WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you.

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It's a different book.

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It looks like prose.

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And I'll let people
decide whether it's

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prose, poetry, or whatever.

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But this is a whole book
of something called Bodies

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And Soul: Musical Memoirs.

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And this book was evoked
by all of the music that

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goes on around us.

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From the time that we're born,
we're bombarded with songs.

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And music, I think,
more than anything else,

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is evocative of
particular moments

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if you could get all of the
tunes you've heard or picked up

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either consciously
or subconsciously

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from the time you were born
until it's time to leave.

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Like someone who's
drowning, they

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tell us stories about how their
whole life passes before them

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And I think songs can
really pin a moment down.

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You snap on the radio,
you hear Little Anthony

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and the Imperials or Martha
and the Vandellas or something.

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And you say, oh
yeah, I remember what

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I was doing when that came out.

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I'd just been fired,
and I was looking

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for-- that kind of thing.

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So this is a whole book
of that sort of evocation.

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The problem with writing
something like that

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is that I don't
believe in writing

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mysterious, inaccessible stuff.

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I like to communicate
and I like for--

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theoretically, I'd
like anybody just

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to be able to pick up one
of my books and get into it,

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rather than someone
who specializes

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in reading literature.

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And so I had to
write these things,

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even though in many
ways they were personal,

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so that other people
could slip into them.

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This is the kind
of thing I mean.

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I don't know if you--
how many people here

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know who Spike Jones is or was?

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Oh, OK, all right.

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I don't have to
explain too much.

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Spike Jones used to really
parody, and lampoon, and tear

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things apart musically.

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And there's very little
instance of parody in our lives,

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in American lives now.

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What passes for parody in
our time, or in our culture,

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anyway, I've noticed tends
to be the kind of thing

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that the National Lampoon
does or what Saturday Night

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Live does or shows like that.

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And they don't parody life.

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They parody public events,
or other television shows,

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or movies.

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It's public things that
are being parodied.

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And the implication, of
course, is that there

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is no life to be parodied.

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But back in those days, Spike
Jones would just take anything.

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And he took this
old song, "Cocktails

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For Two" which was a
very staid kind of thing

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from the '30s, (SINGING) in
some secluded rendezvous,

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(NORMAL SPEECH)
that kind of thing.

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And Spike would just
tear them apart.

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And as kids, we love that stuff.

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And this is when I first got
on to Spike Jones in 1946.

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"Cocktails For Two, Spike Jones
and his City Slickers, 1946."

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"It's a fact," Bookus
told me that night

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as he stared through the
windshield at the foggy highway

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ahead and sucked on the
butt end of a Camel.

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"When I was a kid, I was
crazy about bullshit.

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Fatty Arbuckle, Andy Gump, Bob
Steele, Butterbeans and Susie,

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Stepin Fetchit, Tarzan,
Krazy Kat and all

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like that, you too
young to know about it,

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but we couldn't get enough
of that stuff, the same

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as you can't get enough
of this Spike Jones."

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Our destination, Chicago.

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That's right,
Chicago, "Ella-noise,"

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as Bookus called it.

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My mother, for some
forgotten reason,

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had packed my toothbrush,
a sweater, some underwear,

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pajamas, fresh britches,
and funny books

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and turned me loose
with Bookus McGee.

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With his razor line
mustache, Army issue slacks,

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scuffed brown zip-up
leather jacket,

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and greasy broad
brimmed hat, Bookus

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looked pretty much like
the Colored version

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of every second string
villain you've ever

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beheld in the 1940's B movie.

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Except, we didn't rate
them that way then.

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To us, they were
all just pictures.

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Picture us hunched up in
that "all but rusted out"

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hump-backed V8 Ford with the
radio playing more static

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than fade.

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What Bookus was
doing was hauling

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a load of bootleg whiskey he had
distilled and bottled himself,

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hauling it across southern
Michigan to northern Illinois.

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If any cop had
stopped us, it would

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have been curtains for
Bookus, and no telling

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what might have happened to me.

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Naturally, I didn't
know that then.

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All I knew was we
were on a weekend trip

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to visit an old buddy
of his who owned a gas

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station, way out in the land of
California, sweet home Chicago.

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Chicago, as in boom chicka,
boom chicka, Chi-ca-go.

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And go we did.

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Chugging us along,
cargo and all,

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was Bookus with his Camels,
Bookus with his spearmint gum,

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Bookus with his toothpicks,
Bookus with his facial scars

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from a car crash
of years ago that

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had gotten him off hooch, his
own and anybody else's, except

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to sell.

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There was also Bookus who
used to sing blues and play

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the guitar, Bookus
with his Army stories,

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and Bookus with his dreams.

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"Yeah," he kept saying,
"all kids love bullshit."

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And it was true,
for I loved Bookus

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with his scary tales of what
had gone on before I was born

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and his way of selling
future [AUDIO OUT] clinks

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and horns going, ooh-ga!

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ooh-ga!

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I fall back into the back
seat of that car to grab a nap

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and look at how
it all started out

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for me, a curious
little sub-American boy,

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recalling with perfect
clarity the sound

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of Bookus' Mississippi
voice saying, "That's right.

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It used to be all
kids love bullshit.

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Now commence to find out,
grown people like it, too.

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That's all you get nowadays
is more and more bullshit.

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You mark my words, the day
is coming when bullshit

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will rule this very world."

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[LAUGHTER]

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[APPLAUSE]

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