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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is guitarist Richard Lloyd. Richard, why do

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Speaker 1: you start your live shows with the song respect?

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Speaker 2: Well? I was asked to do a Nuggets, a reunion

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Speaker 2: or a couple of the songs. I chose where one

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Speaker 2: of them was respect But it's not the it's the

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Speaker 2: Vagrance version, so to say. The lyrics are a little different,

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Speaker 2: and there's no R s P E C T in it,

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Speaker 2: and it's not Aretha. It's you know, a modern take

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Speaker 2: of it by Moir, but based on the Vagrants. You

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Speaker 2: can look it up on YouTube.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I've been I will the Vagrants version came before

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Speaker 1: or after Wretha's version?

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Speaker 2: I have that. I have no idea.

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Speaker 1: Can you tell us any of the lyrical changes?

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Speaker 2: Just instead of the rspcis there's just hey, hey, hey hey,

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Speaker 2: after every verse and you know, no, I can't I

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Speaker 2: play it? And what the hell?

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Speaker 1: You also do the velvets waiting for my Man?

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Speaker 2: Not really. I do two verses of it and embedded

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Speaker 2: in another song of mine called the Word.

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Speaker 1: Okay, for those who haven't seen you act, tell us

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Speaker 1: a little bit more.

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Speaker 2: I don't want to really talk about music with you, Bob.

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Speaker 2: You gotta have something else. Let's have it.

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Speaker 1: Ohkay. Let me be clear, you have something very specific

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Speaker 1: you'd like to talk about.

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Speaker 2: Uh uh huh, anything you like? Okay, but you don't

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Speaker 2: subjects interest you.

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Speaker 1: You know, we believe I got a lot of somejects

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Speaker 1: interest me. I just want to you would rather not

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Speaker 1: talk about music.

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Speaker 2: Well, you're asking me pointing questions about my own performance,

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Speaker 2: which is my own performance, and I'm not scheduled or

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Speaker 2: I'm not able to give a critique of my own

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Speaker 2: work in that regard, Okay, And you're asking me to,

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Speaker 2: you know, talk about songwriting and the intricacies of putting

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Speaker 2: a set together and why I did this and why

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Speaker 2: I do that? Is not something that interests me at all.

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Speaker 2: I play and people come to see it and they

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Speaker 2: enjoy it, and we've been getting a great deal of

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Speaker 2: We're playing small places, but we're getting sellouts and people

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Speaker 2: are very excited about it and really happy smiles everywhere

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Speaker 2: we go. So that's enough for me. Okay.

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Speaker 1: Do you enjoy the process of going on the road

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Speaker 1: and touring?

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Speaker 2: I do. I do. It's interesting to be paid to

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Speaker 2: go where tourists pay to go, and when you get there,

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Speaker 2: they applaud usually unless they're throwing tomatoes at you, but

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Speaker 2: they don't do that for me.

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Speaker 1: Okay, are you the type of person who stays in

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Speaker 1: the hotel room all day or do you take advantage

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Speaker 1: of these places that normal tourists pay to go to.

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Speaker 2: You know, I've been to Paris like eleven times, and

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Speaker 2: I've never been to the not the Statue of Liberty,

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Speaker 2: that other thing.

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Speaker 1: The Eiffel Tower.

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Speaker 2: Eiffel Tower. And I've walked past the Louver many times,

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Speaker 2: going to a restaurant or such, or just taking a walk,

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Speaker 2: but I've never been inside the Louver. So it's a

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Speaker 2: mixture of I am joy the geography and the people

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Speaker 2: and the cuisines, but as to the touristy type of things,

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Speaker 2: I really don't partake in that.

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Speaker 1: What's the most interesting place you've been to?

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Speaker 2: Oh, gosh, everywhere. Athens, Greece, where you can't breathe because

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Speaker 2: the pollution is so bad now and the cars are

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Speaker 2: crazy and the driving is crazy. Japan, where you look

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Speaker 2: out and there's two thousand people and not one of

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Speaker 2: them has anything but black hair. That's very interesting and

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Speaker 2: just about anywhere in the States is cool? San Francisco,

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Speaker 2: you know, La New York.

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Speaker 1: Have you been to South America?

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Speaker 2: I've been to San Paulo where we played the Rio Festival,

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Speaker 2: and San Polo and Rio.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been to Rio. Interesting place. So are you

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Speaker 1: the type of person who's deep into your own world

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Speaker 1: or do you follow the news.

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Speaker 2: I've been following the news now that I get a

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Speaker 2: little older, But I don't really talk about politics either.

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Speaker 2: Music and politics are kind of they're preculiar tastes that

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Speaker 2: people have. I may follow of a man named George

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Speaker 2: Ivanovitch Kerdyev. Are you familiar with that?

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Speaker 1: I am not. I'm not, I don't think so. Tell me.

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Speaker 2: Well, he was a I guess you'd call him a

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Speaker 2: mystic or a master of himself. And he tried to

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Speaker 2: impart to mankind the possibilities that are open to human

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Speaker 2: being who's quote working on themselves end quote. And he

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Speaker 2: provided steps to achieve a greater potential for man than

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Speaker 2: he usually is. He's sleepwalking. If you look, you can

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Speaker 2: practically see people dream daydreaming, and daydreams are nothing. They

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Speaker 2: don't exist. When reality hits you, they're gone. And so

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Speaker 2: to live one's life in clouds. So to say is

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Speaker 2: you know a negative and people are fulled with full

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Speaker 2: of negative emotions.

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Speaker 1: Let's just talk about you. Have you followed this gentleman's

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Speaker 1: precepts and to what degree have they helped or changed you.

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Speaker 2: I'm free of most of the former habits that I

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Speaker 2: had and negative emotions that I carried with me. There's

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Speaker 2: no point to having negative emotions. They don't do anything

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Speaker 2: for you except to ruin your health. And I'm talking

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Speaker 2: about pride, lust, anger, fear, apathy, grief. They're all useless.

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Speaker 2: They don't do anything for you. They don't act in

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Speaker 2: the world.

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Speaker 1: Just to get a spectrum here. Let's say you buy

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Speaker 1: a pizza, pizza, slice of pizza and it falls on

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Speaker 1: the ground. Are we talking about something as minor as that?

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Speaker 2: Or could you say, what's the point of crying over

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Speaker 2: spilt milk? That's the old saying. So a pizza is

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Speaker 2: the same thing. It falls from your hands. You know,

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Speaker 2: if you pick it up and it falls again, it

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Speaker 2: can get frustrating to some people. But I mean that's physics.

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Speaker 2: Now we want to talk about physics.

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Speaker 1: No, I'd rather not talk about physics, not an area

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Speaker 1: of expertise for me. What about as we get older,

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Speaker 1: we have contemporaries who pass away. How does one deal

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Speaker 1: with the emotions of that.

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Speaker 2: I don't have much emotions around death. It's a natural

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Speaker 2: part of life. In fact, it's the goal of life

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Speaker 2: is to reach death, but put it off as long

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Speaker 2: as it's necessary to gain some kind of spiritual beingness.

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Speaker 2: I mean, the point of man is to reflect the

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Speaker 2: glory of the creator, if there is such a thing,

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Speaker 2: or you could call it out of space, and the

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Speaker 2: glory of the Sun and the planets and the Earth

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Speaker 2: and the moon and the galaxies. We could talk about

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Speaker 2: astrophysics if you like, but you don't deal in physics.

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Speaker 1: Whit Wait wait, wait, wait, wait, a couple of things. First, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: do you believe in it after life?

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Speaker 2: It depends. It depends what you mean by an afterlife,

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Speaker 2: and it would take a great deal of discussion, hopefully

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Speaker 2: not one sided discussion, to come to any kind of

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Speaker 2: uh and understanding. I don't think the physical body reanimates,

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Speaker 2: that's certain. The emotions and the kind of cloud of

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Speaker 2: consciousness departs, and maybe it goes somewhere and lasts for

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Speaker 2: a while in the atmosphere of the Earth. Maybe it's

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Speaker 2: drawn towards the moon, where mister Gridjief said that organic

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Speaker 2: life on Earth feeds the Moon and that it's a

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Speaker 2: young being, not quite the but that we don't look

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Speaker 2: at cosmic time the way that archaeologists do. We're talking

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Speaker 2: about cycles of Brahma. We could talk about the Indian

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Speaker 2: Hindu religion and it's start in the never changing Wisdom.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to astrophysics. If it's something that

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Speaker 1: you have expertise in, I'm certainly willing to be edified here.

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Speaker 2: Well, expertise is not not what I would claim for myself.

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Speaker 2: It's just a strong interest. I have many, many interests.

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Speaker 2: I believe. We sent you a copy of my book

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Speaker 2: where you yes, look through it? Yes, yes, I was

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Speaker 2: through read it from cover to cover. It's yes, full

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Speaker 2: of vignettes. Yes, we could talk about any of those

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Speaker 2: or the ideas in the book.

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Speaker 1: Well, what I find in the book is a strong

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Speaker 1: sense of alienation and a strong sense of going down

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Speaker 1: your own path.

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Speaker 2: Well, those are both true.

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Speaker 1: And also finding yourself observing a lot. So yes, as

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Speaker 1: you have gone through life, do you find your self

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Speaker 1: feeling that you're outside or that you have moments when

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Speaker 1: you're feel totally connected, you know, what has been your

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Speaker 1: experience on the planet.

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Speaker 2: I am connected. I can't say totally because there's a

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Speaker 2: degree to it. There's a percentage I'm awake in the

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Speaker 2: sense of being vertical, such as the New Testament talks

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Speaker 2: about sleep not you never know the time. There are

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Speaker 2: all the parables we could talk about that if you like.

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Speaker 1: Let's go to some of the specifics of your life.

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Speaker 1: You did not finish senior year of high school in

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Speaker 1: one year, then you went to another school and didn't

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Speaker 1: finish senior year there, can you tell us what happened?

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Speaker 2: I was at Stuyvesant High School, which is in all science.

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Speaker 2: It was a boys' school at the time. There were

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Speaker 2: no women and no girls. And I was to graduate

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Speaker 2: in sixty nine. And then when they stopped teaching, I

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Speaker 2: quit and I refused to take a diploma because I

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Speaker 2: had already in the twelfth grade. I had taken my

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Speaker 2: guitar to school and I remember my physics teacher saying,

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Speaker 2: where are your books? And I said they're in the case,

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Speaker 2: and he says, well, open the case and get out

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Speaker 2: the books. So I opened the guitar case and there's

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Speaker 2: my electric guitar. And he says, so that doesn't look

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Speaker 2: like a physics book to me, And I said, it's

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Speaker 2: the physic physics book I'm studying, and it's not going

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Speaker 2: to change for me. And I was delighted. I'd be

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Speaker 2: delighted if you were to teach, But to ask your

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Speaker 2: students to go and teach themselves by reading materials that

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Speaker 2: you didn't write and you're not enthusiastic about is not

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Speaker 2: the way to teach. I had a math teacher in

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Speaker 2: seventh and eighth grade. I was on the math team

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Speaker 2: in the algebra competitions in New York City and we

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Speaker 2: actually won one year that I was there, that was

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Speaker 2: the seventh and the eighth grade. It was a Japanese

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Speaker 2: man named Tad Saphora, who then later became the principal

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Speaker 2: of the grade school that I was going to, the

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Speaker 2: junior high that I went to, and he was a

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Speaker 2: remarkable man. He was a fifth degree black belt in

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Speaker 2: karate and in ikido, and he would stop. The junior

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Speaker 2: high school I went to was rather difficult. There were

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Speaker 2: a lot of beatings and robberies, and you had to

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Speaker 2: put money in several places when you went to school

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Speaker 2: because you were certain to get mugged and someone would

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Speaker 2: take your lunch money, so you had to have more

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Speaker 2: in your shoe. Anyway, he could stop those just by appearing.

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Speaker 2: People would drop their knives and chains upon seeing him,

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Speaker 2: because he could dismantle them quite easily. Anyway. He taught

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Speaker 2: only four days a week. That we went to school

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Speaker 2: five days a week, obviously, and he had us for

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Speaker 2: forty five minutes each of those days. And on Fridays

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Speaker 2: he would lecture on various subjects, all of which were

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Speaker 2: extremely interesting to him and to us. We were a

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Speaker 2: group of children who were like sponges ready to absorb,

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Speaker 2: and he had a fascinating ability. Six weeks before school

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Speaker 2: ended in the eighth grade, he came and he said,

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Speaker 2: I have good news, and I have good news. Which

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Speaker 2: do you want? And he said, well, we've all passed

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Speaker 2: this year, and I've thought you half of next year's curriculum.

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Speaker 2: In case you don't have me as a teacher. You

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Speaker 2: should not rest on your laurels, but you should continue

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Speaker 2: to study anyway. I wasn't so good in trig trigonometry,

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Speaker 2: but algebram I was very good at and chess and

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Speaker 2: games like that go. He taught us Go. Do you

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Speaker 2: know Go?

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Speaker 1: I am familiar with the game. I've played it for

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Speaker 1: like five minutes, so keep going.

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Speaker 2: Oh it's quite terrific. It's a game where you could

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Speaker 2: think you're winning and one move will flip everything on

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Speaker 2: the board. And these games go on for weeks. In Japan,

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Speaker 2: maybe one move a day. People contemplate this. It's a

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Speaker 2: game of borders and of surrounding your enemy. It's a

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Speaker 2: fascinating game, and it's precedes chess according to you know,

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Speaker 2: studies of ancient gamesmanship.

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Speaker 1: Okay, since this gentleman taught you half of next year's course, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what happened the following year, Well.

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Speaker 2: I didn't have him, and that was very sad to me.

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Speaker 2: But I visited him in his office a number of

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Speaker 2: times and asked for his direction. He was a as

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Speaker 2: I said before, he remarkable man, you know, versed in

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Speaker 2: many many subjects, which is something I aspire to, which

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Speaker 2: is why I'm not trying to be hostile. I'm trying

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Speaker 2: to talk to you in something that will entertain us

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Speaker 2: and the audience both. But I do music as a

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Speaker 2: it's not a hobby what I do for a living,

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Speaker 2: and it's very personal to me. I don't want to

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Speaker 2: dismantle and have an autopsy of my performances. So I

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Speaker 2: could talk about anything you like. No, No, that's not

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Speaker 2: bring me anything to the table.

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Speaker 1: Well, if I was going to row Bob, if I

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Speaker 1: was going to bring to the table, it sounds like

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Speaker 1: you're a person. If you were on the Bath team,

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Speaker 1: your person who dedicates yourself and is totally involved in school,

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Speaker 1: you will apply and get into Stevenson what happens to

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Speaker 1: make you go left as opposed to Stingo left?

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Speaker 2: I stayed the course of my own direction.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's my question. Why did you do that?

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Speaker 2: The world would be a better place? But we all

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Speaker 2: succumb to the hypnosis.

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Speaker 1: Since most people's coucil. Since most people succumb, how did

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Speaker 1: you not succumb?

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Speaker 2: I was born this way. I was born awake, and

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Speaker 2: I looked around and it grieved to me the way

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Speaker 2: human beings, they didn't think and feel the same. They

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Speaker 2: would get into the They for instance, they took poisons

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Speaker 2: such as alcohol, and then they got into fights. And

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Speaker 2: if you took away alcohol, you can't And probition proved

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Speaker 2: that you can't really take the pleasure out of ordinary

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Speaker 2: people's lives. And so I've been this way since. I

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Speaker 2: used to meditate as I'm taught now, sitting on my

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Speaker 2: heels in the living room, stopping my breathing and trying

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Speaker 2: to stop my heart when I was two and three

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Speaker 2: years old. So I've been around the block in terms

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Speaker 2: of the human condition and find it mostly lacking. But unfortunately,

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Speaker 2: that's not how most people see it. They see their

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Speaker 2: lives as full and entertaining. I'm not interested in that.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the fact pattern. When you're

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Speaker 1: bring your guitar to school and you don't get your diploma,

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Speaker 1: what do your parents say and to what degree were

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Speaker 1: your parents in influence in your life.

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Speaker 2: Well, at that time, my parents moved from New York,

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Speaker 2: from Manhattan, from Greenwich Village to Montclair, New Jersey, and

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Speaker 2: they said to me they bought a big house and

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Speaker 2: I had I took over the third floor of the house.

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Speaker 2: Remarkably affluent, I'll say, where in the village we weren't

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Speaker 2: that affluent. So my step dad reached a point of

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Speaker 2: affluence and bought himself a Mercedes in this house, huge house,

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Speaker 2: and he was a film editor, mostly did TV commercials.

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Speaker 2: Once brought me a Mickey Mantle signed baseball to Ricky

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Speaker 2: from you know, Mickey Mantle, and I used it in

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00:20:26,240 --> 00:20:29,440
Speaker 2: a game and somebody hit a home run and the

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Speaker 2: ball was lost out in the woods. And it's never

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Speaker 2: bothered me. It was a baseball. It was meant to

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Speaker 2: be used in a game. And people that collect these things,

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Speaker 2: you know, just make me sort of smile.

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Speaker 1: What did your stepfather say, if anything, when he found

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Speaker 1: out the ball was lost?

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Speaker 2: Nothing, No, he was astute. Anyway, They said, listen, you

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Speaker 2: could do one of three things. You could get a

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Speaker 2: job and pay rent to be here, you could move out,

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Speaker 2: or you could go back to high school. And finished

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Speaker 2: the twelfth grade. So I went back to high school,

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Speaker 2: although I didn't really go to take courses because this

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Speaker 2: was an ordinary high school, not a specialized high school.

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Speaker 2: And I went and I borrowed a saxophone, and I

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Speaker 2: went and sat down on a park bench across the

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Speaker 2: street from the steps leading into the registration hall, and

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Speaker 2: all the kids would come and laugh at me because

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Speaker 2: I really can't play the saxophone. I was honking and bleeding,

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Speaker 2: and this young black guy came up to me and

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Speaker 2: he said, what are you doing? And I told him

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Speaker 2: I'm calling you, And it turned out to be a

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Speaker 2: fellow named Albert Anderson who went on to play with

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Speaker 2: Bob Marley, mostly because he could smoke pot the way

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Speaker 2: they did, and if it weren't for me, you wouldn't

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Speaker 2: have smoked pot. I talked him into it after a

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Speaker 2: couple of months of pressure, peer pressure. I talked everybody

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Speaker 2: into getting high at the time and had a great

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Speaker 2: deal of fun.

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Speaker 1: Okay, the high school that you went to to repeat

316
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Speaker 1: senior year was that in the suburbs in Montclair?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right, Montclair High School.

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Speaker 1: That must have been huge culture shock after being in

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Speaker 1: New York.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it was. But we Albert and I and a

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Speaker 2: guy named Ed Rogers. They were in a band called

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Speaker 2: Redbread who won Battle of the Bands in New Jersey. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: we used to bring our electric guitars into the senior

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Speaker 2: lounge and play during the breaks or when we cut classes,

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Speaker 2: and after about three months the place, the senior lounge

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Speaker 2: was so full of kids that they shut it down.

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Speaker 2: I mean, we've always drawn a crowd people who are

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Speaker 2: interested in our interests, and at the time, you know,

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Speaker 2: we were playing electric guitars with no amplifiers. Just trading

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Speaker 2: licks back and forth, you know, all reaching that unapproachable

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Speaker 2: goal of so called making it in the music business.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to Greenwich Village. You know a

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Speaker 1: lot of the sixties emanated from Greenwich Village.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 1: Did you just feel that you were living there or

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Speaker 1: were you feeling that something was going on?

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Speaker 2: Definitely felt that something was going on. We were at

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Speaker 2: the top of the rocket of civilization in New York

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00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:57,760
Speaker 2: and Greenwich Village specifically in the early and mid sixties.

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Speaker 2: I mean it was incredible. And you know, we chased

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Speaker 2: Bob Dylan around in coffee shops and Jimmy Hendrix is

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Speaker 2: playing the cafe. Wha. I never went down the stairs

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Speaker 2: of the cafe why? And I I kind of regret that,

344
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 2: but I later on met him and many other of

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Speaker 2: the so called rock stars. I didn't want to really

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00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:25,880
Speaker 2: grovel in front of them. I wanted to meet them

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Speaker 2: as older peers, older brothers, and I did that and

348
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 2: hung out with many of the top musicians of the day.

349
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Speaker 2: And the day was pretty bright, you know, sixty four

350
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Speaker 2: to sixty to sixty nine.

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Speaker 1: Okay, why do you think society changed and pulled back?

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Speaker 1: I mean, the cliche would be the army stole the slogan,

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Speaker 1: you know, be all that you can be. That was

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Speaker 1: the etho of the teenagers in twenty somethings. What happened

355
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:08,959
Speaker 1: in society? What do you attribute the change in the

356
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:12,359
Speaker 1: outlook in people over the ensuing decades.

357
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Speaker 2: Well, we were in a Cold War, and I went

358
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Speaker 2: through the Cuban missile crisis with everybody else, and we were,

359
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 2: you know, the United States and Russia, we're in a

360
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 2: real tussle. And then we got into a war in Vietnam,

361
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:37,120
Speaker 2: and that was ridiculous foreign war where we're killing people

362
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 2: that do nothing to us, can't do anything to us,

363
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 2: They couldn't send. The United States has been isolated. Nobody

364
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 2: can reach us because we have two oceans protecting us.

365
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:58,639
Speaker 2: And anyway, we get in these ridiculous wars. And I

366
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 2: was drafted and I got out of it because I

367
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 2: had had psychiatric problems prior, and I had good documentation

368
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 2: and a psychiatrist that said, you know, you can't put

369
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 2: them in the army. He'll shoot officers just that, Would

370
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 2: you know stop the war?

371
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:21,360
Speaker 1: Were you afraid that you were going to have to go?

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Speaker 2: I was number seventeen in the draft, so I would

373
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Speaker 2: have been cannon fodder for sure, But I wasn't going

374
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:34,960
Speaker 2: to run. I was going to take whatever came my way.

375
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:39,040
Speaker 2: And when I went down to the draft board, a

376
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 2: funny thing happened because during the hearing test, you're wearing

377
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 2: your headphones and everybody else if you hear something in

378
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 2: your right or raise your right hand, you know, and

379
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 2: I'm raising my left and I'm raising my right opposite.

380
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:55,480
Speaker 2: I'd put the headphones on backwards and the guy says,

381
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 2: you're going in the army man, you ain't getting out

382
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 2: of this. But when I saw the psychiatrist, he was

383
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 2: of a different shade of color.

384
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: What caused you or what motivated you to go to

385
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:11,680
Speaker 1: the psychiatrist?

386
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:16,879
Speaker 2: That alter everybody went to the psychiatrist, and people wore dresses,

387
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:21,960
Speaker 2: you know, boys were outrageous clothing and stuff to try

388
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 2: to convince the psychiatrists. And they'd come out with their

389
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:30,119
Speaker 2: head hung low. They were going, and you know, somebody

390
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:33,200
Speaker 2: come out with their papers and go yeah, and everybody, yeah,

391
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:36,120
Speaker 2: you got out of it. So it was a thing

392
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 2: to do.

393
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 1: Well. I thought that you said though, that you had

394
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 1: previous psychiatric history prior to the draft.

395
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 2: That's right. I'd been in Roosevelt Tower ten, and later

396
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:55,360
Speaker 2: on I've been in two state mental institutions that make

397
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:58,160
Speaker 2: one flew over the cuckoos and nest looked like a

398
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 2: kindergarten party, and I'm serious, tied to a gurney.

399
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 1: Tell me about the first todd First.

400
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 2: Well, I was fifteen, and I was sick of my parents,

401
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 2: and you know, in a rebellious place, and they took

402
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 2: pills and drank alcohol and it really got to me.

403
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 2: So I went into the bathroom one day or one evening,

404
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 2: and I took all the pills out, all the prescriptions out,

405
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 2: and put them down the toilet, and then told my

406
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 2: parents that I had taken them all. And they rushed

407
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 2: me to Roosevelt Hospital, where they pumped my stomach. The

408
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 2: doctor said, I know you haven't taken your stone sober,

409
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 2: but I'm going to pump your stomach anyway as a

410
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 2: lesson to you. And after that they put me in

411
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 2: the psychiatric unit of Roosevelt Hospital, which was called Tower ten.

412
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 2: I spent two weeks there and they then they sent

413
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 2: me on a pass to go home, and I didn't

414
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 2: want to go home. You know, the hospital was much

415
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:15,360
Speaker 2: nicer than my home was at the time to me. Anyway,

416
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 2: I came back from the pass and I was happy

417
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 2: as a lark in the hospital setting. And the guy

418
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 2: in charge of me said, you know you're back on drugs.

419
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 2: We're giving you these passes and you're back on drugs.

420
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 2: And I was like, no, I'm not, and he said,

421
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 2: yes you are, and we're transferring you to Creedmore, which

422
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 2: was the statemental hospital out in Queen's or Long Island somewhere,

423
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 2: and I was in Building forty and that's the flight deck.

424
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 2: That's where they assessed you for forty days. So I

425
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 2: spent three months there. They gave people electroshock therapy, and

426
00:29:56,320 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 2: they gave me a chemical shock therapy. It's adrenaline insulin

427
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 2: shock therapy where they put you to sleep for two

428
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 2: weeks and then they put you in a literal rubber

429
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 2: room and you work it out for two three four days.

430
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 2: But people would come out of the electro shock and

431
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 2: walk into walls. And my friend Albert Anderson, who had

432
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 2: been talking about earlier, he came to see me and

433
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 2: he says he started crying and I said, Albert, why

434
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 2: are you crying? He said, because you're gone, you're not there,

435
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 2: and I said, well, I'll come back. Don't worry about it,

436
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 2: and I did every time. So my head is stronger

437
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 2: than their medicine.

438
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 1: Okay, was there any benefit in either of these two

439
00:30:57,680 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 1: hospitals to you?

440
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a life is an adventure, and no matter

441
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 2: what happens to you, it's part of a process, and

442
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 2: it's a magnificent one. Nothing that's ever happened to me

443
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 2: has stop me from trying to become a better person, trying.

444
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 2: Although I don't succumb to new age crap. I'm a

445
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 2: scientist and one of the sciences is the human condition,

446
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 2: and I've done a lot of studying of it and

447
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 2: had a mentor you know, or two or three or four.

448
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 1: Okay, you're in the mental institution. Does anybody connect with you?

449
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: Are there any doctors or anybody there say listen, I

450
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,160
Speaker 1: know who you are, I know what's going on. You're okay,

451
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 1: let's just kind of get through this. Or you were

452
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 1: you alone there?

453
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 2: Oh No, At the time, they weren't like that. Doctors

454
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 2: lorded it over the patients. They were, you know, God

455
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:18,400
Speaker 2: in charge and if they wrote something down that was gospel,

456
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 2: so you know, they would write the worst things about you,

457
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 2: and then you would suffer the consequences.

458
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 1: And the other people who were there with you. Were

459
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 1: they reasonable or were they truly mentally ill?

460
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 2: Both? There were plenty of truly mentally ill, catatonic people,

461
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 2: people with the I remember they brought a guy in

462
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 2: strapped to a gurney and they kept him there for

463
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks because he was a sex psychotic

464
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 2: and would grab at people's testicles and that just didn't stop.

465
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: So how did you convince them the second time that

466
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 1: you were fine and should be let out.

467
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 2: I don't know. But the second time I was in Graystone,

468
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 2: State where they sent me to a drug rehabilitation halfway house,

469
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 2: one of these you know, tough love places, and they

470
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 2: were in the middle of a work marathon, and twenty

471
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 2: four hours of like, they gave me a toothbrush and

472
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:43,560
Speaker 2: they made me go along the carpeted floor picking up stuff.

473
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 2: And after about about twenty hours of that, I walked

474
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 2: out and they couldn't stop me. You know, I wasn't

475
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:58,719
Speaker 2: in the confines of the mental hospital anymore. It was

476
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 2: in somewhere near new and I walked home to Montclair.

477
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 2: You know, many miles till I rest. I've always been

478
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 2: that way. If I have a determination, I carry through.

479
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:15,880
Speaker 1: And what'd your parents say when you showed up at

480
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:16,360
Speaker 1: a house?

481
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:24,360
Speaker 2: They were actually happy. I was okay. I was straight

482
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 2: and sober. Not for long, however, But you know, I

483
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:36,479
Speaker 2: liked intoxicants. Birds like intoxicants, Cows like intoxicants. Deer eat

484
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 2: rotten fruit and fall down. They love it, and so

485
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 2: human beings have always sought after intoxicants of various qualities

486
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 2: and natures. When I first got into the Gurjief work,

487
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 2: my teacher, a woman named Patty, said to me, what

488
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:01,440
Speaker 2: have drugs ever done for you? What about? And I said, well,

489
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:06,480
Speaker 2: I know the difference in quality between materials. A pound

490
00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:09,800
Speaker 2: of flour and a pound of heroin weigh the same,

491
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 2: but the significant affect and the significant what they can

492
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 2: do is remarkably different. And there you got LSD, you know,

493
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 2: which you can't even see, and you can take it

494
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 2: and have an extraordinary brain trip.

495
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 1: Anyway, when did you first start, as they used to

496
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 1: say back in the sixties, experimenting with intoxicants.

497
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 2: When I was nine and a half, I stole a

498
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 2: cigarette that was the entrance from my grandmother's pack of cigarettes,

499
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:50,400
Speaker 2: and I went up the alleyway. It was some summer.

500
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 2: I was nine and a half and I smoked a

501
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 2: cigarette and got dizzy and enjoyed it. So there I was.

502
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:02,880
Speaker 2: Then I snuck into the liquor cabinet because I wondered

503
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:09,720
Speaker 2: why adults took poison, and alcohol clearly a neurotoxin given

504
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:13,800
Speaker 2: in sufficient quantities. And I drank a bunch of different

505
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 2: liquors and made myself. The room spun and I vomited,

506
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 2: you know, projectile, vomited into the toilet, and as soon

507
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,400
Speaker 2: as I could, I did it again. So there was

508
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:33,839
Speaker 2: some measure of I guess if a psychologist would say

509
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 2: self loathing going on, you know in the place that

510
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 2: I was. And I was given a lot of love

511
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 2: when I was young, but it wasn't sufficient. I had

512
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 2: an absent father, and that, really, I would say, it

513
00:36:55,600 --> 00:37:01,120
Speaker 2: numbed me to that side of the emotional part of

514
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 2: a human being.

515
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 1: Okay, when you say absent father, do you mean he

516
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:09,760
Speaker 1: was never there or there irregularly.

517
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 2: He came to visit two or three times when I

518
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 2: was really little, you know, in diapers and as a toddler.

519
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:24,319
Speaker 2: Then he joined the Navy and split and that was that.

520
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:27,439
Speaker 2: My parents got divorced when I was like six months old,

521
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 2: and my mother took me to her parents' place and

522
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 2: that's where I lived for the first six years. So

523
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 2: my mother went to New York to become an actress

524
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 2: and met my stepfather, who was a film editor in

525
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 2: acting school, and then she sent for me and I

526
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:49,479
Speaker 2: went to New York.

527
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 1: So the absent father, since you really didn't know you

528
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 1: never really lived with.

529
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 2: Your father, that's correct.

530
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 1: What was the feeling of that, How do the apps

531
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 1: and how did it manifest itself into what degree does

532
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 1: it still play into your psychology today?

533
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 2: Well, I had a terrific stepfather who did everything in

534
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 2: his power to help me and to support me, and

535
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 2: but that didn't happen right away. So there was a

536
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 2: hole in me, a deep hole, you know. My grandfather

537
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 2: stood in as the male figure and my grandmother, you know,

538
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 2: was the loving person. And my mother was sort of

539
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:45,719
Speaker 2: flighty and concerned about her own self, and so she

540
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 2: moved to New York and then she called me on

541
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 2: the telephone and said this is I was six, and

542
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:55,439
Speaker 2: she said, this is your decision. You can come live

543
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 2: with me or you can stay with your grandparents. And

544
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 2: I was, and I said, against my own wishes, I said,

545
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 2: you're my mother, I'll come and live with you. She says,

546
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:10,319
Speaker 2: oh really, oh great. But I didn't really want to go.

547
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:15,359
Speaker 2: So there was a hole in me. That's all I

548
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:15,839
Speaker 2: can say.

549
00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:22,560
Speaker 1: Okay, So it was this hole connected to intoxicants.

550
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:27,799
Speaker 2: That's not how I see it. How do you see

551
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:28,360
Speaker 2: the connection.

552
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 1: Well, a lot of people, a lot of famous people,

553
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 1: whether they you know, not athletes but artists. They're trying

554
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:41,959
Speaker 1: to fill a hole that that frequently cannot be filled.

555
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 1: They didn't get enough love for their father, they need

556
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:46,360
Speaker 1: certain adulation, etc.

557
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:52,880
Speaker 2: So everybody has a hole in them, Bob, everybody, and

558
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:56,319
Speaker 2: they can't be filled even with God. It needs to

559
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 2: be like a spark plug has to have a gap

560
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 2: in it. A human being has to have this unconquerable

561
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 2: sorrow in them. It's a kind of suffering that all

562
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:12,759
Speaker 2: human beings must face in some way or another, and

563
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:17,440
Speaker 2: most of them turn to some kind of escape from it,

564
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:23,760
Speaker 2: which is not how I interpret the taking of intoxicants.

565
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 2: To me, it was a search, a total search for

566
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:32,760
Speaker 2: myself within this. I used to take things that would

567
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:35,840
Speaker 2: make you go to sleep and then stay awake, or

568
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 2: take things that would send you up and go to

569
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 2: sleep on them. So I was always headfirst into this

570
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 2: kind of grand adventure. And when I was fifteen, I

571
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:58,320
Speaker 2: said to myself, they showed this movie, you know, Reefer Madness,

572
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 2: and afterwards all those kids talked about how we wanted

573
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 2: to refer you know, where could we find some? And

574
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:08,279
Speaker 2: our older brothers were beat nicks, so we got it

575
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 2: from them and started smoking. When I was fifteen, I

576
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:16,880
Speaker 2: asked myself, I said, let's sit down, Richard and figure

577
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 2: this out. I said, out of a thousand people who

578
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 2: take drugs, none of them recover except maybe one. Because

579
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 2: what was it? Ulysses had himself strapped to the mast

580
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:36,320
Speaker 2: so he couldn't hear the sirens, or so he could

581
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 2: rather hear the sirens but couldn't go to them in

582
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:44,799
Speaker 2: his doom. And I wondered, so do I have a

583
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:48,360
Speaker 2: mask such as that that's going to save me in

584
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 2: the end? And I said my answer back was no.

585
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 2: And then the question was, well, are you going to

586
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 2: do them anyway? And the answer came back to me yes.

587
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:03,920
Speaker 2: I plunged into it. I believe in guardian angels, and

588
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:08,959
Speaker 2: I have a phlans of them. They're protecting me, They've

589
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 2: always protected me.

590
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:14,839
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back one chapter. You said everybody's got

591
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 1: a hole in them.

592
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 2: That's right.

593
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: So let's say you know, conventional science that we read about.

594
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 1: If we're not scientists, ourselves say they're spectrums. Okay, there

595
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: are people who are deeply depressed. There are people who

596
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 1: say they never get depressed. Are they just lying? What

597
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 1: would the hole be in those who would say, I'm

598
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:41,720
Speaker 1: well adjusted and I'm happy.

599
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 2: Ah, they're hypnotized by the society. Oh, hypnotism, that is.

600
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:55,920
Speaker 2: You know. I looked at my the adults around me

601
00:42:56,520 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 2: when I was really little, and I noticed that that

602
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:07,400
Speaker 2: I could see that their emotions didn't match their speech,

603
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 2: that they lied, that they simply lied to themselves and

604
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:18,799
Speaker 2: to others about their own condition and didn't fully embrace

605
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 2: or accept the fact that they were, you know, and

606
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 2: harmed by the shocks of life. You can take the

607
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 2: shocks of life two ways. You can either ride them

608
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:38,919
Speaker 2: like riding the tiger, or you can get crushed by them,

609
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 2: eating up alive. I'm not sure that people, I suggest

610
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 2: that there are a percentage of people who are well

611
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:56,920
Speaker 2: adjusted to society's norms, and they live a life just

612
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:00,319
Speaker 2: like an animal. They go through life and then they

613
00:44:00,719 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 2: perish and that's the end of them.

614
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:11,920
Speaker 1: Okay, once you're an adult in society, there are a

615
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:14,880
Speaker 1: lot of people living in denial. How do you find

616
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 1: your people?

617
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 2: Ah? Well, that took many years. I didn't have a

618
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 2: mentor until I found a man who had died in

619
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 2: nineteen forty nine, mister Gurdjief, who I've spoken about it

620
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 2: in our talk, and it was a Greek Armenian fellow

621
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 2: who started teaching in nineteen twelve in Russia in Moscow,

622
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 2: but ended up in France, you know, because of the

623
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 2: Russian Revolution and all with a bunch of people, and

624
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:50,920
Speaker 2: started a school there called the Harmonia the Harmonious in

625
00:44:51,680 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 2: the Institute for the Harmonious Evolution of Man. I'm paraphrasing that.

626
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 2: And I read a book, you know, it practically fell

627
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:11,200
Speaker 2: on my head. I was going to spiritual bookstores and

628
00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:15,160
Speaker 2: reading all sorts of stuff, and I found this book.

629
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 2: It was called In Search of the Miraculous and I

630
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 2: read it and in it it's the story of a

631
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 2: student's three year tutorship under mister Kajief, and it's full

632
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:40,480
Speaker 2: of mister Gajief's lectures at the time in early nineteen fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,

633
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:47,880
Speaker 2: those years, and in it I recognized something of extraordinary

634
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:56,239
Speaker 2: value in what mister Gajief was postulating, that we're not

635
00:45:56,440 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 2: reaching our potential, the human potential to be an image

636
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 2: of the creation. That we live narrow, small lives and

637
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,400
Speaker 2: we're happy with them. If you're happy they are sheep,

638
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 2: that's okay. But once in a while there's a black

639
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:19,799
Speaker 2: sheep who gets away from the sheep who knows what

640
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:23,320
Speaker 2: happens to them when they go into the mountains or

641
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 2: what have you, when they run away because they've accidentally

642
00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 2: seen the slaughterhouse. And we too, as men, are asked

643
00:46:34,600 --> 00:46:46,880
Speaker 2: for our skins at a certain point and we give them.

644
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:50,799
Speaker 1: Just understand you say that after reading the book, you

645
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:53,239
Speaker 1: went to actual classes about this.

646
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 2: Well, I found I don't know how it happened. I

647
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:02,719
Speaker 2: found Yeah. I looked up the Gurgief Foundation of New

648
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 2: York and I wrote them a letter. I spoke to

649
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 2: a woman who was selling books related to this subject,

650
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 2: a woman named Elizabeth who ran a bookstore and it's

651
00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:21,200
Speaker 2: still in existence called Well It'll come to me anyway,

652
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:24,720
Speaker 2: I would get books drop shifted to me on tour

653
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 2: and spent my time reading things about Gurdjief and his teachings.

654
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 2: And there's plenty to read if you want to read

655
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:42,640
Speaker 2: up on it. Any number of his students wrote books

656
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:48,239
Speaker 2: about life with mister Gurdjieff. Anyway, I wrote this letter

657
00:47:48,239 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 2: to the Gurjeef Foundation, and I hand delivered it because

658
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 2: I was unsure of the address and whether it really

659
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 2: existed or not. And I went there and I knocked

660
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 2: on the door and the button of the bell, and

661
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:04,840
Speaker 2: nobody came for five minutes. So I rang it again,

662
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:07,759
Speaker 2: and nobody came for five minutes, and I rang it

663
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 2: and knocked one more time, and I said, if they

664
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:12,920
Speaker 2: don't come in five minutes, I'm going to leave and

665
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:16,919
Speaker 2: turn my back on this and find something else. And

666
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 2: the door opened and a woman who I was later

667
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:28,439
Speaker 2: in a group with, Patty Hemmainger, she asked me yes,

668
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:32,280
Speaker 2: and I said, is this address correct on the letter?

669
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:36,400
Speaker 2: And she said yes, and I said, well, then I've

670
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 2: delivered it. And the next day I got a call

671
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 2: from this woman, Patty Yosa, who became my teacher or

672
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 2: protectress in the Kerchief Foundation. She had met mister er

673
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 2: Chief when she was seventeen and one Christmas he gave

674
00:48:56,239 --> 00:49:01,839
Speaker 2: out the choice of seven silver dollar or a ten

675
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:05,279
Speaker 2: dollar bill, and most of the boys took the ten

676
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:08,400
Speaker 2: dollar bill, and most of the girls took the silver

677
00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:15,840
Speaker 2: seven silver dollars, which she still had. Anyway, she asked

678
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:21,360
Speaker 2: a fellow named Stafford Ordall to help her run this

679
00:49:21,560 --> 00:49:25,360
Speaker 2: meeting and began to have meetings in doctor Welsh's house.

680
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 2: Doctor Welsh was the doctor who cared for mister Kjief

681
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 2: in his last week or so in the hospital before

682
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:42,799
Speaker 2: he perished of every organ in his body corrupted. That's

683
00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:44,200
Speaker 2: the guy who knew how to live.

684
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:50,360
Speaker 1: Okay, Why were there so many black sheep in the

685
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:53,839
Speaker 1: sixties and why do we live in an era of

686
00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:55,920
Speaker 1: conformity today?

687
00:49:56,200 --> 00:50:02,000
Speaker 2: You're right about that. There were a lot of black shoes,

688
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 2: so to say, not all of them made it, you know,

689
00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 2: some of them expired on the way, on the path,

690
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 2: and some of us are still on the path. But yes,

691
00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:21,080
Speaker 2: conformity is the name of the game nowadays. And what

692
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:25,719
Speaker 2: do you conform to? I mean, if it's politics, you've

693
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 2: only got two choices, and neither of them are very

694
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:33,280
Speaker 2: up to standards.

695
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:37,360
Speaker 1: You want to talk politics, No, No, I want to

696
00:50:37,400 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 1: talk you know, I think that the world was changed

697
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:45,800
Speaker 1: when Reagan came in and legitimized greed.

698
00:50:46,480 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 2: That's the nineteen eighty we selected first.

699
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I would say that. You know, we had

700
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:55,239
Speaker 1: the peace and love generation of the sixties. We have

701
00:50:55,320 --> 00:50:58,440
Speaker 1: the back to the land licking our wounds in the seventies,

702
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:03,719
Speaker 1: and then we had even Jerry Rubin went straight okay,

703
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 1: and then it became about the money, and of course

704
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 1: ultimately we have income inequality, which makes the struggle of

705
00:51:12,640 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 1: life even harder.

706
00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 2: Right, Reaganomics.

707
00:51:16,600 --> 00:51:21,480
Speaker 1: Right. But where we used to have okay, you we

708
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 1: have the same frame of reference where it used to

709
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:29,279
Speaker 1: be that the artist, let's talk musical artists existed outside

710
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:33,200
Speaker 1: the system. They were beacons. The first, you know, true

711
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:39,040
Speaker 1: breakthrough was the Beatles. Now the popular I'm talking about

712
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:42,200
Speaker 1: I don't want to you know, you know what I mean?

713
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:44,040
Speaker 2: Him on Sullivan, by the way, of.

714
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:45,640
Speaker 1: Course, I saw them on at Sullivan.

715
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:46,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too.

716
00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:49,160
Speaker 1: I saw him on Jack Parr a few months before that.

717
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:50,720
Speaker 2: Oh wow.

718
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:55,600
Speaker 1: But in any event, my point is people looked to

719
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 1: them for answers. They were influenced, and of course John

720
00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 1: Lennon said, you know, we're bigger than Jesus. They were

721
00:52:02,239 --> 00:52:04,000
Speaker 1: outside the system.

722
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:07,439
Speaker 2: That ruined them. They couldn't tour after that.

723
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 1: But today the artists are capitalists. Not that the artists

724
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:17,240
Speaker 1: of your never cared about money, but they are selling

725
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:19,480
Speaker 1: out to the band, whether it be you know, doing

726
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:22,520
Speaker 1: privates and this and that and the other thing and

727
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:27,239
Speaker 1: having perfumed. So there's a big change in terms of,

728
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 1: you know, who the heroes are, who to follow, because

729
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:31,840
Speaker 1: if everybody sold out.

730
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:36,680
Speaker 2: What do you do? Then well I wouldn't know. Thank god,

731
00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:41,279
Speaker 2: not everyone sells out in the way that you're painting it.

732
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:46,239
Speaker 2: I agree with you completely in this regard. You know,

733
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:52,360
Speaker 2: there are conformists and then there are capitalists. And anybody

734
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 2: can get across the line and get to be a capitalist,

735
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 2: then they're gonna, I mean, as far as I'm concerned,

736
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:04,200
Speaker 2: to kind of ruin and buy it money corrupts.

737
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:08,800
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the drugs. You know, people say

738
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:13,719
Speaker 1: let's use heroin as example. You're always chasing that first high.

739
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 1: With your experience with drugs, can you say any drug

740
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:23,440
Speaker 1: you took you say this was a great experience. Glad

741
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 1: I took it better than regular life.

742
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:32,400
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah. Every drug I took was influential in that regard,

743
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:38,000
Speaker 2: made it a dent, made a difference, a positive difference,

744
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:44,240
Speaker 2: as I've said, you know the difference. I remember first

745
00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:51,560
Speaker 2: time we took Riddlin and it was the most marvelous experience.

746
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:55,280
Speaker 2: It was as though our bodies weighed four hundred pounds,

747
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 2: but we could talk a mile a minute and my

748
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:03,760
Speaker 2: friend and I traded stories for hours on end. Uh,

749
00:54:04,200 --> 00:54:09,000
Speaker 2: you know, prompted by this drug. Everything is drug anyway,

750
00:54:09,080 --> 00:54:10,719
Speaker 2: it's all chemicals.

751
00:54:11,920 --> 00:54:13,360
Speaker 1: Have you taken ayahuasca?

752
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:21,000
Speaker 2: No, I put down that kind of adventure when I

753
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:24,360
Speaker 2: found what I was looking for, and I found what

754
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:28,320
Speaker 2: I was looking for, and I'm holding on to it dearly.

755
00:54:30,160 --> 00:54:32,640
Speaker 1: Okay, But you did go to rehab a couple of

756
00:54:32,719 --> 00:54:35,959
Speaker 1: times to stop taking drugs, correct.

757
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:40,839
Speaker 2: No, that's what they wanted there, they meaning parents and

758
00:54:41,160 --> 00:54:47,399
Speaker 2: police and judges and the rest of society. I mean,

759
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:51,359
Speaker 2: I was bonkers. I once wore a karate gee out

760
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:54,080
Speaker 2: into the middle of the street in mark Clair, New Jersey,

761
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:58,440
Speaker 2: stopping traffic and going beep beep, take me to the aliens,

762
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:01,880
Speaker 2: went I was one. It's arrested in the one hundred

763
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:05,440
Speaker 2: and sixth floor of the World Trade Center where they

764
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:09,040
Speaker 2: actually have jail cells, three of them, and they put

765
00:55:09,040 --> 00:55:11,759
Speaker 2: me in and called the people from Bellevue who came

766
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 2: and took me away. And it was all very exciting

767
00:55:16,120 --> 00:55:19,879
Speaker 2: to me. You know, I'm excited no matter where I am,

768
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:26,160
Speaker 2: I can find reason to sort of love the course

769
00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:31,399
Speaker 2: of action my life has taken. Not everybody can say that.

770
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:37,319
Speaker 1: When you stopped going to school, Yeah, what did you

771
00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:39,560
Speaker 1: think you were going to do going forward?

772
00:55:40,480 --> 00:55:46,719
Speaker 2: Music? That's simple. I was going to play guitar and

773
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:50,000
Speaker 2: a rock band like the Beatles.

774
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:54,239
Speaker 1: And how long till you could earn a living doing that?

775
00:55:55,800 --> 00:56:01,000
Speaker 2: Oh? The first time television played CBG's. Television was really

776
00:56:01,040 --> 00:56:05,319
Speaker 2: my first band. I bided my time until something came

777
00:56:05,360 --> 00:56:08,680
Speaker 2: along that made sense to me. Anyway. The first time

778
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:12,760
Speaker 2: we played a club called CBGB's, we each made a dollar.

779
00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:18,840
Speaker 2: That meant we were professional musicians, and that's all that mattered.

780
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: How did you exist for the years between high school

781
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:26,480
Speaker 1: and television?

782
00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:32,080
Speaker 2: I who took odd jobs. I was a dishwasher for

783
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:37,000
Speaker 2: a while, and the diners and restaurants, and you know,

784
00:56:38,080 --> 00:56:42,120
Speaker 2: I never graduated to becoming a waiter or anything. There

785
00:56:42,160 --> 00:56:48,560
Speaker 2: were more important things going on and through begging through

786
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:54,399
Speaker 2: you know, I got stuck in Boston once and had

787
00:56:54,440 --> 00:56:58,719
Speaker 2: to hit the street and for spare change. I'm not

788
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:04,040
Speaker 2: above that. Old Italian ices from a push cart in

789
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:11,920
Speaker 2: Boston sold drugs, you know, not hard drugs, but pot

790
00:57:12,040 --> 00:57:18,840
Speaker 2: and stuff that was before it finally became legalized pretty

791
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:22,320
Speaker 2: much everywhere. And that's a wonderful thing to behold.

792
00:57:23,040 --> 00:57:25,560
Speaker 1: I know, they talked about it for decades. It's amazing,

793
00:57:25,720 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 1: you know, it's like having a black president. You can't

794
00:57:28,760 --> 00:57:30,720
Speaker 1: believe it actually happened.

795
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:39,040
Speaker 2: Right exactly, It's it's something else. Now they've psilocybin, the

796
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:50,800
Speaker 2: magic mushrooms are becoming derriguur for therapy and pleasure, you know,

797
00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:54,160
Speaker 2: and that's a good thing. They're legal in Oregon, so

798
00:57:54,160 --> 00:57:57,480
Speaker 2: sooner or later they'll be legal most everywhere.

799
00:57:58,440 --> 00:58:01,840
Speaker 1: Tell us about heroin. Did you first start taking heroin?

800
00:58:01,920 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 1: What was your experience on heroin?

801
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:07,160
Speaker 2: Well, the first time I took heroin was in junior

802
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:10,640
Speaker 2: high school. There. We used to be able to go

803
00:58:10,720 --> 00:58:14,480
Speaker 2: and get dollar or two dollars bags of heroin that

804
00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 2: last you two weeks and sniff it, you know, snorted.

805
00:58:21,200 --> 00:58:25,960
Speaker 2: And when did the dividing line came and I started

806
00:58:26,080 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 2: using intervenous. It wasn't that long. I figured, God, for

807
00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 2: God's sakes, you go to a doctor, he sticks a

808
00:58:36,280 --> 00:58:38,760
Speaker 2: needle in you anyway and takes stuff out and put

809
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:42,080
Speaker 2: stuff in. So why can't I do that? I'll be

810
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:45,360
Speaker 2: my own doctor. And if I want to take heroin,

811
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:51,320
Speaker 2: boy did that work in the beginning. In the beginning,

812
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:58,000
Speaker 2: I have to caution the listener even that it works

813
00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:02,880
Speaker 2: in the beginning, but soon takes over all your interests,

814
00:59:04,240 --> 00:59:07,280
Speaker 2: and so the only thing you can do is like

815
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:12,760
Speaker 2: a rug rat, you know, find more heroin and suffer

816
00:59:12,800 --> 00:59:16,200
Speaker 2: the consequences when you can't find it. And I've been

817
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:22,720
Speaker 2: through many withdrawals, super withdrawals, But I like suffering.

818
00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:28,440
Speaker 1: A couple of things. The high, I understand the line

819
00:59:28,520 --> 00:59:31,120
Speaker 1: where it consumes you and you have to get money

820
00:59:31,160 --> 00:59:35,280
Speaker 1: every day to feed the habit. Is the high? Ever?

821
00:59:35,440 --> 00:59:36,080
Speaker 1: Still good?

822
00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:46,600
Speaker 2: Yeah? Period, that's my answer. Yes, it is okay.

823
00:59:46,960 --> 00:59:52,400
Speaker 1: You like suffering, Certainly withdrawal is suffering. Give me another

824
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:54,160
Speaker 1: example of suffering you like?

825
00:59:55,840 --> 01:00:02,400
Speaker 2: Hmm. I was once and fell over backwards and broke

826
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:09,840
Speaker 2: my cocksacks, and I woke up having a dream of

827
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:14,440
Speaker 2: people on the battlefield screaming their heads off, you know,

828
01:00:14,640 --> 01:00:21,800
Speaker 2: for whatever, for morphine or to be saved. And as

829
01:00:21,840 --> 01:00:24,720
Speaker 2: I woke up, I realized that was me screaming, and

830
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:29,200
Speaker 2: I was screaming at the top of my lungs, and

831
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:32,320
Speaker 2: you know, had the authorities called because they didn't know

832
01:00:32,360 --> 01:00:37,760
Speaker 2: what was going on anyway, I waited three days before

833
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:44,600
Speaker 2: I went to the hospital and got some pain relief

834
01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:49,520
Speaker 2: from them, which I then didn't take because I wanted

835
01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:54,160
Speaker 2: to wait until the pain went away, and that took

836
01:00:54,200 --> 01:01:00,240
Speaker 2: a long time. But I was stalwart in my in

837
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:05,280
Speaker 2: my desire to let it wait until I could use

838
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:10,200
Speaker 2: it pleasurably instead of as a relief.

839
01:01:18,280 --> 01:01:22,320
Speaker 1: Let's go back to that period between high school and television.

840
01:01:22,360 --> 01:01:25,400
Speaker 1: You're doing odd jobs, you're bigging on the streets of Boston.

841
01:01:25,920 --> 01:01:31,080
Speaker 2: It sounds depressing, sure, yeah to you.

842
01:01:32,000 --> 01:01:35,440
Speaker 1: Well that's my question. Did you always know that you

843
01:01:35,440 --> 01:01:38,320
Speaker 1: were going to play guitar and be successful?

844
01:01:38,760 --> 01:01:45,040
Speaker 2: Yes? You did, Yes, absolutely, I just needed to bide

845
01:01:45,040 --> 01:01:47,320
Speaker 2: my time and practice.

846
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:52,760
Speaker 1: And you know there are different levels of musicians. How

847
01:01:52,840 --> 01:01:56,320
Speaker 1: much did you practice.

848
01:01:55,120 --> 01:02:00,600
Speaker 2: All the time every day without an amplifier? An electric

849
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:04,280
Speaker 2: guitar without an amplifier is fine for practicing.

850
01:02:05,640 --> 01:02:08,840
Speaker 1: I see during our talk that you're drinking something. What

851
01:02:08,920 --> 01:02:10,160
Speaker 1: exactly are you drinking?

852
01:02:10,760 --> 01:02:11,280
Speaker 2: Lemonade?

853
01:02:12,000 --> 01:02:15,800
Speaker 1: Lemonade? I see it comes from a bottle. What is

854
01:02:15,800 --> 01:02:17,800
Speaker 1: there specific brand of lemonade you like?

855
01:02:18,400 --> 01:02:20,800
Speaker 2: No, any old lemonade.

856
01:02:23,240 --> 01:02:31,120
Speaker 1: Okay. So when television implodes, how does that affect you emotionally?

857
01:02:32,240 --> 01:02:36,400
Speaker 2: Oh? That was awful? But you know, the game was

858
01:02:36,480 --> 01:02:41,520
Speaker 2: up and Tom wanted to get all the money, and

859
01:02:41,600 --> 01:02:45,919
Speaker 2: so he went solo. And at the time I told him, look,

860
01:02:45,960 --> 01:02:48,480
Speaker 2: I was thinking of leading the band anyway, so let's

861
01:02:48,600 --> 01:02:51,360
Speaker 2: just call it quits. And I went on to make

862
01:02:51,520 --> 01:02:55,040
Speaker 2: my first solo record for Electra called Alchemy.

863
01:02:56,360 --> 01:02:58,240
Speaker 1: Why were you thinking of leaving the band?

864
01:03:00,120 --> 01:03:05,200
Speaker 2: Well, I couldn't get any songwriting in. Tom had a

865
01:03:05,280 --> 01:03:10,400
Speaker 2: lock on that, and he had a lock. He was

866
01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:13,680
Speaker 2: one of the funniest people I've ever met, and I

867
01:03:13,720 --> 01:03:18,720
Speaker 2: love him dearly. But he used to say no to

868
01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:23,400
Speaker 2: everything under the sun. Used to shoot us in the foot.

869
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:29,680
Speaker 2: He had veto power, and managers came to us and

870
01:03:29,720 --> 01:03:32,400
Speaker 2: wanted to manage us and make us millionaires, and he

871
01:03:32,440 --> 01:03:38,960
Speaker 2: would say no. Scoundrels would come and he would say no,

872
01:03:39,360 --> 01:03:43,520
Speaker 2: and I'd agree with him. But there were legitimate people

873
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:45,840
Speaker 2: in the industry who would have stood on their heads

874
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:50,000
Speaker 2: and buckets of sand to help us. And he said no.

875
01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:54,920
Speaker 2: And there's nothing you can do about that when you're

876
01:03:54,960 --> 01:04:00,600
Speaker 2: in a group where one person is the principal singer songwriter,

877
01:04:01,640 --> 01:04:05,120
Speaker 2: and that was Tom, and I lay no claim to

878
01:04:05,200 --> 01:04:09,760
Speaker 2: that property. He was that and he was a genius

879
01:04:10,680 --> 01:04:14,440
Speaker 2: and when we first started, he was a far better

880
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:19,880
Speaker 2: guitarist than I was. And yeah, so.

881
01:04:22,080 --> 01:04:24,000
Speaker 1: Why was he the type to always say no?

882
01:04:25,640 --> 01:04:31,320
Speaker 2: I think my own take on it is he had

883
01:04:31,360 --> 01:04:35,880
Speaker 2: a fraternal twin and I think there was not enough

884
01:04:35,960 --> 01:04:38,920
Speaker 2: room in the womb for the two of them, and

885
01:04:38,960 --> 01:04:43,680
Speaker 2: I think they had a strange relationship. And because of it,

886
01:04:43,880 --> 01:04:48,720
Speaker 2: Tom was afraid that somebody was going everybody was going

887
01:04:48,800 --> 01:04:51,840
Speaker 2: to rip him off, that everybody was going to tell

888
01:04:51,920 --> 01:04:54,200
Speaker 2: him what to do, and he don't want anybody telling

889
01:04:54,280 --> 01:04:57,000
Speaker 2: him what to do. And I think it goes back

890
01:04:57,040 --> 01:05:00,680
Speaker 2: to the womb. And it was a very deep streak

891
01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:04,200
Speaker 2: in Tom and there was really nothing that could be

892
01:05:04,280 --> 01:05:05,000
Speaker 2: done about it.

893
01:05:06,000 --> 01:05:07,640
Speaker 1: What happened with his brother.

894
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:12,720
Speaker 2: Well, his brother died of a drug overdose in the eighties,

895
01:05:13,080 --> 01:05:16,880
Speaker 2: I believe, Yeah, that's what happened to him.

896
01:05:17,640 --> 01:05:19,920
Speaker 1: But did that liberate Tom in some way?

897
01:05:21,000 --> 01:05:23,400
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it did. You know, he was

898
01:05:23,560 --> 01:05:29,840
Speaker 2: caught in a thing that was largely un conscious. His

899
01:05:30,840 --> 01:05:36,480
Speaker 2: habits and drives, you know, precluded him suddenly seeing sunlight.

900
01:05:38,640 --> 01:05:43,000
Speaker 1: You know, the two television albums come out. First, one's

901
01:05:43,040 --> 01:05:46,280
Speaker 1: a classic, second one doesn't get his good reviews, although

902
01:05:46,320 --> 01:05:48,680
Speaker 1: I noticed you play Ain't That Nothing, which is my

903
01:05:48,760 --> 01:05:50,160
Speaker 1: favorite song from that album.

904
01:05:50,640 --> 01:05:50,920
Speaker 2: Cool.

905
01:05:51,480 --> 01:05:55,160
Speaker 1: Does Tom ever wake up and realized, helly, maybe I

906
01:05:55,280 --> 01:05:56,200
Speaker 1: made a mistake here.

907
01:05:58,000 --> 01:06:00,200
Speaker 2: Well, we did do a third record, and we got

908
01:06:00,240 --> 01:06:04,160
Speaker 2: back together in ninety and ninety one and made a

909
01:06:04,200 --> 01:06:14,520
Speaker 2: record for Capital, the third television epinonymous record, just called

910
01:06:14,560 --> 01:06:18,800
Speaker 2: television anyway, the eponymous we went. We did a lot

911
01:06:18,840 --> 01:06:23,920
Speaker 2: of touring between ninety one, ninety two and two thousand

912
01:06:23,960 --> 01:06:27,000
Speaker 2: and seven, when I finally left the band.

913
01:06:28,240 --> 01:06:31,520
Speaker 1: Well, I guess you know this is this rock and

914
01:06:31,640 --> 01:06:34,479
Speaker 1: roll one on one. Yeah, where the group came back

915
01:06:34,480 --> 01:06:37,840
Speaker 1: together because that's the way everybody could get paid. Or

916
01:06:37,880 --> 01:06:41,160
Speaker 1: did Tom have any artistic change and realize it'd be

917
01:06:41,160 --> 01:06:42,840
Speaker 1: better to be with the group again.

918
01:06:44,680 --> 01:06:47,720
Speaker 2: The way it happened was both I had a manager

919
01:06:47,800 --> 01:06:50,960
Speaker 2: and he had a manager, and they both ran into

920
01:06:51,000 --> 01:06:54,600
Speaker 2: each other at a party, and at the party, you know,

921
01:06:54,720 --> 01:07:01,160
Speaker 2: what's Tom doing? Not much? What's Richard doing much? Maybe

922
01:07:01,200 --> 01:07:05,240
Speaker 2: we could get them together, and that's what happened. We

923
01:07:05,400 --> 01:07:11,720
Speaker 2: took a year to hammer out a band agreement, you know,

924
01:07:12,160 --> 01:07:15,080
Speaker 2: and one of the things Tom put in it was

925
01:07:15,720 --> 01:07:20,240
Speaker 2: that the performers always needed to wear black shoes, I

926
01:07:20,280 --> 01:07:23,080
Speaker 2: mean and ludicrous. Yeah, what are you going to do

927
01:07:23,160 --> 01:07:31,800
Speaker 2: with that? Anyway? And we but television always in live

928
01:07:31,840 --> 01:07:37,240
Speaker 2: performances and in artists. Royalty split four ways, and that's

929
01:07:37,280 --> 01:07:42,200
Speaker 2: still true even though Tom's no longer with us. We

930
01:07:42,640 --> 01:07:47,000
Speaker 2: split four ways with the income, but he took the publishing,

931
01:07:47,280 --> 01:07:51,280
Speaker 2: which is where the big money is. And you know,

932
01:07:51,840 --> 01:07:54,120
Speaker 2: what can you do about that? I fought him on

933
01:07:54,240 --> 01:08:00,760
Speaker 2: several songs, and I still have misgivings about several songs

934
01:08:00,800 --> 01:08:06,280
Speaker 2: that I provided the essential parts for and didn't get credit.

935
01:08:06,960 --> 01:08:09,320
Speaker 2: What are you gonna do? You know? We got to

936
01:08:09,360 --> 01:08:09,640
Speaker 2: move on.

937
01:08:10,600 --> 01:08:17,160
Speaker 1: Life is short, absolutely, I agree. So subsequent to television

938
01:08:17,280 --> 01:08:18,960
Speaker 1: breaking up the first time?

939
01:08:19,720 --> 01:08:20,320
Speaker 2: The first time?

940
01:08:20,400 --> 01:08:23,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, the first time? And today, have you been able

941
01:08:23,800 --> 01:08:25,559
Speaker 1: to make your living in music or did you ever

942
01:08:25,600 --> 01:08:26,719
Speaker 1: have to have a street job?

943
01:08:27,160 --> 01:08:30,840
Speaker 2: No? I make my living through music. I still get

944
01:08:30,880 --> 01:08:35,640
Speaker 2: paid for Marquee Moon of all things, and it's wonderful.

945
01:08:35,960 --> 01:08:38,160
Speaker 2: It's coming up on our fiftieth.

946
01:08:37,640 --> 01:08:42,719
Speaker 1: The ear Okay, Marquis Moon, there's two albums for Elektra.

947
01:08:43,760 --> 01:08:49,400
Speaker 1: And you know, usually everybody's in a negative position, so

948
01:08:49,439 --> 01:08:52,840
Speaker 1: if you're making money, they're royalties from them, and not

949
01:08:52,960 --> 01:08:57,000
Speaker 1: to match fact that that's right, they're split four ways.

950
01:08:57,160 --> 01:09:01,040
Speaker 2: That's right. And it took us eight years of legal

951
01:09:01,160 --> 01:09:05,840
Speaker 2: maneuvering to get Electra to acknowledge that we were not

952
01:09:05,960 --> 01:09:08,720
Speaker 2: in the red, but we were in the black, and

953
01:09:08,800 --> 01:09:13,720
Speaker 2: they owed us a lot of money. And after, like

954
01:09:13,800 --> 01:09:16,960
Speaker 2: I said, eight years of wrangling, we finally got them

955
01:09:17,000 --> 01:09:20,360
Speaker 2: to acknowledge that, in fact, they owed us quite a

956
01:09:20,360 --> 01:09:24,240
Speaker 2: bit of money, and so we got paid then and

957
01:09:24,280 --> 01:09:30,519
Speaker 2: henceforth we get monies every three months or four months

958
01:09:30,600 --> 01:09:33,799
Speaker 2: or whatever it is. I don't even pay attention.

959
01:09:33,920 --> 01:09:36,440
Speaker 1: But are they significant amounts?

960
01:09:37,360 --> 01:09:43,040
Speaker 2: Yeah? They're enough to live on. Okay, barely, barely barely

961
01:09:43,600 --> 01:09:48,880
Speaker 2: if you're not not eating food. Food costs so much nowadays,

962
01:09:49,640 --> 01:09:55,719
Speaker 2: there's you know, you better get skinny because it's ridiculous.

963
01:09:57,520 --> 01:10:03,320
Speaker 1: Okay, So how many times been married twice? So what

964
01:10:03,320 --> 01:10:06,160
Speaker 1: can you tell us about marriage? Having been married twice?

965
01:10:06,960 --> 01:10:12,840
Speaker 2: Well, it's a wonderful institution. I'm a serial monogamist. I'm

966
01:10:12,880 --> 01:10:17,360
Speaker 2: with one woman for four years and another woman with

967
01:10:17,479 --> 01:10:20,479
Speaker 2: it for eight and then I was my first wife

968
01:10:20,479 --> 01:10:22,639
Speaker 2: for twenty two years and we have a son that's

969
01:10:22,680 --> 01:10:26,599
Speaker 2: now in his thirties. And my second wife, we've been

970
01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:33,040
Speaker 2: together for sixteen years and she's just terrific, supports me

971
01:10:33,120 --> 01:10:36,680
Speaker 2: in every way, and I go on tour, so you know,

972
01:10:38,360 --> 01:10:42,160
Speaker 2: there's a certain amount of loneliness that occurs naturally, and

973
01:10:42,280 --> 01:10:46,320
Speaker 2: I'm not the one that goes skirt chasing anymore. It's

974
01:10:46,360 --> 01:10:52,960
Speaker 2: a long time since that, so you know, marriage is great.

975
01:10:54,560 --> 01:10:56,840
Speaker 1: So how'd you meet your second wife?

976
01:10:58,800 --> 01:11:01,760
Speaker 2: She was at an AA I was at when she

977
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:04,880
Speaker 2: was like sixteen, and she looked at me, and I

978
01:11:04,920 --> 01:11:07,960
Speaker 2: looked at her and sparks flew, but she was too

979
01:11:08,000 --> 01:11:12,560
Speaker 2: young and nothing happened of it. Then when Facebook exploded,

980
01:11:12,760 --> 01:11:14,880
Speaker 2: she got in touch with me and we began her

981
01:11:15,280 --> 01:11:18,920
Speaker 2: correspondence and then we went on a date and then

982
01:11:19,240 --> 01:11:22,000
Speaker 2: we got together. And that's the way it's been.

983
01:11:23,479 --> 01:11:27,320
Speaker 1: Okay, in between singer at the AA meeting and connecting

984
01:11:27,360 --> 01:11:28,960
Speaker 1: on Facebook. How many years was that.

985
01:11:30,040 --> 01:11:35,720
Speaker 2: Ooh, twenty twenty five something like that, And.

986
01:11:37,560 --> 01:11:40,760
Speaker 1: When she reached out. Did you say to yourself, this

987
01:11:40,840 --> 01:11:43,920
Speaker 1: woman is interested, maybe something's going on here, and say, oh,

988
01:11:44,000 --> 01:11:45,599
Speaker 1: this is just somebody from my past.

989
01:11:45,880 --> 01:11:53,160
Speaker 2: Oh no, I knew right away. Oh that's that girl.

990
01:11:54,040 --> 01:11:54,760
Speaker 2: There she is.

991
01:11:56,880 --> 01:11:59,679
Speaker 1: And had she been married before?

992
01:12:00,400 --> 01:12:03,200
Speaker 2: No, so it's our first marriage.

993
01:12:03,600 --> 01:12:06,120
Speaker 1: Okay. And what does she do all day when you're

994
01:12:06,680 --> 01:12:08,439
Speaker 1: not talking to me and playing music?

995
01:12:09,000 --> 01:12:13,720
Speaker 2: Oh? Nothing much. Deals with her family. She took care

996
01:12:13,760 --> 01:12:17,880
Speaker 2: of her aging parents till they passed away, the mother

997
01:12:18,200 --> 01:12:21,240
Speaker 2: just recently and the father five years ago. She took

998
01:12:21,280 --> 01:12:24,040
Speaker 2: care of them a great deal and that was kind

999
01:12:24,040 --> 01:12:28,200
Speaker 2: of her job. So she's in a space now where

1000
01:12:28,439 --> 01:12:32,920
Speaker 2: she's not sure you know, what's supposed to be next.

1001
01:12:33,240 --> 01:12:38,040
Speaker 2: But we're making it. We're making it. We're doing all right.

1002
01:12:38,920 --> 01:12:41,559
Speaker 1: Okay. So the kind of discussion we're having now, are

1003
01:12:41,640 --> 01:12:44,520
Speaker 1: these the kinds of discussions you have with your wife?

1004
01:12:45,160 --> 01:12:49,560
Speaker 2: Sure? Yeah, we could we talk every day.

1005
01:12:50,520 --> 01:12:52,360
Speaker 1: And what does your son do all day?

1006
01:12:53,439 --> 01:12:57,679
Speaker 2: Uh? He's a computer whiz. Obviously, he's at that age

1007
01:12:57,760 --> 01:13:02,240
Speaker 2: where you know, computers were going up. And he does

1008
01:13:02,320 --> 01:13:07,759
Speaker 2: something for some financial organization that makes him loads of money.

1009
01:13:08,600 --> 01:13:11,640
Speaker 2: And so that's what he does. And he goes to

1010
01:13:11,720 --> 01:13:16,400
Speaker 2: visit his friends in India and here and there. You know,

1011
01:13:17,400 --> 01:13:22,639
Speaker 2: he's got friends and a good gig. I'm happy for him.

1012
01:13:23,080 --> 01:13:24,760
Speaker 1: And how's your relationship with him?

1013
01:13:25,320 --> 01:13:28,600
Speaker 2: Oh wonderful. He comes to my shows when I'm in

1014
01:13:28,640 --> 01:13:31,080
Speaker 2: New York City. He lives in Brooklyn.

1015
01:13:32,680 --> 01:13:37,240
Speaker 1: And what caused the breakup of your first marriage?

1016
01:13:37,600 --> 01:13:42,880
Speaker 2: Oh? I don't know. It just ran its course, I suppose.

1017
01:13:44,200 --> 01:13:48,920
Speaker 2: And after all this said and done, and she couldn't

1018
01:13:48,960 --> 01:13:51,640
Speaker 2: deal with me whatever.

1019
01:13:51,360 --> 01:13:56,439
Speaker 1: Me is, Well, do you find that a lot of

1020
01:13:56,479 --> 01:13:58,280
Speaker 1: people can't deal with you?

1021
01:13:58,360 --> 01:14:02,920
Speaker 2: No, not at this time. Maybe in the past. I

1022
01:14:02,960 --> 01:14:06,840
Speaker 2: can be snarky, and in the beginning of our interview

1023
01:14:06,920 --> 01:14:07,879
Speaker 2: I was rather.

1024
01:14:09,280 --> 01:14:12,479
Speaker 1: Like that, why do you think you're like that?

1025
01:14:14,439 --> 01:14:20,920
Speaker 2: I don't suffer foolishness as much as some people. But

1026
01:14:21,040 --> 01:14:24,120
Speaker 2: who determines what's foolishness or not? I don't know.

1027
01:14:24,520 --> 01:14:28,360
Speaker 1: Well you get to determine, yeah, for myself. But the

1028
01:14:28,479 --> 01:14:32,280
Speaker 1: question would be when you first start to interact with people.

1029
01:14:33,400 --> 01:14:37,360
Speaker 2: I try to be as graceful as as humanly possible,

1030
01:14:37,880 --> 01:14:41,240
Speaker 2: but people have their own level of understanding, and obviously

1031
01:14:41,280 --> 01:14:44,720
Speaker 2: they're going to come at you with that. I get

1032
01:14:44,760 --> 01:14:50,280
Speaker 2: a lot of hero worship lately, and sometimes it's difficult

1033
01:14:50,840 --> 01:14:53,200
Speaker 2: because people want to say hello and shake your hand,

1034
01:14:53,240 --> 01:14:56,840
Speaker 2: and then they don't want to let go. Literally, you've

1035
01:14:56,880 --> 01:15:03,280
Speaker 2: got people glimbing onto you. And you know, I've often thought, well,

1036
01:15:03,360 --> 01:15:08,519
Speaker 2: I'm gonna eventually I'm gonna need a bodyguard because some

1037
01:15:08,560 --> 01:15:11,400
Speaker 2: people are absolutely out of their minds about it. And

1038
01:15:11,439 --> 01:15:14,439
Speaker 2: then they get a bit of alcohol in them and

1039
01:15:14,560 --> 01:15:17,400
Speaker 2: that's so and they approach you and they you know,

1040
01:15:17,560 --> 01:15:20,040
Speaker 2: as soon as you say, oh, I've got to go

1041
01:15:20,160 --> 01:15:23,120
Speaker 2: do this, or you know, we've had enough time together,

1042
01:15:24,000 --> 01:15:27,000
Speaker 2: and then they go, oh, you're a wash up and

1043
01:15:27,120 --> 01:15:30,880
Speaker 2: spit on you. You know, they can turn into like turn

1044
01:15:30,960 --> 01:15:34,960
Speaker 2: on a dime, But lately I haven't gotten any of

1045
01:15:35,000 --> 01:15:42,479
Speaker 2: that that type. Just the hero worship, guitar hero so.

1046
01:15:42,560 --> 01:15:54,360
Speaker 1: To say, Okay, you know, it's like they say, you

1047
01:15:54,479 --> 01:15:57,000
Speaker 1: win an oscar and it feels great, but then all

1048
01:15:57,000 --> 01:15:59,000
Speaker 1: of a sudden you wake up a couple of days later,

1049
01:15:59,040 --> 01:16:03,160
Speaker 1: it's like nothing happened exactly. So does this hero worship

1050
01:16:03,240 --> 01:16:09,879
Speaker 1: do anything for you? And emotionally, well.

1051
01:16:09,680 --> 01:16:17,000
Speaker 2: It's gratifying. I suppose that people are involved and interested

1052
01:16:17,080 --> 01:16:21,640
Speaker 2: in still in the things that I've done in my

1053
01:16:22,560 --> 01:16:30,240
Speaker 2: twenties with the CBGB's and television and like that. They're

1054
01:16:30,439 --> 01:16:37,400
Speaker 2: very obsessed with that period of time. And that's okay.

1055
01:16:39,040 --> 01:16:42,360
Speaker 2: I'm not the kind of person who doesn't want to

1056
01:16:42,360 --> 01:16:45,760
Speaker 2: talk about the past at all. I'm willing to talk

1057
01:16:45,800 --> 01:16:49,639
Speaker 2: about any part of my life. I'm proud of my life.

1058
01:16:50,640 --> 01:16:51,479
Speaker 2: I'm still here.

1059
01:16:52,280 --> 01:16:54,599
Speaker 1: But does it bother you that some people are stuck

1060
01:16:54,640 --> 01:16:57,000
Speaker 1: in the past and you want.

1061
01:16:56,800 --> 01:17:05,040
Speaker 2: People that's their problem or difficulty or maybe not, maybe

1062
01:17:05,080 --> 01:17:06,800
Speaker 2: they're just enjoying themselves.

1063
01:17:07,320 --> 01:17:10,080
Speaker 1: Does your music mean as much to you today and

1064
01:17:10,240 --> 01:17:12,559
Speaker 1: is as fulfilling as it was back then?

1065
01:17:13,240 --> 01:17:18,640
Speaker 2: It does? Yeah, I'm having a great time. We've just

1066
01:17:18,680 --> 01:17:22,599
Speaker 2: been on tour for a month and I loved it.

1067
01:17:22,760 --> 01:17:27,360
Speaker 2: Most of the shows sold. You know out, okay? And

1068
01:17:27,360 --> 01:17:30,639
Speaker 2: where do you live now? I live in Chattanooga, Tennessee,

1069
01:17:30,760 --> 01:17:35,720
Speaker 2: where my wife, my current wife's parents were and she

1070
01:17:35,880 --> 01:17:37,680
Speaker 2: wanted to be able to be with them at the

1071
01:17:37,800 --> 01:17:40,000
Speaker 2: end of their lives, and so we came down here

1072
01:17:40,040 --> 01:17:44,559
Speaker 2: because the New York that I knew is gone and

1073
01:17:44,960 --> 01:17:47,439
Speaker 2: the New York that we were in we had a

1074
01:17:47,600 --> 01:17:50,559
Speaker 2: dispute with our landlord and he eventually had to buy

1075
01:17:50,640 --> 01:17:53,120
Speaker 2: us out of the apartment that paid for our move

1076
01:17:53,920 --> 01:17:56,960
Speaker 2: and where we were we going to go since she

1077
01:17:57,120 --> 01:18:02,240
Speaker 2: had contacts in Chattanooga who went there. I hardly go out.

1078
01:18:02,880 --> 01:18:07,599
Speaker 2: I don't see many people. But I'm perfectly content being

1079
01:18:07,800 --> 01:18:12,759
Speaker 2: I've always been content being alone. In fact, I need

1080
01:18:13,040 --> 01:18:19,280
Speaker 2: a loneeness. I need not loneliness, the opposite a loneness,

1081
01:18:19,800 --> 01:18:21,240
Speaker 2: perfect a loneness.

1082
01:18:21,560 --> 01:18:26,360
Speaker 1: Oh okay, there's a vibration between this a loneness and

1083
01:18:26,439 --> 01:18:30,160
Speaker 1: being lonely on the road. Tell us about that.

1084
01:18:31,240 --> 01:18:34,559
Speaker 2: Well, I don't get lonely on the road. I'm talking

1085
01:18:34,560 --> 01:18:37,680
Speaker 2: to my wife every day, and I have my bandmates

1086
01:18:37,760 --> 01:18:41,200
Speaker 2: with me and there's no re And then I got

1087
01:18:41,200 --> 01:18:44,120
Speaker 2: the fans and people that come to the show, so

1088
01:18:44,200 --> 01:18:48,760
Speaker 2: there's no reason for me to get upset whatsoever. It's

1089
01:18:48,800 --> 01:18:53,759
Speaker 2: all good, at least in today's running.

1090
01:18:54,800 --> 01:18:57,760
Speaker 1: Is this a loneness because you have so much you

1091
01:18:57,840 --> 01:19:01,880
Speaker 1: want to do alone or is it a socially aandwing anxiety.

1092
01:19:02,200 --> 01:19:11,519
Speaker 2: Neither. It's really my content with myself, my ability to

1093
01:19:11,680 --> 01:19:18,160
Speaker 2: be with myself and enjoy my time with me with Richard.

1094
01:19:19,640 --> 01:19:26,000
Speaker 2: I don't need another person to authorize me to exist.

1095
01:19:27,640 --> 01:19:31,840
Speaker 2: And in yoga, yoga the ultimate goal is called kaivalia,

1096
01:19:32,479 --> 01:19:39,240
Speaker 2: which means perfect loneliness, not the opposite of loneliness. It's

1097
01:19:39,800 --> 01:19:40,479
Speaker 2: all grace.

1098
01:19:41,960 --> 01:19:44,960
Speaker 1: And when you are alone, what are you doing?

1099
01:19:52,880 --> 01:19:54,440
Speaker 2: How's that for an answer.

1100
01:19:56,120 --> 01:19:58,800
Speaker 1: That I understood would be the answer that fits with

1101
01:19:58,840 --> 01:20:04,160
Speaker 1: your personality. But theoretically, you know, there are people who

1102
01:20:04,360 --> 01:20:07,560
Speaker 1: take drugs and just zone out. There are people who meditator,

1103
01:20:07,720 --> 01:20:11,439
Speaker 1: do yoga. There are people who read, people listen to music,

1104
01:20:11,880 --> 01:20:13,360
Speaker 1: people watch television.

1105
01:20:14,600 --> 01:20:18,360
Speaker 2: I'd come into two and three of what you said,

1106
01:20:19,520 --> 01:20:25,000
Speaker 2: you listen to music and you read? Was that it?

1107
01:20:25,479 --> 01:20:26,599
Speaker 2: I don't listen to music.

1108
01:20:28,080 --> 01:20:29,680
Speaker 1: You read and you watch television.

1109
01:20:30,160 --> 01:20:34,599
Speaker 2: No, you read? You read this the first thing I mentioned.

1110
01:20:34,880 --> 01:20:38,760
Speaker 1: Okay, the first thing. The first thing was meditating and yoga. Yes,

1111
01:20:38,800 --> 01:20:43,000
Speaker 1: I do that, And you also read? Do you read?

1112
01:20:43,479 --> 01:20:47,519
Speaker 1: I understand there's this gentleman who's informed your life. But

1113
01:20:47,840 --> 01:20:50,559
Speaker 1: do you read fiction and nonfiction too?

1114
01:20:50,760 --> 01:20:55,240
Speaker 2: No? I read nonfiction science books mostly?

1115
01:20:56,479 --> 01:20:59,320
Speaker 1: And what science books might they be?

1116
01:21:00,080 --> 01:21:07,240
Speaker 2: Oh? Anything about physics, modern physics, historical physics, anything about chemistry,

1117
01:21:07,760 --> 01:21:15,240
Speaker 2: anything about astrobiology, anything about biology. Anything anything that is

1118
01:21:15,640 --> 01:21:23,400
Speaker 2: non fictional interests me. So I scurry along reading everything

1119
01:21:23,439 --> 01:21:28,640
Speaker 2: I can get my hands on in that area of expertise.

1120
01:21:30,600 --> 01:21:34,439
Speaker 1: So let's assume you want to call somebody and your

1121
01:21:34,520 --> 01:21:37,479
Speaker 1: wife is predisposed you have like a close friend or

1122
01:21:37,520 --> 01:21:40,120
Speaker 1: close friends that you stay in regular contact with.

1123
01:21:40,920 --> 01:21:46,000
Speaker 2: I have close friends, yeah, best friends, Yeah, I've always

1124
01:21:46,040 --> 01:21:49,040
Speaker 2: had best friends. A few of them, not too many.

1125
01:21:49,920 --> 01:21:52,479
Speaker 1: And are they from what era in your life? Do

1126
01:21:52,560 --> 01:21:55,080
Speaker 1: you go through different ones or these the same ones

1127
01:21:55,120 --> 01:21:55,800
Speaker 1: for decades?

1128
01:21:56,560 --> 01:21:59,439
Speaker 2: The same ones for decades? Yeah?

1129
01:22:00,040 --> 01:22:02,760
Speaker 1: What is the commonality that makes them friends with you?

1130
01:22:04,400 --> 01:22:09,080
Speaker 2: I wish I knew I could conjure up a few

1131
01:22:09,880 --> 01:22:10,679
Speaker 2: to my liking.

1132
01:22:13,640 --> 01:22:18,040
Speaker 1: Okay, so if we will look at the world at large,

1133
01:22:18,920 --> 01:22:20,880
Speaker 1: what do you see down the pike?

1134
01:22:24,040 --> 01:22:25,400
Speaker 2: I don't look down the pike.

1135
01:22:26,920 --> 01:22:29,160
Speaker 1: Well, we've said here that there are a lot of

1136
01:22:29,200 --> 01:22:33,519
Speaker 1: somnambulent people who are just, you know, doing what they're

1137
01:22:33,560 --> 01:22:34,439
Speaker 1: supposed to do.

1138
01:22:35,280 --> 01:22:37,160
Speaker 2: Who says they're supposed to do?

1139
01:22:37,760 --> 01:22:41,080
Speaker 1: No, No, that's what they believe they're supposed to do.

1140
01:22:42,320 --> 01:22:42,960
Speaker 2: Oh buy that.

1141
01:22:43,160 --> 01:22:50,679
Speaker 1: So there's there's the climate crisis. Never mind political unrest.

1142
01:22:50,760 --> 01:22:54,160
Speaker 1: I'm not talking just about an election, but Ukraine, Israel,

1143
01:22:54,320 --> 01:22:57,600
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. So did you think this is

1144
01:22:57,800 --> 01:23:02,240
Speaker 1: deregur or word a point of a it's derregar.

1145
01:23:02,960 --> 01:23:07,040
Speaker 2: Mankind has always been at war since we were apes.

1146
01:23:08,120 --> 01:23:11,479
Speaker 2: We were being at odds with each other. And I

1147
01:23:11,600 --> 01:23:16,880
Speaker 2: don't really understand it fully, but people suddenly feel like

1148
01:23:17,080 --> 01:23:23,920
Speaker 2: they're not secure, that they're threatened, and this evokes an

1149
01:23:24,000 --> 01:23:30,799
Speaker 2: action from their instinctual and moving centers that turns into wars,

1150
01:23:31,840 --> 01:23:35,080
Speaker 2: and there's conflict all over the globe at the moment,

1151
01:23:36,040 --> 01:23:39,719
Speaker 2: genocides and pitched battles.

1152
01:23:42,160 --> 01:23:45,200
Speaker 1: When we were growing up in the sixties, everybody was

1153
01:23:45,240 --> 01:23:48,439
Speaker 1: our age was a liberal. That's no longer the case,

1154
01:23:48,960 --> 01:23:50,960
Speaker 1: that's right. Why do you think that changed?

1155
01:23:52,320 --> 01:23:56,519
Speaker 2: Well, you mentioned it before that as Reagan came in.

1156
01:23:56,880 --> 01:24:01,640
Speaker 2: Things changed with Reaganomics and the this split between the

1157
01:24:01,800 --> 01:24:04,360
Speaker 2: haves and the haves nots, and I think the have

1158
01:24:04,640 --> 01:24:07,760
Speaker 2: nots kind of woke up a little bit to their

1159
01:24:08,800 --> 01:24:12,840
Speaker 2: dismay at this situation, and it's only getting worse. So

1160
01:24:13,000 --> 01:24:15,800
Speaker 2: some of them cross over and pretend that they're on

1161
01:24:15,920 --> 01:24:20,519
Speaker 2: the other side. And you know, politically, it's a war

1162
01:24:21,040 --> 01:24:27,439
Speaker 2: going on, and hopefully it will resolve in November, but

1163
01:24:28,000 --> 01:24:33,000
Speaker 2: I have no illusions about it. We will continue on

1164
01:24:33,120 --> 01:24:41,960
Speaker 2: a course of action determined by propaganda and more illusion.

1165
01:24:42,840 --> 01:24:49,040
Speaker 2: It was a genius thing that the friends of mister

1166
01:24:49,200 --> 01:24:55,919
Speaker 2: Trump suggested that he learned chaos theory and this chaos

1167
01:24:56,200 --> 01:25:00,360
Speaker 2: theory has permeated his politics to the point that he

1168
01:25:00,600 --> 01:25:06,880
Speaker 2: has infatuated hundreds of thousands and millions of people that

1169
01:25:07,800 --> 01:25:13,040
Speaker 2: don't know how else to respond to this chaos, and

1170
01:25:13,160 --> 01:25:17,960
Speaker 2: he introduces more and more chaos, and he's been it's

1171
01:25:18,080 --> 01:25:21,439
Speaker 2: been suggested to him that he continue in this path

1172
01:25:21,520 --> 01:25:26,280
Speaker 2: of lying and people will eventually believe it because he

1173
01:25:26,400 --> 01:25:34,800
Speaker 2: repeats it enough. This is true from Goebbels on and

1174
01:25:34,960 --> 01:25:38,240
Speaker 2: perhaps earlier. There was a guy who was a nephew

1175
01:25:38,320 --> 01:25:42,080
Speaker 2: of Sigmund Freud, and during World War two he was

1176
01:25:42,160 --> 01:25:48,439
Speaker 2: active in persuasion, and the cigarette companies came to him

1177
01:25:48,520 --> 01:25:52,519
Speaker 2: and said, we would like to introduce smoking to more women.

1178
01:25:53,200 --> 01:25:55,720
Speaker 2: And so he rounded up a bunch of women, and

1179
01:25:55,800 --> 01:25:59,560
Speaker 2: when the war was won, they were on parade and

1180
01:25:59,640 --> 01:26:04,040
Speaker 2: he gave all cigarettes and said, at my waving through

1181
01:26:04,080 --> 01:26:07,960
Speaker 2: the window or whatever my mark, you'll all light these cigarettes.

1182
01:26:08,560 --> 01:26:11,280
Speaker 2: And they all lit the cigarettes, and he said, gentlemen.

1183
01:26:11,479 --> 01:26:14,960
Speaker 2: He had all the publicity people with him, and he said, gentlemen,

1184
01:26:15,000 --> 01:26:18,000
Speaker 2: I want you to observe the women. These are the

1185
01:26:19,280 --> 01:26:24,160
Speaker 2: flames of freedom. And from that moment on, nobody could

1186
01:26:24,200 --> 01:26:28,320
Speaker 2: complain about a woman smoking the same thing with the

1187
01:26:28,439 --> 01:26:33,160
Speaker 2: aspirin is somebody. You can't this is hard to believe,

1188
01:26:33,479 --> 01:26:38,160
Speaker 2: but somebody came up with the grand idea of tell

1189
01:26:38,720 --> 01:26:41,879
Speaker 2: of advertise not to the patient, but to the doctors

1190
01:26:41,960 --> 01:26:46,479
Speaker 2: and tell them to send them away, stating take two

1191
01:26:46,640 --> 01:26:48,640
Speaker 2: and call me in the morning. That was the go

1192
01:26:48,920 --> 01:26:52,920
Speaker 2: to phrase. Take two meant that you used up your

1193
01:26:53,000 --> 01:26:56,760
Speaker 2: bottle of aspirin twice as fast. Why not take one?

1194
01:26:57,479 --> 01:27:01,920
Speaker 2: Why take two? Because it was a scam and it

1195
01:27:02,160 --> 01:27:07,960
Speaker 2: worked the same with the salmon industry got decimated by

1196
01:27:08,000 --> 01:27:11,000
Speaker 2: the tuna industry when they came out with the slogan

1197
01:27:12,560 --> 01:27:17,280
Speaker 2: Tuna Guaranteed not to turn pink in the can. I

1198
01:27:17,360 --> 01:27:22,960
Speaker 2: mean these kind of things. The toothpaste people were like,

1199
01:27:23,080 --> 01:27:26,519
Speaker 2: how can we increase our sales of toothpaste? Well, get

1200
01:27:26,600 --> 01:27:31,960
Speaker 2: into the toothbrush business and make bigger brushes. Then people

1201
01:27:32,040 --> 01:27:35,960
Speaker 2: will naturally put on more toothpaste and they'll run out

1202
01:27:36,080 --> 01:27:39,360
Speaker 2: sooner and have to buy more. So we've been driven

1203
01:27:39,479 --> 01:27:45,320
Speaker 2: by this kind of insanity for as long as I

1204
01:27:45,439 --> 01:27:49,680
Speaker 2: can remember. You know, I'm born aways back, but not

1205
01:27:49,840 --> 01:27:53,040
Speaker 2: that far. And it's been going on ever since.

1206
01:27:55,479 --> 01:27:59,440
Speaker 1: So this chaos theory is there? Any is there any anthidotes?

1207
01:27:59,479 --> 01:28:00,519
Speaker 1: Is there any fight it.

1208
01:28:01,120 --> 01:28:11,240
Speaker 2: Nope, just to be vertical, to really understand what I'll say,

1209
01:28:11,400 --> 01:28:16,360
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, for want of a stronger personality, what he

1210
01:28:16,479 --> 01:28:20,920
Speaker 2: actually said and taught to be vertical, to be sober,

1211
01:28:22,120 --> 01:28:25,160
Speaker 2: and not in the sense of alcohol, in the sense

1212
01:28:25,240 --> 01:28:30,760
Speaker 2: of being upright, being vertical. You know, we spend half

1213
01:28:30,800 --> 01:28:37,400
Speaker 2: our lives horizontally asleep. Then most people their bodies get up,

1214
01:28:37,479 --> 01:28:41,960
Speaker 2: but they don't. They continue dreaming through the day and

1215
01:28:42,080 --> 01:28:46,719
Speaker 2: through the night. And that's the shame that human beings

1216
01:28:47,000 --> 01:28:50,280
Speaker 2: refuse to feel. So they invent.

1217
01:28:52,800 --> 01:28:55,759
Speaker 1: A little bit slower. When you say that you're dreaming,

1218
01:28:55,880 --> 01:28:57,639
Speaker 1: what are they actually dreaming about?

1219
01:28:59,000 --> 01:29:04,759
Speaker 2: Take a look. They're dreaming of their fantasies. They're dreaming

1220
01:29:04,800 --> 01:29:08,559
Speaker 2: of their future, they're dreaming of their past. You ever

1221
01:29:08,640 --> 01:29:11,519
Speaker 2: get into an argument with somebody and you know you're wrong,

1222
01:29:12,640 --> 01:29:16,080
Speaker 2: Then the next three days you have that same dialogue

1223
01:29:16,120 --> 01:29:19,439
Speaker 2: in your head, but you keep changing your response so

1224
01:29:19,560 --> 01:29:24,679
Speaker 2: that you'll be upright and right. That's how we lose

1225
01:29:25,280 --> 01:29:34,000
Speaker 2: touch with ourselves, this kind of self inaugurated correctness, to

1226
01:29:34,120 --> 01:29:39,360
Speaker 2: be brutally upright all the time without concern for anybody else.

1227
01:29:41,920 --> 01:29:45,400
Speaker 1: Okay, that's bad, you're saying that's bad.

1228
01:29:47,040 --> 01:29:49,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever bad is okay?

1229
01:29:50,840 --> 01:29:54,160
Speaker 1: And do you care about legacy at all?

1230
01:29:55,400 --> 01:29:55,920
Speaker 2: Sure I do.

1231
01:29:57,800 --> 01:30:01,160
Speaker 1: I already have one, but it's important to you to

1232
01:30:01,280 --> 01:30:01,919
Speaker 1: be remembered.

1233
01:30:03,520 --> 01:30:09,240
Speaker 2: Well, I've made name Gladiators. Spartacus has a name. He's

1234
01:30:09,360 --> 01:30:18,600
Speaker 2: immortal through his name. Kennedy has name and more. And

1235
01:30:20,320 --> 01:30:22,920
Speaker 2: that's one way to become immortal is to make a

1236
01:30:23,080 --> 01:30:26,960
Speaker 2: name for oneself. I'm not that immortal. Let me tell you.

1237
01:30:27,760 --> 01:30:31,040
Speaker 2: I die, and the physical body dies, and the rest

1238
01:30:31,080 --> 01:30:37,439
Speaker 2: of me dies after some time, I'm sure, and I'll

1239
01:30:37,520 --> 01:30:42,760
Speaker 2: just go on. But the name won't last somewhere, you know,

1240
01:30:43,240 --> 01:30:47,040
Speaker 2: fifty to one hundred years from now, television as a

1241
01:30:47,160 --> 01:30:56,320
Speaker 2: band won't exist maybe two hundred years. We're not Benjamin Franklin.

1242
01:30:57,640 --> 01:30:59,120
Speaker 2: We didn't invent anything.

1243
01:31:00,520 --> 01:31:04,000
Speaker 1: Although it's interesting what is remembered in the future is

1244
01:31:04,160 --> 01:31:05,960
Speaker 1: not always what was big in its era.

1245
01:31:06,920 --> 01:31:08,320
Speaker 2: That's absolutely correct.

1246
01:31:08,479 --> 01:31:13,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Richard, I want to thank you so much

1247
01:31:13,479 --> 01:31:19,720
Speaker 1: for taking time to speak with my audience and let

1248
01:31:19,800 --> 01:31:23,959
Speaker 1: them in on some of your philosophy and feelings and beliefs.

1249
01:31:24,520 --> 01:31:25,439
Speaker 1: So thanks so much.

1250
01:31:26,080 --> 01:31:28,640
Speaker 2: All right, thank you very much for talking with me.

1251
01:31:28,760 --> 01:31:33,080
Speaker 2: I hope I wasn't too antagonistic at the beginning, and

1252
01:31:34,640 --> 01:31:38,080
Speaker 2: I hope that we've helped some of your audience members

1253
01:31:38,240 --> 01:31:40,640
Speaker 2: come to a better state inside themselves.

1254
01:31:42,680 --> 01:31:46,320
Speaker 1: Let's hope. Until next time, this is Bob Left SAIDs