Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Richard Lloyd

Transcript

Richard Lloyd · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: My guest today is guitarist Richard Lloyd. Richard, why do
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: you start your live shows with the song respect?
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Well? I was asked to do a Nuggets, a reunion
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: or a couple of the songs. I chose where one
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: of them was respect But it's not the it's the
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Vagrance version, so to say. The lyrics are a little different,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: and there's no R s P E C T in it,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: and it's not Aretha. It's you know, a modern take
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: of it by Moir, but based on the Vagrants. You
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: can look it up on YouTube.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, I've been I will the Vagrants version came before
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: or after Wretha's version?
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I have that. I have no idea.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Can you tell us any of the lyrical changes?
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Just instead of the rspcis there's just hey, hey, hey hey,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: after every verse and you know, no, I can't I
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: play it? And what the hell?
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: You also do the velvets waiting for my Man?
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Not really. I do two verses of it and embedded
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: in another song of mine called the Word.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, for those who haven't seen you act, tell us
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a little bit more.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: I don't want to really talk about music with you, Bob.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: You gotta have something else. Let's have it.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Ohkay. Let me be clear, you have something very specific
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you'd like to talk about.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Uh uh huh, anything you like? Okay, but you don't
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: subjects interest you.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: You know, we believe I got a lot of somejects
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: interest me. I just want to you would rather not
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: talk about music.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Well, you're asking me pointing questions about my own performance,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: which is my own performance, and I'm not scheduled or
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I'm not able to give a critique of my own
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: work in that regard, Okay, And you're asking me to,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: you know, talk about songwriting and the intricacies of putting
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: a set together and why I did this and why
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I do that? Is not something that interests me at all.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I play and people come to see it and they
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: enjoy it, and we've been getting a great deal of
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: We're playing small places, but we're getting sellouts and people
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: are very excited about it and really happy smiles everywhere
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: we go. So that's enough for me. Okay.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Do you enjoy the process of going on the road
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and touring?
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: I do. I do. It's interesting to be paid to
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: go where tourists pay to go, and when you get there,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: they applaud usually unless they're throwing tomatoes at you, but
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: they don't do that for me.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, are you the type of person who stays in
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: the hotel room all day or do you take advantage
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: of these places that normal tourists pay to go to.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: You know, I've been to Paris like eleven times, and
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: I've never been to the not the Statue of Liberty,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: that other thing.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: The Eiffel Tower.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Eiffel Tower. And I've walked past the Louver many times,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: going to a restaurant or such, or just taking a walk,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: but I've never been inside the Louver. So it's a
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: mixture of I am joy the geography and the people
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: and the cuisines, but as to the touristy type of things,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I really don't partake in that.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: What's the most interesting place you've been to?
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, gosh, everywhere. Athens, Greece, where you can't breathe because
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: the pollution is so bad now and the cars are
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: crazy and the driving is crazy. Japan, where you look
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: out and there's two thousand people and not one of
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: them has anything but black hair. That's very interesting and
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: just about anywhere in the States is cool? San Francisco,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: you know, La New York.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Have you been to South America?
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: I've been to San Paulo where we played the Rio Festival,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: and San Polo and Rio.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been to Rio. Interesting place. So are you
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the type of person who's deep into your own world
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: or do you follow the news.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: I've been following the news now that I get a
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: little older, But I don't really talk about politics either.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Music and politics are kind of they're preculiar tastes that
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: people have. I may follow of a man named George
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Ivanovitch Kerdyev. Are you familiar with that?
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I am not. I'm not, I don't think so. Tell me.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Well, he was a I guess you'd call him a
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: mystic or a master of himself. And he tried to
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: impart to mankind the possibilities that are open to human
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: being who's quote working on themselves end quote. And he
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: provided steps to achieve a greater potential for man than
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: he usually is. He's sleepwalking. If you look, you can
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: practically see people dream daydreaming, and daydreams are nothing. They
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: don't exist. When reality hits you, they're gone. And so
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: to live one's life in clouds. So to say is
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: you know a negative and people are fulled with full
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: of negative emotions.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Let's just talk about you. Have you followed this gentleman's
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: precepts and to what degree have they helped or changed you.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: I'm free of most of the former habits that I
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: had and negative emotions that I carried with me. There's
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: no point to having negative emotions. They don't do anything
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: for you except to ruin your health. And I'm talking
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: about pride, lust, anger, fear, apathy, grief. They're all useless.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: They don't do anything for you. They don't act in
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: the world.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Just to get a spectrum here. Let's say you buy
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: a pizza, pizza, slice of pizza and it falls on
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the ground. Are we talking about something as minor as that?
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Or could you say, what's the point of crying over
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: spilt milk? That's the old saying. So a pizza is
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: the same thing. It falls from your hands. You know,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: if you pick it up and it falls again, it
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: can get frustrating to some people. But I mean that's physics.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Now we want to talk about physics.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: No, I'd rather not talk about physics, not an area
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: of expertise for me. What about as we get older,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: we have contemporaries who pass away. How does one deal
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: with the emotions of that.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: I don't have much emotions around death. It's a natural
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: part of life. In fact, it's the goal of life
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: is to reach death, but put it off as long
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: as it's necessary to gain some kind of spiritual beingness.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, the point of man is to reflect the
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: glory of the creator, if there is such a thing,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: or you could call it out of space, and the
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: glory of the Sun and the planets and the Earth
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: and the moon and the galaxies. We could talk about
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: astrophysics if you like, but you don't deal in physics.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Whit Wait wait, wait, wait, wait, a couple of things. First, Yeah,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: do you believe in it after life?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: It depends. It depends what you mean by an afterlife,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: and it would take a great deal of discussion, hopefully
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: not one sided discussion, to come to any kind of
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: uh and understanding. I don't think the physical body reanimates,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: that's certain. The emotions and the kind of cloud of
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: consciousness departs, and maybe it goes somewhere and lasts for
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: a while in the atmosphere of the Earth. Maybe it's
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: drawn towards the moon, where mister Gridjief said that organic
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: life on Earth feeds the Moon and that it's a
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: young being, not quite the but that we don't look
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: at cosmic time the way that archaeologists do. We're talking
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: about cycles of Brahma. We could talk about the Indian
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Hindu religion and it's start in the never changing Wisdom.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to astrophysics. If it's something that
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: you have expertise in, I'm certainly willing to be edified here.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Well, expertise is not not what I would claim for myself.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: It's just a strong interest. I have many, many interests.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: I believe. We sent you a copy of my book
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: where you yes, look through it? Yes, yes, I was
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: through read it from cover to cover. It's yes, full
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: of vignettes. Yes, we could talk about any of those
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: or the ideas in the book.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Well, what I find in the book is a strong
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: sense of alienation and a strong sense of going down
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: your own path.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Well, those are both true.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: And also finding yourself observing a lot. So yes, as
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: you have gone through life, do you find your self
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: feeling that you're outside or that you have moments when
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: you're feel totally connected, you know, what has been your
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: experience on the planet.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: I am connected. I can't say totally because there's a
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: degree to it. There's a percentage I'm awake in the
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: sense of being vertical, such as the New Testament talks
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: about sleep not you never know the time. There are
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: all the parables we could talk about that if you like.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Let's go to some of the specifics of your life.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: You did not finish senior year of high school in
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: one year, then you went to another school and didn't
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: finish senior year there, can you tell us what happened?
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: I was at Stuyvesant High School, which is in all science.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: It was a boys' school at the time. There were
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: no women and no girls. And I was to graduate
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: in sixty nine. And then when they stopped teaching, I
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: quit and I refused to take a diploma because I
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: had already in the twelfth grade. I had taken my
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: guitar to school and I remember my physics teacher saying,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: where are your books? And I said they're in the case,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: and he says, well, open the case and get out
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: the books. So I opened the guitar case and there's
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: my electric guitar. And he says, so that doesn't look
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: like a physics book to me, And I said, it's
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: the physic physics book I'm studying, and it's not going
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: to change for me. And I was delighted. I'd be
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: delighted if you were to teach, But to ask your
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: students to go and teach themselves by reading materials that
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: you didn't write and you're not enthusiastic about is not
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: the way to teach. I had a math teacher in
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: seventh and eighth grade. I was on the math team
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: in the algebra competitions in New York City and we
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: actually won one year that I was there, that was
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: the seventh and the eighth grade. It was a Japanese
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: man named Tad Saphora, who then later became the principal
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: of the grade school that I was going to, the
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: junior high that I went to, and he was a
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: remarkable man. He was a fifth degree black belt in
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: karate and in ikido, and he would stop. The junior
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: high school I went to was rather difficult. There were
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: a lot of beatings and robberies, and you had to
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: put money in several places when you went to school
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: because you were certain to get mugged and someone would
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: take your lunch money, so you had to have more
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: in your shoe. Anyway, he could stop those just by appearing.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: People would drop their knives and chains upon seeing him,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: because he could dismantle them quite easily. Anyway. He taught
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: only four days a week. That we went to school
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: five days a week, obviously, and he had us for
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: forty five minutes each of those days. And on Fridays
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: he would lecture on various subjects, all of which were
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: extremely interesting to him and to us. We were a
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: group of children who were like sponges ready to absorb,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: and he had a fascinating ability. Six weeks before school
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: ended in the eighth grade, he came and he said,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: I have good news, and I have good news. Which
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: do you want? And he said, well, we've all passed
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: this year, and I've thought you half of next year's curriculum.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: In case you don't have me as a teacher. You
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: should not rest on your laurels, but you should continue
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: to study anyway. I wasn't so good in trig trigonometry,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: but algebram I was very good at and chess and
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: games like that go. He taught us Go. Do you
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: know Go?
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I am familiar with the game. I've played it for
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: like five minutes, so keep going.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Oh it's quite terrific. It's a game where you could
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: think you're winning and one move will flip everything on
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: the board. And these games go on for weeks. In Japan,
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: maybe one move a day. People contemplate this. It's a
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: game of borders and of surrounding your enemy. It's a
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: fascinating game, and it's precedes chess according to you know,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: studies of ancient gamesmanship.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, since this gentleman taught you half of next year's course, Yeah,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: what happened the following year, Well.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: I didn't have him, and that was very sad to me.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: But I visited him in his office a number of
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: times and asked for his direction. He was a as
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: I said before, he remarkable man, you know, versed in
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: many many subjects, which is something I aspire to, which
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: is why I'm not trying to be hostile. I'm trying
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: to talk to you in something that will entertain us
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: and the audience both. But I do music as a
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: it's not a hobby what I do for a living,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: and it's very personal to me. I don't want to
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: dismantle and have an autopsy of my performances. So I
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: could talk about anything you like. No, No, that's not
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: bring me anything to the table.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Well, if I was going to row Bob, if I
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: was going to bring to the table, it sounds like
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: you're a person. If you were on the Bath team,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: your person who dedicates yourself and is totally involved in school,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: you will apply and get into Stevenson what happens to
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: make you go left as opposed to Stingo left?
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: I stayed the course of my own direction.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Well, that's my question. Why did you do that?
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: The world would be a better place? But we all
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: succumb to the hypnosis.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Since most people's coucil. Since most people succumb, how did
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: you not succumb?
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I was born this way. I was born awake, and
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: I looked around and it grieved to me the way
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: human beings, they didn't think and feel the same. They
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: would get into the They for instance, they took poisons
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: such as alcohol, and then they got into fights. And
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: if you took away alcohol, you can't And probition proved
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: that you can't really take the pleasure out of ordinary
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: people's lives. And so I've been this way since. I
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: used to meditate as I'm taught now, sitting on my
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: heels in the living room, stopping my breathing and trying
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: to stop my heart when I was two and three
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: years old. So I've been around the block in terms
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: of the human condition and find it mostly lacking. But unfortunately,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: that's not how most people see it. They see their
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: lives as full and entertaining. I'm not interested in that.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the fact pattern. When you're
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: bring your guitar to school and you don't get your diploma,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: what do your parents say and to what degree were
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: your parents in influence in your life.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Well, at that time, my parents moved from New York,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: from Manhattan, from Greenwich Village to Montclair, New Jersey, and
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: they said to me they bought a big house and
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: I had I took over the third floor of the house.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Remarkably affluent, I'll say, where in the village we weren't
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: that affluent. So my step dad reached a point of
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: affluence and bought himself a Mercedes in this house, huge house,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: and he was a film editor, mostly did TV commercials.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Once brought me a Mickey Mantle signed baseball to Ricky
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: from you know, Mickey Mantle, and I used it in
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: a game and somebody hit a home run and the
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: ball was lost out in the woods. And it's never
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: bothered me. It was a baseball. It was meant to
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: be used in a game. And people that collect these things,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: you know, just make me sort of smile.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: What did your stepfather say, if anything, when he found
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: out the ball was lost?
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Nothing, No, he was astute. Anyway, They said, listen, you
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: could do one of three things. You could get a
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: job and pay rent to be here, you could move out,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: or you could go back to high school. And finished
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: the twelfth grade. So I went back to high school,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: although I didn't really go to take courses because this
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: was an ordinary high school, not a specialized high school.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: And I went and I borrowed a saxophone, and I
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: went and sat down on a park bench across the
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: street from the steps leading into the registration hall, and
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: all the kids would come and laugh at me because
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: I really can't play the saxophone. I was honking and bleeding,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: and this young black guy came up to me and
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: he said, what are you doing? And I told him
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I'm calling you, And it turned out to be a
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: fellow named Albert Anderson who went on to play with
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Bob Marley, mostly because he could smoke pot the way
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: they did, and if it weren't for me, you wouldn't
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: have smoked pot. I talked him into it after a
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: couple of months of pressure, peer pressure. I talked everybody
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: into getting high at the time and had a great
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: deal of fun.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, the high school that you went to to repeat
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: senior year was that in the suburbs in Montclair?
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, Montclair High School.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: That must have been huge culture shock after being in
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: New York.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, it was. But we Albert and I and a
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: guy named Ed Rogers. They were in a band called
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Redbread who won Battle of the Bands in New Jersey. Anyway,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: we used to bring our electric guitars into the senior
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: lounge and play during the breaks or when we cut classes,
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: and after about three months the place, the senior lounge
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: was so full of kids that they shut it down.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've always drawn a crowd people who are
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: interested in our interests, and at the time, you know,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: we were playing electric guitars with no amplifiers. Just trading
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: licks back and forth, you know, all reaching that unapproachable
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: goal of so called making it in the music business.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to Greenwich Village. You know a
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: lot of the sixties emanated from Greenwich Village.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Did you just feel that you were living there or
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: were you feeling that something was going on?
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Definitely felt that something was going on. We were at
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: the top of the rocket of civilization in New York
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: and Greenwich Village specifically in the early and mid sixties.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: I mean it was incredible. And you know, we chased
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Bob Dylan around in coffee shops and Jimmy Hendrix is
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: playing the cafe. Wha. I never went down the stairs
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: of the cafe why? And I I kind of regret that,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: but I later on met him and many other of
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: the so called rock stars. I didn't want to really
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: grovel in front of them. I wanted to meet them
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: as older peers, older brothers, and I did that and
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: hung out with many of the top musicians of the day.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: And the day was pretty bright, you know, sixty four
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: to sixty to sixty nine.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, why do you think society changed and pulled back?
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, the cliche would be the army stole the slogan,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: you know, be all that you can be. That was
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: the etho of the teenagers in twenty somethings. What happened
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: in society? What do you attribute the change in the
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: outlook in people over the ensuing decades.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Well, we were in a Cold War, and I went
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: through the Cuban missile crisis with everybody else, and we were,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: you know, the United States and Russia, we're in a
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: real tussle. And then we got into a war in Vietnam,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: and that was ridiculous foreign war where we're killing people
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: that do nothing to us, can't do anything to us,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: They couldn't send. The United States has been isolated. Nobody
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: can reach us because we have two oceans protecting us.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: And anyway, we get in these ridiculous wars. And I
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: was drafted and I got out of it because I
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: had had psychiatric problems prior, and I had good documentation
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: and a psychiatrist that said, you know, you can't put
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: them in the army. He'll shoot officers just that, Would
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: you know stop the war?
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Were you afraid that you were going to have to go?
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: I was number seventeen in the draft, so I would
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: have been cannon fodder for sure, But I wasn't going
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: to run. I was going to take whatever came my way.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: And when I went down to the draft board, a
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: funny thing happened because during the hearing test, you're wearing
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: your headphones and everybody else if you hear something in
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: your right or raise your right hand, you know, and
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: I'm raising my left and I'm raising my right opposite.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: I'd put the headphones on backwards and the guy says,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: you're going in the army man, you ain't getting out
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: of this. But when I saw the psychiatrist, he was
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: of a different shade of color.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: What caused you or what motivated you to go to
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: the psychiatrist?
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: That alter everybody went to the psychiatrist, and people wore dresses,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: you know, boys were outrageous clothing and stuff to try
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: to convince the psychiatrists. And they'd come out with their
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: head hung low. They were going, and you know, somebody
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: come out with their papers and go yeah, and everybody, yeah,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: you got out of it. So it was a thing
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: to do.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Well. I thought that you said though, that you had
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: previous psychiatric history prior to the draft.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: That's right. I'd been in Roosevelt Tower ten, and later
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: on I've been in two state mental institutions that make
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: one flew over the cuckoos and nest looked like a
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: kindergarten party, and I'm serious, tied to a gurney.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Tell me about the first todd First.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I was fifteen, and I was sick of my parents,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: and you know, in a rebellious place, and they took
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: pills and drank alcohol and it really got to me.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: So I went into the bathroom one day or one evening,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: and I took all the pills out, all the prescriptions out,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: and put them down the toilet, and then told my
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: parents that I had taken them all. And they rushed
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: me to Roosevelt Hospital, where they pumped my stomach. The
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: doctor said, I know you haven't taken your stone sober,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: but I'm going to pump your stomach anyway as a
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: lesson to you. And after that they put me in
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: the psychiatric unit of Roosevelt Hospital, which was called Tower ten.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: I spent two weeks there and they then they sent
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: me on a pass to go home, and I didn't
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: want to go home. You know, the hospital was much
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: nicer than my home was at the time to me. Anyway,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I came back from the pass and I was happy
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: as a lark in the hospital setting. And the guy
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: in charge of me said, you know you're back on drugs.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: We're giving you these passes and you're back on drugs.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: And I was like, no, I'm not, and he said,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: yes you are, and we're transferring you to Creedmore, which
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: was the statemental hospital out in Queen's or Long Island somewhere,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: and I was in Building forty and that's the flight deck.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: That's where they assessed you for forty days. So I
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: spent three months there. They gave people electroshock therapy, and
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: they gave me a chemical shock therapy. It's adrenaline insulin
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: shock therapy where they put you to sleep for two
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: weeks and then they put you in a literal rubber
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: room and you work it out for two three four days.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: But people would come out of the electro shock and
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: walk into walls. And my friend Albert Anderson, who had
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: been talking about earlier, he came to see me and
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: he says he started crying and I said, Albert, why
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: are you crying? He said, because you're gone, you're not there,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: and I said, well, I'll come back. Don't worry about it,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: and I did every time. So my head is stronger
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: than their medicine.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, was there any benefit in either of these two
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: hospitals to you?
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a life is an adventure, and no matter
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: what happens to you, it's part of a process, and
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: it's a magnificent one. Nothing that's ever happened to me
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: has stop me from trying to become a better person, trying.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Although I don't succumb to new age crap. I'm a
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: scientist and one of the sciences is the human condition,
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: and I've done a lot of studying of it and
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: had a mentor you know, or two or three or four.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're in the mental institution. Does anybody connect with you?
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Are there any doctors or anybody there say listen, I
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: know who you are, I know what's going on. You're okay,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: let's just kind of get through this. Or you were
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: you alone there?
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Oh No, At the time, they weren't like that. Doctors
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: lorded it over the patients. They were, you know, God
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: in charge and if they wrote something down that was gospel,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: so you know, they would write the worst things about you,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: and then you would suffer the consequences.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: And the other people who were there with you. Were
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: they reasonable or were they truly mentally ill?
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Both? There were plenty of truly mentally ill, catatonic people,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: people with the I remember they brought a guy in
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: strapped to a gurney and they kept him there for
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: a couple of weeks because he was a sex psychotic
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: and would grab at people's testicles and that just didn't stop.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: So how did you convince them the second time that
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: you were fine and should be let out.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know. But the second time I was in Graystone,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: State where they sent me to a drug rehabilitation halfway house,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: one of these you know, tough love places, and they
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: were in the middle of a work marathon, and twenty
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: four hours of like, they gave me a toothbrush and
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: they made me go along the carpeted floor picking up stuff.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: And after about about twenty hours of that, I walked
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: out and they couldn't stop me. You know, I wasn't
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: in the confines of the mental hospital anymore. It was
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: in somewhere near new and I walked home to Montclair.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: You know, many miles till I rest. I've always been
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: that way. If I have a determination, I carry through.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: And what'd your parents say when you showed up at
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: a house?
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: They were actually happy. I was okay. I was straight
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: and sober. Not for long, however, But you know, I
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: liked intoxicants. Birds like intoxicants, Cows like intoxicants. Deer eat
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: rotten fruit and fall down. They love it, and so
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: human beings have always sought after intoxicants of various qualities
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: and natures. When I first got into the Gurjief work,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: my teacher, a woman named Patty, said to me, what
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: have drugs ever done for you? What about? And I said, well,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: I know the difference in quality between materials. A pound
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: of flour and a pound of heroin weigh the same,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: but the significant affect and the significant what they can
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: do is remarkably different. And there you got LSD, you know,
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: which you can't even see, and you can take it
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: and have an extraordinary brain trip.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Anyway, when did you first start, as they used to
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: say back in the sixties, experimenting with intoxicants.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: When I was nine and a half, I stole a
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: cigarette that was the entrance from my grandmother's pack of cigarettes,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: and I went up the alleyway. It was some summer.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: I was nine and a half and I smoked a
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: cigarette and got dizzy and enjoyed it. So there I was.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Then I snuck into the liquor cabinet because I wondered
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: why adults took poison, and alcohol clearly a neurotoxin given
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: in sufficient quantities. And I drank a bunch of different
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: liquors and made myself. The room spun and I vomited,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: you know, projectile, vomited into the toilet, and as soon
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: as I could, I did it again. So there was
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: some measure of I guess if a psychologist would say
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: self loathing going on, you know in the place that
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: I was. And I was given a lot of love
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: when I was young, but it wasn't sufficient. I had
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: an absent father, and that, really, I would say, it
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: numbed me to that side of the emotional part of
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: a human being.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, when you say absent father, do you mean he
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: was never there or there irregularly.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: He came to visit two or three times when I
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: was really little, you know, in diapers and as a toddler.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Then he joined the Navy and split and that was that.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: My parents got divorced when I was like six months old,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: and my mother took me to her parents' place and
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: that's where I lived for the first six years. So
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: my mother went to New York to become an actress
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: and met my stepfather, who was a film editor in
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: acting school, and then she sent for me and I
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: went to New York.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: So the absent father, since you really didn't know you
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: never really lived with.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: Your father, that's correct.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: What was the feeling of that, How do the apps
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: and how did it manifest itself into what degree does
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: it still play into your psychology today?
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I had a terrific stepfather who did everything in
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: his power to help me and to support me, and
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: but that didn't happen right away. So there was a
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: hole in me, a deep hole, you know. My grandfather
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: stood in as the male figure and my grandmother, you know,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: was the loving person. And my mother was sort of
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: flighty and concerned about her own self, and so she
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: moved to New York and then she called me on
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: the telephone and said this is I was six, and
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: she said, this is your decision. You can come live
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: with me or you can stay with your grandparents. And
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: I was, and I said, against my own wishes, I said,
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: you're my mother, I'll come and live with you. She says,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: oh really, oh great. But I didn't really want to go.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: So there was a hole in me. That's all I
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: can say.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, So it was this hole connected to intoxicants.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: That's not how I see it. How do you see
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: the connection.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Well, a lot of people, a lot of famous people,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: whether they you know, not athletes but artists. They're trying
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: to fill a hole that that frequently cannot be filled.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: They didn't get enough love for their father, they need
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: certain adulation, etc.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: So everybody has a hole in them, Bob, everybody, and
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: they can't be filled even with God. It needs to
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: be like a spark plug has to have a gap
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: in it. A human being has to have this unconquerable
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: sorrow in them. It's a kind of suffering that all
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: human beings must face in some way or another, and
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: most of them turn to some kind of escape from it,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: which is not how I interpret the taking of intoxicants.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: To me, it was a search, a total search for
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: myself within this. I used to take things that would
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: make you go to sleep and then stay awake, or
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: take things that would send you up and go to
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: sleep on them. So I was always headfirst into this
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: kind of grand adventure. And when I was fifteen, I
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: said to myself, they showed this movie, you know, Reefer Madness,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: and afterwards all those kids talked about how we wanted
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: to refer you know, where could we find some? And
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: our older brothers were beat nicks, so we got it
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: from them and started smoking. When I was fifteen, I
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: asked myself, I said, let's sit down, Richard and figure
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: this out. I said, out of a thousand people who
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: take drugs, none of them recover except maybe one. Because
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: what was it? Ulysses had himself strapped to the mast
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: so he couldn't hear the sirens, or so he could
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: rather hear the sirens but couldn't go to them in
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: his doom. And I wondered, so do I have a
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: mask such as that that's going to save me in
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: the end? And I said my answer back was no.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: And then the question was, well, are you going to
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: do them anyway? And the answer came back to me yes.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: I plunged into it. I believe in guardian angels, and
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: I have a phlans of them. They're protecting me, They've
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: always protected me.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back one chapter. You said everybody's got
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: a hole in them.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: So let's say you know, conventional science that we read about.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: If we're not scientists, ourselves say they're spectrums. Okay, there
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: are people who are deeply depressed. There are people who
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: say they never get depressed. Are they just lying? What
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: would the hole be in those who would say, I'm
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: well adjusted and I'm happy.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Ah, they're hypnotized by the society. Oh, hypnotism, that is.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: You know. I looked at my the adults around me
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: when I was really little, and I noticed that that
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: I could see that their emotions didn't match their speech,
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: that they lied, that they simply lied to themselves and
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: to others about their own condition and didn't fully embrace
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: or accept the fact that they were, you know, and
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: harmed by the shocks of life. You can take the
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: shocks of life two ways. You can either ride them
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: like riding the tiger, or you can get crushed by them,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: eating up alive. I'm not sure that people, I suggest
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: that there are a percentage of people who are well
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: adjusted to society's norms, and they live a life just
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: like an animal. They go through life and then they
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: perish and that's the end of them.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, once you're an adult in society, there are a
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: lot of people living in denial. How do you find
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: your people?
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: Ah? Well, that took many years. I didn't have a
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: mentor until I found a man who had died in
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: nineteen forty nine, mister Gurdjief, who I've spoken about it
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: in our talk, and it was a Greek Armenian fellow
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: who started teaching in nineteen twelve in Russia in Moscow,
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: but ended up in France, you know, because of the
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Russian Revolution and all with a bunch of people, and
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: started a school there called the Harmonia the Harmonious in
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: the Institute for the Harmonious Evolution of Man. I'm paraphrasing that.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: And I read a book, you know, it practically fell
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: on my head. I was going to spiritual bookstores and
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: reading all sorts of stuff, and I found this book.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: It was called In Search of the Miraculous and I
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: read it and in it it's the story of a
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: student's three year tutorship under mister Kajief, and it's full
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: of mister Gajief's lectures at the time in early nineteen fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: those years, and in it I recognized something of extraordinary
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: value in what mister Gajief was postulating, that we're not
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: reaching our potential, the human potential to be an image
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: of the creation. That we live narrow, small lives and
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: we're happy with them. If you're happy they are sheep,
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: that's okay. But once in a while there's a black
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: sheep who gets away from the sheep who knows what
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: happens to them when they go into the mountains or
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: what have you, when they run away because they've accidentally
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: seen the slaughterhouse. And we too, as men, are asked
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: for our skins at a certain point and we give them.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Just understand you say that after reading the book, you
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: went to actual classes about this.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Well, I found I don't know how it happened. I
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: found Yeah. I looked up the Gurgief Foundation of New
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: York and I wrote them a letter. I spoke to
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: a woman who was selling books related to this subject,
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: a woman named Elizabeth who ran a bookstore and it's
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: still in existence called Well It'll come to me anyway,
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: I would get books drop shifted to me on tour
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: and spent my time reading things about Gurdjief and his teachings.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: And there's plenty to read if you want to read
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: up on it. Any number of his students wrote books
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: about life with mister Gurdjieff. Anyway, I wrote this letter
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: to the Gurjeef Foundation, and I hand delivered it because
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: I was unsure of the address and whether it really
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: existed or not. And I went there and I knocked
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: on the door and the button of the bell, and
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: nobody came for five minutes. So I rang it again,
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: and nobody came for five minutes, and I rang it
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: and knocked one more time, and I said, if they
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: don't come in five minutes, I'm going to leave and
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: turn my back on this and find something else. And
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: the door opened and a woman who I was later
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: in a group with, Patty Hemmainger, she asked me yes,
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: and I said, is this address correct on the letter?
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: And she said yes, and I said, well, then I've
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: delivered it. And the next day I got a call
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: from this woman, Patty Yosa, who became my teacher or
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: protectress in the Kerchief Foundation. She had met mister er
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: Chief when she was seventeen and one Christmas he gave
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: out the choice of seven silver dollar or a ten
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: dollar bill, and most of the boys took the ten
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: dollar bill, and most of the girls took the silver
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: seven silver dollars, which she still had. Anyway, she asked
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: a fellow named Stafford Ordall to help her run this
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: meeting and began to have meetings in doctor Welsh's house.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: Doctor Welsh was the doctor who cared for mister Kjief
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: in his last week or so in the hospital before
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: he perished of every organ in his body corrupted. That's
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: the guy who knew how to live.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, Why were there so many black sheep in the
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: sixties and why do we live in an era of
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: conformity today?
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: You're right about that. There were a lot of black shoes,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: so to say, not all of them made it, you know,
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: some of them expired on the way, on the path,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: and some of us are still on the path. But yes,
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: conformity is the name of the game nowadays. And what
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: do you conform to? I mean, if it's politics, you've
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: only got two choices, and neither of them are very
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: up to standards.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: You want to talk politics, No, No, I want to
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: talk you know, I think that the world was changed
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: when Reagan came in and legitimized greed.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: That's the nineteen eighty we selected first.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I would say that. You know, we had
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: the peace and love generation of the sixties. We have
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: the back to the land licking our wounds in the seventies,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: and then we had even Jerry Rubin went straight okay,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: and then it became about the money, and of course
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: ultimately we have income inequality, which makes the struggle of
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: life even harder.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: Right, Reaganomics.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Right. But where we used to have okay, you we
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: have the same frame of reference where it used to
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: be that the artist, let's talk musical artists existed outside
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: the system. They were beacons. The first, you know, true
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: breakthrough was the Beatles. Now the popular I'm talking about
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: I don't want to you know, you know what I mean?
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: Him on Sullivan, by the way, of.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Course, I saw them on at Sullivan.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, me too.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: I saw him on Jack Parr a few months before that.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: Oh wow.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: But in any event, my point is people looked to
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: them for answers. They were influenced, and of course John
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Lennon said, you know, we're bigger than Jesus. They were
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: outside the system.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: That ruined them. They couldn't tour after that.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: But today the artists are capitalists. Not that the artists
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: of your never cared about money, but they are selling
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: out to the band, whether it be you know, doing
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: privates and this and that and the other thing and
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: having perfumed. So there's a big change in terms of,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: you know, who the heroes are, who to follow, because
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: if everybody sold out.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: What do you do? Then well I wouldn't know. Thank god,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: not everyone sells out in the way that you're painting it.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: I agree with you completely in this regard. You know,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: there are conformists and then there are capitalists. And anybody
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: can get across the line and get to be a capitalist,
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: then they're gonna, I mean, as far as I'm concerned,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: to kind of ruin and buy it money corrupts.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to the drugs. You know, people say
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: let's use heroin as example. You're always chasing that first high.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: With your experience with drugs, can you say any drug
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: you took you say this was a great experience. Glad
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: I took it better than regular life.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah. Every drug I took was influential in that regard,
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: made it a dent, made a difference, a positive difference,
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: as I've said, you know the difference. I remember first
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: time we took Riddlin and it was the most marvelous experience.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: It was as though our bodies weighed four hundred pounds,
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: but we could talk a mile a minute and my
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: friend and I traded stories for hours on end. Uh,
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: you know, prompted by this drug. Everything is drug anyway,
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: it's all chemicals.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Have you taken ayahuasca?
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: No, I put down that kind of adventure when I
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: found what I was looking for, and I found what
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: I was looking for, and I'm holding on to it dearly.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, But you did go to rehab a couple of
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: times to stop taking drugs, correct.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: No, that's what they wanted there, they meaning parents and
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: police and judges and the rest of society. I mean,
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: I was bonkers. I once wore a karate gee out
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: into the middle of the street in mark Clair, New Jersey,
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: stopping traffic and going beep beep, take me to the aliens,
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: went I was one. It's arrested in the one hundred
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: and sixth floor of the World Trade Center where they
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: actually have jail cells, three of them, and they put
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: me in and called the people from Bellevue who came
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: and took me away. And it was all very exciting
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: to me. You know, I'm excited no matter where I am,
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: I can find reason to sort of love the course
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: of action my life has taken. Not everybody can say that.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: When you stopped going to school, Yeah, what did you
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: think you were going to do going forward?
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: Music? That's simple. I was going to play guitar and
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: a rock band like the Beatles.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: And how long till you could earn a living doing that?
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: Oh? The first time television played CBG's. Television was really
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: my first band. I bided my time until something came
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: along that made sense to me. Anyway. The first time
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: we played a club called CBGB's, we each made a dollar.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: That meant we were professional musicians, and that's all that mattered.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: How did you exist for the years between high school
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: and television?
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: I who took odd jobs. I was a dishwasher for
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: a while, and the diners and restaurants, and you know,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: I never graduated to becoming a waiter or anything. There
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: were more important things going on and through begging through
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: you know, I got stuck in Boston once and had
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: to hit the street and for spare change. I'm not
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: above that. Old Italian ices from a push cart in
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: Boston sold drugs, you know, not hard drugs, but pot
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: and stuff that was before it finally became legalized pretty
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: much everywhere. And that's a wonderful thing to behold.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: I know, they talked about it for decades. It's amazing,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like having a black president. You can't
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: believe it actually happened.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: Right exactly, It's it's something else. Now they've psilocybin, the
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: magic mushrooms are becoming derriguur for therapy and pleasure, you know,
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: and that's a good thing. They're legal in Oregon, so
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: sooner or later they'll be legal most everywhere.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Tell us about heroin. Did you first start taking heroin?
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: What was your experience on heroin?
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: Well, the first time I took heroin was in junior
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: high school. There. We used to be able to go
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: and get dollar or two dollars bags of heroin that
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: last you two weeks and sniff it, you know, snorted.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: And when did the dividing line came and I started
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: using intervenous. It wasn't that long. I figured, God, for
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: God's sakes, you go to a doctor, he sticks a
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: needle in you anyway and takes stuff out and put
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: stuff in. So why can't I do that? I'll be
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: my own doctor. And if I want to take heroin,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: boy did that work in the beginning. In the beginning,
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: I have to caution the listener even that it works
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: in the beginning, but soon takes over all your interests,
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: and so the only thing you can do is like
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: a rug rat, you know, find more heroin and suffer
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: the consequences when you can't find it. And I've been
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: through many withdrawals, super withdrawals, But I like suffering.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: A couple of things. The high, I understand the line
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: where it consumes you and you have to get money
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: every day to feed the habit. Is the high? Ever?
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Still good?
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Period, that's my answer. Yes, it is okay.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: You like suffering, Certainly withdrawal is suffering. Give me another
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: example of suffering you like?
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: Hmm. I was once and fell over backwards and broke
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: my cocksacks, and I woke up having a dream of
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: people on the battlefield screaming their heads off, you know,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: for whatever, for morphine or to be saved. And as
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: I woke up, I realized that was me screaming, and
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: I was screaming at the top of my lungs, and
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: you know, had the authorities called because they didn't know
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: what was going on anyway, I waited three days before
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: I went to the hospital and got some pain relief
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: from them, which I then didn't take because I wanted
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: to wait until the pain went away, and that took
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: a long time. But I was stalwart in my in
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: my desire to let it wait until I could use
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: it pleasurably instead of as a relief.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to that period between high school and television.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: You're doing odd jobs, you're bigging on the streets of Boston.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: It sounds depressing, sure, yeah to you.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Well that's my question. Did you always know that you
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: were going to play guitar and be successful?
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: Yes? You did, Yes, absolutely, I just needed to bide
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: my time and practice.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: And you know there are different levels of musicians. How
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: much did you practice.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: All the time every day without an amplifier? An electric
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: guitar without an amplifier is fine for practicing.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: I see during our talk that you're drinking something. What
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: exactly are you drinking?
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: Lemonade?
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Lemonade? I see it comes from a bottle. What is
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: there specific brand of lemonade you like?
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: No, any old lemonade.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: Okay. So when television implodes, how does that affect you emotionally?
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: Oh? That was awful? But you know, the game was
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: up and Tom wanted to get all the money, and
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: so he went solo. And at the time I told him, look,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: I was thinking of leading the band anyway, so let's
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: just call it quits. And I went on to make
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: my first solo record for Electra called Alchemy.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Why were you thinking of leaving the band?
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I couldn't get any songwriting in. Tom had a
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: lock on that, and he had a lock. He was
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: one of the funniest people I've ever met, and I
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: love him dearly. But he used to say no to
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: everything under the sun. Used to shoot us in the foot.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: He had veto power, and managers came to us and
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: wanted to manage us and make us millionaires, and he
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: would say no. Scoundrels would come and he would say no,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: and I'd agree with him. But there were legitimate people
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: in the industry who would have stood on their heads
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: and buckets of sand to help us. And he said no.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: And there's nothing you can do about that when you're
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: in a group where one person is the principal singer songwriter,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: and that was Tom, and I lay no claim to
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: that property. He was that and he was a genius
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: and when we first started, he was a far better
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: guitarist than I was. And yeah, so.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Why was he the type to always say no?
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: I think my own take on it is he had
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: a fraternal twin and I think there was not enough
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: room in the womb for the two of them, and
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: I think they had a strange relationship. And because of it,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: Tom was afraid that somebody was going everybody was going
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: to rip him off, that everybody was going to tell
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: him what to do, and he don't want anybody telling
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: him what to do. And I think it goes back
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: to the womb. And it was a very deep streak
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: in Tom and there was really nothing that could be
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: done about it.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: What happened with his brother.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: Well, his brother died of a drug overdose in the eighties,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: I believe, Yeah, that's what happened to him.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: But did that liberate Tom in some way?
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it did. You know, he was
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: caught in a thing that was largely un conscious. His
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: habits and drives, you know, precluded him suddenly seeing sunlight.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: You know, the two television albums come out. First, one's
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: a classic, second one doesn't get his good reviews, although
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: I noticed you play Ain't That Nothing, which is my
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: favorite song from that album.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: Does Tom ever wake up and realized, helly, maybe I
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: made a mistake here.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: Well, we did do a third record, and we got
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: back together in ninety and ninety one and made a
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: record for Capital, the third television epinonymous record, just called
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: television anyway, the eponymous we went. We did a lot
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: of touring between ninety one, ninety two and two thousand
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: and seven, when I finally left the band.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess you know this is this rock and
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: roll one on one. Yeah, where the group came back
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: together because that's the way everybody could get paid. Or
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: did Tom have any artistic change and realize it'd be
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: better to be with the group again.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: The way it happened was both I had a manager
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: and he had a manager, and they both ran into
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: each other at a party, and at the party, you know,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: what's Tom doing? Not much? What's Richard doing much? Maybe
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: we could get them together, and that's what happened. We
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: took a year to hammer out a band agreement, you know,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: and one of the things Tom put in it was
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: that the performers always needed to wear black shoes, I
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: mean and ludicrous. Yeah, what are you going to do
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: with that? Anyway? And we but television always in live
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: performances and in artists. Royalty split four ways, and that's
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: still true even though Tom's no longer with us. We
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: split four ways with the income, but he took the publishing,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: which is where the big money is. And you know,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: what can you do about that? I fought him on
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: several songs, and I still have misgivings about several songs
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: that I provided the essential parts for and didn't get credit.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: What are you gonna do? You know? We got to
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: move on.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: Life is short, absolutely, I agree. So subsequent to television
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: breaking up the first time?
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: The first time?
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the first time? And today, have you been able
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: to make your living in music or did you ever
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: have to have a street job?
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: No? I make my living through music. I still get
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: paid for Marquee Moon of all things, and it's wonderful.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: It's coming up on our fiftieth.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: The ear Okay, Marquis Moon, there's two albums for Elektra.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: And you know, usually everybody's in a negative position, so
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: if you're making money, they're royalties from them, and not
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: to match fact that that's right, they're split four ways.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: That's right. And it took us eight years of legal
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: maneuvering to get Electra to acknowledge that we were not
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: in the red, but we were in the black, and
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: they owed us a lot of money. And after, like
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: I said, eight years of wrangling, we finally got them
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: to acknowledge that, in fact, they owed us quite a
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: bit of money, and so we got paid then and
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: henceforth we get monies every three months or four months
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: or whatever it is. I don't even pay attention.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: But are they significant amounts?
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah? They're enough to live on. Okay, barely, barely barely
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: if you're not not eating food. Food costs so much nowadays,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: there's you know, you better get skinny because it's ridiculous.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, So how many times been married twice? So what
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: can you tell us about marriage? Having been married twice?
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a wonderful institution. I'm a serial monogamist. I'm
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: with one woman for four years and another woman with
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: it for eight and then I was my first wife
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: for twenty two years and we have a son that's
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: now in his thirties. And my second wife, we've been
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: together for sixteen years and she's just terrific, supports me
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: in every way, and I go on tour, so you know,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: there's a certain amount of loneliness that occurs naturally, and
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: I'm not the one that goes skirt chasing anymore. It's
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: a long time since that, so you know, marriage is great.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: So how'd you meet your second wife?
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: She was at an AA I was at when she
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: was like sixteen, and she looked at me, and I
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: looked at her and sparks flew, but she was too
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: young and nothing happened of it. Then when Facebook exploded,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: she got in touch with me and we began her
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: correspondence and then we went on a date and then
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: we got together. And that's the way it's been.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, in between singer at the AA meeting and connecting
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: on Facebook. How many years was that.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: Ooh, twenty twenty five something like that, And.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: When she reached out. Did you say to yourself, this
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: woman is interested, maybe something's going on here, and say, oh,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: this is just somebody from my past.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I knew right away. Oh that's that girl.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: There she is.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: And had she been married before?
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: No, so it's our first marriage.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: Okay. And what does she do all day when you're
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: not talking to me and playing music?
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: Oh? Nothing much. Deals with her family. She took care
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: of her aging parents till they passed away, the mother
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: just recently and the father five years ago. She took
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: care of them a great deal and that was kind
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: of her job. So she's in a space now where
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: she's not sure you know, what's supposed to be next.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: But we're making it. We're making it. We're doing all right.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: Okay. So the kind of discussion we're having now, are
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: these the kinds of discussions you have with your wife?
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: Sure? Yeah, we could we talk every day.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: And what does your son do all day?
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: Uh? He's a computer whiz. Obviously, he's at that age
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: where you know, computers were going up. And he does
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: something for some financial organization that makes him loads of money.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: And so that's what he does. And he goes to
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: visit his friends in India and here and there. You know,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: he's got friends and a good gig. I'm happy for him.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: And how's your relationship with him?
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: Oh wonderful. He comes to my shows when I'm in
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: New York City. He lives in Brooklyn.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: And what caused the breakup of your first marriage?
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: Oh? I don't know. It just ran its course, I suppose.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: And after all this said and done, and she couldn't
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: deal with me whatever.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: Me is, Well, do you find that a lot of
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: people can't deal with you?
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: No, not at this time. Maybe in the past. I
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: can be snarky, and in the beginning of our interview
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: I was rather.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: Like that, why do you think you're like that?
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: I don't suffer foolishness as much as some people. But
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: who determines what's foolishness or not? I don't know.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Well you get to determine, yeah, for myself. But the
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: question would be when you first start to interact with people.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: I try to be as graceful as as humanly possible,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: but people have their own level of understanding, and obviously
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: they're going to come at you with that. I get
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: a lot of hero worship lately, and sometimes it's difficult
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: because people want to say hello and shake your hand,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: and then they don't want to let go. Literally, you've
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: got people glimbing onto you. And you know, I've often thought, well,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna eventually I'm gonna need a bodyguard because some
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: people are absolutely out of their minds about it. And
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: then they get a bit of alcohol in them and
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: that's so and they approach you and they you know,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: as soon as you say, oh, I've got to go
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: do this, or you know, we've had enough time together,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: and then they go, oh, you're a wash up and
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: spit on you. You know, they can turn into like turn
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: on a dime, But lately I haven't gotten any of
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: that that type. Just the hero worship, guitar hero so.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: To say, Okay, you know, it's like they say, you
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: win an oscar and it feels great, but then all
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: of a sudden you wake up a couple of days later,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: it's like nothing happened exactly. So does this hero worship
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: do anything for you? And emotionally, well.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: It's gratifying. I suppose that people are involved and interested
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: in still in the things that I've done in my
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: twenties with the CBGB's and television and like that. They're
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: very obsessed with that period of time. And that's okay.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: I'm not the kind of person who doesn't want to
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: talk about the past at all. I'm willing to talk
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: about any part of my life. I'm proud of my life.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: I'm still here.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: But does it bother you that some people are stuck
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: in the past and you want.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: People that's their problem or difficulty or maybe not, maybe
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: they're just enjoying themselves.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: Does your music mean as much to you today and
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: is as fulfilling as it was back then?
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: It does? Yeah, I'm having a great time. We've just
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: been on tour for a month and I loved it.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: Most of the shows sold. You know out, okay? And
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: where do you live now? I live in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: where my wife, my current wife's parents were and she
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: wanted to be able to be with them at the
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: end of their lives, and so we came down here
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: because the New York that I knew is gone and
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: the New York that we were in we had a
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: dispute with our landlord and he eventually had to buy
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: us out of the apartment that paid for our move
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: and where we were we going to go since she
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: had contacts in Chattanooga who went there. I hardly go out.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: I don't see many people. But I'm perfectly content being
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: I've always been content being alone. In fact, I need
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: a loneeness. I need not loneliness, the opposite a loneness,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: perfect a loneness.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, there's a vibration between this a loneness and
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: being lonely on the road. Tell us about that.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't get lonely on the road. I'm talking
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: to my wife every day, and I have my bandmates
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: with me and there's no re And then I got
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: the fans and people that come to the show, so
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: there's no reason for me to get upset whatsoever. It's
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: all good, at least in today's running.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: Is this a loneness because you have so much you
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: want to do alone or is it a socially aandwing anxiety.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: Neither. It's really my content with myself, my ability to
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: be with myself and enjoy my time with me with Richard.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: I don't need another person to authorize me to exist.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: And in yoga, yoga the ultimate goal is called kaivalia,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: which means perfect loneliness, not the opposite of loneliness. It's
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: all grace.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: And when you are alone, what are you doing?
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: How's that for an answer.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: That I understood would be the answer that fits with
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: your personality. But theoretically, you know, there are people who
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: take drugs and just zone out. There are people who meditator,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: do yoga. There are people who read, people listen to music,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: people watch television.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: I'd come into two and three of what you said,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: you listen to music and you read? Was that it?
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: I don't listen to music.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: You read and you watch television.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: No, you read? You read this the first thing I mentioned.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, the first thing. The first thing was meditating and yoga. Yes,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: I do that, And you also read? Do you read?
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: I understand there's this gentleman who's informed your life. But
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: do you read fiction and nonfiction too?
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: No? I read nonfiction science books mostly?
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: And what science books might they be?
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: Oh? Anything about physics, modern physics, historical physics, anything about chemistry,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: anything about astrobiology, anything about biology. Anything anything that is
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: non fictional interests me. So I scurry along reading everything
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: I can get my hands on in that area of expertise.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: So let's assume you want to call somebody and your
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: wife is predisposed you have like a close friend or
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: close friends that you stay in regular contact with.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: I have close friends, yeah, best friends, Yeah, I've always
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: had best friends. A few of them, not too many.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: And are they from what era in your life? Do
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: you go through different ones or these the same ones
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: for decades?
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: The same ones for decades? Yeah?
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: What is the commonality that makes them friends with you?
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: I wish I knew I could conjure up a few
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: to my liking.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, so if we will look at the world at large,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: what do you see down the pike?
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: I don't look down the pike.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: Well, we've said here that there are a lot of
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: somnambulent people who are just, you know, doing what they're
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: supposed to do.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: Who says they're supposed to do?
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: No, No, that's what they believe they're supposed to do.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: Oh buy that.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: So there's there's the climate crisis. Never mind political unrest.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking just about an election, but Ukraine, Israel,
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. So did you think this is
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: deregur or word a point of a it's derregar.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: Mankind has always been at war since we were apes.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: We were being at odds with each other. And I
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: don't really understand it fully, but people suddenly feel like
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: they're not secure, that they're threatened, and this evokes an
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: action from their instinctual and moving centers that turns into wars,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: and there's conflict all over the globe at the moment,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: genocides and pitched battles.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: When we were growing up in the sixties, everybody was
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: our age was a liberal. That's no longer the case,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: that's right. Why do you think that changed?
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: Well, you mentioned it before that as Reagan came in.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: Things changed with Reaganomics and the this split between the
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: haves and the haves nots, and I think the have
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: nots kind of woke up a little bit to their
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: dismay at this situation, and it's only getting worse. So
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: some of them cross over and pretend that they're on
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: the other side. And you know, politically, it's a war
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: going on, and hopefully it will resolve in November, but
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: I have no illusions about it. We will continue on
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: a course of action determined by propaganda and more illusion.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: It was a genius thing that the friends of mister
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: Trump suggested that he learned chaos theory and this chaos
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: theory has permeated his politics to the point that he
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: has infatuated hundreds of thousands and millions of people that
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: don't know how else to respond to this chaos, and
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: he introduces more and more chaos, and he's been it's
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: been suggested to him that he continue in this path
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: of lying and people will eventually believe it because he
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: repeats it enough. This is true from Goebbels on and
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: perhaps earlier. There was a guy who was a nephew
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: of Sigmund Freud, and during World War two he was
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: active in persuasion, and the cigarette companies came to him
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: and said, we would like to introduce smoking to more women.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: And so he rounded up a bunch of women, and
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: when the war was won, they were on parade and
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: he gave all cigarettes and said, at my waving through
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: the window or whatever my mark, you'll all light these cigarettes.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: And they all lit the cigarettes, and he said, gentlemen.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: He had all the publicity people with him, and he said, gentlemen,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 2: I want you to observe the women. These are the
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: flames of freedom. And from that moment on, nobody could
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: complain about a woman smoking the same thing with the
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: aspirin is somebody. You can't this is hard to believe,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 2: but somebody came up with the grand idea of tell
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: of advertise not to the patient, but to the doctors
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: and tell them to send them away, stating take two
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: and call me in the morning. That was the go
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: to phrase. Take two meant that you used up your
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: bottle of aspirin twice as fast. Why not take one?
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: Why take two? Because it was a scam and it
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: worked the same with the salmon industry got decimated by
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: the tuna industry when they came out with the slogan
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: Tuna Guaranteed not to turn pink in the can. I
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: mean these kind of things. The toothpaste people were like,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: how can we increase our sales of toothpaste? Well, get
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: into the toothbrush business and make bigger brushes. Then people
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: will naturally put on more toothpaste and they'll run out
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: sooner and have to buy more. So we've been driven
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: by this kind of insanity for as long as I
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: can remember. You know, I'm born aways back, but not
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: that far. And it's been going on ever since.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: So this chaos theory is there? Any is there any anthidotes?
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: Is there any fight it.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: Nope, just to be vertical, to really understand what I'll say,
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, for want of a stronger personality, what he
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 2: actually said and taught to be vertical, to be sober,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: and not in the sense of alcohol, in the sense
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: of being upright, being vertical. You know, we spend half
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: our lives horizontally asleep. Then most people their bodies get up,
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: but they don't. They continue dreaming through the day and
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 2: through the night. And that's the shame that human beings
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: refuse to feel. So they invent.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: A little bit slower. When you say that you're dreaming,
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: what are they actually dreaming about?
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: Take a look. They're dreaming of their fantasies. They're dreaming
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: of their future, they're dreaming of their past. You ever
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: get into an argument with somebody and you know you're wrong,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: Then the next three days you have that same dialogue
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: in your head, but you keep changing your response so
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: that you'll be upright and right. That's how we lose
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: touch with ourselves, this kind of self inaugurated correctness, to
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 2: be brutally upright all the time without concern for anybody else.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's bad, you're saying that's bad.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever bad is okay?
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: And do you care about legacy at all?
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: Sure I do.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: I already have one, but it's important to you to
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: be remembered.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I've made name Gladiators. Spartacus has a name. He's
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: immortal through his name. Kennedy has name and more. And
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: that's one way to become immortal is to make a
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: name for oneself. I'm not that immortal. Let me tell you.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: I die, and the physical body dies, and the rest
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: of me dies after some time, I'm sure, and I'll
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: just go on. But the name won't last somewhere, you know,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: fifty to one hundred years from now, television as a
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: band won't exist maybe two hundred years. We're not Benjamin Franklin.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: We didn't invent anything.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: Although it's interesting what is remembered in the future is
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: not always what was big in its era.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: That's absolutely correct.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Richard, I want to thank you so much
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: for taking time to speak with my audience and let
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: them in on some of your philosophy and feelings and beliefs.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: So thanks so much.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: All right, thank you very much for talking with me.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: I hope I wasn't too antagonistic at the beginning, and
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: I hope that we've helped some of your audience members
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 2: come to a better state inside themselves.
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: Let's hope. Until next time, this is Bob Left SAIDs