Interview with Michael Simmons

Simmons, Michael ; McKiernan, Stephen

2010-06-05

In copyright

2018-03-29

McKiernan Interviews

142:16

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Michael Simmons
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 5 June 2010
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(Start of Interview)

MS (00:00:03):
Michael Simmons.

SM (00:00:08):
Michael, could you give me a little bit, just like in the interview you had with, I think Light in the Attic there, a little bit on your background. Where you grew up, who your mentors were in those first... Say you are in high school, the influences early in your life, maybe a little bit about your parents and your schooling before you really got into music?

MS (00:00:35):
Well, I was born in New York City in 1955. I am the oldest son of two basically, secular Jewish liberal Democrats, Stevenson, Kennedy liberal democrats from New York. most of my childhood, beginning of my teen years were in the (19)60s. Okay, you asked me a lot of questions at once, so why do not we take each one at one at a time?

SM (00:01:22):
Okay.

MS (00:01:22):
What do you want to know?

SM (00:01:24):
Your beginning years when you were in junior high school and high school? What was going to school like?

MS (00:01:29):
I would not say those were my beginning years, but my consciousness started to form way before then. Well, I will tell you something. I always knew that I was different, And it just so happens that I was born into that generation. And of course it meant a lot to me that I came of age in the (19)60s. But I would have been an outsider if I had been born 20 years earlier, 20 years later. I will tell you a funny story. My early heroes, when I was a little kid, aside from Bug's Bunny, because he was a troublemaker and he was funny, were, I loved juvenile delinquent movies. And I am talking about when I was four or five years old, I used to watch them on TV. I adored anything about juvenile delinquents. My first week of first grade, there was a cute little blonde girl in my class, and she became my girlfriend of sorts. As much as, I do not know how old a first-grader is, 5, 6, 7 years old, something like that? And she and I planned a bank heist. Here are these two first-graders planning on knocking over a bank. I was enamored with criminals. Because they were the first people who represented people that did not want to be part of, had no interest in being part of the square world, the society in general. And from there, being raised in New York, I grew up very quickly. And I was thinking about this the other day, because I was looking on the Village Voice website, and they have some things archived from the (19)60s, the (19)50s and (19)60s on the site. I started reading the Village Voice, I think, in 1965 or (19)66, when I was either 10 or 11. I mean every week. And so I did not know who these people were, all these painters and poets, but they fascinated me and I got it. I got that, again, they were outsiders, and that the Village Voice was the newspaper for outsiders. Within a year or two, the East Village Other would begin publishing. Or actually it may have started (19)65, I do not remember exactly, and they were even edgier. But I was always drawn to Bohemians. I remember being at camp in the mid (19)60s, summer camp, and at the end of every year in summer camp, we would have something called Color War, which was they would divide the camp up into different colors and they would have different competitions. There was one group of counselors, one of whom I remember in retrospect, I had no idea at the time. But in retrospect, I know that he was gay. And another counselor, a woman was the arts and crafts teacher. And so there was this little crew of counselors who really vocally disliked this concept of color war. Now, what I figured out later is that this little group were beatniks, basically. I mean, we are talking before hippies. By a couple of years, not long, but you know what I mean. There were hippies, but they were not called hippies yet by the media. And I loved them, they were my favorite counselors. So I have always been drawn to the outsiders. I have always been drawn to the Bohemian, and I have always been drawn to the artsy people. Did that answer your question?

SM (00:06:08):
Yeah. Were you fans of the Kerouac's? The Cassidy's? The Ginsburg's?

MS (00:06:13):
Well, yeah, but that came later.

SM (00:06:14):
That came later. Yeah.

MS (00:06:17):
I am trying to think. I do not remember when I first read On the Road. I began learning who they were. One of my first heroes was Ginsburg. Now, I did buy Howl at a precociously early age, like 11 or something, which would have been (19)66.

SM (00:06:35):
And that came out in (19)55.

MS (00:06:37):
Right. No, but I was born in (19)55.

SM (00:06:42):
So you probably were an Elliot Ness TV fan then, right? On television, because he was...

MS (00:06:47):
Robert Stack.

SM (00:06:48):
Yes.

MS (00:06:49):
That show you mean?

SM (00:06:50):
Yes.

MS (00:06:51):
Sure, used to watch that.

SM (00:06:53):
But that was real big in the (19)60s. And of course, the Cosa Nostra was big in the (19)50s, the underworld. One of the things, I was looking, and I have got a lot of questions from some of the interviews and some background information I have on you, is you have been a musician most of your life, and of course a writer as well. And you call yourself oftentimes a hippie, but you love Country and Western. Could you define what a Country and Western hippie is?

MS (00:07:21):
Well, these are just words used to give a people a general idea of who I am. I mean, there is no such thing as a Country and Western hippie per se. I guess a Country and Western hippie is somebody with hippie values and perhaps appearance who digs Country music or plays Country music or both. I mean, there is no hard and fast. For instance, I was reading some of your questions that you had sent to Pete Seeger. And I do not know if you saw some guy wrote after that interview I gave for Light in the Attic, criticizing me for being "a Boomer exceptional."

SM (00:08:16):
Yeah, in fact, I have that right here.

MS (00:08:17):
And my attitude is I am not a Boomer, nothing. Yeah, technically I am a Baby Boomer according to sociological demarcation. But I do not want to be stuck in a box like that. It is kind of uncomfortable. Well, we can get into the (19)60s later, but Country and Western hippie. In the late (19)60s, I was already a musician. I started playing guitar. I was one of these kids who fell in love with the Beatles in 1963, 64. And I wanted to be a Beatle. I wanted to be a rock and roll musician. And I got a guitar for my 10th birthday, and learned how to play it and started a rock and roll band at a very young age. And by the late (19)60s, a friend of mine was into hardcore Country music like Hank Williams and Merle Haggard, people like that. And he turned me onto it, and I loved it. And I knew that this is what Dylan and the Byrds and people like that were listening to. And hence, certain albums like Nashville Skyline by Dylan or Sweetheart of the Rodeo by the Byrds, the Country was influencing rock.

SM (00:09:48):
Well, what is interesting is through all these interviews that I have done, different angles, different perspectives, and I have had no one talk about Country and Western, because everybody talks about rock and Motown and folk music and pop vocals. And I have a question here. When we define the music of the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s and beyond, we think of rock, Motown, folk, protest music and music with messages, pop vocals, but rarely Country unless one mentions the big names like Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn. However, there is a history of Country and Western, as you explain via your connections with Kris Kristofferson. Explain the linkage to the (19)60s and (19)70s mentality that was present in Boomer youth, even in Country during this time? Because you made some great observations in the interview when you talked about Kris Kristofferson, but then you were talking about the music as a whole.

MS (00:10:53):
Yeah. Well, I am not sure exactly what your question is, but...

SM (00:11:03):
What was Country and Western going through during this timeframe?

MS (00:11:07):
Oh, I see what you are saying. Well, Country was the music originally of the South and of working class southerners, and hence reflecting them. It was basically politically a fairly conservative music. What happened in the late (19)60s, mid to late (19)60s is that these cats started showing up in Nashville, like Kristofferson and others who were more literate. Some of them had college educations. They would read Shakespeare and William Blake, and at the same time, being younger, they also were not afraid of long hair and the counterculture and rock and roll, they dug that. Because that was also part of their world. Cats like Kristofferson being the most notable, obviously. And so Kris helped loosen up Nashville, and he dragged it kicking and screaming, I should say, into the (19)60s.

SM (00:12:30):
Would Willie Nelson be part of that too?

MS (00:12:32):
Well, yeah, Willie, he was, but quietly. Willie was not nationally known until the (19)70s, probably early to mid-(19)70s. So he came a little bit later. I mean, he was in Nashville in the early (19)60s writing songs. He wrote Crazy for Patsy Cline, for instance. And he was smoking grass, and he was definitely his own man. He thought for himself, he was an individual. But very few people outside of Nashville or Texas knew who he was. So he did not have an effect on the larger culture until later on.

SM (00:13:25):
But Kristofferson and Johnny Cash did, because they were pretty big names.

MS (00:13:31):
Well, Cash had been a big name since the- I guess, earlier to mid-(19)60s or so, or actually since the (19)50s, I am sorry. Folsom Prison Blues. And I Walk the Line and stuff like that. Johnny Cash in many ways came up with the Sun Records, early Rock and Rollers, like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison, people like that. So Cash had always been a little bit hipper than a lot of the Country artists.

SM (00:14:10):
He wrote some great protest songs too, against the Vietnam War. Some classic ones.

MS (00:14:16):
Yeah, he did a whole album of protest songs about the plight of the American Indian, actually. Which was a pretty bold thing to do in Nashville in the (19)60s, given how conservative the town was. And he got shit for it, too. People claimed that his wife at the time, before June Carter, was part black. And they spread all these rumors about her and him. And so some of the more conservative elements went after him for being a free thinker. But he did not let it affect him. But Cash was definitely, he was one of the early ones.

SM (00:15:13):
Where would you place Buffy Sainte-Marie in here too, because of her music, as part native? She is Native American, but she is from Canada, I believe.

MS (00:15:24):
Yeah, she is Canadian.

SM (00:15:24):
Yeah. And in recent years, particularly in the (19)80s, Bill Miller, who is a pretty good entertainer as well, he is Native American. There are not too many Native American singers.

MS (00:15:36):
Right, right. Well, Buffy Sainte-Marie, although she did record a Country album, I think it is called, I Want to Be a Country Girl Again or something. What? Hold on one second. I have a Buffy Sainte-Marie Best of sitting right here. Where is that? Anyway. Oh, here it is, it was called, I am Going to Be a Country Girl Again was the name of the song and the album. But that she recorded in Nashville. I think it was, let us see, 1968, pretty early. But she was really more of a folkie. She was part of the folk boom.

SM (00:16:18):
Could you describe a little bit more of the culture you identify with? Were you part of the counterculture? A lot of people have given me a lot of different definitions of the counterculture. In your words, what is it?

MS (00:16:33):
Oh God. Well, first of all, there is more than one counterculture. There are all kinds of countercultures. But for the purposes of what we are talking about here, the counterculture... It is so difficult to try to cram into a box. The Beats were a counterculture. The hippies were a counterculture. Counterculture is the term used to describe any form of culture that is outside the mainstream. Now, the so-called (19)60s' counterculture, it has got all the clichés and long hair and leftist politics and rock and roll and communal living and things like that. The (19)60s counter culture has its own identifying markers. But there are many countercultures. Some would argue that, for instance, the Tea Party, which is the polar opposite of anything that I would ever be a part of, is a counterculture of a kind as well. Now, in terms of me being part of a counterculture, yeah, I was more or less what people refer to as a hippie. In fact, I still am.

SM (00:18:07):
But a lot of people, when they talk about the Boomer generation, of course, is defined as people born between 1946 and 1964. And even Todd Gitlin, when I interviewed him, he hates the term Boomer generation, and there are others who do not like it. And he said, the people in the Boomer generation between (19)46 and (19)56 are totally different than the Boomers between say, (19)56 and (19)64, because they did not have the same experiences.

MS (00:18:39):
Well, the big one being, I will tell you, because when I did look at some of those questions you sent to Pete Seeger, the big one that separates those two halves, and I am the tail end of the first half, is that we experienced the Kennedy assassination. Whereas of course, the younger ones did not. Either did not, or they were too young to know what was going on, really. And the Kennedy assassination, of course, was a one of the most powerful events that the country lived through in that time in the early (19)60s. So in terms of being a young person in that time and living through, I mean, all the clichés, the loss of a young vital president who represented change and youth and vitality and all that. It was like enduring a punch in the stomach, a blow to the solar plexus. It took the air out of an entire generation. And it kind of sets people of my age and slightly older up for a change, we wanted a change after that. We did not want the same old death culture that America seemed to represent to us. Does that make sense?

SM (00:20:19):
Yeah, that is very good. Would you say in your life, that is the one event that shaped you more than any other?

MS (00:20:27):
I do not think I can say that one event shaped me more than any other, I do not think I can choose just one. But I think it was the first event outside of my personal experience that had a profound impact.

SM (00:20:49):
Do you remember the exact moment where you were when you...

MS (00:20:51):
Absolutely.

SM (00:20:52):
Could you explain that moment?

MS (00:20:55):
Yeah. I was in, I do not know, third grade, second grade, something like that? And it was the end of the school day. So it was around 2:30, three o'clock in the afternoon. And I was walking out of the school yard, and some girl came up to me and said, "Somebody shot President Kennedy." And I went, "What?" I was surprised. I was shocked. I loved President Kennedy. About a year or so before then, my mother had bought me Profiles in Courage and I would read it. And I was reading at a very young age, I think my father said I I was reading by the time I was four, basically.

SM (00:21:46):
Oh, that is excellent.

MS (00:21:47):
And I read Profiles in Courage. I idolized JFK. And I remember walking home, and we lived around the corner from my elementary school, in an apartment building in New York, and there was an elevator operator, and his name was Johnny. I remember this. And I said, "I heard President Kennedy was shot." And he said, "Yeah, but he is going to be okay. He is just wounded." And I went upstairs and my mother was not home yet. And I went and I turned the TV set on. And at some point I saw Walter Cronkite come on and give that announcement, where he looked up at the clock and he said what time JFK was pronounced dead. And I obviously was shocked. And I heard the key come in the door and I heard the lock turn, and I saw the door open, and my mother walked in and looked at me, and she just started to sob. And, wow-

SM (00:23:07):
But did your family-

MS (00:23:09):
...To think of it.

SM (00:23:09):
...Spend the next four days around the TV, like so many?

MS (00:23:12):
Oh, yeah. We saw the Oswald assassination as well. We saw the funeral. It was nonstop for four days. And then, I believe the assassination was on a Thursday, they suspended school on Friday. We went back to school on Monday. And the first thing, they had an assembly to try to... I was like a little kid, you have to remember. And I was in elementary school, so they held an assembly to try to explain to the kids what had happened. My parents were very forthright in trying to explain to me the context. So plus I was already a daily newspaper reader. Had been reading the New York Times since I was a little kid. But yeah, that was a heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy...

SM (00:24:16):
Getting back to the music, when we are looking at the Boomer generation, we are talking about any time from 1946 through today, because the oldest Boomers are now 63, and the youngest are 47. And so I have got a question here about the music, because music has been so much a part of your life, not only as a performer with your own group and all the experiences you have had as a writer and the people you have met and worked with. I am breaking it right down here, into the decades. What did you like about the music of the (19)50s, the (19)60s, the (19)70s, the (19)80s, and the nineties and beyond? There had to be something in those decades that you liked?

MS (00:25:07):
Well, I mean, (19)50s, obviously. I remain a lifelong fan of Rock and Roll, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, people like that. But even though we kind of rebelled against it, I also always dug my parents' music, meaning Sinatra and jazz, and Mel Torme and Ella Fitzgerald, and people like that. By the (19)60s, obviously, to this day, my favorite music is the holy trinity of Rock and Roll, which is The Beatles, and Dylan and The Rolling Stones. And then all the other (19)60s groups like Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, the Band, the Byrds, and so on. I could go on and on, Hendrix, obviously. I could go on and on and on. That is the stuff that really is meaningful to me. Although I love all kinds of music, and all different eras. (19)70s for me, a lot of it was Country, really. And I also got into old rhythm and blues, old jump blues stuff like Louis Jordan, things like that. But really, the (19)70s was my Country decade, I should say. Now, after that, from the (19)80s on, there is music that I like, and there are singers that I like and musicians that I like and songwriters that I like. But I cannot say that I have a passion for post 1980 pop music the way I did for pre-1980 pop music.

SM (00:27:26):
How about that music from the mid-(19)70s, disco, which is Saturday Night Fever, seemed to be the line of demarcation?

MS (00:27:33):
Yeah. Actually, at the time, I was not a disco fan, and some of it is atrocious. But recently I have been hearing old disco songs from the (19)70s, I do not know, on radio or here and there. And some of it is not bad. It was that mechanized beat that used to drive me crazy that, "dint-dint-dint", was something a little same about it, kind of. By definition, it is repetitive, but it has its charm.

SM (00:28:20):
Yeah, and then my next question is a direct response that you gave to this interview, which I think was an unbelievable response, and I would like it clarified even a little further. This was a question, you remember this, "What about Kristofferson appeals to you? What makes him such a timeless artist?" And your response is "You have to understand the mindset of the (19)60s America, it was an us versus them dynamic. On one side, we were freaks, hippies, troublemakers, and activists. On the other side was the rest of America. At the same time, I had gotten into hardcore Country music, while not shedding my hippie heart. The great thing about Kris, he was one of the first people who was all..."

SM (00:29:03):
Great thing about Chris, he was one of the first people who was authentically country, but at the same time spoke to hippies. And you mentioned a couple of songs like Billy D and the Pilgrim songs about us, my generation and my world at the same time. It was authentic country music. He was ours, he represented our side. He also bridged the gap. He is in arguably one of the greatest living American songwriters. When you put that together, you by saying that, that is very prophetic in my view. Could you ex explain it even a little further? Because I have been a big fan of Kris Kristofferson, but I have never thought of him in the terms like you explain in this question.

MS (00:29:46):
Well, I mean, for instance, his most famous song is Me and Bobby McGee. If one listens to the lyrics, it is basically the story of a young hippie couple guy and a girl traveling around the country. It captures that kind of wanderlust that young people engage in general, but particularly members of my generation in that time period, you know. People still hitchhiked in the (19)60s. I do not know if they hitchhike anymore.

SM (00:30:18):
If they do, they are arrested.

MS (00:30:21):
Huh?

SM (00:30:22):
If they do, they are arrested and picked up.

MS (00:30:24):
Yeah. Yeah. You know, the interesting thing is, for all the complaining we did in the (19)60s, America was a much freer place back then. I mean, it was not free enough for us. But the irony is it got less free, particularly post 1980, which is when Reagan was elected, and that was the beginning of the end, as far as I am concerned.

SM (00:30:50):
What does less free mean? You say, "Less free."

MS (00:30:54):
Well, there used to be fewer rules. It works both ways. In some respects. There are things have improved, certainly things have improved since the (19)60s for Black people, and for minorities in general, for women, things like that. I mean, as Hunter Thompson used to say, "The (19)60s was a time when you could roam around the country and not worry about some cop inputting your name in a computer and finding out you had 20 parking tickets in California." Let me see if I can rephrase this, I think Orwell's prophecy came true. I think we are living in an Orwellian police state. I think there is a Big Brother. I think the internet is contributing to that. I mean, I think there are good things about the internet too, but I think one of the negative things about it is a lot of these things like Facebook and other things are means to collect information about people. And it is scary.

SM (00:32:22):
Yeah. We have been telling students for years about, "Be careful what you put on your Facebook because employers can somehow get access to it, and they can even determine your politics based on what you say about a certain thing that is happening in the news."

MS (00:32:38):
Sure.

SM (00:32:39):
Is a follow-up to that question, you said some unbelievable things also about his music, and some of the songs and how relevant they are. And you said music that really influenced you and that you loved, or that was that kind of music that had what you said, "Writing hooks." Great melodies, songs that stay in your mind, lyrics that are beautifully honest and songs on of the times. I would like you to maybe mention some of the music from the either (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s in particular, that you feel were fallen there, not just Kris Kristofferson. And I wrote down 10 songs here that I felt fit, that quality, and I would like your opinion. Marvin Gaye's, What's Going On? Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water. John Lennon, Imagine. Barbara Streisand, The Way We Were. The Chambers Brothers, In Time, Mamas and Papas, California Dreamin, Michael Murphy's Wildfire. Sonny and Cher, The Beat Goes On. Barry White, Let the Music Play. Frank Sinatra, My Way. Richie Havens, Freedom. And Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone. And I think I got one other one here, if I can find it here. Well, that is basically the group. Yeah. Is that what is you are talking about here? Because those are continually in my head, 30 years after they were performed.

MS (00:34:17):
Yeah. Well, in terms of songwriting, there is a certain craft to writing a great song to writing what, what is called a hook. I mean, a hook is really just a melodic and/or lyrical line that for whatever reason, stays in people's heads. There is something memorable about it, either musically, lyrically, or both, hopefully both. And those songs, I would not necessarily agree with everyone, but as I said, that is what makes horse races. It is just a matter of taste. But yeah, most of the songs are extraordinary songs, they are memorable songs. They have hooks, they have great hooks. Those are all well-written songs. Whether I personally love them or not, it is immaterial. Those are all well-written songs. Well, I have some theories about why, and I will discuss those in a second. I mean, there are still people writing good songs, not many. And I do not ask me who they are because I mean, I could tell you a few names. But the art of writing great hooks, and which ultimately means writing great songs kind of has been lost. And part of it is with the popularity rather of hip hop and punk rock, two primary influences on contemporary pop music and rock music, rhythm became more important than melody. Punk and hip hop are rhythm driven, they are not melody driven. And the concept of the hook is largely about melody. So if there is no melody or no identifiable melody, your chances of having a powerful hook that people are going to remember is diminished. Does that make sense? Now, whether there are people who disagree with me about this, but it is just my take on it. I saw the rise of hip-hop and punk rock, and at the same time I noticed that fewer people were writing memorable songs. So I tried to figure out, "Why is this?" And all I could figure out is rhythm over melody, rhythm over melody.

SM (00:37:30):
The people who really love rap, I have been in the university for quite a few years. Some of them are fair, some of the music is halfway decent. But the one comparison where you might see a comparison between the (19)60s and early (19)70s' music, which is music with messages and strong ethics and strong things for people to think about. That is what a lot of rap music is about. The poverty within the inner city, the plight of Black people that Marvin Gaye sang about it in 1971, but now this is a new way of expressing it. Sure. Any thoughts on the messages? Because the message is a very important part of a song. Kris Kristofferson songs had messages to them. If you listen to them, the problem with a lot of the loud music today is you cannot listen to the message, even though the words are there. The problem I have with it, sometimes.

MS (00:38:33):
I agree with you and I will give hip hop credit for bringing back lyricism and storytelling. Whether I think personally like it or not, is immaterial for the most part. I do not care for it. I mean, I do not hate it or anything, it is just it is not my thing. But I will give rap artists credit for bringing back spoken word. Or I should say the power of the word. It is not just that it is spoken, but the word that these are story songs, essentially.

SM (00:39:10):
Which-

MS (00:39:10):
And often as you point out with messages-

SM (00:39:12):
...which seemed to maybe have died in the mid (19)70s when disco came. Yeah. Cause that was all about dancing and everything. Could you define something? I think you are working on something called Outlaw Country Vein, is it is a-

MS (00:39:29):
Outlaw Country, what?

SM (00:39:30):
You can call it the Outlaw Country Vein, V-E-I-N. You talk about the music. Kristoffer Kristofferson used to say, as you said in the quote from him, "Do not let the bastards get you down."

MS (00:39:45):
Oh. Oh-

SM (00:39:46):
The kind of rebellion streak in American spirit.

MS (00:39:48):
You are referencing that other interview.

SM (00:39:51):
Yeah. And also what I love it here, when you say, "The rebellious streak in the American spirit", which was so prevalent in the (19)60s and mid to the mid (19)70s.

MS (00:40:03):
Yeah. So, I am sorry, what is your question?

SM (00:40:06):
The question is, how do you define outlaw country music?

MS (00:40:11):
Well, very specific. It was a very specific music of a time. It was these artists in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, notably Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Kristoffer Kristofferson, and then some lesser known people like Kinky Friedman and others. A lot of them from Texas. Steven?

SM (00:40:40):
I am here.

MS (00:40:41):
Oh. I thought you dropped out for a sec.

SM (00:40:43):
No.

MS (00:40:43):
Sorry.

SM (00:40:43):
Yep.

MS (00:40:48):
They grew their hair along. They did not dress like the older country singers. They looked like they were hippies basically. And they were singing music, it was a little bit closer to rock music. It was stark, it was less produced. I should say it was just as produced, but it had kind of a realistic ethos to it. Very earthy, very down to earth. Not necessarily commercial. The irony is that a lot of these artists ended up being wildly popular, like Willie and Waylon. And so people did find it commercial ultimately. But their idea was to break away from Nashville's concept of what was commercial. Hence, this kind of silly phrase, Outlaws, which was a phrase somebody chose to market them. It was a romantic thing. I mean, Americans always had a romance with the West from Manifest Destiny and founding of the United States. You know, we love stories about cowboys. And so these cats kind of adopted that look and that a lot of that sensibility and called themselves outlaws. But what they were rebelling against, they were not knocking over banks or whoever, or Billy the Kid or whoever, but they were knocking over record companies.

SM (00:42:46):
Let me change the [inaudible]. Okay. I am back. I had an interview with a very powerful Vietnam veteran, and he is actually back in school teaching at a prestigious school outside Philadelphia. And he has a picture on the back of his wall of a musician from the (19)60s who did not sell out. And because somebody wanted to buy his music, so that could be on a serial or something like that. And the basic premise of the article that he had on the back wall for students to see is that many of the (19)60s rock performers are now making lots of money on their music, but through commercial advertisements linked to corporations. So they are not living their idealism of the (19)60s now. It is all about making money. Your thoughts on that, because you have seen a lot of the rock music that is being played every day on television advertisements.

MS (00:43:49):
Well, there are many musicians and songwriter who have, "Sold out." I do not cast dispersion on anybody who needs to do something, or chooses to do something for money. I find it distasteful, but I cannot judge. I cannot stand in another man's shoes and tell him what to do. However, I do applaud people like Neil Young and Springsteen, by the way, who refuses to allow his music to be sold for advertisements. So there are musicians who will not. Dylan interestingly will, Neil Young Springfield will not. Others will, The Who will. Again, with some of these people, with Dylan, he does control his publishing. So he is allowing it to happen. But a lot of the musicians yet remember, do not control their song publishing anymore. I would have judge it by a case on a case by case basis, because I do not know who owns what songs.

SM (00:45:08):
Now, you have been a writer for-

MS (00:45:12):
I am sorry, Steven, I do not mean to interrupt you. But for instance, the Beatles and John, or Yoko I guess, or somebody, got a lot of when Nike began using the song Revolution-

SM (00:45:26):
Oh. Yes.

MS (00:45:27):
...for a commercial.

SM (00:45:27):
Yes.

MS (00:45:27):
And they were saying, "How could Yoko do this," and blah, blah, blah. Well, it turned out that Michael Jackson had bought the Beatles song catalog from that period. And it was either he or his business managers who made that decision. Not Yoko Ono, not John Lennon, because he was dead.

SM (00:45:48):
Well, he is probably turning over in his grave if he knew about it.

MS (00:45:48):
Probably.

SM (00:45:54):
You have been a writer for a long time, looking at all the magazines that you have written for and of course you were with Linked with National Lampoon. I mentioned that your dad ran the National Lampoon?

MS (00:46:09):
He was the head of the company. Yeah.

SM (00:46:12):
Wow. How important was the National Lampoon as a magazine during that period? The influence that itself had on boomers?

MS (00:46:26):
Well, huge. Boomers when they were younger read Mad. But as they were coming into adulthood, they required something that was more adult, and something that was hipper, that was more risqué, that was geared for people who were not little kids anymore. And that is what the Lampoon was. The Lampoon was basically Mad magazine for grownups. Admittedly young grownups, but nonetheless grownups.

SM (00:47:03):
Would you put the National Lampoon and Rolling Stone as probably the Mount Rushmore of magazines that influenced the boomer generation growing up.

MS (00:47:13):
Well, I do not necessarily buy concepts like Mount Rushmore. I am not comfortable with the metaphor, but I would say the Rolling Stone and the National Lampoon were two of the most important magazines to pick.

SM (00:47:28):
You obviously have written so many pieces, even in recent years. I read some of your pieces before the interview today, the one you wrote on The Grateful Dead without Jerry. That was very well written. Are there any pieces you wrote during those years in the (19)80s when you were a younger writer that stick out more than any other, that you had really a lot of fun writing it, and doing research on it, and you got pretty good feedback on it? Are there some articles of throughout the years that have stood out above the others?

MS (00:48:02):
Well, in the (19)80s, the stuff that I wrote that I am fond of looking back-

SM (00:48:10):
Yes.

MS (00:48:12):
...I wrote a column for the national anthem-anthem called Drinking Tips and Other War Stories, which basically was a monthly column about just saying yes. Meaning, that it was about my experiences with drugs and alcohol. And it was written partly because I was quite frankly fucked up through most of the 1980s. And that is what I had to write about. But it was also, I was consciously making a political statement in an era in America, got more conservative. And Nancy Reagan was pleading to asking, pleading for young people to just say no. I was screaming, "Do what you want, but I am saying yes." Whether that was responsible or not, is another story. But I enjoy doing it and I enjoy reading those pieces from that time. I do not think any of them are on the internet.

SM (00:49:25):
Have you ever thought of having a book done of your writings?

MS (00:49:30):
Oh yeah.

SM (00:49:30):
Just your writings?

MS (00:49:31):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There will be simple.

SM (00:49:35):
Very good. How about anything you have written and say the last 15 years, or even for the Huffington Post, something on an article that stands out?

MS (00:49:49):
Well, there is all kinds of things in the way. I mean, not probably, I know I have, I have written more in the last 15 years than I wrote in the 40 years before that, 55 now. So yeah. I mean, because I was not primarily a writer before then. Most of my life, I have been a musician. You know, I wrote for the Lampoon in the (19)80s, did some writing, music, journalism in the (19)70s, very little though. I did the Lampoon stuff in the (19)80s, and then went into journalism in the mid (19)90s. And most of my writing was written between say (19)95 and now. What stuff that I liked from this period? Is that what you are asking?

SM (00:50:54):
Yeah. And a lot of it you have reflections back to that period of the (19)60s and (19)70s, because you wrote-

MS (00:50:59):
Yeah. I mean, I am still trying to figure it all out.

SM (00:51:06):
Yeah. How do you feel? You are younger than I am. I am seven years older than you, but how does it feel as time passes on the farther and farther we get away from that period and the older we get, we feel like a lot of the boomers when they were young, felt they never feel like that we are mortal, that we are just part of a continuation in a process of whatever, that we just happened to be living in a very unique time. Do you ever reflect on that as time passes?

MS (00:51:45):
Sure. Like constantly. I mean, when I say constantly, I do not mean every waking minute, but yeah, it is something that, it is some, it is definitely something I think about it. And mortality, I am sure to some degree your experience has been the same. You may have noticed that as you have gotten older, more dead people. In the last two months alone, I have lost five friends, including an ex-girlfriend, and I have a lot of dead friends.

SM (00:52:23):
What is amazing, I remember, I do not know if you felt the same way with your parents, but as they were getting older, they would read the obituary columns and there would be people dying that were movie stars in the thirties, and the forties, and the early fifties and everything. Now we read the news today or in the last 10, 15 years, just in the last week or so, individuals have passed on. Dennis Hopper, who we all know from Easy Writer, and all the things that he did throughout the years. Even Arthur Linkletter. Yeah. House Party. I mean, these are all people, does not matter the age, they were all influences on boomers.

MS (00:53:03):
A little side note footnote here. Oh. How old was I? I do not know, seven or eight or something like that. My father edited the magazine called Signature, which was the house organ of the Diner's Club, the credit card. And for the Christmas issue, one year we did a shot of my brother who was five years younger than me. Well, anyway, I do not want to confuse you. I have a brother who's five years younger, and I have a sister who is two and a half years younger, and the three of us were on the cover of Signature with Art Linkletter dressed as Santa Claus. I remember the shoot, I am the-

SM (00:54:03):
Oh. My gosh.

MS (00:54:03):
...I am the oldest kid. So I remember spending the day with Art Linkletter. Oh. Wait, you know what? That was not Art Linkletter. That was another shoot. That was another photo. But I did do something. I was photographed as a kid for a magazine cover with Art Linkletter dressed as Santa Claus. I am confusing two different covers, and I remember spending the day with Art Linkletter around 1962, somewhere in there.

SM (00:54:41):
Of course, he lost his daughter, I believe, to suicide in later years. And-

MS (00:54:44):
She killed herself.

SM (00:54:46):
Yeah. And of course he lived in the (19)90s and he was always very positive. One of the things in that is happened a lot in these recent years is that politicians or individuals had a love to attack the period as the era where we began, the creation of all the problems we have in America, which is the divorce rate, the breakup of the family, the drug culture, the sexual revolution, lack of respect for authority, the beginning of all the isms. People not working as hard as they used to, all the attacks and the attacks are usually leveled against the (19)60s and the early (19)70s and the generation that grew up during that time. In fact, today you can hear it on the Huckabee Show almost on a regular basis. And whether it be Rush Limbaugh or Newt Gingrich, or even columns written by George Will, we are talking conservatives here now, but a lot of average Americans say this too. So your thoughts on the condemnation of the era and the problems that have faced America since that time. And I want to add one other point. I had data to support the fact that the African American family in the 1950s, even though there was poverty, and Dr. King, and the Civil Rights Movement, families were together in the African American community and it all changed during the (19)60s.

MS (00:56:24):
It is such a broad question. Books have been written about this. Again, it is hard to nutshell an issue that is as broad as this, but from my point of view, freedom has its own problems, but it is preferable over tyranny and it is preferable over a bunch of nonsensical rules that are only in place so that certain people can maintain power. I mean, there is so many issues that you reference, it is hard to give all them their just due in one sweeping, in a few sweeping sentences. But for the most part, I think what the baby boomers of the (19)60s' generation, or whatever you want to call it, what they brought to this country has ultimately been positive. I mean, when I was a little kid, there were still colored restrooms and water fountains south of the Mason Dixon line. I sat and watched-

MS (00:58:03):
I sat and watched, I will never forget this. Excellent. I sat and watched the news with my mother when, I guess it was (19)64, (19)65, when the march on Birmingham, Alabama, and the local cops sicced police dogs and water hoses on the nonviolent demonstrators. And all they were, were Black, mostly African Americans, some whites who were trying to desegregate the south. So nobody can tell me that we were better off then because I do not believe it.

SM (00:58:44):
Well, you were born in (19)55, so you really did not start really recognizing television until say, the late (19)50s, real late (19)50s. But that black and white TV set that we all had with the three channels, and occasionally there was a fourth channel. That was a local channel. You did not see very many people of color on any shows-

MS (00:59:07):
True.

SM (00:59:08):
...In the (19)50s. I am not trying to lead the question here, but I want your response and your impact of, because even in the (19)60s, we know that this was the first war that was truly covered on television, the Vietnam War, and had a lot of influence. But in the (19)50s, the only African Americans that were on TV in the early (19)50s, the slapstick Amos and Andy Show, which was-

MS (00:59:32):
I remember it.

SM (00:59:33):
Yeah. Which is kind of a, it was-

MS (00:59:34):
But I remember it-

SM (00:59:38):
Everybody watched it, but it made them look like buffoons. And secondly, Nat King Cole had a show that lasted for maybe 12 weeks, and that was it until the early (19)60s when all of a sudden Flip Wilson had his show. Diahann Carroll was on a show on nurses. She played a nurse.

MS (00:59:55):
I remember that.

SM (00:59:57):
And then of course, I Spy with Bill Cosby. There was a fourth show, I cannot remember the fourth, but that was the beginning of it. And I am just perceiving this as a person who's not very well schooled. I am just seeing it. What are your thoughts on the television? Was television in the (19)50s masking all the problems we were having?

MS (01:00:20):
Well, yeah. I mean, television was, there has never been an... I should not say never, but has rarely been an honest reflection of what is really going on. It is a yes and no answer. I mean, on one hand there was less reality back then, and yet in some ways there was more truth. To say... It depends upon the show. I mean, I think, for instance, that television journalism had more integrity in that era. People like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite-

SM (01:01:08):
Dave Garroway. What is that?

MS (01:01:11):
Dave Garroway was another good one. Right. Huntley and Brinkley, people like that. You had a sense that these men were journalists and not just entertainers. And notice that I said men and not women, because there were no women. There were very, I mean there were a handful of correspondents, but there were no anchors. Another thing to note, by the way, in terms of how America has changed.

SM (01:01:45):
The only female correspondent I can remember was Nancy Dickerson, who was on during the Kennedy administration.

MS (01:01:51):
I went to school with her daughter.

SM (01:01:53):
Did you? Wow. She was there. And then there was one that was a UN person. I forget. There were very few. The one thing that, the reality that you mentioned too, was the McCarthy hearings were shown on TV in the early (19)50s, and that they were scary. And as a little kid, I did not understand it, but I was scared of that guy. They were scary, but they were being shown on TV. Was there a generation gap in your family?

MS (01:02:22):
Sure.

SM (01:02:24):
Explain the gap in your family.

MS (01:02:26):
Well, it was interesting because my parents, again, as I said earlier, my parents, they were not raving squares. They certainly were not right-wing extremists or anything. They were liberals and fairly open-minded. They had both been in the entertainment world in various capacities. My mother was a singer. My mother's boyfriend before she married my father was Charlie Parker's pianist, Al Hague.

SM (01:02:54):
Oh, really?

MS (01:02:56):
So she came up in the jazz world. She had smoked pot before I was born. And so they certainly were not squares, but when the heavy-duty hippies scene came down, they were kind of horrified. It was something that, that kind of openness and that kind of bohemianism was something that was not done in polite company, prior to the late (19)60s.

SM (01:03:31):
Was there any differences over the Vietnam War?

MS (01:03:34):
At first, yeah. Although my father, my father is still alive, and he forgets this, but he claims he was always against the war, but he actually supported the war initially. And we had screaming matches because by (19)66, (19)67, I was 11, 12 years old, I had already figured out that I was against the war, largely because people like, well, my heroes like Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsburg were against it. And I would read up on it. I decided I was against it. My parents and I would have arguments, and they would talk about the domino theory. And I would counter that, "This is a civil war in Vietnam, and that all the Vietnamese want is America to go mind its own business." But within a year or two, they were against the war. By (19)68, they were against it.

SM (01:04:39):
You had already said that there was some good things that came out of that generation. Now remember, this generation is 74 to 78 million. They cannot even figure out the exact number. I am sure the Census Bureau can figure it out. But-

MS (01:04:52):
Steven, I am sorry, which generation are you referring?

SM (01:04:54):
The boomer generation.

MS (01:04:55):
Oh, boomer.

SM (01:04:56):
Yeah. They were defined as anywhere between 74 and 78 million. And when I asked this question, I have had a lot of different responses as well, is can you state some strengths and weaknesses of the generation? And it is hard to talk for 74 million people, but-

MS (01:05:17):
Well, that was going to be my... Yeah, I am sorry. Go ahead.

SM (01:05:20):
The people that you knew that were boomers, it is based on your personal.

MS (01:05:24):
Well, my friends were hippies so I have a very, to a large degree, I have a limited point of view. My friends all had long hair, smoked dope and dog rock music and dropped acid. And we were the people our parents warned us against, as the famous saying goes. And so that is my perspective. I am the horror show that conservatives talk about to this day.

SM (01:06:00):
So you say your generation is nothing but strength, and-

MS (01:06:04):
What is that?

SM (01:06:05):
So you are saying there are no weaknesses within the-

MS (01:06:08):
No-no-no. I did not say that. But the problem is that I do not know how to generalize about a generation. I mean, you have to remember, people say, "The baby boomers." People say the (19)60s, and they think that somebody means that every young person had long hair, was at Woodstock. Well, that is not true. Most young people were fairly normal, whatever that means. I mean, they may have had longish hair and everyone loved the Beatles, and they may have smoked pot or not, but they were not raving hippies. Most young people, most boomers. I happened to be one who was.

SM (01:06:54):
One of the ways that the generation-

MS (01:06:54):
Sorry, Steven, let me just, I am sorry. Let me just finish this one thought. I did not mean to interrupt you. I am sorry. All I am saying is that to try to stereotype an entire segment, just merely, the only thing they have in common is that they were born at the same time, relatively same time. It cannot be done. They cannot be stereotyped. You know what I am saying?

SM (01:07:20):
Good points. Because others have said the same thing. And that is, really only between, some people have said only 15 percent of this generation ever got involved in any kind of activism. And 85 percent just went on day after day, may have been subconsciously affected, but did not really act. And then someone told me it is as low as 5 percent. So still, when you are talking about 74 to 78 million, it is a lot of people that did get involved. Your thoughts on this issue of uniqueness? A lot of the people when I was in college felt that they were the most unique generation in American history because there was this feeling, and you may have felt it amongst your peers, no matter what state they were in, that they were going to end war, bring peace, end racism, sexism, homophobia, and change the world. Well, obvious when you look at the world today, some people say, we are in worse shape than we have ever been. And who is in charge? The boomers and the up and coming generation X-ers. So just your thoughts on the uniqueness that many people felt within the generation.

MS (01:08:30):
Well, did I feel that? Yeah, I definitely felt that at the time. And I did believe in what Abbie Hoffman dubbed Woodstock Nation. I felt that we were going to create a new world, a world without borders based on a kind of hip communism. We were delusional, quite frankly. And also, again, to reiterate what we were talking about earlier, the people who were true believers in that philosophy, including myself, we were relatively speaking, a small percentage of the generation. We were also very loud, and a lot of us were smart, and we knew how to make noise and how to get noticed.

SM (01:09:34):
Would you also say that, as you say about Chris Kristofferson, a man who has been consistent from the time he was a young man to today with his music, that there is a lot of boomers that were consistent and still are in their lives?

MS (01:09:54):
Yes, absolutely. It is interesting. There are exceptions, but for the most part, if you look at the people in the (19)60s, and I do not know whether they were technically boomers or not, it would have to be on a case by case basis, because a lot of them were born before (19)45 or (19)46 or whatever the demarcation is. But if you look at the people who were really serious, the leaders, the ones who are still winning, they are still doing the work in one way, shape, or form or another. And I am talking about everybody from the Yippies who are still alive, a la Krassner.

SM (01:10:41):
Oh, he is great.

MS (01:10:41):
What is that?

SM (01:10:41):
He is great.

MS (01:10:41):
Yeah. Well, I think you got to me through Paul, right?

SM (01:10:51):
Yeah, I got to... Yeah, Paul. And Paul, man, I wish I had known him when I lived in the West Coast, because he is just a fantastic person.

MS (01:10:58):
Yeah, he is.

SM (01:10:58):
And he is an intellect. But he is also funny.

MS (01:11:03):
He is very, oh, he is one of the funniest men alive. And it is interesting about Paul, Paul really walked the talk. He was not just for a better world, he was for people treating each other in everyday life, he was for people treating each other decently. And it is one thing that Paul has always done is treat his fellow human beings decently. He is one of the truly nicest people I have ever known. In addition to being a great wit and thinker and political commentator and satirist.

SM (01:11:48):
Really good writer too.

MS (01:11:49):
Excellent.

SM (01:11:53):
One of the things too, the Peace Corps people, Peace Corps people that I have known that were in the Peace Corps have gone on with other things in their lives, and they have been consistent in most respects by carrying on that experience beyond the time when they were young.

MS (01:12:06):
Were you in the Peace Corps?

SM (01:12:07):
No, but I have interviewed a few people and that philosophy and that feeling of giving back and caring about others beyond oneself and those that are hurting, it has been carried on in their lives wherever they work. So it continues. What are your thoughts? Just basically, because the (19)60s and the (19)70s were all about movements. We had the anti-war movement and obviously the civil rights movement, which was ongoing. And then the women's movement evolved, the gay and lesbian movement, the Chicano movement-

MS (01:12:37):
Oh, Steven, can you hold just one second?

SM (01:12:39):
Yes.

MS (01:12:39):
I am sorry. I just have to go check something. Hold on.

SM (01:12:43):
Fine. I am back here with the tape now.

MS (01:12:45):
Sorry, man.

SM (01:12:46):
Oh, that is okay. I am talking about the movements. There were so many movements. On Earth Day in 1970, I know they worked with groups, the anti-war movement to make sure it was okay, that they would support the event itself. There seemed to be a lot of cooperation within the movements. Now they are being criticized as single-issue groups, rarely coming together with camaraderie. In other words, the gay and lesbians protest certain things, and they do not have the other groups there. The women's groups are the same way. Native American, earth, the environmental groups. You do not see the posters from all the groups. Are you sensing this too, that what was, in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, these movements that were very important for justice, that they were working together? Now they seem to be single issue and kind of segregated.

MS (01:13:51):
Well, there was something back then that does not exist now, which, there was a powerful left wing. There was a powerful left-wing political movement overall. And in the process, there was solidarity between groups and different causes. There is no left of any... I mean, to speak of. There is no left, left, I guess is the only way to put it. I mean, there is. There are a handful of commentators who are somewhat left wing, but you are talking about a period where a lot of the older people have lived through, our elders had lived through the Depression. In my family alone, there were Trotskyites and anarchists and all kinds of people who had lived through the Depression and decided that capitalism was the culprit. And there were a lot more people who gave credence to the notion of socialism back then. It does not have the kind of widespread respect that I think it once did. I mean, for crying out loud, the word liberal, which to me is almost a meaningless term, is considered a dirty word. That tells you how far this country has gone in 30 years, in my opinion.

SM (01:16:04):
Yeah. And it is interesting about President Obama who tries to separate himself from the boomer generation, but his critics say he is the reincarnation of the boomers, or that particular kind of-

MS (01:16:19):
Well, that is ridiculous. I mean, whatever you want to say about Obama, whether one likes him or does not like him, and I have very mixed feelings about him. I mean, I wish him the best, but I am not crazy about him. I am not crazy about what he has done thus far, is what I mean, although he is certainly an improvement. But that is, anyway, but-

SM (01:16:42):
It is like that one guy that criticized you said, the guy on exceptionalism said, "You only like the music of that particular period and will not listen to the music of today." He said, "Well, you are responsible for the George Bush."

MS (01:16:59):
I mean, it is so patently absurd.

SM (01:17:01):
Yeah.

MS (01:17:01):
I do not even know how to respond, which is why I did not respond to that guy, because his argument is all over the map, and I did not want to waste my time.

SM (01:17:11):
Two basic questions that I have asked everyone in this process, there are two issues dealing with the issue of healing and the issue of trust. The issue of healing is a simple question that I came up with students when we took them to Washington DC in the mid (19)90s and one of our leadership on the road programs. And we met with former Senator Edmund Muskie, who was the vice-presidential running mate with Humphrey at the (19)68 convention in Chicago. And the question was this, that is the boomer generation going to go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing due to all the divisions that were taking place in the United States at that time. Some say we were even close to a second civil war. The divisions between Black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who were against it, supported the troops and those who were against it. These students, again, had not seen or were not alive then, but they saw the riots in the (19)60s. They saw the burnings of major cities, they saw the assassinations of two major leaders in (19)68, and Tet, and the president withdraw all these things, tremendous divisions. Your thought on the boomer generation, whether this is an issue or not?

MS (01:18:34):
Well, I am not entirely sure what your question is. Are you... I am sorry, what?

SM (01:18:40):
The question is really, do you think the Civil War generation did go to its grave not healing? And the question is, there were so many divisions, and we seem to see them today in politics. They are just like they were back in the (19)60s, but they are older. Is there an issue with the boomer generation with respect to healing? I know a lot of people are not having a problem with this, but some may.

MS (01:19:10):
One thing I have learned as I have gotten older is that life is a process. It is not necessarily about achieving, it is not necessarily about seeing, reaching a goal, but it is about trying to reach a goal, if you understand what I am saying. And I should say, when I was young, many of my brothers and sisters in the so-called movements, we thought we were going to live to see Woodstock Nation. Well, it certainly did not happen when we thought it was going to happen. Will it ever happen? I do not know. Do I know what is going to happen before I die? I have no idea. But I know that it is important to continue to fight for what one believes. That is the only thing that matters. I do not mean it is the only thing that matters because obviously we want to achieve certain things, but whether we do or do not is not really up to us, except in so much as that we have to do the best job that we can about whatever it is that we were advocating.

SM (01:20:35):
Edmund Muskie basically responded by saying... He did not even respond about 1968. He said we had not healed since the Civil War in the area of race. And then he went on to talk for about 10 minutes on that issue. And let me change my [inaudible]. In terms of... Make sure this is working right here. Yes. Okay. So the healing, some people have also said, "Why do not you define this better when you ask this question, and simply say, those who supported the war and those who were against the war? Then maybe you can get some more in-depth answers instead of being so general." Because the wall was built, and I like your opinion on the wall, that was built and put up in (19)82 to heal the veterans and their families. And I know that there is still a lot of healing because I go down there every Memorial Day and Veterans Day, so they still have a long way to go. But I have often thought about the anti-war people and whether when they have come to the wall, whether they have second thoughts about their actions or would have done it all over again. So I think I am, some respects thinking more about those who were for and against the war.

MS (01:21:55):
Well, I mean, I was firmly in the anti-war camp. In fact, I worked, when I was a teenager, I worked for an organization in New York called the Fifth Avenue Peace Parade Committee, which was the primary anti-war group in New York during the Vietnam era. And I spent my weekends volunteering at their office. And when we would do big demonstrations, I would leaflet, go out and pamphleteer, and I almost got my ass kicked, [inaudible]. There were people who objected to some snot-nosed little hippie kid handing out anti-war leaflets. But I went to the wall in DC soon after it was built, and I was very moved by it. It is a very contemplative place, as you know. A very moving place. The thing that I think the anti-war movement gets bad rapped about is that we were the ones who were trying to end the god damn thing and keep people from dying over it. And yet, often, from various quarters, we get the rap that we were not respecting the soldiers. Well, that is not true. I think that we had more respect for the soldiers in their lives and their loved ones, we had more respect for them than the pro-war people. These kids, who by the way, were us, were cannon fodder for politicians and political motives, and there was no reason for them to die. There is no reason for these kids in Iraq and Afghanistan to be dying.

SM (01:24:11):
Yeah. Even the Vietnamese have stated since the war ended that they knew that the anti-war movement would mean victory for them because the United States would not have the willpower to continue if it is not popular at home in the long run. So they, the Vietnamese say that the war was won in America by those who were against the war, and so they did not go full force. And then that is, a lot of the critics have heard that, and they say, "Well, they prolonged the war, and we did not win the war because of the anti-war people."

MS (01:24:56):
I do not think we should have won the war. I was against us winning the war, whatever that means. I mean, we were on the wrong side. As I said earlier, my perspective has not changed from 1967. Vietnam was a civil war. It really was not even a civil war. It was a war between the Vietnamese and a puppet government created by the United States. It was geopolitical chess playing, but instead of chess pieces, it was the lives of young men.

SM (01:25:46):
How important were the college students in ending the war? They did a lot of protesting from (19)67 on.

MS (01:25:54):
How important was college students-

SM (01:25:56):
In terms of ending the war? What do you think was the main reason why the war ended?

MS (01:26:01):
The war? As much as I would love for the anti-war movement to get credit for ending the war, the truth is the war took 10 years to end. It did not end quickly. The only thing that is gone on longer is this idiocy in Afghanistan, but certainly college students and young people, a lot of them made sure that their voices were heard, and it had an effect. It definitely had an effect.

SM (01:26:43):
What did the Vietnam War teach you as a person?

MS (01:26:54):
What did it teach me as a person? Well, I mean, I guess the bottom line is it reinforced-

MS (01:27:03):
Well, I mean, I guess the bottom line is it reinforced my feelings that war is usually pointless. I mean, sometimes it is absolutely necessary. I am not a pacifist, but I am sorry?

SM (01:27:19):
No, continue.

MS (01:27:27):
But war for no reason or for nebulous reasons or for reason or for geopolitical power plays is immoral, in my opinion.

SM (01:27:42):
What did the (19)60s and (19)70s teach you?

MS (01:27:48):
Think for yourself.

SM (01:27:50):
Very good. Do you like the term boomer?

MS (01:27:56):
No.

SM (01:27:57):
If you were to define the generation from (19)46 to (19)64, what term would you use?

MS (01:28:03):
Young people.

SM (01:28:05):
Young people, very good. One of the questions, the other question besides healing, was the issue of trust. The generation has often been defined as a generation that just does not trust, and there was obvious reasons why because leaders lied to them for a long time, whether it be LBJ with the Gulf of Tonkin, or seeing Richard Nixon, Watergate. There were so many other instances during the war with McNamara on those figures that were not true about the people that had died. But you know, being a person during that time, that the boomers did not trust anyone in positions of leadership or responsibility, whether that was a university president, the vice president of student affairs, a rabbi, a priest, a corporate leader, a congressman, a senator. Anybody in a position of responsibility, they kind of frowned on him because they did not trust him. Do you agree with that? And because that was very prevalent when I was in college. And secondly is not being very trustful a negative?

MS (01:29:26):
I think healthy skepticism, and again, it is one of these case by case issues. You have to let your brains and your heart guide you. When I say you, I mean any sentient human. Mistrust is earned or should be earned.

SM (01:30:00):
Right.

MS (01:30:01):
And likewise, trust should be earned. I do not go around... I neither mistrust nor trust unless I know something about the person or the situation. I do not inherently mistrust or trust. And maybe, to be fair, there are certain things that perhaps I do inherently mistrust. To try and answer your question, I think I probably do inherently mistrust authority.

SM (01:30:46):
Well, one of the first things you learn in political science, and I was a history, political science major, is that lack of trust is very healthy in a democracy because it means dissent is allowed and it is alive and well in a democracy. Would you agree with that?

MS (01:31:05):
Yeah, absolutely.

SM (01:31:07):
So I think it is a healthy thing, even though some people... I am trying to keep my opinions out of it, but a couple other things here and then I just have some ask you to respond to some names and terms. And then we will be done. I know this might be another one of those general questions. Do you think boomers have been good parents and grandparents? And I say this only... You can only do this from the experiences that you have had with your fellow boomers, but the question I am always asking people is, has this generation ever sat down with their kids and grandkids and shared with them?

MS (01:31:45):
Well, again-

SM (01:31:46):
And do the kids –

MS (01:31:47):
...such a broad question. I mean, every individual is different. I would hate to paint an entire generation with a brush this broad.

SM (01:31:57):
How about just the term activism?

MS (01:31:59):
Sorry.

SM (01:31:59):
How about just seeing activism, which was a very important part of many of the boomers, do you see it today a lot in others?

MS (01:32:08):
Do I see activism a lot?

SM (01:32:10):
Yeah. In young people.

MS (01:32:14):
[inaudible] amongst activists.

SM (01:32:14):
Well, no, I mean, do you see it amongst young people today and maybe in the last 20 years?

MS (01:32:21):
Well, I have seen it, but that is partly because I am an activist and I run in activist circles. If I did not, I am not sure that I would have witnessed it. In other words, because I am an activist, I get to meet other activists and often they are young people.

SM (01:32:39):
Yes.

MS (01:32:40):
If I was not an activist, I am not sure that I would witness a lot of activism because it is not like it was, say, in (19)69 or (19)70 where you were constantly seeing, witnessing a dissent. It is not like that anymore. In fact, there is a lot more blind acceptance of the way things are. Although it is interesting, if you read the opinion polls, these millennials or whatever they are called are actually the most progressive politically, progressive generation ever since these kinds of polls have been taken.

SM (01:33:28):
And they like boomers.

MS (01:33:29):
They do like boomers?

SM (01:33:32):
Yes, they do. Because since I am in higher ed, I was in higher ed for all these years, millennials link up with boomers in many ways. They want to leave a legacy. A lot of boomers, when they were young, wanted to leave a legacy. But we talked about this, ending more and bring peace to the world and all the other things. Many may not have succeeded, but they believe in that. Well, a lot of millennials believe in they want to leave a legacy too, but the difference between boomers and millennials is the time they plan to do it. Millennials want to create a legacy beginning around 40. They want to raise families, get a job, do all the things they do, but they are thinking down the road that they want to leave something for future generations. So it is just the timing more than anything else that may be different. I have got some slogans here. Actually these are three slogans that I feel define the generation slogan. Number one is, "Malcolm X by any means necessary," which symbolizes a more radical, maybe even the use of guns, violent aspect to the movement. The second one is the quote that Bobby Kennedy took from I think George Bernard Shaw, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not," which is the activist, the mentality of I want to make a difference, bring justice to the world. And then there is the more hippie mentality, which was on Peter Max posters in the early (19)70s. And I had one on my door at Ohio State, which stated, "You do your thing. I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." That was kind of a hippie statement. And the only other one that people have mentioned is, "We shall overcome," which is symbolic of the Civil Rights Movement. And one other person mentioned, John Kennedy's, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Do you have any slogans that you think define the boomer generation?

MS (01:35:53):
Again, I do not think that the boomer generation has a singular way to define boomers. I think that what happened with the boomers is, and I know I am not necessarily answering your question because again I am hesitant to paint the entire generation with a broad brush, but what I think happened in the (19)60s basically is for a lot of reasons that could be enumerated but we do not have a whole... Again, it is something that books get written about these things. What happened was that for the first time in history... I guess it could be argued though the Renaissance, the Enlightenment maybe. But for the first time in history, certainly in recent history, meaning the last few hundred years or so, couple hundred, a Bohemian movement went mass, went viral. And you saw a Bohemian movement emerge from the shadows, emerge from the underground and become mainstream. Now, what happened in the process, interestingly enough, is that when that Bohemian movement went mainstream, partly what killed it off because it got co-opted by people whose motivation is profit, mainly Madison Avenue and people trying to sell things.

SM (01:37:54):
This last part of the interview is just a lot of names. You probably saw that at the bottom, but it says, " What do these events mean to you? And then just quick thoughts." Does not have to be anything in depth, but what do these events mean to you? The opening of the wall in 1982.

MS (01:38:16):
Oh, the Vietnam Wall, you mean?

SM (01:38:18):
Yes.

MS (01:38:20):
What does it mean to... I think it was an attempt by America to come to terms with Vietnam for once and for all, although it may not have worked that way. I think at the very least, it paid lip service or it gave respect to the [inaudible]. And there is nothing wrong with that. I mean, it was a good thing, I think.

SM (01:38:51):
What does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you?

MS (01:38:56):
Oh, that meant a lot to me. Kent State and Jackson State meant that law and order was more important to the establishment than us, than our lives were. We were expendable.

SM (01:39:19):
What does Watergate mean to you?

MS (01:39:21):
Just a symbol of the kind of corruption that continues in everyday politics. It is the same old shit, basically.

SM (01:39:36):
What does Woodstock and the Summer of Love mean to you?

MS (01:39:42):
It was an attempt by human beings to create a new reality.

SM (01:39:49):
What do the hippies mean to you?

MS (01:39:51):
Hippies were the largest mass Bohemian movement in history.

SM (01:39:59):
What do the Yippies mean to you?

MS (01:40:07):
Yippies were hippies who had been beaten up by cops.

SM (01:40:13):
How about, what does the Vietnam Veterans Against the War mean to you?

MS (01:40:18):
They were soldiers who had come to the realization that they had been fighting the wrong war.

SM (01:40:27):
And the next one is counterculture, but I think you have already discussed that. What do communes mean to you?

MS (01:40:35):
Again, an attempt at creating a new reality, a new way to live.

SM (01:40:40):
What do the Black Panthers and Black Power mean to you?

MS (01:40:48):
Well, the Panthers were a group of mostly young Black men and women who came together to reclaim their basic rights as Americans and human beings.

SM (01:41:05):
And Black Power?

MS (01:41:05):
Black Power was just an expression of pride in a time when Black people were still fighting for basic human rights.

SM (01:41:26):
What does SDS mean to you?

MS (01:41:30):
SDS was the first and largest group of young white Americans of that era, late (19)50s, early (19)60s, coming together and saying, "We have a vision for a different kind of America."

SM (01:41:53):
What does the National Organization for Women mean to you?

MS (01:42:00):
Same thing as the Black Panthers, but for women.

SM (01:42:03):
And how about the American Indian Movement? That would be the same thing.

MS (01:42:06):
Same thing.

SM (01:42:09):
Yeah.

MS (01:42:09):
It was a gay liberation.

SM (01:42:10):
Yeah. Yeah. And the same thing with Stonewall. And I think we-

MS (01:42:15):
Same thing.

SM (01:42:16):
Yeah. What does Attica mean to you?

MS (01:42:24):
Same. Imprisonments. These are all movements of people trying to reclaim their humanity.

SM (01:42:29):
What does My Lai mean to you?

MS (01:42:36):
My Lai was just a war crime that got noticed.

SM (01:42:41):
And what does Tet mean to you?

MS (01:42:46):
Tet represented the fact that the American military is not invincible.

SM (01:42:57):
And then these are just names of people, just quick responses.

MS (01:42:59):
Which, by the way, we are seeing repeated in Afghanistan and Iraq. Anyway.

SM (01:43:04):
Yeah. Please respond to these people in or terms, just quick responses. Tom Hayden.

MS (01:43:17):
Real smart, real committed, honorable guy.

SM (01:43:22):
Jane Fonda.

MS (01:43:30):
I think that Jane Fonda's... Well, what do you mean? Jane Fonda, the activist? Jane Fonda, the fitness?

SM (01:43:40):
Yeah, but the total-

MS (01:43:42):
There is so many Jane Fondas.

SM (01:43:43):
There is a new book out by Mark Lemke on Hanoi Jane. I am reading it right now.

MS (01:43:48):
Yeah. Yeah.

SM (01:43:48):
It brings up the three different aspects of her. Are you talking about the activist? Are you talking about the physical fitness guru? Or are you talking about the entertainer?

MS (01:43:58):
Right. Good actress. I do not know anything about aerobics, but I am sure she is a fine aerobics instructor. As far as her activist, I more or less was in solidarity with her.

SM (01:44:13):
John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy.

MS (01:44:20):
Great men, very flawed.

SM (01:44:24):
Dwight-

MS (01:44:25):
Wait a second. Wait a second. But I think that I should say that about JFK. I think that Bobby, had he lived, may have changed the course of American history and may have been the greatest American president, but we will never know that. So it is just a feeling. I had great affection for Bobby.

SM (01:44:44):
Dwight Eisenhower.

MS (01:44:48):
Represents an older America that I do not have that much affection for.

SM (01:44:59):
LBJ and Hubert Humphrey.

MS (01:45:03):
Well, those are two different people. LBJ is a fascinating man, again, very, very flawed. A great man in many respects and a war criminal at the same time. Humphrey represents a kind of ineffectual, cannot do spirit in America, where I guess his heart was in the right place, but his ass was owned by the establishment.

SM (01:45:47):
Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern.

MS (01:45:49):
Well, both men who saw that the war was morally wrong and spoke up.

SM (01:45:57):
Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X.

MS (01:46:00):
Again, two different men representing two different things, but both, in my opinion, great men, great human beings, great Americans. Again, I think if both had lived, they might have affected more change and accomplished more. Again, I do not know. I am just guessing, but two men I have immense immeasurable respect for.

SM (01:46:38):
Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.

MS (01:46:43):
Well, Gerald Ford is just a joke, but Ronald Reagan is the most overrated president in the history of this country. And furthermore, he was the guy who set this country back and put it on the track back to greed and war and all the bad stuff. And I think when the history books... It always depends on who is going to write the history but in my opinion, Ronald Reagan will not be viewed as a kindly old uncle, the benevolent conservative that he is viewed as in many quarters now. I mean, really, this country started to go downhill beginning with his election. And as he is as revered as he is does not say a lot of good things about this country.

SM (01:48:11):
Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

MS (01:48:14):
Nixon is just a crook. He knew. What he said he was not, he was. Agnew, another liar. These guys are about power. That is what they are about.

SM (01:48:35):
Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.

MS (01:48:37):
Again, two very different men cannot really be described in the same breath. Abbie personally is one of my heroes, a brilliant man, very funny, very good writer by the way. I have always thought Abbie's writings were underrated. He had a vision for a different kind of America. But I will tell you something, most Americans are not hip enough to understand where Abbie was going. The thing is Abbie was a hipster. Abbie was like a jazz musician and trying to affect change the way a jazz musician would. And that is not ever going to work because, as I said, most human beings is not that hip. I have respect for Jerry. I do not necessarily view his late in life conversion to capitalism as some kind of betrayal or anything, but he is a complicated guy. He did a lot of good. He also was capable of really making an ass of himself. Very inconsistent man.

SM (01:49:58):
And I do not know if you had a chance to see the YouTube of him on the Phil Donahue Show.

MS (01:50:02):
Yeah, I do not know if you know, but I have been working on a documentary about the Yippies for about six years now.

SM (01:50:09):
I did not know that.

MS (01:50:10):
So we have a whole... Well, it is not finished, but we have a whole sequence about the Phil Donahue Show. I spoke to Phil Donahue about that, about Jerry's appearance on the very show that you are talking about.

SM (01:50:23):
And boy, Phil Donahue, for him to just sit there and take what he was taking was something.

MS (01:50:29):
He was trying to give Jerry the benefit of the doubt, and Jerry just kept making a fool of himself.

SM (01:50:36):
The Berrigan brothers and Dr. Benjamin Spock.

MS (01:50:41):
Great Americans, great human beings.

SM (01:50:44):
How about Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, some of the-

MS (01:50:52):
Well, again, I cannot characterize them all. They are different women, but Bella I loved. I mean, I am a New Yorker and I am a New York Jew, so I have sort of a soft spot for Bella. Loudmouth, New York feminist, beautiful, beautiful woman. Betty Friedan, visionary. Gloria, she did good stuff. But my problem with what we used to call women's liberation and what later was called feminism, is that it lost its Marxist analysis. And what I am trying to say is a lot of feminists believed that once women gained positions of power, because women were nurturers, that they would bring peace and they would bring understanding and they would bring people together. But we have seen that women... I mean, we are seeing it with this idiot, Sarah Palin now. Women can be as divisive as men. And so I think feminism, the way it has played out, has been a flawed philosophy. But I do not mean to say that I do not basically agree with feminism. I do. I also do believe that men and women are different.

SM (01:52:28):
How about Phyllis Schlafly? Because she is the extreme [inaudible].

MS (01:52:31):
She is just a joke.

SM (01:52:33):
How about President Jimmy Carter and President Bill Clinton?

MS (01:52:38):
Again, two completely different guys. I think Clinton is a phony, never liked him. Was life better under him than under Bush? Hell yeah, but I just do not like the guy. There is something oily about him. I mean, I will never forget watching Clinton on TV before he was elected president, and I had heard or I had read that he had been called Slick Willie in Arkansas. But I did not really know why. I remember watching him give a speech before he was elected president in (19)92, and I remember sitting there thinking, "Man, this cat is slick." And that he knew how to put one over on a crowd. He knew how to manipulate a crowd. And then when the little light bulb went off over my head and I went, "Ah, that is where he got the Slick Willy came from." Obviously, politically, I am closer to Bill Clinton than I am any Republican. I just do not like the guy personally. Jimmy Carter is someone who was not a very good president, but I think he was a better president than he was portrayed as at the time. His post-presidential work has been fantastic.

SM (01:54:09):
How about George Bush the first and George Bush the second?

MS (01:54:14):
Well, boy, obviously I have no fondness for either man. But at least George the first had read more than three books. W is by far the dumbest man in my lifetime, the dumbest man to achieve that kind of power. I mean, the fact that he was President of the United States for eight years is one of the scariest realities.

SM (01:54:58):
How about when you talk about the Black Panthers, you already talked about them, but there is very unique personalities. There is Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, H Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael. All those six are major, major different Black Panther leaders. Any thoughts on them as a group?

MS (01:55:22):
As a group or as individuals?

SM (01:55:24):
Yeah, group or individuals.

MS (01:55:26):
Well, again, I do not like to characterize people. Each human being is their own human, has their own set of character traits and pluses and minuses. I think Huey was a visionary. He was clearly also, to put it mildly, a very flawed man including probably a murderer. Eldridge, very flawed, but a brilliant man.

MS (01:56:01):
Very flawed, but a brilliant man. Same with H Rep around Stokely. I will say this though, I do believe that all these people, all these cats were driven to extremism, madness, drug addiction, and various other maladies because of the innate, inherent racism of the country that they were born and raised. I think that they were pushed to Matt

SM (01:56:39):
Even-

MS (01:56:41):
But I have a lot of respect for the man.

SM (01:56:42):
Even David Horowitz, who was the head of one of the writers for Ramparts, who was a die-hard conservative now. He will even say that Eldridge Cleaver was a good writer.

MS (01:56:51):
Right? Horowitz is a brief-

SM (01:56:54):
Yeah. He was about the only one that he showed any kind respect for Daniel Ellsberg on the Pentagon Papers.

MS (01:57:00):
Actually, I spent a day with, a couple days with Ellsberg a few years ago in Ithaca, New York.

SM (01:57:06):
That is where I am from.

MS (01:57:07):
Oh, really? Yeah. I lived there for a few months in 2004. My sister lives there and I was staying.

SM (01:57:14):
The Cortland Binghamton area in Ithaca. That is my area.

MS (01:57:18):
Oh, very good. It is beautiful. It is beautiful up there. Yeah, those waterfalls. man.

SM (01:57:24):
Oh yes, but Daniel, there is a movie out. You probably saw The Most Dangerous Man in America.

MS (01:57:29):
I have not seen it, but Ellsberg to me is one of my, he is an American hero. What he did with the Pentagon Papers was outstanding.

SM (01:57:39):
Timothy Leary.

MS (01:57:43):
A guy I knew, a guy I knew a little bit personally, a flawed man, a brilliant man, a very charming man, a bit of a con artist. Ultimately, he is on my team, so-

SM (01:58:07):
Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson.

MS (01:58:10):
Well, two different, again, two different men, but both of them, great Americans, great athletes, both of them broke barriers. Ali refused to fight a war he thought was immoral and against his spiritual beliefs. Jackie Robinson broke the color line in baseball, as you know, and took a lot of shit for it, and great American.

SM (01:58:40):
Woodward and Bernstein.

MS (01:58:45):
I have complicated feelings about, particularly Bob Woodward, all the presidents’ men in their early reportage for the Washington Post concerning Watergate was extraordinary. Woodward went on to be a bit of a hack. He wrote a book about a friend of mine named John Belushi, comedian, actor, and the book was so full of errors of fact and insinuation and gossipy drug tidbits it after I read it, my respect for Bob Woodward diminished, so capable of great journalism, capable of bullshit at the same time.

SM (01:59:39):
How about Robert McNamara.

MS (01:59:44):
A mass murderer cloaked in the cloaked in respectability.

SM (01:59:50):
Angela Davis.

MS (01:59:54):
She is on my team.

SM (01:59:57):
Chicago Eight.

MS (01:59:59):
Well, again, my team.

SM (02:00:03):
The year 1968.

MS (02:00:06):
Oh boy. What do you want to know?

SM (02:00:07):
Just-

MS (02:00:07):
That is a long year.

SM (02:00:09):
That is why some young people who read history think we were close to a second civil war by that because of that year, and everything that preceded it.

MS (02:00:18):
It felt like it, but we were not. I mean, it certainly felt like-

SM (02:00:25):
Is there any one event? There is so many that stood out above all of them.

MS (02:00:34):
It is hard to say. I mean, there were the two major assassinations. First, Martin and Bobby, and then of course, the police riot at the Democratic Convention August. That was a hell of a year.

SM (02:00:52):
How about the weatherman?

MS (02:00:57):
Very-very flawed, but my team, and also I understand where they were coming from. They were trying to stop however wrong their methods were. They were trying to stop what they rightfully deemed was an immoral war. And I have great affection for Bill Ayers and [inaudible]

SM (02:01:28):
Earth Day and the Peace Corps.

MS (02:01:31):
Again, two different issues, but they both represent that streak of idealism that people my age, people from my generation and older than me too as well, they both the Peace Corps and Earth Day Embodied, that kind of useful idealism.

SM (02:02:03):
Barry Goldwater and William Buckley.

MS (02:02:06):
Again, two different guys. I hated Goldwater, but I came to respect him as he got older. He seemed to, these modern-day conservatives make Goldwater look like a commonsensical guy. Buckley, I think he was a racist from what I have read. I think that obviously his politics were different than mine, to put it mildly, but I will tell you something. They were a lot of interesting people back then, and he was one of them, very smart man. I actually interviewed him once for something, and he was very helpful. He was very nice. He was very polite, very pleasant, and I liked him personally.

SM (02:03:10):
How about John Dean?

MS (02:03:11):
Well, I think that John Dean was a man who grew up in public, in a sense. I do not mean, grew up from childhood, but he started at Point A and ended up somewhere else. He clearly had an epiphany that he was involved in something that was immoral and went public with it.

SM (02:03:49):
I am almost, the free speech movement and the Little Rock Nine.

MS (02:03:53):
Okay. Again, two different things, but I guess there are similarities. The Little Rock Nine, you are talking about the kids going to school? Yes. Okay. Well, obviously that was the beginning of one of the seminal events of the Civil Rights movement, and to think of these kids being at the forefront of any of a human rights movement at all. It is kind of mind blowing. It is young people that is sort of galling about mean young people today is that perennially historic, but young people have always been at the vanguard of political movements, and it is particularly any revolutionary political change, because they have the energy and the enthusiasm and often the blind foolishness to go out and do things that older people are too old to do. Well, it was the Little Rock.

SM (02:05:02):
The Free Speech movement.

MS (02:05:03):
Free speech. Well, free speech Movement was one of the things that kick started in 1960s as we know it.

SM (02:05:13):
And I have down here also the U2 and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

MS (02:05:19):
Okay. Francis Gary Powers.

SM (02:05:23):
First time I saw President Lie to the American Public on TV.

MS (02:05:26):
That was approximately what I was going to say? One of the first indications that America was not the flawless place that they told us it was U2. What was the other one?

SM (02:05:41):
The Cuban Missile Crisis.

MS (02:05:45):
Cuban Missile Crisis. Interesting. That was the first time I realized, one of the first times I realized that we could all die in a nuclear holocaust. My parents were in Florida, and that happened, and I will never forget them, my mother calling us back in New York City and her crying, are you your kids? Okay? You are all right. I think my grandmother was taking care of us. Well, my parents were away, and I realized what this was. Well, I was only seven, I guess it was actually two. I realized that I realized the gravity of the situation, and I used to have dreams. I used to have dreams of the world ending in the nuclear Holocaust.

SM (02:06:48):
Did you think your mom and dad might not come home?

MS (02:06:51):
I was wondering whether anyone was going to survive, whether we are all going to die. I will tell you something. I will tell something in the story. An interesting story when I was in was Ithaca once having dinner at my sisters, and they had some friends over, my sister is two and a half years younger than me. Her husband is about 3, 4, 4 years younger than me. There were friends, one of whom was a college professor at Cornell, was about five years younger than me, and they were having to talk about politics in general and history and different things. So I was the oldest person at the dinner table, and I went around the table and I said, so let me ask everybody this. I am curious. I said, did anybody at this table ever really believe that the human race could perish in a nuclear attack? And every single one of them all were younger than me said, no, and I realized that that is the difference. Before you said that there were early boomers and late Yes. I think that is the difference between the early boomers and the late boomers. The first decade, the (19)46 through (19)56, is that what you said? I mean, I am generalizing here, but these are all generalizations, but I think we were the ones who really understood what was at stake. I do not think that the kids younger than us had the same kind of tears.

SM (02:08:46):
President Obama is a boomer.

MS (02:08:49):
What year was he born?

SM (02:08:50):
He was born in (19)60. Well, he was two I think, so that would make him, he is 49 now, so I do not, that would make, well, 49, and he was just like a baby, but he is still a boomer. Right. For the terms McCarthy hearings, I already mentioned them, but what makes them important in the early (19)50s is the red diaper babies and the way they treated and the scary, the people that were communists, and it was a scary kind of a personality there that later years. Did you ever think about that man and what he did?

MS (02:09:28):
Sure-sure. My father, well, not a communist, was a liberal Democrat and was horrified by McCarthyism and would actually, he edited a magazine, as I told you earlier, called Signature in the (19)50s and (19)60s. Actually. It was originally called the Diners Club Magazine, and then he changed the name to Signature, but he hired writers who had been blacklisted, so he gave work to blacklisted writers, including Ian Hunter, who had won Academy Awards as a screenwriter.

SM (02:10:16):
Wow. The last one here is just Walt Disney, Howdy Doody, Hopalong Cassidy. It was just (19)50s television at it is finest. Hopalong was a little bit before you, Howdy Doody, went up to 1961 and Walt Disney as well. That is his, that is history right there. That is (19)50s television.

MS (02:10:40):
I remember Hat Duty, and I really remember Disney.

SM (02:10:45):
Right.

MS (02:10:45):
I was a huge Disney fan when I was a little kid. What does it mean to me now? Very little. It is mildly nostalgic, but it has no substance, substantive meaning to me. 2010.

SM (02:11:00):
You have, I wanted to ask you about your band, because, we have been talking about your journalism, your responses to questions around the generation. You talked about Kris Kristofferson, but I would like to know a little bit about your group, your band, what they are doing, and how you have been able to survive as a band all these years.

MS (02:11:23):
Well, first of all, I have had many bands. I mean, the most famous one was SlewFoot, but even SlewFoot.

SM (02:11:31):
That is what I am talking about.

MS (02:11:32):
Right. We broke up in 1978 or so yeah (19)78. Yeah, we broke up in 1978.

SM (02:11:43):
Well, what was it like being in that group those years? Because you were playing to the Boomers, what was it, does it feel different performing to the Boomer generation than it does to performing today? I do not know how you would say it, but-

MS (02:12:05):
Well, I do not have to, not that it is anyone's fault, per se, but people my age grew up more or less on the same music I did, so I did not to, I never had to explain things to them. Whereas younger people, a lot of my music is new to them. Not through any fault of their own, just they simply have not been exposed to it. Although, I mean, young people, some of them have good musical taste. I am not sure I know how to answer that question.

SM (02:12:49):
Yeah, just whether there was more of a, we call it excitement or energy within the audiences then, as opposed to now, in terms of-

MS (02:12:58):
I do not know. I think there is probably still energy. I just do not think the music has the same kind of quality or edge, but-

SM (02:13:06):
What do you think of, well you probably cannot say this either, but when the last Boomer has passed on that they do this over at the Gettysburg Battlefield, when the last survivor of the Civil War died in 1924, they have a statute form over there, but when the last maybe 50, 75 years from now, when the best history books and sociology books are written or books on the era of, what do you think they will say about this generation of young people, all young people in this case, because we are talking about those 74 to 78 million who were born between (19)46 and (19)64, and they will define them in many respects based on the time they lived. What do you think they will say about this group?

MS (02:13:51):
I do not think that they are going to talk about the Boomers per se, but that whole concept of baby boomers is a sociological construct. It has no bar. It has very little bearing on history. What is important is that a sizeable subset of what is called the baby boomers made a valiant attempt to turn history around, and in many respects, succeeded. That, in my opinion, is going to be in the history books forever. It is going to be looked on. I firmly believe that the 1960s and early (19)70s are going to be looked on as a kind of renaissance in human history.

SM (02:14:43):
Do you have any anecdotes or stories you would like maybe to mention one or two, just like the story about being with Kris Kristofferson, are there any other stories that could be educational for others? Like you mentioned John Beluchi, you knew him personally, but when Woodward wrote that book, it was full of mistakes. I did not know you knew him. Were there any other people in your music world that you worked closely with? Any stories would you like to share?

MS (02:15:16):
Well, there is many stories. I am not sure what you are looking for exactly.

SM (02:15:22):
Well I am looking, you had a purpose in writing about Kris Kris- well, being interviewed and saying things about Kris Kristofferson, what his music meant, and what he symbolized, that he was kind of symbolic of the (19)60s, and he was consistent through his life. Are there any other personalities or groups that have educational lessons based on your experiences with them?

MS (02:15:53):
Well, based on my personal experience?

SM (02:15:55):
Yes. Based on your personal experiences, just like your personal experiences with Kris Kristofferson.

MS (02:16:01):
I have to think about, I do not know if, I do not think that I have an answer for your question off the top of my head trying to think about it.

SM (02:16:08):
That is all right.

MS (02:16:09):
I am Sorry.

SM (02:16:10):
That is okay.

MS (02:16:11):
Yeah, do not know. I mean, lots of famous musicians, not only from my time as a musician myself, but also as a journalist. I have gotten to meet many of my teenage heroes.

SM (02:16:31):
Who are some of them?

MS (02:16:34):
Oh, well, I mean, for instance, a couple weeks ago I was hanging out with Jim Kelner, who is a drummer. He used to play with John Lennon and George Harrison and Dylan, but he would, I do not know if you would know who he is, but I am trying to think of who you would know. Who have I gotten to know? Last night I was hanging out with Don Was, who has been the Rolling Stones producer for the last 20 years. I am trying to think of who you would know.

SM (02:17:06):
Where are you based now? Los Angeles, or is it San Francisco?

MS (02:17:10):
LA. I live in LA.

SM (02:17:10):
Okay.

MS (02:17:14):
I should say I sleep in LA, but I live in New York, meaning that my heart is in New York, but my bed is in LA.

SM (02:17:22):
Okay. Very good. Are there any questions I did not ask that you thought I was going to?

MS (02:17:28):
No, I was not really sure what you were going to ask. In fact, no, I do not. Nothing that I can think of.

SM (02:17:38):
Well, that is it then.

MS (02:17:40):
Well, Steven, thank you.

SM (02:17:41):
Thanks for going over the hour and a half too. I really appreciate that. Eventually, I am going to need a good couple of quality pictures of you to be sent to me.

MS (02:17:52):
Okay.

SM (02:17:52):
But I will be emailing you on that.

MS (02:17:54):
Okay.

SM (02:17:54):
And a little more updates. I am finishing my interviews as of the end of the first week of Labor Day weekend. I am going to interview Kathleen Cleaver. She is my last interview.

MS (02:18:06):
Oh, okay.

SM (02:18:07):
And I have been told I got to stop the interviews because I have, I will have about 200 then, and that is a lot of interviews. And then I am going to be spending nothing but four solid months in hibernation, transcribing it myself. I have got the equipment. I am already, and I want to do it myself because people have told me the mistakes have been made when they hand them to other people, and then they end up having to do it themselves anyways. And then I will send you a copy of the transcript, and so you will be able to see it. And at the same time, there will be a form to sign so that I can use your interview in my book, and I will be sending that out to everybody. People said, well, you are put Mark, you should have handed this out to everybody before you even started this press, but they will see the transcript and we will go from there.

MS (02:18:51):
Okay.

SM (02:18:53):
And I really want to thank you.

MS (02:18:53):
You are welcome. Thank you. Who is publishing?

SM (02:18:59):
Well right now? Syracuse University Press is very interested. I have not, have not been going, I have been only going to university presses. I have not been doing anything with, I have not made no contact with major presses. And so as I get closer to Labor Day weekend, I have been told that this book needs to go out to more people. The University press books do not reach very many people. Syracuse University Press, I think is the one that is going to do it, but there is some issues there right now, and because of the economy, we all about the economy, and so some university presses are limited in the number of books they do on an annual basis. Now, they did not use to limit themselves, so it is not definite yet who the printer is, but I have a couple professors I am working with on this and go from there.

MS (02:19:50):
Okay. Well, best of luck. Keep me posted and thanks, man.

SM (02:19:56):
Yeah, thank you, Michael. Have a great day, and keep writing those articles. I will be reading your articles now all the time.

MS (02:20:02):
Thank you, Steven.

SM (02:20:02):
Yeah, have a good one.

MS (02:20:09):
Oh, wait a second. Let me ask you something. Yes. Before I, do I have your phone number?

SM (02:20:10):
My phone number is six one zero.

MS (02:20:12):
Hold on one second.

SM (02:20:16):
And I have a tape machine here all the time. Yeah. Six one zero.

MS (02:20:19):
Where are you, by the way?

SM (02:20:21):
Oh, I am, I am in Westchester, Pennsylvania. Just outside Philadelphia.

MS (02:20:25):
Steven. Oh, is it 4 3 6 9 3 6 4?

SM (02:20:30):
Yes. 6 1 0 4 3 6 9 3 6 4.

MS (02:20:33):
All right. Very good. Alright Steven, thanks so much.

SM (02:20:36):
One other thing. Yeah. Do you know Kris Kristofferson real well?

MS (02:20:41):
I know him.

SM (02:20:42):
Boy would I love to interview him.

MS (02:20:46):
You would have to go through his publicist and I do not even remember.

SM (02:20:53):
You email me that information if and I will.

MS (02:20:56):
I do not know what his public, you know what, I will email you. I do not, I am trying to think the best way to do this. I will email you somebody. You know what the thing is that I really do not have the, I do not have the, it is really not my-

SM (02:21:24):
I can go right to his website too.

MS (02:21:26):
Yeah. That is really the best way.

SM (02:21:28):
Do you know if he lives in LA or does he live in Burlingame?

MS (02:21:32):
Burlingame.

SM (02:21:34):
That is where his hometown is.

MS (02:21:37):
Burlingame.

SM (02:21:37):
California in-

MS (02:21:38):
San, well, actually he was born in Texas.

SM (02:21:41):
Yeah, but he went to Burlingame High School.

MS (02:21:43):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think his family moved to California later, but anyway.

SM (02:21:54):
Okay.

MS (02:21:54):
From what I know, and I do not know everything, obviously he splits his time between Malibu and LA and Hawaii.

SM (02:22:05):
Well, that is nice.

MS (02:22:05):
Yeah. No kidding.

SM (02:22:09):
All right, Michael. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.

MS (02:22:12):
You too.

SM (02:22:12):
Bye.

(End of Interview)

2010-06-05

Stephen McKiernan

Michael Simmons

142:16

English

Binghamton University Libraries

audio/mp4

Sound

Audio

Simmons, Michael--Interviews

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Baby boom generation; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; TV in the Nineteen fifties; Segregation; Civil Rights Movement; Vietnam Memorial; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Summer of Love.