Latest / Ridiculous History / Playboy, Progressive Politics and Stand-up: The Dick Gregory Story with Wayne Federman

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Playboy, Progressive Politics and Stand-up: The Dick Gregory Story with Wayne Federman · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: I'm no, and I've never fancied myself a comedian. I
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Speaker 1: always say I'm a purveyor of dad jokes, and I'm
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Speaker 1: absolutely fine with that. But straight seahorse teeth seems to
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Speaker 1: be taking off online like Wildfire Ben. It's true already
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Speaker 1: say your name? Yes, sorry I said hey second times.
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Speaker 1: A charm comedy is all about listening, you know what
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Speaker 1: I mean? Bad Wow, it's true shaming me, you know what?
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Speaker 1: Is pretty cool though? It's the official return of Can
1:15
Speaker 1: we get a drumroll? Please? He asked super producer Casey
1:24
Speaker 1: la bouche Pegrum. I know, Casey uh, when you were away,
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Speaker 1: did you hear that we kind of developed a mythology
1:32
Speaker 1: for you based on our knowledge of your French goings on.
1:36
Speaker 1: I caught wind of this. Yeah, my my sources back
1:38
Speaker 1: here in the States. We're keeping me uh informed, more relevant.
1:43
Speaker 1: You know information. You're very tight in very connected spycraft.
1:47
Speaker 1: You know you gotta you gotta be. You gotta have
1:48
Speaker 1: your feelers out there. So I have a question, and
1:51
Speaker 1: you do not, please do not feel obligated to answer
1:53
Speaker 1: this Casey. First off, this is I say this with
1:57
Speaker 1: great affection. Uh, there was there was a Casey shaped
2:00
Speaker 1: whole in my heart and we're gone. Uh. Now that
2:04
Speaker 1: you are aware, along with all of our fellow listeners
2:08
Speaker 1: about how your how your alleged double life in France
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Speaker 1: was portrayed, Uh, would you say that this is accurate, inaccurate,
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Speaker 1: a seed of truth. I don't know. I don't really
2:22
Speaker 1: want to blow up my own spot like that, but
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Speaker 1: you know, UM, I'd say, if it's maybe not true
2:28
Speaker 1: to the letter, it's certainly true the spirit. So al right, okay,
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Speaker 1: I can I can accept that. Well played, You've passed
2:34
Speaker 1: the test, my friend, we have in honor of your return,
2:39
Speaker 1: we have a not a surprise for you, but a
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Speaker 1: gift for you and hopefully for all of our fellow
2:46
Speaker 1: listeners today. While back, I think in his episode one
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Speaker 1: oh eight or one oh nine, we did a two
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Speaker 1: part show on the History of stand Up with our
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Speaker 1: pal Wayne Fetterman, who is who isn't has an encyclopedic
3:02
Speaker 1: knowledge of the history of comedy and Casey, we waited
3:07
Speaker 1: until you returned with your US identity to the studio
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Speaker 1: to have Wayne Fetterman on this show today for you, dude,
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Speaker 1: I know, and I'm so psyched about this because yeah,
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Speaker 1: it was like a year ago that I was out
3:21
Speaker 1: and he was on and it was driving me out
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Speaker 1: the wall because yeah, I'm a big fan of the
3:25
Speaker 1: guy and big fan of the history comedy and everything else.
3:28
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's great to be here for this. Well.
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Speaker 1: Wayne is an encyclopedic font of comedy knowledge. His podcast
3:35
Speaker 1: The History of Stand Up on the Podglomerate Network with
3:38
Speaker 1: his co host Andrew Stephen Um is just a delight.
3:41
Speaker 1: And last time we had him on we talked about
3:44
Speaker 1: um Lenny Bruce and kind of some more inflammatory comics
3:48
Speaker 1: that sort of pushed the envelope of free speech. George Carlin.
3:51
Speaker 1: George Carlin all would have over many filthy words on
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Speaker 1: terrible words there are. I think those are the only
3:56
Speaker 1: two explicit episodes of the show we've ever ad because
4:00
Speaker 1: we needed to be able to unbleep those words because
4:03
Speaker 1: they were very important to the story it was about censorship. Luckily, however,
4:08
Speaker 1: we did with that episode. Uh. Wayne was charitable enough
4:12
Speaker 1: guy that he came back to hang out with us today,
4:14
Speaker 1: not to mention that my mic was cut for like
4:16
Speaker 1: half of one of the episodes, and we still salvaged
4:18
Speaker 1: it with crack, our crack forensic audio team and made
4:23
Speaker 1: it at least somewhat listening more. And also Wayne didn't
4:25
Speaker 1: think were a bunch of hacks and agreed to come
4:26
Speaker 1: back on which I really appreciate. And this episode is fantastic,
4:31
Speaker 1: another exploration of some envelope pushing comedy, but in a
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Speaker 1: slightly different way. So without having uh, without having deep
4:39
Speaker 1: dive demographics on how many of us are stand up
4:43
Speaker 1: history buffs, UH, we'd like to introduce you to a
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Speaker 1: man named Dick Gregory, a pioneer not just in the
4:51
Speaker 1: world of stand up comedy that we very much was,
4:55
Speaker 1: but also in the world of civil rights and activism.
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Speaker 1: So we we hope that you enjoy our conversation here
5:03
Speaker 1: with Wayne about not just comedy, but about progressive actions
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Speaker 1: in the United States, about civil rights in the sixties,
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Speaker 1: about the UH the oddly heartwarming actions of the often
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Speaker 1: controversial Hugh Hefner. Let's get right to it. The rumors
5:24
Speaker 1: are true, ridiculous historians. We are joined once again with
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Speaker 1: a friend of the show and host of the History
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Speaker 1: of Stand Up podcast, Wayne Fetterman, Friend of the American People,
5:37
Speaker 1: Wayne Fetterman, friend to our producer Casey pet From Wayne Fetterman,
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Speaker 1: how you doing, Wayne? I really would rather be speaking
5:45
Speaker 1: to Casey. That guy is incredible. He made shime in.
5:48
Speaker 1: But you won't be able to hear him because he's
5:50
Speaker 1: not piped into the phone. But we will relay any
5:52
Speaker 1: words of wisdom that he provides on his behalf. Alright,
5:55
Speaker 1: Is he beaming right now? Because I'm talking about him?
5:58
Speaker 1: He is, he says, He says that he has he
6:00
Speaker 1: his face is obscured by a giant computer monitor, so
6:02
Speaker 1: I can't speak to that person. But his voice in
6:04
Speaker 1: my ears says that he is okay, and he just
6:06
Speaker 1: leaned in and give a big smile. Fun story before
6:08
Speaker 1: we get started, and this is a true story, Wayne.
6:11
Speaker 1: When we were putting together this episode, Casey actually asked
6:16
Speaker 1: us to hold and he traveled all the way back
6:18
Speaker 1: from Paris, France, uh to be here today. Very special trip.
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Speaker 1: It's true. Yeah, let me just say that's very much
6:25
Speaker 1: on brand for Casey. So when we previously spoke together,
6:31
Speaker 1: we looked at the history of what we call stand
6:35
Speaker 1: up today, not just as the craft or the the
6:41
Speaker 1: actual performance that we think of with somebody standing with
6:44
Speaker 1: a microphone and an audience that hopefully loves them, but
6:47
Speaker 1: not always. We also talked about some of the bigger
6:51
Speaker 1: social questions that stand up brings to the forefront. And
6:56
Speaker 1: sometimes those can be uncomfortable questions that people don't typically explore. Uh.
7:02
Speaker 1: Now they they laugh at it too, but sometimes they
7:04
Speaker 1: leave thinking. Uh. In our earlier conversations leading up to
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Speaker 1: today's episode, Uh, you started telling us about someone that
7:13
Speaker 1: was I think maybe vaguely familiar to us, but someone
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Speaker 1: we weren't super well acquainted with, which is the comedian
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Speaker 1: and activist Dick Gregory. Wayne, could you tell us a
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Speaker 1: little bit about, uh, just for our audience, who Dick
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Speaker 1: Gregory is. Well, Dick Gregory is famous in the history
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Speaker 1: of stand up for one specific thing, and that is
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Speaker 1: he became the first major and there's a caveat we
7:40
Speaker 1: can go into it. Uh, comedian African American comedian to
7:45
Speaker 1: play white nightclubs. And how that happened we will tell
7:49
Speaker 1: you in a moment, I'm sure, but he was just, uh,
7:53
Speaker 1: you know, it was a funny kid. He was an athlete,
7:55
Speaker 1: he went to college, he was in the service, and
7:57
Speaker 1: then he moved from St. Louis to Chicago to pursue
8:01
Speaker 1: his dream of becoming a stand up comedian and could
8:05
Speaker 1: only play the black clubs in and around Chicago and
8:09
Speaker 1: was really struggling. Actually had a day job. He worked
8:13
Speaker 1: at the post office. He watched cars all trying to
8:16
Speaker 1: uh subsidize this career of his. And at this point
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Speaker 1: he's married, he has he has a lot of responsibility.
8:22
Speaker 1: So leading up to this big moment that we're gonna
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Speaker 1: get into that involves another kind of historical luminarian, controversial figure,
8:30
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory was kind of doing his best to get
8:33
Speaker 1: into the kind of Chicago stand up nightclub scene, and
8:36
Speaker 1: as you said, it wasn't a very welcoming scene for
8:39
Speaker 1: people of color. And I want to play this clip
8:41
Speaker 1: from American Masters on PBS where Gregory kind of describes
8:45
Speaker 1: this moment where he had to disarm a white audience
8:49
Speaker 1: at a club. I want to say in Alabama or
8:51
Speaker 1: something like that, um where someone calls him a racial
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Speaker 1: slur and he has to take that opportunity to diffuse
8:58
Speaker 1: the situation rather than make a scene, and you know,
9:01
Speaker 1: put his career in jeopardy because these were ultimately his
9:05
Speaker 1: clients who he was there to entertain. So I think
9:07
Speaker 1: this really is a very teachable moment about the kind
9:09
Speaker 1: of climate that he was dealing with. So I go
9:12
Speaker 1: down there and I'm not thinking of anything. I didn't
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Speaker 1: know at the time that a Negro is not permitted
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Speaker 1: to work a white nightclub. That's in all of America.
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Speaker 1: And I remember not knowing that. I used to practice
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Speaker 1: what do you do when some white person yell something
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Speaker 1: negative about or embarrass you? And so I used to
9:36
Speaker 1: practice with my wife, but he didn't work because he
9:38
Speaker 1: was too nice and kind. And then one night, I
9:41
Speaker 1: don't know how I got this little job in this
9:43
Speaker 1: little hick town, little missie Walker, Indiana, so that just
9:47
Speaker 1: you know what to say, no more. So I'm in Walk,
9:49
Speaker 1: Indiana and and somebody said, get that nigger off the stage.
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Speaker 1: Now I was ready for it, and everybody just froze.
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Speaker 1: And I said, white boy called me, called me, oh Range,
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Speaker 1: his hearts called me trigger and everybody laugh. I'm out
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Speaker 1: of it. There's no way you can feel sorry for
10:18
Speaker 1: me or embarrassed in life. So when I got him back,
10:22
Speaker 1: now I'm off, you know, and the guy walcome said
10:26
Speaker 1: thank you, Jesus Christ. I want to hit him myself.
10:30
Speaker 1: And then the guy walks up and say sorry, and
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Speaker 1: they're sorry. I don't almost pay you man. I've been
10:36
Speaker 1: I've been trying to figure out how to get through this.
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Speaker 1: So Wayne, I wanted to know if if you thought
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Speaker 1: that maybe this was kind of if he would have
10:45
Speaker 1: had to deal with similar situations like this leading up
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Speaker 1: to this moment, And he almost describes it as like
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Speaker 1: an aha moment where it's like, ah ha, this is
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Speaker 1: how I can deal with this kind of heckling. Right well,
10:54
Speaker 1: he I feel like Dick Gregory, especially at that time,
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Speaker 1: had a very high emotional and comedic i Q on
11:02
Speaker 1: how to handle crowds. And it's remarkable considering he's not
11:08
Speaker 1: that experienced other than basically playing these black clubs. But
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Speaker 1: I just think he had an innate sense of one
11:15
Speaker 1: had to perform in front of white audiences and to
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Speaker 1: like how to diffuse these very volatile situations that I'm
11:23
Speaker 1: sure would come up all the time, right because as
11:25
Speaker 1: as you had mentioned before, he was he was working.
11:29
Speaker 1: Let's see, his comedic career began in what the mid
11:32
Speaker 1: to late nineteen fifties, Is that correct? Yes, yes, yes,
11:36
Speaker 1: that's exactly correct. And at that time there wasn't a
11:39
Speaker 1: lot of you know, African American comedians on television or
11:43
Speaker 1: on the Ed Sullivan Show. Is just a few, and
11:47
Speaker 1: once in a while he'd see somebody and there really
11:49
Speaker 1: wasn't a big circuit to play. There was big and
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Speaker 1: white nightclubs, which we called nightclubs at that time, and
11:56
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't use uh African American comedian. Once in
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Speaker 1: a while they would, but as a rule that's not
12:04
Speaker 1: you know, they'd have an act, you know, Sammy Davis
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Speaker 1: could play there or something like that, or you know,
12:09
Speaker 1: a team or a singer like Pearl Bailey or something
12:12
Speaker 1: like that all the time, but not not a stand
12:15
Speaker 1: up Um. That saw a really interesting clip with the
12:17
Speaker 1: comedian Paul Mooney, who was another very outspoken comic, a
12:21
Speaker 1: contemporary maybe a little younger than Gregory, but still kind
12:24
Speaker 1: of very much like in the same scene as Richard
12:27
Speaker 1: Pryor so maybe like the next generation. But he talked
12:29
Speaker 1: about how in Hollywood nothing could ever be too white,
12:34
Speaker 1: but it was very easy too for something to be
12:36
Speaker 1: too black. Um, And I think that's a really interesting distinction,
12:39
Speaker 1: where like you talk about Sammy Davis Jrs. And like
12:41
Speaker 1: performers of that caliber, they were a little more palatable
12:44
Speaker 1: to a white audience, but a comic like Gregory who
12:46
Speaker 1: wasn't pulling any punches that would be a little harder
12:49
Speaker 1: to take for these folks maybe weren't used to seeing
12:51
Speaker 1: things like that. Is that would you say that's accurate? Yes,
12:54
Speaker 1: Mooney is a percent on on Like people would go, okay,
12:57
Speaker 1: this is this is too much for us. But again,
13:00
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory, I think, really learned how to thread the needle,
13:04
Speaker 1: almost like in a Jackie Robinson kind of way, that
13:08
Speaker 1: he was like able to like take white audiences expectations
13:13
Speaker 1: of what a black guy would talk about, and he
13:15
Speaker 1: talked about racial stuff all the time. That was the
13:18
Speaker 1: centerpiece of his act, but he did it in a
13:20
Speaker 1: very non threatening, very human way as opposed to an
13:25
Speaker 1: angry way. In that same NPR PBS clip that we
13:29
Speaker 1: just heard later on, he talks about that he was
13:32
Speaker 1: always respectful and that he wasn't bitter, and that he
13:36
Speaker 1: wasn't angry, and this was all I'm sure underneath. But
13:40
Speaker 1: that again, I just feel like his emotional, like you,
13:44
Speaker 1: was throw the roof on how to handle these situations.
13:47
Speaker 1: So it wasn't like Paul Mooney, who would not you know,
13:50
Speaker 1: I can't imagine Paul Mooney handling that situation in that
13:54
Speaker 1: club the same way. It would be way more confrontational. Yeah. Absolutely,
13:59
Speaker 1: I agree with that statement about emotional I Q no recently,
14:05
Speaker 1: this this is not a plug. I actually do listen
14:07
Speaker 1: to the history of stand up Uh. Yeah, has season
14:11
Speaker 1: two started and in season two, Uh, you guys just
14:14
Speaker 1: had an episode come out recently about the Playboy circuit
14:19
Speaker 1: and this was something that I I didn't recognize. This
14:22
Speaker 1: episode for anybody listening is available now when our episode
14:25
Speaker 1: comes out, so give it a listen. This brings us
14:28
Speaker 1: to something that we'd we'd love for you to explore
14:32
Speaker 1: with us here, which is the interactions between Dick Gregory
14:38
Speaker 1: and Hugh Hefner, the mastermind behind Playboy Magazine later the
14:42
Speaker 1: Playboy Empire. No, this is something you were alluding to
14:45
Speaker 1: in the beginning, right for sure, And this Playboy Club.
14:48
Speaker 1: I didn't realize, um was a big source of um,
14:52
Speaker 1: you know, entertainment and huge, massive, you know opportunity for
14:56
Speaker 1: working comics. If you got a regular gig at the
14:59
Speaker 1: Playboy Club, which was in Chicago at the time. Um,
15:02
Speaker 1: that was a massive break for you. Can you tell
15:05
Speaker 1: us a little bit about how Dick Gregory uh literally
15:08
Speaker 1: kind of stumbled his way into this massive break. The
15:10
Speaker 1: story is fantastic. Well, this is I assume, this is
15:13
Speaker 1: why I'm talking to you guys. This moment is very
15:16
Speaker 1: important in the big history of stand up and we
15:18
Speaker 1: covered it briefly in our first season and then went
15:21
Speaker 1: a little closer. And thank you for the kind words
15:24
Speaker 1: about the Playboy episode. UM, I appreciate. I appreciate it
15:29
Speaker 1: for anyone. It's the eight of us that are interested
15:32
Speaker 1: in the history of stand up. So this is what happened.
15:35
Speaker 1: February the first Playboy Club opens. You're like, what does
15:39
Speaker 1: that mean? A Playboy Club. Well, in fifty three, real quickly,
15:43
Speaker 1: Hefner publishes this magazine December fifty three called Playboy Marilyn
15:48
Speaker 1: Moan Rose on the cover. There's no date stamped on
15:51
Speaker 1: it because it might have been the last one and
15:54
Speaker 1: it's basically has newdy pictures in it, but nothing too graphic.
15:59
Speaker 1: I hope that's clear what that means. And then like articles,
16:04
Speaker 1: and he was into literature. And so anyway, this magazine
16:08
Speaker 1: out of Chicago, this kid who had this dream becomes
16:11
Speaker 1: this runaway success in the fifties. So he is like
16:15
Speaker 1: printing money by fifty seven is out selling Time Magazine,
16:20
Speaker 1: is out selling Esquire. It's like this incredible end has
16:23
Speaker 1: a big female readership as well. So he three things
16:27
Speaker 1: happen around this time. One he does this huge indoor
16:31
Speaker 1: jazz festival called the Playboy Jazz Festival. Two he buys
16:37
Speaker 1: a mansion in Chicago and who called the Playboy Mansion,
16:42
Speaker 1: which is like this party house. And three he opens
16:46
Speaker 1: the Playboy Club. And also for there's another thing I'm forgetting,
16:50
Speaker 1: he starts this syndicated television show called Playboy's Penthouse, which
16:54
Speaker 1: is this black and white in the first two years,
16:57
Speaker 1: and you kind of get sort of presents like this
17:00
Speaker 1: hardy that you're invited to. So people are sitting around
17:03
Speaker 1: and they're drinking and they're smoking, and there's a guy
17:06
Speaker 1: playing piano and suddenly Sammy Davis comes in and sings
17:09
Speaker 1: and then Lenny Bruce does some comedy. It's it's just
17:12
Speaker 1: a very incredible like insight into like the world he
17:16
Speaker 1: wants to create. And that was kind of like a
17:19
Speaker 1: variety show for him, right, Is that where we get
17:21
Speaker 1: that idea of him with the pipe and the smoking
17:23
Speaker 1: jacket in the whole? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's
17:25
Speaker 1: not it is a variety show, but not on a
17:27
Speaker 1: precenium stage in like a living room. And then we
17:30
Speaker 1: let's go over to the dining room and then let's
17:32
Speaker 1: get some cocktails made over here, and let's listen to
17:35
Speaker 1: CYCLEM and play Witchcraft, and then it's it's just a
17:38
Speaker 1: great like promotional tool for the Playboy brand, which was
17:43
Speaker 1: and we talked about it in the podcast that he
17:45
Speaker 1: was going for sophistication like that was his Like he thought, God,
17:51
Speaker 1: if I could make nudy picture, you know, this part
17:56
Speaker 1: of a sophisticated lifestyle with high fidelity and sports cars
17:59
Speaker 1: and jazz music and great literature that and that's what worked,
18:04
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So it was like suddenly
18:06
Speaker 1: not a smudgy, behind the counter kind of embarrassing thing
18:10
Speaker 1: if you wanted to see pictures of beautiful women so
18:13
Speaker 1: that was that was another genius. Hugh Hefner's so he's
18:17
Speaker 1: making he's killing he's killing it, killing it. During Eisenhower's administration,
18:21
Speaker 1: so he opens this Playboy Club February nineteen six, and
18:26
Speaker 1: the Playboy Club was this. You had to pay twenty
18:29
Speaker 1: five dollars. You got a key literally a metal key.
18:32
Speaker 1: It later became a card, and that gave you access
18:35
Speaker 1: to the Playboggle. You were like a key member and
18:39
Speaker 1: to serve these men. It was a men's only club,
18:42
Speaker 1: but you could bring women. They created the Playboy Bunny,
18:46
Speaker 1: which is different than the Playboy Playmate, which were in
18:49
Speaker 1: the magazine. And the Bunny, how would you describe it?
18:52
Speaker 1: If let me, I'm gonna throw it to you because
18:54
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm talking too much. They were like
18:56
Speaker 1: cocktail waitresses or they were kind of hostesses. They would
18:59
Speaker 1: receive eve the gentlemen in their dates when they'd come in,
19:02
Speaker 1: speak to them by name, make them feel very welcome,
19:05
Speaker 1: and kind of cater to their their needs. It was
19:07
Speaker 1: similar to the idea I guess we would an analog
19:11
Speaker 1: would be a hostess club in Japan. You know, these
19:14
Speaker 1: people are not necessarily what we would call sex workers.
19:17
Speaker 1: They hang out with you, they laugh at your jokes,
19:20
Speaker 1: they converse with you. Uh. There were also there was
19:22
Speaker 1: also a uniform that changed over time, but that was
19:26
Speaker 1: like from what I remember. Thanks again, Dad, I'll admit,
19:30
Speaker 1: if you're listening to the show, that I did steal
19:32
Speaker 1: some of your playboys from what I remember. With the
19:36
Speaker 1: advertisements they used to have in the magazine for the bunnies,
19:39
Speaker 1: there was it was like there were even ears at
19:43
Speaker 1: some point, a little cotton tal Yeah. And then maybe
19:45
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm remembering some kind of caller things
19:50
Speaker 1: right and off the shoulder, almost kind of like boostier
19:55
Speaker 1: leotard kind of ones thing. Uh. And I believe they're
19:58
Speaker 1: wearing stockings and high Some of them would have those
20:01
Speaker 1: cigarette carts that they would carry and you know, sell
20:04
Speaker 1: cigarettes and get people's drink orders and stuff. But sometimes
20:08
Speaker 1: they would change it up a little bit for the holidays.
20:11
Speaker 1: That makes sense. Yeah, you're good, great, you did great?
20:13
Speaker 1: Did great? Again? I was, I did. I was never
20:15
Speaker 1: at the Chicago Club, so I only know from the
20:18
Speaker 1: pictures and such, but yes, that was so that was
20:22
Speaker 1: the vibe of this club again with the boatie I guess,
20:27
Speaker 1: sophistication and I'm using quotes around it. And because these
20:31
Speaker 1: were just young women, but the rule was you weren't
20:34
Speaker 1: allowed to touch or date these women. He was very
20:37
Speaker 1: careful to make it not a quasi strip club or
20:40
Speaker 1: a quasi like you know, you're gonna hook up with
20:42
Speaker 1: these girls or anything like that. And also they wanted
20:45
Speaker 1: to make it, you know, get as many women customers
20:48
Speaker 1: in there as well. So part of this, and this
20:51
Speaker 1: is an interesting we didn't go into it. The guy
20:53
Speaker 1: who ran the food and drink concession for this club
20:56
Speaker 1: and then eventually it became a circuit was Arnie Moore,
21:00
Speaker 1: who eventually has these famous steakhouses all across the country.
21:04
Speaker 1: Wait the mort steakhouse guy. Yes, yeah, same guy, same guy.
21:09
Speaker 1: So this is one of his earliest gigs. And they
21:13
Speaker 1: had this crazy pricing plan which was everything was a
21:17
Speaker 1: do this winted over. Everything was a dollar fifty, a
21:19
Speaker 1: drink was a dollar fifty. Uh, your meal was a
21:22
Speaker 1: dollar fifty. Pack of cigarettes and a lighter with the
21:26
Speaker 1: Playboy logo on it was a dollar fifty. Like that
21:28
Speaker 1: was there kind of thing. And it's like again with
21:32
Speaker 1: half it's a runaway success. Like thousands and thousands of
21:36
Speaker 1: people are pouring or paying twenty five bucks to be
21:38
Speaker 1: a member. Everyone kind of got accepted and then UH
21:43
Speaker 1: and then could get part of this sophisticated lifestyle surrounded
21:47
Speaker 1: by these beautiful women. And part of the experience was
21:50
Speaker 1: there was always two rooms for show business, and those
21:54
Speaker 1: were usually a singer and a comic. So this is
21:57
Speaker 1: where Dick Gregory comes into the picture. Now at the time,
22:07
Speaker 1: it's you know, Chicago has this big nightclub called the
22:09
Speaker 1: sha Peri, which is run by the Mob, and as
22:12
Speaker 1: a white nightclub, that was like the big place you
22:14
Speaker 1: could play in Chicago. So acts from the Shaperi would
22:18
Speaker 1: also play the Playboy Club and one of these acts
22:22
Speaker 1: in January, So it's I guess eleven months later UH
22:27
Speaker 1: is named Professor Irwin Corey or does that name ring
22:31
Speaker 1: a bell to any either of you? That I gotta
22:35
Speaker 1: be honest, not to me, not right now? Okay. He
22:38
Speaker 1: was a very curious, kind of almost experimental, avant garde
22:42
Speaker 1: comedian who pretended to be professor and then would give
22:47
Speaker 1: lectures on different topics in a very crazed kind of
22:51
Speaker 1: remember like the way Einstein had his hair all crazy. Yeah,
22:55
Speaker 1: that was that was so Irwin Corey for some reason,
22:59
Speaker 1: is like, I don't want to work seven days a week.
23:01
Speaker 1: I don't want to work Monday through Sunday. Can I
23:03
Speaker 1: get Sunday off? You know, I appreciate this gig you're
23:07
Speaker 1: giving me here at the Playboy Club, but um, I
23:11
Speaker 1: don't want to do it. So hef who had seen
23:16
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory he was the host of this club called
23:18
Speaker 1: the Robert Show Club, which is his black club in Chicago,
23:21
Speaker 1: and said, well, why don't we give this kid a
23:24
Speaker 1: chance for fifty dollars. So he hired him that night,
23:28
Speaker 1: and there were some Southern people in the crowd, and
23:31
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory got there late, it was snowing, gets on
23:34
Speaker 1: stage and just kills it, like all of his instincts
23:38
Speaker 1: are a hundred percent correct on how to handle these crowds,
23:42
Speaker 1: how to talk about race, how to talk about the
23:45
Speaker 1: fact that he had been in the South, And he
23:47
Speaker 1: did the joke you know I spent four weeks there
23:49
Speaker 1: one night or that kind of thing, and and kills
23:52
Speaker 1: it and then immediately like, oh, let's hire this guy.
23:56
Speaker 1: And in a way, that's the first time African American
24:00
Speaker 1: comedian had been hired in a white nightclub with a
24:03
Speaker 1: couple exceptions, but that, yeah, but that was a big thing.
24:06
Speaker 1: But there's more to the story. Can I keep going? Please,
24:09
Speaker 1: We're on the edge of our seat here actually, So
24:12
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory starts, you know, he had never heard of
24:16
Speaker 1: making fifty dollars a night time seven. Like that was
24:19
Speaker 1: like out of It was mind blowing to him that
24:22
Speaker 1: he could be making this much money doing comedy, and
24:25
Speaker 1: words spreads quickly about this kid who is doing great
24:28
Speaker 1: at the Playboy Club. So the New York Times, luckily
24:32
Speaker 1: like writes a review of it, and then Time Magazine,
24:36
Speaker 1: and this is where the story gets really interesting to me.
24:39
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory's dream was to be on the Tonight Show
24:43
Speaker 1: with Jack Parr. That was the big break that he
24:47
Speaker 1: was the Carson before Carson of course, so um. He
24:52
Speaker 1: was friends with this singer named Billy Eckstein, another guy
24:55
Speaker 1: you're not going to know, but a famous forties fifties singer,
25:00
Speaker 1: and Billy was like, I don't know if you've noticed this,
25:03
Speaker 1: whenever there's a black comedian on Jack Parr, he lets
25:08
Speaker 1: them do their act and that would usually be like
25:11
Speaker 1: like an impression. It's like he had George Kirby on
25:13
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, but he would never bring him
25:16
Speaker 1: over to the couch to sit down like he's just
25:19
Speaker 1: a normal American person, when in general, getting brought over
25:22
Speaker 1: to the couch is the dream of any comic doing
25:25
Speaker 1: the late show, doing a late show like that. Yeah, yeah,
25:27
Speaker 1: no question, no question, no question. But when this Time
25:30
Speaker 1: magazine article hits, Jack Parr producer calls Dick Gregory AND's like,
25:36
Speaker 1: we'd love to have you on the show, and he's like,
25:39
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do on the show unless you
25:41
Speaker 1: let me sit down and talk to Jack Barr. Because
25:44
Speaker 1: he had never even thought of this, He never realized
25:47
Speaker 1: until he Billy Eckstein pointed it out to him that
25:51
Speaker 1: this was a thing that Jack Barr was doing, whether
25:54
Speaker 1: consciously or unconsciously. So the producers like, well, you know
25:58
Speaker 1: that's not the way it works. You do it, said,
25:59
Speaker 1: if it goes well, you might come back into another set.
26:02
Speaker 1: He's like, well, then I'm not doing your show. And
26:05
Speaker 1: then apparently a couple of day later, the producers like, fine,
26:09
Speaker 1: you can do the show and we'll talk to you.
26:11
Speaker 1: And so again I'm keep going back to this emotion,
26:15
Speaker 1: like you of how to handle this situation and parlaying
26:18
Speaker 1: what little I mean you can imagine this is he's
26:21
Speaker 1: just playing the Playboy club, what little power he had
26:25
Speaker 1: to get what he wanted. And that was also a
26:28
Speaker 1: breakthrough moment. And then he became, like, you know, a
26:31
Speaker 1: hero and that's the moment. That's why we're talking on
26:34
Speaker 1: this to you right now, like that moment and then
26:38
Speaker 1: everything changed from there. I have a question before because yes,
26:41
Speaker 1: everything changes from there. But there's one question wanting to
26:45
Speaker 1: clarify here, especially with the with uh the Tonight Show
26:50
Speaker 1: with Jack Parr, it sounds like there was an emotional
26:54
Speaker 1: calculation on his part or at least some very clever diplomacy,
26:58
Speaker 1: because didn't they invite him more than once and eventually
27:03
Speaker 1: like par finally called him. Right, That's that's the thing
27:06
Speaker 1: that got me about it, because, oh, is there more
27:09
Speaker 1: to that that might be right? You're saying that that
27:11
Speaker 1: before like par just wanting him on the show. He
27:13
Speaker 1: eventually part calls him personally and he says to Jack Parr,
27:17
Speaker 1: who we idolized, I'm not gonna do the show unless
27:20
Speaker 1: you have me on. Is that correct? That's what That's
27:22
Speaker 1: what That's what I had heard. I wanted to see
27:24
Speaker 1: that source because to me if that's if that's what happens.
27:28
Speaker 1: What's fascinating about that is that it gets to a
27:31
Speaker 1: point where it's kind of leveraging maybe the ego of
27:36
Speaker 1: the host of the show, because they're like, you know,
27:38
Speaker 1: I'm this huge show, what this guy is too good?
27:42
Speaker 1: What gives you know? Yeah, I I you know, I
27:44
Speaker 1: will look into that, because I did. We didn't go
27:47
Speaker 1: into we just more we're talking about the club. And
27:50
Speaker 1: I do know that he turned down the show. I
27:53
Speaker 1: don't remember that Jack Parr himself called, but that could
27:56
Speaker 1: be absolutely correct. And if that is, I mean there's
28:00
Speaker 1: also if you think about it, there was like this
28:03
Speaker 1: thing about black people and being pushy and up at
28:08
Speaker 1: and all like that was like a way to like
28:11
Speaker 1: marginalize a lot of those So I like that he
28:15
Speaker 1: was willing to risk that all of that to sit
28:19
Speaker 1: down on the couch with and part ended up loving
28:21
Speaker 1: him and having on the show numerous times, and that,
28:25
Speaker 1: as we like to say on our show, blew open
28:27
Speaker 1: the gates to having African Americans not only on the show,
28:33
Speaker 1: but older African Americans finally getting the shots on television
28:37
Speaker 1: and stuff. Well we've heard Dick Gregory um later in
28:41
Speaker 1: his life describing this period. Um, but we haven't heard
28:44
Speaker 1: any of his comedy, and I think we should hear
28:46
Speaker 1: a little moment of one of the bits that might
28:48
Speaker 1: have been something he would have performed on the Jack
28:51
Speaker 1: par Show. You know, I feel so sorry for Willie.
28:54
Speaker 1: I think any baseball player having troubles. So that's a
28:57
Speaker 1: great sport for my people. It is the only sport
29:01
Speaker 1: in the world where Negroes and shake a stick at
29:03
Speaker 1: a white man and won't start no ride. Because now,
29:10
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, now we're doing all right. At
29:13
Speaker 1: the rate we're going. Ten years from now, you might
29:15
Speaker 1: have to be my collar to get a job. Keep
29:18
Speaker 1: me right, I'll get an en raised taxes on you.
29:22
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't get me wrong. I wouldn't mind
29:24
Speaker 1: paying my income tax if I knew it was going
29:25
Speaker 1: to a friendly country. And we have a lot of
29:30
Speaker 1: racial prejudice up north, but we're so clever with it.
29:33
Speaker 1: Take my hometown, Chicago. I mean, you can't see it
29:37
Speaker 1: just just going in there. When Negroes in Chicago move
29:40
Speaker 1: into one large area and it looked like we might
29:42
Speaker 1: control the votes, they don't say anything to us. They
29:45
Speaker 1: have a slum clearance you do the same thing on
29:49
Speaker 1: the West coast, but you call it three ways. So
29:54
Speaker 1: what we've done here so far is trace this guy's
29:57
Speaker 1: evolution to the gates and then when they were blown open,
30:01
Speaker 1: as you said, he he could have, if we want
30:04
Speaker 1: to speculate, he could have done what some people decided
30:07
Speaker 1: to do when they're successful in entertainment and just stayed
30:10
Speaker 1: in that lane and just you know, worked on comedy
30:13
Speaker 1: and and honed his craft and then eventually you know,
30:16
Speaker 1: retired or just exclusively gone on to do Comedy Central,
30:21
Speaker 1: Roaster something. But he took it a step further. And
30:24
Speaker 1: you mentioned this earlier, Wayne, when you say everything changed.
30:28
Speaker 1: So so what changed exactly? What was Dick Gregory's next
30:33
Speaker 1: phase in life? Well, two things. When I say that
30:36
Speaker 1: everything changed, I meant that everything changed and stand up,
30:39
Speaker 1: and that now Americans club owners, TV bookers were interested
30:45
Speaker 1: in the voices of African American comedians. That's what I
30:50
Speaker 1: meant by everything changed. So you you now had like
30:53
Speaker 1: suddenly Nipsey Russell is on television a lot more, and uh,
30:57
Speaker 1: you know, Slappy White and these old are comedians like
31:01
Speaker 1: uh moms maybe and pig Meat Markham, like suddenly they
31:05
Speaker 1: have a resurgence because people are kind of curious about
31:08
Speaker 1: this world of comedy and and there's you know, this
31:11
Speaker 1: underground world of dirty records with you know, Red Fox
31:15
Speaker 1: and Lawanda Page and all of those people. So it's
31:18
Speaker 1: just it's like kind of like if you go to
31:20
Speaker 1: the African American Museum at the Smithsonian and they show
31:24
Speaker 1: you the clips of the comedians from that air, they're
31:26
Speaker 1: all post nineteen sixty, like they're all post one when
31:31
Speaker 1: he broke through, like they're all and a lot of
31:33
Speaker 1: people were getting sets and jobs. So it was just
31:37
Speaker 1: it was a bit of a a great kind of resurgence.
31:40
Speaker 1: And then through those doors walks Fhlip Lilson and Bill
31:45
Speaker 1: Cosby and then Richard Pryort Mitchell Pryor makes a television
31:48
Speaker 1: debut in nineteen sixty four. That's only three years after
31:52
Speaker 1: this moment. It's like it's a real like, Okay, now
31:55
Speaker 1: we're on everything's changed, and comedians and audience is are
32:00
Speaker 1: ready to accept as Dick Craigory like to say, uh,
32:04
Speaker 1: just one person talking flat footed on stage to a
32:09
Speaker 1: white crowd, and then what we're like. He continued to
32:14
Speaker 1: work as a comic. He was suddenly making a lot
32:17
Speaker 1: of money. He hired a couple of writers to help
32:20
Speaker 1: him create more material because he was really in demand.
32:23
Speaker 1: He put out records. He's like, he's a thing. Is
32:27
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory is a thing? And then he gets very
32:30
Speaker 1: involved with the civil rights movement, which don't forget. I
32:34
Speaker 1: mean this is before the Voting Rights Act and before
32:37
Speaker 1: the Housing Act and all of that. So this is
32:39
Speaker 1: before Martin Luther King in nineteen three makes the big speech.
32:44
Speaker 1: So he starts marching with Martin Luther King and making
32:49
Speaker 1: speeches and raising money. And what happens is he starts
32:53
Speaker 1: canceling nightclub dates and basically says like, look, I can
32:59
Speaker 1: do the jokes, and I can do these jokes these
33:01
Speaker 1: guys wrote for me, and this is all great, but
33:04
Speaker 1: there's a bigger wave that I'm involved with now. And
33:08
Speaker 1: that basically kind of like marginalized his stand up act
33:12
Speaker 1: and made him this civil rights icon at the at
33:15
Speaker 1: the time. So we basically canceled tens of thousands of
33:19
Speaker 1: dollars worth of gigs so he could be involved with
33:21
Speaker 1: this movement and talk about it, and then he became
33:25
Speaker 1: sort of identified with that, and because he was doing that,
33:29
Speaker 1: opened the door again for like the Cosbies and Flip
33:33
Speaker 1: Wilson and you know, prior and all of those gentlemen.
33:37
Speaker 1: But then he essentially, you know, so those floodgates were open,
33:40
Speaker 1: all those folks stepped in to kind of fill that vacuum,
33:43
Speaker 1: and and he kind of walked away from this career
33:45
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. I mean, maybe not entirely,
33:48
Speaker 1: but he clearly had bigger fish to fry um. He
33:51
Speaker 1: had higher priorities, a higher calling you could say, no question,
33:54
Speaker 1: no question, and that really motivated him very much. And
33:57
Speaker 1: then I think in a way it hurt his career year,
34:00
Speaker 1: his stand up career. And I also, for some reason,
34:03
Speaker 1: I just don't know if he was that dedicated to
34:08
Speaker 1: stand up once he had sort of cracked this code
34:11
Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, I can do this, and
34:13
Speaker 1: I can release these albums. I can make hundreds of
34:16
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars a year and where I used to make,
34:19
Speaker 1: you know, five dollars doing this this gig. And he
34:23
Speaker 1: just he was very much motivated in racial equality, which
34:27
Speaker 1: is I can understand I can understand that, which jump
34:30
Speaker 1: sure what he had to endure growing up in that
34:32
Speaker 1: time period. We followed some of his work in this field.
34:43
Speaker 1: In in the civil rights movement, he also was advocating
34:47
Speaker 1: for the rights of Native Americans and uh from gender equality.
34:53
Speaker 1: We we found a couple of stories. One that one
34:56
Speaker 1: that really stood out was he even got the attention
34:59
Speaker 1: of Jagger, who at one point when he ran for
35:03
Speaker 1: president in nineteen sixty eight, which I had no idea
35:07
Speaker 1: he actually ran for president. Uh, but the rumor is
35:10
Speaker 1: from documents that came out later, that j Edgar Hoover
35:14
Speaker 1: considered Dick Gregory such a threat that he ordered the
35:17
Speaker 1: Chicago office of the FBI to contact the Mob to
35:23
Speaker 1: neutralize Yeah, quote unquote whatever whatever that means. Yeah, maybe
35:29
Speaker 1: maybe it's something less sinister to neutralize him during that race.
35:33
Speaker 1: And I guess I wanted to ask you, I'm given
35:37
Speaker 1: what you said earlier about the biggest comedy club or
35:41
Speaker 1: white nightclub in Chicago being run by the Mob. Was
35:45
Speaker 1: the Mob still really active in Chicago and the comedy
35:49
Speaker 1: scene in the in the sixties. Yeah, I mean it
35:52
Speaker 1: was starting to fade away a little bit as these
35:55
Speaker 1: other rooms opened up. But basically the nightclub era which
35:59
Speaker 1: started right you know when after the end of Prohibition
36:02
Speaker 1: and the and vaudeville dropping. A lot of nightclubs across
36:05
Speaker 1: the United States south north, southwest, northwest were mob run organizations.
36:11
Speaker 1: One of the most famous in New York was a
36:13
Speaker 1: room called the Copa Cabana, which you you know, you've
36:17
Speaker 1: seen these uh Scorsese movies all the time, but that
36:20
Speaker 1: was they had the biggest headliners, Martin Lewis and those
36:24
Speaker 1: guys would perform there, Sammy Davis with the Wilmasson trio
36:28
Speaker 1: and now these were all mob run. And then mob
36:32
Speaker 1: ran obviously Las Vegas, and then had their hooks deeply
36:36
Speaker 1: into Miami, which was also this big scene. I mean,
36:41
Speaker 1: I guess the only place that mob didn't really run
36:44
Speaker 1: too much was the uh the Borsch Belt up in
36:47
Speaker 1: the mountains of the Adirondacks upstate New York, where kind
36:51
Speaker 1: of like Jewish comedians were performed there during the summers.
36:54
Speaker 1: Let's move on really quickly to a very important event
36:58
Speaker 1: UM in the freedom summers are the nineteen sixty four
37:01
Speaker 1: Freedom Summer in Mississippi, UM, where all these marches took place.
37:04
Speaker 1: This is a very big, um, kind of high water
37:06
Speaker 1: mark point for the civil rights movement. UH. There is
37:09
Speaker 1: a bombing of a church called the Mountain Zion Church,
37:12
Speaker 1: and three young men are sent to investigate it, Goodman,
37:17
Speaker 1: Cheney and Schwerner, and they do not come back alive.
37:20
Speaker 1: They are murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan,
37:23
Speaker 1: and Deputy Sheriff Cecil Ray Price has all proven who
37:27
Speaker 1: is also a klansman, and basically Dick Gregory Um goes there,
37:32
Speaker 1: confronts the sheriff and sticks his finger in his face
37:35
Speaker 1: and says, I know you did this, and we're gonna
37:37
Speaker 1: pin it on you. And he reaches out to Hugh Hefner,
37:41
Speaker 1: who puts up twenty five thousand dollars of nineteen sixty
37:44
Speaker 1: four money, which is no chump change for a reward
37:49
Speaker 1: for anyone that can lead to the arrest or proof
37:52
Speaker 1: that these men had something to do with it, and
37:54
Speaker 1: to find the bodies. Um. There's conjecture that the FBI
37:58
Speaker 1: already knew where the bodies were. They just didn't want
38:00
Speaker 1: to create a giant storm um, and so they kept quiet.
38:05
Speaker 1: And essentially Gregory, with the help of his friend Hugh Hefner,
38:08
Speaker 1: took these men to task and everyone essentially, I mean
38:12
Speaker 1: the degrees to which they were punished, you could kind
38:15
Speaker 1: of argue we're not nearly fitting the crime, but they
38:19
Speaker 1: were exposed. Um. And that brings us around to Hefner
38:23
Speaker 1: kind of. I don't know, you think of him as
38:25
Speaker 1: this kind of impressario of smud or something like that,
38:28
Speaker 1: But as you said, he was very interested, He was
38:30
Speaker 1: very progressive. He was all about literature and good writing.
38:34
Speaker 1: And people joke about, oh, I only read Playboy for
38:36
Speaker 1: the articles, but there's there's a lot of truth to that.
38:39
Speaker 1: I mean, some of the greatest writers of all time
38:42
Speaker 1: have gotten their start writing shorts for Playboy or articles
38:45
Speaker 1: or having short stories published. So it absolutely has a
38:48
Speaker 1: place in that kind of cannon. Um. And uh. More recently,
38:53
Speaker 1: Um Dick Gregory. Unfortunately we lost us several years ago,
38:57
Speaker 1: but near the end of his life he participated in
38:59
Speaker 1: the roast of Hugh Hefner and he had a really
39:02
Speaker 1: interesting quote at two thousand and one, right during the
39:05
Speaker 1: roast of Hugh Hefner. Uh he he actually he went
39:09
Speaker 1: beyond the typical insults stuff, right, And I think this
39:15
Speaker 1: is what this is what you have mentioned earlier, Wayne,
39:17
Speaker 1: where he says you had a courage when no one
39:20
Speaker 1: was bringing in black and minorities and let you stand
39:22
Speaker 1: flat footed in America and just talk. You brought me in,
39:26
Speaker 1: You didn't give me a lecture, you gave me no instructions.
39:29
Speaker 1: I come here tonight not to roast you, but to
39:32
Speaker 1: say that had you not had the guts back then
39:34
Speaker 1: we black comics, that the world has been able to
39:37
Speaker 1: look at and understand our genius, we would be in
39:39
Speaker 1: some pot roasting in debt, knowing we were never going
39:43
Speaker 1: to make it. And I have to ask because that's
39:46
Speaker 1: such a powerful statement. Yeah, Yeah, Were they like friends
39:53
Speaker 1: past the business stuff, past like the giving the start,
39:56
Speaker 1: because that that's the that's a very personal, sincere statement.
40:00
Speaker 1: Did they interact throughout the throughout his career in activism
40:05
Speaker 1: as well as comedy, Well, I know, I know this.
40:08
Speaker 1: I know in nineteen sixty two when Lenny Bruce Scott
40:13
Speaker 1: arrested at the Gate of Horn, which was this little
40:16
Speaker 1: club also in Chicago, that he put up his bail
40:19
Speaker 1: money and just felt like what Bruce is trying to
40:23
Speaker 1: do with language, I'm trying to do with you know,
40:27
Speaker 1: with literature here, like like show you satire and language
40:31
Speaker 1: and cartoons just sort of elevate this art, not only
40:35
Speaker 1: the humor but the conversation about American general So I
40:39
Speaker 1: know he's always been an activist in that. I don't
40:42
Speaker 1: know how close they were through the years. I know
40:45
Speaker 1: that there's dozens of Dick Gregory interviews where he thanks
40:50
Speaker 1: Hugh Hefner for having the courage to put him on
40:53
Speaker 1: that stage and or the foresight to put him on
40:57
Speaker 1: that stage. So I know he was like extremely grateful. Obviously,
41:02
Speaker 1: what happens is, I hate to say this, the Playboy
41:04
Speaker 1: Clubs were basically like Dick Gregory immediately got bigger than
41:09
Speaker 1: the Playboy clubs, which was became the circuit. There was
41:12
Speaker 1: like twenty of them all over the United States. Pick St. Louis,
41:16
Speaker 1: you know, so Miami, New Orleans, Boston, New York. So
41:20
Speaker 1: he was already too big to play the Playboy circuit.
41:23
Speaker 1: So I don't know if that was a thing between
41:28
Speaker 1: the two of them. I'm not sure, but I've heard
41:31
Speaker 1: Dick Gregory numerous times thank Hugh Hefner for that moment. Yeah. Absolutely,
41:37
Speaker 1: I mean he really did kind of go on on
41:39
Speaker 1: a limb when he you know, he did kind of
41:41
Speaker 1: have the world, you know, on a platter at that
41:43
Speaker 1: point because of, like you said, the Playboy magazine just
41:45
Speaker 1: printing money and having kind of having a sense that
41:47
Speaker 1: he was untouchable, and that's really important. But also any
41:51
Speaker 1: other person could have done something completely different with that
41:53
Speaker 1: kind of success and that kind of power, and he
41:55
Speaker 1: instead took a chance and went out on a limb
41:58
Speaker 1: when he didn't have to. And without that moment, Dick
42:01
Speaker 1: Gregory wouldn't have had the platform to affect such social
42:05
Speaker 1: change that he did. Not to mention blowing over the
42:07
Speaker 1: doors wide open for black comics you know around the world. Yeah,
42:10
Speaker 1: it's it's an incredible story, and it all happens in
42:13
Speaker 1: this you know, in this little club in Chicago in
42:17
Speaker 1: the middle of went to January nineteen sixty one. There's
42:21
Speaker 1: a snowstorm and he takes a bus to the gig
42:25
Speaker 1: and he gets off on the wrong stop, and the
42:27
Speaker 1: whole story is just so he's running through the snow
42:30
Speaker 1: and he's slipping, and he's never been to the Playboy Club,
42:32
Speaker 1: so he doesn't know exactly where it is. And then
42:35
Speaker 1: he gets there and uh, yeah, he gets on on
42:38
Speaker 1: stage and uh does his thing as you just reflect
42:43
Speaker 1: on like his use of language and the casualness of
42:47
Speaker 1: his performance, and he is just like this is his moment,
42:51
Speaker 1: and he absolutely embraces it. And speaking of speaking of
42:57
Speaker 1: thinking and speaking of moments, you know, we can we
43:00
Speaker 1: can think Hugh Hefner the way that Dick Gregory did.
43:04
Speaker 1: But we also have to admit, you know, this wouldn't
43:07
Speaker 1: have been near as big a moment had Dick Gregory
43:10
Speaker 1: not been such a talented writer, performer and comics. So
43:14
Speaker 1: I don't want to get away from how just objectively
43:18
Speaker 1: good the guy is and and also so savvy. I
43:21
Speaker 1: think it's it's not to be Um overlooked that he
43:24
Speaker 1: wasn't rolling over when he kind of did these maybe
43:28
Speaker 1: a little bit more palatable performances for white audiences. He
43:31
Speaker 1: was being smart. He was reading the room in a
43:34
Speaker 1: way that was able to like keep him in the game.
43:37
Speaker 1: And you know, as his comedy you know, progressed, I guess,
43:40
Speaker 1: or as his career progress and he had, he was
43:42
Speaker 1: able to take more risks. Um. You know, he was
43:45
Speaker 1: very outspoken about race and politics and all of that,
43:48
Speaker 1: even in his acts. No question, Again, it goes back
43:51
Speaker 1: to what we were speaking about earlier about your said savvy,
43:54
Speaker 1: I said, you know, emotional like you like he just
43:57
Speaker 1: I felt like he had a a really heightened level
44:01
Speaker 1: of like how to play these situations, and he had seen,
44:05
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, sometimes they would have like, uh,
44:09
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know if it was Sammy
44:10
Speaker 1: Davis at this Robert Show club, and he watched Nipsey
44:14
Speaker 1: Russell play a crowd and sometimes they would get white
44:17
Speaker 1: crowds coming into the Robert Show Club, which was a
44:21
Speaker 1: black club, but they would let white people in obviously.
44:24
Speaker 1: So I think he had seen some other black comedians
44:28
Speaker 1: like work the room's like, Okay, I think I know
44:31
Speaker 1: how to crack this this code. I think I know
44:34
Speaker 1: the combination uh that that will that will make it work.
44:38
Speaker 1: So this this is a watershed, pivotal moment in comedy
44:45
Speaker 1: and in American society overall. You know, longtime listeners know
44:52
Speaker 1: one thing that that I never shy away from NOL.
44:56
Speaker 1: I don't think you shy away from it either, is
44:58
Speaker 1: admitting when we need to know more about something. So
45:03
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Wayne Fetterman for introducing, uh, not
45:07
Speaker 1: just us, but our audience to Dick Gregory and talking
45:12
Speaker 1: to us, even though you established pretty early on in
45:14
Speaker 1: today's episode that you would always rather be talking to
45:17
Speaker 1: Casey that's fair. We feel the same way. I trusted me.
45:20
Speaker 1: I want a really quick I just tell a very
45:22
Speaker 1: very short story. I had an interesting privilege to UM.
45:26
Speaker 1: I was a reporter for public radio when I lived
45:29
Speaker 1: in Augusta, Georgia, and I got to cover the funeral
45:33
Speaker 1: of James Brown. And Uh, Dick Gregory actually spoke and
45:36
Speaker 1: gave a eulogy at James Brown's funeral, And I was
45:39
Speaker 1: not aware of him, And that was the very first
45:41
Speaker 1: time I had ever heard of this man. Uh, and
45:43
Speaker 1: I really thought of him much more all the research
45:45
Speaker 1: I did, which wasn't much, um that he was much
45:48
Speaker 1: more of an activist. So hearing this completed part of
45:51
Speaker 1: his story is really fascinating. But he gave a really
45:53
Speaker 1: powerful speech at James Brown's funeral. Um, it was. It
45:56
Speaker 1: was really interesting to see him kind of in the
45:58
Speaker 1: flesh and really fascinating man. Very very glad to know
46:02
Speaker 1: more about him. So thank you Wayne for for hipping
46:05
Speaker 1: us to this story. Well I'm you know, I'm just
46:09
Speaker 1: You're welcome. So Wayne, at this point people people have
46:14
Speaker 1: heard us mentioned uh your podcast that you do with
46:18
Speaker 1: your co host Andrew Stephen. I just want to let
46:22
Speaker 1: everybody know that The History of Stand Up Season two
46:27
Speaker 1: is is coming out now as we speak. It hasn't
46:30
Speaker 1: all been released yet though, right, that is correct. We
46:33
Speaker 1: are still editing, interviewing people, putting things together for this season. Yeah. So, uh,
46:40
Speaker 1: the last the last episode I listened to if you're
46:43
Speaker 1: interested in hearing more about the Playboy circuit is season two,
46:47
Speaker 1: episode two, which came out just a few days ago
46:51
Speaker 1: as we record this, and it explores the story of
46:55
Speaker 1: Hugh Hefner and Playboy magazine and how they became This
47:00
Speaker 1: is a quote here from your show, Wayne, how they
47:02
Speaker 1: became unlikely champions for an era of comedy between nightclubs
47:07
Speaker 1: and the comedy boom. That's exactly. I can't believe I
47:10
Speaker 1: came up with something that articulous. That's great, it's very succinct.
47:13
Speaker 1: You've done good, You've done good way and it's a
47:15
Speaker 1: great show. Um, where can folks find that? Um? What's
47:18
Speaker 1: the best way to to to pull that up? I
47:21
Speaker 1: the classic. Wherever you get your podcast, whether it's you know,
47:26
Speaker 1: on iTunes or Stitcher, I'm not sure wherever it's it's everywhere,
47:30
Speaker 1: it's everywhere out there. Just yeah, yeah, it's easy to get.
47:34
Speaker 1: It's easy to get and thank you very much for
47:37
Speaker 1: listening to it. I, um, you know this is a
47:40
Speaker 1: I'm passionate about this, but I just don't know how
47:43
Speaker 1: many people are really interested in the history of stand
47:45
Speaker 1: up as opposed to stand ups now you know that,
47:49
Speaker 1: you know, talk about their careers and stuff. I've actually
47:52
Speaker 1: have been keeping note here. I'll confess there were a
47:55
Speaker 1: couple of older comics that you had mentioned in the
47:59
Speaker 1: course of today episode or is writing them downs? Like,
48:02
Speaker 1: Oh wait, I've got to look that guy up. I
48:03
Speaker 1: gotta see if I can hear something. Uh So, I've
48:06
Speaker 1: got some homework today. Uh and I'll probably be posting
48:10
Speaker 1: some some stuff about this on our own Ridiculous History
48:14
Speaker 1: Facebook page or Instagram. You can you can find us there.
48:17
Speaker 1: You can also find us on Twitter. Uh Wayne, I'm
48:21
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna volunteer you. It looks like you are
48:23
Speaker 1: also available on Twitter at Fetterman And if you want
48:27
Speaker 1: to find me and Ben individually. Um, we keep up
48:30
Speaker 1: a pretty decent Instagram profile. I am at how Now
48:33
Speaker 1: Noel Brown and you can see me getting kicked into
48:36
Speaker 1: and out of various countries at Ben Bolan. Yeah, that's true,
48:40
Speaker 1: that's true. Don't make fun of me, love it? Uh.
48:43
Speaker 1: So that is our show. Everyone, Thank you so much
48:46
Speaker 1: for tuning in. We'd love to hear you're taking some
48:49
Speaker 1: of your favorite comics throughout history right. Absolutely thanks to
48:53
Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram, Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed
48:56
Speaker 1: our theme. Big thanks to Christopher Hasiotis who is here
48:59
Speaker 1: in spirit uh and Jonathan Strickland who you know uh
49:04
Speaker 1: he can take a long walk off a short pier.
49:06
Speaker 1: Big thanks to Jonathan Strickland, a k. The quister I
49:08
Speaker 1: know you and I don't see eye to eye on that.
49:11
Speaker 1: And big thanks to Wayne and thank you so much
49:14
Speaker 1: folks for listening. We'll see you next time. For more
49:25
Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
49:27
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.