Interview with Nancy Cain

Cain, Nancy (Television producer) ; McKiernan, Stephen

Nancy Cain is a videographer, producer and author. Cain started her career as a member of the Videofreex, a group that toured the country in the 1960s and 1970s and produced experimental videos on Woodstock, the Chicago Seven and geodesic domes. Cain was the co-creator and producer of the PBS show The 1990s and the author of the book Video Days.

2010-02-12

In copyright

2018-03-29

McKiernan Interviews

154:16

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Nancy Cain
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 12 February 2010
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(Start of Interview)

SM:
Nancy Kane. Nancy Kane. Well, with someone else. The first question I always ask, especially in the last 50 to 60 people I have interviewed, is to tell me about your growing up years, where you grew up, the influence your parents had on you, maybe a little bit about your high school and college years.

NC:
Oh.

SM:
Just kind of the most influential people in your life and what made you who you are.

NC:
Okay. Well, Detroit, Michigan. Just when everything was great in Detroit and the car industry was booming and everybody was rich. I was just thinking back about my childhood, a very happy childhood. My dad was in the advertising business. They were interested in theater and the arts, and I have a younger sister, and we were both interested in those things too. Went to Mumford High School. I went to the University of Arizona for two years. Then I came back to Detroit and did a year at Wayne State University. And then I left college and got a job in a resident professional theater. And I worked for about three years of full-time doing theater in Detroit. And I moved to New York and also worked in the theater. And I ultimately got a job working for a producer at CBS Network, which is where I discovered video and where I was completely radicalized. And my whole life really changed because of that.

SM:
What year was that when you were working there?

NC:
1969.

SM:
Oh, that is a big year.

NC:
Yeah, it was that was summer. I started working at CBS during that summer of the Woodstock Festival. Let me see what else was happening at that summer. The meth one? The meth one.

SM:
I think there is also, that year is when the women protested at Atlantic City.

NC:
That is true. Right? They burned the proverbial bra. But yeah, women's lib was just starting.

SM:
Yeah, you went to Wayne State University, and I think that is where Charlene Hunter Gaunt went too in her early years. She graduated from Wayne State. She was on the Larry Report for many years, and she was from the south, but she went to Wayne State and graduated from there. When you were there, were there any teachers or family members or peers up to 1969, maybe even someone at the TV station you worked at that really inspired you, that helped you go the direction that you went?

NC:
Well, I knew quite a lot about television and television production because my dad was in the advertising business. When television first started in the late forties, he told his clients, "Look, this is where you are going to put your ad. Everybody is getting a television set, and this is what we are going to do." And they said, "Well, that is great, but there are not any programs to advertise on." So, my dad started producing quite a lot of television programs for his advertisers, and they spent a lot of time at TV station, and I watched the directors and the people who did all the jobs. But I think mostly that it was my family and what my family liked I liked. But when I got to New York, I think the big change that was happening at that particular time when I was at CBS, change was that there were only three TV stations. There were three television networks there. Everything was centralized, and there was no concept of people having their own communication decentralizing the television. So, in that summer of 1969, while we were trying to put together some kind of a new kind of documentary form for the network that I met people called the Video Freaks.

SM:
Yes.

NC:
Had just come back from the Woodstock Festival, and they were the first people I had ever known to have portable video recording equipment. There just was no such thing there. It was not even any tape until the end of the (19)50s. It was live television. That was, if they wanted to save it, they would make a kinescope, which means that they would film the TV screen and save it. And that is what they had. So, when video was invented, that kind of changed the whole landscape. And they came back, and I, at the time was interviewing a lot of people who had thoughts about changing television, what could be new in television. And they came back and they showed me pictures, video from the Woodstock Festival, which is the exact opposite of anything that I had ever seen before. The reverse angle of everything. In other words, I had seen some clips of famous rock and rollers up on the stage, and I saw that it had been raining and that there were like a hundred thousand people there. And it was phenomenal. The video freaks came to my office and showed me, they showed me video of miles, long lines waiting for the porta-potties.

SM:
Hmm.

NC:
They showed me people just totally stoned, tripping out acid. Fabulous. Not the show, but the actual event. So that is the first video that I ever saw. And we hired them immediately, and I spent then both rest of that summer traveling with the video freak trying to document what was going on in the counterculture in the United States.

SM:
Yes.

NC:
We traveled all over, and that is when I saw that that video was going to make it possible for all people to be able to communicate. You did not have to wait and see what the TV station sent you to make your own media and send it to the people that you wanted to send it to. It was really very primitive at that time. But if you look at the progression, it was the invention of videotape, cable television, the internet, YouTube, and it is now totally democratized media so that anyone can say anything and put it out to millions, gazillions of people in one click all over the planet. And that is what I had in mind, even though there was not the technology to do it.

SM:
Who were these people? How many of them were there? Was- it was just a small group that went to which...

NC:
The video freaks at the time that I met him, they were three people. David Court, who was a kind of media artist in New York City who had been working at the Brooklyn Children's Museum. He had a port attack. He went to the festival with his girlfriend, who was a painter at the time, Curtis Radcliffe. They lived down on the Lower East Side. They went out to the Woodstock Festival with their camera, and they met Perry Peace dale. He was 20 years old. He had a Panasonic camera with no viewfinder in it. And they met up and they were probably the only people there that had video cameras. And they set up a booth out there and started. People had never seen them, so they set up a little booth where people could, they would turn on a video camera and people would see themselves on video on the screen when they were just standing there. And how people say, "Wow, is that me?" They would look at it and be all excited. So, they did that. So, there were the three of them. By the end of the project at CBS, there were 10 of us very majorly fired after we did our proposal.

SM:
Did you become the leader of the group?

NC:
There was a... No, because leaders, that was not happening.

SM:
Oh, that was like, yes...

NC:
Very great for women at that time, because mostly up until that point, men had the thing, men had the jobs, men would hire the women, men would tell the women what to do, but no more. And suddenly there was equality. And by the end of the project, there were 10 of us, and we were all fired. They were all people that were working on the CBS project. And we all left CBS simultaneously after our pre-presentation to the network.

SM:
How long did Video Freaks last?

NC:
Video Freaks is still existing. We finally after, what, 30 years? I am not exactly sure, but about three or five years ago, we actually made a partnership agreement and are now kind of watching over these several thousand videotape that were shot, although we worked together and live together because for financial reasons, not because we were in love or anything. We had some equipment and we needed to share it.

SM:
Right.

NC:
So, we had a loft down in SoHo, New York, and that was too expensive. And so, in the summer of 1970, we rented a house in the Catskill Mountains, a big old farmhouse, and we turned that into a media center.

SM:
Oh, wow.

NC:
We were there for about nine years. And we were open to video artists and producers from all over who could come and edit video and work on, and then we...

SM:
Are a lot of your videos on YouTube.

NC:
Yes.

SM:
Yeah. Is YouTube a direct descendant of video Freaks?

NC:
I say yes, even though, because the concept, we had the concept, we spent several years traveling around, teaching people how to run this equipment. So, we got grants from the New York State Council on the Art and from the National Endowment and other such. And we started a not-for-profit called Media Bus. And we would traveled mostly over the state of New York. We traveled all the whole throughway system, and we went to libraries and museums and cultural places, and YMCA and any place where people gathered. And we would have workshops and we would show people how to work this equipment and how to take control of their own media. And we would go out on the streets and we would record people, actual real life, interviewing people, asking William, "What is happening in this community? What are you doing with this and that?" And then they'd say, "Okay, now we have these videotapes. What do with them?" And that was just the beginning of cable television. So, the cable companies were wiring up cabling, all the whole state, all these small towns now would sign contracts with cable company. And in their contracts with these cable companies, there was something called access, community access, public access. And what that meant was, "Hey, you big rich media conglomerate, we are letting you cable up our whole town. And so, what we expect is for you to give us a channel on your big cable system so that we can communicate in our own community with each other." But the cable companies, they did not like that. And we were kind of outside agitators. And we would keep to all these people and community people and young people and the Boy Scouts and everybody. We would walk them over there to the cable company, take our little meeting with the cable company and say, "Okay, we want to do it. We are ready to go and have our own C station." And they had to do it.

SM:
See, that is an unbelievable (19)60s 70 thing, because you are really challenging the establishment there, number one. Number two, you were truly living what, as Tom Hayden used to always say when he came to our campus, the difference between power and empowerment. You were empowered.

NC:
Yeah.

SM:
Because you were in control.

NC:
Yes, sort of except that we were not making any money and we were not telling anybody how to make any money either. So that was like...

SM:
I went into the, obviously the computer and I on the YouTube, and I found a couple of your things on there, and you probably know, you have probably seen them. One was that short film you did on that woman who was leaving.

NC:
Harriet.

SM:
Harriet, yeah. The first time I saw it, well, the first time, I did not know why she was laughing all the time. Why was she laughing all the time?

NC:
Well, you know what? I do not know. She was hysterical. You can hardly see that the image on that tape.

SM:
Right.

NC:
You barely see it anymore. But what it was is we lived in a small town called Lanesville. That is where our big farmhouse was. And there were maybe 300 people in that town altogether. So, we had put together, because there was no cable in Lanesville, we decided to make a broadcast television station. We had before we left the city, Abby Hoffman had given us a TV, a television transmitter, because he had wanted us to make something for him because he wanted to do pirate television. Abby was doing a book called, I do not know if it was Steal this book, or one before that, where he was trying to empower people in all areas. He wanted to do, was have some kind of a pirate television station that would be run out of a bus or a truck or someplace that could move around. He wanted it. He wanted it to cut into the networks and put on this people's television. So, he came over with that idea, and Perry and Chuck, our technical guy, tried to figure out how to make that happen. And he came over to our loft and they showed him that they were able to figure out how to actually broadcast from one room to the next room. And so, we would not have to pound on the wall or shout it. He could actually broadcast to the next room. But he was very disappointed in that because he was thinking the city or the five boroughs, at least. Come on kids, let us get together. And that seemed to be a little bit more that we can handle technically. So, he left, but he left the transmitter, which he had paid for 300 and something dollars. So, when we moved to the country, we took this transmitter with us. And what do you know, it worked with a little bit more copper wire and a little bit of mass. We figured out how to broadcast from the roof of our house to all these little houses in Lanesville. And so, we would put on Wednesdays and on Saturday night, we would put on Lanesville TV, probably America's smallest TV station. And that way we got to know everyone in town because it was the only station that came in because it was stuck in the mountains. It was in a very high mountains on both sides and very, very, a narrow roadway that went down there. So, everybody in Lanesville watched Lanesville TV. So, I would walk down the road to the post office, I would pass by this little trailer that was sitting next to the post office. And Harriet one day who lived down there in that little trailer, she called up to me, she said, "Hey, you want to see my baby?" And I said, "Yeah, I definitely want to see your baby." And I am always curious about going into people's houses. I always wonder what it is like. And so, I rushed right down in there, and she lived in this add-on trailer with her husband and five children. And right down there was just really intense. And she showed me her little baby Toddy, and she invited me in there, and I spent a lot of time in there talking, and she was reading the paper, the New York Daily News. And anyway, we got to be friends. And so, I asked her if I can make a videotape about her life. She said, "Sure." I said, "What I will do is I will just bring the camera down, we will leave the camera running, and we will see what you do all day. And then we will come back and we will edit it. We will see what the story is." So I would go down there and I would spend the time with her, and she'd be cleaning the house and doing the wash and hanging the wash. And then Bobby, her husband would come home with his father and all the Benjamin people. She would make hot dogs for them and they had lunch. And then the teenagers would come, mom, I this. I do not want to do that. And it was just like a whiny stuff and just typical family stuff. And it was going on. And one day I just asked her, I said, "Harriet, do you ever think of just, how can you stand it? Do not you ever feel like taking off?" And she said, "Well, that sounds like a good idea. Let us do that." I said, "Okay, we will do that." And the camera was running, camera one running. She grabs her suitcase. She starts putting everything that she owns into this suitcase. She walks out into the yard, opens up the door, puts her stuff in the trunk of the car. It was not a trunk, I think it was a station wagon, so it was back. Slams down the hood, jumps into the car. I jumped into the car with her, especially, she pulls out of the driveway and starts singing, "Roll Out the Barrel", and starts driving and we are driving and driving and driving and driving. I am thinking, what is happening? Is this an act? Is it real? Is this life? Is it what she wants? Anyway, it turned out that, of course, she went back home for her family and did all that. And I came home with this footage. And so, when I was cutting the tape, I went with it. And at a certain point, I had her leaving. And the further that we drove, the more hysterical she became. She just was so pleased with herself. And I think the answer to your question, why was she laughing? Was that she empowered herself. She saw that she could do it.

SM:
That is a very important message within the era too.

NC:
Yeah.

SM:
Yeah. One of the other videos, and again, I did not look at all of them, but there was that very short 32nd one with Abby Hoffman. I think Paul was to the right of Abby. And when he was talking about Jay Edgar Hoover, is that...

NC:
I do not know that tape.

SM:
That is a video freaks tape too. And it was very short and sweet. It was really good.

NC:
30 seconds of Abby, where did you go?

SM:
Oh, you just go on the computer and you put your name in there under YouTube.

NC:
Oh, you went...

SM:
Yeah, you got to go YouTube and then YouTube, you will come up with the tape of that we just described, and then you will see a little snippet. Some of the things are not yours, but this one looks like it is a Video Freaks. And it was very good telling about J Edgar Hoover, a 70-year-old man who would never had sex. And I mean...

NC:
[inaudible]

SM:
Abby is unbelievable. Anyways, what were some of the events that Video Freaks covered in those times? I know they covered Woodstock with those films.

NC:
As it started out, it started out with Woodstock. All right. So then during that summer it was the... Oh, that is what you may have been talking about. It was the trial of the Chicago eight.

SM:
Yes.

NC:
And that was the first place that I was assigned by my boss at CBS, go with the Video Freak and cover that trial. And David Court had gone to Brandeis University with Abby, and that was our connection. They were friends. So, we drove out to Chicago, and I went with Perry, and David, and Curtis, the first three original Video Freaks. And we made that connection with Abby, and he had just been released from jail, although the trial was still on. We met them at some kind of basement coffee house. And there was a long, long interview with David Court shooting it in. Carrie holding the microphone. Oh no, I think it was Terry shooting and David holding the microphone. And there might have been a little clip from that of Abby speaking most out outrageously. And so, we were on the streets with that. The streets were just filled with people, and they were not only, there was huge protests going on it. So, it was not only protesting about the trial, it was protesting about everything that was going on. And the war, basically women's right. Basically, women's rights, everything. So that was the second major thing. And I really had no experience with the counterculture at all until I went on that shoot.

SM:
Were you allowed to go inside the trial or did you have to wait outside?

NC:
Oh, no, there were no cameras allowed inside there at all. Too bad. But a lot of people have recreated those events.

SM:
Were you able to sit there though, or just watch or-

NC:
No.

SM:
Okay.

NC:
No, but we spent a lot of time with them and also met the Black Panther Party at that time, and we did a long interview with Fred Hampton.

SM:
Oh, wow.

NC:
And he was killed by the Chicago police three weeks, maybe three or four weeks after we interviewed him. I was so strange. We went up to this place and there is all these Black Panthers who were at a beautiful town home owned by a supporter of theirs in Old Town Chicago. And we go up there bloated with people and they are saying, they are talking and they are laughing. They are like, "Oh, oh, off the pigs." And all this stuff. And I did not know what they were talking about. And I would say, "Well, what does that mean?" And I said, "Well, I am not from Chicago, so I do not know." I got a lot of big laughs. I did not really realize what it was.

SM:
Were the other Black Panthers there, like Stokely Carmichael?

NC:
Oh-no, no, not Stokely. Well, people that-

SM:
Cleavers?

NC:
I do not know the names of the, but we did a long interview with Fred, who was at that time.

SM:
What was the gist of that interview? What was he saying?

NC:
I am going to look up on a page and see if I can find something that I quote you.

SM:
Because I know there is a video of him on the streets, but I do not think that is a Videofreex-

NC:
But there is a Videofreex, and I think it is on, might be on, if you go to YouTube and go to Videofreex, the page Videofreex that has a bunch of stuff on it. And I think that it has pretty much a lot of the Fred Hampton interview. Let me see here.

SM:
One of the things when I was looking also at your experiences with CamNet later on, these are quotes that I think, and correct me if I am wrong, that go directly back to Videofreex. And these are quotes from you. "What we are after is emotional resonance. People are allowed to talk more than just a sentence or two. It is a window into the real dirty, unvarnished, unedited world. Just tell the story by telling us." And that was CamNet, but was not that Videofreex too?

NC:
Well, that was it. CamNet was, that is still my email address. So CamNet happened, well, let us see, after the Videofreex after Lanesville TV, some of us moved to Woodstock, New York. We did. And we started doing cable television access in Woodstock, New York, which was loaded with a lot of artists. And we got into a lot of trouble there with access and letting people say what they wanted to. And that was a lot of fun. And then I moved to Venice Beach, California. And well, by the time I got to California, I had with many of my friends and colleagues, put together a program called The (19)90s, which played on public television for seasons. And after The (19)90s, it was over, that played from 1989 to like (19)92. And after that, Judith Bender and I put together CamNet, which was the Camcorder Network. And somehow it was through a series of events it got cable access in, I think eight large cities, 24 hours a day. So, we are on the air 24 hours a day playing these videos that our correspondence would send us from all over the country. And that got a lot of press. And we got on the media food chain that the Wall Street Journal picked up on it. Wall Street Journal did a piece, and they actually made a little drawing of us, the whole thing, and put it on the front page of the marketplace. So, then the LA Times picked up on it and TV Guide picked up on it, and just one thing after another. And it got very big, but we could not raise enough money to keep it going, and it eventually folded.

SM:
Well, I have some questions here that are going back and forward between Videofreex and CamNet, so bear with me here. I am going to get back to Videofreex just briefly. In terms of you personally, no one else but you, what did this experience with Videofreex teach you about the young people of that period of (19)69 and (19)70, of the Boomer generation? And secondly, what did it teach you about our nation as a whole?

NC:
Oh, well, it certainly opened my eyes to the politic. I had never been really that political, but I think it was that, it was the opening, the freeing of the media and the ending the war. Those seemed to be the things that changed everything for me. And I never went back.

SM:
That Fred Hampton experience and videotaping him, or again, the tape I remember seeing is that he was a powerful speaker and that he seemed to be very well educated when he got on that stage in Chicago, wherever-

NC:
But he was like 22 years old or something.

SM:
Yeah. He so seemed to be, why was he such a threat to the establishment?

NC:
Well, let me see how I say... Why was he such a threat? Well, the Black Panther Party was a threat because they wanted their rights and they were powerful. And yes, they were definitely a threat. Let me just look, I am just looking through my notes here just to look back to see what kind of quotes I have from him here. Yeah. Fred Hampton. Fred Hampton, here is what I wrote about it. "Fred Hampton stood out among the Panthers as a thoughtful, soft-spoken leader. Perry asked him the first question, "You and the people around you always seem to be in danger. You could be killed as you walk out of here. If you are killed, will the breakfast program go on a day-to-day level?" And Fred Hampton answered, "Last year, we started a free Breakfast for Children program, and this year we gave it to the people, and they're running the program already. Our whole program is geared toward educating the masses of people. And say that Free health Clinic we have, the people in the community are going to run that clinic. And after a while, we are going to give them that clinic and we are going to move on to higher levels because we understand the difference between the vanguard and the people. We are not worried about them killing anybody. I think that you know they jailed Huey P. Newton, and they ran Eldridge Cleaver out of the country, and they jailed Bobby Seale. And we have got David Hilliard up there now who is very capable, most capable of running the Black Panther Party. So, they can just take all of them they want to, and we will have someone to fulfill that position because that is the type of organization the Black Panther Party is. We do not produce buffoons. We produce leaders. And anybody in the Black Panther Party and any type of cadre is becoming a leader. Our Deputy Minister of Health in the State of Illinois can run the Black Panther Party. And so, can anybody in this cadre. So, all that they are involved with is an excursion in futility. Because anybody that tries to deal with wiping out the leadership of the Black Panther Party is dealing with a time waste. A futile effort to seize some type of power that can never be seized, because a type of unending flow of this power. Every time somebody moves, we are just producing more and more people. The story goes, they wiped out Martin Luther King, and they wiped out Malcolm X, you know what I mean? And they wiped out all these people, and these people were produced. So, I think that in the near future, you will see programs initiated by the government. They will probably have the CIA protecting people like us, because when they wiped out Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver popped up, I know very well they would be saying, "I wish to hell we would have kept Huey P. Newton on the scene because this motherfucker is out of his mind." There was righteous laughter and nods of, "Right on, right on, right on."" And that was the beginning of our interview with them.

SM:
Wow. Can I use that in my-

NC:
Absolutely.

SM:
Yeah. This is important because when you are looking at the period that we are talking about, I think I even talked about this with Paul, that one of the challenges in this period was the Black Panther challenging these established African American leaders, which was the Dr. King's and the Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins. And even the Julian Bonds and the John Lewis's. This was Robert Moses, the guy from SNCC, I think left SNCC because he felt it was becoming too radical in some respects. So, did you sense that when you saw the Fred Hamptons, the Black Panthers? Did you even think about the people like I just mentioned here, the civil rights leaders that went through so much in the (19)50s and the (19)60s?

NC:
Well, because they could not have been a Black Panther party without that, I feel. That was the next step that it had to be. And they could not wait any longer. They just could not. They had to go.

SM:
Do you feel, it is something that I have felt for a long time, that when someone asked Martin Luther King what he thought of Thurgood Marshall, he had tremendous respect for Thurgood Marshall. But he felt that the Brown versus Board of Education decision and all the things that he had been involved in were two gradual. That was the gradual approach to civil rights. So, he wanted it now, Dr. King. So, the next phase you think was the Black Panthers, or even-

NC:
What it looks like, does not it?

SM:
Yeah. Then no more of this gradualness. The other thing is, what did you think of the Yippies? Because I know, I have talked to several people, Paul and many others now. I have a tremendous... I have always liked Abbie Hoffman, so-

NC:
He is great.

SM:
I have always respected Abbie. I have had my differences opinion about Jerry Rubin, but Abbie was kind of unique. But when you think overall about the Yippies, you were around them in Chicago. You saw Abbie, you saw Jerry. And then you were around people like Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Dave Gallinger, Lee Weiner, and even their lawyers, Leonard Weinglass, and William Kunstler. And Bobby Seale obviously was there. Just your thoughts on being around them.

NC:
Right. Well, was in intense and it was heavy. I know that the Yippies are kind of famous for being like comics. They made it exciting. They made it funny. They made it like a party. They made it good time. At least that is what it seemed like. And they brought a lot of kids to Chicago, so that when we went there, we were involved with the defense, the group. This one, I am looking down here to see if I can find. Okay. "Abbie invited us to the Conspiracy Defense office, Chicago seven. Dave Dellinger, renowned pacifist, activist for nonviolent socials change, the oldest of the defendants," I am just reading down my notes here," "was there, along with William Kunstler, fiery defense attorney, Abbie Hoffman of the Yippies, and Tom Hayden of the SDS." Okay. So, we were there at the place and we were taping and we were taping. We have been taping for an hour, and nobody said anything to us about the camera, the microphone. Finally, Tom Hayden, who ultimately turned to us and said, "Who are you with?" And David said, "Well, it is partly an underground thing, but we are also showing the footage to CBS." That is all Hayden had to hear. And he refused to let us leave the office with the footage. After a long, long, long debate, David erased the major sections of the video while Hayden, who did not trust CBS, looked on. And after the meeting, I called Don, my boss in New York, and I told him, "We have run into a little glitch here, and I was wondering if you could tell me, if just let us say, if the FBI calls you and asks to see the footage that we were shooting, would you show it to them?" Oops, just lost my page. I do not even know what page I was on. All right. Bear with me here a moment.

SM:
Okay. Yeah. While you are looking for that, I just want to say that some of the people that I have interviewed just are very flippant about you. They said, "Oh, they are just a theater group and they did not mean nothing." And so, it was very important in this project that I get substance from as many people as possible. But yeah, there was a lot of theater involved, but-

NC:
Yeah, but that is what brought them, that is what brought them.

SM:
There was also-

NC:
That brought kids.

SM:
Also, Abbie I thought was very serious. And actually, I find out he was well liked by just about everybody including his enemies.

NC:
Yeah. Here is some more Abbie stuff and you are going to have a hell of a job editing this. Sorry about this.

SM:
It is okay.

NC:
But just going around and around, talking to Abbie. He, in the beginning-

SM:
Let me turn my tape here. Hold on one second.

NC:
Okay.

SM:
All right, I am back.

NC:
Okay. All right. So, there we are down in the basement coffee house with Abbie, who is David Gold's friend from college. And David asked them, "So you have done TV interviews before? And no, you have not? This is your first?" Said David, getting a big laugh from the group. "Is there anything you would like to say?" Abbie says, "Fuck." And then there is a big laugh.

SM:
That is my cell phone. Bear with me. I do not know why... Do not worry. Go ahead. Hold on one second. Hold on. I am going to...

NC:
Oh, okay.

SM:
I thought I turned it off. Okay, go ahead.

NC:
All right, we cool? Okay. So, Abbie says "Fuck." That is the first thing he says on the interview. And David asked him if he was having fun. And then first thing Abbie says is, "What is this for?" Which is the typical thing that I heard from that time forward. Almost every place I went for the next 20 years, someone asked me, "What is this for?" But anyway, he did. And he said, "What are you going to do with this after it is done?" And David said, "Well, maybe we will put it on television." And Abbie says, "Network TV?" And David says, "Yeah, what do you think about network TV?" And Abbie says, "My favorite shows are Lawrence Welk and Land of the Giants. It is the truth. I thought I was just making fun of that because they are kind of campy. But then I figured out that they're the only shows I watch, so I must like them."

SM:
Actually, my parents loved Lawrence Welk.

NC:
Oh, there you go. Right, yeah.

SM:
So, they would have liked Abbie.

NC:
And let us see. Then they went on to discuss the weatherman action. Because then Abbie did say he liked the news, so David asked him about the weatherman. He said, "What do you think about the weatherman action last night when a brick was thrown through a barbershop window?" And Abbie said, he thought that was stupid. He said, "You have to lay an action so that you have some morality on your side so you can split the ruling class. What they did unites the ruling class," he said. Then David asked them if he thought he was going to get a fair trial. And Abbie said, "I will get the usual fair trial Chicago style. They are building gallows on the third floor. Some people say that is a pretty pessimistic sign, but I do not know. There is guys practicing a drum roll." And David says, "That is a little scary." And Abbie says, "No, no, not scary until the last days, then shocking. But it's never scary. No, it is just the last day when they say guilty and you said, "What? After all this shit, three fucking months, guilty?" And the poor jury says, "Abbie, they are doing time. They're just locked up. They cannot fuck or nothing. They cannot watch TV." "It is a good state of mind to put them in for the judge, isn't it?" Asked David. "Well, that is the thing that happens when you are locked up, because all they do is have contact with government people. US Marshals are the only ones they see, so eventually they feel an important part of the government team. The judge, the past four years has had 24 jury trials, and guess how many guilties?" "How many?" "24." Everyone laughs up joyously. What else could they do.

SM:
Now, just from being around, that is David Cort doing that interview?

NC:
Yes. Yeah.

SM:
Is this Cort K-O-R-T or C-O-R-T?

NC:
C-O-R-T.

SM:
K?

NC:
C-O-R-T.

SM:
Oh, yeah. Is he related to Cort Furniture?

NC:
I do not think so.

SM:
Okay. Because they are a pretty well-off group. How did these guys get along? I know that obviously Abbie and Jerry Rubin were in the Yippies, but how did he get along with the Haydens and the-

NC:
I am really not sure. They were from different groups. There was the Students for Democratic Society. There was mobilization for Bible and the Yippies and I do not know, a couple of other factions that really, I do not think they were together seriously, or friends, great, tight friends or anything, before the convention in (19)68.

SM:
Did you cover other countercultural happenings during that timeframe before you moved back-

NC:
Yes, because then we got totally involved in that and the war was refusing to be over. And so, we did cover many demonstrations, mostly in Washington DC. I am just going to look up the-

SM:
Were you at the, what do you call it? The-

NC:
was it (19)70 or (19)71? But I will find it.

SM:
There was the big one in (19)69, I know.

NC:
No, this was after that. It was very telling. Coming up here, coming up, coming up. Come on.

SM:
I am going to mention just two quotes of yours too, again. This is dealing going forward to (19)92 in the formation of CamNet, but I want you to talk about the counterculture, but these are quotes from you. "We are not here to confront them. We are here to hear them. I think people are starved to be heard. Most of the time people are not being heard." And then secondly, you love this, both you and other person, Kim. "And it is not just a job. It is a way of life." This is how one defines activism in the (19)60s and (19)70s. That is me talking, because when you start talking about, and the things I have read about you and your other organizer of CamNet is that activism is a 24/7 thing. It is a seven day a week happening. It is not like volunteerism where you have two hours. And when you start talking about, "It is not just a job, it is a way of life. This is how one defines activism in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. We have to do this." And I love you have an attitude, "We have to do it." And-

NC:
I do not remember saying that. I am saying, "Who is that?"

SM:
You.

NC:
That is so true.

SM:
That is, you. That is, you and the person you worked with.

NC:
Judith.

SM:
Yes. Yeah.

NC:
Oh yeah. Here it is. It was 1971, one year after Kent State University demonstration where four students were shot dead by the Ohio National Guard. To commemorate that event, protestors were going to Washington to close down the government by blocking all major roads to the District of Columbia. And the Videofreex were going to document it. On April 29th, David, Davidson... I am naming these names of the people who are now Videofreex, Davidson Gelati, Chuck Kennedy, of course, Perry Tisdale, Carol Vontobel, prepared to drive down to DC to cover it. David had met Davidson on West Broadway one day during the CBS project, and Davidson had a porta packet. He had a video camera in his hand. It was very rare. So, David brought him home immediately and he joined up. It was just like that. People would just quit everything they were doing and come along. It was crazy. It was wonderful. Anyway, "In DC the Videofreex met up with a larger video collective, including a lot of kids from Antioch College in Ohio. The Mayday Collective had arranged for Crash Pad for activists." So, I say here, oh, "The Videofreex hit the street. It was loud and tear-gassy, and hovering helicopters were scattering the protestors."

SM:
This is on the 29th of April?

NC:
Yeah, this was the 1st of May. I say, "It's loud and tear... On television, president Nixon was addressing the nation."

NC:
On television President Nixon was addressing the nation, here is Nixon. "Some people on television may have gotten the impression that when they saw the demonstrations down at the Senate, and that Barry Goldwater's door had red paint on it, I understand, and his office was locked, and that Washington is somewhat in a state of siege. But well, let me just make one thing very clear, that Congress is not intimidated, the President is not intimidated, this government is going to go forward. It does not mean that we are not going to listen to those who come peacefully, but those who come and break the law will be prosecuted, the full extent of the law. In the meantime, however, I as president, have my obligation to consider what they say and all the other things that I know, and then make the decision that I think will be in their best interest as well as the best interest of the people of the country." And then the police are shouting over loudspeakers. "Attention, attention, this is the Metropolitan Police Department. Everyone must leave the area immediately. Those who do not leave the area in violation of the law and will be arrested." Helicopters are landing, military troops are swarming the streets, sirens. A man is dragged off into the bushes and clubbed by two DC cops, the young boy is pulled from his bicycle and shoved into a paddy wagon by police who trampled his bike in the process. David got clubbed in the knee by a cop for shooting video. A young woman medic wearing a headband and white T-shirt with a red Cross painted on it spoke to David's video camera while the people were being arrested and dragged off all around her. She was a modern-day Clara Barton on the front lines, naive, innocent, brave. "Why are you staying here?" David asked. "Oh, I am here because I ought to stay and get busted with my people. Some of the medics are going to go behind the pig lines and use pig tactics and do what the pigs say, I am not going to, I am going to stay and get busted with my people. And when somebody is getting beat on the ground I am going to stop the pig from beating him so I can help him. I am not going to say, oh dear sir with a silver badge, can I help you? Can I treat my people now? Fuck that shit, I am not going to do none of that." And that is how the kids were at that thing.

SM:
Wow. Yeah, the intensity was... Back in sixty when you are talking about what happened with the Black Panthers, some of the people I have interviewed were very supportive of groups like SDS when they became the Weathermen, or when the American Indian Movement went toward violence at Wounded Knee, or when violence ever became part of any of the other movements, that is when it turned people off.

NC:
Well, the violence, it turns people off. Violence? What about the wars, and what about the government's violence? Yes, it is a terrible thing, but it is also a reality.

SM:
You think it hurt the Black Panthers though? Because there were people that thought they were violent.

NC:
Well, something hurt the Black Panthers, they are gone. I mean, there are new Black Panthers now, but I do not really know what kind of effect [inaudible].

SM:
Well, I think the old Black Panthers do not like the new ones. But again, you and Judith Binder created CamNet.

NC:
Yes.

SM:
What movements or events brought you together in 1992?

NC:
Oh, well, I was living in LA, and I was working on The 90's, which was basically a larger group of the same people from the beginning for me. And it was based in Chicago, Tom Weinberg was the mover and shaker, he was the guy who got the money, he got the money from the MacArthur Foundation and some other places to put this together, and the sensibility of the videos was the same or even more so. And I met Judith downtown at the Wallenboyd Theater. I met Paul when I moved to Venice, and Paul was doing a show down at the Wallenboyd Theater, and Judith was producing other shows down there. And then we went out to dinner one night after a show, I had not known her. You know how you were sitting at a big table and there was a bunch of people? And she was sitting on one side of me, and I did not know her. And I overheard her saying something like, "I have so many videos that I have to shoot, I do not know what I am going to do. I do not have enough time, and I do not know what I am going to..." And I turned I said, " Videos, you are shooting videos?" And she said, "Yes." And she apparently had been doing it. She was a native LA, so she knew everybody in LA, and was putting together a lot of tape. And I said, "Well, you must come to Venice immediately." She came down there and she brought her tape, and we saw that we were doing the same thing. And so, I hired her to help me with The 90's, and after The 90's was over we stuck together and continued our quest.

SM:
I got some questions in a couple minutes about that program, The 90's. But I got here, you came together in (19)92, and then how...

NC:
We came together actually before that, but we came together and got CamNet going in (19)92. I think it was, or (19)91.

SM:
How did these movements that were taking place at this time... I am talking about the ones when you were at Videofreex, and then you moved off to different areas before CamNet. How did the development of these movements in the late (19)60s and (19)70s, which is the end... Well, obviously the women's movement formed, the gay and lesbian Movement after Stonewall in (19)69. You had the Native American movement, which is the AIM organization taking over Alcatraz in (19)69, through Wounded Knee in (19)73. You had Earth Day in 1970. You had the civil rights movement that was going through changes with the Black Panthers, and then the anti-war movement was continuing. So, you have got all these movements, did you cover all these movements, and did you see a closeness between the movements back then?

NC:
I do not know if I saw a closeness between the movements. I will tell you what, I do not know the answer to that. Everything was happening at once, it is true, it all happened, I did not know all the people that you just mentioned. But what is the question again?

SM:
It is basically, did you have a chance to cover all of these movements?

NC:
I did some things, it was not all politics either. It was arts, and it was sometimes just people who might not have been particularly activists or political. But we did a long series called Working based on Studs Terkel.

SM:
Oh yeah, great book.

NC:
So, we did a lot of things based on going to work with people, just ordinary people in all lines of work and all places. So, they were not necessary political or activists, but just being with them and spending that time, and seeing how people deal with their lives. The personal did become political to me, and I saw everything in sort of a larger sense.

SM:
Well, the people who write about the history of the anti-war movement and other movements say that only between five and 15 percent of the boomer generation was even involved in activism, and 85 percent were not.

NC:
That is right. I do not know what the boomers are, I do not even know what that is.

SM:
Boomer generation are people born between 1946 and 1964.

NC:
Right. So that does not mean anything to me, because I did not consider myself a boomer. Well, I am not really, I am a little older than that. But I do not think that just necessarily being born in those years would make you a part of the movements that happened while you were living.

SM:
Well, a lot of the people that were involved in leadership roles were born between (19)40 and (19)46.

NC:
That is me, yeah.

SM:
And I know Abbie Hoffman was, and I think Jerry Rubin was. But a lot of people have had problems with just the concept of generations like the Greatest Generation, which Tom Brokaw talked about. And then you got the boomer generation, you got the silent generation, you got Generation X, and then now you got the millennials. So, you have issues with those kinds of definitions?

NC:
Yeah, I am not concerned with that, because it is about what the issues are, what matters to you, or what becomes important to you.

SM:
When you were doing these things, like interviewing people linked to the Studs Terkel book, and people who were working, this was in the early (19)70s?

NC:
Yes, all through the (19)70s.

SM:
Did any of them ever say that any of these world events were having an effect on their lives, or they just talked about putting bread on the table every day?

NC:
That is right. I do not remember bringing up anything outside of their experience, because what I was doing was living their experience.

SM:
Right. And with Videofreex and CamNet, this is something I think you made reference to earlier, you are a female, and a lot of the problems in the late (19)60s is that most of these movements that I mentioned were sexist. That many women had to leave the anti-war movement and civil rights movements, because women were placed in secondary roles. And I know that in the gay and lesbian movement, it was the same thing, because I have talked to people. And I think in some of the other movements, except the environmental movement, I think it is similar. Did you sense sexism in the anti-war movement and the civil rights movements of the late (19)60s and (19)70s?

NC:
Oh, totally, yes. If I had been doing film, I do not know what I would have done, because of whole... Because video started when the women's movement started, and you were not allowed, it just was not acceptable to be sexist, and they were so very conscious of it. But in the meantime, film up until that point, and any filmmakers, even at the beginning, film collectives, definitely they did not have that thing going, because the men already knew how to run the film camera, and they already knew all that other stuff, and the woman might have just been learning. But with video, we all started at the same place, it was a new technology, it was a new camera, no one had ever seen it before, we all had to learn it together. So, when we learned it, it was not a question of the men learning it first and then deciding which women could do it. So, it just was my good fortune to run into this new tech, and all our boys were very good.

SM:
Did you see it in the Yippies, or even in the hippies? [inaudible].

NC:
I am sure, I did not know the Yippies very well, but when you read about them, you do not hear too much about women. Although lately I have met a lot of women who did a lot of that stuff then and were not noticed. I know them now, and I know they are very powerful and smart, and they probably made a lot of things happen, that it was never known.

SM:
This next question just deals with periods of the times when boomers have been alive. And again, forget just thinking about the boomer generation now, these are just periods after World War II, and what they mean to you personally, I asked the same question to Paul. I will ask broken down into parts here. In your eyes, briefly describe how you would define the following periods, and the first one is the period between 1946 and 1960?

NC:
Between 1946 and 1960.

SM:
1960, what was it like to live in America in that time from your perspective?

NC:
It was great, it was wonderful. Oh, your daddy was rich and your mom was good-looking. I did not have too many problems during those years, but I mean, of course the war was over, the cars were rolling off. I grew up in Detroit, Detroit now if you look, it is in the news how terrible it is. They're going to raise the whole town and put in farmland, there is nothing left in Detroit, the culture is gone, everything is gone. But between 1946 and 1960, the best years for Detroit. And in 1960 I turned 20, so I guess I was beginning to be an adult at the end of those times. So, I did not have any problems, I did not have to earn any money, and went to college, and I had a convertible car, and I drove anywhere I wanted to.

SM:
Did you have any issues with the late forties and (19)50s?

NC:
I am trying to think if I had any, I was just a child. But we were Democrats, and we never could win an election. But now looking back, I think Eisenhower was not so bad in comparison to what come after him.

SM:
What did you think of the period 1961 to 1970?

NC:
Oh, the (19)60s was just great, everything happened to me, my eyes were opened. I mean, I saw what a terrible world it was, and yet it was so very exciting, and I wanted to know everything. And I took a lot of chances, I had a lot of adventures, I took some drugs, met a lot of people, I moved around, and by the time 1970 happened I was clear about my past. So that was a very informative part of my life, everything happened then. And on the other end of the (19)60s, I ended up kind of feeling as if I knew who I was, and what I thought about things, and what I wanted to do.

SM:
Well, that gets right into 1971 to 1980.

NC:
Yes, those are my hippie years. It was just great, traveled everywhere. The camera took me everywhere, the camera was my ticket to adventure, thrills and chills, I really enjoyed it. I had just one health issue in the (19)70s.

SM:
How about the 1980s? 1981 to 1990.

NC:
Right. Well, in 1978 I moved to Woodstock, and in 1984 I moved to California. So, the beginning of the (19)80s was kind of not that exciting for me, because I had already done so much video. But I moved to Woodstock and put together this little access TV station, which was a lot of fun, and I taught a lot of people how to do it. But then I was not so excited about doing it with them anymore, I wanted something else. And so, I left it with them to do, and started over again in California. When I came to California, I had been working for so many years at a not-for-profit company. I realized that I did not have anything to show for it, I had to borrow $700 to fly to California with my duffel bag.

SM:
How about the (19)90s? 1991 to 2000.

NC:
Yes, and that was the Venice Beach. And then it was going back and forth from Chicago and traveling around, putting together the show for PBS, and then doing CamNet out of the back bedroom of our little house in Venice.

SM:
Wow, and how about 2001 to right now?

NC:
Right, in the end was 2000, the beginning of 2001, Paul and I moved to the desert. And let us see, I am trying to think. Well, it has gone so fast, it has gone by so quickly. I learned how to cook, I learned how to be a homemaker. We bought a house, which neither of us had ever owned a home before, so we have a home. I still shoot video, but I shoot it on a flip video, have you ever seen those things? I mean, it is the size of a pack of cigarettes, and it holds a couple of hours of... And it is not tape, everything is digital. So, I carry it in my pocket, if something is moving that interests me, I tape it. I do not tape it, I record it, and then I put it up on YouTube. So, I can put up anything I want at any time that is interesting to me. And there is a lot of protests and some things, and we're fighting to legalize marijuana and other things locally around here, that is kind of fun.

SM:
I am trying to get an interview with Dennis Peron, do you know?

NC:
Oh, definitely.

SM:
Yeah. Well, I had an interview with him and he was sick. Well, he emailed me and said he was sick about 15 minutes before I was supposed to call him, so I got to find out how he's doing, because that was three or four weeks ago.

NC:
Yeah. So that is good, and I also take hundreds of pictures every week, photos.

SM:
Are the Videofreex and the CamNet, are they all going someplace for posterity and history?

NC:
Yes, the Videofreex is at the Video Data Bank in Chicago. It's part of the Chicago Institute of Art.

SM:
Very good.

NC:
And it is so interesting, because I just went there a couple of years ago. And they have all of our tapes that were in Lanesville that were on shelves with all our handwriting on the side spines, and on shelves exactly the way that they were, they have them there. And I am looking down there, I say, "Oh, there is me playing Santa Claus." Just everything, it is amazing. And the Videofreex have, as I said earlier, put together a partnership. We are trying to restore a lot of these things, which many of these tapes may not be able to be played more than once, they are growing mold and other things. So, each tape has to be dealt with individually, and it costs some money to put them back in shape. So, we are raising money, and people and filmmakers are looking for this information, and are interested in having these tapes restored.

SM:
Important for history.

NC:
So yes, that is happening. And the other later stuff is being kept in Chicago also with a project called Media Burn, and they also have thousands of tapes from the (19)70s, (19)80s.

SM:
So, everything you are doing the rest of your life are actually going to go there as well?

NC:
Yes.

SM:
Okay, good.

NC:
Yeah. And pretty much a lot of it is digitized, and you can go there and look at hundreds of hours of videos at Media Burn, and can see all that. And there's even a lot of Lanesville TV there.

SM:
This is a question; how would you respond to critics who say that a lot of the problems in our society today go back to the (19)60s and (19)70s when morality and ethics seemed to be wanting. And it led directly to the following, expansive drug culture, sexual mores dwindled, the divorce rate increased, more people became dependent on government welfare, more irresponsible behavior, sense of violence in our society, a lack of respect for authority, and the breakup of the American family. And then you even had Barney Frank, a Democrat, who in his book speaking frankly, saying that the Democratic Party could not survive if it did not denounce the anti-war people linked to George McGovern in 1972. For the Democratic Party to survive, it must say goodbye to the anti-war people. Just your thoughts on the critics of this era, and the critics are people like Newt Gingrich, George Will, Governor Huckabee, it is conservatives, but there are some liberals that say it too.

NC:
Well, that whole thing you just said, I think that is total bullshit, a hundred percent bullshit. So, all the things that you mentioned, those are all the good things that happened, and anything good that is happening now happened because, go back down on that list. I say the opposite.

SM:
Okay, and why would you say that?

NC:
Okay. Well, what was the first thing on that list? [inaudible].

SM:
Drug culture.

NC:
Drug use?

SM:
Yes.

NC:
Oh, please. It expanded your mind, it opened up your mind, it made you smarter and wiser. And I disregard that, I think that...

SM:
The divorce rate.

NC:
Divorce rate? Well, if they got divorced, that means that they should be divorced.

SM:
Sexual mores.

NC:
Sexual mores? Please, let us forget that puritan ethic. We do not want that.

SM:
Government welfare.

NC:
Government welfare? Well, I really wish there was more of it, we deserve to have it.

SM:
Irresponsible behavior.

NC:
Irresponsible behavior? And more of it.

SM:
Violence.

NC:
Violence? Well, violence breeds violence, that is true. I am for peace a hundred percent. I do not like violence, but I do not think it is the fault of the previous mentioned things that brings it on.

SM:
Breakup of the American family.

NC:
All right.

SM:
Lack of respect...

NC:
I do not think that is true though, because the families I know are not broken up, and the families I know their kids are brilliant and fabulous. And all the kids in my family are just superb, and all my friends' kids turned out great.

SM:
How about the... What was it here? I guess, the violence, lack of respect for authority.

NC:
Definitely, let us not respect authority.

SM:
And how about Barney Frank?

NC:
Barney Frank wants to get elected, he wants to keep his job. Nobody's perfect, I think he is probably a nice guy.

SM:
Yeah. Could you define some of the positive characteristics of the boomer generation based on those you have known and seen over the years? I know you cannot talk about 74 million people, but just some of the positives or negatives within the boomers that you have known, or some of their characteristics.

NC:
Well, I mean, everybody that I grew up with is them, right?

SM:
If they were born after the war.

NC:
Yeah, my sister was born the day after the war. She is so smart and brilliant, my sister, I wish she was president. I do not know. [inaudible]. Oh, give me a hint.

SM:
Well, that is up to you. Some people say they just cannot talk about 74 million people.

NC:
Well, I can talk about 70... I do not know, the boomer generation as opposed to... Well, the boomer generation, they had a good chance at it. They had a good chance, all the things that were happening between 1946 and now, because they are still alive, just a great time to be alive.

SM:
Was there a generation gap in your family between your parents and you?

NC:
Oh, yes.

SM:
Explain that.

NC:
Yeah. I think my parents were freaking out when I took off in the Volkswagen bus to drive to... I mean, because it was a little late for me to do that, but I did take some time off in the (19)60s to drive across the country and do some things that made them very worried. And they were just a little bit worried about in the early days, in the CBS project, they were kind of afraid for me, like my niece has just joined the Peace Corps and is going to Cameroon. "Right, that would be [inaudible]." If I did not know her, and I would say that. But my first reaction was, "Oh my God, where's that? Who lives there? What do you have to do?" I mean, I was afraid for her.

SM:
Yeah. I have always said one positive, this is about you, but I have always said one positive, is you could hitchhike back in the (19)60s and the early (19)70s and go across the country and not worry about being murdered. Today you cannot hitchhike because you would probably end up dead.

NC:
That is right. So, I am afraid for her, but that is not rational because she's doing what she wants to do, and she is going to have a great adventure. And so, then my parents actually realized that at a certain point, when I said, "I do not want Nancy to go off with these crazy hippies, where people might be dangerous." And they finally said, "Well, that is what I do not want to do. Nancy wants to do that."

SM:
We always think of the generation gap as between parents and children, was there a generation gap within the generation, that is of boomers? Those who served in Vietnam or served in the military, and those who avoided service in Vietnam, would you consider that a generation gap?

NC:
Yeah, I would agree. I think so, that was tough.

SM:
Did you have any experiences with Videofreex interviewing Vietnam vets on their return, and their feelings toward the end of the war?

NC:
Yes, very much so, and also with the Vietnam Vets Against the War. And when we went to both political conventions in 1972, we went to the McGovern Convention and we went to the second Nixon, they were both in Miami Beach.

SM (02:34:05):
Can you hold it right there? I got to-

NC:
Yeah. Yes, I did not mention this group TV-TV, which stands for, what did it call? Top Value Television that was put together by a producer name of Michael Shamberg, who is big movie producer now. But we started out in New York together. There was Video Freaks, there was RainDance Corporation, there was People's Video Theater, and there was Global Village, were the four big video groups in New York City during the time of the Video Freaks. And RainDance Corporation was run by Michael Shamberg and was a very-very intellectual guy and put out a publication called Radical Software in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s. Very smart guy. And he put together this video production group to cover the political conventions in 1972. And the video freaks marched with the Vietnam Veterans against the war, to both these conventions.

SM:
Ron Kovic, I believe was...

NC:
Ron Kovic had lots of videos. Ron, what a fantastic person. Really powerful.

SM:
I think that Bobby Mueller was another one, was not he? Bobby Mueller?

NC:
Bobby Mueller, but I do not know him. But video that we shot of Ron Kovic on the floor of the convention in 1972 at the Republican Convention Oliver Stone took that exact scene and recreated exactly in Born on the 4th of July. Tom Cruise. You can look at that movie and you can see him saying, stop the bombing. Stop the killing on the floor of the...

SM:
Do you remember some of the other Vietnam vets who you got to know?

NC:
Well, Frank Cavestani, he was also a video maker and also had been in the war and was a member of that group.

SM:
Did you ever have a chance to meet Jane Fonda?

NC:
I do not know Jane Fonda, no. I passed by her here and there at events, but I never met her or talked to her. I think Paul knows her, but I do not know.

SM:
In your own words, what was it like to be young in the (19)60s and (19)70s? Has there been a time like that for the young ever since, in your opinion? And in describing this period, give three examples that you remember of being young that stand out, could be good or bad.

NC:
Three examples of being young. Okay. Wait.

SM:
Good or bad.

NC:
Okay. How did you start the question?

SM:
In your own words, what was it like to be young in the (19)60s and (19)70s?

NC:
Well, it was just great, good luck, good fortune. And you know what, also for that other thing about sexual morals and that was, we did not have AIDS then. The kids today, they have the internet, they have digital, and they have a lot of things that move along more quickly and get you satisfied a lot faster. But they also have, that comes along with it, some terrible realities like AIDS and other things that are not so much fun. Well, and the music is not as great as it used to be, but I am old. Yeah, I think that being young at that time, that was... A lot of kids today, they wish they were... A lot of people say to me, they wish they would have been alive then.

SM:
You have had so many experiences in your life.

NC:
Many.

SM:
But are there three that you can remember that it was, wow, am I glad I am young now, or Geez, this is rough. This is a bad scene here, and I am a young person. Any just anecdotes that stand out?

NC:
I do not know. There was a sense of freedom, it is hard to describe. Well, there's the thing about money. We do not talk about money. I never made any. I could say that that is the bummer of the whole thing is I ended up here with 4 cents.

SM:
Well, that is a lot of people thought of the (19)60s money was secondary.

NC:
Worse than secondary. Hated it. Anything that had to do with money, I had no respect for money or people who liked or had or wanted to make money, no respect for that. Now I do not feel quite that way.

SM:
Yeah. And some of the richest people in the world today are Boomers. In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end?

NC:
Yeah, the (19)60s. Well, the (19)60s began for me, I am not going to say (19)65, even though for most people it probably did. But I was very straight working in the theater in New York at the time, was thinking about politics. I noticed that there was something happening at Columbia University, and a lot of people were protesting. Then I became much aware, that was like (19)67, (19)68, I became very aware of the counterculture, which I considered to be the (19)60s. And I think for me, maybe it was a short period of time, although it seems like it was so huge. But Kent State kind of killed it, all the goodness of it all.

SM:
Right.

NC:
And although I lived the (19)60s all during the (19)70s. For some people it might have ended, but for me it maybe ended around (19)78, I would say, because cause of my lifestyle.

SM:
Was there a watershed moment?

NC:
When it was over?

SM:
No. Was there a watershed moment that you feel for you was the most important happening during that timeframe? Maybe not only for you, but for the young people of the Boomer generation? It is a two-part question basically.

NC:
For me, a watershed, I do not know. I do not know the answer. I could...

SM:
Some people it was the Kennedy assassination.

NC:
Oh, right. Yeah. That was bad.

SM:
And when you were talking about theaters, you were in New York in the late (19)60s, were you caught up in the theater of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, because those were the two?

NC:
Yes, but I was not playing on Broadway. I played in cabaret theater, musical theater and cabaret. And I played in some Off Broadway, and I did radio shows, and I did TV commercials. I had an agent, my agent would send me for the best gig. Oh, I had a watershed back then, I suppose, because somebody sent me some acid from California when I was still working at theater. I had smoked pot, but I was never into psychedelics particularly. But I did not know it would work. It was like a little piece of [inaudible]. It was nothing. It was a joke. I just put it on my tongue. I forgot about it. I thought it was a joke and then I started to trip. And it was that day that I had an audition at Gray Advertising on Third Avenue for a big commercial for Dial soap. This was important. I was tripping, but I knew I had to go. And I went on the subway and everybody's face was melting and wild animals on the train.

SM:
Oh my God.

NC:
It was crazy. And I found the place, and I went up there and I read the ad. I was waiting for my chance to read for these advertising executives to see if I could get this commercial. And it was so disgusting that I quit the business.

SM:
Oh.

NC:
I gave the script back. They wanted me to take a shower and feeling really not so good feeling. And then you get in the shower with this bar of soap and it makes you feel so great and exhilarated. And I did not want to do it, I do not want to do what they tell me. And I said, well, wait a second. I am an actor and my job is to do what the director tells me. And I was sitting there in the waiting room there next to a woman who looked just like me, who was reading the same script. I said, no, I do not want to do this. I just did not know what I was going to do really, but I just handed the script back to the receptionist and said, oh, I do not like this. And I left. And I went outside onto Third Avenue, and I was like exhilarated and thrilled. And I said, oh, I just quit showing business. This is the greatest moment in my life. And it was maybe a year later that I got this job as the assistant to the producer at CBS after not having worked in show business as it was.

SM:
You would have been real good as a backdrop for 60 Minutes. You would have been. That is right up your alley.

NC:
Yeah, that is true. Except that was just really too straight for me, I could never go back to something like that.

SM:
Why did the war in Vietnam end, in your opinion?

NC:
Why did it end?

SM:
Mm-hmm.

NC:
Because we lost I think. We lost the war. Us lost the war.

SM:
How important were the college students in ending the war, in your opinion?

NC:
Well, I think they had something to do with it, because you cannot tell somebody that they are going to be drafted. Talk about quitting show business. You have to do what they tell you and go where they say and go and get killed. That is why they protested. That is why we do not have so much protest now, I think, because we have a professional army rather than a citizen army.

SM:
Do you remember exactly where you were when you heard that JFK was killed?

NC:
Yes.

SM:
Could you describe that?

NC:
Sure. I was working at the Vanguard Playhouse in Detroit. It was my first day off without a rehearsal because I was working in repertory theater. You do the show at night, and then you're rehearsing all day the next day for the next show, but then you go. But we had just opened a show, and I did not have any rehearsal that day. Living in a little apartment by myself. And I had just made myself a nice plate of asparagus and was watching a movie on TV with Betty Davis on it. I do not know the name of the movie because I did not see the beginning of it. There was tension, and it was black and white, very noir, very, very exciting. And she was walking with tension down the stairway. Someone was knocking on the door, she was about to open the door, and they cut away. Then they showed what was happening. They never cut back to anything for a week. They played for a week. And I was hysterical, crying, what did I know? I really loved him. I thought I really loved him. And I called up the director at the theater. I said, [inaudible] we cannot do the show tonight, we cannot go on. Everything is canceled. Everything is closed. No one is doing anything. It is all over. Everything is over. The world is over. He said, Nancy, just make sure you get here by call time for our show tonight. I said, no, how can we? How can we? He said, we have subscribers. They want theater. Whether they come or not, we are doing the show. The show must go on. And that is what it was. The show must go on. He actually said that.

SM:
And John Kennedy, if he were alive, would have told you to do it.

NC:
Maybe so, that is true. And then afterwards, I was singing in a club. After the show, I would go down to Momo's Cocktail Lounge where I was singing with a little trio, jazz stuff. And it was very not crowded. It was very, very glum and dreary over at the piano bar. And then as it got late, midnight, one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, people started coming in. Just to be, we were there together with each other.

SM:
Have you been to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC?

NC:
The what?

SM:
Have you been to the wall in Washington DC?

NC:
I have not.

SM:
Oh. Because I just want to know what your initial thoughts were on the wall?

NC:
But it is beautiful, and I think it is amazing. Better than a statue or some shit.

SM:
Since you have not been there it is hard to say. But if you are in a dream, say, and you are visiting the wall, what do you think your first reaction would be upon seeing it or being near it?

NC:
Well, I probably would go and touch it. I remember once I was at the Western wall in Jerusalem, approaching that, and my first instinct was to press my body up against it. I do not know why, but I did. But I feel like I might have the same reaction.

SM:
Was the generation born between (19)46 and (19)64, or the people born around it, which would include, I call pre-Boomers like you and Paul and Abby. I think you're all part of it. Richie Haven said to me once, he was born in (19)40, between (19)40 and I think 1940. He said, I am a Boomer. I am a Boomer in attitude. And I am not of the greatest generation or the silent generation. I am a Boomer.

NC:
Yeah. I think of him as that.

SM:
Yeah. The question I am asking is, do you think that the attitude that this generation, that they were the most unique generation in American history. What are your thoughts when you hear that? Because a lot of young people thought it when they were young and they thought they were going to change the world. They were going to bring peace to the world, and racism, sexism, homophobia. And people look at the world today and they say, man, the Boomers have failed.

NC:
Right. Well, I did not think the Boomers thought they were going to change the world, now that you mention it. It just happened to them, that a lot of things changed during that time. Not too many people I know told me at a young age they felt they were going to change the world.

SM:
So, this attitude of uniqueness, you do not think.

NC:
Well, I think it is okay if some people think that, but sure, why not?

SM:
Has the idealism died within the Boomer generation for most?

NC:
Probably.

SM:
Yeah.

NC:
I think there is still idealism in the new generations. I think the new generation, my little Sarah [inaudible] who was born in Lanesville at the commune, she is a physician, she is doctor. And actually two of our girls are physicians. And they study all kinds of things like new world planning. This new generation, I have hope for them, I think that they can fix things. They really care. What do you call people who are between 25 and 35 now?

SM:
I think their generation Xer's.

NC:
Okay. The kids that we raised, that we know are a lot of generation Xer's, and they are smart.

SM:
The ones that were born between (19)65 and (19)81 are Generation Xer's. The ones from (19)82 on are millennials. So, which...

NC:
I do not know too much about the millennials. The Xer's I think they can do something.

SM:
The materials and literature I have is that Xer's do not get along with Boomers, but that is another story. The two issues here, very important. The first one is a label that is been put on many people in the generation is they're a generation that does not trust. Is that a good or a negative?

NC:
Trust. That the Boomers do not trust?

SM:
Yeah, it is a quality, that they are not a very trusting generation. And they may pass...

NC:
Oh, I do not trust anybody. I used to trust people, but I do not trust anybody anymore.

SM:
A lot of this lack of trust was because many of them saw the leaders that had failed them or lied to them, whether it be President Johnson on the Gulf of Tonkin.

NC:
Sure.

SM:
Watergate with Richard Nixon. Of course, you do not know about Agnew.

NC:
All of it.

SM:
McNamara and the lies about the numbers game. And so there's a lot of lying and lack of trust. So...

NC:
That is right. And I do not think it is any different now. It is just worse and worse and worse. Trust fewer. And I do not trust, maybe there is like three people I trust.

SM:
Well, the two things, one, I had a professor once who said in an introduction into psychology, if you cannot trust others in your life, you will not be a success. And then if you are a political science major, the first thing you will learn is a healthy democracy means that people do not trust their government. And by not trusting their government, it shows that liberty is alive and well.

NC:
Yeah. Right. That is both ends there.

SM:
The other thing, and this is very important, and it is a question of healing. I took a group of students to Washington to meet former Senator Musky, who was at the (19)68 convention. He was a Democratic vice-presidential nominee.

NC:
Wonderful guy.

SM:
And it was before he died, and it was in the middle (19)90s. And the students came up with this question. They thought he would respond based on what was happening in America in 1968. And this is the question. Due to the divisions that were taking place at the time, between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who were against the war, those who supported the troops, those who were against the troops, and all the violence that was happening in the inner cities because there were a lot of riots and burnings like at Watts, and after Dr. King died. Do you feel that this generation, which is the Boomer generation, will go to its grave when their time comes similar to the civil war generation, not healing from the divisions that tore them apart? Do you think that is an issue within the post-World War II generation?

NC:
What did he say?

SM:
I want to hear what you said first.

NC:
Oh, well, I think healing is possible. And I think to a certain extent there has been some healing between those factions that you mentioned. Maybe it's wishful thinking. But no, I think there has been some healing from women's movement and I think between the races, possibly, at least in this country. No, I think there is, and can be healing between these facts.

SM:
Senator Musky did not even respond to 1968. He did not even mention it in his response. He said, we have not healed since the Civil War because of the racial issues that are still present in our society. And he said he had just watched the Ken Burns Civil War series, and it just brought tears to his eyes because almost an entire generation was wiped out. 430,000 men were killed in that war, not including the ones that were hurt. And it was a devastating war, and that people did go to their graves not healing in the Civil War generation.

NC:
Yes, the Civil War is unforgivable.

SM:
But he did not even mention 1968. In other words, he was saying it was a non-issue.

NC:
Yeah.

SM:
And some people have said that I should rephrase the question and simply say, those who fought in the war and those who were in the anti-war movement, that would make it much more relevant a question.

NC:
Oh, well, I do not know. I do not know what people are thinking about that. The people who were in the war and the people who were not in the war.

SM:
Any other thoughts on that?

NC:
No-no.

SM:
Since you were in the video area, there were a lot of movies in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s that kind of stood out. They kind of showed the (19)60s and the (19)70s for what they were all about. Are there movies that you feel, or if someone a hundred years from now was to put on a whole group of movies that would really define the Boomer generation, what would those movies be?

NC:
We are talking about regular movies alone or something?

SM:
Yeah. Regular movies.

NC:
Movies are a big disappointment, especially if they are trying to make some be kind of realistic when they are not.

SM:
Are there any movies from the (19)50s, the (19)60s, and the (19)70s, or even the (19)80s, that when you see them or watch them, wow, that is really emblematic of the time they were made?

NC:
Oh, emblematic when they were made. (19)50s. Well, I am not saying I like these movies. If I mention them, it does not mean I like them. But I was just reading this morning about Dennis Hopper's movie about, what was the name of that?

SM:
Easy Rider?

NC:
Easy Rider. That was a (19)60s movie. Right?

SM:
Mm-hmm.

NC:
Okay. (19)70s. I am saying that it was about what was going on, and it sort of was and artistic in a certain way. Okay. Movies. I watch movies every day. We watch Flickers almost every day. We watch...

SM:
How about, can I mention something?

NC:
They are so forgettable. Yes. Do tell-

SM:
The Graduate.

NC:
The Graduate. Yes. Yes. The Graduate.

SM:
And another one, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice was...

NC:
Bob and Carol Ted and Alice is a terrible movie. What was that supposed to be saying? Was supposed to be saying what? That we could all sleep together.

SM:
Yeah. Then of course, you have got the movies like Shaft in the (19)70s.

NC:
Shaft. Right. And Shaft is like that...

SM:
Saturday Night Fever.

NC:
... [inaudible] exploited this.

SM:
Saturday Night Fever, which the beginning of the disco.

NC:
Saturday Night Fever. I enjoyed that film.

SM:
There has been a lot of good movies on Vietnam from Apocalypse Now to A Deer Hunter, Taxi Driver. I mean the...

NC:
Taxi river. You got them all. I would say, yeah. Those are the me memorable films. It is true. For me, I do not think about them.

SM:
But in the (19)50s, you got to look back at the James Dean movies because of The Rebel.

NC:
The Rebel.

SM:
The kind of gangs, before we had that was the (19)50s. Okay. The other thing here, I am now to the section where I just want you to, what did the following mean to you? That you do not have to have any long descriptions, just immediate reactions to it.

NC:
Okay.

SM:
What does the Wall mean to you? It could just be a sentence.

NC:
The wall?

SM:
Yeah. The Vietnam Memorial.

NC:
It means a lot of people died for nothing.

SM:
Watergate?

NC:
Watergate. Watergate. Watergate. Oh, Watergate. The first thing I think of is Fuck Nixon.

SM:
That is all I need. Woodstock?

NC:
Woodstock, of course. Well, Woodstock changed my life. Really. It did. Even though I could not get there because the freeway was too full.

SM:
How about the Summer of Love?

NC:
Summer of Love. Oh, I did not participate in the Summer of Love. It was just right before I became a love person. Although I did watch them from the Plaza Hotel where I was having brunch. I saw the them in the park across by having a good time.

SM:
Did that song, Are You Going to San Francisco wear some flowers in your hair, did that influence you at all?

NC:
No.

SM:
Okay. How about Freedom Summer in 1964?

NC:
Freedom Summer. Yes. That was extremely important, right? I am not sure why.

SM:
That is when the people went down south for voting.

NC:
Yes. Oh yes, please. Yeah. That was very good. I was working in the theater and I did not think too much about it, but I knew it was big.

SM:
How about the free speech movement in Berkeley?

NC:
Yes. Free speech, the most important thing. Yes.

SM:
Kent State and Jackson State?

NC:
Well, Kent State and Jackson State, both just, it was the worst thing because it was true. It was true. It was truly happening.

SM:
How about Columbia?

NC:
Columbia.

SM:
(19)68.

NC:
Yeah. I remember Columbia. Although again, I was not involved, but I got caught up in one of their protests up town one time in a taxi. I thought it was pretty scary. It was just really the beginning. It was before the big push.

SM:
Right. How about the year 1968?

NC:
Year 1968, I dropped out. That is the year I dropped out. That was between the acid trip at the advertising agency and my job at CBS, where I traveled across the country in a Volkswagen bus... across the country in a Volkswagen bus. And I was not thinking about the world other than my own, in front of my own eyes.

SM:
How about 1975?

NC:
1975?

SM:
That is the year the helicopter went off the roof in Saigon.

NC:
Oh, the end of the war ish. Yeah. Whoa, long overdue.

SM:
Chicago eight.

NC:
Chicago eight. The greatest. The greatest, how should I say it? It was a big, big entertainment, cute. I loved it.

SM:
How about Tet?

NC:
Who?

SM:
Tet. T-E-T.

NC:
Oh, the Tet. The Tet. Oh, the Tet.

SM:
Tet in Vietnam.

NC:
Yeah. Yeah. That was what year was that?

SM:
That was in 1968.

NC:
Yeah.

SM:
Some people say it is the beginning of the end for Johnson, so.

NC:
Yeah. Well, yeah. At least that.

SM:
Hippies, just the term hippies.

NC:
Love hippies. Love the hippies.

SM:
How about yippies?

NC:
Love the yippies.

SM:
With more emphasis. How about the-

NC:
Yeah. I have got my own personal hippie yippie.

SM:
Yeah, with Paul's unbelievable. You know something, I have interviewed people that know him. He has got so many people that respect him with a capital R.

NC:
You bet.

SM:
And there are people that I have interviewed that are not only friends of his, but critics of his, but the worst thing that they come up is genuine, real, and respected.

NC:
That is right.

SM:
And boy, he is a tremendous person. I read his biography. It is a great book.

NC:
It is.

SM:
The term counterculture.

NC:
Yeah, counterculture. That is what we needed and that is what we got.

SM:
Now these are just going back to the (19)50s now. You were younger. What is your perception of the McCarthy hearings?

NC:
McCarthy hearings was great television, for one of the first live television experiences that we had as a family. And it was remarkable in that way.

SM:
The Cuban Missile Crisis.

NC:
Cuban Missile Crisis, scary. That was really scary. Everyone was scared. But I had rehearsals and I could not be concerned, but I noticed all around me, people were very worried that it was, we were going to get nuked or something.

SM:
The Gulf of Tonkin.

NC:
The Gulf of Tonkin. I do not know.

SM:
That was the thing that started the Vietnam War.

NC:
Yeah. No, I do not.

SM:
March on Washington, 1963.

NC:
Yeah, a beautiful thing that is gave you hope.

SM:
Black Power.

NC:
Black Power definitely had to happen, had to have it.

SM:
Black Panthers.

NC:
Same there.

SM:
Students for Democratic Society.

NC:
Yes. Well, they did not have a very good sense of humor, I do not think, but they were very, very serious students for a democratic society. I do not know them too well.

SM:
The Weathermen.

NC:
The Weathermen. Oh, yeah. They blew up the house next door to my friend on 11th Street.

SM:
Yeah. Dustin Hoffman lived nearby. I remember that he used to go, he went over and was looking at it. They had him within-

NC:
Next door blew. I had to move out of their house because the wall was fucked up because the house next door was blown up.

SM:
Wow.

NC:
The Weathermen. Really, what were they thinking? I could have never done anything like that.

SM:
The American Indian movement.

NC:
Yes, very important. Please, we need it so much still.

SM:
And of course, they are known for Alcatraz, taking it over there.

NC:
Yes.

SM:
Stonewall.

NC:
Stonewall. Yes, we had it. That came finally.

SM:
(19)69.

NC:
And that made a big, big difference. And that really, I think, got that movement going big time.

SM:
Earth Day.

NC:
Earth Day was-

SM:
1970.

NC:
Much respect in the beginning. I remember the first one. I think we have tape of that. Plenty of good tape for the first Earth Day.

SM:
Did you interview Gaylord Nelson?

NC:
I did not personally, but I think there might be some stuff there. There might be some stuff.

SM:
You may not know that, again, I got to know him quite well and before he died, and I interviewed his daughter. If there is any tapes of Gaylord Nelson, this is just for, to put it on the back of your brain here. His archives at the University of Wisconsin are being put together now since he died, and I am sending all my pictures that I have taken of him when he came to our campus. So, if there is anything in the life of Gaylord Nelson.

NC:
I will look around for that.

SM:
Yeah. Tia Nelson, the daughter, who is now one of the top environmental leaders in Wisconsin. So, I would let them know that they exist, because then they would be going right to the archives for students.

NC:
All right. Let me put the word out, see if I can find any.

SM:
Okay. How about the Peace Corps?

NC:
The Peace Corps. I would never consider the Peace Corps, but as I mentioned, my darling niece is signed up and they accepted her. But for me, this may or not may be true, but I do not feel like I would want to go as a representative of the US government to any country. I think that is the end of my sin.

SM:
Yeah. How about the Pentagon Papers?

NC:
Pentagon Papers were an important thing. Speaking of those recently, what is that guy's name again?

SM:
Oh, it is ... Now I am getting tired. Let us see here.

NC:
Daniel. Daniel Els.

SM:
Daniel Ellsberg, yes.

NC:
Yes. Well, he was no hippie, that is for sure. But he-

SM:
He was a Marine.

NC:
Yeah. His eyes were opened. I believe that he saw the truth and had the courage to.

SM:
How about Woodward and Bernstein?

NC:
Woodward and Bernstein. Not bad writers.

SM:
They are the ones that revealed Watergate.

NC:
Yeah.

SM:
And black and white TV of the 1950s and (19)60s. What did you think of it?

NC:
Beautiful. Love it. I was into it.

SM:
Was it truthful?

NC:
Truthful? What do you mean, truthful?

SM:
I bring it up because it kind of made you feel good, but it hid the racism in our society.

NC:
Oh, that. Oh, yeah. Well, it was just a baby. It was just about [inaudible].

SM:
Still there? Hello? Well, I am just at the last part here, which is about some of the personalities of the period. And again, real quick thoughts, a few words about these people or their products. The first one is Tom Hayden. What were your thoughts on Tom?

NC:
He is a seriously smart guy.

SM:
How about Jane Fonda?

NC:
Jane, I think she has been used and abused.

SM:
Huey Newton?

NC:
Huey P newton. Huey P Newton. I do not really know. I do not too much about him personally.

SM:
How about Eldridge Cleaver and Kathleen Cleaver?

NC:
Eldridge Cleaver. Oh, it is...

SM:
They are Black.

NC:
I know they went to Algeria, kidnapped Timothy Leary. Let me see. Those guys, they are too heavy duty for me to really understand what it was, the inner workings of the Black Panther party and the politics of that. Are they murderers? Are they not murderers? I do not know.

SM:
And the last two are Bobby Seale and H. Rap Brown. Of course, they are Black Panthers too.

NC:
Bobby Seale. I know Bobby Seale, not well, but I ... That is him recently. He is an easy interview.

SM:
I tried to get him to be interviewed. He said nope.

NC:
You are kidding.

SM:
No. He does not interview too many people. He does not.

NC:
Oh. Well, I do not know because he has got his wrath. He is a very lucid speaker and very dedicated and is not really changed his mind over the years. He has been saying the same thing.

SM:
The other one was H. Rap Brown. He is in jail the rest of his life.

NC:
I do not know H. Rap.

SM:
Malcolm X.

NC:
Malcolm X, I think he was a great person. I can see how people were frightened of him. But even if a wimpy person, I am, but I still think that he was major, brilliant.

SM:
How about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?

NC:
Yes. Yes, finest.

SM:
Angela Davis.

NC:
Angela Davis. Strong, powerful sister.

SM:
This is an event, Attica.

NC:
Attica, Governor Rockefeller. To this day, everything he touched was horrible. It is still going on. And that just reminds me of the horrible corruption of the government of the State of New York.

SM:
San Quentin, which is where George Jackson was.

NC:
Yeah. No, I do not know much about that. It was not good, right?

SM:
Yes, it is a prison with a lot of inmates.

NC:
Yeah.

SM:
Alcatraz. I say that because that is what the Native Americans took over. Actually, Jane Fonda went over there and supported them.

NC:
Yes. Yes, she did. I do not know.

SM:
Stokely Carmichael?

NC:
I do not know Stokely.

SM:
How about Bayard Rustin?

NC:
No, I do not even know that name.

SM:
Oh, he was the co-organizer of the March on Washington (19)63.

NC:
Oh. Oh, for him, that is good.

SM:
With A. Philip Randolph. How about Eleanor Roosevelt?

NC:
Eleanor Roosevelt, a brilliant woman way ahead of her time.

SM:
JFK.

NC:
JFK. Oh, JFK. JFK, I have heard of him.

SM:
John Kennedy.

NC:
Yeah, John Kennedy. Well, I think everything has been said about John F. Kennedy.

SM:
How about LBJ?

NC:
I hated him. I really, truly did.

SM:
How about Bobby Kennedy?

NC:
Bobby Kennedy, if it only it were true, and if only he had lived.

SM:
Hubert Humphrey?

NC:
No, not Hubert Humphrey. I am not interested in him.

SM:
Eugene McCarthy.

NC:
Yes. Good guy. Yes. But it could have never won, but because he was so good, so right.

SM:
George McGovern.

NC:
Yes, I liked him too. Same reason.

SM:
Richard Nixon.

NC:
Richard Nixon will live forever. And just when you think he has gone, he is back. And he has got tons of stuff that has not been released yet.

SM:
Both he and LBJ.

NC:
Endlessly fascinating. I did not agree with him, but he was so much fun.

SM:
Probably the greatest Vice President in the history of America, Spiro Agnew.

NC:
Spiro.

SM:
I am only kidding. Any thoughts on him?

NC:
No. I think that, but somebody did tell me that an anagram of his name is grow a penis.

SM:
No, that might be true then. That is what a lot of people thought of him. Robert McNamara.

NC:
Robert McNamara. Robert McNamara, the guy who lied about everything in the war?

SM:
Yep. He was in charge, Secretary of Defense.

NC:
Yeah, unforgivable. Unforgivable, twice.

SM:
How about Henry Kissinger?

NC:
Oh, the worst.

SM:
We are getting into the (19)80s now. Ronald Reagan.

NC:
Ronald Reagan. I despised him.

SM:
Gerald Ford.

NC:
What a dope.

SM:
Jimmy Carter.

NC:
He was never elected, ever to be president. I mean he is. He is just a joke. Okay.

SM:
Jimmy Carter.

NC:
Jimmy Carter, naive. Right on all the environmental issues. Just a little bit too Christian for my taste.

SM:
Dwight Eisenhower.

NC:
Dwight Eisenhower, the military industrial complex. But then again, he was a general in the Army. How good could that be? I do not know.

SM:
Harry Truman.

NC:
Harry Truman. I do not like Harry Truman. I do not like the Atomic Bomber, anyone who would drop it.

SM:
Bill Clinton.

NC:
No. And I was a fool. He is the only person I ever voted for who won as president, but I only voted for him once. Oh. But, ah.

SM:
George Bush, the first. Sounds like a king.

NC:
I do not even want to say anything about him. He is nothing. He is worse than none.

SM:
And how about his son, George Bush the second?

NC:
Is he a boomer?

SM:
Yes, he is. Both he and Clinton are boomers.

NC:
Right. Well, it is not the boomers' fault. I am trying to think of something relevant about him. I do not even like to make jokes about him.

SM:
President Obama. He is a boomer too.

NC:
I know. But I still love Obama.

SM:
George Wallace.

NC:
George Wallace, the guy who changed from being a racist to being an invalid? Even after they take off their take, take, take caps, can you really ever like them?

SM:
Yeah. Dr. Benjamin Spock.

NC:
Dr. Spock. I do not think my mother used his book with me, but most bloomers got raised by Dr. Spock. And a lot of them are very disappointed in his advice.

SM:
Dr. Timothy Leary.

NC:
I love Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary is great. A lot of people criticize him, but he's a brilliant guy and he escaped from prison. I mean, how big is that? How impossible could be.

SM:
Think I forget who the people were that got him out.

NC:
The Weathermen. The Weathermen.

SM:
Oh, that is right. That is right.

NC:
Well, I read a few of his books, some of the books, and I knew him personally mostly in his dying days. And I just joined his company some.

SM:
Oh, so you were around him during his dying days?

NC:
Yes.

SM:
Did he change at all from the time he left Harvard to when he died?

NC:
I do not know if he changed when he, no. I do not know. I would not say that he changed a lot. No. No.

SM:
He was a close friend of Ram Dass, I believe.

NC:
Yes, I know him too.

SM:
And Ram Dass-

NC:
They are both friends. They are both close.

SM:
One had a stroke. I think Ram Dass had a stroke.

NC:
Yes, he did. Yes, he did. But he is doing very well, considering.

SM:
Can he talk?

NC:
Yes, he can talk. He lives here. He would be fun to go see. He lives in Hawaii.

SM:
He lives where?

NC:
In Hawaii.

SM:
Oh.

NC:
Yeah.

SM:
You do not think he would do an interview, do you?

NC:
He might. You never know.

SM:
Could you send me his email address?

NC:
Oh, I will ask Paul. Yeah.

SM:
Yeah. Yeah, because I mentioned to Paul about Ferlinghetti, who's the beat writer, and he said go for it.

NC:
Yeah, sure.

SM:
Your thoughts on the beats, because many people thought that they were the precursors to the (19)60s, and their challenge to authority way back in the (19)50s. Allen Ginsberg, Cassidy Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Waldman Snyder, and Jones. Your thoughts on the beats?

NC:
Yes. I liked those poems. I was kind of interested in poetry for a while and the brattier, the better.

SM:
Did you meet any of the beats ever?

NC:
Not really.

SM:
Have you ever met Ferlinghetti? He is right down in San Francisco, I guess.

NC:
I know. They just published Paul's most recent book.

SM:
Yes.

NC:
They were up. But I have not met Ferlinghetti. No, I do not know him.

SM:
Did you ever read any of their books?

NC:
Yes.

SM:
Which one did you like the best?

NC:
Ferlinghetti, what was the name of the book to?

SM:
I am not sure. He wrote so many.

NC:
I know.

SM:
What would you think of Barry Goldwater?

NC:
Barry Goldwater, I like him better now than I did then. Although, we did not really know what was happening back in those days. He was just the president.

SM:
William Buckley.

NC:
William Buckley. Oh. I see he is really smart.

SM:
How about-

NC:
I do not agree with.

SM:
How about your thoughts on communes?

NC:
Well, people say I lived on a commune for eight years. I lived with some several other people in one place, and it worked out very well for me. I did not need to have any money and our company paid for all the dentist, doctor, all the food, the thing, this, all the equipment. They wrote all the grants, got all the money, did all the things. But I worked in the garden, did all that stuff. And it did not seem like anything out of the ordinary to me. It was like a way to live for me. But I do not know about the communes that are the famous communes.

SM:
Like the farm still exists.

NC:
Right. And I know them. I know with the farm, and I like them very much.

SM:
Steve Casket. I interviewed him.

NC:
I liked Steve, and I like Aida May very, very much. And he's just adorable, wonderful. Changed the life of so many women.

SM:
LSD.

NC:
LSD, that was a great thing. It was a great thing that happened and it was good for humankind.

SM:
Just the whole concept of the Cold War, did that ever scare you?

NC:
It did not really. I wish it was back, actually. Better than the other one.

SM:
Yeah. When you said you were 20. When you turned six, was it 1960?

NC:
Yeah.

SM:
So you were in high school when the Cold War was in its prime. Did you ever fear the nuclear attacks and all the other stuff?

NC:
No, I never did.

SM:
Okay.

NC:
Just it had no basis in reality to me. I could not relate to it.

SM:
That was also the period of Sputnik.

NC:
Yeah.

SM:
There is a rise of higher education, which is a very important part of the (19)60s too. So many people going to college. How about the Korean War? Did that have any links to that at all?

NC:
Oh, was it summer? It was at summer camp. I could not believe there was another war. Well, it was just one was over and now there was another war. It was crazy. It is still going on too.

SM:
I agree. A lot of people think it's coming back because of our tensions with Russia. Although, President Obama's a friend right now with the president, but we will see what happens. My next to last question is pictures say a thousand words. You were a photographer. Of all the pictures from the (19)50s, (19)60s, (19)70s, and (19)80s that were in magazines and that were in newspapers, are there several pictures that you think stood out that were symbolic of the times?

NC:
Well. Oh, well, the 10th state picture and the picture of the man shooting the man in the head. And well, there are the images I think of are all horrible.

SM:
Yeah, that is interesting.

NC:
Just off the top of my head there are, it just, I could never read Life Magazine. I would never even open it. People said, "Oh, why, because they could have great photography." Well, I did not want to see the pictures for every time I looked at it, it was something horrible and big and in really good definition. No.

SM:
Yeah. I think there were, you hit one. The picture of the girl over the body at Ken State. That is one of the top 100 of the 20th century.

NC:
Yeah. Is it?

SM:
And of the girl in the picture, the one that was burned in the Vietnam War.

NC:
Yes. Oh.

SM:
That is Kim Phuc. And then the athletes at the (19)68.

NC:
It is the fifth.

SM:
The fifth up in the air. That is another big one. And certainly, mean lies another one and that.

NC:
But were there any happy pictures?

SM:
I am trying to think of any. Of course, the Kennedy or the assassination of Dr. King.

NC:
Oh, it is awful.

SM:
I am trying to think. I think the happy ones may have been the space. Well, because the space program is growing then and landing on the moon and everything. When all is said and done, the best books are written about a 50 to 100 years after a particular event are happening. When the last boomer or the last person who was in this group has passed on, what do you think historians and sociologists will be writing about this period, about this generation and their impact on America and the world?

NC:
I have no idea. I hope they have your book.

SM:
My books, at the rate it is going, it is going to be two books.

NC:
Really? I mean, it is huge, huge, huge. And I think that, and I hope that it will work.

SM:
Well, what I am hoping to do in this book is that I am going to be adamant. I have already been one University Press. I have only contacted two. They are both interested, but I do not have any contract. But the thing is, you got to cut them down and you have got to, I am going to edit them. You will see your, so will Paul eventually, because I am six months I am hibernating to transcribe and send them out, is that they are not going to compromise the interviews. I am not going to do it. I want to reach college students and high school students. I want them to love history again. I want them to read about people and to understand the times that they may not have lived in, but also to inspire boomers to read this because every person has a story to tell. Everybody is legitimate. We may disagree, but I think we can agree that we can disagree. And that is what I want to do on this. So that there is a lot of people that do not like other people in the book. I have one person who told me, "I am not going to be interviewed by you. You interviewed that person." And he said goodbye. I do not want that kind of a person.

NC:
That is right. I agree with you.

SM:
And so I like people like you and Paul, and some of the people that Paul has recommended. I did not get all the people that Paul recommended because a couple of them said no, and then some did not respond. But that is okay. That is part of any process.

NC:
Yeah.

SM:
But what other-other organization I wanted to mention was the Young Americans for Freedom. Did you know anything about that group?

NC:
Well, sort of, maybe.

SM:
They were the more conservative group.

NC:
Yes, they were. I thought they were a bunch of dopes. But they are still very, very big today.

SM:
Yeah, and they were-

NC:
Because they got their start in that organization, became very successful. The people I knew who got their start in that organization became very successful in Washington, DC in several different.

SM:
That started at William Buckley's home.

NC:
Did it?

SM:
Yeah. She started it in the early (19)50s. And one thing I did not ask you is about the women, which is the Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug.

NC:
Yes. Yes-yes. Yes, them.

SM:
And Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan. What did you think of those women?

NC:
Well, I loved them. And Bella, she was at the ... I met her in 1972 at the Democratic Convention, and she was just great with us. She was so wonderful, so forthcoming, just right there for us. So we enjoyed her company so much. And I liked Ms. Magazine. I wrote for it a couple of times, and I think that Gloria Steinem is the person that asks the question to whatever the question is. I said, "Well, why do not you ask Gloria Steinem because she is so smart and fast, she is going to get it right away."

SM:
Yeah. I have learned it even within the movements, there is disagreements, which is obvious. And so, one of the questions that I have asked a lot of people, and I am not going to ask this, but is that the unity that seemed to be so present in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s amongst all these groups at anti-war, you do not see it anymore. You see a protest and you do not see very many. They are kind of become, one of the criticisms of the movement groups is that they have become so special interest, and that is conservative. The special interest groups have taken over. But it is a legitimate criticism even amongst many liberals, because if you have a women's movement and you have a protest, you do not see the gay and lesbian groups there. You do not see the anti, I mean, there is no unity anymore. I am not sure if that is just me seeing this or whether you see it as well. I do not know.

NC:
Well, I think that right now that was trying to happen. And I have a friend who is right now putting together a big protest for October. She got the permit for the location before she knew what it was going to be. She just graduated from UCLA and she is into that community organizing and things like that. Yeah. She is bringing, what she is doing is she is going to be in Sacramento in October, and she is trying to bring together exactly that, a coalition of all these groups who need to be heard. And so, it is the gay and lesbian. They have all these initials, GLG, LD, LV. I know she has got all of those. She has got every possible fact, and she is trying to bring them together under one roof. But I think that one of the reasons, what you mentioned, one of the reasons that might be a problem is that there are not these individual personalities who can bring attention to it all. There used to be an Abbie and there was a sign. I mean, you go to the World Trade thing in Canada or wherever it is, and you see a bunch of kids in the street breaking windows. But you do not have a sense of who are these people? How can I relate to them? Are they me? They are just nobody.

SM:
I know that close with this. I know that when Abbie Hoffman committed suicide, when I heard, he lived over in Bucks County. And I remember the article that was written about when they found him, that he was on his bed. He had written a note saying that no one was listening to me anymore and that he only had $2000 in the bank or something like that, because he had given all his money away. I almost cried when I heard it because the fact that. I almost cried when I heard it because of the fact that I did not know him. I had seen him so many times. There were times when... And I knew a lot of people did not like him and what he represented, but when I saw him on the Phil Donahue show, when I lived in California, when he came out of hiding, and he knew he was going to have to go to jail, and he had changed his nose and he had plastic surgery, and he had been working on issues behind the scenes under another name to save a river.

NC:
Right.

SM:
You knew this man. It was more than just the theatrics, it was the substance.

NC:
Yes.

SM:
And people that I have interviewed, beyond Paul had told me that, "How can you not really? How do you dislike him?" People disliked Jerry Ruben. They disliked him.

NC:
Yeah.

SM:
Because they thought he had a mean streak in him. And he did a scene on the Phil Donahue show that just about embarrassed, but they hit the Yippies and I [inaudible] if you Phil Donahue, but he is so darn protected. I do not know, but he kind of really made Phil Donahue look terrible, and it is on YouTube. But Abby Hoffman never would have done that. He never would have been respectful, but I am just sad that he died feeling that way if there was truth that no one is listening anymore. Because you know something, Abby? I was listening.

NC:
Oh, bless your heart.

SM:
See, and what some of the regrets is never getting to meet some of the people that you and others are talking about, because they would have been my friends.

NC:
Yeah.

SM:
And both conservatives and liberals, now. I have worked with all of them in the university environment, so people that know me know I am pretty fair. And I just like people who stand for something, people who are not... It is like Teddy Roosevelt said, people who are not afraid to go into the arena of life, knowing that when you go into that arena of life, you are going to add enemies and friends. But even though if you want to live in a world where you are not vulnerable and you do not want to be hurt, then you will never help other people in this world. So, I do not know how I got on this tangent here, but...

NC:
I am glad you told me.

SM:
Yeah. Well, it is important because I am not going to let the interviews that I have of some people, and it is honest and true when they just go past the Yippies and the other things. I am not going to let that happen on any group and any entity because this is about what people think about them. The yippies were much more than just a theatrical group trying to raise hell. So anyways.

NC:
Wow. I am impressed. This is going to be great.

SM:
Well, I will be staying in touch with you. If you can think of any people, be even yourself that even Paul does not know about that would be good for interviews. Ron Doss, I thought he had a stroke and could not talk, but people like that. I am interviewing Robert. J. Lifton. I do not know if you have heard of him.

NC:
Robert. J. Lifton, this name...

SM:
The professor at Harvard who talked about the Vietnam Vets and post-traumatic stress disorder.

NC:
Right.

SM:
Well, I am interviewing him. He is 86 years old and...

NC:
Oh, beautiful.

SM:
And he is retired. But I want to interview him because he wrote a book on the Holocaust. He wrote a book on the Vietnam Veterans. He wrote Upon Man's Inhumanity, the Man. It is more of a psychological, so I am not only going to talk about Vietnam vets, I am going to talk about the effect that it had on the other side. Did you see the anti-war people or the people that were so passionate on the other side, the effects that it may have affect them mentally as well. And I am asking questions and I am never going to be able to ask any other person but him.

NC:
Right.

SM:
So I got an interview with him on the 29th up in... And then I am going to interview Jerry Lemke, the professor at Holy Cross when I am up there and he's the guy, the real spitting image, which is the person that said that the story about people spitting on Vietnam vets is totally a myth.

NC:
That is right.

SM:
And so, I am interviewing him, and then I just found out today that Alan Wolf from Boston College, a great professor up there, philosopher, religious professor, is agreed to be interviewed because I want him to address the issues of morality and ethics within the generation. Of course, he has written a lot about it, and so I want him to talk about the effect this has had from his perspective. So, everybody has got their unique angle and anyways.

NC:
Great. Great-great, great.

SM:
Well...

NC:
Thank you for including me. It is fascinating and fun.

SM:
Yes. Well, thank you for agreeing to do it and for spending so much time with me, as did Paul.

NC:
Okay.

SM:
Obviously, you are a great couple. I hope sometime when I come to the West Coast I can visit you guys because...

NC:
Okay.

SM:
After I talk with Paul and got to know him on the phone and everything, I consider him a friend, and now he is on my Facebook.

NC:
Oh.

SM:
Are you on Facebook too?

NC:
Yeah, sure.

SM:
You want to be a Facebook friend?

NC:
Absolutely.

SM:
I only have about 80 and...

NC:
Okay.

SM:
I am a very, I do not, and just some of my former students and then some former professional people, and so it has been great talking to you.

NC:
Same here.

SM:
And you have a great day.

NC:
Okay. You too.

SM:
And say hi to Paul.

NC:
Okay, I will.

SM:
Bye.

NC:
Okay, bye-bye.

(End of Interview)

2010-02-12

Stephen McKiernan

Nancy Cain (Television producer)

154:16

English

Binghamton University Libraries

audio/mp4

Sound

Audio

Video recording; Authors; Television producers and directors; Videofreex (Production company); Cain, Nancy (Television producer)--Interviews

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