So true:) and here is a tidbit from his last interview on Democracy Now Legendary Radio Broadcaster and Oral Historian Studs Terkel on the Iraq War, NSA Domestic Spy Program, Mahalia Jackson, James Baldwin, the Labor Movement and His New Memoir “Touch and Go”
We are broadcasting from Chicago, the hometown of our very special guest for the hour—broadcaster, author, social historian, American legend, Studs Terkel. Today, at the age of 95, Terkel is still speaking out. Two weeks ago, he wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times criticizing the Bush administration’s warrantless spy. And he has just come out with his long-awaited memoir. It’s called “Touch and Go.” Studs Terkel joins us for the hour. [includes rush transcript]
Link to page the gives link to this interview
democracynow.org
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i excerpt a bit from transcript, it was a 50 minute interview--one of the best Amy ever handled--she did it so well.
We are broadcasting from Chicago, the hometown of our very special guest for the hour—broadcaster, author, social historian, American legend, Studs Terkel. Born in 1912 in New York City, Studs Terkel moved with his family to Chicago at the age of ten, where he spent most of his life. Over the years he has worked as an activist, a civil servant, a labor organizer, a radio DJ and a television actor. But he is best known as a Chicago radio personality and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author.
For forty-five years, Studs Terkel spent an hour each weekday on his nationally syndicated radio show interviewing the famous and the not-so-famous. With his unique style, he created portraits of everyday life in America. He has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the George Polk Career Award and the presidential National Humanities Medal.
Today, at the age of 95, Studs Terkel is still speaking out. Two weeks ago, Studs wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times criticizing the Bush administration’s warrantless spy program and congressional efforts to immunize the large telecom companies that took part. And he has just come out with his long-awaited memoir. It’s called “Touch and Go.” Studs Terkel joins me for the hour here from Chicago.
Studs Terkel, legendary radio broadcaster, oral historian and author. He is the author of more than a dozen books. His long-awaited memoir, “Touch and Go,” has just been published. He is 95 years old.
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STUDS TERKEL: "Thank you, Amy. It’s great to be with you. When you speak to me as legendary, there’s a joke to the whole thing. I am very inept with mechanical things. I’m of another millennium, the books of the nineteenth century. From the Depression on—the Depression, the war, the Cold War—the greatest generation being the ‘60s and not World War II. It was in the ’60s, there was the Civil Rights Movement, flourished, at least for a time, and [inaudible]; the rise, resurgence of feminism; the gays and lesbians coming out as free people. So that’s the generation, I think the greatest.----------
But the big thing that bothers me—I’m glad if I wrote that piece, but the big thing that bothers me is our own lack of background. “Not our fault.” Do we know about the twentieth century? Do you know about the Depression, how it came about and how it was stemmed by the New Deal by government?
We just heard that Greenspan retired. Greenspan, a Federal Reserve man and wise man, his idol was Ayn Rand. It even embarrasses me to say this. Ayn Rand’s biographer, whom I got to interview for perverse reasons—I have an imp of the perverse in me.—and she said, “Oh, I believe every man on the top deserves to be there who has the guts. And if you’re there with your hat in your hand, you deserve to be down there.” And she used the word “collective others.” So this is the guy we’re honoring as he’s disappearing."
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Studs: "How could it be at the end of World War II, we were the most honored powerful nation in the world? “Honored” is the key word. Today we’re the most despised and feared. How come? Because the American public itself has no memory of past. You know, Gore Vidal used a phrase, “the United States of Amnesia.” I say the United States of Alzheimer’s. We forgot what happened yesterday. We know all about Paris Hilton. We know about that. But what do we know about—why are we there in Iraq? -----------"
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Studs:" So I’m the gregarious old guy. I got a case of logorrhea. I’m always talking, getting into—
But this one couple ignores me. Very handsome, he’s—and this is before the word “yuppy” came into being. Brooks Brothers, Gucci shoes, Wall Street Journal under his arm. And she is a looker, she’s a stunner. Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus, Vanity Fair under her arm. And I want to make conversation. The bus is late in coming, so I say to them, “Labor Day is coming up.” That’s the worst thing I could say. He turns toward me. He’s no coward. Flicking a bug off his cup, he says, “We despise unions.” I say, “Oh. I got a pigeon here.”
The bus is late, so I walk up to them, and I say—I’m now the ancient mariner. I’m fixing him with my glittering eye. I say, “How many hours a day do you work?” He says, “Eight.” “How come you don’t work eighteen hours a day, like your great-great-grandparents did? You know why you work eight hours a day? Because in Chicago, four guys got hanged fighting for the eight-hour day for you.”
I’m talking about the Haymarket case back in 1886, of which they know nothing. It was a time of a gathering, fighting for the eight-hour day. ------------------------------------------------------------
And so, “They did it for you, these guys!” I got them pinned against the mailbox now. This old nut. The train is—the bus is still late. When Christmas time comes around, I thought remember that guy. And so, I say, “How many days a week do you work?” And they say, “Forty,” and they want to get away from me now, and they hop on the bus. “You know why you work forty? Because the New Deal days, of which you know nothing, and you should.” The workers for the forty-hour week.
And to this day, I’m sure, they live in a condominium, way upscale, that faces the bus stop. And from the fifteenth floor, or whatever floor it is, she’s looking out every morning, and he says, “Is that old nut still down there?” "
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AMY GOODMAN: Studs, as we come to the end of this program—you are a man of history, also a visionary, but tell us about being ninety-five.
STUDS TERKEL: About what?
AMY GOODMAN: About being ninety-five years old.
STUDS TERKEL: Well, it’s there, as you probably see. From the cover, you see a cover of a guy that looks like George Clooney. That’s me! And now, look at me now, and not aging too much, Paris Hilton. Now, it’s—as you grow older, death, a few other things, [inaudible]. Robert Browning said, “Come and grow old with me, the best is yet to be.” Lying through his teeth! But the one thing you can retain is memory. And my book, I hope, is a memory of the events of the last millennium—not the last century—the last millennium. And that’s what it’s about.----------------" |
