Lightning Flew From the Pages: Deceased Artiste Ray Bradbury

Beloved celebs have been dropping like flies, and I simply haven’t had time until now to pay tribute to them. I always note on the Funhouse TV show that we’ll be loving the work done by these folks for many years to come, so I’m not as time-bound in my salutes to them. Thus I begin a series of DA entries with a tribute to the fantasy writer par excellence (he disliked his work being called “science fiction”), Ray Bradbury.

Bradbury was an essential building block in the formation of great 20th century genre fiction. One of the best things about his writing, though, was its unrepentantly poetic quality. Whether it was beautifully poetic, as in his best novels and short stories, or slightly purple around the edges, as in some of his later creations, it was always evident that Bradbury had not just steeped himself in fantasy fiction — he often boasted that he “was graduated from libraries,” which he loved to haunt (bookstores too). Thus, his influences ranged from the obvious (Verne, Wells, E.R. Burroughs) to the elegant and the wordsmiths (Shakespeare, Huxley, Katharine Anne Porter, Steinbeck).

The impact that Bradbury’s work has on a young reader is hard to measure — it becomes harder as the years go by and different (diluted and derivative) forms of fantasy literature become teen favorites. I will readily admit that I have only read a handful of Bradbury’s books cover to cover, but they made a profound impression on me, mostly because I could see traces of his influence everywhere in the best sci-fi and horror writing done in the Fifties, Sixties, and onward for radio, TV, and film.

There were countless adaptations of Bradbury’s stories (including the Eighties TV series The Ray Bradbury Theater, which he hosted for its six-season run from 1985 to ’92). My favorites were the ones by the short-form masters at EC Comics, since they directly quoted his narration in the panels and were masters at conveying surprise conclusions. They also adapted several of his horror stories, which aren’t as well known as his fantasy tales.

Bradbury’s concentration on characters and emotion, as well as his penchant for creating speculative allegories for social situations, also makes him the forefather of the Twilight Zone style of storytelling, in which characters often get what I like to call the “cosmic screw” for no clear reason other than the fact that they exist and fate is unpredictable. Bradbury wrote one episode of the series, “I Sing the Body Electric,” which predated Blade Runner in exploring how a synthetic creature can be just as human (or be perceived as such) as us humans.

I used the word “allegory” above, but that is not a phrase that Bradbury was fond of. He referred to his stories, as you’ll see in the interviews embedded below, as “myths” or “fairy tales.” One of the most succinct quotes I found was his statement that “If you write in metaphors, people can remember them.... I think that's why I'm [taught] in the schools." This very same idea was posited by Rod Serling when he lamented in the paperback version of the Patterns script (yeah, I’ve got it somewhere) that to get an important political point across on television he realized he would have to conceal it in the guise of fantasy.

My other favorite quote by Ray was “People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it.” The emotions in his work, especially the personal tales of youth like Something Wicked This Way Comes, will hopefully be a part of readers’ lives forever, but one of his best “legacy” novels, Fahrenheit 451, is one of those novels that will always have something to say to the public.

Before I send you flying into the best interview and profile videos available in plain sight on the Net, I should mention obvious biographical details (born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1920; first story published in Super Science Stories in 1941). But what I’d really like to spotlight is his very first writing gig that paid: as a teen, Ray submitted jokes to George Burns and Gracie Allen's radio show and was paid a few bucks in return.

The period in which his writing was “white hot,” so to speak, was the mid-Forties through the early Sixties, but the era I’m most interested in is the late 1930s when he met the friends he would keep for the rest of his life, his sci-fi fanboy buddies. Bradbury joined the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society in 1936 and attended the first World Science Fiction Convention shortly thereafter.

“Uncle Forry” (aka “Dr. Acula,” aka “4E,” aka Forrest J. Ackerman) and Ray Harryhausen formed a sort of “Three Musketeers” of fandom with Bradbury, the gentlemen remaining friends through the rest of their lives (RH is the only one still with us). Other people who became Ray’s LASFS buddies included future DC editor emeritus (and early sci-fi author agent) Julius Schwartz and the incredibly talented authors Frederick Brown and Leigh Brackett.

Here is Uncle Forry talking with me about the World Science Fiction con:

The best way to encounter Bradbury will always be sampling some of his 600 or so short stories or one of his 27 novels, but in the meantime I want to link to some of the best interviews with the gent I could find, plus one or two great tributes.

The first good shorter items I’d point you to are this live appearance by Bradbury and Hugh Hefner. Ray is in bad shape but still very vibrant mentally. He and Hef talk about the origins of Fahrenheit 451 as well as the twin topics of literacy and censorship. Also discussed is the very underrated Charles Beaumont, a protégé of Bradbury who wrote haunting short stories but is best known for his Twilight Zone and Corman/Poe scripts.

Bradbury frequently spoke about his early years, his inspirations, his love of reading, and (most importantly) his deep devotion to writing. The 1963 TV documentary “Story of a Writer” is a gorgeous tribute to him. You get the chance to see his pack rat side in his office — you can also hear the word “hell” get bleeped, see an adaptation of one of his creepier thriller stories (“Dial Double Zero”), and watch him lecture aspring writers on how writing should be everything for them. Stirring thoughts from a deeply passionate guy:

There are several great clips in which Bradbury speaks about writing. A good 1968 interview clip from the CBC is here, and here is a segment from a documentary narrated by the one and only Illustrated Man himself, Rod Steiger:

In 1974 Bradbury appeared on the PBS interview show Day at Night. The topics include his preference for the term “fantasy” for his writing, his feeling that science and religion are compatible, as well as his belief that you need both the “high” and the “low” (praise be) in your literary diet: “you can’t appreciate Shakespeare until you’ve read Edgar Rice Burroughs… you need both of them in your life. There’s room in your head for all of this.”

As the years went by Bradbury’s publicly stated opinions became more and more conservative (in this clip from the San Diego Comic Con he states with certainty that “we freed Russia”). He was always open-minded, though, about religion’s place in the cosmos.

That didn’t stop a massive asshole on YouTube, a self-proclaimed “street preacher,” from condemning Ray to Hell. The video is here. This gentleman “James” makes a habit of harassing Mormons, Catholics, and gays (the last-mentioned obviously being a major problem for him). He also despises most women, because they can’t park their cars well (it would be hard to even make this stuff up).

The gentleman puts up videos on YT with admittedly great crazy-ass titles. The ones that I keep coming across in my searches are the ones in which he condemns certain celebs to hell (so far, a LOT of people in show biz and the arts are going there — party!).


In the one I link to above, he condemns Bradbury to hell for having written horror stories and not having publicly proclaimed Christ as his personal savior. Other, more lenient, Xtians have written in the comments field that James is taking on the role of God, which is equally blasphemous, but this guy’s a fundamentalist, whaddya want, a brain or something?

HERE, for the record is what Bradbury thought of god. On the night of the moonlanding, Mike Wallace (yes, the moral arbiter I wrote about at length here), asked Ray his impression of the event, and he stated that he was thoroughly inspired by it, that it proves that “we are god himself coming awake at the universe.” What a nicer view of the Infinite than the street preacher has….

Now, in the area of sentiment, here’s a very touching tribute by Bradbury when he spoke at an L.A. bookstore, talking about his friend Forry and fellow fanaddicts Schwartz and Harryhausen:

Still in a sentimental mode, I switch to a fan tribute. Now of course there is the wonderful “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” video (hey, any overwrought tribute to an author of adult fiction rather than “teen paranormal romance,” as they call it now at B&N, is welcome!). But I turn to Neil Gaiman for a truly beautiful tribute to Bradbury. He wrote it for Ray’s 90th and performs it here in Nov of 2011. It is terrific that some crafty cam-wielding soul captured it:

And because I couldn’t possibly leave these out, I spotlight Ray in the company of two great comic minds. First, Groucho, when he guested on You Bet Your Life (watch him slam those movie-trivia questions down):

And later on, a commercial for prunes starring Ray, conceived by Stan Freberg:

In interviews Bradbury often talked about his childhood encounter with a magician who came to his town who called himself Mr. Electrico (you can see him discussing it in the Day at Night interview above). He said that Mr. Electrico “pointed at me, touched me with his electric sword — my hair stood on end — and said, 'Live forever!' ”

Done.

Comedy icons in conversation: Bob Claster’s “Funny Stuff”

I have stated it before on this blog and on the Funhouse TV show, but the Internet is the perfect digital equivalent to that dark wood where trees are falling everywhere, and no one can hear the sound. Thus I like spotlighting websites that offer troves of rare interviews, as noted here and here. Like, in this instance, Bob Clasters’s archive of interviews from his 1980s KCRW show “Funny Stuff.”

Claster scored interviews with a number of comedy icons, a few of who have left this mortal coil. His interview style was mellow and informal as he moved through his subject’s career chronology. The interviews can be downloaded as MP3s for FREE (that does seem to make all the difference on the Net). A few of his longer chats are among the best interviews I’ve heard with those subjects.

In some cases it is obvious that the subject was there to flog their latest product and was thoroughly willing to review their past if the plug was delivered. Claster used his time with the subjects wisely, and in some cases he aired the interviews as a series of episodes, playing the subject’s “greatest hits” in between the interview segments.

As is the case with possibly the best of his interviews, an in-depth five-episode (!) talk with Stan Freberg. Freberg tends to lead his interviewers where he wants them to go, but Claster gets him to review most of his radio/single/LP work. Stan’s tale of how he was literally discovered by a Hollywood agent fresh off the bus from Pasadena is one of the neatest entry-into-show-biz tales you’re likely to hear, and Claster’s subsequent review of his musical spoofs, from the famous (“John and Mary,” “Day-O”) to the entirely obscure (“Bob Snake for President”), is impressive.

The series of episodes ends up being the single best “101” in Freberg’s work that you’re likely to encounter. As a bonus, Claster has posted a very wonderful bit of Freberg-iana, the August 31, 1956 episode of the CBS Radio Workshop that finds Freberg reflecting on what satire means by spotlighting some of his best bits and offering a stirring tribute to his fellow satirists at the end.

Equally impressive to me is Claster’s 1988 interview with one of the funniest gents that ever lived, Peter Cook. The talk starts with Cook speaking to Bob as his character Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling. Given that improvisation by Cook always yielded gold amidst the dross, and Chris Morris worked wonders with the aged Cook, I did wish Claster had kept speaking to “Sir Arthur,” but I can also relate to his wanting to ask Cook questions about his own accomplishments — although I’m glad Cook slipped into his “E.L. Wisty” character at one point and later turned back into Sir Arthur as he said goodbye.

Claster makes the three-episode Cook talk into a career retro that is almost as comprehensive as the Freberg series. Although Cook would clearly rather speak as his blustering alter-ego and seems dismissive of his unnatural talent (“I’m about the laziest person I know in the world”), he was always in rare form when set in front of a microphone.

Thus, you’ll hear him talking about things that were left out of most interviews: a segment on Not Only… But Also called “Poet’s Corner” that found celebrity guests competing with Cook and Moore to keep up a rhyming game, with the loser being (in modern parlance) “slimed.” None of these segments have been preserved, and I’ve never read about them in Cook biographies, but you can find mention of them in online discussions of “gunge” in British culture (supposedly two guests who may have been involved in these segments were John Lennon and Spike Milligan — and these tapes were “wiped”?).

Cook also discusses the very odd Paul Morrissey-directed Cook and Moore version of The Hound of the Baskervilles and his TV sitcom flop The Two of Us. Much more to the point is his discussion of the Derek and Clive sessions, with Cook summing it up as “we ad-libbed this filth…”

One of the biggest “scores” Claster got as an interviewer was the ever-elusive Tom Lehrer — in fact he got two interviews with one of the best humorous songwriters ever. The first talk from 1983 is a lengthy one, punctuated by some of Lehrer’s greatest songs. Claster does revert to fanboy mode (not that I blame him) when he repeatedly asks if Lehrer would ever consider coming back to songwriting and performance.

The rest of the chat is taken up with Lehrer offering opinions about his work and discussing the different versions of the material. I hadn’t realized until listening to Claster’s interview that Lehrer’s last record (minus the stray song or two on a CD collection or radio show) was released in 1965, thus making him, as Bob puts it, “the Salinger of comedy” (Salinger’s last story was published in ’65). Lehrer has continued to teach all these years, but he has steadfastly avoided returning to performance of any kind.

The second interview from 1989 is even more interesting because it occurred in conjunction with two new songs by Lehrer appearing on The Prairie Home Companion. Again, Lehrer shoots down any hopes that he will return to entertaining, and also firmly states his belief that satire can’t alter society: “Satire doesn’t have much effect, except on the already converted… I’ve always really felt that this kind of stuff is not even preaching to the converted, it’s titillating the converted. It makes them feel good, but I don’t think it changes any minds. But I may be wrong — I hope so, it would be nice to be wrong.”

One of Claster’s cheeriest interviews, and the one he recommends on his site as a starting point for newcomers, is his talk with John Cleese and Michael Palin. Recorded in 1988 in conjunction with the opening of A Fish Called Wanda, the pair do provide a number of Python-related anecdotes, some of which I’ve heard in other interviews, but a bunch of which were new to me.

The thing that makes the interview so special is that Cleese and Palin seem genuinely happy to be rehashing the Python era. I attended the 40th anniversary Python gathering in NYC and have seen nearly all the latterday interviews, and in most cases the Pythons seem pleasant but somewhat tired to be telling their tales of the group’s adventures. Claster got Big John and his friend “Mickey” (as he repeatedly calls him) when they were still happy to recount their tales of the (then-recent) past.

Thus they jog each other’s memories and supply stories of the best and worst moments of the Python years, while taking good-natured potshots at each other. A Fish Called Wanda gets its rightful due, as it does stand as one of the final blasts of great Python humor (although only one-third of the ensemble was present).

The two interviews that Claster did in NYC in 1989 are a study in contrasts. One is leisurely, in-depth, and very funny, whereas the other is informative and entertaining, but seems too short. The latter, his interview with Brother Theodore, finds Theodore discussing his monologues — which were humorous, but of a grim, morbid, intellectual, and maniacal kind.

Theodore’s background was indeed singular: he was the only comedian to appear here in the U.S. who had been an inmate in a Nazi concentration camp. I have read some print interviews where Theodore spoke of this and have seen the one documentary about him (thus far unreleased on DVD), but had never heard him speak at length about his experiences in Dachau (his family was wiped out).

Bob’s interview with him is thus not just an interesting talk with a comedy legend, it’s bona fide world history, as Theodore briefly sketches how he went from being the scion of a wealthy family to working as a janitor in America, before moving into show business. Unfortunately, Bob veers away from this part of the discussion and “jumps” the chronology to move him into show business.

This is the one Claster interview that I wished was a lot longer. Perhaps there was an external factor, some time constraint, limiting his discussion with Theodore. It’s still a fascinating chat, but it could easily have been twice as long — as it stands, it seems that the real-life darkness that Theodore matter-of-factly speaks about brings the conversation to a hastier end.

There are no problems with Claster’s interview of another “spoken word” legend who came from elsewhere to live with us here in Manhattan, Quentin Crisp. There are some pauses and lulls in the discussion, but they only serve to underscore the conversational quality of the interview and they also make Crisp’s deadpan punchlines a lot funnier.

The Quentin Crisp episode episode may not be filled with comedy history in the manner of the Cleese, Cook, or Freberg chats, but it turned out to be one of the most revelatory for me, as I’ve always respected Crisp but hadn’t bothered to check out his material.  He had a dark outlook on life and death that was similar to Brother Theodore's (who famously said “As long as there is death, there is hope”).

Crisp remarks to Claster, “I hope to die fairly soon. Because I’ve got to die before my clothes wear out or else I would have to buy some more, which would be worrying.” Responding to one of Bob’s chipper queries (what’s the best thing that could happen to him tomorrow), Crisp responds, “I suppose death would be the answer.”

The talk is also oddly “ambient,” since it was conducted in Crisp’s un-air-conditioned tenement apartment on a hot NYC night — the sound of an electric fan and the stickiness in the air seem to give the interview even more “atmosphere.”

*****

It’s hard to improve on the interviews already mentioned, but several of the other Claster “Funny Stuff” chats are worth your time:

—the solo John Cleese interview finds Cleese discussing why the American adaptations of Fawlty Towers didn’t work (he and Bob discuss the one with Harvey Korman, but I believe there were at least two more, including one with Bea Arthur as a female Fawlty).

—as with the Cleese/Palin talk, Bob’s interview with Terry Jones finds the Welsh Python in a good mood and ready to discuss the history of the Flying Circus.

—Billy Connolly, back when he was almost entirely unknown in the U.S.

— the delightful absurdist Douglas Adams, who runs through the whole history of Hitchhiker’s Guide with Bob and his cohost, but also reveals where he’d like to be sent in a time machine (who knew he was such a music freak?) and his stated desire “to be a better writer” (it’s hard to remember sometimes that the HGTTG books were the second version of the tale),

— a very good non-comedy-related interview is Claster’s talk with celebrated musician-producer-arranger-friend of everyone, Van Dyke Parks. The most interesting portion of the interview comes when “VDP” (as he calls himself) brings up a period of depression he suffered after his initial albums had floundered (they were critically acclaimed and are still fan favorites, but died upon arrival).

The single most interesting thing Parks brings up is his tenure as the “director of the audio/visual department” for Warner Bros. Records, making “publicity films” for the artists they had under contract at the time. I don’t know if these films have surfaced on bootlegs of the individual artists’ material, or if they are floating around YouTube, but the list he supplies of artists who were filmed — including Joni Mitchell and Randy Newman — makes the films sound fascinating.

Also noteworthy are Claster’s interviews with Mort Sahl, Barney Miller creator (and Martin and Lewis scripter) Danny Arnold , Emo Philips, Jo Stafford and Paul Weston as their comic alter-egos Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, and June Foray and Bill Scott, the voices of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Where else can you heard reminiscences of Edward Everett Horton and the inevitable Hans Conreid?

******
Thanks to comedy maven, expert, and all-around good guy Jim G. for introducing me to the Claster stash.