes have been deleted.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
Where how's the little group tonight? Eh?

Speaker 2 (14:00):
O are things going out there in Western society?

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Hey?

Speaker 2 (14:07):
Our things going out there tonight? In that great void
of darkness there?

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Eh?

Speaker 4 (14:19):
Is the little group still together? The old gang?

Speaker 6 (14:25):
Do you feel those little tentacles of understanding and love
extending from your little pad to the little pad seventeen
thousand yards to the left and fourteen feet above that
little silent magnetic.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Line of force, that magnetic line of transistorized electronic love.
Would you like to find out that you're the only
one listening, the only one.

Speaker 3 (14:59):
There's just me you, there's no group at all?

Speaker 4 (15:04):
Would you like to find that out?

Speaker 7 (15:07):
I can't be sure, all right, I've d a's how
are things going in the group?

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Of course, we have an insensate desire to be part
of a group. I remember one time Miss Shield's talked
us into selling seeds, and about seventeen kids immediately raised
their hands and said they were going to sell seeds.

Speaker 4 (15:39):
Well, I have a terrible, terrible it began.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
I must have been I must have been six months.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
Old when I discovered I was the world's rotten salesman.
I am just not only not a good salesman, but
I break out in the rash when you know when
you come up, do you remember what was the name
of that of that comic who used to come on
and he had the big thing about being a salesman,
And there was the scene where he would come up
and you would hear him coming up to the door

(16:06):
and he would knock on the door. He would go
like this, there's nobody home. I hope, hope, hope, hope, hope, hope, hope.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
Nobody home.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
I hope. Well, now everyone, now there was, there was
such a such a thing. Now this this was a
bit of a true truth. I mean, if there's true truth. Oh,
by the way, that is not redundant, not at all.
Truth comes in many styles today. And there's the true truth,
and then there's just truth. There's instant truth, there's dry

(16:34):
truth for use when you go out in the desert
or places where you're gonna have to, you know, carry
it in the sack. There's the moist truth, which is sweetened,
and then there's dietetic truth, which is locale. There's all
kinds of truth, so the true truth is a little scary.
But I remember this guy used to appear and.

Speaker 6 (16:52):
He said, uh, there's there's, there's there's, there's nobody home.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
I hope, hope, hope, hope.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
And that's the kind of the salesmen. I automatically knew
that I was at the age of six months. I
broke out in a terrible sweat. I didn't even know
what the word meant. I didn't even know what it meant,
but I knew that I was not it.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
Well.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
I was about in second grade, and the terrible desire
to be in a group led me into one of
the great traumatic experiences of my entire life.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
I'm serious, it really did, because you know.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
The group does it, they just move, they'll do it, they'll, they'll, they'll,
they'll do whatever it is, you know. And Miss Shields
came into the class one day and she said, we
have a very special thing today, children for those of
you who would like to earn a little money for
the Halloween party and for our big class party, and
also would like to earn a little money towards buying

(17:43):
a set of world books for the library.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
We're going to have a seed selling drive.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Well, about forty five kids immediately put their hands up there,
you know, for the morning glory seeds. They were way
ahead of their time, but they got their hands up
there right away, you know. And the next thing I knew,
I am leaving the second Great classroom with a seed
kit that included nasturtiums, morning guaries that included pa andies.

Speaker 4 (18:08):
I was very big on p and es hollyhawks.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
I was also very big on the miniature chrysanthemum, guaranteed
to grow in many beautiful, multifarious colors.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
Well, I left there with a kit.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Now, the kit also included with it instructions on how
to use the kit.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
It told how to.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Approach a prospective customer a prospect. The first thing is
just assume that everybody wants seeds. It is very wrong
to assume that you have to convince people to want seeds.
You must go up on the porch and know that
people want seeds.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
It is only up.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
To you to uncover the latent desire to own seeds. Now,
that's all is that they all want them. Well, I
didn't know what to do. Was a terrible thing. I
got home, you know, with my kit, and I had
all these things were tends to a package, you remember,
and they were. They came in, these little little envelopes
and little things. And the first thing that happened, the course,
is one of them leaked. I am not more than

(19:08):
a half a block out of the school, and one
of the peony things is leaking all over the place,
on the bottom of my little kid.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
He a little hand.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
He carried it in, and the seeds are bouncing around.
I tried to stick them back in the envelope. So
I was already ten cents down, just already bad merchandise.
Well I got home and I put it on the
dining room table. My mother was next door, and she
came in and she looked at that, saying.

Speaker 4 (19:31):
She said, oh, no, she knew I had.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
It was beginning to start the business of selling the tickets,
you know, selling this, selling that, selling the chances on
the big mop they're given away, gone at school or
on the ford or whatever. Oh no, And I said, yeah,
I'm going to sell seeds.

Speaker 4 (19:50):
Miss Shield says it's very easy.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Well, that afternoon I began on my career, which has
not yet ceased. I'd like to point out, not yet
has it ceased.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
I went next.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Door to missus Bruner, big old fat missus Bruner, and
mister Bruner had not worked for like five years, and
when he did work, he drank it up immediately. About
the only thing that missus Bruner owned was a complete
set of used clothes pins. And I went up on
the up on the step, you know, right away, I
start right next door.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
I bang on the door.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Missus Bruner comes out and says, yeah, Junior is not here.
And I said, missus Bruner, would you like to buy
some seeds? What would you like to buy some seeds? Seeds?
What kind of seeds? I said, well, pae andy seeds. Well,
missus Bruner's backyard consisted of large pieces of tin, It

(20:42):
consisted of of old tires, it consisted of piles of wood,
and a couple of things that were dead.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
And you know, it was very funny.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
She said, well seeds, what kind of I said, pae
andy seeds? I have peenies, I have Nistertium, I have
here morning glory. I look at these beautiful morning She said, well,
I'll think about it, you come back later.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
Well, now there's a nibble.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
So I turned around and I went down the steps
and I turned left, and I'm about fifteen feet away,
and I'm not knocking on Missus van Hoose's house.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
Missus van Hoose's husband ran.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Away from her thirty seven years before, and mister van
Hoo's was only a legend in the neighborhood at the time.
Mister van Hoos was there. So Missus van House was
a very angry lady. And you know, you don't think
of a little kids. You don't know about these things.
That Tennessee Williams was only a rumor. And so Missus

(21:36):
van Hoose I knock on the door and I said,
Missus van Hoo's she's what do you want? I'm a kid,
you see, she never had a kid.

Speaker 4 (21:43):
What do you want? I said, I have seeds.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
I don't want no seeds. Bang.

Speaker 4 (21:50):
Well, now I know, Missus van Hoose.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
I'm sorry, I understand.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
I know now what it's like when a kid comes
around and sells dreams and flowers and nasturtiums and stuff up.
So I pulled down my ear flaps and I proceeded
next door to the MD's. Well, I had to explain
to you about the m d's. Now that was another problem.
The MD's had the only true jewel delinquent in the
house in the whole block. This Mdy kid was fantastic.

(22:18):
I'll tell you. You talk about precocious kids, Well, I think MDY,
at the age of about four or five months, was
already making some of the more Freudian experiments of the neighborhood.
And he was about seven when already mothers of daughters
were calling up and there was talk of having to
move the five year old daughter to the country. Well,

(22:40):
this is the kind of kid this guy was, you know.
So I come up, I come up, I come up
on the steps, and I knock on the door. Missus
empty appears like the wrath of God. Missus MDY was
used to people knocking on the door. And she says,
Dick is not here, and he's not been here for
over he's visiting his grandmother in Indianapolis. Now, I don't

(23:03):
care what your mother says, tell her to come over herself. Oho,
So I turn around and I go down the steps.
Well it is now, you know, it's getting a little
my little kid is getting heavy.

Speaker 4 (23:16):
I'm only in second grade, you know.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
And my seeds are dripping out, and my nisturtiums are
dripping behind me, and they're getting kind of sweaty from
picking them up and showing them.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
And now I am at the next house.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Now the next house, I'd have to explain to you
something about the Staffords. I haven't talked about the Staffords,
but mister Stafford was a male man, and they were
very mysterious people who do things like deliver mail. Very
mysterious man, and they lived in the green shingled house.
The Staffords, among other things, belonged to a very peculiar
church where they would gather at night in the basement

(23:48):
and holler.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Now I don't know exactly what that was.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
My old man used to call them holy rollers. And
they were very straight people. Missus Stafford wore her hair.
She had it plated like with black stuff, and it
pulled it right back, and there was a bun that
was about the about the consistency of a brass door knob. Well,
Missus Stafford was a very very righteous lady. And mister
Stafford was one of I'll tell you how he looked.

(24:12):
He looked like well, I remember him distinctly. He looked
very much like Stan Laurel, if you can imagine Stan
Laurel after a bad bout with say, a virus, much
paler than Laurel even looked, which was pale.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
So he would go out and he would.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Deliver his mail, and they would come back and they
would read things together and what those things were. And
once in a while, mister Stafford was a very embarrassing
man in our neighborhood.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Now they think about it.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
He would stand in the street corner and give people
little tracks once in a while. And it's very hard
when your neighbor is giving you a track and he
looks you right in the eye and says, have you
prepared to meet your maker?

Speaker 3 (24:48):
Well, you know that's hard to say to mister Brunner. Well,
you know he.

Speaker 4 (24:51):
Prepared different ways.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
There's a lot of.

Speaker 4 (24:53):
Ways to prepare to meet your maker.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
And mister Bruner prepared by drinking a lot of corn liquor.
He knew he was going to meet his maker, and
he he wanted to be ready for it.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
Now, there are other ways, mister Ohwi could go on.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
You want to hear about mister Anderson how he prepared, well,
mister Anderson prepared a lot of ways.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
One of my is mister Anderson.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
Prepared was by stopping at Flick's tavern every night before
he came home and stopping then on his way home,
stopping his Pontiac on the L and N tracks. He
was not only prepared to meet his maker, he was
figuring any minute now that he'd better go and have
the maker come.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
And meet him.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
He was waiting, but they always stopped him.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
They would push his Pontiac off the track, and so
mister Anderson never quite did meet his maker. I suspect
he's still out there at it. And I know he's
still at Flick's tavern. I checked on that the last
time I was home. Speaking of meeting your maker, this
is wr AM and FM, New York, and particularly speaking
of bad salesmen, I don't have any seeds to sell tonight,
but we have the Volvo, and the copy says, have

(25:51):
you ever kept the car for eleven years?

Speaker 3 (25:54):
Well, the Swedes do it.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
They make a compact called a Volvo, and it's driven
an average of eleven years by those cheap Swedes before
it's traded in.

Speaker 4 (26:02):
It's a fine motor car.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
And incidentally, no one noticed when the first Volvos were
imported in fifty six except sharpies of car enthusiast types.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
But now the Volvo is.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
One of the most respected of all automobiles entirely as
a matter of fact, one of the most respected of
all foreign cars in the country. In fact, I know
a guy once it was run over by a Volvo,
and well that's another story. He'd been hit by three
gogomobiles and nothing happened. The Volvo has him still in
Mercy Hospital. However, be that.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
As it made.

Speaker 4 (26:33):
The Volvo is a superb motor car.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
And one of the grimest nights that I ever spent
driving in a gigantic snowstorm was in a Volvo and
it was the only car in the Eastern Seaboard region
as far as I know, that made it.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
It's a great car.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
It's a Volvo, and you can find them at Rambler, Freeport, Inc.
West Sunrise Highway and Freeport L I right back to work.
See how rotten salesman I am I know about it.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
It was a terrible.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
You know, I'll tell you what happened finally with the
thing I get, I get, I get up to this.
You want to hear what happened to the Stafford's house.
I'll tell you exactly what happened to Stafford's house. They
were warming up in the basement when I got there.
They always warmed up immediately before supper. I don't know
what they did. I don't think they had supper. I
think they broke bread. It's a very different thing. And

(27:20):
I'm knocking on the door there, and the door opens,
and there is mister Stafford. Well, mister Stafford is one
of the he's a true track giver, you know, they
kind of you know, he's kind of a watery blue eyes.
He has very thin, straight cone back hair, and he
wears cardigan sweaters, those kind of gray baggy kinds, and you.

Speaker 4 (27:39):
Know, you know, you know, and he wears a sort
of a funny.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Bluish checkered kind of socks and slacks that kind of
hang brown slacks. These guys mix brown slacks always with
blue and gray cardigan sweaters. Well, there there is mister Stafford,
and I knock its. Mister Stafford, Oh you're the young shepherd,
aren't you I said yes. He said, what do you want?

(28:05):
He said, well, I it's very hard to talk to
a track giver. I've always found that trouble too. No,
I can't. I really I find it difficult to talk
to drunks and people who hand out tracks. Somehow, I
think there is a parallel, there's something that connects the two.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
And I said, well, mister Stafford, I have seeds.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
Miss Shield said that everybody likes seeds. Well, of course
he did, now that I think about it, it's too
bad I didn't have a line of mustard seeds. But
he looked at me and he said, what kind of
seeds do you have? He's a very Christian gentleman. I said,
I have these seeds. I have mustertiums. And by the way,
the Stafford's maybe good does pay. They were the only

(28:49):
one in the neighborhood that had a terraced lawn and
a garden. And so he says, what kind you have?
I said, well, I have mustertium seeds, I have morning
glory seeds and the peonies. Do you have any vegetable seeds?

(29:11):
I have percnthemum and I have button peonies. And do
you have any tomato seeds? I only got flower seeds.
We only have flower seeds.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Well, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
I get my flower seeds from the Burpie people. Burpie people,
the Burpie people. When you get some vegetable seeds, come
over and that he closed the door.

Speaker 4 (29:41):
Oh, the Burpie people.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
I didn't know. I didn't even know up to.

Speaker 4 (29:47):
This point the principle of competition.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
The Burpie people. Somehow the Burpie people are cutting me out.
I'd never heard of this. Who are the Burpie people?
Any of you ever hear the Burpie people? Did you
ever hear the Burpie people? Well, the Burbie people undercut
the entire second grade of miss Shields that year, just
like a knife pom like that, boom foul, just like that.

(30:12):
Well it's Kenny Gant it dark, you know. And I
by now I'm slowing up. I am no longer wound
up like with a spring. I'm going real slow. And
I get down by the woods. And in the woods,
the Beeges lived, and the Beeches were a large Germanic family.
They all had very wide faces, and they had very

(30:33):
wide faced dogs.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
And yes, they were gonna.

Speaker 4 (30:36):
Name fang and claw and names.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Like that, and they lived in the woods. They did.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
They live in the woods and beegee. Oh that's another story.
Well that will carry that one over for later. That
was that's connected with the skull incident. But the Beeges
are living in the woods. And the girls, you know,
they had about nine of these gigantic blonde girls named
brune Hilda. Oh they really did that, names like brun Hilda,
Siegfried and all just wild chicks. And so I knock

(31:02):
on the door and a large derned little girl came says,
what do you want?

Speaker 3 (31:06):
And I said, there's seeds. I have seeds. I don't
want no seeds. Boom ooh this big girl.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
And with that I could hear woo fang is going
to town in the back. Oh down the stairs, I go,
and I turn right, and by now it's supper time.
Well I got home, and you know it's a funny thing.
I came home with my seeds trailing behind me. I
was leaving a whole long line of little nasturtium seeds

(31:33):
behind me.

Speaker 4 (31:33):
Know, I could see them shining in the moonlight.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
And I come home and I take my seeds and
I put them on the dining room table, My mother's
doing nothing. She's out there stirring the red cabbage, and
my kid brothers and the John, and you know, it's home.
It's time for supper and stuff. And I'm fooling around.
I'm very depressed, and I don't know, you know, I'm
failing the World Book people and everything. And we want

(31:57):
the World Book for our own classroom. Every room should
have a World Book, you know. And I hear I
am lousing up already. No World Book. We're going to
have a rotten, lousy, terrible, terrible party at Halloween. Is
not going to be any corn, candy, corn, nothing. There's
not going to be any streamers, you know. And I
begin to worry about the other kids. Obviously, maybe those
other kids like Jack Robertson and Merrow Robertson are out.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
They're selling like mad, you know, they're selling.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
I'm going to be failure and already and I'm in
the living room and falling around.

Speaker 4 (32:27):
My mother's paying absolutely no attention.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
She knows I've been out with the seed Ruth, whatever
it is. And so finally the supper is ready. The
old man comes out of the basement, he comes in
and sits down. I'm sitting there, and my mother says,
how are the seeds? Did you sell any seeds?

Speaker 3 (32:42):
No?

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, I did not realize, never did I realize until
that very minute, what kind of a life my old
man must have had. Oh boy, I'll tell you you
know that forever and ever and ever turned me away
from the whole of selling. I could never do it
ever again. And I never realized until that moment what

(33:05):
my father's life must have been like. All of his
life nothing to do with Willie Lohman either, you know.
Always there was on the wall I remember of his
office there was this big thing called the sales chart. Well,
as a kid, I thought it was great because they
had red ribbons on it, and you know, and they
had different guys' names like Zudoc, Gertz, Shepherd, you know,
and I used to think, you know, I had never

(33:26):
thought that those lines were life and death of those
poor clowns, you know, and represented like fifteen million hours
of defeat the feet, Oh fantastic defeat, I says. And
the home I says, what are you doing selling seeds?
And I said yeah, he said, well how'd you do?

Speaker 3 (33:42):
Well?

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Missus Brunner's going to think it over Missus Brunner's going
to think, oh boy, he knew the Bruners.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
You know the Bruner is. Missus Bruner's going to think
it over.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Even at that hour, already we could hear Bruner starting
to yell. You know, he's falling up and down the
basement stairs. Now see he did what he did was
in the basement he made stuff out of raisins in
between true drunks when he could go out and buy stuff.
I don't know how he did it, but he made
it out of raisins and apricots, which they got from
the relief by the way. So Brunner's yelling and falling
and falling him down the steps, and Missus Brunner's thinking

(34:14):
it over where the divine is Stersham and you know
a kid he believes it. So he says, oh, she's
gonna think it over.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
Well, how many do you have?

Speaker 4 (34:23):
And he said, Jill, let's take a look at these.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
Well it was the first.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
You know, our family was definitely a non garden family.
So definitely you know that there are dog families.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
And the garden.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
My family was also a non dog family. As a
matter of fact, I came from a long line of
dog kickers. Actually, so you can see how I arrived here,
you know. So so, oh yeah, you can't imagine Jack
Parr kicking a dog for crying. Oh well you can me,
you know that, I mean king, I'll belt them running
at chops. Well, so, my mother always had one line

(34:56):
about dogs always fits. She says, they smell bad. Well,
that's unmistakably true. You know, we had enough trouble with
Uncle Carl without bringing dogs in to add to the jazz.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
You know, so you don't want to hear any more
about it. Oh yeah, I can.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
From a very practical family, he says, I'm tired of
cleaning up after too many people around here.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
Why dogs?

Speaker 2 (35:19):
We had this Uncle carle he do all kinds of
things in the basement. Steps said, well, we had that too.
We don't want to go on with that. But nevertheless,
my old man says, well, what about the seeds. Let
me look at the seeds, And so I bring I
go out in the dining room and I get the
seeds off the dining room tall. Why which, by the way,
I hate, I hate to bring one thing into the other.

(35:40):
But the dining room table was also one of my
great defeats we had we had gotten from somewhere inherited.
I think a lace dining room tablecloth, a big dining
room table or lace. You know, they had dining room
tables then, you know, big things with lace on them. See,
and there was there was always a ball in the
middle with with you. It was bananas and stuff there,

(36:01):
you know.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
So that was it. That was a big thing.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Well, one day, one fantastic day, which I do not
even want to think about at this point, one enormous day,
I spilled the half a bottle of India ink right
on our lace tablecloth.

Speaker 4 (36:14):
Well, I'll tell you what we did.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
We had the only off center bowl of wax fruit
in the neighborhood. We had a bowl of fruit that
would set about three and a half feet to the
left of center, you know, sort over there.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
It covered up this giant blot.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Well, I go out there to get to get the
to get the seeds, and I bring them back in
and my mother says, these are very interesting, and the
sturtium seeds are falling out of the bottom. She's looking
and we're all sitting around there with the with the
red cabine. She says, these are these you mean you
can grow these flowers. And on the on the cover,
of course, of these gigantic morning glories that were about

(36:46):
three feet across, you know, seventeen different colors, and there
would be like like the the sturtiums.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
Oh, you couldn't believe the hollyhowks.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
Oh, the holly hawks were thirty feet tall. You know,
I kind of think of giant wild red, purple, green, blue.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
And white.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
So she says, that's to say, how much are these?
And I said, well, they are ten cents apiece. I
had about ten packages, don't they have maybe ten and
twelve packages. The total investment was roughly a dollar and
a quarter in my entire stock, and that was at retail.
I don't know what Miss Shields paid for him. So

(37:19):
she looks at the very interesting in my old man says, well,
what do you how do you sell seeds?

Speaker 3 (37:25):
What do you tell them?

Speaker 2 (37:27):
I mean, you know, I was very definitely a non
seed neighborhood. I said, well, the thing here, and I
took out the little folder and says, everybody wants seeds.
He says, everybody wants seeds. Well, my old man happened
happened to work at believe it or not. He worked
for a milk company, and you would believe that everybody
wants milk, wouldn't you. Have you ever tried to go

(37:49):
out door to door to sell people milk, boy, more
guys prefer beer, you'd be surprised. There are more non
milk drinkers who if told that everybody wants milk, would
would bust a gusset laughing.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
You know.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
So the old man says, you know, that's a funny thing.
He says, that's what they tell us at the office.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
Everybody wants milk.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Well, he visions of mister Brunner are dancing in his mind,
you know, trying to sell Bruner a half a quart
of milk.

Speaker 3 (38:16):
You know, the ridiculous scene.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
So I says, well, everybody wants seeds. He said, I'll
tell you what he said. He said, go get my wallet. Well,
the wallet was in the kitchen, up on the top,
on top of the refrigerator. He says, go get it
back there. So I get it. He says, here, how
many are there? I says, no, there's ten to them,
and he gives me a dollar In a court, he.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
Says, is this enough now?

Speaker 2 (38:39):
He says, here now, and he takes he takes the seeds,
and I'll tell you exact home scene.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
He takes the seeds.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
He's got a handful of packages now and he takes
them across, throws them like cards across to my mother
and says, here, you're always hollering about flowers. You always
want flowers. He always said, I never give you flowers.
Here's some flowers. Make your wrong here, Well, i'll tell
you to to carry it even further if you want

(39:07):
to hear the wild. And I couldn't you know I'd
sold on my seeds. Somehow I felt like a real crook,
a real cheat. But I learned a lot about salesmanship,
or the fact that I never could be one. And
and I had the dollar in a quarter and the
next day I go into miss Shields and there it is.
You know, I plunk it down. Of course, Jack Robertson
plunks it down. Merro Robertson plunks it down. Josh Way

(39:28):
comes in and he's only sold three packages. He say
he had a cheapy old man, and everybody's plunking it down. Well,
of course it was obvious that everybody's family bought the seeds,
now that I think about it now, but I pretend
that you know.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yeah, well I went up and round. I want, I
went up and down.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
I went down by Kennedy, and I was up and
down my crave. They were all asking each other where
they went, you know, the Legion Hall one Kevin. Of course,
you know, nobody would admit that Uncle Fred bought them all.
So my old man bought all the seeds. But I
will tell you the final the danum mall of it.
And then this is this is this is probably. I
came from a family that was totally totally urban. We

(40:04):
have never ever grown anything ever in our entire existence.
We lived nearby where there were things like this. Well,
about four months later, who do you think is out
back of the garage? You guessed that my mother is
out back of the garage.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
And she's digging.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
We had our backyard was made entirely of ashes. My
mother is out there digging a hole in the ashes.
She is clearing the ashes out from behind the garage.
Of course, she's finding old tire irons and stuff, and
she's clearing the ashes out, and she has made a
little plot that's about as.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
White as the garage.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
You know, it's about six or seven feet wide and
about four feet in the other way. And she has
dug this out, and she has planted our little things,
all of the seeds. She planted the whole shebang back
there in this little plot, and she made a little
fence out of string.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
Well to.

Speaker 4 (41:03):
Incredibly enough, this stuff grew.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
We had, well, we had like three inch holly hawks,
which are very difficult. The new dwarf hollyhocks my mother created.
She created, oh, by the one thing she created, I'll
tell you what she created out of those original seeds,
she created the morning glory scourge.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
The morning glories took cold like they were out of
their skulls.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
They completely covered the whole neighborhood. They killed what little
lawns there were. They killed seven trees. They went, you know,
their vines. Some of those morning glory vines went over
four miles into the next county.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
They went over to Cook County.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
As a matter of fact, of course, there was a
county law about bringing seeds across the kind of all
kinds of things. But she had a tremendous success with
the morning glory. Well, my mother got the eye, she
got the look in the eye. And since that day,
because of my rotten seeds. My mother every year is
out in the soil of Indiana trying impossibly to grow orchids.

Speaker 4 (42:00):
She buys orchid seeds because they never grow.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
You know.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
She's always trying to buy Oh yeah, she's trying to
buy rare tropical plants. She's trying to buy all kinds
of things which never ever make it.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
She has the.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Greatest supply, the greatest collection of crummy looking, shaggy, rotten,
smelly irises. You know, irises are very beloved by dogs
and cats for whatever dogs and cats do.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
And irises, well, my mother has.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
She has the most fecund collection of irises that have
been growing over of fifteen But the point being here
that even to this day, that whole scene goes on
and on and on. The chain reaction is incredible. Of
every ridiculous movement that we make in our lives.

Speaker 4 (42:47):
The irises are out there growing.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
And I every time now when I pass a salesman
in the hall, and without fail, every time now, I
have that funny feeling down on the pit of my stomach.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
And and and here's what's worried. I have the feeling.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Somehow I can't explain it that somebody is going to
sentence me to go back to do it again. Somehow
it's still out there those doors, and there's nobody home.
I hope, I hope.

Speaker 3 (43:16):
I hope. I hope nobody nobody, nobody home. I hope,
I hope.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
You always sings Roggetty music loose Cattle as he swings
back and forward in his saddle.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
One a horse, pretty good horse, single, pay to day. Oh,
cut it out. I can't even sing. It's so sad.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
You can't imagine Willie Lohman standing over the piano belting
it out.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
Can you belting it out? All right? Dang? No, no,
fellas in the right time.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Come ony, talk about your cowboy Joe.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Oh no, fellas stop. Don't want me to sing it?
Do you already want me to sing?

Speaker 2 (44:04):
But the the sound goes on and on and on.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
And you this.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Oh, by the way, kids, that that lecture will be
filed under real education, as opposed to the education that
you're going to get.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
You know, the stuff that you're going to read.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
You won't read about that, I'm sure and and I
suppose this is one of the reasons why everybody secretly
empathizes a sort of identifies with Willie Lowman a in
a crazy way, because nobody, nobody who, hardly anybody I
know who sells anything, really knows anything about what he sells.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
And furthermore, hardly anybody.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
I know who sells anything really cares about the thing
that he sells about you know that he sells, it's
just the thing that he sells. Selling itself is kind
of a ritual, doesn't have anything to do with what
you're selling who buys it. And so about the only
way that a guy can sell is on his own
being himself, you know, the way he is, how he

(45:09):
comes on the scene that he makes Well, when you
don't sell, they're not rejecting the nasturtiums. They're rejecting you.
You know, they're rejecting your great, big, fat, pearly teeth
and your beautiful, rotten, pock marked soul.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
They're rejecting at all. And so Willie was aware of.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
That, you know, Willy Willy would come dragging back, even
though he always figured that the next week he would
get the order that they would love him finally, and
he always knew underneath it all that he wasn't worth loving,
which is even worse, which is perhaps the greatest and
not really the greatest tragedy, the greatest reality. But it

(45:50):
is no wonder that salesmen drink heavily. I would be
willing to bet that, among all the various professions that
are pursued, I would be willing to bet that the
salesman probably drinks more than any of the larger ones.
Of course, there are a few little groups that drink

(46:12):
because of physical problem.

Speaker 4 (46:14):
Have you ever heard the the have you ever heard
the myth?

Speaker 2 (46:17):
Ed, it's not a myth, I'll tell you. Have you
ever heard the story about painters drinking? I mean house painters,
and and it's it's always reputedly because of the lead
in the paint, and it makes them very thirsty or
something that does something to there, to their metabolism or something,
and they have an insatiable desire to.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
Drink themselves out of their skull.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Well, it's it's terrible to have to realize, you know,
they have to admit such a thing.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
But twice, when I was a kid, I worked for
house painters.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
And both times these house painters they never took lunches.
I mean like people take lunches, you know, like a sandwich.
These guys would have thermost jugs full.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
Of gin and more than once. I never forget.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
One time a house I'm at one end of a
scaffold and the house painters at the other. I'm fourteen
years old and I'm going out with his daughter, and
this house painter's at the other end, yelling and hollering,
and he had this great, big paint brush with white paint,
and he's progressively getting bagged. And we were working one
of these jobs where you work at night. You see,
they don't do this in the daytime. It's only at

(47:20):
night that they and he always looked for jobs where
he could work at night so he could get bagged,
you know, and so that I didn't know anything about this.
It's oh, it's terrible to find to be going to
work somehow to find out things about the father of
the girl you're going with somehow. You usually invest this
guy with great supernatural powers.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
I mean, he.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Created this, this this beautiful thing, you know, and you
never think of you're the girl you're going with coming
home to a father who's yelling and hollering and breaking
the windows and kicking the lamps. You know, so well,
you think this girl doesn't know about any of that stuff.
Have you ever had the feeling that girls don't know
those four letter words?

Speaker 3 (47:59):
Ed?

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Oh boy, I mean, and you run through the subways
very fast so they don't notice what's written all over the.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Gallow wine and all that. You know.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Oh, I'll never forget one time. I'll tell you one time.
I'm when I hear the scene you want to go
all the way? Well, I'm with this girl, and I
hardly knew her, but she was a very impressive girl,
and I was trying to impress her. I had on
my new Tom McCann's shoes and everything, you know, and
I was really going all the way. I was about seventeen,

(48:34):
and we're in this bus and being a you know,
a very very correct guy at the time, I says, well,
you sit inside and I'll sit on the outside here
to protect you from candy wrappers and stuff, you know,
and we're going on this big date. So she sits
inside and somebody had written the most fantastic thing you
ever saw in your life on the window.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
And I kept trying to draw her.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
Attention to me, you know, like I'd wiggle my ear
or I'd show her how I could spit through my eyes.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
Or all kinds of stuff. You know.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
I'm trying to keep her from looking out the window.
And I said, well, all, this is a very bad
neighborhood out here. There's nothing here.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Looking look across.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
I could point here across the aisle, you know, so
she would keep looking out of the other window. Well,
of course it finally happened, she says, there for about
ten minutes looking out at the scene.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
Right.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Of course, she had to look right through the sign.
It was a very funny feeling. For the rest of
that evening, I felt somehow I had debauched.

Speaker 4 (49:28):
Her, I had taken her rid of this bus.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
But this, this whole, this whole business of the secret,
the secret world, the secret the secret fears and the
secret fears of the Willie Lohmans. Well, uh, I remember
one night, I'm standing on one end of the scaffold.
We had one of these scaffolds, you know that you
pull up with the with the with the with the
chain and stuff. So he pulls up the scaffold and

(49:53):
I'm at one end, and I'm a kid, you know,
and I've got this two week job with him, and
we both had these great big w brushes, uh, and
we're painting. We're painting the interior of this place. It
was a great, big barn like thing, like a big
gym or something, and and he had this white paint.
We had put a very thin coat on about three
days before, and now we're putting the final coat on

(50:15):
this thing. And he'd been okay for about three days.
You know, It's funny how these guys it's been okay.
And so I'm over there painting and I don't know
what's going on. All I know is that the guy
down at the other end, he keeps he keeps opening
his lunch bucket. Well, the next thing I knew, I'm
getting paint on the back of my head.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
He's going plump like that with it.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Seeing I'm getting it on the back, Well, you can't say, hey,
quit slapping the paint.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
This guy.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
You know, this guy's the painter. And he was always
yelling at me up to this point to quit slopping
the paint. This is how much you know how much
that paint cross?

Speaker 3 (50:44):
Kid?

Speaker 2 (50:45):
You know, I'm slopping it on the floor, so I'm
very careful. So now I'm getting it on the air
all the time. Like that, he goes, he slops it
across on the floor of the well. I look over
there and he's standing on one foot. Well, it's very difficult,
you know that to a contemplate a painter who is
about forty feet above the ground standing on one foot
with his other foot sort of.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
Leaning halfway on the wall and pushing the.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
Scaffold back and forth like a swing, you know, And
every time he goes back he slops it. He goes
like that he is bagged to the teeth. Well, you
don't want to admit this, you know, you don't.

Speaker 3 (51:18):
Know what that.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
The guy you're working for, who is your girl's father,
is bagged. You just sort of pretend like that's the
way he paints. At three o'clock in the morning on
a Wednesday, and I was just like that.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
He's going like that.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Well, he's getting worse and worse. And about four in
the morning he goes, hey.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
You want a drink less knock off? Ha ha.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
He thought he was still working with his old friend amily,
you know, and it's just me, his fourteen year old kid.

Speaker 4 (51:42):
Ah, I'm a drink for God Sarah.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
And he opens the thing that passes me this warm,
great big It was about a nine court thermous jug. Yeah,
I have a drink, and I take the thing and
I hold my hands and oh boy, I'll tell you.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
I'm telling you this was either solid gin.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
I can't tell at this point, you know, kid, I
don't know anything. I'm strictly in my yuhu phase, and
I don't know whether it was gin. It smelled like
the stuff my old man put in the Graham page.

Speaker 3 (52:14):
You know, it did, it really did.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
It's such a fantastic blast came out. It smelled exactly
like our radiator.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
In the car at.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
About three in the morning, you know, and when it's
boiling over.

Speaker 3 (52:24):
Well, that's the way this smelled.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
And he is slugging this stuff down, you know, I
don't know whether it's xerox or pressed on or what.
He's knocking it down. And I hold this thing and
I says, well, and I sort of hold it up,
and oh, it's just a tremendous fumes coming out.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
And with that he saw, yeah, just a kid. You
shouldn't drink. You shouldn't drink our kid. He suddenly realizes
he's got a.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
Kid, so he grabs this thing and he says he
shouldn't drink on the job.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
You know ever should drink on the job kid.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
And he puts the cork back in the rubber thing
and he puts the he's trying to screw the aluminum
cap on and he can't get it out, and he's
sort of flobbing around with a cat or I are
sureing't a drink on a job. A bad thing for
a kid, that drinking a job. I don't know what's happening.
And the kids today they're drinking all the tirer kids
are rotten. I never nobody ever drinking a job when

(53:14):
I was a kidd.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
A kidder rotting kid ball.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
And he starts to yell at me that if I
ever came over here he come over and see Betty again,
I'll kick you right down the stairs or rotting rotting
drinking kit or crying out rotting drinking kit.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
And he's putting this thing back and I'm done there
with my beat pressure when you mean rotting drinking, I
never drinking my life, said.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
I don't drink it all. I can I see us
sitting there with a jug a chin in your hand.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
Your bomb got here. I don't want to rotten drinking
killer out And he.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Kicked me right off the scaff while you're rotting drinking. Kid,
get here and he slapping the peani, go and do
this job myself.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
You have bomb. I go out of the front door.
I don't drink, don't want you men. I don't even cry.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
I'll lie and calm you are you look a kid.

Speaker 3 (54:05):
I don't care if you drink at your own liver.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
I don't carry, but I don't want you to lie.

Speaker 5 (54:11):
I don't lie.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
I kid, you slap some more painting, but put it
up like that with a paint, rush and out into
the cold. I go at four o'clock in the morning.
You don't want to.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
Hear any more of this, do you?

Speaker 3 (54:35):
You know? Uh?

Speaker 4 (54:37):
Press education comes in many forms, and.

Speaker 3 (54:41):
It's a it's a Now I don't know.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
I'm not insulting painters. If any of you painters out
there who don't drink, I know you don't, But actually
every painter I ever know did, and and uh, it's
just one of those things you don't want to have
to admit it.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
Now.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
On the other hand, all it's it's terrible. I I
hesitate to tell you what plumbers do. That's another crew
in time, bricklayers.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
That's sometime.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Everybody's got his own hang up, and every hang up
is a little bit different from the one just before it.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
And you know, I don't know. But as far as
that goes, kid, just what you do.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
You say, Take take a look at your old man once,
a real close look. See when he doesn't know you're
looking at him. Take a real close look at your
old man, and try to figure out how he got
like that, just once to try to figure out, you see,
the first thing you got to realize.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
From November seventh, nineteen sixty four, the program originates from
the Limelight, New York City. Shepherd tells about his last
two weeks touring with the Beatles in Scotland, a meeting
with the Countess, a visit to the Woopee Club, Ping
Pong in New York City, an army story.

Speaker 3 (55:57):
You fathead, you'd be surprised. Oh, I'm on the others,
all right.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
So don't don't you see these little girls there? They
it's all part of the window dressing. We won't be
on for another half hour. Ted Madley is still giving
his weather, So just be calm out there, you know.

Speaker 3 (56:17):
Uh, since we since we are here.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Now at the Limelight, are we all at the limelight. Gang,
let's hear it.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
What a hole.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
And it's in the heart of sizzling, live, dynamic, honest, clear,
clean cut Greenwich village where the search for truth goes
on endlessly, right, Jang, We're searching for the truth tonight.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
Hey, I can hear that. You notice how they check
it out when you said the truth. There's a little fear.

Speaker 5 (56:54):
You know.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
Have you ever had the feeling that that you take
the average person, especially men. I don't know about women,
but I tell you the average man, he's walking down
Fifth Avenue, or he's walking down the main street and Trenton,
just walking along. You know, you put your hand on
his shoulder and say, okay, buddy, it's all over.

Speaker 3 (57:16):
He'd say, all right, all right, I'm serious.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
I'm sure that the average guy always waits for the
heavy hand on his shoulder. And when you use the
word truth, he always thinks it's in connection with somebody
else's rottenness. But you look a guy right in the
eye and say the truth is going to come out
one day.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
And then what, well, I'm gont to tell you what.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
For the past two weeks I have been living with
the Beatles or as they would call it, the Beatles.
And I've been in Dundee, Scotland. I've been in Edinburgh,
I've been in London where they.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
Work, Leeds, Liverpool.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
I've been in all these various cities on a on
a whole series of one night stands with the Beatles,
living with them, staying, living in their room, with them
in their dressing room, riding through the dark countryside, trying
to escape the fanatics, and observing England.

Speaker 3 (58:24):
From the other side of the glass.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
Now we're all Americans here, and the one thing that
Americans are used to, they're used to constantly being under
the scrutiny of other people. For example, Beyond the Fringe
comes to New York and it's a satire by Britishers,
mostly about America. When we sit out there and applaud,

(58:51):
you know, and somehow it seems right that Peter Cook
should tell us what's wrong with Congress, you know.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
Somehow Peter Cook knows.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
All of the thing that happening in the American presidential
election and so on.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
But it never works the other way.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
I suppose you're aware that if I were to appear
in Britain, they would not immediately nominate me to play
Richard the Lionhearted. And yet are you aware that they're
casting a movie here in America and they've just recently
cast a month to play Abraham Lincoln. Guess what nationality

(59:27):
he is. We're going to have a British Abraham Lincoln.
But somehow, you know, that makes them more official, you know,
I mean, the idea that Lawrence Olivier or somebody like
that is playing Lincoln seems a lot more real than
of say, an American where to play Lincoln, because you

(59:48):
know there's a little thing there. Well, I being a
good American, of course, I have been completely awash in
Britain ever since I was a kid.

Speaker 3 (59:58):
We take English rich.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
You're in school, we go drama, we study English poets,
English history. In fact, most of us know more about
English history than we do American history.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
And so now I find myself.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
In England, in the real thing, sitting in a little, tiny, superheated, stinking,
smelling dressing room, knee.

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
Deep in fish and chips and beer with the beetles.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
England's final answer to Richard the Lionheart.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
You know, it's it's a weird thing.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
And out in the darkness I can hear the sound
of millions.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
Of girls screaming.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
It's a it's a it's a children girl thing, you
know in England, and you hear it sounds like a
thousand sirens going off in the distance. It's just a
high pitched whale. It goes wee, goes in waves wee.
And then one of the beetles says to another beat
I think it was George said to Paul. He said, Paul,

(01:01:05):
you're a beatle. Paul says hey, and George says.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
Paul, you're a beatle.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
Pass a miracle, work on walk on water, Walk on water,
and Paul says okay, and he goes to the window.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Sticks his head out with the hair you know who.
The whole world explodes. He he throws it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Back again, and he turns back to me and he says,
are you beat ole people? I said no. He said, well,
then sit down and have a beer. Well, I'll tell
you that the sense of unreality. I think that these

(01:01:48):
people feel.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
Nothing is real out there anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
And they have to drive at night, at three o'clock
in the morning through secret roads that are guarded by
police so that people will not attack out of bushes,
and at night when you're sitting in the backseat of
the car and the Beatles are hiding down on the
floor at three o'clock in the morning, going god knows where,
being protected from God knows what. You begin to have

(01:02:17):
a slight realization.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
Of what mankind is about, and.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
You don't really quite like it, and at the same
time you can't help it because.

Speaker 5 (01:02:27):
You're part of it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
It's like being in the army.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Any of you in the army in this crowd, well,
you know the sense of being in the army, and
you've got a uniform on, you're walking around like other people,
and yet you're not part of it. I wonder whether
or not anyone has ever recorded that one facet of
army life, that when you're in the army, the other

(01:02:53):
people are totally unreal.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
The civilians, they seem to be another race. And that's
the way it is with the Beatles today.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
The world is like Mars. To the Beatles, they're the
only real thing, just four from sitting there eating a steak,
drinking a beer, and it's all brought to them.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
They're never allowed to walk on the street like normal people.
They're never allowed to even look out of the window
because riots. How would you like that fantastic sense of
power that if you all you have to do is
go to the window and say kill each other, boo boo, the.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Knives would come out. That's exactly what they do, and
they do it often, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
Once the while, Paul will sit there, you know, and
they get a little bored, and they're all sitting around
and their T shirts and outside you can hear the
rest of the acts going, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
You can hear the rock and roll roaring around.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
And suddenly Linen or maybe Paul will get up. Yeah, yeah,
I like a little excitement.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
And Ringo says, uh.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
That's Ringo's total vocabulary. It's like it's not one of
the brighter people. But he's sweet. Girl's all right. I
wish I could tell you the real stories of the beetles.
Ringo goes, Ringo goes uh, and then Paul goes up.
Usually he goes up to the window. He said, watched this.

(01:04:29):
I'll try to do the liver puddle and accident. He says, oh,
watch this.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
He walks to the window.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
And he has maybe a potato chip, anything that's just
an ordinary little piece of nothing, a cigar butt.

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
You know, he's got a paper cup. He said, watch this.
He looks out the window and he just peeks out
a little bit. You know, they have drawn shades and
everybody is out there.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
The whole city of Glasgow is out there, millions of them.
And just five minutes before, you know, you have an
idea the kind of madness this thing is.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
Because we're sitting.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
In this tiny little dressing room, sweaty hot show biz.
These are rock and roll performers, you know, and they're
they're they're very simple, very earthy, basic people, just like
show biz people everywhere. They don't read, you know, they
just sit there and see. And there's there's a little

(01:05:21):
knock on the door, just like this. Now I want
to I want to show you a scene. A little
knock on the door and one of them looks up
and says, ooh there.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
And the door opens just a crack, and it's one.

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
Of their managers and he says, excuse me, Paul, the
Lord Mayor of Glasgoe is here.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
The Lord Mayor.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
Ringo turns to Paul, pops his ear, John goes spits,
and then somebody says, let them in, and the little
Lord Mayor comes in. Remember this is the Lord Mayor
of the Saisco.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
He comes in with his hat in his hand. Are
you the Beatles? And they say aye, were the Beatles?
Oh you, he says, Lord Mayor Glasgow. Ah follouitician.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
Eh, yes, yes, we.

Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
Got to get back to work. He says, thank you
for letting me in.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
The door closes matter. What kind of madness is this?
I observed this? And then we are in Dundee. Now,
Dundee is a Scottish town on the coast of Scotland,
and it's hard and rough.

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
It's a fisherman's town.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
And in fact, I'm not in town five minutes and
I'm walking past this little tiny store and the window
is filled with knives, millions of tough, rough looking knives.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
And I'm curious.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
You know, it doesn't impress me as the JD sort
of town. You know, it look forty second Street. But
these are real, big, bonehandled knives, you know, the real stickers,
real toad stickers, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:07:08):
And so I go into this place and figure, I'm
gonna get.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Myself a real souvenir this time, you know, something that
I can use back home, say, I'm in radio friends,
you know, And so so I go into this joint
and here's this little lady standing back, a little Scottish lady.
And I go into the into the into the store,
and her little daughter or something is.

Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
With her, and they are totally.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Unused to seeing Americans. Americans do not come to Dundee,
especially in the off season, and especially they don't come
to a little second rate what appears to be an
army Navy store where they had a collection of old
maces from old crusades.

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
You know, left up.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
That's the way with the British isles, you know. You
can buy some great surplus there. So I walk in
and I'm standing there and there their their Scottish dialect
is so almost totally unintelligent. And I said to her,
what are the knives out of the window.

Speaker 3 (01:08:07):
I'd like to look at some knives. And she says,
shut up.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Those those knives are of thoughts killing sharks. I said,
for what they're killing for killing sharks. The fish showman
in thee used them for sharks, I said, the fishermen
use them for sharks. I mean, this is not like
Jones Beach, you know. And so I bought myself a knife,
and I walked out with this fantastic knife, great big toadsticker,

(01:08:34):
and it came with a leather sheet. So you know,
I'm very little embarrassed by this thing. What do you
do with it? You walk down the street and they
didn't wrap, but you know, they don't hardly wrap anything.
And then when I got a big knife walking down
the street and I didn't go twenty feet and a
man came right at me wearing high rubber boots and

(01:08:55):
he had a toad sticker that went down to his kneecap, just.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
Wore clunk, clunk, clunky, walks past me. Great big Scottish
shark fishermen.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
They fish for shark liveries there and you could smell
them a mile he walks passion them. My eyes clouded
up and he by the way, I'd love to show
you how I just wish we weren't on the air.
I could, I could, I could, I've been working on it.
I will entertain my friends with this. But you ought
to hear a Scottish, a Scotsman swearing. It is, honest

(01:09:26):
to god, it sounds like a fantastic symphony. I have
never seen creative swearing like you hear a Scotsman and
I sat in the back of a Scottish taxi cab
in Glasgow, which is one of the toughest cities in
the Western world.

Speaker 3 (01:09:41):
And we were going through the side streets.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
Of Glasgow and this guy kept up a steady stream
of stuff. At first I thought he had bad tampts.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
I thought his bell springs were bad. He just swore study.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
And it's all in Scottish and some wow when it
comes out with those rolling eyes and that it sounds cute,
you know. We go right down the mainstream, right down
the mainstream of traffic, and I've become aware of a
sullen undertone of the same thing going on. And that's
the way you drive a cab in that town. I

(01:10:18):
don't think they lose gas, just.

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
What a tough city.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
So now you've got an idea of what Dundee is like.
It's rough, tough, you see. And I am there with
the Beatles. The Beatles are playing this little theater.

Speaker 3 (01:10:36):
There's about three thousand seats in it and it's bigger
than the town, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
And the Beatles have arrived and the fishermen are coming in,
big guys with boots and funny hats on with the
knives and stuff they're clumping in. And now we're in
the dressing room in Dundee, Scotland. It's a very strange
thing for an American to get inside of life. Most
of us Americans are rarely admitted to this kind of

(01:11:04):
a world.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
And the Beatles were sitting in.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
Their dressing room waiting for their dinner, and out just
where the sea began, you could hear millions of Scottish
kids screaming, just a steady beat. You could just hear
it coming in, and the rain was coming down, and
you could hear the toadstickers clanking out there. Oh it's
a strange, surrealistic world. And I just wondered what it

(01:11:28):
was all about. You have you ever had these moments
when everything seemed so unreal that if you were to
walk across the room and to float six inches right
off over the carpet, it wouldn't surprise you.

Speaker 3 (01:11:39):
You know, I couldn't put anything together.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
I had only been out of America about three days.
And now I'm in the back room of a ramshackle
old theater in Dundee, Scotland, and you could smell oatmeal.
You know, the Scots live on oatmeal. You could smell oatmeal.

Speaker 3 (01:11:59):
And they meet and.

Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
They drink Scotch whiskey. They really do drink it. And
when you walk through the streets you can smell it
everywhere you're stepping over, you know, all the time. Well
they do, they really put it away. And the Beatles
are sitting there and they're passing it around in paper cups.

Speaker 3 (01:12:19):
We're in Scotland.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
I'm trying to get my bearings and there's a knock
at the door. Now get this scene. This is the
Beetles in Dundee, Scotland.

Speaker 3 (01:12:29):
This is an ancient part of the British Empire.

Speaker 2 (01:12:34):
There's a knock at the door and one of the
Beatles says, who is there? And I hear another little
knock and it's their secret knock, which says it's okay,
open up. And so Lenon goes over and he takes
the door and he just sort of peeks out and
there is one of their managers.

Speaker 3 (01:12:52):
And he says, he says, a countess is here.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
And Lenin turns to the other Beetles and he says
a countless and ringos is let her in, Let's take
a look at her.

Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
I says the countess coming to see this, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
But sure enough the door opens and in came this magnificence.
She really looked exactly the way you think a regal
countess should look. She's dressed in furs, she's tall, thin,
she has a peculiar kind of ring she was She
just sort of held her hand this way, and she

(01:13:32):
walked in and behind her were two ladies in waiting,
and a tiny little chauffeur wearing little black hats and
black pettis.

Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
You know, like losing in this, you know. At I'm
standing there, you know, watching this. My god, I had
the terrible feeling of being an eavesdroper on something I
shouldn't have seen, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
And the countess comes in, and here are the Beatles,
all with their shirts off. One is sitting there picking
his toes and shoes of.

Speaker 3 (01:14:01):
I'm telling you the truth. I'm not inventing it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
They're all sitting and not one of them gets up,
you know, They're all sitting right and the and the
countess comes in, her furs trailing behind her, and you
could just hear the sound of these medieval trumpets rising,
you know. It was the British Empire. She walks in
and stands in the middle of the room. Nobody said

(01:14:25):
a word until finally Paul said, I are you're a countless?

Speaker 4 (01:14:32):
She says, yes, I am a countess.

Speaker 3 (01:14:35):
Yes, yes, are you the Beatles? And Ringo belts John
in the short ribs? Get this are with the Beatles?
Is she putting you on?

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:14:51):
Their hair all hanging there? Are you the Beatles?

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
It's like, ask are you Santa Claus?

Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
You know the big word.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
At and so one of them finally and I said, well,
when are they.

Speaker 3 (01:15:03):
Going to ask her to sit down or something? You know?
And here they are.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
There's they're they're shoving potato chips in their my lock
and on one one's eating but one guy's got a
piece of fish hanging around the scotch. They're belting out,
and she finally says, she says, we have driven all
the way over from the castle to see you, and
I'm so delighted that you've allowed us to come box stage.

(01:15:30):
I love your work, Ringo says, uh, and.

Speaker 3 (01:15:37):
She says, yes. We play your records at the castle
all the time. And somehow I had that suddenly I
could hear it rock and roll booming out through the castle.
You know, you just don't want to think of it
doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
You don't want to see sea Aubrey Smith and Lawrence
Olivia digging.

Speaker 3 (01:16:01):
Presley and I walk around spitting and yellow.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
Well, finally there was a there was a long, pregnant pause,
and Lennon, who is is the most civilized of the beetles,
suddenly he comes to it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:14):
He says, he.

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):
Says, sit down, sit down, count let's sit down, and
she sits down.

Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
Have you ever seen the countess sit? She really did,
you know? And all the beetles are lowered working at it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
So she sits down and her furs go down like this,
and she's got a ring. She sits and looks and
she says, which beetle are you? And the beetle in
question says.

Speaker 5 (01:16:42):
George like in king, so help me.

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
I heard it, and she goes, yes, yes, how funny.
And then Lennon says to her, he says, are you
all real, Countess?

Speaker 3 (01:17:11):
She says, yes, I am.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
And then Paul says, where's the count She says, well,
he didn't come tonight, and we waited for a moment.
It's one of those great moments of classical human behavior
that sort of hung there for a second, and then
Lennon said to her, he says, what kind of castle

(01:17:34):
do you live in? She says, well, it's a very
big one.

Speaker 3 (01:17:40):
It's called Glomus Castle. Yes, Gloma's Castle, in.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
Case you don't know, is the oldest of all the
great castles in England. And she's talking to four englishmen
remember that, And one of them says, Glomus.

Speaker 3 (01:17:56):
Where is that? Even I knew you know?

Speaker 2 (01:18:01):
And she says, well, it's your turn left at the
road down at the end and you turn it root
seven and you just continue what you can't miss it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:11):
You know, it's a big castle.

Speaker 2 (01:18:15):
And McCartney says, how many rooms does it have?

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
And so help me?

Speaker 2 (01:18:20):
She turns to her lady in waiting and says, oh,
lady Barbara.

Speaker 3 (01:18:25):
That would be in your department. How many do we have?
And Lady Barbara sat for a second. She says, I
believe two hundred and thirty eight.

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
And Paul says, you've got plenty of room for your relatives,
haven't you, And she says, yes, we have locker room.
And Lennon then comes back with a question, by the way,
that is a pure American question. When was it built

(01:18:58):
only Americans ask, and Lennon said.

Speaker 5 (01:19:01):
How old is it?

Speaker 3 (01:19:04):
I believe, I believe it was started in ten sixty seven, ten.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
Sixty seven, And I'm listening to this fantastic story of
the British Empire unfolding right out there before me. And
the Countess finally said, you could see she was the
master of all difficult situations. This is the thing that
sets the aristocracy apart and above us. And she didn't

(01:19:31):
know how to end the conversation, and she finally said,
she says, you will have to come and visit me.
Why did all of you come to the castle, And
Paul said, ain't a bad idea. We're staying in a
Thermo hotel to night. And you can see automatically, you know,

(01:19:52):
the poor countess can see four drunken Beetles arriving at
four in the morning, yelling with eight million fans in
Glama's castle. And she says, she says, that would be lovely.

Speaker 3 (01:20:05):
Now, may I have your autographs? And one after the other.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
Paul, George, George Ringo.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
And that's the end of it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):
And she walks to the door, and the beetles not
once getting up, fish and chips their gin.

Speaker 3 (01:20:30):
Going slugging away their scotch.

Speaker 2 (01:20:34):
She gets to the door and one of them says, oh, Countess,
have you eaten?

Speaker 3 (01:20:39):
But you like something to eat? She says, it looks
very good, and out she went to the sound of
more trumpets. Well, I sat there, you know, and I thought,
for crying on lodge.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
You know, I'm an American, you know this. I shouldn't
have seen this. Somehow, it didn't seem right that I
should see a thing like this. That was she slumming
or were the Beatles slumming? It was very hard to tell.
She went out, walked down the hallway and Paul set
to John. He said, you know, you guys, that's a

(01:21:13):
real countess. John says, yes, I've seen countesses before. They
always wear coats like that. And Ringo goes uhh. And
that was the total discussion of the countess and her life. Now.
The next night, I thought, you know, this is a fluke.

(01:21:34):
And so the big concert went on and the people
screamed and yelled, and I it was it was almost
like a kind of fever in the air. It was
like the bubonic plague. Was very hard to tell. It's
hard to describe it to you. It's as if the
entire country has decided it's going out of its skull
and they have appointed the Beatles to be the reason.

Speaker 3 (01:21:55):
And the Beatles would night.

Speaker 2 (01:21:56):
Now they don't even sing anymore, you know, they just
go out on the stage.

Speaker 3 (01:22:00):
Oh it starts and they wave a little bit and
then they go off and the roaring continues for hours.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
So about two hours later, I'm in the backseat of
the Beatles car and we're heading for the Scottish Highlands.
And you ever been in the Highlands, it's a very
interesting experience.

Speaker 3 (01:22:20):
These hills climb all the way to the sky.

Speaker 2 (01:22:22):
That the country is probably the most beautiful in the world,
next to Switzerland and possibly even Switzerland included.

Speaker 3 (01:22:31):
You can't believe it. And it's a two three o'clock.

Speaker 8 (01:22:34):
In the morning and we are screaming down a highway
at ninety five miles an hour in a gigantic Austin Princess,
which is about.

Speaker 2 (01:22:44):
The size of a soup or only, let's say, a
super deluxe rolls. They've got it floored, and we're screaming
through this little country road taking corners on one wheel,
just whoo.

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):
And I'm sitting in the back with the beetles. What's
the matter? What are you doing here? Shepherd? What is this?

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
And they're all sitting back, they're changing clothes. Do you
know that they're clothes zip on? Are you aware that
those those little skinny suits they wear that you can't
put them on? And that their pants zip all the
way up the back. They have a guy that zips
them all up, zips them and they walk up.

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):
You know, they stand like this, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:23:22):
Have you noticed the beetles don't move much when they're
on stage. They don't make any elvis movements or anything,
just sort of stand.

Speaker 3 (01:23:29):
There, you know, like little dolls. They weigh, they got
springs and everything. They're all zipped up and the curtain
goes down.

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
It's wild. The curtain goes down. They all turn to
the right and a guy rush's on. He goes oh.

Speaker 3 (01:23:44):
Then they walk the beetles oh at an insane time.
So I'm riding through. I'm riding through this countryside with them.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
I can't believe it, you know, I says this, this
is England, this is this is what we in Erica.

Speaker 3 (01:24:00):
All have a vague sense of inferiority about. And at
two o'clock in the morning. The road was lined.

Speaker 2 (01:24:08):
With door looking people just looking out for behind haystacks,
waiting for the Beatles to go by two three o'clock
in the morning, and you could see him holding lanterns
up and we're sailing through the countryside. And every car
that they saw they would throw rocks at.

Speaker 3 (01:24:27):
This is a form of love.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
In Scotland, by the way, And you'd see the rocks
bouncing across the street and the people said, get down there,
here we come. Watch the one by the haystack, watch
that and up and your boot playing. You hit the
rocks And I'm sitting there room.

Speaker 3 (01:24:44):
What would King Arthur have thought? How would you have
handled it? Well?

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
We went, We went deeper and deeper into the countryside
until we finally arrived at the lock where we were staying.

Speaker 3 (01:24:56):
You know, the Beatles.

Speaker 2 (01:24:58):
In case you're interested, there are more security regulations governing
the places where the Beetles stay than that which governs
the President. Seriously that people are sworn to secrecy all
over the countryside, and wherever they stay, they always stay
outside of town in the.

Speaker 3 (01:25:18):
Most likely place, the most likely place for anything but beetles.

Speaker 2 (01:25:26):
Like they'll stay in a little place that's mark diner.

Speaker 3 (01:25:29):
They just stay there overnight, or.

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
They'll be in a little place marked motel and they'll
stay there.

Speaker 3 (01:25:37):
Well, we were staying.

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):
In a tiny inn next to an ancient Scottish Loch
Loch Erne, which is one of the most ancient and
most revered, and in fact, Bonnie Prince Charlie had fought
a battle twenty feet away from where I was staying.
That little plaque out there, rob Roy had robbed somebody
twenty feet outside the other way. I'm serious, and everywhere

(01:26:01):
you saw this strange, tartan quality.

Speaker 3 (01:26:03):
Of the world, because this is really Scotland. We arrived
about three o'clock in the morning and the innkeeper is there.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
You can see that this is the greatest moment of
his entire life.

Speaker 3 (01:26:16):
He had been knighted, he had been designated.

Speaker 2 (01:26:19):
It was like a visitation, was like a second coming
or something happening there. And he stood by the door
sort of bent over, tiging at its forem.

Speaker 3 (01:26:30):
The beepo's there and I said, yes, they're gonna be.
He said, are you with them? And I says yes,
I'm one of the party. He says, I shake your hand,
put it there I'm one of the beetle party.

Speaker 2 (01:26:44):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:26:45):
Somehow that made me a real made me, it made
me part of this whole scene. And the beetles.

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
Slowly straggled up the hill in darkness, and one after
the other they came in through the door, and a
couple of managers or arrived out and back in our
little cars.

Speaker 3 (01:27:01):
And we went into the bar.

Speaker 2 (01:27:03):
I want to give you a typical vignette in Beetle,
in the beetle world that you never hear about the
strange world of them. I can only say that this
is the world of I guess the word would be
almost delirium. It's like the world has become delirious. It's surrealistic.

(01:27:26):
Remember it's three o'clock in the morning. We're next to
a Scottish lock, an old, old lock, with hills surrounding.
It's not a sound for miles. It's a sullen, quiet,
angry countryside. And all of us go up to the bar,
little tiny bar.

Speaker 3 (01:27:44):
In the end.

Speaker 2 (01:27:46):
Paul John Lennon, George Ringo, the manager, and he brings out.

Speaker 3 (01:27:53):
A bottle of sherry.

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
This apparently was a bottle of sherry he'd saved since
the last court a nation and he was saving it
for the next one. He brings out the sherry and
he says, where.

Speaker 3 (01:28:05):
Do you like a glass of sheddy? Eh? John says,
she sheddy what shaddy? Who drinks? She sheddy mine? He says,
what will you have? If I have anything you want?

Speaker 2 (01:28:19):
He's got Scotch, He's got all the fine stuff there.

Speaker 3 (01:28:23):
One of us was poor little drink.

Speaker 2 (01:28:26):
We started to sip the drink when without warning, there
was a sound outside in the darkness, a hum like
the hum of angry bees at three o'clock in the morning,
and it was getting closer and closer. You could just
hear it. It was coming like a big storm. And

(01:28:48):
the beetles are doing nothing. They're just sort of standing.
And I said to the man behind the desk, I says,
what is this a storm? He says, I don't know
what that sound is. Must be something on the road.
And just when he got this out of his mouth,
the door slamps open and there stands a Scottish constable
and he says, are the beetles staying here? And the

(01:29:12):
man behind the bar says, yes, sir, yes, sir. He says,
I have just called out all available men. There are
twenty thousand people coming this way? What are you going
to do about it? What have you done to us?

Speaker 3 (01:29:26):
And the Beatles.

Speaker 2 (01:29:26):
Calm, just drinking their scotch. And that night we spent
in total darkness with a ring of policemen in the hills,
five hundred policemen keeping the entire British Isles away.

Speaker 3 (01:29:44):
And you could hear the hum of them out there.

Speaker 2 (01:29:46):
You could hear them in the trees, you could hear
them in the hills, and once in a while you'd
hear a little way ay, just wa and it would
trail off. Then it's now three point thirty quarter to four, and.

Speaker 3 (01:30:03):
A couple of the very famous local gentry had been
allowed to come and see the beetles at first hand.

Speaker 2 (01:30:12):
One of these strange little vignettes. A tall, thin girl,
obviously the sweet beetle fan type, you know. She comes
over and she stands behind one.

Speaker 3 (01:30:25):
Of the beetles. She's just been admitted to see them.

Speaker 2 (01:30:29):
She can't believe it, you know, because they don't look
they're not real to people anymore. They're kind of like
dolls or strange little automatons.

Speaker 3 (01:30:36):
And here they are. There's pudding there and she walks.

Speaker 2 (01:30:39):
Over behind, and she just sort of looks down, and
by mistake, she brushed one of the beetle's coat and
he whirled on her and he says, get your filthy
hands off me. Oh, he wasn't being funny, and she
sort of duck back.

Speaker 3 (01:30:56):
He says, nobody touches me after midnight.

Speaker 2 (01:31:00):
She said yes, yes, and then there was a kind
of an embarrassed pause, and the beetles kept eating at finding.

Speaker 3 (01:31:08):
She said, may I have your autographs? And one of
the other beatles looked up at her and says, are
you all clear out? And she says, thank you, thank.

Speaker 2 (01:31:24):
You, thank you, and out the door she went, and
the beetles sat in total control of their world. They
would either admit people or they would deny them. They
would either give them an audience or they would turn
them down.

Speaker 3 (01:31:43):
And believe it or not, It got.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
To the point with me, you know, I'll tell you
there's a funny thing in human beings where I began
to feel special myself because they talked to me. Yes,
this is the kind of nuttiness that must have created
a Hitler. Must have felt good to a guy, you know,
to walk in and have mister Hitler say, oh, hello,

(01:32:04):
there goes Hans, Hi Hans. How many of you would
like to be greeted by first name, by say, Lucky Luciano.

Speaker 3 (01:32:15):
It's a secret thing.

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
We all have a secret desire to somehow be greeted
on a first name basis by somebody who is a
real myth and a legend. And up to this point,
you know, I had been a non believer, and I
saw this happening. Nobody got angry at the Beatles. Oh no,
When the Beatles would throw somebody out, like the Countess,
just hurl her out in the street, it was armed,

(01:32:39):
and she felt pleased to have spoken with them for
a moment. And so it got to the point where
I would come in and John would look up.

Speaker 3 (01:32:47):
And say, oh, yeah, don't Jeane. I would glow. The
Beatles recognize me, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:32:56):
If one of them would say to me, all that
you like I drink? Huh, have a about drink, they'd
hand me the drink. The great warmth would come out again,
and I realized that I had been admitted to Olympus.
I was allowed to be on the same plane with
a world phenomena fascinating and I and you know, I

(01:33:20):
kept trying to say, don't worry. I kept trying to
say to myself. Later, I'd get out of the room,
you know. And I was over there on a special
assignment to do a piece for a major magazine on
the Beatles. And I would get out of the of
the room. You know, They've talked to me, We've sat
and had drinks and stuff. And I would get out
on the into the in the into the privacy of

(01:33:42):
the of a hotel aisle or a hotel hallway, and.

Speaker 3 (01:33:46):
I'm walking on. All of a sudden, I says, what
are you doing? This is a rock and roll group.
These are the Beatles for God, sank Shepherd. Get a
grip on yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
And then the door would open down there, and McCartney
would stick his head out and say, hey, Jane, when
you come back.

Speaker 3 (01:34:04):
Knock twice, we'll let you in.

Speaker 2 (01:34:06):
We don't want to let anybody else. Just look, knock twice.
They slam the door, and then I'd say, I know
what I do. God recognizes me. Well, you know, I
learned something.

Speaker 3 (01:34:18):
Then.

Speaker 2 (01:34:20):
I learned how ill possible it must be for a
reporter to remain objective in the presence of the very great.

Speaker 3 (01:34:32):
Notoriety can be greatness. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:34:35):
I remember one day down in the Yankee bullpen before
a ballgame, one of the hard hitting angry writers from
the Post. You know, the Post works in anger, you know,
like other people work in Clay and Marvel and the read.
But they look at the Yankees as a plot against

(01:34:55):
the Mets, you know, at and one of these one
of these hard hitting angry reporters.

Speaker 3 (01:35:02):
You know, almost all of the almost all.

Speaker 2 (01:35:04):
Of the really angry riders are very undersized, little guys
with thick glasses.

Speaker 3 (01:35:08):
That's just what it's what makes it come out, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:35:11):
And I'm standing back down there, way out by the bullpen,
you know, where the Yankees have the bullpen, way out
in the corner there you expect to see nobody out there.
Well standing right next to the bullpen wire fence is
Roger Marris.

Speaker 3 (01:35:26):
He's just standing there. He's been chasing fly balls.

Speaker 2 (01:35:31):
And you know how how Maris stands anyway, He's got
that snotty way of standing, you know, just that real
loose way.

Speaker 3 (01:35:37):
You know, one hip has splung.

Speaker 2 (01:35:39):
Out, you know, he's got his hat straight on hat,
he's got the mitt there, and Maris is just surveying
his entire kingdom. You know, from out around that that bullpen,
you can see all of Yankee Stadium. You can see
the press box, you can see eighty thousand people. You
can see those three tombstones over here. And Roger is

(01:36:00):
in his He's in his.

Speaker 3 (01:36:03):
His million, and he really is the king of it.

Speaker 2 (01:36:06):
So I am standing out there. You know, I don't
say anything. I'm an observer. I just I make it
my my A rule of thumb is to keep your
mouth shut unless spoken to. I found this works very well.
So I'm out there. So walking past, I'm seeing Roger.
Roger's standing there with that big number nine on his back.
He's wearing the home uniform. He spits, and I see

(01:36:30):
this little New York post writer comes.

Speaker 3 (01:36:33):
Scurrying around the edge of the path.

Speaker 2 (01:36:36):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:36:38):
He comes up, you know, Hi, Roger. Roger looks down.
II Ray, I've invented the name. He just says, h,
I Ray. That little guy straightened up. You could see
his gut. Fully.

Speaker 2 (01:36:54):
Roger's doing nothing. He's watching the flags, you know, it
doesn't even know. He's just waiting for this time a bat,
you know, and it's in the in the cage and
the little man says to him, how does it look today, Roger?
Do you think we'll do it today? Do you think
we'll do it today?

Speaker 3 (01:37:13):
Do you think we'll do it?

Speaker 2 (01:37:15):
And Roge just simply says, I don't know why he's going,
it's pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:37:21):
The little guy says, that's what I thought. Looks good.
He scurries away. And the next day I read this
piece in the Post and it's a hard hitting expose
of why they should trade Roger Merris and I and
I thought, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:37:42):
I thought, gee, you know, so much of this, so
much of this is is the is that problem of objectivity?
Have you ever thought how it must be to travel
around the country in a presidential train where you're reading
with the president and the president comes in every five

(01:38:03):
minutes after giving one of these whistle stop speeches and
sits down next to you, eats a sandwich, drinks a
beer maybe, or has a glass of milk, begins to
know you, begins to know that your name is Myrtle,
this is old Ray here, and there's Fred. How can
you possibly keep your objectivity? I know many a good

(01:38:29):
drama critic who is totally ruined. That day, the Olivier
begins to call him forget it. It's never gonna happen again,
never be able to observe the scene with that old
cold light of objectivity. And as I rode throughout that countryside,
I found myself slowly becoming not only.

Speaker 3 (01:38:52):
A Beetle fan, but a Beetle Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:38:58):
I began to you know, when the scream were out there,
that were screaming for me. You know, I was sitting
in the crowd with him. I was part of it,
you know what it were me and I'd.

Speaker 3 (01:39:06):
Walk to the window.

Speaker 2 (01:39:07):
You know, one thing about Beatle fans, they scream at
anything that moves. You got to understand that anything that
moves they scream at. And even if it doesn't move,
if they think.

Speaker 3 (01:39:19):
It's moving, they screamed.

Speaker 2 (01:39:21):
And so one of the band boys, one of the
kids who worked in the Edinburgh Theater, all he did
was set up the drums, you know, that kind of jazz.
He came backstage and there's this little window looking out
over the alley where there are eighteen million kids screaming
for the Beatles, and he was talking to one of
the Beatles about setting up the equipment. You know, just

(01:39:42):
a straight conversation like well you want it? Do you
want it back over there or over here? And one
of the beatles.

Speaker 3 (01:39:47):
I don't worry about it mine. I'll adjust it myself.

Speaker 2 (01:39:50):
He said, okay, okay, And then he turned and walked
to the window, just stood there for a minute and
then pulled the curtain back and looked out and there's
a fantastic wow. He pulls it back. He turns back
to the crowd. He says, just once, I wanted to

(01:40:10):
scream for me, just once. Now that sounds like I
invented it, but so help me, that's exactly what happened.
He says, just once, I wanted to scream for me,
Which brings up a point. How many of you secretly
scream for whatever it is you scream for, whether it's
a presidential candidate, whether it's a philosophy, whether it's a beetle.

Speaker 3 (01:40:36):
How many of you scream? How many of us scream
just out of the sheer exuberance of screaming for something,
just screaming for anything, anything that somehow will respond to
us screams like fowl a little bit. I have a
feeling that one.

Speaker 2 (01:40:54):
Day, in some of our major countries, there will be
mechanical devices which will be set up to receive and
record the quality and the quantity of screams that we
can hurl at, and that we will have favorite machines.
Somebody will like the green one, somebody will like the

(01:41:15):
red one, somebody will.

Speaker 3 (01:41:17):
Like the blue one. And every night they will put
another one of these on stage for us to go
screenmat hear that whose watch?

Speaker 2 (01:41:30):
It's strange, but it's a curious thing to sit backstage
in with the Beatles and see the kind of madness
they engender. Do you know that when the Beatles are
on stage, not one person listens. You wear that and
a good twenty five to thirty minutes before the Beatles

(01:41:51):
come out, the thing starts. They're screaming starts, and they
don't sit, of course, they all stand. And have you
ever seen paintings by Hieronymous Bosch, Well, I stood on
the stage.

Speaker 3 (01:42:05):
Let me tell you that the wireless scene of all
is not to watch the Beatles. But I stood on
the stage.

Speaker 2 (01:42:11):
Apron back, just back of the curtain where you could
see out and they couldn't see you, and I watched
the audience and whoever was staging this, I'm telling you
it was.

Speaker 3 (01:42:21):
A fantastic job of staging.

Speaker 2 (01:42:23):
They had red lights playing over the audience, just back
and forth, red and green spotlights up into the up,
into the balcony and over here into the loges in
the bottom here into the theater pit, and this entire
mass of screaming, waving, insane wild human beings. You couldn't

(01:42:44):
you couldn't even relate to it as human beings. It
was like you were looking at some kind of swarm
of beetles or gnats, or some kind of an insane
wasp ness that's been stirred up. And then the final
night happened. It had to happen. Even the Beatles themselves
had never seen anything like this.

Speaker 3 (01:43:03):
We were playing a town called Leeds.

Speaker 2 (01:43:07):
Now. Leeds is an industrial city, just an ordinary kind
of place.

Speaker 3 (01:43:13):
It's like Gary, Indiana, as a matter of fact, or
like like Union City. You know, there's a.

Speaker 2 (01:43:18):
Lot of factories and refineries. Sort of a tough nothing
city in England, an ancient one, but very nothing. And
nobody was expecting what happened. It just came out of
the out of the out of the combustion. The Beatles
were on stage and the waves were coming up, screaming screaming,
just roaring up, one after the other, and it was

(01:43:40):
getting higher and higher. And the man standing next to
me was their road manager. He'd heard thousands of these,
and he said to me, he says this, this doesn't
sound right. He said, this doesn't sound right. And he
called two of the stage hands. He says, get over
back here. Something is going to happen. He said, it
sounds funny, and sure enough it did. It was getting
war and more was coming in, wave after wave, and

(01:44:02):
quicker and quicker, and suddenly, without any warning, it was
like a big wave coming right out of the ocean.
It broke right over the parapet and there were about
fifty girls on stage.

Speaker 3 (01:44:14):
Just went blue.

Speaker 2 (01:44:16):
And the beetles, you know, they staggered back, their little
zippers popping, and and the beatles, by the way, are
all about four feet three, you know, and these these
this great wave of girls all poured up on the
stage and it was a fantastic melee. And the stage hands,
constables and me, by the way, we all rushed out

(01:44:38):
and big scream for us, you know, part of the show.
And what do you think the girls were doing?

Speaker 3 (01:44:45):
It was unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (01:44:47):
The girls were tearing off their clothes.

Speaker 3 (01:44:51):
Not the Beatles, but theirs.

Speaker 2 (01:44:54):
Literally tearing their clothes off on the stage.

Speaker 3 (01:44:57):
There must have been fifty of them.

Speaker 2 (01:45:00):
Well here they are throwing these chicks back like footballs
into the crowd, you know, and they were all about
eight years old, you know, nine years old.

Speaker 3 (01:45:08):
You grabbed one of Wooper bloomers are flying, you.

Speaker 2 (01:45:11):
Know, and the rest of the crowd goes and we're
throwing them back. One of them had crawled under the stage.
How she got under nobody knows under the stage. And
she came out of the wings like a shotgun shot,
just boom.

Speaker 3 (01:45:27):
She had either there like a little bowling ball. She
rolled three.

Speaker 2 (01:45:31):
Times and knocked Ringo's drums over, and as she rolled
you could see her peeling and wildly peeling. Ringo grabbed
her by the neck and pushed it up, getting away
from me, and she let go a fantastic and Ringo says,
pull the cutting down. Mine had boomed down the cave

(01:45:54):
and the Beatles were trapped with seven naked five year olders.
What a moment, I'll tell you, a great moment in
the English theater. Well, i'll tell you they're throwing the

(01:46:17):
kids off about and of course that end of the
show for that night and the next day, the press
blamed the Beatles. The press said, the Beatles once again
have caused violence to strike our small city here. And
I'm thinking of all those parents at home with little

(01:46:38):
girls named Agatha, you know, little skinny.

Speaker 3 (01:46:42):
Girls eating oatmeal. And the mother said, did you enjoy
the Beatles last night?

Speaker 2 (01:46:48):
Yes, mommy, And I can only see a picture of
little Agatha flying through the air trailing her pants. Fine, no,
I suspect, you know, And I begin to have a
real understanding of what this is all about.

Speaker 3 (01:47:08):
Has nothing to do with rock and roll, And I'm curious.
And you know, the Beatles often talk about this.

Speaker 2 (01:47:16):
In fact, the Beetle manager a couple of them. This
is a subject that always comes up. Is I wonder
what the next act is gonna be like? Well, already
they're beginning to pop out. There's one there's one in
England that comes out on the stage and there are
four guys and they wear their hair down to their

(01:47:38):
waist and it's all in a Bufont hair. Dude that
goes trailing on down. If you ever heard of that group.
They wear pink sweaters and they wear these tight stretch
pants the girl wears. You know, there's little things that
girls wear. They come out with high heels. Oh yeah,
I'm serious. I'm not exaggerating.

Speaker 3 (01:47:58):
They're the biggest new thing in England. Now. I can't
tell you what the audience.

Speaker 2 (01:48:03):
Does with that crew, because we have women and children
listening to us. But I saw them work in London
and you cannot believe it. First of all, their audience
isn't really little girls.

Speaker 3 (01:48:19):
It's something else.

Speaker 2 (01:48:22):
Well, in a manner of speaking, they're not a little girl.
Said this very difficult thing, this culture.

Speaker 3 (01:48:31):
Business, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:48:32):
And when you when you when you get over and
you get close to get close to the underbelly of
all this that's going on, you wonder just really in
what direction. The third day I was there, Pro came
out with an editorial and they had a picture of
a riot that had occurred in one of the English
cities over the Beatles, and it translated said another example

(01:48:56):
of Western decadence.

Speaker 3 (01:48:58):
And everybody says, all, what is this stuff? You know what?
And I is it? Isn't it? Are they telling the
truth or are they not? Let me tell you of
the night.

Speaker 2 (01:49:07):
Do you want to hear about the nightclub that I
went into, that's the innest, hippest English nightclub and the
the The number one guest that night was Mandy Rice Davies.

Speaker 3 (01:49:20):
Oh yeah she was.

Speaker 2 (01:49:22):
She was the number one exhibit that night. And I
sat down next to this girl. It was a dark
place in the rock and roll that's coming out and.

Speaker 3 (01:49:29):
It's it's wild.

Speaker 2 (01:49:30):
It's a scene like twisting, writhing bodies and the music
is just booming out.

Speaker 3 (01:49:35):
And I'm an American, you know, we're used to, you know,
the limelight. How innocent, you know. I come in there
and I sit down, look around, and the guy next
to me says, would you like to meet Christine Keeler?

Speaker 2 (01:49:48):
He says, see rapes and the toga and you're in business?
Oh yeah, yeah, you know decadence. I think that that.
Hey we're on the air again. Come on, let's give
let's you have Ohio a big hand crowd.

Speaker 3 (01:50:04):
Bay. Listen.

Speaker 2 (01:50:06):
You you just don't know how it feels to have
to live in Circleville.

Speaker 3 (01:50:14):
You people just go through.

Speaker 2 (01:50:16):
I mean, you know, some guys never leave camp in Ohio.
And why do they think New York is a plot
against them?

Speaker 3 (01:50:23):
Which it really is in a way, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:50:26):
But uh, speaking of plots, we're back here at the
at the Limelight in the Heartney reliable Greenwich village, a
Fleischman's yeast cake of passion here, and yes it's fermending.

Speaker 3 (01:50:40):
I can see that. We'll be here.

Speaker 2 (01:50:41):
We'll be here until about midnight or so. And if
you're casting around for a cheapy place, we're here, you know,
speaking of cheapy places. One of the great things about
about traveling, I mean really traveling. By traveling, I mean
getting getting out of the tourist rot rady traveling is

(01:51:03):
it does the same thing to the traveler that being
in the army does to the soldier. It gives you
a sense of anonymity and a sense of irresponsibility. I'm
curious how many people who are very hip back here
in the States, who would never think of taking a

(01:51:24):
picture of a statue in Central Park, all of a
sudden their basic slavism comes out in London.

Speaker 3 (01:51:31):
They just walk around. You know, you can be a slav.

Speaker 2 (01:51:34):
Nobody can see you, know you can. Even if you're
a village voice writer. You can be a real slab
in Greece. You know, nobody's gonna see you there. And
of course, the it holds in all kinds of areas.
Now back home, I don't go to nightclubs.

Speaker 3 (01:51:51):
It just doesn't interest me much.

Speaker 2 (01:51:53):
While I'm in London, I'm there about the second or
third day, and one of the people says to me,
he says, say, He says, have you ever been to
the Whoopee Club? Well, I'm giving it a name. It's
a different name, by the way than this, so this
is an artificial name I've given it.

Speaker 3 (01:52:13):
So I says no.

Speaker 2 (01:52:15):
He says, well, man, if you want to go, if
you want to really see something, go to a Whoopi
club with me. I said, fine, all right, And so
that night, long after everything had been put away. Are
you aware that in New York City? Now, wait, I'm
gonna let you in on something. People that right here
in New York City there are little cells of in

(01:52:40):
this little places where they're really in people, and they're
they're allowed in because they are in.

Speaker 3 (01:52:49):
You know, I don't know how to express it. It's
just there is. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:52:52):
These are the people who go through life and never
pay for anything.

Speaker 3 (01:52:57):
The whole world is on an expense account as far
as they're concerned.

Speaker 2 (01:53:00):
They even charge dying to the Diners Club.

Speaker 3 (01:53:03):
When they die, they deduct.

Speaker 2 (01:53:04):
These are people who never pay for a blessed thing
in their lives. And they're the true inns. You might
call them the borderline celebrities. In fact, they're even more
celebrities than celebrities, because you know, a real celebrity.

Speaker 3 (01:53:20):
Has to do something.

Speaker 2 (01:53:22):
You know, an actor has to work and be an
actor to become a celebrity.

Speaker 3 (01:53:27):
He's a working man. In short, a painter has to
paint to be in. But there is a special kind
of celebrity who is above all of that sort of thing,
and they're truly in. And all over the city of
New York they are these.

Speaker 2 (01:53:43):
Little rooms, little dark rooms. They're called this club, and
they're called that club. They're never mentioned in columns, by
the way.

Speaker 3 (01:53:52):
They're that in.

Speaker 2 (01:53:53):
And at two o'clock in the morning, you have these
little gatherings, you.

Speaker 3 (01:53:57):
Know, all those people that appear on the.

Speaker 2 (01:54:00):
Carson Show, and you're sitting there, Yeah, all the official people,
you know, Oh yeah, it's great, and you got you
can't believe it, Jajjaghabor.

Speaker 3 (01:54:08):
They're all there, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:54:10):
And so when you get into one of these places,
you're actually admitted. You feel like somehow that there is
something in this business of heaven, that some people are
admitted to some things that others aren't, and that we're
all always before the great bar of justice. Now, the
beautiful thing about most people is that they don't They're

(01:54:32):
not even aware that there isn't in. These are the
true out you know, They're just they're all looking at me, dumbley,
like I'm inventing this. You say, this is the great
loomping proletariat. And the guys that are in have the
most fantastic disdain for that loomping proletariat out there, that

(01:54:54):
great population made of cream of wheat, you know, the
people that they run over with the They are alpha Romeos,
you know that kind.

Speaker 3 (01:55:01):
Of you know, oh yeah, I'm serious.

Speaker 2 (01:55:04):
There is a real aristocracy in this world, and they
have the complete disdain for those out there, and that
includes everything morally. You see that the morality that the
lump and proletariat abides and lives by, that is a
sign of outness, literally, and that the more you behave

(01:55:25):
in the accepted pattern of behavior, the less likely you
are to ever be admitted in. Now, I suspect that
if Nero was around Nero would have five of these
little establishments going. They, as a matter of fact, have existed.

Speaker 3 (01:55:42):
All through history, all through history, and usually most of
the people in a civilization are totally unaware of this,
but just they don't even know that it's there. And
yet these people are a kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:55:56):
Leader because after you've been to a few of them,
you recognize that what is going on in here is
what will be going on out there five years from now.
But what will be going on in here then is unimaginable,

(01:56:17):
totally unimaginable. And so one of the beatle says, why
don't you come to the little Whoopee Club?

Speaker 3 (01:56:25):
All I says, though, who we club? And he says,
the whoa we Club?

Speaker 2 (01:56:27):
And I, you know, immediately I think of something like
with girls dancing, you know, cigarettes and all that stuff,
you know, the hat check girl and you know, the
whole bit. Say, I'm really a loop enproletariat. I wouldn't
be here if I wasn't, you know, on the radio
yet on the John Gambling station. So I said, yeah,

(01:56:51):
you know, I'm sure you know I'll go there, and
he says, wait, it is quite quite a thing, you know.
So that night the show is over, we finished our work.

Speaker 3 (01:57:01):
The beetles have finished making eight million dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:57:05):
I have finished observing them. Everything is settling back now
to a normal thing. And of course, in a city
like London, a beetle can get around with comparative ease
because you know, it's a fantastically big city, and all
the men have got their hair like this, so you know.

Speaker 3 (01:57:23):
It's just another one of the goops, that's all.

Speaker 2 (01:57:26):
And so we are sitting in the back seat of
a cab, me and this people.

Speaker 3 (01:57:30):
We're going going. We go up and down a little
side streets and I figure, where are we going? You know,
what is this side? Because I keep thinking in terms of.

Speaker 2 (01:57:36):
General the Great White Way, Broadway, the Copa and all
the Latin Quarter.

Speaker 3 (01:57:42):
And he says, no, what Me Club.

Speaker 2 (01:57:44):
And when he said the what Me Club to the
guy who was driving the cab, I noticed.

Speaker 3 (01:57:50):
A very peculiar thing.

Speaker 2 (01:57:52):
The cab driver gave a sudden, quick look back, he
says I, and he sort of scrunched down. He didn't
know who he was with, and he wasn't taking any chances.

Speaker 3 (01:58:08):
He just knew about the Whoopie Club.

Speaker 2 (01:58:10):
That's all, you know, it's legendaries. I didn't know until,
you know, years after a.

Speaker 3 (01:58:15):
Week, but I saw immediately. So up and down the
side streets we go.

Speaker 2 (01:58:19):
You know, London streets at two or three o'clock in
the morning have a certain.

Speaker 3 (01:58:24):
Massleyum quality about it.

Speaker 2 (01:58:26):
It's very spooky city. To me, London is the most
foreign of all cities. I say this to you as
an American because you're constantly under the impression you can
talk their language. Really you're always under the illusion contact
and it never quite works.

Speaker 3 (01:58:45):
And you wonder why you keep feeding that. Everything is
a little out of.

Speaker 2 (01:58:47):
Focus and you're always on the verge of a fistfight
and either they're going to hit you you sense there's
a certain stretching of the muscles there, or else you
feel like wall what do you mean?

Speaker 3 (01:58:57):
You know, you want to go out and grab him.

Speaker 2 (01:58:59):
You don't get that feeding out Holland because in Holland
they just go ya.

Speaker 3 (01:59:03):
Ya, you go.

Speaker 2 (01:59:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and then you pay, you know,
and there's five or problem.

Speaker 3 (01:59:11):
This works out.

Speaker 2 (01:59:12):
Great, you know wherever you go like that. But in
England you keep you know what I'm doing to this
day now. It's funny when you walk around England and
everything in the windows.

Speaker 3 (01:59:21):
You know, there's prices on it.

Speaker 2 (01:59:23):
Its always says three ten six d or some little funny.

Speaker 3 (01:59:26):
Thing like that.

Speaker 2 (01:59:28):
You automatically divide everything you see or multiply it by
three or divide by three or something, and you look
dow and you say, oh, that's seven dollars.

Speaker 3 (01:59:38):
That's not bad.

Speaker 2 (01:59:39):
Seven dollars for a Rolls voice. And you know, and
you walk in there and it turns you know, you
can't quite forget now today. Now I'll walk around and
I'm looking in the Bond clothing store and I'm translating
into the pounds to figure out whether I'm getting taken
or not. So you get this funny sense of the enigmatic.

(02:00:03):
In England, it's a very enigmatic country. You have the
feeding that they're sweeping an awful lot of stuff under
the carpets, but you can't find the carpet.

Speaker 3 (02:00:16):
You know. You just have this sense like you'll meet
some very important man, like he's the head of the
God department.

Speaker 2 (02:00:24):
You know, you meet him, see and he's he's Sir
Malcolm something, and you sit down with him and you
note that his collar is dirty. You know, this is
a little disease, and not only dirty it's very worn
around the back, and you don't you know what to say,
you know, and whether he's a slot. And he speaks

(02:00:45):
in this beautiful Oxonian, fantastic language, and all the while
he keeps spilling soup on his pants. Very peculiar. You know,
you're always trying to put it in focus. And all
the while he is saying, of course, you know, this
is one thing about the Medicans. There's certainly such bloors.

(02:01:06):
You don't quite know what to say. You know, where
does boorishness stop? And a bad set of false teeth again?
Or we're walking, I'm walking through the streets and finally
we get to this corner and he stops the car
and it looks like a closed block of office buildings.

(02:01:27):
You know, it's like if somebody at three in the
morning took you down.

Speaker 3 (02:01:30):
The wall street. Everything's closed. There's nothing on the streets
at all. Darkness.

Speaker 2 (02:01:37):
Boy, when those when those London streets go, when they
turn them off, man, it's like somebody has turned off
a switch somewhere and everything is off.

Speaker 3 (02:01:45):
The sound is off.

Speaker 2 (02:01:46):
They turned the sky off, the clouds have been turned off,
and everything is kind of a fog settling in the
sea and you can hear things echoing, and my little
beetttle friend, you know, his turtleneck all pulled out.

Speaker 3 (02:02:00):
He's walking ahead of me like this. You know, I'm
sort of running behind him. This is a I figure.
As long as I'm sticking with the beatle, it's all right.
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:02:06):
At least we're gonna hear I'm a beatle and the
tune will turn on, you know. So So I'm running
behind this guy and we get to a doorway in
the side of a building.

Speaker 3 (02:02:19):
He opens it up and there's a light in it.
I go in with him, and at.

Speaker 2 (02:02:24):
The other end of the corridor is one of these
automatic elevators for going up into what appears to be
bb D and oh, I mean serious, it looks exactly
like an office building, you know, the kind up here
in Manhattan, you know, with all about twenty five stainless
steel elevators that says sign in and all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:02:42):
And here's an old man sitting there, and I walk in, said,
what is the scenes?

Speaker 5 (02:02:46):
You know?

Speaker 3 (02:02:46):
He says, you'll.

Speaker 2 (02:02:47):
Follow me, And the little man says, all right, will
you please sign in? So the beetle writes down beat
and so I don't know whether to write down my
real name or my or the name I always use
when I'm traveling, Charles Follens b Apperson, never know, you know,

(02:03:13):
So I write see l Apperson, and he says, all
we stand there, presses the button, you know, the one
that says up, presses away. Little red light goes on
the doors, and I am standing in a stainless.

Speaker 3 (02:03:30):
Steel elevator with a beat, doors closed. If we stand,
this is the damnest night out I've ever had.

Speaker 2 (02:03:40):
You know, I'm waiting for the whoopie sounds I'm waiting for.
I'm waiting for the sounds of a cigarette girl or
somebody grabbing my coat and running a box or something.

Speaker 3 (02:03:49):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:03:49):
We get up to the top of this building, we
go about maybe five or six stories, just goes and
it goes oo opens like that. We step out in
a toe little absolute stingeon darkness complete. I mean, it's
like there isn't a light in a thousand miles and
there's a man just sitting there on a three legged

(02:04:12):
stool watching.

Speaker 3 (02:04:15):
Just looks at us.

Speaker 2 (02:04:17):
He is there, you see, to keep the outs out
once No, I want to arrive, you know, with a
bucket and wants to sweet Bobb or something, you know,
and they just throw them out. So he just looks
at it and he immediately sees it's a beetle, and
he goes hey, and he says beople. He says, okay.
So we go in through another doorway and we're now in. Well,
how can I describe it to you? Is there any

(02:04:41):
Dante fous here? I am serious, I am in a
scene of unmitigated profligacy.

Speaker 3 (02:04:54):
It is.

Speaker 2 (02:04:55):
It is passion unbridled in the darkness, and from loud
speakers all the way around the walls, you hear this
just deafening sound of rock and roll.

Speaker 3 (02:05:08):
It's just go dung d.

Speaker 2 (02:05:10):
And I'm jumping like this, and this beetle just walks
ahead like that he's and you're hearing.

Speaker 3 (02:05:15):
The crown, I be oh, I I I at back.

Speaker 2 (02:05:19):
We go all the way through this room and the
writhing bodies twisting and screaming, the hoop on the uprooor,
and one after the other, you could see people peeling
off and finding the beetle.

Speaker 3 (02:05:31):
To sit down here and nice sit well.

Speaker 2 (02:05:37):
I immediately recognized that this was not a meeting of Little
orphan Ani's secret circle. That my magic decoder pin was
not going to decode this. There were a lot of
messages that didn't have anything to do with me going on,
And sitting directly in.

Speaker 3 (02:05:55):
Front of me is a chick. See.

Speaker 2 (02:05:58):
Well, you know, I'm Charlie Afferson. See, I figure I
can make the scene pretty good here. Now, you know
how Americans are. We're all in this, so I'm gonna
be part of it. There's a chick sitting in front
of me.

Speaker 3 (02:06:07):
There. The darkness is getting darker, and.

Speaker 2 (02:06:12):
They bring me a drink of some strange elixir you know.

Speaker 3 (02:06:17):
That in people don't drink stuff like your drink.

Speaker 2 (02:06:21):
I don't know what they made it out of, but
I had three eyes instantly. They use some strange Mexican
root which is so esoteric and so evil that they
haven't even yet made loss to keep it out.

Speaker 3 (02:06:37):
They don't want to work, they don't even want.

Speaker 2 (02:06:41):
The butther is such a thing, and they mix it
with coke. So they shot one of these in my hands.
My eyes are immediately adjusting. I got three eyes moving
around like this, you know, search lights. My ears are singing,
and I see this chick ahead of me, and I
belt between the shoulder blades.

Speaker 5 (02:07:00):
Hi baby.

Speaker 2 (02:07:02):
Well, the chick turns around and gives me a look
of sheer, solid hatred and turns back to the crowd.

Speaker 3 (02:07:11):
I said, we take another slug of this strange drink.
Passion is flowing through my veins like a deep, rich river.

Speaker 2 (02:07:18):
Now this compost heap of live emotions me is.

Speaker 3 (02:07:23):
Beginning to pulsate.

Speaker 2 (02:07:24):
I said, hey, baby, and she turns to me and says,
excuse me, my name is Chuck. Well, wait a minute,
are you applauding Chuck or the fantastic boobo I made?

Speaker 3 (02:07:49):
So? I said, O, Hi, Chuck, you know I you
know I reckonend.

Speaker 2 (02:07:58):
Here is Chuck sitting ahead of me there, and he's
talking to a real chick and they're discussing their hairdresser. Well,
I sat there for about three minutes trying to get
my bearings. You know, have you ever had this feeling
of being suddenly thrown into a dark swimming pool and
you don't know which way you're going. It's like waking

(02:08:18):
up at three in the morning, you don't know what
you know, that feeling of waking up at three in
the morning in bed and you don't know which way
you're turned. You can't figure out which way is the bathroom,
you know, right, So laying.

Speaker 3 (02:08:29):
There lying said, what am I doing this way?

Speaker 2 (02:08:32):
You know you're looking at here you're lying and here
you're actually lying right, you know, you wake up, you
turn on.

Speaker 3 (02:08:38):
Let what what happened?

Speaker 2 (02:08:39):
Well, this is the sense I was having in the
Whoopee Club. I didn't know what to say to anybody
because I didn't know what the language was. But all
I knew was that I was definitely a spy. I
was from the outside world, and they didn't quite know it.

Speaker 3 (02:08:59):
Yet because I had come with a beetle.

Speaker 2 (02:09:01):
When I sat for about twenty minutes trying to get
my bearings, and all the.

Speaker 3 (02:09:07):
Seats were low. You know these seats that you see
in Roman orgies.

Speaker 2 (02:09:12):
They're just low, long, flat things around the wall, not
real seats. So if you want to sit on somebody
or put your feet on somebody's ears or anything, and
it's just everybody's all lying around like this, you know,
on each other, and all tangled the twisted masks, and
somebody kept pulling.

Speaker 3 (02:09:29):
My leg trying to get me into it. You know,
it's just.

Speaker 2 (02:09:33):
All out there in front of me, just twisting and
turning like some And I stayed there for about ten
minutes on the edge of this thing, and they're tugging at.

Speaker 3 (02:09:42):
My feet and hitting at me. And finally the beetle
comes up for air. He surfaces briefly, and he says, Jean,
get in, join the fun. Just what do you do,
It's just come in, let's go right.

Speaker 2 (02:09:58):
The water's warm.

Speaker 3 (02:10:00):
Well, I plunged in.

Speaker 2 (02:10:03):
Now, I want to tell you what happened. I literally did.
I plunged right into the darkness. I stepped out of
the little circle. They had little tiny lights where you
could see the seats, and I stepped into the arena
and from ceiling they had ceiling speakers.

Speaker 3 (02:10:21):
Oh, it's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (02:10:22):
About the size of those great big squares up there
over the entire assemblage. It was a pit sort of
hung down inside and over the assemblage were these loud
speakers not more than a foot and a half over
your head, turned up a thousand dbs above s nine
rock and roll physically.

Speaker 3 (02:10:40):
And you want to pounding you boom, boom, boom. It's
going to hear the sound of beetles screaming.

Speaker 2 (02:10:45):
And I get down in the middle of this mess
and they're twisting in the darkness.

Speaker 3 (02:10:49):
I can just see this wild thing. So I go
off into it and I start twisting. I'm move it back.

Speaker 2 (02:10:55):
You know, it's not they're not dancing. Remember that they're not.
I shouldn't use the term twist because you think in.

Speaker 3 (02:11:00):
Terms of dancing.

Speaker 2 (02:11:01):
It was just a strange gyration that everybody was doing
in the darkness. They'd bump into each other and they'd
move off. Once in the while, you step on somebody
did squish, and you could move off. You could hear him,
you could hear squeals of laughter.

Speaker 3 (02:11:18):
You know, out of the darry you know, roomy and
I had a figure.

Speaker 2 (02:11:21):
I had a feeding. This was only the predude. I
had a sense that this was the opening movement of
this pody, whatever it is. And we we went round
and round, and then suddenly they turned off the pa
just boom like that. This is a signal for everybody
to go back.

Speaker 3 (02:11:41):
And have more gentien route.

Speaker 2 (02:11:45):
Or sassafras ta or whatever that stuff was, which they
sold for five pounds a clip. And so I go
staggering back and I sit down there and immediately out
of the darkness, they're handing these things out again. I've
got another one, you see, and the and the first
one is now turning my feet to stone. You know

(02:12:07):
that funny feeling of your You're beginning to fall asleep
from the foot up and it's working its way up
to my knees now posite, and the top of my head.
I can hear little things going ding ding ding ding,
little bells ringing. Well, I take one sip of this,
and I know, man, I know I had better get
out there on that dark street quick, because one more

(02:12:30):
sip and Shepherd ain't coming home.

Speaker 3 (02:12:36):
I know that I would not be on the air
anymore and.

Speaker 2 (02:12:39):
Pulled into that maw of human debauchery.

Speaker 3 (02:12:43):
Never to return.

Speaker 2 (02:12:45):
In fact, they tell me that there are many American celebrities,
you know. People have you often said to yourself, I
wonder what happened to Charlie Brown.

Speaker 3 (02:12:55):
He's out there in the darkness somewhere sane, you know,
and you you come away speaking of insanity and passion pits.

Speaker 2 (02:13:04):
What station is this, friends, come on a Terris, Yes,
the John what station? Hey, let's give.

Speaker 3 (02:13:15):
The Westport School announcements a big hand, right, George?

Speaker 2 (02:13:22):
Well, I I was, I was, I was kind of
stunned for a minute, and I sipped a little bit
of my drink and sitting next to me was Mandy
Rice Davies. I'm telling you, so help me. I'm raising
my head. It was Mandy Rice Davies. Now, what do

(02:13:44):
you say to Mandy Rice Davis? Do you say I've
admired you?

Speaker 3 (02:13:50):
Weren't? Yeah, you know, like I've been a fan for years.
You know she's sitting right there. Yes, it's this beautiful
linger of strange kind of cock in the accent. And
I said, I said, I'm an American. She says, yes,
I know.

Speaker 2 (02:14:11):
Apparently Americans are no fun in that department, that's all.

Speaker 3 (02:14:16):
So, you know, there was a.

Speaker 2 (02:14:17):
Kind of a cool moment there, and I says, said,
nice club.

Speaker 3 (02:14:22):
You know, what do you say?

Speaker 2 (02:14:24):
And she just turned to me a stone cold look,
and it swept through the crowd.

Speaker 3 (02:14:30):
An outsider was in. I knew it.

Speaker 2 (02:14:34):
The Beetle came back and sat next to me and
he said, how you enjoined the club. Just as he
said that, the music started again and they melted into.

Speaker 3 (02:14:44):
The darkness and I was alone.

Speaker 2 (02:14:48):
I watched for about two minutes, this moiling mass and
the darkness, the screams and the yelling the great roar
of a rock and roll of the Giggles, and you
can hear the sound of great being stepped down Somewhere
a violin was being played.

Speaker 3 (02:15:05):
Nero was on the scene.

Speaker 2 (02:15:07):
You know you expected to see any minute, guys with
with cloven hoofs running through He said.

Speaker 3 (02:15:13):
A little horn, you know, with third pants on. Well listen.
This went out for about five minutes.

Speaker 2 (02:15:22):
And I knew I had to go because it was
going to be a stain on my soul, like a
never a rate. And I walked to the door, and
standing in the doorway was the guy.

Speaker 3 (02:15:33):
You know, you don't pay when you go in, you
pay when you go out.

Speaker 2 (02:15:36):
Apparently there's a lot of people who are holdovers in there.

Speaker 3 (02:15:40):
This is if you want to come.

Speaker 2 (02:15:43):
You can stay two weeks, you know, if you want
to And and I I, I walk up to me
and he says, he says, he says, you're a member.

Speaker 3 (02:15:52):
And I said, I'm with the Beetle. I as you're
coming back tomorrow, are you? I said yes.

Speaker 2 (02:16:01):
And I go into that little stainless steel elevator all
by myself.

Speaker 3 (02:16:06):
The door is closed.

Speaker 2 (02:16:09):
Silence, you know that hermetically sealed feeling you get in
these automatic elevators, and as I went down, every foot
I went down, it became less real.

Speaker 3 (02:16:25):
It stopped, it went shop. There I am in the lobby.

Speaker 2 (02:16:30):
There's a little old man sitting there with the sea.

Speaker 3 (02:16:32):
He's signed out please.

Speaker 2 (02:16:34):
So I go over and I write to four sixteen
my shaky head and it's all swirling around me. My
eyes are still bulging, and my feet are still that
numb feeling.

Speaker 3 (02:16:46):
They're asleep. I get back out on the street and
there's a single girl.

Speaker 2 (02:16:52):
I'm gonna tell you a wild seat. This is exactly
what happened. There's a tall, thin, beautiful.

Speaker 3 (02:16:59):
Girl standing under the street light. You really see.

Speaker 2 (02:17:03):
People in England at four in the morning, they really
stand out, and she's standing.

Speaker 3 (02:17:08):
Under the street light. I came back out boy the air.
It's silent.

Speaker 2 (02:17:16):
Back of me is an office building that looks as
innocent as young and rubacam does tonight.

Speaker 3 (02:17:23):
It does, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:17:23):
It's just a solid office building with the stainless steel front.
And the girl comes and I thought, oh, oh, uh, oh,
don't tell me this now on top of everything else,
you know. She comes up and she says, excuse me, please,
were you in the Whoopie Club.

Speaker 3 (02:17:41):
I thought, oh, am I going to get busted. I mean,
is this fuzz or what? You know?

Speaker 2 (02:17:46):
That instant feeling fuzzy? And I said yes. She said,
would you please take me in? I said, take you
into the Whoopie Club. She says, yes, I've heard about it.
I've heard that it's so much fun. And I said, well,
I'm not a member. I was just taken in.

Speaker 3 (02:18:07):
There's a guest. She says, Oh, you're so lucky. You're
so lucky. I said, yeah, I guess so, George.

Speaker 2 (02:18:17):
You know, I'm beginnna feel like a real debotched, rotten person.

Speaker 3 (02:18:21):
I've been to Helen back, you know. I walk out,
I hail.

Speaker 2 (02:18:25):
A cab and I get into the back of the
cab and we went about five blocks and the guy
turns to me and he says.

Speaker 3 (02:18:32):
He says, were you at the Whoopie Club? I says, yeah, yeah.
What are you gonna make of it? He says, I
had mendy rice babies in my cab. I said, oh,
you're a lucky man. He says yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:18:51):
And we'd rode through the quiet, still darkness of London,
past Buckingham Palace, past those great ancient eating clubs.

Speaker 3 (02:19:02):
And finally back to my little path.

Speaker 2 (02:19:05):
And I wondered about what side of England this is,
what part of it is? Who is in the darkness
out there, you know, right now, at this very moment,
right here in America, right here, i'd say, within about
three miles of where we are, I would say that

(02:19:26):
there are maybe anywhere from two to five cells just
like that going on.

Speaker 3 (02:19:33):
Would you like to go gang? Would you like an invitation?

Speaker 2 (02:19:38):
Well, you know they don't you ah, you notice her
husband doesn't say anything. You know, they don't honor diner
club cards there and carte blanche they don't honor. But
you know, the funny feeling of being out and suddenly
being in is both a good feeling and a very

(02:19:59):
scary And I had.

Speaker 3 (02:20:02):
A sensation like that once in the army.

Speaker 2 (02:20:04):
In case you're interested, somebody wanted to hear an army story,
Well I'll tell you a funny one.

Speaker 3 (02:20:10):
This is part of the army life that's never recorded.

Speaker 2 (02:20:14):
It's the sense of being out when you're in the
army and all the other guys in the army seem
to be in and you're just there.

Speaker 3 (02:20:22):
You got a funny sseudo when you're first in, you're.

Speaker 2 (02:20:25):
You know, you're walking around, and I am a ping
pong player.

Speaker 3 (02:20:30):
I love to play ping pong or any ping pong
players in this crowd. Well, I happen to be a
left handed ping pong player.

Speaker 2 (02:20:39):
And in the Army, particularly in the Army Signal Corps,
ping pong is a way of life. And you can
hear the sound at two o'clock in the morning, guys
whiling away their lives.

Speaker 3 (02:20:50):
In the day room.

Speaker 2 (02:20:51):
You just hear think, dom think, think, think ding dongding
doll think think ding, don't don't ba. Then there's a pause,
think don't think ding, don't don't.

Speaker 3 (02:21:03):
That's the Army, you see.

Speaker 2 (02:21:06):
Do you know that some guys, some staff sergeants I knew,
got three consecutive raises and ranks without ever giving up
their paddle.

Speaker 3 (02:21:15):
They just played all day long.

Speaker 2 (02:21:17):
They come in, they say you're a staff now they
put another badge and think, don't think that's Cadrey, you see,
and Cadrey gets very good at playing all the games
that they that the guys who weren't CADRII never get
a chance to get near.

Speaker 3 (02:21:31):
Well.

Speaker 2 (02:21:32):
I had one brief moment when I was Cadrey. Now,
how many of you guys know, All all you guys have.

Speaker 3 (02:21:39):
Been in the army. You know what Cadrey mean. That's
permanent party.

Speaker 2 (02:21:43):
For those of you who are not in the army,
have you ever had the feeling in your life that
there are people who are there permanently.

Speaker 3 (02:21:51):
In the office where you work, the real people.

Speaker 2 (02:21:54):
You know, you're just there until they catch up with you. Well,
that's Cadrey. They're there, you see. And I'm assigned to
this army camp and they make me Cadrey. I've got
a patch, and that means now I'm issued my ping
pong paddle.

Speaker 3 (02:22:11):
I can play ping pong.

Speaker 2 (02:22:12):
So I'm a left handed ping pong player, and so
I'm working. You know, by the way, this gives you
a fantastic advantage over ordinary ping pong players, and it
gives you the illusion that you're a good ping pong player.

Speaker 3 (02:22:23):
And so I'm playing, and.

Speaker 2 (02:22:25):
I began to develop into the best ping pong player.

Speaker 3 (02:22:27):
I'm you're looking right now, seriously.

Speaker 2 (02:22:30):
You're looking at the best ping pong player that company
k at the eight hundred and third ever turned out
absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 3 (02:22:37):
Backhand forehead.

Speaker 2 (02:22:39):
I had a down pat and the one guy I
played with. You see, all ping pong players have a
favorite adversary. Well, Gasser was my adversary.

Speaker 3 (02:22:50):
Gasser was six feet nine, he was from California, and
he was a right handed ping pong player.

Speaker 2 (02:22:58):
Well, you see, it's like it's like a giraffe fighting
a mouse.

Speaker 3 (02:23:02):
And I could beat Gasser.

Speaker 2 (02:23:04):
It was nip and tuck, but it was always twenty
one eighteen gaso walk around on that snotty little thing,
you know, the little tip over the net.

Speaker 3 (02:23:12):
I'd hang them in the corners all over that that.
You know, that that great sense of power you get
when it's going on.

Speaker 2 (02:23:18):
You go thing and it goes shooting boing, and then there'said, uh,
all right, let's go, sir, and you stand back there
and move.

Speaker 3 (02:23:25):
And see I'm getting better and better and better as
I played.

Speaker 2 (02:23:28):
One solid year in the day room, I went from
T five to staff.

Speaker 3 (02:23:35):
In the day room playing ping pong, and.

Speaker 2 (02:23:37):
I got better and better and better, until finally it
was no competition, just me and Gasser, and we put
on these these we'd put on these demonstrations.

Speaker 3 (02:23:45):
You know, how long can we volley?

Speaker 2 (02:23:47):
And so we would volley through an entire basic training cycle.

Speaker 3 (02:23:51):
You know like this, you know this kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (02:23:53):
Watch this gas, you know, sing ding ding gas or
thing or.

Speaker 3 (02:23:57):
Playing and the people would come and watch it. You know,
we're fantastic.

Speaker 2 (02:24:02):
Well, finally the day came when Gasser and I were
shipped and We've got our bags packed. I've got my
paddle stuck down there with my mess kit, got a
set of extra balls. You know, I'm a real because
you never know where you're gonna get shipped. It might
be real hell ary, you never know, you know. So

(02:24:22):
I've got my equipment and we get shipped up to
Fort Montmouth. Well, now we didn't realize that we were
in the world of the real city slicker. And by now,
you know, Gasser and I figure we've got the whole scene.

Speaker 3 (02:24:35):
Peg. We've been in the army a couple of years,
you know, we're.

Speaker 2 (02:24:38):
Real solid types, real gis. And the third week we're here,
we get our first weekend pass.

Speaker 3 (02:24:46):
Well, I had never seen New York.

Speaker 2 (02:24:49):
Gasser had never seen anything bigger than Whittier, California. Do
you know any of you, because you're all Easterners, do
any of you know I'll bet you never know the
thrill that is only a thrill that will be felt
by somebody who comes from way out there in the darkness,

(02:25:11):
on the other side of the Hackensack River, out there
past the last Howard Johnson on the Turnpike, to whom
New York has.

Speaker 3 (02:25:20):
Only been a myth. It's like Oz the Emerald City. Well,
here I am for the first time in my life
in New York, and I'll never forget the sight. I
could not believe a city could look like this. Incredible,
it's intoxicating, it's unbelievably beautiful. And Gasser and I are

(02:25:44):
walking along twenty third Street marveling.

Speaker 2 (02:25:50):
We haven't even seen the city yet. It's twenty third
Street that's knocking us out, you know. We finally get
up down and we go through Time Square and my
general there it is.

Speaker 3 (02:26:02):
You can't believe it.

Speaker 2 (02:26:03):
The buildings, everything's stretching, the Empire State Building all the
way to the sky, and we're drifting around. We've got
about oh, you know, we had we had at least
two months pay in our pockets, big fat wallets. That's
a that's a great thing about being in the army too.

Speaker 3 (02:26:18):
You know, there's money is for one thing. The squirt
you don't think of tomorrow. Let me tell you, you know,
you got this big fat wallet. You know you got it.

Speaker 2 (02:26:30):
You got you gotta pass, a three day pass. You're
absolutely anonymous.

Speaker 3 (02:26:35):
You feel like you're a you're a thousand feet tall.

Speaker 2 (02:26:38):
Well Gaser and I are walking up and down Times Square.
We stop at the stage door canteen. Do you remember
that one? Well, we go down to the stage door canteen.
They give us a sandwich. You know, we'd seen the
movie about this, and we felt like we were intruders,
you know, we went down there and they give us
a little sandwich and a hot dog. And even to
this day when I walked past that street, do you

(02:27:00):
know that in the forties, right off of Broadway, there's
a plaque on the side of a building and it says,
in this building with historic stage door canteen.

Speaker 3 (02:27:14):
During World War Two, Well.

Speaker 2 (02:27:17):
One of the very few times I ever felt like
I was really in the army, you know, the kind
of army you see in the movies with Van Johnson
and all. That was the night that I sat down
in the stage door canteen and this little guy is serving.
You know, I had civilian volunteers from the theater would

(02:27:37):
serve and that night this guy comes up to me and.

Speaker 3 (02:27:41):
He sits down.

Speaker 2 (02:27:42):
You know, he's gonna be good to the gi And
I said, I He says.

Speaker 3 (02:27:49):
Do you like the army? I said, you know, what
do you say to a forf? You know? He says,
do you like the army?

Speaker 2 (02:27:58):
I says, you know, you know, I've been in the
army long enough now you don't even say you don't
like it or you like it just or life?

Speaker 3 (02:28:04):
You know, do you like your life friends?

Speaker 9 (02:28:07):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:28:08):
So I'm sitting there and I said, well, what do
you do? And he says, oh, I'm an actor. I says,
an actor, you know. And Hammond, Indiana, they don't see actors,
you know. I said, oh, here's a phonus Polonas.

Speaker 3 (02:28:23):
He says, I'm an actor. He's about this high. I see. Said,
I'm an actor. I says, what do you do? Where
do you act? He says, well, I make movies. I said,
you make movies?

Speaker 2 (02:28:33):
But you know, immediately this means real acting to Hammond,
you know, I says movies. What Immediately I'm thinking of
Johnny Weissmaller Pictures and Priscilla Lane.

Speaker 3 (02:28:42):
And he says, well, I just finished a movie called Laura.
I never heard of it. It was a new movie.
I never heard of it. This is a movie called Laura.
I never heard of it. I think I'm putting them down.

Speaker 2 (02:28:54):
See he says, well, I don't know whether it's going
to do anything.

Speaker 3 (02:28:56):
It's just a pot boiler. It's kind of a mystery. Laura.
What's your name?

Speaker 2 (02:29:02):
He says, Dana Andrews. I said, come on, I never
heard of you. Then we're sitting there and that.

Speaker 3 (02:29:09):
Was the kind of evening.

Speaker 2 (02:29:10):
It was back and forth, the kind of strange unreality
and Gassers sitting across the room talking.

Speaker 3 (02:29:15):
To the singing lady.

Speaker 2 (02:29:17):
Believe it or not, he got hooked, but the singing
lady was entertaining him. And so five minutes later we're
back out on the street. Here it is now, it's
one o'clock in the morning. Two GI's in town the
first time in New York, and we are up on
Broadway in the early fifties.

Speaker 3 (02:29:36):
Can you imagine that area there?

Speaker 2 (02:29:37):
Now, there's a lot of car dealers there in that
area there, and above those car dealers, they had bowling
alleys one after the other were bowling alleys, and Gasser
looks up and he says, you want to bowl?

Speaker 3 (02:29:52):
I said, oh, you know, I want to bowl all
night long. They bowled in those days, you know, it's
a swing shift and stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:29:57):
And one of the windows had a sign it said
table tennis. Little did we realize we were about to
meet our fate. We were about to be shocked. Gaser says,
let's go up and give him a lesson. So I says, okay, Gasser,
that's so. Up those long, winding, dark stairways we go,

(02:30:20):
and you know, there's pool, millions of pool tables, and
there's about twenty five bowling alleys, and over in the
corner there are three ping pong tables.

Speaker 3 (02:30:31):
And they were beautiful.

Speaker 2 (02:30:32):
Tables, magnificent tables, not like the day room, you know,
with the lumps all over it. And so Gasser and
I walk over and a couple of kids are just
sort of playing casually, you know, just pinging back and forth.
There are two empty tables, and Gasser calls the pin
boy or whatever he was over. He says, how about
a couple of paddles here? The guy says, well, it's

(02:30:52):
twenty five cents a game.

Speaker 3 (02:30:54):
Gas says, that's nothing.

Speaker 2 (02:30:56):
He takes out his wall oft punchs of five dollars.
Billy says, let's go all right. Shepperd said, what what
do you want? You want the light side of the table,
of the dark side if we flipped, you know, a
couple of old ace ping pong players.

Speaker 3 (02:31:07):
So we get in a position. I get the ball.

Speaker 2 (02:31:10):
It's a real New York City ball, you know, the
real big times on ban. I started the serve fan
and immediately you know, we're hitting them with authority, that
solid authority of feeling free, no scare, no worry, You're
on top of your game, fe the beautiful lights bunk bing.

(02:31:33):
Immediately these two kids look over, you know, one of
them says, wow, you guys sure can play.

Speaker 3 (02:31:40):
It's nothing to.

Speaker 2 (02:31:41):
Watch this Gas with the right hands on me, you know.
Shepherd goes thing, you know, going. We're bang like back
and forth, and we play a game. Shepherd wins twenty
one to eighteen. Gas says, okay, I sir, let's go.
By this time, there's about ten guys standing around.

Speaker 3 (02:31:59):
Watch.

Speaker 2 (02:32:01):
Gasser and Shepherd are playing a Minnesota FATS type game.

Speaker 3 (02:32:07):
You know, we're really playing it big.

Speaker 2 (02:32:09):
And then outside you can hear the traffic of Broadway.

Speaker 3 (02:32:13):
It's the big town, it's everything.

Speaker 2 (02:32:14):
We're all, you know, there's a kind of delirium that
enters into it. And one of the kids keeps watching,
and finally, after about five brilliantly fought games, the kid says,
can I play one of you guys?

Speaker 3 (02:32:31):
Gasser six feet nine says, all right, all right, you
go which one do you want to play? Says all right,
I'll take that one me Shepherd. See. So Shepherd says,
all right, okay, kiddies. Of course, by this time, you know,
I'm remember, I'm a gi I'm bronzed, I got a
flat gut, I got stripes all over.

Speaker 2 (02:32:51):
You know, my sleeves will rolled up, and I'm sweating.
I'm really full of it all, you know.

Speaker 3 (02:32:56):
So I says, okay, you go ahead and serve kid.
So he goes think he's flawing being.

Speaker 2 (02:33:04):
She's the worst player I've played since the guy in
the day who was od and a fing. It's a
Shepherd pawing like this. All right, go ahead, I'll tell
you what. I'll give you a five handicap. Okay, kid, thanks, So.

Speaker 3 (02:33:15):
We play Shepherd Murders and so then we play another game.
Shepherd murders are even worse, and then he says, can
I play?

Speaker 2 (02:33:27):
The tall guy that Gases says all right, sure, I'll
give you a five handicap.

Speaker 3 (02:33:33):
So Gasser beats him twice, and then the other kid says,
can I play? He is even skinnier, and littler.

Speaker 2 (02:33:43):
Gas says all right, I'll take you on, kid, and
Gasser beats him. By this time, I could see guys
drifting away from the bowling alley.

Speaker 3 (02:33:51):
They're getting closer, closer, closer.

Speaker 2 (02:33:54):
And then that little snot says, how about putting the
buck on the game.

Speaker 3 (02:34:00):
Oh this is silly you, all right, So we put
the fuck out there.

Speaker 2 (02:34:04):
Gasser wins the kid's buck, so then he says, let
me play the other guy.

Speaker 3 (02:34:09):
So I win a buck from.

Speaker 2 (02:34:12):
I win three bucks bro Gasser wins six bucks from
and finding the kids says, gee, you guys sure can play.
We had him pig for a rotten rich kid. You
know what a rotten rich kid is, the Princeton type.

Speaker 3 (02:34:27):
So the kid says, listen, he's gasping. He says, listen,
I'm a good ping pong player. I don't know what
you guys are doing to the ball, but I can
beat you, and Gas says, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:34:46):
The kid says, yeah, you want to bet everything in
your pocket against everything in my pockets? Says yeah, and
then the other kid says, oh yeah, Wise guys, you're
doing something to the ball.

Speaker 3 (02:34:57):
I'll bet everything in my pocket then he can be so.
I says, oh yeah, Jasser, and I got it all
out there.

Speaker 2 (02:35:04):
You know, we're laying it out everything my past a
whole bit, you know. I said, all right, wise guy,
which one do you want to take? The kid says you,
all right, okay, Gasser.

Speaker 3 (02:35:16):
Gasser steps off.

Speaker 2 (02:35:17):
Shepherd goes, thing, my best serve, my my back, forehand,
slice thing, don't point, and the kid goes, let me
tell you there was a silence in that bowling alley.

Speaker 3 (02:35:36):
You could a cut with a knife. Pimie's got another
one on the hook. Well, let me tell you.

Speaker 2 (02:35:46):
I figured, you know it's one of them flukes. I
got another serve. So Shepherd go doing.

Speaker 3 (02:35:51):
Pine and I get it in the mouth.

Speaker 2 (02:35:54):
That came back, tongue in the face like that.

Speaker 3 (02:35:58):
This is Gasser. Give me your paddle. He gives me
his paddle. Well, it was a nightmare.

Speaker 2 (02:36:05):
That guy took me apart and put me together again
with ribbons. He took me apart again and then put
me together again with airplane glue.

Speaker 3 (02:36:14):
Then he shredded me sideways.

Speaker 2 (02:36:17):
Then he put mayonnaise on top of him, salt and pepper.

Speaker 3 (02:36:22):
And I'm laying there, you.

Speaker 2 (02:36:23):
Know, every time I couldn't even touch it. The first
time in my life I couldn't. I figured they put
holes in the paddles on the can't even touched them.

Speaker 3 (02:36:31):
It's called ding ding.

Speaker 2 (02:36:32):
And when he served, oh, I don't know whether any
of you have ever played a really good ding pong player.
I am standing or waiting, you know, and I keep
egining back Gases is playing deep, playing deep, playing deep,
And I'm about thirty feet back on the table, and
this guy lays one right in the strike zone and

(02:36:53):
it stops, it goes.

Speaker 3 (02:37:00):
He says, love ten, all right, hit them? So you
want me to hit one?

Speaker 2 (02:37:08):
Boom and shot pat our paddle goes off. I got
nothing with the handle in my hand. Well, it was
like that all the way through. I scored one point.
The game finally ended twenty one one. These two kids
grabbed the money and disappeared into the crowd.

Speaker 3 (02:37:31):
And there we stood.

Speaker 2 (02:37:34):
Gasser and I shorn, our bones shining through, y'all. You
know you want to say something likeful fellas, it's the service.
We're in the army, and about six guys with short
cigars go back to their pool game.

Speaker 3 (02:37:48):
You know, no more interest in this.

Speaker 2 (02:37:52):
Our wallets are flat, and the two of us go
back down those stairways and out into Broadway.

Speaker 3 (02:38:01):
We're walking towards the Y.

Speaker 2 (02:38:04):
Thank god we had paid for a room with the
y forty cents. We're walking all the way to twenty
third Street and the Y, and we're walking through Times Square.

Speaker 3 (02:38:14):
Not a word is said.

Speaker 2 (02:38:17):
Until we get down to about thirty fourth Street, and
Gasser says, this is sure a big town.

Speaker 3 (02:38:28):
It sure is, Gasser.

Speaker 2 (02:38:30):
We now approach twenty third Street and Gasser finally says it.
He says, listen, if you don't say anything about it
back in the company, I won't either, I say shake Gasser,
and we both shook hands at the corner of seventh
Avenue and twenty third Street, never to mention.

Speaker 3 (02:38:55):
It in the company.

Speaker 2 (02:38:57):
And two days later we're back in the company deyroom
out at mand with killing all the corporals, bigger than
we'd ever been before because we had learned you, millet.
We had learned that there is more to it than
meets the eye. And I want to say one little
PostScript to the scene.

Speaker 3 (02:39:19):
I was out of the army. It was about.

Speaker 5 (02:39:22):
All.

Speaker 2 (02:39:23):
Must have been eight or nine years later when I
got a long distance call. Now I rarely get long
distance calls from California.

Speaker 3 (02:39:32):
And there's a long distance call and I pick.

Speaker 2 (02:39:34):
It up and the operator says, is this mister Shepherd?

Speaker 3 (02:39:38):
And I said yes.

Speaker 2 (02:39:39):
She says this, Corporal Shepherd. Corporal Shepherd, Are they calling
me back or what?

Speaker 3 (02:39:44):
You know? That's that sick feeling you get your gut.
You know this is a seal? What are you telling?
And Hammond, you know what? I said yes? And then
I hear this voice. Hey, shef it's Gasser. I say, Gas,
if we're crying out love, what are you doing? He
says nothing? What are you doing? I said nothing? What

(02:40:05):
are you doing? I said nothing? What do you doing?
It's too old buddies meetings.

Speaker 2 (02:40:11):
And then there was a brief pause in the cycle
and he says, do you remember that ping pong game
in New York?

Speaker 3 (02:40:19):
I said, yeah, Gasser? He said, I haven't said anything
about it. Anybody have you, I said, no.

Speaker 2 (02:40:27):
Why he says, I'm California champ. I said, Gasser, I
know where there's a guy I'm Broadway that can take
you apart.

Speaker 3 (02:40:38):
He said, don't mention it. Well, I want to tell
you it was not more than about oh five years
ago that I saw a Gasser's picture in sports illustration.
And I keep remembering down there. You know, I walk around.

Speaker 2 (02:40:55):
This town, and I go past those buildings on Broadway
where the bowling alley is still swinging, and I.

Speaker 3 (02:41:04):
Get this feeling just it comes comes. Just occasionally. I
wonder if Heimie is still up there dressed in his
cardigan the Hino's.

Speaker 2 (02:41:15):
You know, standing there waiting for a gi to command
with a great backhand. And so I suppose each one
of us in our lot have little buildings with plaques
on them.

Speaker 3 (02:41:27):
Here I learned keep your mouth shut.

Speaker 2 (02:41:32):
Here I learned can you imagine your life spread out
before you, and all the buildings and the places where
you learn real lessons?

Speaker 3 (02:41:39):
Here I learned never give your right name.

Speaker 2 (02:41:44):
Here I learned that there's always somebody with a better
backhand than you've got.

Speaker 3 (02:41:51):
You know, I have a feeling that in life there.

Speaker 2 (02:41:56):
Are millions of people who are not sung when never
achieved fame, who have fantastic talent above those who have. Somewhere,
there's a guy working in a garage that can hit
a ball longer, further, and more consistently than Mickey Man.

Speaker 1 (02:42:14):
From December fifteenth, nineteen sixty four. There is something afoot.
Shep says that according to Amure, New York City newspaper,
there is a super race that operate flying saucers and
live at the North Pole.

Speaker 2 (02:42:25):
Have you ever wondered about, in a lampant position of
readiness about the leap in any direction? Those of us
who feel that hanging over us at all times there
is a sullen avalanche of discontent about the loose itself

(02:42:46):
from the mountain of desire to come crashing down around
our ears are those of ice. For those of ice,
there are times, and there are places.

Speaker 3 (02:43:04):
There are things.

Speaker 2 (02:43:07):
Too unimaginable to imagine, just laying out there in the
blackness somewhere right gang, No wonder, no wonder. Poe wrote
the way Poe wrote, He no, well, he didn't know.

Speaker 3 (02:43:25):
He guessed. He didn't really guessed. He's suspicioned. That's better.

Speaker 4 (02:43:34):
Total air.

Speaker 3 (02:43:35):
He too guessed.

Speaker 2 (02:43:38):
I suppose you might say he poesied, but he nonetheless
had suspicions, dark and evil, twisting like the flowers of
death lit by the gray neon signs of a future generation.

Speaker 4 (02:43:55):
Yes, indeed, that's my baby.

Speaker 3 (02:44:00):
Well, I don't lose this.

Speaker 2 (02:44:02):
Over here, all right, cut it down now, all set
now the other day. Now, remember this is this is
a This is the twentieth century, right, gag gee, I
keep forgetting what century is this?

Speaker 3 (02:44:16):
It's the twentieth century, that's right. What year is it? Nineteen?
What'd you say?

Speaker 2 (02:44:22):
Oh, yes, yes, yes, that's familiar. It's the twentieth century.
We're right in the middle of it. Man is tearing
away the curtains of doubt, right, He's battering down the
bulwarks of ignorance. Right, And yet underneath it all he
suspects there is something of what There is something lurking

(02:44:45):
out there in the haystack that cannot quite be explained.

Speaker 3 (02:44:52):
Listen to this one now. For example, this is.

Speaker 2 (02:44:54):
An advertisement from a top New York City newspaper name
available upon request to the top New York City newspaper.
I'll set bring it on, sneak it in there in
a big dynamic heading, it says, revealed the underground world

(02:45:17):
of Superman, discovered by Admiral Byrd under the North Pole
and kept secret by the US government. A noted scholar
and author of The Hollow Earth says that the true

(02:45:38):
home of the Flying Sauces is a huge underground world
whose entrance is at the.

Speaker 3 (02:45:42):
North Pole Opening.

Speaker 2 (02:45:44):
In the hollow interior of the Earth lives a super
race which wants nothing to do with Man on the surface.
They launched their flying Saucers only after Man threatened the
world with a bombs. Admiral Bird says, this scholar led
a Navy team into the Polar Opening and came upon

(02:46:06):
this underground region.

Speaker 3 (02:46:08):
It's free of ice and snow, has.

Speaker 2 (02:46:10):
Mountains covered with forests, lakes, rivers, vegetation, and strange animals.

Speaker 3 (02:46:17):
But the news of the discovery was suppressed by the
US government.

Speaker 2 (02:46:22):
In order to prevent other nations from exploring the inner
world and claiming it.

Speaker 3 (02:46:29):
The rotten government will put.

Speaker 2 (02:46:30):
Again and now Doctor Bernard leads you through this subterranean
world to meet the civilization which occupies an underground area
larger than North America. Beneath the eight hundred mile crest
of the Earth is the greatest discovery in human history,
inhabited by millions of superintelligent beings. If you are ready
for information that not many people can handle, order.

Speaker 3 (02:46:53):
This book today. Gift rapper satisfaction guaranteed. I must be delighted.

Speaker 4 (02:47:08):
No, no, no, that's that's it.

Speaker 3 (02:47:11):
Hold it there, that's it. Now.

Speaker 2 (02:47:16):
Now, that myth, that's a fascinating thing that you persist
into our time, our day and age, and that myth
has dogged people since the very beginnings of time, that myth,
and of course it's always coupled with the government is keeping.

Speaker 3 (02:47:35):
It away from you myth.

Speaker 4 (02:47:38):
There are two parallel myths.

Speaker 2 (02:47:40):
Have you noticed that almost every flying saucer or nut
winds up by saying, yeah, well, you don't think for
one minute that the government wants that out though you listen, boy,
it ain't all about it.

Speaker 3 (02:47:52):
But let me tell you this. They're not gonna let
you know it and about it. But don't think they
don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:47:56):
Oh boy, listen, there's all okay, there's suppressive.

Speaker 3 (02:48:00):
That's what they're doing. The reasons are prow I'll tell
you why they're afraid of.

Speaker 2 (02:48:03):
People are panic and of course here he is, he's panicked.
His eyeballs are spending in two different directions. He's sweating.
And this is the myth that has persisted since the
very beginnings of time. Do you know that that in
the early days of religions, the very earliest days of religions,
various types of religion, not necessarily are types of religion,

(02:48:26):
but very earliest days of religion, that the myth would
persist that the government was suppressing it.

Speaker 3 (02:48:34):
The best way you can.

Speaker 2 (02:48:35):
Spread any kind of a of an idea that has
to do with fear the supernatural is to whisper out
of the sight of your mouthless and buddy, listen, are
you aware that at this very minute, the government is
spending a million dollars a week trying to keep this
stuff away from the people?

Speaker 3 (02:48:57):
Are you aware of the Listen?

Speaker 2 (02:48:59):
I got that documents that prove that the government has
spent over two hundred million dollars in the last year
and a half simply trying to keep flying saucers out
of the news.

Speaker 3 (02:49:09):
And why why do I have to tell you? Why?

Speaker 2 (02:49:15):
Well, within ten minutes, you've got a convert because everybody
secretly suspects the government is after him anyway, and the
government somehow exists in people's minds as separate from them.
It is a separate race of people called the government,

(02:49:36):
the government, And so that has made many a myth efficacious.
It's made many a myth begin to build into a
peculiar kind of phantasmogorical reality for many people.

Speaker 3 (02:49:52):
Oh sure, if.

Speaker 2 (02:49:53):
You're going to send if you're going to sell gold bricks,
if you're going to send some some some kind of
a medical flim flam to the people, and it doesn't
make any difference whatever what it is.

Speaker 3 (02:50:02):
If you're if you're going to sell sell them on
the idea that if.

Speaker 2 (02:50:05):
They ate enough caraway seeds, they'd grow seven feet tall.
And you come around if people all I want to believe,
it's it's a belief in magic, is what it really is.
You see a secret belief that there are panaceas, a
secret belief that there is somewhere, someplace a magic wand
that there is someplace a device that turns lead into gold.

(02:50:31):
Somewhere there is a discovery that will let you live forever.
And if you want to sell somebody on the idea
of looking phrase or listen, listen. Doctor Wada Nabi worked
on this discovery for over forty years. And you know
why you never heard about him.

Speaker 3 (02:50:50):
Listen, let me tell you this.

Speaker 2 (02:50:52):
Every government in the world has been against them, every government.

Speaker 3 (02:50:56):
There's a precedent.

Speaker 2 (02:50:57):
Why well, if the guy lives forever for crying out loud,
what's this to go to the guys that make cough drops?

Speaker 3 (02:51:02):
What's just gonna do to the guys that make caskets?

Speaker 1 (02:51:04):
From December fifteenth, nineteen sixty four, there is something afoot.
Shep says that according to Imre New York City newspaper,
there is a super race that operate flying saucers and
live at the North.

Speaker 2 (02:51:14):
Pole and turnpikes in Europe like we had, you know,
and little winding roads that go up and down in
the Alps. That's why they have these little cars that
hardly go, you know, fifteen twenty miles an hour. That look, oh,
we live in a turnpike.

Speaker 3 (02:51:30):
World here in America, believe me.

Speaker 2 (02:51:32):
And right out there at this very minute, right now,
there are probably seven million guys listening to.

Speaker 3 (02:51:38):
The radio.

Speaker 2 (02:51:40):
Seven to ten on a dial, and they're playing turnpikee Tag,
which is the American Bullfight. Oh yeah, and that groom
Trix is sitting down there with a wide track, and
old Howard is here behind his jeweled steering wheel, on
his Florentine plastic upholstery stained proof. And over here is

(02:52:07):
little esther Jane, and she's dreaming that if she could
get to the village, and she keeps looking over Pearl Howard,
Howard the ex basketball star from Munsey Tech, Howard who
keeps every Saturday saying why don't we go to the
hockey game? And she says, no, no, why don't they

(02:52:28):
have ballet here? Why can't I go where Sophia Lauren
goes on Saturday night? She doesn't go to the hockey game.
Sophia Lauren doesn't go to Howard Johnson. And here I am,
and she's sitting there with her little dream, her little
nimbus a fantasy around him, and Howard is sitting here.

(02:52:51):
Why do I have to go to.

Speaker 3 (02:52:52):
Howard Johnson's sorties?

Speaker 2 (02:52:56):
That's where the playboys go. He's little what do they
call him? He doesn't quite know how to say it.
See he's read about it. It's those italicized words that
you always want across in hemingway, you know. He says
that little point, that little in teeny voice. That's where

(02:53:19):
he wants to go, and instead he's going to the
red Rooster Hamburger Joint. And he's driving and driving and driving,
and then he could see coming up from behind him
those yellow, green, red, blue and orange lights of a
big semi tractor trayer. That's the most exciting moment on

(02:53:40):
the turnpipe, right gang. And you can just see him
coming up. You know, you can feel the ground, you
can feel that reperberating diesel engine, that quick big Cummings
motor is booming it out. You're sitting there, see and
to watch him come up, yellow queen red lights coming
up there, and it's exciting. It's kind of like approaching

(02:54:03):
Armageddon is coming up close and closer. And then you
see those big letters, you know that hang on the
side there, says Hemingway.

Speaker 3 (02:54:12):
Hemingway. What a great name for a truck.

Speaker 2 (02:54:16):
If you see those names, Hemingway, it says. And he's
sitting there in his car and then broo he goes past,
and you feel it rocky.

Speaker 3 (02:54:26):
You know that in the wake.

Speaker 2 (02:54:30):
And then Howard pulls in his gut muscles. He says,
watch this baby. And the chick is somewhere off on
the French Riviera with Rozano Brotzi. Somewhere she is playing
in a movie directed by Jules Darsen. Yes, somewhere she

(02:54:54):
is playing a mandolin. And outside of her little Greek
peasant hut is a fisherman played by Tony Perkins on
A Great Fisherman Perkins, you know, I'm afraid when Perkins
gets in the boat, it rows him. And so here

(02:55:18):
they go.

Speaker 3 (02:55:18):
You see an on come Saturday night.

Speaker 2 (02:55:22):
And they're both sitting in the car. You got seen
And as long as nothing comes in from the outside,
they could keep the fantasy going. Do you realize how
happy Indianapolis would be if there was no New York? Really,
seriously think about this, Think of how the rest of
the world. What do you think? Why do you think

(02:55:43):
the rest of the world is mad at the United States?
You think it's because of our foreign policy?

Speaker 3 (02:55:48):
Oh? Really? Do you do?

Speaker 2 (02:55:50):
You think it's because we're rotting? Oh no, I'm sorry,
I've traveled too much and lived a little too much.
It's because, and I said to you, America itself is
the New York of the world.

Speaker 3 (02:56:06):
It would be easier to live.

Speaker 2 (02:56:08):
In a little peasant village in crete if there was
no New York if there was no United States, where somewhere,
somehow people live forever in these evening dresses, right.

Speaker 3 (02:56:23):
Gang, look at us here.

Speaker 2 (02:56:27):
There and forever turn out French rare bits made of
esoteric cheddar cheeses, drink ancient wines, and live in a
kind of orange four color world of Vogue magazine.

Speaker 3 (02:56:44):
Yes, right here are back there.

Speaker 2 (02:56:47):
Well, now, these things, these things all come to roost
on Christmas. We're here now, and it's the night after Christmas.
And I'm gonna warn you that I am perfectly aware
here in the lime life that this is one of
the most dangerous nights of the year.

Speaker 3 (02:57:07):
Are you aware that police records show.

Speaker 2 (02:57:10):
That the night after Christmas, just like the night after
New Year's, is the night it all happens. Oh man,
Those cops are sitting in their cars tonight waiting for
that call, and it comes constantly out there in the darkness.
They're fist fighting their way through this night after Christmas.

(02:57:31):
And why, well, we all vaguely feel let down. We've
been building up to this thing, you know, like for
all year. They say there's one hundred days to Christmas.
There are thirty days to Christmas. There are nineteen days
to Christmas.

Speaker 3 (02:57:51):
Fifteen days.

Speaker 2 (02:57:53):
You walk around, you get the sweat going inside you.
You know this this.

Speaker 3 (02:57:56):
Year, it's gonna work this year to be.

Speaker 2 (02:58:00):
Christmas joy, untrammeled, this year, peace, Tony Earth.

Speaker 3 (02:58:05):
Good will too. Man. Oh boy, you get this thing going.

Speaker 2 (02:58:09):
And you walk through Macy's and Gimbals and they've got
the stereophonic carolons playing and the hymns are going out
and the whole scene, you know, and then it says
twelve days.

Speaker 3 (02:58:21):
To Christmas, twelve.

Speaker 5 (02:58:24):
Ten nine.

Speaker 2 (02:58:27):
It's like countdown five four, And now you're beginning to pace.
Even though I don't care how hip you are, how
cool you are, there is a thing inside you.

Speaker 3 (02:58:42):
You fight it.

Speaker 2 (02:58:44):
You say, ah, it's just for kids. You look back,
you see, to make sure they want to heard you
too loud. Three days to Christmas.

Speaker 3 (02:58:55):
By now you're hiding little things, you.

Speaker 2 (02:58:57):
Know, you're tying stuff, you're working on it. Two days
to Christmas and everybody in the college is all over
the country are let out. This is a big moment,
you know. And by the way, it's a very nervous
moment because as a kid stays in college longer, he
hates two things to get home Oh boy, they hate

(02:59:21):
to come.

Speaker 3 (02:59:21):
Home after about the junior year.

Speaker 2 (02:59:25):
And then they hate to go back. It's a terrible problem,
you know. It's really you're between the devil and the
deep blue sea, and over here, on one department you're
you're totally dead, and on the other department, you can't
go back home again. So here's you why it's Christmas time.
It's nervous time. Mothers sit out there in the Midwest

(02:59:46):
and say, I suppose all he's going to do is
phone again, and here you are plotting on how to
get out of phoning. Oh yeah, it's a terrible moment,
you know, isn't that that awful scene.

Speaker 3 (03:00:01):
I'll tell you there are more.

Speaker 2 (03:00:03):
You know that that sign when you go into the
phone boots and it says call home for Christmas, that's.

Speaker 3 (03:00:11):
A scary sign.

Speaker 2 (03:00:14):
I would like to know how many fantastic, unbelievable family
scenes have been played out over that friendly long distance
phone one.

Speaker 3 (03:00:26):
Somebody took.

Speaker 2 (03:00:34):
That's my mother, Tell her I haven't got.

Speaker 3 (03:00:39):
A job yet. It's not a President.

Speaker 2 (03:00:45):
Oh Man production all the way.

Speaker 3 (03:00:48):
Friends.

Speaker 2 (03:00:51):
Well, I'll tell you no, it's a funny. It's a
funny business. This telephone call in fact, I've visited a
friend of mine this afternoon, and there's this gloveness no
you know, when you walk into the living room and
the wreaths are hanging here, the Christmas tree is drooping
a little bit, you know, and you see a couple
of terrible looking ties laying under the tree there, and

(03:01:13):
everybody's sort of sitting around, and you have this sense
that something has happened. Nobody's saying to me, And so
I sit down with this group. There's you know, man, woman,
one kid, the other two have cut out already, and
I'm sitting there and they bring out the fruitcake and

(03:01:35):
a sherry.

Speaker 3 (03:01:37):
That's a great combination. And I'm sitting there drinking the sherry.

Speaker 2 (03:01:44):
And gradually it began to develop. She said to him,
She says, look, I told you not to call right.

Speaker 3 (03:01:58):
And he says, but she wants me a call every year.
I said, what is it? Come on, tell me and
she said, oh, he just talked to his mother.

Speaker 2 (03:02:09):
I said, what happened?

Speaker 3 (03:02:11):
She side on't though I did.

Speaker 2 (03:02:16):
There's that awful feeling. Now I think maybe this is
more a male thing than a female thing. Your dials
and you got this this excitement going now I'm going
to talk to home, and you're usually in some rotten
little boot on forty sixth Street. There's a bum staggering.

Speaker 3 (03:02:33):
Around out there. You know.

Speaker 2 (03:02:36):
Have you ever really looked at the floor of one
of those phone boots. You realize there's a lot more
goes on in those things than just telephoning mother, you know,
And you wonder how.

Speaker 3 (03:02:48):
They get away with it with all the glass and
you never see it yourself.

Speaker 2 (03:02:54):
You know, you're standing in there and looking on this stuff,
and you walk like that. There's this fantastic smell in
the phone boot and you look up and there's this
little sign which says call home, and it shows that
mother they always show, you know, with the big white teeth.
And you notice that mothers and ads always look like
a nineteen year old lady wearing a white wig. You

(03:03:18):
notice that she's looking at you know, she's got the
phone that says hi, sonny, and you you start out
with that, that wonderful feeding of hope that it's going
to be different. And you look up and somebody has
written something next to mother. You know, look at all

(03:03:41):
the embarrassed guys. I'll tell you you can tell the
readers from the writers here. You know, you look up there,
these are these are really male experiences. You look up
there and you same boy, and you wonder the number
of little old ladies wearing lace collars and little purple

(03:04:03):
dresses and carrying brocaded handbags that have called from this
pooth and have looked up at you know, that's.

Speaker 3 (03:04:12):
Another male thing.

Speaker 2 (03:04:13):
I suppose I should talk about it on Christmas.

Speaker 3 (03:04:14):
But that's another male thing. Men.

Speaker 2 (03:04:17):
Have you ever been with this beautiful chick who looks
like she's made out of Resden China? You know, just
a magnificent chick and you've been trying to impress her
for weeks and finally you're taking her out to go
to some very expensive joint on the East Side. You're
all dressed up when you've worked with your little collars

(03:04:37):
and the whole thing. How many times do you try
three shirts on before you get the one that shows
your magnificent jaw off? Right, this is something women don't know.

Speaker 3 (03:04:47):
About, man. You know, what's the matter?

Speaker 2 (03:04:48):
What it's collar? You know somehow? You know, man, that's
another male thing. If you had the day's men, when
you get you look in the mirror and you just
for some reason or other. Look rotten.

Speaker 3 (03:05:03):
There's a rotten look today.

Speaker 2 (03:05:05):
You know, yesterday you were great. Today you're rotten, you know,
and all kinds of little things. The little football is
hanging all over you, and your shave is kind of cruddy.
You know, everything in your neck is playing. That is
the one day of truth in your life. Friends, Look carefully,
Dorian Gray, this is the moment. Well, this is one

(03:05:30):
of the worst things that a male has to face.
This is a real male thing. You've got this chick.
She's beautiful, chiseled profile, she's delicate, you know that kind
of female that is kind of a rare violin and

(03:05:50):
you are preparing to play a salata, you know that
sort of thing. And you've been working up to this moment,
and you go over to her place, you pick her up,
and the next thing you know, you are walking down
a long corridor in the subway and those unseen friends

(03:06:10):
have been there before you. What is your technique of
walking past one of those signes?

Speaker 3 (03:06:17):
Men?

Speaker 2 (03:06:18):
You know so written all over the wall, you know,
some guys written all over the levy. You know that
that levy bread thing, the one that says you don't
have to be Jewish. To enjoy. Lev's some guy with
Rent Cray and blah blah blah written out who you know.
Then you can't ignore.

Speaker 3 (03:06:36):
It, you know, So you walk along like this, you.

Speaker 2 (03:06:38):
Say, hey, one of those bricks, aren't those interesting bricks? Hey? Hey?
You know you're walking along? And then there's another one
on the wine thing, the gallow wine. You walk and
gradually there's this.

Speaker 3 (03:06:49):
Faint sense of embarrassment. You know, men feel responsible for that. Women.

Speaker 2 (03:06:58):
Are you aware that the male who's with you feels
that somehow he did it because it's floating around in
his mind, you know, and somebody beat him taught, and
he's embarrassed. I don't know what women think of this.

Speaker 3 (03:07:16):
I've wondered how women feel about this thing. And there
you are in.

Speaker 2 (03:07:21):
The phone with all of those things going through your mind.
Somebody has said a very interesting Freudian thing about mother
and such a nice lady. And you're standing there and
you're dialing Ham in Indiana. You dial you know, it

(03:07:43):
says area code three one nine.

Speaker 3 (03:07:46):
You have all those numbers.

Speaker 2 (03:07:47):
You know, it's very official.

Speaker 3 (03:07:48):
Now.

Speaker 2 (03:07:48):
You don't even argue with operators. They never even say
there is a mister.

Speaker 3 (03:07:54):
Shepherd on the phone.

Speaker 2 (03:07:54):
Will you accept it that moment of truth? Can you
imagine calling mother? She says, no, that's why they did
away with operators.

Speaker 3 (03:08:07):
Friends.

Speaker 2 (03:08:08):
Yeah, the phone company thinks either that or one of
the executives had a mother. And so you dial and
you wait, and you know that that.

Speaker 3 (03:08:17):
First moment, that exciting moment of.

Speaker 2 (03:08:20):
Trepidation, there's a kind of sick feeling in you, and
yet there's excitement that sounded oh oh oh, And there's
a thing that says, I hope they're not home. I
can always say I call, I call, I call. Oh,

(03:08:41):
I'll give it two more rings.

Speaker 4 (03:08:42):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (03:08:42):
And then there's a click. There's a moment you say hi.

Speaker 2 (03:08:49):
Another moment and you hear that voice floating over ten
thousand miles.

Speaker 3 (03:08:53):
Who is this?

Speaker 2 (03:08:56):
Say me, me, mommy?

Speaker 3 (03:08:58):
She says, who.

Speaker 5 (03:09:00):
It's me?

Speaker 2 (03:09:01):
Married Christmas, Ma, and she says, oh, merry Christmas. You
have not written in eight months, remember.

Speaker 3 (03:09:12):
That, friend.

Speaker 2 (03:09:13):
There is where the guilt comes in. And not only
have you not written in eight months, you haven't even
thought of home in eight months. And when you didn't
think of it, it was with that vague irritation. That
vague irritation, it's still out there you know that feeling

(03:09:34):
that there's that little pimple that's still growing up, You
still there, and so you get that call through, and
then finally there is that moment of you both agreed.
Now it's Christmas. Let's forget about all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (03:09:51):
Let's forget about the.

Speaker 2 (03:09:52):
Fact you haven't called, you haven't written, she hasn't written,
she hasn't called. And how are you?

Speaker 3 (03:10:00):
Very good? How are you? Then there's that brief pause.

Speaker 2 (03:10:04):
She says, oh, okay, I guess see what do you mean, Mahian?

Speaker 3 (03:10:12):
She says, I'm fine.

Speaker 2 (03:10:15):
Well, Merry Christmas, Ma, how's everything out there? Another brief pause,
and the pause says, as if you give a damn,
that's what that pause means.

Speaker 3 (03:10:29):
She says, all things are come seek them, souf go on.
Is it snowing, Ma? She says no.

Speaker 2 (03:10:39):
Then she says is it snowing there? You say no,
and a drunk waters passed. This is the Merry Electronic
AT and T.

Speaker 3 (03:10:51):
Christmas Call of the year, and tonight.

Speaker 2 (03:10:54):
We are saluting all the guys who have made that call,
all the people who are saying to themselves it's gonna
be better this year. I'm gonna go straight, I'm gonna
straighten it all up. Oh, yes, Christmas time is a
time of great trauma.

Speaker 3 (03:11:14):
And you know I told a story.

Speaker 2 (03:11:16):
It's funny thing. I saw my mother here about six
months ago and we talked about this very story. And
to this day she does not know exactly what happens.

Speaker 3 (03:11:30):
Each one of us.

Speaker 2 (03:11:31):
And I'll guarantee you right here at this at these tables,
there are kids who have fantastic stories, things that have
happened to them that their mother and father have no
idea about it, none whatsoever. Yeah, I'll bad, yeah, yeah, yeah,
what are you applauding? Great Scott? Everybody is flowing? Will happen?

Speaker 5 (03:11:56):
Not my kid?

Speaker 2 (03:11:59):
I know all about little Johnny. And this little kid
is sitting here, his two eyes are going sideways. That
immediate thing, old boy if he ever knew who? Wow.

Speaker 3 (03:12:10):
Well, you know, we all grow up.

Speaker 2 (03:12:13):
With these stories inside of us, because there are some
stories we just can't tell, just impossible to tell. And
I'm going to tell you one tonight that no, you
can tell it to other people. Do you know that
every last chick in this room could tell her analyst
things she would never tell her mother or father in

(03:12:33):
a million years.

Speaker 3 (03:12:35):
No, I'm serious. That's why.

Speaker 2 (03:12:37):
Have you seen those, those those questions and answer columns
in the magazines that say things like, my daughter has
been seeing a guy who runs the garage in our neighborhood.
Now what should I They talk to Anne Landers like
they would never talk to their husband.

Speaker 3 (03:12:55):
Have you seen that?

Speaker 2 (03:12:56):
Those columns they're growing? Boy, I'll tell you one of
the greatest ones I ever saw is one that was
in Look magazine a few years ago. Got my first
insight into that, you might say journalistic confessional box.

Speaker 3 (03:13:12):
It was just beginning to grow.

Speaker 2 (03:13:13):
And I submit to you that within three years our
life is getting so abstract. We're so removed from each other,
it's so automated. You are going to see stuff in those.

Speaker 3 (03:13:27):
Columns you wouldn't believe.

Speaker 2 (03:13:30):
Yeah, it's true. It's really going to start coming out.
In fact, the other day I saw one that said,
h deer. Anne Landers's a little girl. She says, I
am in a very difficult situation, and and what should
I do about it?

Speaker 3 (03:13:48):
Sighing worry?

Speaker 2 (03:13:51):
I'll bet and and Landers, with the typical a plumb
of the journalistic answer says talk it out with your mother,
says whenever you have problems like this, talk it out
with you. Have you ever tried to talk on any
of those problems with your mother? Dear ma? I, well,

(03:14:13):
you remember the other night after the football game, mob
and I got home an hour and.

Speaker 3 (03:14:18):
A half late.

Speaker 2 (03:14:19):
You just don't talk those things out. You may scream
them out, you don't talk about And so I am
sitting in a dentist's office. One of the very first
times I ever saw this scene developed. I'm sitting in
a dentist's office, and it's a couple of years back,

(03:14:39):
and every last one of us are reduced to basic
men in the dentist office. Yeah, there's the cutty guy
and all that sets over there. You know, you can
see him all the time.

Speaker 3 (03:14:51):
He walks and he.

Speaker 2 (03:14:52):
Says, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, eleven o'clock. I am five
minutes early.

Speaker 3 (03:14:56):
He says, loudly.

Speaker 2 (03:14:57):
Let everybody know he's got guts yussarily okay. Then there's
the other guy that walks in hoping that they've canceled them,
that the doctor has a difficult emergency case.

Speaker 3 (03:15:08):
He Isn't that a great.

Speaker 2 (03:15:09):
Feeling When you go in and they say the doctor's
sick today, You say, gee, whiz, I was looking forward
to it. You know, you go out in the sweat well.
I am sitting in a dentist's office over here on
fifty seventh Street, right in the heart of the High
Rent district, you know where dentistry is painful in many ways.

(03:15:32):
The little added suits on their paine, and I'm waiting
in this waiting room. And you know how dentist's waiting
rooms are deliberately designed to go against what you're about
to go through. You know, the little courier in ives
prints Grandma Moses, and here are the old national geographics,

(03:15:53):
and the walls are light pink. Wouldn't it be great
if a dentist ready came out and set it and
he had these hyeronymous bosh paintings people tormented and screaming
and pain. There's a you know, there's an old wood
kind of a guy on the rack. And you know,
I submit that it would make you feel.

Speaker 3 (03:16:15):
Better you come in and say, well, I'm not the
only one, you know, sit down.

Speaker 2 (03:16:20):
But instead all the people are living such great lives.

Speaker 3 (03:16:23):
They're a little slaves, you know, and they're a little
red barns and they're eating maple syrup and all that,
and you're sitting there and this thing is going, you know, goony, goon, goon.
And I think one of the.

Speaker 2 (03:16:37):
Reasons that toothaches bother us is that we are all
suddenly aware of eminent decay.

Speaker 3 (03:16:49):
It is like the creeping pain.

Speaker 2 (03:16:52):
Somehow you're rotting to pieces and you know it. You're
sitting there and it's throbbing away. Yeah, you can feel
a catch, you know, and you're trying to pretend it
isn't hurting as much, and then it's beginning to go away,
so that when he asks you doesn't hurt.

Speaker 3 (03:17:08):
You said, well, no, it's not very bad.

Speaker 2 (03:17:09):
Actually, food. You got eight eyes going around your face.
It's sweat and ooh, it's been since two o'clock last morning.
It's a pain that starts a foot and a half
above your head and goes all the way down into
the ground with roots, big by cuspard yellow roots, and
it just gets goog goog, goog, goog goog. And you're

(03:17:33):
you're dressed in your fifty five dollars sport coat, you're
button down collars, you got your two dollars boxer short side,
you know, you got your silk socks, and all the
while it's krink, and you taste a funny, metallic, bloody,
sort of strange taste. It's your guts, they're coming out

(03:17:57):
through this thing, you know, next thing, you know, your stomach,
I feel it, say, and all the while above you,
Grandma Moses, you know the old life. Well, they didn't
have twothaches, they didn't have any of these pains. And
I'm up there on fifty seven streets, and sitting over
here is that beautiful girl that they always have now

(03:18:18):
in doctor's offices, with the.

Speaker 4 (03:18:20):
Pink phones, the little yellow phones.

Speaker 2 (03:18:23):
And the crisp white uniform. And off somewhere in the distance,
you can hear the faint sound of music playing, beautiful, soft,
escapist string music.

Speaker 9 (03:18:36):
Somewhere over the rainbow upon high there's a land that
I heard of once in a lullaby. It's floating about you.

Speaker 2 (03:18:47):
And then you hear faint, attenuated by distance, a thin
grown It's another decay in there, and you try to
pretend no, it's not happening. And you sit there and

(03:19:07):
you look at your geographics, you try to get involved
in the rainfall of the andes, and there's all those chicks,
and it's.

Speaker 3 (03:19:15):
Still some tournament oom boom boom, and.

Speaker 2 (03:19:20):
That fist has hit me from inside, and she keeps
saying the doctor will.

Speaker 3 (03:19:24):
Be with you in just a minute.

Speaker 2 (03:19:29):
You hear that scream in there, and you know somewhere
there is a sullen, abject torment, and that fentist is
in there trying to pack him full of stuff. He's
fighting decay. He's trying to keep this poor son of
a gun going for another ten minutes, keeping from falling,
the parties, wiring them together, and he's putting little sodder

(03:19:51):
in there, and he's got little braces.

Speaker 3 (03:19:53):
And bits and stuff and this guy and you hear
it in there. See.

Speaker 2 (03:19:59):
Well, I am sitting there one day when one of
the great moments of insight came to me. There is
a copy of Look magazine. Well, now, Look Magazine has
a page in it. I'm going through it, you know,
and there's just chicks and.

Speaker 3 (03:20:15):
Stuff, and suddenly there's this page, a big.

Speaker 2 (03:20:18):
Beautiful page of questions and answers.

Speaker 3 (03:20:23):
How did I know I was gonna.

Speaker 2 (03:20:24):
Find the answer? There's staring out from the page is
this round, confident face, big ridlets glasses, great big grins,
and above it it says, ask doctor Norman Vincent Peale.
He's looking out at me. It is America's greatest humor writer,

(03:20:48):
the greatest humor as America's producer. And there he is,
he's looking out and he answers these questions for millions
of Look readers all over. By the way, he's not
a great name for a magazine.

Speaker 3 (03:20:59):
Look.

Speaker 5 (03:21:01):
Look.

Speaker 2 (03:21:02):
We've got magazines called Look Peek. When we need something
like insight, we get Look.

Speaker 3 (03:21:10):
And there is the first question. And this taught me
a lesson. I've never forgotten it, said, dear doctor.

Speaker 2 (03:21:18):
Peel, Dear doctor Peel. I'm working in this office in
the International Bolt and Rivet Company. I love my work,
doctor Peel.

Speaker 3 (03:21:32):
Every week I get the reports in on time.

Speaker 2 (03:21:36):
I work hard. I've been here fifteen years, doctor Peel.
But mister Bullard, my boss, claims everything on me.

Speaker 3 (03:21:45):
Every ten minutes.

Speaker 2 (03:21:46):
The door opens and he comes roaring out, and he says, Craven.

Speaker 3 (03:21:50):
What did you do now, the doctor Peel.

Speaker 2 (03:21:53):
I didn't do nothing. What can I do, doctor Peele?

Speaker 3 (03:21:57):
Please?

Speaker 2 (03:21:58):
I love my job, sighed Craven.

Speaker 3 (03:22:04):
Well, I'm reading this, you know, And I can hear.

Speaker 2 (03:22:06):
Off in the distance the sound of that drill going,
and I can hear those things, and there's Grandma Moses
looking down on me, and doctor Peel is standing there
confidence fake remless glasses and his answer, Craven, please stand up, Craven,

(03:22:28):
get up off your knees. Craven. That's a very difficult problem.
But we understand it.

Speaker 3 (03:22:38):
Craven. Yes, that sort of thing happens around here all
the time. And it hit me it happens to doctor Peele.

Speaker 2 (03:22:52):
What do you mean, doctor Peele? And all of a
sudden I get this image of doctor Peele sitting in
his study with the light coming down through those stains,
the last windows. You know, he's turning out an lp here,
he's he's writing an article. You know, we're getting out
a book. And all of a sudden the doors slams
open and there's this giant bearded figure.

Speaker 3 (03:23:16):
Peel, Peel, What you do now?

Speaker 5 (03:23:28):
It's the boss?

Speaker 2 (03:23:32):
Well, you know I get these moments speaking of the Boss.
What radio station is this?

Speaker 3 (03:23:37):
Gang?

Speaker 5 (03:23:39):
Well it all.

Speaker 2 (03:23:42):
Right, let's tall. Let's bring out some guts here, gang.

Speaker 3 (03:23:46):
Why we're down here? Where are we? Friends?

Speaker 2 (03:23:50):
Fell Limelight in the heart of festering Greenwich village, where
truth flows like a great river down to the sea,
and where sensitivity. Right, Gang, blossoms like a mulberry bush
in a vast oasis of beauty.

Speaker 3 (03:24:10):
Right, Gang? Oh man, you know, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (03:24:15):
Isn't it discouraging to realize that eighteen million people figure
if they get to the village that they'd finally make it.

Speaker 3 (03:24:22):
Well, here we are, Gang.

Speaker 2 (03:24:25):
There ain't no place else to go. I mean, going
to Cleveland ain't gonna help. Well, I'm telling you I
read this piece you see, and I say, you know,
by George, that is true. No matter where the guy is,
no matter who he is, no matter how big he is,

(03:24:45):
there is somebody always yelling at.

Speaker 3 (03:24:50):
And if it isn't somebody really in.

Speaker 2 (03:24:51):
The next room, there is some little bullard inside of you.
How many guys go through life with a little thing
sitting right next to their gut somewhere and about every
fifteen minutes, especially when things get a little quiet in
the office, you know, and the phone stops ringing, or
maybe at two o'clock in the morning, when you're laying

(03:25:13):
flat out on your sack you're trying to get to sleep,
all of a sudden that little boy starts hollering, when
are you're gonna get on a stick. When are you
gonna quit faking it? When are you're gonna start doing something?

Speaker 3 (03:25:31):
And he said, what do you mean? Why? What do
you mean?

Speaker 2 (03:25:36):
Do you realize I am now second agency account executive
in charge of the pickle puts, I am in charge
of all pickle copy that comes out of my agency.
This is no small achievement for a man of eighty eight.
And that voice says, oh, yeah, you haven't written a pickle.

(03:25:58):
I added four years is that you can read your
phony phony phony phony. And then the guy gets up,
goes into the john. He looks in the mirror, opens
the thing up, and he takes out one of those
little Alka Seltzer taphlets. And you know that little Alka

(03:26:20):
Selzer man that sings that little Alka Seltzer capt runs
back and forth in the Alka Seltzer ads. He's hoping
that that little man will sing madrigals of hope to it.

Speaker 3 (03:26:32):
Down it goes and then all he.

Speaker 2 (03:26:34):
Gets is boop. A big fat burp.

Speaker 3 (03:26:39):
Floats out of I asked there, oh man, you never.

Speaker 2 (03:26:47):
Know what's gonna score.

Speaker 3 (03:26:48):
I'll tell you.

Speaker 2 (03:26:52):
I mean, with the risk of being in bad taste.
Have you ever sat there quietly in a very official
or gathering, and all of a sudden you feel so
stirring inside of you. I say, and you say, well,
and they start to talk to you, and somebody says,
what's the matter, Fred, and said nothing. Then all of
a sudden and you don't recognize the taste, and you.

Speaker 3 (03:27:19):
Wonder what in the world is still stuck down there?

Speaker 2 (03:27:22):
You know, you get the feeling that something is still there.
For when you were eight, there is an old hot
dog that you ate once at Komiskey Park in a
double hitter, and it's still stuck. Did some cravast on
there and it's beginning to make itself known, that funny feeling. Well,

(03:27:46):
I read this piece, you see, and I say to myself,
every last guy has got eighteen little voices that are.

Speaker 3 (03:27:54):
Yelling at him.

Speaker 2 (03:27:56):
Now, there's two different ways to react to this. There
is the one guy who never ever in his life,
learned to ignore it. And this guy goes through life skulking,
and every time he makes a movement twice to stand up,
that boy starts phoning phony he wants he doesn't want

(03:28:18):
anybody else to hear.

Speaker 3 (03:28:19):
See.

Speaker 2 (03:28:20):
He hides by the water cool and that little voice says,
you're a phony.

Speaker 3 (03:28:26):
You're a phony.

Speaker 2 (03:28:27):
You don't love that chicken, you don't like your wife to.

Speaker 3 (03:28:30):
Hate your kids.

Speaker 2 (03:28:32):
You're a phonus Forlonnis, when are you gonna be honest
once in your life? And he goes back and sits
at his desk and starts making paper clip sculpture. Yes,
but then there's the other guy. Somewhere along the line.
The other guys learned to turn away, pretend that voice

(03:28:56):
wasn't even being heard. They turned down the last hearing
aid of the soul, and.

Speaker 3 (03:29:04):
They never hear that voice. They walk around.

Speaker 2 (03:29:08):
They've learned how to carry cocktails.

Speaker 3 (03:29:11):
You know that.

Speaker 2 (03:29:12):
Look the people who really belong at cocktail parties. Don't
you have that feeling of at least seventy five percent
of the cocktail parties that you go to, that you
are not a cocktail party goer. That half of the
meetings you'll go to the other guys are really involved.

(03:29:32):
They're talking about this big project. You know, Well, we're
gonna open up the Ohio Tara Turian and we're gonna
take care of you, Charlie. You take care of a
coffee friend, You'll handle all the other media. And there
You're sitting there and you keep saying who cares?

Speaker 3 (03:29:43):
Who cares?

Speaker 2 (03:29:45):
Your eyes keep getting shorter, and you keep falling asleep,
and somewhere you feel the other guys are with it. Well,
they ain't any more than you. That's a good thing
to know. They have just turned off the game on
that little voice, and they walk through life.

Speaker 3 (03:30:04):
You know, that beautiful.

Speaker 2 (03:30:05):
Cocktail party stance.

Speaker 4 (03:30:07):
You kinda hold a hip like this, you hold it,
you sway a.

Speaker 2 (03:30:11):
Little bit, and you rock on the balls of your feet,
and you have all the proper names at your fingertips
right on the edge of your tongue.

Speaker 3 (03:30:20):
Why, eyes, it's.

Speaker 2 (03:30:22):
Watch something right out of Copka Kopka. You never read
Kopka in your life, you know, Yes, of course, reminds
me a little bit of Pelini, you know, just a
little touch of the surrealism with an interesting attitude towards sentimentality.

(03:30:43):
You just sort of play it as though not only
have you read Kopka. Somehow you are just a little
above and to the right of Copka.

Speaker 3 (03:30:53):
You see, yes, he's.

Speaker 2 (03:30:55):
Rather interesting. You should see what I've got in me.

Speaker 3 (03:31:00):
It'll come out one day. Well within every last.

Speaker 2 (03:31:05):
Family circle, sitting right here, there are at least five
thousand secrets that are being held.

Speaker 3 (03:31:12):
I'd love to know what they are.

Speaker 2 (03:31:14):
Kids who continue stories of untold debauchery, Adults who've got
things they have not said and they will not say
for the rest of their lives. You know, it's interesting
how many kids figure that all the rottenness that came
along was discovered in their thirteenth year. They really do,

(03:31:37):
They really figured. That's why every young novelist writes a
fantastic novel about sex. He figures it's a new development,
you see, he really does, and he understands it. Nobody
before him does, Nobody before him knows.

Speaker 3 (03:31:53):
The true beauty.

Speaker 2 (03:31:55):
It's a fantastic soul searching passion of this magnificent new
discovery sex. And all the while you know it's going
on all around, this fantastic.

Speaker 3 (03:32:07):
Fruitcake of life.

Speaker 2 (03:32:09):
You can't, you know, you just can't for the life.
And you see your mother in the front seat of
a convertible after the basketball game at two o'clock in
the morning with some guy you never even saw. It
ain't your father, and somebody else. You know, you imagine looking.

Speaker 3 (03:32:27):
At that scene and you see your mother there, and.

Speaker 2 (03:32:31):
There's a tall, skinny guy with pimples, and your father
is a short, fat guy with pimples, you know, and
your mother's got this big.

Speaker 3 (03:32:43):
Scene going on. You know, you want to say, hey, mom,
cut it out, that ain't dead.

Speaker 2 (03:32:49):
No, we don't want to believe that anything like that
ever happened, they ever say. And so for that reason,
all the kids, as each one hits thirteen, he figures
that it's all a new and it better be kept
that way, because right at this group here, I can
see all these little secrets floating around. Well, on this

(03:33:12):
night in my twelfth year, over twelve thousand years ago,
a fantastic moment happened to me that is still buried
as a secret inside of me.

Speaker 3 (03:33:27):
Now, all of us know that when.

Speaker 2 (03:33:29):
We go through that period of about twelve, thirteen and fourteen,
there is the illusion, sometimes it even lasts to about twenty.
There is the illusion of infinite wisdom, and not only that,
the illusion of being able to.

Speaker 3 (03:33:48):
Spot a phony a mile away.

Speaker 2 (03:33:51):
There is also that illusion that anybody else.

Speaker 3 (03:33:53):
Around you who is older is a fool, an idiot,
and a knave rumbling old fat head.

Speaker 2 (03:34:01):
You know, you get this feeling, so you go through it.

Speaker 3 (03:34:04):
You just do.

Speaker 2 (03:34:05):
It's a natural thing. Well, for about two months before Christmas.
Now you remember, I'm living out in Indiana, Northern Indiana,
where we got a lot of territory. You know, there's
a lot of vacant lots, there are a lot of forests,
there's a swamp there. There's eight million spat siaes. These

(03:34:25):
are sparrows birds. And the kids lived in close proximity
with the spat seas and the snakes, the.

Speaker 3 (03:34:32):
Turtles and the birds and the bombs. Everything was all
going say out there, and one of the big things
to have in that neighborhood was a baby gun.

Speaker 2 (03:34:44):
Well, about i'd say roughly September.

Speaker 3 (03:34:47):
I began to lay the groundwork. I began to.

Speaker 2 (03:34:50):
Establish that what I wanted was a BB gun, and
I began to show my mother these great BB gun ads.
You know that any of you who don't want a
BB gun is an air rifle.

Speaker 3 (03:35:01):
And I get to show it.

Speaker 2 (03:35:02):
These ads that showed Red Rider special carbine model with
a compass in the stock, you know, signed by the
Red Rider, and they had these beautiful Daisy model two hundreds.
There was a Benjamin Pump gun.

Speaker 3 (03:35:17):
Well, I was a Daisy man.

Speaker 2 (03:35:22):
Oh, yeah, I had an idea. You know, like guys,
even at the beginning of their career, they begin to
have myth and illusions about what brand is the best.
There are nine million guys that think Ford's rattle, that's
their myth. There are eight million guys who say chevyes
don't hold up.

Speaker 3 (03:35:41):
That's their myth. Each guy has a myth.

Speaker 2 (03:35:44):
Well. I believe that Benjamin Pump guns didn't have power.

Speaker 3 (03:35:48):
That was my myth.

Speaker 2 (03:35:50):
And I believe that the Red Rider model was for sisss.
The only one that was a good one was a Daisy,
a Daisy Model two hundred that had two hundred copper
bebies in it. That's what the two hundred stood for.

Speaker 3 (03:36:03):
And it was a carbine model. And I kept saying,
that's what I want.

Speaker 2 (03:36:07):
And beginning in September, my mother kept saying, you'll shoot
somebody's eye out. That's a real mother price, You'll shoot
somebody's eye out.

Speaker 3 (03:36:17):
I said, oh, Mom, what do you mean.

Speaker 2 (03:36:19):
I know how to handle a baby gun. I shoot
bruners all the time. You'll shoot somebody's eye out. Now,
I'm not gonna have all of doctor bills and all that.
You'll shoot somebody's eye out. Oh, Mom, I'm only gonna
shoot fancies. She says, you're gonna shoot somebody's eye out, and.

Speaker 3 (03:36:33):
I'm not gonna buy your baby gun.

Speaker 2 (03:36:35):
Well, you know that slow erosive process that kids learn
very early in life.

Speaker 3 (03:36:42):
That is the wine.

Speaker 2 (03:36:45):
You know, you begin to develop that. Eh, I can
still wine. Great? You notice that one of the few
skills that remained for my childhood.

Speaker 3 (03:36:55):
You know, yeah, quite out love.

Speaker 2 (03:36:58):
Oh, I use it all the time at the station.
They call me in the sales department the way I
did it again, I said, oh, crina, or are you
guys know? Wow? They can't stand the whine. And it began.
It was like the Chinese water torture. About every third day,

(03:37:18):
I would just spend the entire day just free.

Speaker 3 (03:37:20):
Form whining.

Speaker 2 (03:37:24):
That high pitch through the nose. And she said, why
don't you go out and do something? Get out the
way you're underfoot all the time. I would wait two
beats one two e. She'd say, now get out of
here and quit whining. Oh, you're driving me out of
my skull. You're whining. You just gotta keep going, you know,

(03:37:45):
you gotta keep hitting me. Well, I figured I was
beginning to make headway, because you know that funny little
self satisfied look that people get when they say, oh boy,
are you going to be surprised Christmas? You know? Oh wow?
Well then you know you learn early when to start
attenuating the wine. So I'm playing on this wine, you know,

(03:38:09):
like a bast organ.

Speaker 3 (03:38:10):
See pulling the stop me.

Speaker 2 (03:38:12):
I'd wait, and then I'd say, well, maybe I better
make sure. So it's Friday afternoon, I say, hey, Ma,
she'd say what, just reminding her I ain't giving up.

Speaker 3 (03:38:27):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:38:30):
Well, every second day she is saying, you're gonna shoot
somebody's eye out. Boy, if you're gonna be the gun
and you shoot somebody's eye out, you're really gonna have trouble.

Speaker 3 (03:38:42):
You hear that? Then I knew I was in. I
knew I was in. Say I'm pretending I don't know.
Oh my gee, well I gotta have a baby gun. Ma. Wow.

Speaker 2 (03:38:53):
She said, look, you're gonna shoot somebody's on and if
you're not careful. If you're gonna be the gun and
you're not careful, I'm gonna take down away and your
father's gonna.

Speaker 3 (03:39:01):
Break it right in half.

Speaker 2 (03:39:08):
You know that rotten, snotty look, that the kid has Oh,
this old doll doesn't know nothing.

Speaker 3 (03:39:12):
You know, what a fool.

Speaker 2 (03:39:14):
You know that the constant you're gonna break somebody's eye,
You're gonna brust it.

Speaker 3 (03:39:18):
Well, do I have to tell you?

Speaker 2 (03:39:22):
Two days before Christmas. It's in that beautiful, beautiful winter
time that they have out in the Midwest. The snow
has been coming down for three days. It's getting higher,
you know. And in school, you know that excitement to
build up in school where they're singing all the Christmas carols,
and every couple of days we're singing things.

Speaker 3 (03:39:43):
Like Sililent Night.

Speaker 2 (03:39:46):
All the while I can see me with that daisy
two hundred were shooting somebody's eye out, you know, and
I know who I was gonna get right away. You know. Well,
they've got this whole thing, build it up, you see,
And that's the excitement. We're cutting out out of green paper,
little Christmas.

Speaker 3 (03:40:06):
Trees, you know that. You remember when you used to
cut those out.

Speaker 2 (03:40:09):
Get a little round pieces of red paper and yellow
and everybody makes a Christmas tree and takes it home,
you know, on a piece of Manila paper.

Speaker 3 (03:40:17):
And you're right Randy or Dicky.

Speaker 2 (03:40:20):
On the bottom, you know, is the hair Ma Christmas
card mo hoping. You know that you look at you
and say, oh, you should have three baby guns, you know,
for this beautiful.

Speaker 3 (03:40:29):
And they're singing and they've got the Christmas candy.

Speaker 2 (03:40:33):
And finally the day before Christmas. Our school always let
out the day before Christmas Eve, like the twenty third,
and they have the big party in school. And you
know how Christmas parties are in school are a very
special kind of party. All the kids, half of them
are singing in the choir and the other half are.

(03:40:55):
They give each other little presents, like kazoos and all
that kind of stuff, little fun things, and we've all
taken names of people and given them the little gift.
And the big thing is heading right at us.

Speaker 3 (03:41:09):
Boy, the excitement is growing.

Speaker 2 (03:41:12):
It's it's getting almost like a mushroom cloud, like some
great big bomb going off. And now it is Christmas
Eve and our house, the presents were put under the
tree on Christmas Eve.

Speaker 3 (03:41:27):
And we would be all excited.

Speaker 2 (03:41:29):
The tree would be trimmed all afternoon and finding people
are sneaking in there. And we always went to bed.
We had a whole thing in the family. Know, we
went to bed and the next day, we wake up
and our presence would be there. They wouldn't be there
the night before, they'd be there the next morning.

Speaker 3 (03:41:45):
And so seven a m.

Speaker 2 (03:41:48):
Dawns bright and crisp. You could see that snow hanging
out there.

Speaker 3 (03:41:53):
And I am out of that.

Speaker 2 (03:41:54):
Bed like a shot boom, you know, in there, Paul
taking for all. I'm chunking a looking. I'm not gonna
sland some stuff beside. My kid brothers already crying, you know,
I'm looking. Oh right, And it's all wrapped in red
paper with ribbons, and it's unmistakably a rod, and it's heavy,

(03:42:17):
and I can hear those babies going, you know that sounds.

Speaker 3 (03:42:22):
I rip it open, and there it is.

Speaker 2 (03:42:25):
A beautiful chromium plated Model two hundred Daisy air right.

Speaker 3 (03:42:32):
Well with it came a little.

Speaker 2 (03:42:36):
Package of paper targets.

Speaker 3 (03:42:39):
So I immediately rushed back into the bedroom.

Speaker 2 (03:42:42):
I'm putting on my highpops. I got all the stuff,
you know, my sheepskin coat. I got my hat on,
you know, with the goggles up.

Speaker 3 (03:42:48):
Here, boy, and I am out there now.

Speaker 2 (03:42:52):
Everybody's asleep in the house.

Speaker 3 (03:42:54):
Remember that.

Speaker 2 (03:42:54):
My mother's in the bed, my father's in the bed,
my kid brothers are wrapping packages and.

Speaker 3 (03:43:01):
I am out by the front porch.

Speaker 2 (03:43:04):
In those days, I was a glasses wearer. I had
been wearing glasses since nine And I'm out.

Speaker 3 (03:43:12):
There with my glasses polished and up there on the steps,
I put my target.

Speaker 2 (03:43:19):
You know, the steps come down, I get the target
back through the snow.

Speaker 3 (03:43:22):
I go cock the sun of a covenant. You know
that great stance you take your.

Speaker 2 (03:43:27):
BB gun like this. I could see that target down there,
that bull's eye wavering back and forth before my Daisy
Model two hundred sito and it goes boot bank crash.
My glasses are in Striker's yard. Across is three eight

(03:43:51):
thousand pieces. It has missed my eye by a quarter
of a millimeter.

Speaker 3 (03:43:58):
And I don't know whether any of.

Speaker 2 (03:43:59):
You glasses, whereas no one it's like to break your
glasses at the.

Speaker 3 (03:44:02):
Age of twelve or thirteen.

Speaker 2 (03:44:04):
That is a fantastic family problem with.

Speaker 3 (03:44:07):
My baby gun.

Speaker 5 (03:44:09):
Who They're gone.

Speaker 3 (03:44:12):
I can't find them.

Speaker 2 (03:44:13):
I'm standing around. My gun is on my head the
first shot. I'm telling you, I walk here.

Speaker 3 (03:44:19):
They are the glass all over the place. I pick
them up.

Speaker 2 (03:44:22):
They're crooking, They're hanging sideways. Help the steps I go,
I take the paper and I wrap it.

Speaker 3 (03:44:31):
I put it under there, and there's a scratch on
the side of my head. You know, the whole scene.
I'm scared out of my wits.

Speaker 2 (03:44:38):
Oh boy, And I put my glasses down there. I'm
trying to hide them. My kid brothers walking around crunch
if they're Randy, you're busting my glasses.

Speaker 3 (03:44:58):
Randy, my glasses. Bye, but my glass.

Speaker 2 (03:45:02):
And my mother came out, she said, you broke his glasses.

Speaker 5 (03:45:06):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (03:45:09):
My kid brother's crying. And I'm sitting there with that
fantastic feeding, of that beautiful feeding of total lack of guilt.
Let's say, hey, Ma, can I take my baby gun
out and fry it?

Speaker 3 (03:45:24):
Ma?

Speaker 2 (03:45:28):
So within each one of us, friends, there are those
little secrets. And six months ago, I'm sitting with my
mother and I said, hey, Ma, do you remember when
Randy busted my glasses? She says, yes, you know, you know,
I still be a sad about yelling at him like
that on Christmas morning, but he shouldn't have done it.

(03:45:50):
And my kid brother still looks at me even to
this day with a funny look. I have not gotten
a Christmas card from.

Speaker 3 (03:45:57):
Him since I was ten.

Speaker 2 (03:46:00):
So gang, let's applaud Christmas and hope that next year
it'll be better.

Speaker 1 (03:46:06):
Well that's it for Airchecks 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. Airchecks 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 3 (03:47:07):
That st

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Episode 120, April 19, 2025 - Jean Shepherd Show Marathon, Part 14

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 120, April 19, 2025 - Jean Shepherd Show Marathon, Part 14