WEBVTT

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"Curve."

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I just did time at
UCLA, and they had--

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I mean, there were
two just signal events

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in my first week there.

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One was to walk into the
faculty housing apartments

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where they had us kept.

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And to enter the elevator
for the first time

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and to see a big sign
on the wall that said,

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there is no danger of running
out of air or of this elevator

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falling uncontrollably.

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[LAUGHING]

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What-- somebody really
worried about our worries,

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which we didn't have yet.

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It's like, when I
used to hitchhike.

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When I was a kid,
I would hitchhike.

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And one time-- and truck
drivers were the best guys

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to pick you up because they
were good drivers and safe,

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so I'll see about that.

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Once I climbed up into
the cab of this truck.

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And when I got in, having
hauled my stuff up there,

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I opened that enormous
door, I got in the seat,

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I pulled that
enormous door shut.

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And he looked over at
me, grinning, and said,

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I want you to know
I'm a gentleman.

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Oh boy.

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It's like when you see the sign
where the motel says "clean."

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Somethings go without saying.

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Anyway, "Curve."

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The other signal
occasion was, I thought,

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I'd heard all the
things about LA.

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I thought, what does it mean
culture here and all this stuff,

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so I checked out
the Sunday paper.

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And there, in the literary
section of the Sunday paper,

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they had printed a poem of
mine, with no comment, but just

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a poem.

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Now I don't know if
someone tipped them off

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that I was coming or
what, but it was amazing.

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It was also a poem that nobody
else has ever understood.

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I think they picked the
shortest one in the book.

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I was pleased.

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I thought, how wonderful,
what an enlightened town.

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And then I read the poem.

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This was Sunday-- my
first Sunday in LA.

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And I got to the fourth
line from the end

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and I realized that they
had changed the word

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spinner to the word sinner.

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[LAUGHING]

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I'll read you this
poem and you'll

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see that it changes everything.

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The poem's called "Curve."

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"Freezeburn forms whirlpools
and bear fur has curve.

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My line is gravity's
sheer vertical.

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Memory's the same seme.

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Sail a memo down--

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there's the spooled.

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Real-- plunge into simulcast.

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Caught up in the network is
a blue planet, spinner par

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excellence.

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It's too small, throw it back."

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LA had to have a reason
for throwing it back.

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I wrote them a letter
that they never published.

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I said, it's nice of
you to fix the poem up.

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I wish you had changed the V
in the title "Curve" to an S,

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then everything would
have made sense.

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But they never printed the
poem or cared to notice.

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