Myths and First Day in the Steel Mill Date: 02-15-62
9.8 MB
42:41 min
Comments: Shep notes three different routes to existence:
1) Existing by the myth, a type of basic folk knowledge - "Evil will be uncovered eventually" "I am happy, but wealthy people aren't"
2 Living by the absurd by blocking the outside world - "In these days, who wants gloomy things?" (but these are the truthful things)
3) Logical path existence based on "I am here"
Prevalent myths: "People love the sea" "Man does not love war"
The truthful perceptions of a sea captain who retires after years at sea - "I hate it" "I'm afraid of the sea"
"The more truthful you become, the better you can get by with it. Nobody believes it when they hear it. When they do hear it and believe it, they have to make it sound like he's just kidding, or he's a kook, or he's nuts..." JS
A Poem "The human races all live where time and space is,
Their nature uniformly base is . . ."
"It's a matter of perception - wanting to perceive or not to" JS
"A feeling of universal dread is probably the most common of all feelings" JS
Everyone's little collection of 1st days - First day in high school, or 1st day that you knew more than you should!
Story of Shep's first day at the steel mill at age 16 - a story of being overwhelmed by a stark, impersonal perception of adult ork. "Thousands of men walking with me - Life isn't exactly the way it seems to be - Men walking fast - They had a kind of dead look on their face"
Note:Sometimes Shep is profound - this is one of those times. LT
Mankind and His Stuff Date: 02-19-62
10.2 MB
44:25 min
Comments: Realistic television shows - Cops chasing the bad guys up and down the roofs. Could you imagine if that was for real?
The auctioning an elephant foot umbrella stand. "I would love to see a pile of all the junk, just the junk of mankind!"
Story about a man who breaks into the St Louis Zoo and smashes open 46 cages full of snakes, then leaves in a getaway car.
"How can anyone try to pretend that there is some kind of absurd logic that man follows in his convolutions through time and space?"
Shep reads from "The Anglo Saxon Attitudes" by Angus Wilson
Getting rid of ants by talking to them.
There is a logic to everything
Driving a bed in England requires a plate with the letter "L" for learner, a braking system and proper insurance.
A lady in Cincinnati riding downhill on Vine Street, against the wind, in a washing machine. (A Maytag)
Man's wanting to know everything and seeing what it will do. Why does man make up reasons for wanting to do something instead of telling the truth? For example, to send up a rocket with a man in it is really just man's itch to throw things up as high as he can to see what would happen. (See Note 1)
Note: 1) Shep is referring to the 1st US orbital space flight by John Glenn taking place the next day (2-20-62)
Mole People Date: 02-21-62
17.7 MB
44:17 min
Comments: Early Shep radio - "Bing Sings" sponsored by Dr. Sam Pollack
Grandma's false teeth.
American expressions - "Hunky-Dory", "Chewing the fat"
WOR's 40th Anniversary
Mole People - have "passions that burn like low flames on an ancient stove, barely flickering"
George Ade describes the "Mole People"
Is the reverse of mole people ant people? And is it the giant grasshopper person who comes up over them both?
Birch Bark Canoes and being up the creek without a paddle.
More George Ade
Knickerbocker Beer commercial played preceding the show
Note 1: Show starts with full Bahn Frei theme, with the original ending. No "Aahh" by Shep at the end.
Lowell Thelin sent in this note:
Shep's "mole people" are exemplified in the George Ade fable entitled The Regular Kind of Place and the Usual Way It Turned Out which he reads on the show. See p. 214 in The America of George Ade, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1961.
Note 2: Shep ends the show by reading another George Ade fable - The Patient Toiler Who Got It in the Usual Place. See p.217 in the same reference.
Kate and George Date: 02-22-62
9.8 MB
42:49 min
Comments: Shep portrays himself as the guy in the bushes who is neither an Indian or a guy on the wagon train and who can understand both sides - whether by "fate, inclination, or inheritance" he is not involved in the day to day hoopla of most people doing what they have to do to "buy a new breezeway next year" - the role of the gadfly. (the guy who just fools around and hollers)
WOR 40th birthday celebration - Shep notes an alienation from the WOR family along with Dorothy and Dick, and Long John.
Junk Mail - Plant a Prayer system - turn on tape player under the pillow which propagandizes that "you are a conservative right-thinking American"
"People on one side of the fence believe everything about that side and never question it." JS
"Ever since the very first two or three guys sat on the banks of the antediluvian lake there has been some sort of strong dogma that has filtered through the mind of man, because if you can get dogma strong enough (of any kind), it removes all elements of self-doubt" JS
Story of Og and Charles and the beginnings of dogma and elimination of doubt.
Story of Kate and George who keep up the self-delusion that they are planning to marry, but everyone knows they really never will.
Note: References are to "my father" rather than the "Old Man." Show has profound insights into human thought patterns clearly explained.
Getting Ready for the John Glenn Parade Date: 02-28-62
1.9 MB
8:21 min
Comments: Fragment: Shep talks about being called upon to cover the John Glenn parade in New York City from a helicopter.
Flying Over the John Glenn Parade Date: 03-01-62
7.3 MB
31:54 min
Comments: Fragment: Shep describes the events of the day as he prepared to take off in a helicopter borrowed from a Philadelphia radio station to cover the parade. Shep was going to film the event and do commentary from the air. As they were about to take off, word came through that an American Airlines plane had crashed. They headed to the crash site and Shep tells of his experiences and feelings while covering the event and his feelings afterward.
Radio Bad Haircut Date: 04-18-62
3.9 MB
5:38 min
Comments: pyramids, kid story about German barber and bad haircut- mother made him go back, Jimmy Cannon at Thompsons drugstore, admits to being a liberal, in elevator w/ rich guy, old man Bruner got job
shell shock, early beat tobacco spitter, extra board at RR
Piano Factory Job Date: 04-23-62
12.2 MB
42:41 min
Comments: Shep opens talking about the new Diner's Club game and being brought up in the depression atmosphere.
"I'm this kid..." It's June, living by the lakeside and starting to look at Ester Jane like he never had before. Shep, Paul, Flick, and Bollus get their work permits and land jobs at the Strabe Piano Company.
The job pays $9.90 a week working from 8 to 4:30 weekdays and 8 to 12:30 on Saturdays. Paul was assigned to 'tops dept', Bollus to the 'action dept' and Shep to the "backs dept". He doesn't say what flick did.
In the backs department Shep works for Mr. Zudock who teaches him to cut, sand, and drill the backs of pianos. Zudock tells him to drill straight and fast, showing him how to measure with a T square that had the numbers worn off of.
Shep describes how the 'old timers' would come in early to set up and leave late, after cleaning up the shop.
After a week of work, Friday comes, PAYDAY! He gets his first paycheck for $9.81, 9 cents taken out for taxes. After the second week he has $15.00. His mother made him pay $2.00 a week for board now that he had a job. Shep decides he wants to buy a bike and so the next Saturday, the family goes down to Sears and he buys an Elgin. Red and white with chrome fenders, and a battery and light. He pays $12.00 and it is delivered on Monday. He also invests in a Boy Scout uniform.
The week goes on and on Thursday he is called to the office. He is being 'replaced' by someone else. Mr. Zudock feels that he is not working fast enough. Shep is in a panic. He owes for the bike and has no job.
He gets home that day and tells his mother what happened and the next day his father goes down to Sears and pays for the bike.
That was the beginning of an education. . .
Note: This storyline was used for "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss"
Darling Lets Make A Move Date: 04-24-62
5.6 MB
32:40 min
Comments: Barber Shop with no customers and 15 chairs with barbers standing idly by. Sign says "No waiting -Plenty of Chairs"
Rinky Tink music with birds
200,000 people under the age of 25 have a terrible urge to make a movie or be in a play - to be applauded. Would you make a movie if they wouldn't let you put your name on it?
Are you starring in your life?
A man is lying on the beach with a chick with waves and wind in the background. She whispers "Darling, Darling, let's... let's..." and with eyes alight she says "Darling, let's make a movie - a spectacular!" People that do this really think it is an act of love.
A theme that is running through films is the emptiness of life. Neorealism. What was the old realism, Jimmy Stewart movies?
A misconception is that people of the past were happy because their lives were simple, and they had a kind of truth in their lives.
Shep notes that "The mechanization that we have in our lives (all the means of communicating so quickly) has destroyed our sense of being ourselves. It is fascinating to think of 87 million people all being thrilled at the same time by Mary Martin at the same moment doing Peter Pan at the same instant over a great coaxial cable."
Mandarin House commercial - will be delivered by Shep himself
Shep notes that dozens of kids tell him that their old man makes them go to bed early and they have to sneak the radio up. They say that he thinks the kids are wasting time if they are not watching TV.
The "new vicariousness" relates to being judged by how many hours are clocked in a waiting line to an art movie rather than how many books have been read in a week, as had previously been the gauge.
Shep can't imagine that life is now more empty than 1000 years ago. He notes, however, that this emptiness was seldom recorded. "You don't see all the people that were not inside Camelot (noted by Shep to be an isolated island).
We can't say that today's life is any more terrifying than life in any other time. Value judgements on death - "It is not as bad to be killed by a mace as by a shell fragment, and not so bad to be killed by a shell fragment as by fallout." He wonders if we know that more people were killed by night bombing in Cologne than by the atomic bomb.
Chinese restaurants in Chicago are called "Chop Suey Joints."
Shep tells about his Uncle Al and Aunt Kate and how they would order takeout. "For you, ah amond cukie!" Other Chicago treats included Hunkie and Pollack restaurants.
Note:The date of the show was determined in four ways. First, it was on the reverse side of a reel to reel tape marked 4/23/62.
Second, there is an ad in the Long John Nebel show which immediately follows for the Hudson Vitamin catalog for April 1962. Third, Shep says that "The White Sox beat the Yankees today!" The New York Times for 4/25/62 states BOMBERS SUFFER THIRD LOSS IN A ROW! White Sox downed the Yankees 3-1. Fourth, the Long John Show following this show has guestwriters including Lester Delray, Caske Stinette, Bill Friedman, Frank Kane, Earl Conrad, etc. The New York Times for 4/24/62 lists Long John Nebel Show 12-5 Guests discuss "The World of the Professional Writer"
A Day at the Mets Date: 04-30-62
7.8 MB
45:24 min
Comments: Baseball as representative of life
The details that never get broadcast on the radio airwaves during a game
An interesting hypothetical scenario between Kennedy & Khrushchev
A Day at the Mets, describes Mets Ballgame, Roadblock Jones, Early Wynn Pitcher
Date with Dorothy Date: 05-01-62
7.6 MB
44:16 min
Comments: Mrs Marion Buckley got a divorce based on unreasonable requests from her husband
The worlds largest cigar in danger
How many people want something else from their significant other?
Negative aggressiveness
Note 1: Along the lines of making up stories from news items (early Shep)
Note 2: Date with Dorothy seems like an very early version of the Shep in over his head
theme
Radio Arcturus 2 Date: 07-27-62
20.5 MB
29:53 min
Comments:
Arcturus 2, late happy birthday, Arcturus 2 Spaceship probe to planet 6SJ7GT as radio-TV would cover the event. (Arcturus was a brand name for old radio glass tubes)
Elephant Foot Date: 09-19-62
10.2 MB
44:23 min
Being Reminded Date: 09-24-62
12.1 MB
17:36 min
Comments: Being Reminded, finishes story from 9-21
Secret People Date: 10-04-62
7.7 MB
44:36 min
Comments: Your life done as a pie chart
The future of sports foretold
Insurance as a preventative measure
Buildings as a Hollywood production
Funeral home advertisement
Building an electro magnet & the bad tube scheme's
Secret People, Hip Buildings, Showbiz buildings, building electromagnet, 1st tube radio
Aggressive Car Date: 10-05-62
21.8 MB
31:45 min
Comments: Aggressive Car, Hit it Again-man smashes car, Kid story about his car, Flick-Partner changes motor in his V-8 Ford,, then sells it for less than paid.
Sears catalog-the Barbie World, Dr Killdeer, Aunt Teresa-Yelling, Army-home & date in blackhawk, 1st world series game, 5th game at Yankee Stadium, Function Fans, rainout
Pushed to the Brink Date: 10-19-62
18 MB
26:13 min
Comments: Pushed to the Brink, Being Bugged, Army march in Ozarks, Pvt. Clevenger decides not to go on, 803 signal battalion
Michigan Fishing Date: 10-22-62
7.6 MB
44:31 min
Comments: Depression tip, how to extend the life of your tires with newspapers
Chicago Tribune 'The Worlds Greatest Newspaper' reports a Golden Eagle attack
Shep does his kid story equivalent of the 'Old Man and the Sea'
Swedish Influence Date: 10-30-62
18.9 MB
27:35 min
Comments: Swedish Influence, IBM 1401, Xmas gifts-Costumed Religious People, Costumes for Christmas, 14 yr. old during Christmas Vacation, Swedish Influence, Dorothy Anderson, ,,,Father was a TRUE carpenter,, Job replacing Ceiling Tiles in the Drugstore over the holidays. Mr. Anderson had too much grog and was out for a few hours.
