Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ Greg Mitchell - From Guthrie to Springsteen: The Lineage of American Protest Music

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Interview Only w/ Greg Mitchell - From Guthrie to Springsteen: The Lineage of American Protest Music · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of The Chuck Podcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: four three nine eight five. So my guest today is
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a return guest actually, because he's one of my favorite authors,
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  Speaker 1: so I'm always interested in what he is up to.
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  Speaker 1: It's great Mitchell. He is having him on today because
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  Speaker 1: he's the writer and director of a new documentary. You
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  Speaker 1: can find a PBS called Woody Guthrie and the Ghost
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  Speaker 1: of Tom Jode today. It's a fascinating look at the
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  Speaker 1: intersection of two American giants, Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck,
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  Speaker 1: of course, author of Grapes of Wrath, among other things,
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  Speaker 1: and the character of Tom Jode, which became a bridge
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  Speaker 1: essentially between literature, music and social activism, activism that frankly
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  Speaker 1: feels a bit familiar as we are now. The documentary
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  Speaker 1: is Narrow by Roseanne Cash, features music from Bruce Springsteen,
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  Speaker 1: and it's a part of a conversation I want to
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  Speaker 1: have with Greg on this and as many of you know,
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  Speaker 1: I talk about this all the time because two of
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  Speaker 1: my all time favorite books about political biographies, if you will,
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  Speaker 1: One is Campaign of the Century about Uptonston Clair's campaign
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  Speaker 1: for governor, written by none other than mister Mitchell and Nixon.
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  Speaker 1: And The Pink Lady about the California Center Race in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty featuring Richard Nixon, also written by Greg Mitchell,
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  Speaker 1: and for those of you that know Greg know he
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  Speaker 1: is absolutely probably as good of a historian on this
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  Speaker 1: era as anybody alive today. Mister Mitchell, good to see you.
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  Speaker 2: Sir, Thank you over always happy to be here. Chuck.
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  Speaker 1: My ear tells me by the way that you make
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  Speaker 1: an appearance in this documentary, are you Are you the
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  Speaker 1: voice of Woody or Spineback. I'm trying to remember now,
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  Speaker 1: but you're one of the two principles.
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  Speaker 2: Right, well, certainly not Woody. No, I take the voice
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  Speaker 2: of Steinbeck, who is a feature kse sort of a second.
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  Speaker 2: He becomes kind of a secondary character because Woody is
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  Speaker 2: such a in you know, in my estimation and my
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  Speaker 2: longtime fandom. He's such a giant and he speaks so
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  Speaker 2: much for for today. Steinbeck, as you know, after Grapes
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  Speaker 2: of Wrath, sort of went away from more political social
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  Speaker 2: things that actually became a more of a conservative and
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  Speaker 2: a Vietnam Hawk in his leaders wood he stayed true
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  Speaker 2: to himself, and so it is more of a Woody
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  Speaker 2: doc I think. But yes, I am the voice of
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  Speaker 2: I'm the ghost of John stein.
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  Speaker 1: You're the ghost of John Steinbeck. So talk about why
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  Speaker 1: you chose to do it this way, what you were
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  Speaker 1: trying to do, and is this part of a larger project.
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  Speaker 1: Are you doing a few more things, because I do
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  Speaker 1: feel like you continue to sort of what I would
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  Speaker 1: say is add new chapters to this this era. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: and certainly the research and that you've been doing for decades.
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  Speaker 2: Frankly, well, yeah, as you mentioned, I've done many many
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  Speaker 2: books over the years, and then about six years ago
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  Speaker 2: I turned to making a documentaries for PBS. So I've
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  Speaker 2: done five in the last five years, and you know,
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  Speaker 2: varying subjects. But again, some of them have been on
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: the there's one on the Upton Sinclair Race that you mentioned,
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  Speaker 2: there's one on the More massacre which happened to nineteen
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  Speaker 2: thirty seven in Chicago, and then a couple others.
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  Speaker 1: As you know, we did the Atomic Bowl.
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  Speaker 2: That's the weirder my hero.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, sometimes you like, sometimes what do they say, like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to make stuff up because
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: what happened in reality is sometimes stranger than fiction, and
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  Speaker 1: that that's certainly a football game, uh in Nagasaki after
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the was in Nagasaki right now here, right Nagasaki again, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: here we are. But anyway, so on this, on this topic,
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  Speaker 1: so so tell me sorry I interrupted.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I've as you know, I've been kind
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  Speaker 2: of obsessed with the Depression era and the politics and
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  Speaker 2: what came out of that. So it's it's not a
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  Speaker 2: new subject for me. But I've never I've never done
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  Speaker 2: anything any film related to music. I've been a Woody
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  Speaker 2: Guthrie fan going back many, many decades. And actually the
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  Speaker 2: project in a way began a little over a year
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  Speaker 2: ago when I finally, believe it or not, finally read
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  Speaker 2: Grapes of Wrath. I had never read it, so I
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  Speaker 2: finally read it, and it was actually even greater than
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  Speaker 2: I thought it would be, and uh, you know, it
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  Speaker 2: started seeing me.
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  Speaker 1: I haven't read it since the eleventh grade.
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  Speaker 2: I bet, you know, eleventh or twelfth.
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  Speaker 1: Grade, and I wonder if it's probably would would would
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  Speaker 1: get harder even harder today given yeah, I think the world.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah. And then I I don't know how,
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  Speaker 2: but I started down the path of seeing the connections
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  Speaker 2: between Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck, which most people don't
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  Speaker 2: know about, including me, and seeing how intimately entwined they
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  Speaker 2: were in that period. Of course, people may think of
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  Speaker 2: them today in the same light dust bowl and depression
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  Speaker 2: and migrants and all that. But I didn't know they
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  Speaker 2: had these close connections back in the late thirties when
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  Speaker 2: Woody was really becoming Woody and Steinbeck had written The
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  Speaker 2: Grapes of Wrath and then the movie. A lot of
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  Speaker 2: people know The Grapes of Wrath mainly from the Great Movie,
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  Speaker 2: so it's a rare case where someone wrote a classic
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  Speaker 2: book and the movie is also a classic, so it
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  Speaker 2: doesn't always happen. And so I saw that and I said, boy,
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  Speaker 2: I'll keep looking into it and if these Woody connections
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  Speaker 2: and then just great things I found out about Woody,
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  Speaker 2: And then I connected with Woody's granddaughter said she would cooperate,
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  Speaker 2: and I found got permission to use the songs, and
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  Speaker 2: uh Springsteen and his manager, you know, gave permission to
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  Speaker 2: use their song and so it all came together. So
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  Speaker 2: I was very happy the way the way it you
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  Speaker 2: know, the way it's worked out. As you mentioned, it's on PPI.
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  Speaker 2: But the great thing about PBS is it is showing
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  Speaker 2: on stations, but it's also anyone can watch it on
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  Speaker 2: PBS dot or app. So it's great.
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  Speaker 1: It's anywhere. Can I just tell you we're members. We
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  Speaker 1: love that PBS app. We use it all the time.
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  Speaker 1: I mean it's sort of like, look, I mean, I
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  Speaker 1: know some people listen and are still sort of think
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  Speaker 1: of TV in the traditional sense, and when is this
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  Speaker 1: going to air on my PBS station? And you know,
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  Speaker 1: I've always said we're spoiled in DC because we used
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  Speaker 1: to get three PBS stations. You know, we'd get a
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  Speaker 1: Virginia d C and a Maryland. But this PBS app,
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  Speaker 1: these docs are on demand and so if you miss it,
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  Speaker 1: it's right there.
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  Speaker 2: When you're filing at PBS dot org. You don't even
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  Speaker 2: have to go to the app. So it's a great
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  Speaker 2: thing about all my films have been for PBS, and
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  Speaker 2: I feel, I mean, I'm happy to help PBS. But
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  Speaker 2: it's also great because instead of saying, well, this movie
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  Speaker 2: may come to your local theater and right or check
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  Speaker 2: your listenings, you can just go to PBS dot org
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  Speaker 2: and watch it, uh, you know this afternoon tonight.
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  Speaker 1: Look, the fact, the hardest thing of making any documentary
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  Speaker 1: like this is sometimes rights, right, you know, was it
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  Speaker 1: much of a Was it much of a How difficult
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  Speaker 1: was it to get I mean, you've you've, you've basically
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  Speaker 1: connected to me three generations of of of musician families,
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  Speaker 1: if you will, right with Roseanne Cash, the gut Threes,
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  Speaker 1: Rosen Cash and Bruce Springsteen, who have been, in their
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  Speaker 1: own way, all trying to sing the you know, to
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  Speaker 1: try to bring attention to the downtrodden common commoner. I
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  Speaker 1: guess that's probably their common How How hard was it
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  Speaker 1: to get Bruce to say yes? How hard was it
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  Speaker 1: to get Roseanne Cash to say yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Well? I've known Roseanne for a while and I know
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  Speaker 2: her her politics, and I know that she was a
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  Speaker 2: huge Woody Guthrie fan, has performed at various Guthrie tributes,
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  Speaker 2: sung his songs. I know that her father was a
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  Speaker 2: huge Woody Guthrie fan, which would surprise no one. And
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  Speaker 2: she's written about her father being a huge Woody Guthrie fan,
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  Speaker 2: And so it was a natural to approach her, and she,
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  Speaker 2: you know, she eagerly, eagerly took it to fit into
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  Speaker 2: her schedule. But what's amazing about this whole, the whole
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  Speaker 2: Woody Guthrie project. And I know people know him as
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  Speaker 2: an icon. They know him as a name and songwriter
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  Speaker 2: and so forth. But he is so beloved and respected
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  Speaker 2: by so many people, you know, in the musical community particularly,
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  Speaker 2: and also among activists, so it is kind of easy
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  Speaker 2: to get permissions from various people, and because of the
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  Speaker 2: esteem that he's held in. And the other thing I
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  Speaker 2: should mention is that when I set out to make
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  Speaker 2: this film, of course we already were responses to Ice.
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  Speaker 2: We're going back a year ago now, so you had
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: this new You mentioned how this film is maybe so
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  Speaker 2: relevant today, and we were starting to see that when
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  Speaker 2: I started this the anti Ice protests, and Woody Guthrie
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  Speaker 2: became kind of the songwriter of twenty twenty five twenty
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  Speaker 2: twenty six for these protests with his songs this land
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  Speaker 2: is your lie of course, and all you fascists bound
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  Speaker 2: to lose. This is a song that people had forgotten
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  Speaker 2: about for a long time, and suddenly if you went
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  Speaker 2: to a No King's rally or any sort of anti
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  Speaker 2: ICE thing, people were singing, all you fascists bound to
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  Speaker 2: lose and this this land is your land. So Woody
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  Speaker 2: Guthrie had is having another moment which even I wasn't
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  Speaker 2: counting on at that time, and then Springsteen, as you mentioned,
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  Speaker 2: the Minneapolis tragedy happened, and suddenly Springten is performing again
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  Speaker 2: his old song, which hasn't never been among his most
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  Speaker 2: popular ghost of.
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  Speaker 1: Film, the Ghost of Tom.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't know. I thought Bruce was going to go
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  Speaker 2: on tour and sing the Ghost of Tom jod with
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  Speaker 2: Tom Morello every night, you know, has one highlights. And
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  Speaker 2: of course I had no idea that song would be revived,
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  Speaker 2: but it's always been one of my favorites, so it
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  Speaker 2: was natural from the beginning. I was hoped to use
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  Speaker 2: it in the film, and you know, it really serves
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  Speaker 2: as the emotional climax of the film. So I guess
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  Speaker 2: I didn't anticipate Bruce going back on tour and all that,
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  Speaker 2: but it did. It worked out for that.
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  Speaker 1: In that case, let's talk about your two subjects here
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  Speaker 1: in Gut three. In Steinbeck, you intertwine them in such
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  Speaker 1: a way. I feel like Woody Guthrie does see himself
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  Speaker 1: as sort of an amplifier of Steinbeck. Did Steinbeck' see
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  Speaker 1: Guthrie the same way?
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  Speaker 2: Well? With the what we've established is they did meet
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  Speaker 2: at least a couple of times and probably several other
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  Speaker 2: times in tours of migrant camps. We believe that Steinbeck
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  Speaker 2: heard Woody on the radio. You know, Woody went out
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  Speaker 2: the Woody was, of course of Hoky. He fled the
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  Speaker 2: dust Ball, went to California and started out in radio,
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  Speaker 2: and he had a popular radio show, but he was
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  Speaker 2: not famous nationally or even even that famous locally. He'd
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  Speaker 2: written one or two songs, he hadn't written the songs
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  Speaker 2: he's most famous for now, but he was a radio
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  Speaker 2: kind of spokesman for the dust Bowl refugees. H And
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  Speaker 2: so Steinbeck, we believe heard him on the radio, but
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  Speaker 2: didn't you know, didn't know him for a while until
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: they were introduced by Will Gear, the actor who was
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: a left wing actor later famous for playing Grandpa Walton
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  Speaker 2: on The Waltons and other roles. So they were introduced,
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  Speaker 2: and so they certainly knew each other. But Woody, I
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: would say The Grapes of Wrath had more influence on
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  Speaker 2: Woody than the other way around, because Woody, you know,
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  Speaker 2: The Grapes of Wrath was so popular that wood he
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  Speaker 2: felt confident that he would have a wider audience, and
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  Speaker 2: he recorded his own song, Tom Joad, which was also
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  Speaker 2: in my film became one of his classics and inspiration
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  Speaker 2: for Springsteen and so forth. So they are really deeply entwined.
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  Speaker 2: But it was Woody who went on stayed on this
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  Speaker 2: path until his illness, and Steinbecker kind of got off
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  Speaker 2: that path.
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  Speaker 1: Look, I'll confess, I you know, you sit here, you're
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  Speaker 1: you know. I consider myself reasonably well educated. I know
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  Speaker 1: my Woody gut three, I know my John Steinbeck, and
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  Speaker 1: yet I didn't fully appreciate the connection between the two.
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  Speaker 1: And now like it sits there in plain sight. Why
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  Speaker 1: why do you think it took so long to sort
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: of make this cultural connection if you will.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I guess, as I mentioned, Woody is
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: kind of passes in and out of you know, of
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: of true whether true modern current fame and relevance. Not
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: to me, he's always remained relevant. His songs are always
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: re recorded and covered and so forth. So uh and uh.
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  Speaker 2: And of course the Grapes of Wrath a lot of
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: people only know from the movie Henry Fonda and so forth,
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  Speaker 2: and people like me hadn't even read the book. But
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: so in some ways it's not that surprising. But you know,
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  Speaker 2: I I just think in this past year. It's it's
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: just been incredible the way Woody has been, uh, you know,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: adopted by people. And his song Deportees is the third
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  Speaker 2: song I would mention that has just become the past year,
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: so relevant to today, one of the great songs of
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: the past century. It's being recorded every week, there's a
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: new cover version, people are doing it in concert. There's
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: a film in the works. So those are three songs
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  Speaker 2: in the past year that have They've always been there,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: but they're just incredible expansion in the public consciousness.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Tom Joe, you think it was meant to be political?
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  Speaker 2: You mean the original book? Yeah, yeah, I think a
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: lot of people are surprised in the film that Steinbeck was.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: You listen to his language, and he was even in
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: the book and in what letters he wrote. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: he's calling the growers and the state officials who are
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: letting the migrants starve. You call it the murderers fascist.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of language you hear today. He was
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: not holding back at all. What's interesting, And of course
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: what I didn't know and probably most people don't know,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: is Steinbicker didn't had written two previous novels that looked
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: at farm workers in California, and then he wrote The
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Grapes of Wrath came directly out of a seven part
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: series he wrote for the San Francisco News, the old
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: newspaper in San Francisco where he traveled to the migrant
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  Speaker 2: camps for many weeks. Wrote a seven explosive seven part
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: series full of anger and everything else that then led
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  Speaker 2: to writing the novel The Grapes of Wrath. So, uh,
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  Speaker 2: he had a long history in this and very I
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: want to say it's radical on this case, but he
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: was certainly angry and on the left and in denouncing
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: the growers and agribusiness public officials. So that's so that
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: novel came out.
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  Speaker 1: Of I guess what I'm asking. It was more of
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a he was I think he was attacking this through morality, right,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: not necessarily in politics. Right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, they were my you know, people who came
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: and you can have connections to today people, but these
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: were people who fled seeking a better life, and some
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: of them found it, but mostly they were exploited and
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: paid slave wages of no wages at all, lived in
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: the hord conditions and so forth. So you traveled around California,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: you would see this you had to be affected, and
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: he certainly did so. You know, he was not writing
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: from an ivory tower up and up in Salinas, and
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: the Woody was not writing from you know, a desk
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: at the you know, at a radio station or something.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: They were out and out and observing it.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: One of the ways that you want to do that
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: you showcase just how massive this migration west, this migration
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: of California was, is that I think you at one
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: point LA's population was like within a ten year period
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: went from fifty thousand to two and a half million. Yeah,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: was it was it about ten year period.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Well, there's more, always more than fifty because people had
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: been moving out to LA from the Midwest. Uh well,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: before the depression. They used to used to be that
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: half of half of LA was Iowa farmers. But they
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: weren't going out because the dust ball. It was some
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: of them were going out there just for a better life.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: And in California, you know, as you know, it's the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: market basket of the country even then, so and then
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: it surged throughout the twenties and then exploded in the
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: thirties with the you know, the migrants who came not
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: just from Oklahoma, obviously, but Arkansas, uh, and throughout the
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Midwest and Texas of course.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: But this was an all domestic migration. There were still
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: quite a few Mexicans as well, right, yeah, Mexican.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: The the farm workers tended to be the you know,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: as I show in the film in the there's waves
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: of these exploited farm workers going back to Chinese and
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: the Asians and and just the native Californians, and you
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: had the and some from Mexico. And then you had
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: this mass migration in the thirties, and then World War
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Two came along, so there suddenly became jobs for the whites,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: and so the farm workers then became mainly Mexican and Filipinos.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: And that's you know, continued to this day really. But
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: the changeover was in World War Two when suddenly there
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: were jobs for Mexicans and Filipinos because of the jobs
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: for the whites and the World War Two factories.
• 20:36
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  Speaker 1: you can also call one eight seven seven seven seven
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  Speaker 1: zero seven eight six seven if you're in Louisiana. Look,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the thing that you know why I want so many
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: younger people to watch this is that it's another reminder
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: because you know, there were plenty of critics of Guthrie
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: or Steinbeck at the time that would you know, attack
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: them for you know, somehow being against the country or
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: unpatriotic or Unamerican. And now they're almost viewed as incredible
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: patriots in hindsight, right, that they in some ways believed
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: in the idea of America more so than those that
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: were governing in that period and what they were what
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: they were writing about, and it's just such a look.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I see it as an important reminder. It's like, you know,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: today's protesters or tomorrow's patriots.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, you know, as I show in the
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: film Groups of Wrath, that they burned copies of grapes
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: of wrath that was taken off, some of the very shells.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Steinbeck was denounced as a communist. You know, where have
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: we heard that before?
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: We'll shoot the twenties and thirties. I mean that was
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: that was almost that was as caught you threw around
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the communists the tack line as much as you see
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: it today, right.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And you know, and this land is your land,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: even people who don't know a lot of other what
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: do young people? A lot of people consider that it
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: should be our national anthem? Uh And you know, and
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: so that's a long way to go from him, this
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: radical from the nineteen thirties and nineteen forties, to have
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: a song that is, you know, considered by many people
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: it's really should be our national anthem. They're singing the
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: verses that were never they were too radical to be
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: sung for for decades. Now they're singing these the two
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: radical verses that weren't weren't allowed before. So and you know,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: I actually go back to, you know, the late nineteen
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: nineties when two of my favorite musician group Beings Wilco
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: and Billy Bragg recorded in Mermaid Avenue, which won Grammys
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: and became a hallowed albums in our in our history
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: with singing lyrics that Woody wrote that had never been
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: recorded or never appeared on record.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: They recently performed for the first time, performed the whole
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: album for the first time.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: And now I did.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: It's nd of this Woody revival. There's kind of a
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Mermaid Avenue revival.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Now. You know, there's something about bad times that produced
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: great art, right, and so here's this horrible period in
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: our history. It's horrible, just time and and sort of
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you know, the Great Depression and what and yet we
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: have this incredible art that lives today from it? Can
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: we not?
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Sort of do we need sort of despair to produce
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: good art? Good music? I mean, is this the is
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: this the key? I mean, you know there's that phrase
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: in about inventors right where necessity is you know what
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: innovation you know comes from necessity? Essentially, do you need
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: is one of the necessities for great art to spare.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Well? I don't know. I guess that's always been a
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: cliche with people writing poetry or novels, you know, I'm
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: not sure it's true with musicians. I Mean, everyone can
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: have their favorite periods of music and crossing over the
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: last decades, and so people might have a different answer,
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: and that's sometimes joyful, you know, you get into in
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: some ways. For example, the mid to late nineteen sixties
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: is considered a golden age by many boomers. That was
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: a troubled time with Vietnam, and but it also was
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: a very hopeful time and the Flower Children and peace
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: and love and everything else. So I don't know how.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know how you can easily fit that in now.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: The Depression was pretty bad period throughout, you might say.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: And yet think of all the classic movies that were
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: made in that period, you know, think of the music,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: think of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington. I mean, these are
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: the formative years for these people. Jazz. Jazz was exploding,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: you know, Hollywood was exploding, and you know, it was
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: great art and everything else. So I don't know, it's
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: a difficult, difficult question. I thought you were going to
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: lead up to what's happening today. It's their great art.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Well, I do want to talk about it, but I
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: almost want to, but because I feel like the next
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: doc I want to see you do is sort of
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the history of protest music. Because I do get that
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: a lot.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I'm getting that a lot, are you.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you look at it, and to me, there's there's
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd say the younger version of myself would
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: have said, hey, we didn't have any great protest music,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: you know when I grew up in the eighties, seventies
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: and eighties. And then you realize and then of course
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: hip hop happens and you're like, yes, we did, right,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: hip hop was this when you really look, you know,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: you know, whether it's public enemy in particular who you know,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: I could argue, we're we're sort of the in some ways,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: they're a version of what a Guthrie right, and what
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: they were speaking to and the audience they were speaking
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: to and frankly trying to shock you know, their own
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: generation into this. So you see, we certainly have iterations
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: of this. It's just I wonder, you know, do you
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: is it a is it a? Is Woody Guthrie just
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: that good that we don't have a lot of new
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: protest material that has or frankly, to be totally cynical
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: about it, does protest music just don't doesn't sell and
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: so ares are frankly just don't produce as much of it.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, it's hard to say. You know, there's a
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: young he's not so young now he's at thirty or so.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Jesse Wells, who was became emerged just a year or
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: two ago, singing many many protest songs, and you know
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: he won who is up for various Grammys last year.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: He's now touring as a mine act and so forth.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: So some younger people would point to Jesse Wells is
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: not a modern Woody Guthrie. But they'd say, here's a
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: guy who's out there doing one one protest song after another,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: every every night. So there is that that strain. But
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: you know it's interesting. I mean, who's become I guess,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: rightly or wrongly most associated with angry, anti Trump and
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: anti ice and protests. Bruce Springsteen, Yeah, who's like seventy
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: five years old. And him and Tom Morrell. Tom Morrell
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: came out of Rage against the Machine, which was a
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: kind of a protest band. Yes it was metal, well
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: punk and metal.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny, you know it's you know, as
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: a as a teenager, I just saw alternative as of
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: the music my parents didn't want to listen to. When
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: you really realize it that most quote unquote al music. Frankly,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: most quote unquote alternative music, particularly in the eighties and nineties,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: was very political. And that's in some ways how it
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: got classified that way, I think, and how you define
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: political well, meaning it had a message, right, they had
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: something to say, they were they had a message they
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: were delivering that they were hoping leaders would listen to.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: That's I guess that's the way I look at it
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: when I say political. I mean, you know, you can
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: say anything's political, so I but they had a message.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just like it wasn't just another song.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: About lost love, that's all.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: And I don't know, by the way, I love my
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: good lost love songs, right, we all love those two,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: But you get my drift, well, you know, you can
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: go back different periods. I mean, as you know, I
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: was a top editor Crowdaddy for most of the nineteen seventies.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Uh and in the final years there you had the
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Clash were tremendously political. And he had a group like Blondie,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: And by the way, the Clash though the same point,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: where were they categorized in the record store though, Greg.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but both the classes Blondie were at the same
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: time they both were sort of considered punk er that era, like,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: and so there's always been that, you know, that kind
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: of kind of split things and going on. I mean,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: you know, I go back to Springsteen in nineteen seventy two.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: I'm that old, uh, and I remember back then he
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: had I mean, he wasn't He was about as a
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: political as you could could think think then and he
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: slowly emerged, you know into the eighties and then nineties
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: and so forth. But he mainly he would come out,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: he would do benefits or he'd uh, he would campaign
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: in the closing days of a Democratic sure candidate ning
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: for president. So it was like, oh, kay, Bruce is
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: going to do his big concert cat John. Yeah, for
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: John Kerry or for Hillary Clinton whatever. He did a
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: lot of other good good works. He donated a lot
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: of money, He did benefits, helped vets and things like that.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: But it's really only been in most recent years where
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: he's become a kind of almost.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Daily well he's actually written some songs. Yeah, and directly
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: he's used his music to directly, right, I mean I
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: think about is it Murder Incorporated? Thirty one shots? Right?
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that was a I've always found that
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: one to be incredibly powerful, and I remember when he
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: did it, he hadn't done something like that before, write
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: that direct yeah.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, And of course the Ghost of Tom Joad.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: He goes back to the album he did in nineteen
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: ninety seven, which was not that for him, was not
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: popular album. So he did a people remembers, people talk
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: about his classic album now classic album Nebraska, just kind
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: of a more acoustic album. So he did that again
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: with the Ghost of Tom Joad and did not find
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: a big audience for it. Much more political album. And
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: so anyway, his his evolution, let's say, has been quite
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: strike or I was striking going back to the eighties
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: and even this you know this year, he's just on
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: he's on stage giving the speeches, you know, in the
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: middle of the concerts, huh, angry things and get out
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: and uh, you know.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like the time I need to bring up
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the Mick. I was surprised to hear Mick Jaggers say
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: what he said about about protesting music.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: He seemed, yeah, I think it was slightly I I
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: kind of didn't pay that much attention to it. I
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: think Mick sort of later claimed he didn't really it
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: was being taken wrong. You know that he sort of
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: met for him, Yeah, it's protest music isn't really for
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: him and all. And then he then he sort of
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: claimed all his songs have protest lyrics in it if
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: you listen to them. But but yeah, there's there's kind
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: of a backlash to that. But it certainly didn't hurt
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Bruce commercially. And but it's I mean, it is a
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: sign of a sign of the times, you know, of
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: how angry it's enchanted so many people are and you know,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: we we if you look at Bruce's audience, it does
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: cross age barriers, you know, I know it's it's he
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: weighted towards older people. Uh, but you know it does, Uh,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: it has reached a lot of other people, younger people,
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: and of course through YouTube or whatever.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Suh.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: And Tom Morello is a younger, somewhat younger fellow, and
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: he's always been very radical and so him being part
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: of that also was a signal have him part of
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: that tour and so forth.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to Steinbeck here a minute, because you
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: noted that Grapes of Wrath, it was a series in
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the same in the newspaper first that was sort of
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: born out of that, and it's essentially an accurate account,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: but a fictional version of it. Yeah, you think it
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: was more It obviously can land some of that. Sometimes
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: this stuff can land more powerfully if it's quote unquote fiction. Yeah,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: have you ever thought about it?
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: Well, however, story gets out there. I mean, I've never
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: done anything but nonfiction books, nonfiction films. So Steinbeck obviously
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: made a great desser, but he was essentially a novelist,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: and he did write that journalism series, and if he
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: hadn't written it, I don't think the Grapes of Wrath
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: would have happened.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Steinbeck wrote a fictionalized account, but he did his own
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: reporting here, and he chose to use a novel as
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: his vehicle. You ever thought about doing that?
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Now my books have all been nonfiction and my
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: films involved. But I can see the advantage of doing that,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: and you know his if if you people reread Grapes
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: of Wrath, they'll see that every other chapter in the
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: books is sort of nonfiction. He switches from following the
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Jodes up close, and the next chapter is an overview
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: of kind of conditions they.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Were, right, I do now that is that is triggering
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: that memory. I do remember that it would go. It
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: would be like you've got almost like a news report
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: in between the story.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Actually, Melville did much the same thing with Moby Dick.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: You had the incredible story of what's going on in
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: the ship, and then he has a lengthy chapter about whales,
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: and you know, incredible. So but you know it's and
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: then he of course wrote his song Tom Joden based
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: after after reading the book and seeing in the movie,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: wrote this the song which Steinbeck, you know, I quote
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: in the film sort of there are different versions of
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: exactly what Steinbeck said, but he said something like that
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: little fellow wrote I wrote in six minutes what it
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: took me six hundred pages to say.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: So is that a couple or not? Right?
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it was. Its supposed to be
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: a little angry about it, but I certainly could take
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: it as a take it as a compliment. So hey,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: is so anyway.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Would you put the protest song family Tree here? Of
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: sort of Guthrie to Dylan to Springsteen? Is that a
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: smooth lineage?
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Well? You know what, sometimes it's said that when you
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: know Dylan grew up wanting to be woody Guthrie and
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Springsteen wanting to be Bob Dylan.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Then he also wanted to be Elvis Presley. You get
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: a little Elvis Presley.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: But people, uh, people always under if you talk to
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Bruce or you know what what he writes about. Uh,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: going back to his his teen years and the music
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: he was, he was definitely obsessed with Dylan. You don't
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: people don't necessarily associate him that much. Today Bruce is
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: more of a you know, a rocker, and but he was.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: He definitely was in some of his early effect his
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: first album, Greeting from Asbury Park, he was accused of
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: being a kind of a new attempting to be a
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: new Dylan with the wordplay and everything else. So so, uh,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: but yeah, definitely Dylan was definitely what he go through
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: was his mentor mentor, and certainly Springsteen was inspired lyrically.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: By by Dylan.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: And then you know, Springsteen, I don't know, I'm sure
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: other people today. There's a lot of people that come
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: out of that era, as you said, whether it's Eddie
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Vedder or Tom Rillo or whatever. Uh generation and then
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: you can go generations beyond that.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: So you know, it's one of those things where you
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: can really see it. Uh, you know. One of the
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: I know a big blind spot for me though right
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: now is is Spanish language music. And I have no
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: doubt in my mind that there's probably a lot of
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: protest music I am missing in that at the moment.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah, yeah, there's a you know, younger people,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: it's hard for people to find an audiences today in general.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: They complain, people complain, so people singing protest music or whatever.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: But you know, and you get old fogies like Neil
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Young going out and releasing protest music. So I guess
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: that's an inspiration for people to live long enough to
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: be an old fogie and you know, still be plugged in.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: But would Great to Wrath be a bestseller today if
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: it came out right now and we're about that sort
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: of the twenty first century migrant crisis.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's I think it's possible. It's a
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: great play. Really. What surprised me was that the writing
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Steinbeck be became we never became known as a hack,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: but his writing became more well, let's say, loggie over
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: the over the decades, and some people questioned, you know,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: how great a writer he was anymore. But you know,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: the writing and Grapes of Wrath is is fantastic, and
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: you know the message is obviously great, so uh, you
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: know it deserves it.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: It sounds like it hit your ear pretty well for
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the modern era. Huh, yeah, it really did.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: I mean I recommend, I hope our little chat today
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: would spiers watch the film, which as I said, is
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: available at PBS dot org and PBS apps and to
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: pick up Grapes of Wrath. And that's that's a great start.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Let's land it. Let me land the plane this way.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Tom Joad walked into America today, what would surprise him
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: and what would feel painfully familiar?
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Well, he would be I mean partly grapes of Wrath
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: and Woody Song is kind of you know, the Grapes
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: of Wrath. Tom Joe does not start out as a
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: big union activist or you know, he's sort of a
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: political you might say, uh, and then he evolves that way.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: And of course Woody was a tremendous union activist. So
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: I think probably what would surprise them today is how
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: far our unions have fallen, you know, the union membership
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: and in some cases again right.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Or we're not at bottom anymore though, Greg, they you know,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: we had hit but Starbucks Union and all those, right,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: we hit bottom about twenty years ago. I do feel
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: like there's been this It's not a spike, right, but
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: it's gradual, right, where more and more folks understand the
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: necessity of frankly just worker rite protections.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, well that's like that's the biggest as you know,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: slow decline over the many decades and started hitting bottom.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: But I think that would that's uh, that'd be the
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: bitch one shock Tom Joad and Woody today would be
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: how far that's fallen and h and all that. So
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: it might be a good way to good way to close.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: I think it is. But let me ask you this
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: last question because I'm like, my head is spinning with
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Nixon maxing. I'm sure you've seen, and there's this bizarre
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: it's almost like cult following of you know, it's almost
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: like they're people celebrating that, hey, Nixon did it before
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Trump and he should have gotten away with it. I
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: guess that's what Nixon maxing is. I'm trying to figure
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: it out. What do you see?
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know, it's an incredible I mean, in some ways,
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: I welcome it because people are pointing out that, you know,
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: compared to Watergate. I mean usually when people talk of
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: compared to Watergate, they they mean, you know, uh, Watergate's
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: overstated or something like that. But Trump's various corruption. Uh,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: they don't even call them scandals. It's just like, you know,
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: corruption or maybe it's day to day news so exped
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: you know, I just call it Tuesday, Yeah, what happened?
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: That it?
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: In some ways, I don't mind the reminder of people people.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: So when they say Nixon should have gotten off, that's
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: another matter. When they say, uh, you know, Nixon's crimes
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: were so minor compared to Trump, well that that may
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: that may be true.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: So I guess, well, my joke is always Nixon had shame.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Nixon was. You know, I came to respect, in
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: doing my book on him and Helen Gaeigen Douglas in
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: the nineteenth to respect him as a smart fellow, you know,
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: as a guy who was incredibly clever. Yes, he was tricky,
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: but very clever, very smart, very you know, fast on
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: his feet, and not just this very dark, drunken you
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: know figure that he you know, became sure and so
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: I certainly would not wish for Nixon's return. But you know,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: when I was growing up my family that were New
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: York State Republicans, rock Republicans. But what did that mean then?
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Nelson Rockefeller, Ken Keating, pick up jab That's there was
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: a moderate liberal Republican party. So and I was a
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: big Nixon fan in nineteen sixty, but compared to today,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: they were, you know, almost less.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Well I was just gonna say, you know, I mean
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Nixon the guy who wanted to expand healthcare, Nixon, the
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: guy who created the EBA. Right, yeah, there's a Nixon
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: who you know, wanted to do outreach to China, wanted
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: to do nuclearness army. No, I mean, you're right, there's
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: always been Nixon in some ways as quintessential sort of
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: It's almost like American history wrapped up in one. Here's
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: the good and the bad all rolled up into one president.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: And the evolution since what's happened to the Republican Party
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: since then? So anyway, well, look, chuck it off, thank
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: you and you got to go. I thank you once
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: again for you got it moments.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: And uh, well, hey look I am I don't know
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: if I'm the president of the Greg Mitchell fan Club
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: vice president. I know if I'm still an officer, but
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, I'm an easy market in this
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: stuff because your work, you do something that's i know,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: insane these days. You always grounded in historical fact, so
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: it's it's always great snaking