Interview with David Lance Goines

Goines, David Lance, 1945- 2023 ; McKiernan, Stephen

David Lance Goines is an artist, calligrapher, typographer, printing entrepreneur, and author. Goines was a Classics major at the University of California at Berkeley. While at Berkeley, he participated in the Free Speech Movement, which ultimately led to his expulsion. He returned to UC Berkeley for a period but left once more to become an apprentice as a printer in Berkeley. Goines founded the Saint Hieronymus Press in Berkeley and has worked there ever since. He won an American Book Award in 1983 for A Constructed Roman Alphabet.

David Lance Goines died in Berkeley, California, on February 19, 2023, at the age of 77.

2009-11-19

In copyright

2018-03-29

McKiernan Interviews

82:41

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: David Lance Goines
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 19 November 2009
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(Start of Interview)

SM (00:00:09):
Testing one, two. David Lance Goines. Okay. The first question I want to ask, and then speak loud into your machine, into your phone. When you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

DG (00:00:34):
Well, there were so many things going on, that one of the biggest changes was development of birth control pills, which truly profoundly altered the way young people engaged in their sexual explorations. That is both an indicator of, creator of what was going on in 1960, a remarkable change in sexual relations. There were a lot of other things. Baby boomers of course were feeling their oats, and the explosion of changes in society due to their powerful influence. The change in music became very much focused on the young generation and the change in sexual morality, the adoption of what had thereto for been peripheral or non-existent drugs. The whole change in art, which once again was pretty much young folks art and fashion. Basically, I would say the tremendous shift in social power from the older generation to the baby boomers.

SM (00:02:16):
Is there one specific event? I think I know what it is, but let us say before the free speech movement, was there one specific event in your life that made you who you are before you even stepped foot on that Berkeley campus?

DG (00:02:29):
Well, it would not have been before I set foot on the Berkeley campus, but Berkeley campus was the big changing event. I mean, I was headed toward a life of probably academic accomplishment. I was headed toward probably a professorship eventually, and that seems like a reasonable place for me to have been headed perhaps, and perhaps an attorney. I did not really know. I had previously been studied for the Luther Print Ministry, and that did not work out. I was pretty much at loose ends as far as a career was concerned and was pursuing my interest in classical literature, Greek and Latin language literature, which I was not doing terribly well, and was going to be shifting more towards liberal arts probably in that sophomore year. But I had become involved, through my roommates, with a number of campus organizations, which were relatively innocuous and also had become involved once again through with the civil rights movement, which I had not previously had much attention paid. Basically, becoming involved with the organization slate caused my expulsion at the beginning of sophomore year, and that of course completely changed my path. Had I not been expelled that day, I would have gone a very, very different path.

SM (00:04:39):
Well, you have already answered the question, how did the free speech movement change your life, but what did this movement say about the boomer generation itself? Did what happened at Berkeley change how the universities treat students and the impact that this has still today on university campuses? The reason why I bring this up, David, because it was very obvious that people like you and Mario and others were understood what if student empowerment was all about. Still there? Hello? Hello?

Speaker 3 (00:05:19):
If you would like to make a call then-

SM (00:05:20):
Oops. What happened at Berkeley? How did this change how universities treat students today? Did you see that this impact has been ongoing, or have universities gone back to the way they were? Still there?

Speaker 3 (00:05:37):
If you would like to make a call, please hang up and try-

DG (00:05:37):
If not, we might have to do this by email.

SM (00:05:50):
Or else I can maybe do it on myself. What did the movement say about the boomer generation, and I speak about the free speech movement, and did what happened at the Berkeley campus back in (19)64 and (19)65 really change how universities looked at students, not only then, but now?

DG (00:06:13):
One change that was very noticeable with the University of California campuses thereafter were built without any central meeting places. Santa Cruz University, for example, has no center. There is no place for students to get together and hold protests. It has separate campuses that are widely distributed, and in fact many, many students do not see students from other departments. The fear of student unrest has haunted the university, and of course right now with the dramatic raise you can see the university is experiencing another episode of unrest. Whether or not they deal with this appropriately or whether they can deal with it appropriately remains seen. I do not think it is going to be the same kind of protests by any means, but the sector of student unrest certainly haunts universities all over the United States and in other countries as well.

SM (00:07:28):
Do you feel, David, part of this is because the people that are now running the universities were boomers and that they may have been non-activist boomers, but they experienced it as students or whatever, and they knew what happened. That is ironic that a lot of them are either boomers or the generation that [inaudible]

DG (00:07:52):
One of the administrators talking today to the newspaper about the student unrest at the University of California said, "In my student days, I would have done the same." His student days were probably my student days, although he seems a little younger. The University of California and other campuses really are having terrible financial problems, and they are dealing with them the way most other large government organizations are, which is by not cutting their gigantic staff, but by raising prices for their services. This is making university students very, very unhappy. However, university students are not going to not get an education simply because it is expensive. Things are going to change. They are going to be really unhappy. They are going to make the administration aware that they are really unhappy, but I do not think they are actually going to accomplish anything. We were dealing with idealistic issues. We were not talking about paying more money for something. We had a very, very strong assessment side as whole. Our lives were changed a great deal, and the whole course of American history was changed a great deal, but I do not think there is any real comparison between what we were doing then and what kids are doing now.

SM (00:09:37):
When you look at the boomer generation though, would not you say that one of their qualities, characteristics is this business of challenging authority, a concept of activism?

DG (00:09:53):
We did so, because we could. We were very powerful, and there were more of us, we had more economic clout, we had a growing political clout. I mean, remember most of us at that time were under 21 and we could not vote. The voting age has since gone down, and the power of this block that was emerging into its voting potential was truly sobering to the elected, the representatives. They knew that in only a very short period of time, we were going to be the ones doing the voting, and we already showed how powerful we were. Just as with the women's movement when the women got the vote in 1919, this tremendously changed the attitude of politicians because they knew that all of a sudden there was a huge voting block that was not there before. They had not had to pay any attention to it at all. The same the happened with our huge voting block that moved pretty much as the unit into the polls. It did not turn out the way we had in mind, of course, because things never do, but we continually developed our economic, social and political power, which is now fully in our hands at this point. People do not give up power once they have gotten it, and we are not going to give up power either. The new generation is going to have to figure out how to get power away from us, probably by waiting around until we die, which will work extremely well.

SM (00:11:41):
What do you think are, list some characteristics that you think define the boomer generation. Again, it is between 70 and 74 million people and we are dealing with a lot of different people here, but if there were characteristics, what would be their strengths and their weaknesses?

DG (00:11:58):
Well, the strengths are that we actually possess a great deal of real power. Weaknesses is that we have basically, now that we are in power, we are quite complacent. We really genuinely changed American society when we think of birth control bill, think of abortion, think of civil rights movement, think of the anti-Vietnam protest, and so on and so forth. The change in morality, the change in the way society behaves and views itself is entirely due to our pressure. But once we got what we wanted, we relaxed. We are also, to some extent, preventing the younger generation from the asserting its power and control because we have it and we do not particularly want to give it up. As I said, they are going to have to be patient, wait till we start dying in much, much larger numbers.

SM (00:12:58):
What do you feel has been the impact that boomers have had on their children and their grandchildren? We are dealing with college students today that are so-called millennials, and they do not really have any problem with their parents, but only about 15-20 percent now of the parents are boomers. They are generation Xers now who are having their kids in college.

DG (00:13:17):
We are the grandparents at this point. Well, we still basically own everything. I mean, we physically own everything and we are responsible. I mean people like me, I bought my house in 1980. My monthly mortgage payment is about half a bunch people pay for an apartment. I bought my shop, the building I am in, in 1980. I got my business started in 1965. I am basically firmly entrenched. I am not having the economic problems that a lot of other people are having. Young people now, I mean when I went to college, my semester fees were $75. I worked my way through school. I had a halftime job as a page in the library, a dollar and a quarter an hour, and I was-was not rich, but I was not having a problem. It is not possible to work your way through college now. It is not possible. Nobody, even at the public university level, can work their way through school. It is not possible. The private universities do not even think about it. What happens is that when I also, when graduated or potentially graduated, I was more or less guaranteed a job simply possessing a college degree, guaranteed a good job. Now possessing a college degree is a guarantee of getting a job as a waiter or a waitress.

SM (00:14:58):
Yeah, you are right.

DG (00:14:58):
You are not equipped to go out into the job market unless you have gone into some art sciences like my nephew who is mechanical engineer or my niece who's a nurse. If you have gone into hard sciences or hard social services, yes you will get a job, but if you have got a degree in medieval French literature, that and 10 cents will get you a cup of coffee. It is worthless. You enter the job market with the degree that basically does not give you anything and that this makes people very, very unhappy. They are deeply in debt and they have got something that is not negotiable currency, whereas when I went in and not only was I not in debt, I was guaranteed good employment. I mean, this makes you very sad and very-very thick apart.

SM (00:15:58):
Right.

DG (00:16:01):
I think that the current generation is bitterly disappointed. I mean, basically we say in jest that my generation used up all the fun, but we not only did we use up all the fun, we used up all the money. Things are bad now, and they are going to get worse. I am the leading edge of social security, and millions and millions of my fellow Americans are going to demand that social security. Well, there is no money for it. You do not get a good job when you graduate from college, you are deeply in debt if you graduate from college, and you are not guaranteed basically anything that we took for granted. We just took for granted all these wonderful things. For my dollar and a quarter an hour job, for one hour's labor. I could buy five or six gallons of gasoline, I could buy 25 candy bars, I could get a pack of cigarettes of beer and a decent meal for my one hour's work. Now how many packs of cigarettes can you get at minimum wage now, one? How many gallons of gasoline can you get for your, let us say $8 an hour, two or three? How many candy bars can you buy, between six and eight? Okay, that is a huge, huge difference. Wages have not kept up the cost of living. For a while, it looked like anybody who wanted to get a house, but that turns out not to work out too well. You cannot get a house now. I mean, you have to be able to, people right now are coming up 40 percent down payments, and that is what allows them to get a loan from a bank. No more of this signature stuff. The economic situation is bad, but my generation, the first generation in history of America, of human race, never to go hungry. We never wanted for food. That had never happened before. My parents were both very badly malnourished during the Depression. My mother went temporarily blind from a vitamin B deficiency. Her parents lived through miserable economic time. They had a very hard time. We did not know what want was. My whole generation, beginning in 1945 when I was born, everything was swell. We were the only intact economic power in the world. We fed ourselves and everybody else. We bought our own cars, we bought our own product. Nobody else could compete with us either financially or economically or in terms of production, and that is over. That has changed.

SM (00:19:27):
Where does the blame? Is there a blame game here? The boomer generation, and you know this being in Berkeley and elsewhere, that they are the many of the boomers felt that they were the most unique generation in American history because they were going to change the world. They were going to end racism, sexism, and war. They were going to create a whole new world of love and peace and harmony.

DG (00:19:52):
Good does not it?

SM (00:19:53):
What went wrong?

DG (00:19:55):
Well, nothing went wrong. You cannot change everything just because you want to. Also, think there is the law of unintended consequences that crops up. If you want the Peace Corps and you want to help all the starving people in Africa, you have to realize that what you are creating is a dependent population that you are going to have to keep on feeding because they do not have the ability to feed themselves. When you run out of money and you decide you cannot keep feeding everyone in Africa, what is going to happen to those people? Well, they are going to get really mad. You mean well, you really do mean well, but the road to hell is paved with good intention. We have created all sorts of whirlwinds. That tornadoes out there without really meaning to, we did not mean harm, we did not end war. Just wanting to end war is not going to make it end. It does not take two people to fight, it only takes one, and you cannot spread your message of peace, love, and good vibes to those who are not interested. He comes up and starts pounding on you with his fist. Well, either fight back or not, but that has nothing to do with what he has done. My message of peace and love will not really work. It is not one [inaudible] We had tremendous economic and manufacturing power, and because of that we did not develop anything that we perhaps should have. For example, small cars. We did not need small cars. We had huge roads, we had plenty of gas with really cheap. We did not have to pay any attention to the small car market, so in the 1970s, there was a small car market that had been created by foreign manufacturers and there was absolutely nothing that American manufacturers had so the market began to shift toward foreigners. Had we developed small cars in the 1950s and 1960s, would have been a very different story, but we did not because we did not have to. Now, I look down the street and I see oh zero American cars. That would be not one single American car. I am seeing all foreign cars. They are German, they are Japanese. Nope. They are German car. Because of Toyota, right. Where are the American cars? Well, they are going out of business. Why are they going out of business? Because they did not respond to a market that they did not know was there. It is noticeable, it is not bad. They did not have to change, so they did not.

SM (00:22:58):
How do you respond to the critics of the boomer generation? You see them all the time. George Will, whenever he gets a chance, oftentimes writes articles blaming the problems of our society today on that generation that grew up in the (19)60s and (19)70s. I believe he is part of it, but he has written a lot about the failure of that time. Newt Gingrich, when he came into power in (19)94, talked about it and he still does occasionally, that all the problems, the drug culture, the lack of the sexual revolution, all the concept of everybody is a victim, all these things, the welfare state, everything. Breakup of the American family, divorce rate, all goes back to those times when boomers were young and whether in the (19)60s and early (19)70s and the way they lived their lives so the problems were all during that time. The Democratic Party even broke apart because of that.

DG (00:23:59):
Let us suppose for the sake of discussion that they are absolutely right. So what? What are they going to do? Get back to the way back machine and go back to the 1945 and me not being conceived? How are they going to change anything by their pointing and complaining? Does not make the slightest difference. I do not pay any attention to it. They are remarks are meaningless. Are you going to go back and un-invent birth control pills? Are you going to go back and change any of the developments that have happened? Are you going to not let us go to the moon? How are you going to do all that? Well, you are not going to do it. It is a waste of my breath to even respond to their criticism, and therefore will not respond to their criticism.

SM (00:24:46):
How about the movements? Because one of the things we all know historically, not only what happened at the free speech movement, but the civil rights movement was already strong, and the anti-war movement became very big at the time boomers were young, but it also spawned other movements like the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, Chicano, Native American, the environmental movement. It goes on and on. Could you talk about those movements and how important they were in defining the generation?

DG (00:25:15):
They were happening anyway. One thing that is important to remember is that the mill does not make the water run, my great-grandmother often said. An example is the Clairol hair coloring product. They did not create women's demand for hair coloring. They recognized that there was a product that would do it and they capitalized on it. The women's movement has been in continuous operation since about 1795, and we did not create it. We merely responded to what was already going on. Do they want to go back and not give women the vote and have all that fun again? I do not think so. The changes in society have far more to do with technological changes and sheer mass. When I was born, there were 135 million people in the United States. How many are there now? Triple that? Did we cause this terrible thing to happen? No, we did not. Right? The welfare system that we inherited was a product of the late 1940s and early 1950s. We had nothing, whatever to do that. I was seven years old. The welfare system and the terrible things that have come in consequence of that would be perhaps you can blame Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Be my guest. But just because there is a problem does not mean there is a solution, and if there is a solution, the famous quote, "To every question is a simple, easy to understand, wrong answer." The environmental situation in which we are was certainly not started by us. That was begun by Rachel Carlson in 1963. Well, I would have been how old? 20? No, 18. Sorry, I did not start it. The birth control pill, that was started by Margaret-

SM (00:27:29):
Sanger.

DG (00:27:31):
Margaret Sanger and Katherine McCormick. That was 1958. I was eight. No, wait. How old was I? 13. I did not do it. Sorry, wrong guy. These people have complaints about the things that have happened in our society, they should complain to the preceding generation, if anything.

SM (00:27:56):
One must say though, the anti-war movement was something very strong to the boomers, and particularly your thoughts on how important the boomers were on college campuses and ending that Vietnam War?

DG (00:28:08):
I do not think we were terribly important in ending the war. We were very important to making it quite clear that we were not happy about being drafted. There were wars that had been going on for quite a while before that people demonstrated great unhappiness with, but the wars went on nonetheless. The mistake of the powers that be was in drafting college students. College students did not want to go. Do not draft the ones who can fight back, draft the ones who cannot fight back. I do not know what result, I mean that war was a mistake. It was pretty obvious that we had gotten off on the wrong foot. But unfortunately, once you start something, just because you realize you have made a mistake does not mean you can end it. If I look out there and I see, oh my God, there is a huge forest fire. Let me blow out the match that I just started it with, what does that do? That does nothing. Right? Just because there is a big forest fire and you started it with your match, does not mean that blowing out the match have any effect. I know what caused it, but there is nothing I can do about it. I mean, if you had asked me to go talk to Ho Chi Minh, maybe things would be different, but I was not old enough.

SM (00:29:43):
When did the?

DG (00:29:43):
[inaudible] was 1954. I was what? Eight, seven.

SM (00:29:47):
Right. Yeah. In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end?

DG (00:29:55):
1960s began in 1960 and they ended in 1970. I mean, what do you mean?

SM (00:30:00):
Was there a watershed moment that you knew that this-

DG (00:30:03):
[inaudible] event? No, there were many, many things. There were many, many things that contributed to it, and the 1960s is just a convenient calendar moment. Delete the calendar. It had no effect. There were so many things going on. A lot of it had to do with the economic power of those who became recognized as the boomers. A lot of it had to do with the immense technological and social power of the United States. After World War II, a lot of us had to do with amazing technological changes that were quite unthought of in the 1940s. Take computers for example. They just all came together with the confluence of things. You can start at any level you want. You can start talking about the combine harvester and chemical fertilizer, you can talk about changes in metallurgy. Where do you want to start? Everything came together, and it was largely because of our extremely large number and our tremendous self. We had a huge amount of power, and we used the power because when you have power, you use it. But what you do [inaudible] First, we asked permission nicely and then when that turned out not to work too well, we did what we goddamn well pleased, and no one could stop us.

SM (00:31:52):
People that say that, well, (19)60s really began when John Kennedy was killed and it really ended either Kent State or when the helicopter flew off the building in Saigon in (19)75.

DG (00:32:08):
They are free to say that if they wish.

SM (00:32:19):
Right.

DG (00:32:19):
But there are no beginnings, there are no endings.

SM (00:32:21):
I am just speculating here. If I had 500 people off from all over the country in an auditorium and we took a vote on the event that shaped their line lives the most, what do you think the number one event would be?

DG (00:32:34):
Depends who these people are. You are just thinking them at random?

SM (00:32:39):
Yeah-yeah. Just boomers. Anybody born to-

DG (00:32:42):
Oh, someone born after 1945 and before 1960?

SM (00:32:44):
(19)64.

DG (00:32:46):
(19)64, whatever it is. I do not know. There would be probably many-many answers. There were huge, amazing technological things that happened. Man landing on the moon is pretty darn dramatic. The relaxation of social [inaudible] as far as literature, movie, books, and the like. The computer, probably I would have to say technologically the computer. This is having as much effect on society as the invention of printing by movable type and 1456, and the change is happening every bit as fast. Socially, the sheer numbers of people who came into existence after World War II in the United States, they are simple numbers. They are simple numbers and their immense economic power. Young people always want to have sex, and drugs, and rock and roll. I mean, that is what they all want. But we could actually get away with it, so many of it. They had so much power. Basically, the grownups could not stop us. They tried. Now we are the grown-ups.

SM (00:34:16):
When the (19)60s happened and a lot of the challenge of two authority took place on college campuses, I would go back to the (19)50s when things seemed to be so calm and most of the boomers were in elementary school. They had great Christmases and Thanksgivings. They were always with their parents. Parents were providing them with...

DG (00:34:36):
Unlike Ronald Reagan.

SM (00:34:37):
A lot. Of course, we watched black and white television, and of course we were had the thread of the nuclear bomb all the time, but the kids I was around never really thought that much about the nuclear bomb.

DG (00:34:50):
You are actually buying Ronald Reagan's stick and chain world.

SM (00:34:54):
No, I am not buying it.

DG (00:34:55):
[inaudible]

SM (00:34:57):
But the question is, what was it? Was there something about the (19)50s that helped shape young people? Even if they were only reaching junior high school when 1960 arrived, but was there something about the (19)50s that somehow helped shape them, whether it be television or?

DG (00:35:16):
Never went hungry. Never wanted for food. It had never happened before. This is extremely important. We never went hungry. We did not know what privation was. We expected whatever we wanted, and we got it. The 1950s were, remember, right after World War I, World War II, and the Great Depression. People were poor. They were poor for a long time. One whole generation. My father, for example. Now my grandfather born in World War I, then there was the Great Depression, then there was World War II, and then there is the (19)50s where it can buy a new refrigerator for the very first time. You can buy a car. You do not have to drive that 1932 Ford anymore. You could buy whatever you wanted. It was wonderful. There was everything. Buy anything you wanted to, whereas for the preceding, oh what, 70 years, had not been able to buy anything, right? During the war, could you buy a new dress? No, you could not. Did you get all the butter you wanted? No, you could not. Get a new refrigerator? No. Did you get a new car? No, they were not making cars or refrigerators. In the 1950s, all of a sudden, not only could you get a new refrigerator, but you get a new refrigerator that actually worked. You could get a new car that was actually pretty good. My grandfather, neither my father nor my grandfather had that new car ever in their lives. My father's first car was in 1934 Dodge, and it was a piece of junk but it was all there was. You were not risking your life in some war. You were not starving because you did not have any money. You were not basically living in a barter economy where you were trading eggs for say, gasoline. It was a wonderful world and that the world I was born into, and I did not know any different. I had never been in a world with privation.

SM (00:37:42):
But you admit though, that there was privation in the (19)50s because when you watched black and white TV and you watched the Mickey Mouse Club and you saw all those Hobby Duty and all the television shows, you never saw people of color.

DG (00:37:55):
Well, there might have been privation, but compared to what had been going on before, believe me, it was nothing. I mean, you can say, yeah, people were poor, people were unhappy. Well, people are always poor and they are always unhappy, but compared to the 1930s, compared to the war years, compared to World War I, get real. Come on. Do not try to get the private. A person on welfare now has a better standard of living than a middle class family of 1900. A middle class American family of 1900 would have nothing like the expectations set up Negro on welfare in Oakland gets. Nothing. No comparison. Clean water, good streets, automobile, television, telephone, electrical power, adequate, safe food. Come on. There is no comparison.

SM (00:38:54):
Do you feel that? This is a question I just want to ask, and we asked the same question to Senator Musky a year before he passed away, when I took students down to Washington, DC and he had an interesting response that we did not expect. But here is the question. I want to read this to you. It says, "Do you feel boomers are still having problems from healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth. The division between black and white, divisions between those who supported authority and those who were against it, between those who supported the troops and those who did not? We know that the Vietnam Memorial in Washington has healed many of the veterans and their families, but what has it really done to heal the nation as James Scruggs says in the title of his book?" Do you feel that the boomer generation will go to its grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this about 40 years later? Where it is a statement time heals all wounds, the truth. I say this because when we asked Senator Musky this, we were thought he was going to talk about 1968 and all those divisions at the Chicago Convention, and his response is we have not healed since the Civil War. He was in the hospital, and he said he had saw the Ken Burn series and it really touched him with 400,000 people that died and almost a generation wiped out and the population was obviously a lot smaller than it is today, but just your thoughts on this is there an issue of healing?

DG (00:40:29):
Okay, the first place, you have asked a question that contains its own answer, and consequence I cannot answer it. You say, what are we doing about the rift that was created? That means I have to say there was a riff. I do not believe it. I cannot answer your question. It is what we call a false question. This is not the kind of thing you cannot get away with in a court of law, leading the witness, right? You might say, was there a division? If there was a division, is it healing in the first place? I say there is always people who want A and people who do not want A and people who want B and do not want B. This is constantly going on. I do not think you are going to find people. You will have no trouble, for example, finding people who are unhappy about women being given the to vote in 1919. You will have no trouble finding people who are unhappy about that. You will have no trouble finding people unhappy about everything. It is the way it is. People are unhappy, or they have nothing better to do. They will be unhappy about something. Right? Was there a division? Of course there was a division. Is it healing? Who cares? So what? It is over with. Cannot go back and change it, right? If I could go back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt Administration and talk to him about some of the problems that were created by his wonderful Social Security Administration and by the marvelous welfare system [inaudible] in place and say, "It is not going to work. It is going to do terrible things. You cannot build a pyramid scheme. If you take people and make them dependent upon you for their lives, it is not going to work. It is going to create terrible problems in society." If I were to say do not do it, do not force people to give you part of their money and then guarantee that you were going to support them for as long as they worked in a [inaudible] I am accustomed. My father's contribution to social security was critically small. I mean he earned $10,000 a year, big bucks, but how much did he put into social security and then how much did he take out? He lived a good long life after he retired, maybe 25 years, and all that time he is getting money and a lot of money too. There was nothing like the $300 a year that he put in. I mean, you actually think he is going to live on $300 a year? No, he cannot live on $300 a year. Where is that money coming from? Well, from the next generation. Okay, now where is your pyramid scheme? Your pyramids team will always fail, and that is what social security is, a pyramids scheme, and it is failing. I cannot do anything about it. I cannot go back and change it. There is nothing I can do. If you ask me, were there division? Of course there were division. What can I do about it? Nothing. This is not like voluntarily turning off the water. Honey, would you please turn off the water? Sure, I will go turn it off right now. This is not like that. This is the past. Cannot change it. You cannot even recognize what happened. One of the fallacies of sociology is that it actually thinks it knows what is going on. They actually think they know what is going on. Do you know any economists who are not ashamed of their trade right now? Did they predict this big meltdown? No, they did not. It seems blindingly obvious in retrospect.

SM (00:44:30):
Do you think the wall has done, and you have probably been to the wall, have not you?

DG (00:44:34):
The Vietnam Memorial?

SM (00:44:34):
Yeah.

DG (00:44:34):
Yeah. Beautiful.

SM (00:44:38):
Do you think that is done? Jan Scruggs book is all about, he thought this was the first step toward healing the nation beyond even the veterans. I go there every year for Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

DG (00:44:51):
I suppose these people have to write books to make a living. I think that is nonsense.

SM (00:44:56):
Okay.

DG (00:44:57):
You actually think building a sculpture is going to undo 58,000 deaths. Ask the wives and mothers sometimes, ask the girlfriends, I have a neighbor who had just died, whose son was killed in World War II, who pined all her life long for a lover who was killed in World War I. Ask the wives and mothers of all those people who were killed how do they feel about it? Are they going to heal? No, they are not going to heal. There is no healing. These people are dead. You cannot heal that. Get over it, kind of. Still there?

SM (00:45:45):
Yep. I am here. Let me change the tape. I got to turn my tape over. This leads into my next question, which is a question on the issue of trust whether the boomer just generation is not a trusting generation. I say this-

DG (00:46:01):
Well, why should we be? We were lied to constantly.

SM (00:46:05):
Yep. That is why I brought up because of the Watergate, the Tonkin Golf Resolution, we even saw Eisenhower lie about U-2, and there seemed to be no respect for anyone in position of authority.

DG (00:46:17):
Well, a politician's job is to lie. That is their job. That is what we pay them for. We pay them to do two things that we do not want. One is make damn laws all the time, whether we need them or not. I mean, that is what we ask them to do. We say, "Okay, we are going to elect you to make a bunch of laws," and that is what they do. They take us at our word, they make a bunch of laws. They do not know what they are doing. They mess things up. The second thing is that in order to get reelected, because half the population is really mad at them all the time, they have to lie all the time. It is a habit. They do not even mean it. There is no malice. They just lie. It is what they do. Do I trust politicians? No, I do not. Do I have any alternative? No, I do not. I cannot live in anarchic society. I cannot live somewhere else. I live here. I live now. I live in the 21st century. I cannot live some other [inaudible] or some other place. This is what I have got. They are liars, so I do not trust them. So what?

SM (00:47:23):
Do you believe what political scientists often say is that to the lack of trust in your government is actually a healthy thing, because by just-

DG (00:47:33):
[inaudible] very best of health in that case.

SM (00:47:35):
Yeah, I want to be, you are a great artist. I have been looking at some of your work, and we think of you in the free speech movement, but boy, you are one heck of an artist. I am going to eventually buy some of your works and everything, but how do the arts define the boomer generation from other generations before and after? I think I mentioned in my note, we all think of the arts at that time, we think of Andy Warhol and Peter Max's posters and all those other things during that time. But what were the messages of the artwork that took place when the boomers were young that have been ongoing since that time, and is it is the art from that period and the people that grew up in that period a reflection of the times which were rebellious and non-conformist? Just your thoughts on the art itself.

DG (00:48:31):
Well, I think art is basically something that each generation reevaluates and create for itself. Let us take an example of Vermeer. Vermeer was, during his lifetime, largely unrecognized. I do not believe he sold any paintings. He was utterly obscure until the late 19th century when one of one particular critic rediscovered him, and through a series of amusing circumstances, he became more and more prominent. Now, whereas in 1875, you could have bought girl with a pearl earring for six guilders, which no matter how you cut it is not very much money. I do not believe you could buy that painting for any sum, whatever. I mean, let us suppose if I said I will give you $100 billion for that painting, you probably would turn me down. Okay, what happened? Well, a new generation came along and reevaluated the art that had been rejected by an older generation. The same thing exactly happened to been Van Gogh. He sold, I believe, one painting during his life, but maybe none. That which was reviled by an earlier generation is treasured by a new one because everything changes. Van Gogh is not any different of course. Van Gogh paintings are absolutely utterly the same paintings that he painted, but our attitudes toward him is entirely different. Our attitudes toward our own art, there are artists who were unbelievably famous and wealthy in their day whom you have never heard of. I assure you, you have never heard of them. Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, have you ever heard of him?

SM (00:50:16):
No.

DG (00:50:17):
Okay. He was the most famous artist in the world in the late 19th century. He made more money than anybody ever, ever made, and you have never heard of him. All right. There you have it. Right? We do not like his art. We think it is silly. It is coming back. Be patient. But art is our own. We like it because it is ours. We do not like it because it is good. We do not like it because it addresses human issues that are eternal. We like it because it belongs to us. It is ours, of course we like it. We like our own stuff. The old Yiddish saying, "A fart has no nose." Of course, we like our own stuff. It is ours. Check back in 100 years to see what people think of entirely white paintings with long, long explanations attached to them. Check back and see what people think of crucifixes encased in plastic bags filled with urine. Check back. Let me know what happens. I doubt it is going to make it.

SM (00:51:28):
Why was Warhol and Peter Max so popular with young people, boomers?

DG (00:51:33):
Because they spoke to their generation. They are ours. You like your own stuff. Right? I personally never cared for them, but then again, I am in the minority evidently. I do not like Van Gogh either, so hey, I am a minority. I beg your pardon?

SM (00:52:00):
No, go right ahead. Continue.

DG (00:52:00):
You know like your own stuff. Our generation likes things that our generation does. The next generation is probably going to throw a lot of it away, but then they will create their own stuff that they like. I do not know what posterity is going to think of me, and frankly, I do not care. I will be dead. Do not make much money when you are dead. I do not care. I am a working artist right now. I do art for a living. I am really happy to do that. I am very grateful that I can make a living doing what I [inaudible] and I get paid for it. My brother, who is a jazz musician gets paid to play music. Boy is he happy, right? He does not say, "What is posterity going to think of me?" He says, "How can I pay the rent?" That is what I say too. I am glad people are paying me to do what I love to do, and I am glad I am recognized and that people like my artwork, and my brothers really glad that people pay him to play music and he is really glad that they like it. But neither one of us gives a hoot in hell about what the next generation thinks, [inaudible]

SM (00:53:05):
How about, you are talking about art. Let us talk about music. The music is really something that defines the boomers, and not only in terms of folk music, rock music, and certainly the Motown sound, but how important was that with respect to delivering the messages that many of the youth had and the impact they had on the generation?

DG (00:53:26):
Just like any other generation, it is theirs. That music is ours. In 1920, our music was jazz. We created it. It is ours, it belongs to us, and it really helps the grownups do not like it. That makes us very, very happy. Grownups do not like anything that their kids too. Grownups do not want their kids to become independent. Grownups want their kids to be kids, and kids want to be grownups. I like my own music. I like my generation of music because it is mine, and I do not like that new rap music. Does that sound vaguely familiar?

SM (00:54:05):
Yes.

DG (00:54:08):
I do not like that new rap music. Why do not I like it? It is just noise. It is jungle music. Cannot understand the lyrics. It is all about sex and violence. Oh, that is me quoting my dad when he first heard rock and roll. I am quoting my dad, and you know what his dad said in the 1920s when he was looking at jazz? It is jungle music. It is just noise. Cannot understand the lyrics, all about sex. It is same stuff, right? Nothing ever changes. We like our music, but it is ours. That is why we like it.

SM (00:54:46):
Do not forget, Elvis came about in the (19)50s.

DG (00:54:49):
We love Elvis. He is ours.

SM (00:54:52):
Yeah.

DG (00:54:53):
Belongs to what? He was banned by the grownups. Remember Ed Sullivan?

SM (00:55:01):
Yes.

DG (00:55:05):
Cutting him off at the hips.

SM (00:55:05):
Yep.

DG (00:55:05):
Ooh, boy did that make my parents mad.

SM (00:55:05):
I think the Doors when they were on Ed Sullivan, Jim Morrison could not say a couple words from his music either.

DG (00:55:12):
We are in charge now. Right? My father is dead. He does not get to say what kind of music I listen to anymore.

SM (00:55:20):
David, what were the books? What were the books that you read and some of your peers read in the (19)60s that you think had an influence on the early boomers?

DG (00:55:35):
Well, honestly, I would say that it was not the books that we read. It was the books that we could not read. What we cared about was being prevented from reading, for example, Ulysses or Tropic of Cancer, or Lolita. These books are neither better nor worse than the other books, but we were not allowed to read them. The Supreme Court would not let us, and we changed that about as fast as we could. The important things are what is of our generation. The important things were what we were not allowed to read. When in 1952, when the comic books suddenly disappeared, that made me really mad. I was only seven, but my favorite comic books were the horror comics and the war comics, which was cauldron, and all of a sudden they all disappeared. Well, I believe me, I never forgot that. It was not so much what we did read. It was what we were not allowed to read. That is what I think made the big difference is that we forced the whole system to allow us to read anything we wanted to read. Then we either read or did not read. It is the thought that you do not have to go out and buy Lolita, and you do not have to read it if you do not want to, but there is nothing that prevents you from doing so, whereas that was absolutely not the case in the 1950s.

SM (00:57:06):
How influential were the beat writers in terms, because in the (19)50s, lack of respect for authority or rebellious and they were even ahead of their time.

DG (00:57:18):
For one thing, remember there were not terribly many of them. Another thing is an awful lot of their work could not be sent through the mail. Howl, for example, how would you get a copy of Powell? Could not mail it. They could not buy it on the news stand. It was not in the library. How influential were these words? They were influential because they were banned. Take away the ban, the stuff is pretty boring. I mean, Alan Ginsberg, come on, talks about nothing but his dick. Really boring, but prohibit it, and suddenly become fantastically interesting. When I read Howl, it was behind closed doors, my teacher could have been fired for allowing us to read it, in fact recommended it. That made it really cool. If you just said, "Okay, we are going to assign, you have to read Howl." Come on, this is terrible stuff, but told me I cannot read it, oh, very different story.

SM (00:58:23):
I have got three quotes here from three big personalities from that period, and which of these do you think better defines the era? Obviously the Malcolm X, "By any means necessary." We saw that all the time. Peter Max, he used to always have this quote on many of his posters. "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." The third one obviously is the Bobby Kennedy quote, which is actually I think a Henry David Thoreau quote, and that is, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not?" That was very popular amongst the boomers and you still hear that quote today, but those are very popular quotes and statements and on posters back then. Is there one over the other or do they all kind of define the era?

DG (00:59:17):
They are all contentious content. The case of Malcolm X is probably, that would ring the truest, but believe me, I would rather lose the ability to understand the English language than agree with Peter Max. Politicians say what politicians say. Who pays any attention to them? I do not think I could agree very much with any of them. By any means necessary, what do you mean? You do not mean that. You cannot possibly mean that. That is a mad man talking. Besides, you always get things you do not want. You think you are doing A, in fact, you are really doing A subprime, which is extremely different. You think you are in control of your actions, but you are not. You are created by your time, you are created by circumstances. We are far, far more influenced by technology. We are far more influenced by changes in society that we do not even are really conscious of. There is some swell sounding quotes you can put out there. I like Robin Williams myself. "If you remember, you were not there." One of my favorites.

SM (01:00:49):
Yeah. Another one you hear a lot and with the 40th anniversary of Woodstock is that everybody claims they were there. They were not.

DG (01:00:55):
Yeah. There is also the number of people in Candlestick Park during the 1989 earthquake is quite surprising.

SM (01:01:05):
Wow.

DG (01:01:07):
Several million. I did not realize it was that big. There was a big football game in 1982, the great Cal-Stanford football game.

SM (01:01:18):
No, I was out there then, and that is when the musicians of the band came on the field.

DG (01:01:22):
You know how many people watched that happen? Well, I know for a fact 6,000 people sitting in that stadium, so the hundreds of thousands of people that I have talked to, it is just not possible somehow. I listened to it on the radio. I suppose that counts.

SM (01:01:42):
Actually, my sister was out there in (19)89. She worked at an insurance company, then she could see Candlestick Park when she was coming out, and she felt like she was having a dizzy spell and got down on the grass and all of her friends were going to the car.

DG (01:01:55):
Along with everybody else in the Bay Area.

SM (01:01:56):
Yeah.

DG (01:01:58):
Well I mean, the thing is that social events are far more powerful. There is things that we are not really conscious of, things that we do not really think about. People, if they are really good, will say things that reflect the time well. They will have a Henry David Thoreau or a William Shakespeare or an Ezra Hound who is capable of expressing the time, and if they are really good, they will express times that come after them. Shakespeare is holding up pretty darn well. But the whole business of, do any of those three statements mean anything to me in terms of the (19)60s? No. They are just talk. I prefer Robin Williams. Makes a lot more sense, besides it is funny.

SM (01:02:55):
Yeah. I would like you just to go in back to those days on that Berkeley campus. I am curious as I know that Mario Savio has passed away, but what has become as some of the other leaders of the movement? I know that Bettina is a professor at-

DG (01:03:15):
Well, most of them were academically oriented and continued in their academic direction. There were a few people who fell by the wayside. There were a few people like me, and a very few people like me, lives were dramatically, utterly, totally changed. Most people just afterwards got up and went right back to doing what they were doing. There were very few people, such as myself, who did not. I did not go back to school. I did not pursue my academic career. I became a printer and a graphic designer, and that would never have happened in one million years had I not been expelled. The vast majority of people who participated in free speech groups were academically oriented and continued to be academically oriented, went right on to do what they meant to do. Very, very few exceptions to that.

SM (01:04:15):
What is interesting is that Clark Kerr's name, he wrote a book that I had to read in graduate school, which is called the Uses of the university.

DG (01:04:23):
I have read it.

SM (01:04:25):
He talked all about the multi-versity, and students were challenging the corporate mentality. It has not changed at all today.

DG (01:04:32):
He wrote that before the free speech movement.

SM (01:04:36):
Yeah. I thought it was right on what he was saying, but the fifth-

DG (01:04:41):
Oh, he was treating university like a big factory. He basically said the product is knowledge and the students are what we turn out, and we have to run it like a factory. That is neither true or it is not. Does not make any difference. The university now is basically trying to run itself like a big, complicated, fancy, high-quality factory. That may or may not work. We will see. I do not know. University of California has very much formed by opinions of Clark Kerr. He had a very strong effect on administration. His career, and as did most of the bureaucrat's career by the free speech movement and the succeeding events, the anti-war movement, which they were powerless to prevent, and they were basically blamed for it. But the university is doing this fine thing and bigger than it ever was, and may become private. It may become corporate. It will keep on [inaudible] students talk.

SM (01:05:59):
Yeah. Ronald Regan obviously had a big role because-

DG (01:06:02):
Very, very big. Extremely big, and we basically him to be elected. Blame someone for that. You can blame the boomer generation for Ronald [inaudible] if you want to and be quite correct in doing so.

SM (01:06:15):
David, it has been an hour, and I know the last 20 minutes is basically responding to names of personalities in terms of period. You want to do that another time?

DG (01:06:28):
Let me take a quick look at my phone here and see how much power I have got left in it. Hang on.

SM (01:06:31):
Okay.

DG (01:06:31):
It says it is about 60 percent. Let us go through that pretty quickly.

SM (01:06:40):
Okay. I guess these can be just quick responses. They do not have to be any in depth, just gut level reactions when you hear these terms or personality. What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you?

DG (01:06:57):
Nothing. Whatever.

SM (01:06:58):
Okay. Maya Lin, a very fortunate artist, quite beautiful. I like it, but I was not involved in the Vietnam [inaudible] or conflict. What does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you?

DG (01:07:11):
I know they were events in which people were killed and injured and that they had quite a catalyzing effect, but that is about it.

SM (01:07:20):
What does Watergate mean to you?

DG (01:07:23):
Corrupt politicians getting caught as usual.

SM (01:07:27):
Woodstock?

DG (01:07:30):
Was not there.

SM (01:07:34):
1968, the entire year.

DG (01:07:38):
The moon. Also, pretty exciting things going on in France as I remember.

SM (01:07:44):
Okay. Of course, that was the year of the-

DG (01:07:46):
The country.

SM (01:07:46):
That was the year of the assassinations too.

DG (01:07:50):
Yeah, but that is always going on.

SM (01:07:53):
Counterculture.

DG (01:07:56):
Nice words, not very meaningful.

SM (01:08:00):
How about hippies and yippies?

DG (01:08:03):
Two disgusting people. The truly, they are people, basically the extremely irresponsible end of the 1960s. The drugs are the drug crowds.

SM (01:08:21):
Communes.

DG (01:08:24):
Never had anything to do with them really. Social experiments that did not work too well.

SM (01:08:29):
Students for Democratic Society.

DG (01:08:33):
Bunch of thinks. I have no love for them at all.

SM (01:08:37):
Then the Weathermen, were there?

DG (01:08:40):
Crazy, loony, not safe.

SM (01:08:44):
How about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War who took over the anti-war movement when SDS was gone?

DG (01:08:51):
I do not know much about it.

SM (01:08:54):
Okay. Then Tet.

DG (01:08:54):
I am sorry, Tet?

SM (01:08:58):
Tet.

DG (01:08:58):
T-E-T?

SM (01:09:00):
Yes.

DG (01:09:01):
You mean the Tet Offensive?

SM (01:09:02):
Yes.

DG (01:09:03):
Well, was it very important to them in the Vietnam conquest.

SM (01:09:11):
How about, I am going to give some names now. Jane Fonda.

DG (01:09:15):
She was really good in Barbarella. I liked that costume a lot.

SM (01:09:23):
Yeah. Tom Hayden.

DG (01:09:27):
No opinion either way. Some sort of politician if I remember.

SM (01:09:31):
Annie Hoffman.

DG (01:09:34):
The nut case.

SM (01:09:35):
Jerry Rubin.

DG (01:09:37):
Loudmouth nut case.

SM (01:09:39):
Both of them? Okay. How about Timothy Leary?

DG (01:09:46):
Very interesting guy. I think he got a little unhinged from taking too much LSD, but he was sure, right. One of those people, you got to say, "Wow, that guy is really smart. Too bad he took so much LSD."

SM (01:10:01):
Dr. Benjamin Spock.

DG (01:10:04):
Loved Dr. Spock. I actually met him once. He basically empowered a whole generation to think for themselves as opposed to having doctors tell him what to think.

SM (01:10:17):
Phillip and Daniel Berrigan.

DG (01:10:20):
Lawyer, was not he?

SM (01:10:21):
They were the Catholic priests.

DG (01:10:24):
Oh, that is right. Had nothing to do with Vietnam conflict. Very courageous probably.

SM (01:10:30):
Okay. Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

DG (01:10:35):
Well, Nixon was a good president and a bad man. Spiro Agnew was a fool, a joke, a disaster, and got what was coming to him.

SM (01:10:47):
Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

DG (01:10:51):
Martin Luther King Jr. certainly tried hard and meant well. Very good orator. Malcolm X, he did not like white people very much. Pretty open about it. It does not seem to bother white people very much that he did not like them, so he seemed to get along perfectly fine.

SM (01:11:09):
Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern.

DG (01:11:14):
I am so glad they did not get elected.

SM (01:11:18):
All right. LBJ and Robert McNamara.

DG (01:11:22):
Well, LBJ was the most competent second in command, was unfortunately thrust in position first in command, at which he did not do a very good job. He really tried hard and he meant well. Robert McNamara, I do not have any opinion about it.

SM (01:11:40):
How about the Black Panthers, which includes Bobby Seal, Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Angela Davis, that group.

DG (01:11:49):
Dangerous opportunists.

SM (01:11:52):
Okay. Daniel Ellsberg.

DG (01:11:56):
New York Times reporter. What was he?

SM (01:11:59):
He was the Pentagon Papers.

DG (01:12:01):
That is right. Courageous, I suppose.

SM (01:12:05):
How about Ronald Reagan and Hubert Humphrey?

DG (01:12:10):
Well, Hubert Horatio Humphrey was, Humphrey was kind of a silly guy. Ronald Reagan was very-very popular, very much loved, basically catapulted into power as a reaction against all the things that were going on in 1960s. I cannot comment on his presidential policies. I do know that under his administration, like many that had gone before him, which quite nearly obliterated human race but I do not think that is particularly his fault. I will [inaudible] judgment. Check back in 50 years. I will let you know.

SM (01:12:45):
George Wallace.

DG (01:12:48):
Governor of Mississippi?

SM (01:12:50):
Mm-hmm.

DG (01:12:56):
The man who tried to make history stop just because he did not like it.

SM (01:13:02):
Barry Goldwater.

DG (01:13:04):
Would have been an awfully good president. I would like to run history back again and try him. Be really different.

SM (01:13:13):
The Equal Rights Amendment that in the end failed.

DG (01:13:16):
The ERA?

SM (01:13:19):
Yes.

DG (01:13:19):
Well, it just shows up [inaudible] politician.

SM (01:13:26):
How about the Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, some of the, Shirley Chisholm, the female leaders of the Women's movement.

DG (01:13:35):
The female spokesperson.

SM (01:13:37):
Yes.
DG (01:13:38):
There is a big difference between the leader and spokes.

SM (01:13:41):
I think Betty Friedan was a leader.

DG (01:13:43):
Well, maybe. But I would say they basically articulated what a lot of people could not articulate themselves as well, and they spoke for a whole huge generation of women who had basically been getting a pretty raw deal, and for the most part still are.

SM (01:14:01):
What do you think of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter?

DG (01:14:09):
Jimmy Carter was a great, or I should say is a great fool. I do not know. Gerald Ford, I would have no particular opinion about him.

SM (01:14:16):
Of course, you have already talked about Ronald Reagan. How about George Bush Sr. who said the Vietnam syndrome is over, and Ronald Reagan, of course, he said that we were back from where we were before the boomers.

DG (01:14:32):
You have to remember my opinion on politicians are not high.

SM (01:14:35):
Yeah. Right. The final two of individuals here are Bill Clinton and George Bush, the last president. When I have asked people do who they are really define who the boomers are, I get amazing responses. That they really are symbols of the boomer generation. I do not know what your thoughts are on Bill Clinton and George Bush, but.

DG (01:15:05):
Well, my opinion of politicians is not enhanced by George Bush. The Clinton Administration basically continued policies and created policies that have come home to roost now. Seemed like a really good idea to do all the things that went on during his administration, but now everything's totally fallen apart. I am not going to blame them for it. Politicians are necessary. They are necessary for society, and ours is our democracy has worked pretty darn well, thank you. I am not going to complain too much, I guess, but I do not like politicians and I do not like what they do. I think it is a waste of time and money, but I can think of a whole lot worse systems, so I am not really complaining. Our current president is trying hard and doing the best he can. It turns into a horrible mess the way it always does, but I like the democratic process. I do not think we get any worse leaders than anybody else.

SM (01:16:17):
How about John Dean?

DG (01:16:19):
Who?

SM (01:16:19):
John Dean.

DG (01:16:19):
[inaudible]

SM (01:16:23):
Pardon?

DG (01:16:24):
You are going to ask me about politicians, I am going to tell you I do not like them.

SM (01:16:26):
Oh, okay.

DG (01:16:28):
Leave the politicians off your list.

SM (01:16:30):
Very good, very good. When the best books are written, which is probably after we are gone, the best books are often written on any subject are 50 years after an event. What do you think the history books will say about the boomer generation once?

DG (01:16:47):
Having Written one, very long one myself, I can tell you what they think. They think it was swell. I had a great time myself. Have some other person who did not write a book or some other person [inaudible] different book.

SM (01:17:03):
Yeah, your book I thought was great. I read it a long time ago. And of course when we brought you to Westchester, it was great because you sat in front of student government, if you remember.

DG (01:17:11):
I do, and quite clearly.

SM (01:17:14):
That was a historic night. You do not realize. That was the very first night that Dr. Oliaro was there. He was the new vice president who had just come in from-

DG (01:17:23):
I remember meeting him.

SM (01:17:24):
Yeah-yeah. Now he is up at Fresno State.

DG (01:17:28):
Oh really?

SM (01:17:28):
Yeah, he is pretty big up there. He is the Vice President of Student Affairs at Fresno State. He was very impressed with you because he-

DG (01:17:37):
Really?

SM (01:17:37):
Yeah. Because he sat in the back. He did not expect it in a student government meeting, and of course I only had one other person ever came in there. But what was the overall reaction of your book and the students that you spoke to?

DG (01:17:54):
The book has not sold terribly well, but it is sold steadily. I suppose I should not complain. It is very long. One of the things about my book is that everyone else who writes a book has to refer to my book because my book has got everything in it. The manner in which I wrote is direct quotes from historical characters that were there at the time. You are pretty much going to have to accept that. There is very little about the facts that you could disagree with. My interpretation for the facts, of course are my own, but it is very hard to argue with an eyewitness account. You might not like what the person says, you might say the person had a myopic view because they were after all right in the middle of it, but you cannot say that it did not happen the way they said. At least the way they said is what they believed. You perhaps have read the book by Bernal Díaz called The Conquest of New Spain, where he has a foot soldier under Cortes. He writes the book about being a foot soldier under Cortes and taking over him Mesoamerica. You have to say, "Well, he was a soldier." I mean, his father was not even literate, but he was there. He was there with Cortes.

SM (01:19:17):
Right.

DG (01:19:17):
Fought, and cannot say, "Well, your interpretation of it is flawed and your attitude towards the Native Americans is certainly unpleasant. You were not a very nice man. You did hard things," but on the other hand, you have to say, "Well, you were there. You are telling me what you believe happened, I really got to pay attention to that." that is what my book did. You might like it, you might not, but you have to accept that I was there.

SM (01:19:51):
Yes. Yeah. I remember reading and I was underlining things. I ruined my books sometimes. I underlined them. I have actually bought another one so it is not underlined, but I have to underline so that I can actually go back to your book. And even though it has been over 10 years since I read it, I can read those lines and I can come back and remember some of the things around it, and that is who I underline. I have done that for years. What do you think the lasting legacy of that free speech movement will be?

DG (01:20:21):
Oh, I do not know.

SM (01:20:23):
Particularly in higher education, which I think really loves to forget their past.

DG (01:20:28):
Well, I think that it is permanently changed the city of Berkeley. I think it has had a tremendous change on the university's population. Basically, people go to Berkeley on purpose. They know it is going to be an exciting place, and they do not go here on purpose too. The people that do not want to go to the University of California are the ones that go to [inaudible] They are the ones that are afraid of the University of California. The ones that go here know that it is going to be a really interesting place with a lot of interesting things going on.

SM (01:21:10):
Good.

DG (01:21:10):
Now, it has been quite a while, [inaudible] so on and so forth. But I would say people come here on purpose. They do not come here by accident. They do not come here because it is safe. They come here because it is going to be exciting, so it is a different kind of school.

SM (01:21:31):
Now. That is the kind of school that I like. Well, I guess that is it, David. This has been great. Now the one thing I do not have is a picture of you and I am coming out in the-

DG (01:21:40):
Okay. Yeah. Hey, could you send me a transcript of it?

SM (01:21:44):
Yes. I am doing this to everybody. I have got so many transcripts to be done, but once the transcript is there, we can edit and so forth. But I am going to need to get a picture of you. I remember Chrissy Keeler, I think her name is. She is from San Francisco. I am interviewing her next week. I may be out in the spring with my camera to drive around, take pictures of people that I have interviewed so I may pop over to your place, but otherwise I will need a picture eventually. Not right now, of you.

DG (01:22:17):
I can mail you one.

SM (01:22:19):
But I think I will be out in San Francisco in April, I think, and I might just drive over and say hi to you and take your picture.

DG (01:22:25):
All right.

SM (01:22:26):
You have a great day. Keep doing that great artwork.

DG (01:22:29):
I am working on it.

SM (01:22:31):
Yep.

DG (01:22:31):
Right. Thanks. Have a great day. Bye.

(End of Interview)

2009-11-19

Stephen McKiernan

David Lance Goines, 1945-2023

82:41

English

Binghamton University Libraries

audio/mp4

Sound

Audio

Artists; Calligraphers; Typographers; Civil rights movements—United States--20th century; Goines, David Lance, 1945--Interviews

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