Aaron Lazar | Writing & Loons

June 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment

 
icon for podpress  Interview with Aaron Lazar [8:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In addition to receiving publishing contracts for Double Forte’, Upstaged, Tremolo: cry of the loon, Mazurka, Healey’s Cave, and One Potato, Blue Potato, Aaron writes “Seedlings,” a monthly column featured in the Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine (FMAM) and the Mysteryfiction.net literary newsletter “Voice in the Dark.”. His short articles on writing have appeared in Absolute Write,and his short essay, “Word Paintings” was included in the 2007 Bylines Writers’ Desk Calendar. Check out the Great Mystery and Suspense Magazine for the flash fiction piece, “Follow the Leader” and visit his blogs at www.murderby4.blogspot.com and www.aaronlazar.blogspot.com. Aaron is the Saturday Writing Essential host on Gather.com. Aaron works as an electrophotographic engineer at Eastman Kodak Company, in Rochester, New York, but his true passion lies in writing. While currently working on his thirteenth novel, he also enjoys gardening; cooking family feasts; photography, cross-country skiing, classical music, and French Impressionist art. Although he adored raising his delightful daughters, he finds grandfathering his “two little buddies” one of life’s finest experiences. http://www.legardemysteries.com/tremolocryoftheloon.htm

Posted by admin | Filed Under Fiction, Hollywood, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Jeff Beal | Film & TV Music

April 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment

 
icon for podpress  Interview with Jeff Beal: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It was our great honor to speak with Jeff Beal, composer of Ugly Betty, Monk and other television themes, and Pollock as well as many other movie scores. His music is compelling, fun, intense, brooding — and always wonderful. More information from www.jeffbeal.com  

Jeff Beal is a composer, performer, producer, improviser. He is a consummate musician. He writes music for film, the concert hall, CDs and television. This web page came about because Jeff wanted to have one place available to his listeners. A place to unite his many pursuits. One location where people could go to find out more about his jazz CDs, how to rent his orchestral music, learn about film scoring or just get in touch with him. I’ve known Jeff for over twenty years, now. Sharing a passion for music comes easily to this man, but getting him to talk about himself or promote himself doesn’t. I, however, have no problem talking about Jeff. Let me fill you in….Jeff was born in 1963 in Hayward, CA, the East Bay area of San Francisco. His parents both grew up with music making in the home; naturally music was always present in their house. His mother studied piano as a child, and from an early age, Jeff enjoyed picking out tunes on the family’s upright piano. In the third grade, his father took him to a school assembly where students could listen to and select band instruments to borrow and study…(In those halcyon days before Prop. 13) Jeff sat through the assembly quietly, until the trumpet was demonstrated. “That’s it!” he told his father. “That’s what I want to play!”Jeff began practicing and improving on the trumpet. He worked a paper route on his bicycle, mornings before school, to purchase his own trumpet. His father’s mother Irene had performed as a pianist on live radio broadcasts , and now lived in San Francisco. Not your average grandma, she was an artist, bohemian and an avid jazz fan; sitting in on Mile’s Live at the Black Hawk recording sessions. She gave Jeff a copy of Sketches of Spain as a gift when he was ten. He had never heard music like this before…Gil Evan’s emotive, expressive orchestrations, combined with Mile’s haunting trumpet. Jeff began to study jazz improvisation, theory, and harmony on his own, later taking classes at a local college. He immersed himself in jazz recordings and transcribed the solos of Woody Shaw, Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Chet Baker and Miles…eventually writing his own jazz charts and performing them with the Monterey Jazz All Stars. Jeff also played in the Oakland Youth Symphony, conducted by Kent Nagano, and at 16 wrote an orchestral jazz trumpet concerto for that group. At night after school, Jeff would ride BART across the bay to San Francisco; sitting in at jam sessions led by musicians twice his age… listening, playing, and learning.Going to the Eastman School of Music was an opportunity for Jeff to continue his trumpet studies and to formally study composition. As an undergraduate, he took all of his double major classes, along with the classes offered to the master’s students in the jazz department. His spare moments were spent gigging with jazz professors and writing, writing, writing more music in the piano lab. Jeff was known to hide under the synclavier in the computer music lab, until the night watchman had passed, so that he could spend his nights undisturbed, writing and producing his own music.These synclavier demos lead to Jeff’s first solo album, Liberation; released in 1987. Now a conservatory graduate, living in New York City and working as a gigging musician, Jeff was signed by the Antilles division of Island Records. He played more dates with his own group, and began working on the music for a second album, when a move to San Francisco (for his wife’s career) lead to scoring work. Jeff’s first film score, Cheap Shots, was produced in a home studio in the tiny office of a rented home. Jeff soon was working as a ghost writer and arranger for other composers, always longing to be the guy with the gig and the credit.Moving to Los Angeles in 1992 provided Jeff with more opportunities and relationships. He continued making solo CDs, performing with his own jazz ensemble, and also contributed compositions to friend’s CD projects, like his Bass Concerto, written for John Patitucci and recorded at the request of Chick Corea. The opportunity to create an orchestral jazz trumpet concerto, a lifelong dream from the Sketches of Spain days, was realized when childhood friend and conductor Kent Nagano approached Jeff to write a piece for the Berkeley Symphony. The end result, Alternate Route, is a signature piece for Jeff, representing a union of his love for orchestral and improvised music.More opportunities for scoring came about as Jeff became known around town as the eclectic, classically trained, improvising, computer savvy composer. His scores ran the gamut from the earthy world music of Guy, to the ethereal music of Nothing Sacred, to the jazz inspired score to The Passion of Ayn Rand. It was in 2000 that Jeff’s most monumental opportunity presented itself. Jeff has heard that Ed Harris was producing, directing and starring in a biographical film about artist Jackson Pollock, and his agent had submitted his music for this independent film. Learning that another composer had been selected, Jeff tried to forget about the project, but it was difficult to dismiss. When he heard that Ed Harris was once again looking for a composer, he tried not to get his hopes up. What Jeff didn’t know was that Ed Harris had already fired two composers, and kept returning to Jeff’s submitted CD of cues. When Ed finally called Jeff personally to ask him to meet on Pollock, Ed admitted he didn’t know who Jeff was…he had lost his sheet of credits, and only had that one CD. The one CD he kept playing over and over. Jeff and Ed met and spotted Pollock that same day. They had an instant rapport. Ed spoke later of Jeff’s immediate understanding of the film and his ability to translate that into musical ideas. The rest, as they say, is history.Jeff Beal now finds himself happily living the life he has always imagined for himself. Composing music, collaborating with creative individuals, traveling, playing trumpet, riding his bike, and living a rather peaceful, reclusive life with his family in the rural outskirts of Los Angeles. We hope that you enjoy browsing this site, listening to the music and learning more about this immensely talented individual. Please contact Jeff with any questions or comments on the Contact page. 

Posted by admin | Filed Under Hollywood, Classical, Jazz, MUSICIAN INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

D. Edward Stanley Transcript

March 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment


Announcer: You’ve been listening to Sound Authors, where authors sound off. If you’d like more information about Sound authors and Dr. Kent’s guests, visit soundauthors.com. Now, back to Dr. Kent and friends.Dr. 

Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to Sound Authors. D. Edward Stanley was only 16 when he started to work for the King, Elvis Presley. He has a movie called Protecting the King released in 2007. Welcome to the show.

D. Edward Stanley: Thank you for having me.

Kent Gustavson: Tell me a little bit about your film.

D. Edward Stanley: Protecting the King is about my life with Elvis Presley when I’m 16 years old. At 16, I dropped out of school in the 9th grade and went to work for Elvis as a personal aide, and later a bodyguard, and the film covers from 72 to 77 about my life as the youngest bodyguard in rock ‘n’ roll history, and how I tried to protect the King from everyone, but ultimately the King himself.

Kent Gustavson: Now, are you a big guy? How did you protect him at age 16?

D. Edward Stanley: Well, when you carry a 9mm and a second-degree black belt in karate, you feel like you can take on anybody. I’m kind of a big guy, I’m about 6′3″ and weigh about 280. Always been a big kind of tough, salty kid. I didn’t get along in school so well with people and Elvis saw that.I lived at Graceland for 12 years before I even went to work for Elvis. I moved in when I was four years old as a result of my mother marrying Elvis’s divorced father, Vernon Presley. So Vernon was my stepfather, Elvis became my stepbrother. I moved into Graceland at 4, I didn’t know what an Elvis was, a Hound Dog was, I just had a new house, a new big brother.Twelve years later, Elvis said, “Hey, go to work for me. Join the so-called Memphis Mafia.” I was a young salty tough kid, at least I thought I was. And, basically, protecting Elvis was against aggressive fans and people having too much fun and jumping on the stage.But from time to time situations would arise where somebody would take a shot at Elvis. Fortunately, he had bodyguards such as myself and other to protect him from those assailants. But, unfortunately, his self-destructive demise was a element of his own decisions and unfortunately we couldn’t stop that. So, basically, that’s what the film is about.

Kent Gustavson: Did it really crush you when he died?

D. Edward Stanley: Sure it did. I knew Elvis not as a rock icon, not as a rock star. I knew Elvis had picked up a four year old kid 17 years earlier and gave me a hug and welcomed me into his family as his brother. So, he was no King to me, he was no icon to me. He was a human being who got involved in a situation that got out of control. He had no accountability, lived in denial. On August 16, 1977 at 42 years old, his decisions ultimately cost him his life.

Kent Gustavson: Now, I know that Elvis had a number of very close relationships. One of them was with the Carter family. He often stopped by down Florida. Did he have a different personality behind closed doors? Was he–

D. Edward Stanley: Well, he was a lot different. Elvis once said that the entertainer’s one thing and the individual’s another. Elvis was a very shy individual. He had a hand-picked group of people around him called the Memphis Mafia, that was what the nickname was. He was very much inward, unless he was on stage, and then he was he completely opposite. That’s where Elvis came out and shone.But, in his life, he got burnt out. Elvis was on top of the world for a long time. In ‘68 he came back, ‘69 he started doing live concerts, ‘70 he started touring. And he just burnt out. There was not a whole lot left for him to do. And unfortunately he got involved in prescribed medications in ‘72, ‘73, and that went from use to abuse. And with no challenges and no accountability, it just caught up with him.We see it every day. It’s a train wreck with Britney Spears, look what happened to Heath Ledger. Elvis was no different. He got himself in a situation to where he was just burnt out. Money couldn’t buy it all. Fortune, fame, money, power, prestige wasn’t the end-all, be-all solution. And unfortunately, Elvis mad those decision that, again, cost him his life.

Kent Gustavson: What did he like the best? I know that he and Bill Clinton share that peanut butter and banana sandwich, but what was his greatest joy?

D. Edward Stanley: Well, his greatest joy was music. His greatest joy was singing. That’s what–his gift was to give, one, because he gave away more money than he made, and to sing. To make people happy. He had a god-given gift. He knew where it came from, and he shared that gift with the world.And here we are, thirty years later, the legacy continues as a result of the great entertainer and humanitarian he was. Elvis died a horrific death at a very early age, but it doesn’t take away the greatness that he left and the accomplishments that he achieved in the industry of music and entertainment business and as an American icon. There will never be another Elvis.

Kent Gustavson: Now, did you ever chat with him about music?

D. Edward Stanley: Oh, every day. I grew up with music. My house was full of instruments, and pianos, and guitars and music. Elvis was a gospel–he loved gospel music, he loved ballads. He wasn’t a big Beatles, and Stones, and Zeppelin, and Who fan like I was. That was my generation. He loved music and he loved gospel mostly, sat up all night singing. We used to set around and play music and sing at the piano all night long. That was his life, that was the mainstream of his whole existence.

Kent Gustavson: What did he say about the Beatles, and the Stones, and–

D. Edward Stanley: He didn’t like music that projected a negative ideology. He didn’t like tearing down the establishment. He didn’t like songs that lifted up drug addiction and things that were anti-establishment. In fact, he thought that was one of the biggest moral decays in our country was the influence of this type music in the 60’s that was steering our young people in the direction that he felt that was dangerous.There was some truths there. That generation survived, we barely made it, but lots of us didn’t. Elvis just felt that that kind of abuse of your talent was not necessary. The only communication Elvis had within the structure of his song was a love song and/or gospel. But he didn’t believe anything negative within the structure of music or using your platform to communicate your negative ideologies to what he felt, you know, an impressive America at the time.

Kent Gustavson: Did you ever talk to him about–I know that my own mother, she was born in–well, I’m not supposed to say–but she was a Baby Boomer and she grew up listening to jazz and things like that. Her father was a jazz musician, and he refused to have Elvis in the house. He said that Elvis was the one who was the heretic. What did Elvis think about that? There are a lot of people that said that he broke a lot of–

D. Edward Stanley: Well, yeah, he did. Well, Elvis moved on stage. He did things on stage that kind of freaked everybody out. It was mild compared to what happens today. But, at the time, when you have big band and jazz, and R & B down South, and all of a sudden this guy comes out and starts rattling the cage. It was just different. I don’t think it was his lyric as much as his movement. There’s a lot of difference in Hound Dog and some of the rap music we hear today about killing your parents and your students and your teachers and everything in between. Maybe it was his sexuality as a performer that rattled a lot of people because he was a mover and a shaker on stage.He did create something. He started a rebellion, the black hair slicked back, the clothes, the music, the style, the freedom. He started a fire, he just didn’t know it would burn as much as it has or get out of control, as some would say it has. He started something that we’ll never forget, that’s for certain.

Kent Gustavson: Tell me a little bit about the film itself. It came out last year, and it’s gotten some great reviews. On the New York Times site you got a four and a half rating out of five, how has it been received across the country?

D. Edward Stanley: Protecting the King is sex, drugs and rock and roll. It’s not high collars, sideburns and Graceland. Its a very behind the scenes look at life on the road with the biggest rock icon in the world. Unfortunately, during the last five years of his life, those were the last years that he lived. It takes you back behind those curtains and shows a man whose torn up, who has no challenge, who has no accountability, and a young boy whose trying to protect him.This guy that loves his big brother, but he’s on a self destruct that nobody can stop. Unfortunately, we see those dark days of Elvis and we see the medications intensify, the situations get worse. How it effects David Stanley, myself, my life, what’s going on during all this. It cumulates with me walking in his bathroom on the 16th of August and recreating that fateful day when I discovered his lifeless body on the bathroom floor. It’s a very hard look.I always tell people it’s not your mother’s Elvis. It’s not Blue Hawaii, its very dark. Its very real. Its the story that carries the film because nobody has ever seen anything like it. You go back to the image, the icon on the side of the Disney Tower when you see Mickey Mouse. Hey, there’s Mickey, and everybody has their opinion of Mickey Mouse. Well everybody has their same opinion of Elvis. You even brought it up with the peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Everybody has their cliche, everybody has their look, everybody has the “My Elvis” syndrome.Well, Protecting the King is David Stanley’s Elvis. Seventeen years this guy grew up and lived at Graceland, toured with Elvis and discovered his lifeless body seventeen years after he moved in. This is my Elvis. It’s a very hard look. It doesn’t degrade or put the King down, but it does remind us of the frailties of the human life. Even the King can make decisions that can cost him his life, and therein lies the message of the film. It’s not depressing, its very insightful; and quite entertaining; but very dark, and very survivability. How did David live through this, what did David learn from this?Obviously I’m alive today to tell about it. It’s a very powerful film. The reviews from some of the fans who are die-hard, dyed in the wool Elvis fans; they think Elvis is alive so they don’t like Protecting the King. They don’t like anything that has anything to do with the realities of Elvis Presley. But, mostly, the public has accepted it and world sales are strong and we’re happy with it. We’re happy with our first effort as a film and we believe that it’s continuing to do strong.

Kent Gustavson: My true interest, actually, in Elvis is I love his early, early years. When he was in the rockabilly phase and he was hanging out with Johnny Cash and he was touring and he was a little bit wild. I love those early years.

D. Edward Stanley: Oh yeah, crazy Elvis. Even his crazy compared to now is mellow. Back then it was crazy but now it’s like “Is that it?”

Kent Gustavson: : Normal, yeah. Did he talk about Bill Monroe? Did he talk about all the pioneers that came before him?

D. Edward Stanley: There were no pioneers before Elvis. Elvis started rock and roll. Bill Haley, maybe. Elvis talked about singers. Elvis loved gospel music. He’d sit around and talk about J.D. and the Stamps, and the Caiman. Of course Hank Williams and all those guys were out there, but Elvis, he did something different from all of those guys. He went in there and started wailing on “Blue Suede Shoes” and “That’s All Right Momma” and “Heartbreak Hotel”, this was new stuff.He was influenced by down in Memphis. Sat down on blues street, Bourbon street, just kind of hanging out, playing the guitar with the gang, so to say. The old R and B rhythm thing. He didn’t talk much about others. Mostly gospel. He didn’t talk about rock much. Elvis only rocked in the ’50s. He started mellowing out in the ’60s and ’70s, like you said, his triumphant moments of rock and roll were in the ’50s. He pretty much set the bar for it.

Kent Gustavson: What’s your story? In a tiny little nutshell, I know it’s a horrible thing to ask, what’s happened since then?

D. Edward Stanley: You mean since Elvis died?

Kent Gustavson: For you, yes.

D. Edward Stanley: Well I have owned my company, Impello Films, I’m a filmmaker. I’ve done documentaries for BBC and Discovery Channel and the History Channel. I’ve done stuff for BBC, I’ve written two, three books. One best seller. I’m a corporate trainer, success conditioning speaker, I speak all over the world. Most recently, in the last five years, I’ve started Impello Films. We’ve came out with our first film, this one. Currently working on our next two in the next three years. So I’ve stayed busy.

Kent Gustavson: Why did you wait this long to come out with Protecting the King?

D. Edward Stanley: It was one of those situations where to I was setting down and I was doing production for all these other TV networks or cable companies, I said “Someday, I was going to make this movie.” The time was right, I went out and funded it, made it and put it out and that’s just the way it came out.

Kent Gustavson: What are these next two movies coming up?

D. Edward Stanley: One of them is called “Restoring my Father’s Honor” about a World War II combat veteran that loses his family to a bizarre set of circumstances and the other one’s called “Dachau: A Concentration Camp Story” about a German officer whose wife turns out to be Jewish. Two very powerful movies. Protecting the King was my springboard, kicked me into first base in the “business”.The next two are much bigger films and Impello films is excited about it. D. Edward Stanley, my real name is David Stanley, most people call me David, that’s what I’m doing and that’s what I enjoy doing. I always like to hear the end results, good or bad.

Kent Gustavson: Well its been a real pleasure having you on the show. People can find out about the movie on the web at protectingtheking.com.

D. Edward Stanley: That’s true, correct. They can go on there and read about it and purchase it. Also Best Buy,hollywood.com, Blockbuster and other fine stores. It’s all over the place.

Kent Gustavson: You’re company is at Impellofilms.com. That’s I-M-P-E-L-L-O films.com.

D. Edward Stanley: That’s it.

Kent Gustavson: It’s been a real pleasure speaking with D. Edward Stanley. Thank you so much, have a great day.

D. Edward Stanley: Thank you so much, bye.

Kent Gustavson: My next guest is Mark Paulson, with his co-author Ashley Marriott. Their book is called “Dump your Trainer.” Come on back.

 

Posted by admin | Filed Under TRANSCRIPTS, History, Entertainment, Hollywood, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

D. Edward Stanley | Elvis’ Bodyguard

March 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment

 
icon for podpress  Interview with D. Edward Stanley: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today we spoke with D. Edward Stanley, who, as a small child, began working as a bodyguard to Elvis.  He was Elvis’ stepbrother, and grew up in Graceland around the King.  His perspectives on Elvis are fascinating, and he speaks with us about his film, and about his upcoming projects.More about D. Edward Stanley from his film company’s press release:

With the release of his controversial feature film "Protecting The King," Director D. Edward Stanley is reeling audiences in for a closer look with the launch of a new website and electronic storefront here.  The site’s compelling graphics, evocative movie clip previews and a special purchase offer for the DVD Protecting The King promise to hook visitors with one mouse click.  The website also features an exclusive interview with Stanley who talks candidly about writing and directing a story that chronicles the true events of his own life as the step-brother and youngest bodyguard to Elvis Presley.     “A lot of people remember where they were the day they heard the shocking news of Elvis Presley’s death,” Stanley said.  “So much has been said about the last five years of my step-brother’s life that I felt it would be a compelling story to tell by someone who witnessed first hand Elvis’ public and private life.  I lived with Elvis for 17 years and was among a handful of people to find him dead on his bathroom floor August 16, 1977.”






		
		

			
Posted by admin | Filed Under History,  Entertainment,  Hollywood,  AUTHOR INTERVIEW,  PODCAST 

		

	 			
		
		
				
M. Thomas Inge Transcript (2)

		
December 15, 2007 | Leave a Comment

	
		



Kent Gustavson: Welcome to Sound Authors. Today is the eighth anniversary of Charles Schultz’s official retirement from creating the “Peanuts” comics strip. The strip that ended the 49-year-old run of our favorite comic, here in America, had a farewell letter from Charles Schultz attached with Snoopy at the typewriter. The end of this letter read: “Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, how can I ever forget them?” Indeed, none of us will ever forget them, and we still read them every week in classic “Peanuts”.On the show today are two authors and legendary pianist, George Winston. My first guest is the author of “Charles M. Schultz: Conversations”, as well as many other publications. Welcome to the show.


M. Thomas Inge: A pleasure to be here.


Kent Gustavson: It’s M. Thomas. How do you pronounce your last name?


M. Thomas Inge: Unless somebody tells you, it’s hard to know. It’s Inge. It rhymes with words like ‘fringe’ or ‘hinge’. There’s no nice word it rhymes with, but nevertheless, it’s Inge.


Kent Gustavson: There’s no nice word that rhymes with ‘Inge’?


M. Thomas Inge: I can’t think of a positive word that rhymes with ‘Inge’, but nevertheless, that’s OK. I’ll make it a positive.


Kent Gustavson: Well, welcome to the show. Now, it was a few years ago you wrote this collection of interviews with Charles Schultz. He was a personal friend of yours?


M. Thomas Inge: Yeah, he and I came to know each other over the years because I was writing about comic strips, and he, of course, had “Peanuts”. “Peanuts” is the best comic strip of the 20th century, so naturally, I would write about that. And, he saw an essay I had written, and so, we began to communicate, and I would go out and visit from time to time. But, the problem we had was that he wanted to talk about literature and I wanted to talk about comic books and comic strips, so we sort of talked at cross-purposes.But, he was a fine human being, and he cared very much that people, like myself, found his strip of interest. He was a little puzzled when we told him that we thought it was an intellectual strip, and that existentialism was at the base, and he said, well I don’t know what that is.But, whether he knew it or not, intellectually, we certainly felt it. And, that strip sort of touched the souls of all of us in the 20th century because he knew how to put his finger on that basic human situation - that we’re all alone in the world, we’re all insecure, we need a little help. And, more often than not, we’re disappointed, like Charlie Brown, every time Lucy pulled that football away, but we still have the hope, as he did, to try to kick it, nevertheless.


Kent Gustavson: And, he never did kick it over all those years.


M. Thomas Inge: No, and he thought about it at the end, before he retired the strip. He said it’s sad that Charlie Brown’s never going to get a chance to kick that football. And of course, he couldn’t let him do it because it was that kind of frustration, which was at the root of the humor of the strip.


Kent Gustavson: So, maybe that’s what kept Charlie Brown going was that he could never kick that football.


M. Thomas Inge: Exactly. Isn’t that what gets us out of bed every morning? We think maybe today we’re going to kick that darn thing, and we have to try. We know we’re going to fail, but nevertheless, if you don’t have that hope in the possibility, it makes for a pretty dreary day.


Kent Gustavson: When did you start to be interested in comic books and comics?


M. Thomas Inge: As a child, I grew up with them; they came along at the same time I did. And, I read them, loved them, could draw, and therefore, wanted to be a cartoonist, naturally, the way many kids did my age. I drew cartoons through high school and through college, but I began to realize that I was never going to be a great cartoonist. I was never going to be a Walt Kelly, an Al Capp, a Milton Caniff or Charles Schultz. And, I thought well if I’m not going to do that, maybe I should try something I’d be better at. So, I became a professor of English instead because I love literature too.


Kent Gustavson: And, what do your colleagues think about the comics? Have you had some struggles over the years?


M. Thomas Inge: Well, being in English departments, which are fairly traditional - where Shakespeare is the high-water mark, and nothing else seems to matter - they think what I do is rather odd and peculiar, so they look askance at it. But, the way they put it when they speak to me about it, they say, well it’s nice to have a hobby, Tom. And, they don’t realize, I suppose, it’s serious, maybe more serious than my work on William Faulkner and traditional literary subjects, which I do love as well, incidentally.I like the ‘high brow’ literature, the ‘low brow’ literature, the comics and everything in between. So, they don’t quite understand, but I think with time and the publication of more studies, the attention of the academy, the attention of museums to comics, the point will be made that these are extremely important cultural artifacts. They’re not ephemeral, but very central to our cultural experience.


Kent Gustavson: Well, I think culture is turning around a little bit right now with a lot of these graphic novels coming out, and a lot of these movies that are coming out. They look like living comics. What do you think about all of that?


M. Thomas Inge: Well, the comics and movies have been related all along. Some of the very first live action films were based on some of the popular comic strips, so they had a parallel development. And, they both use words and pictures in order to convey the story or the information, therefore, they’ve always been allied. And, the fact that the movies are so popular simply shows that we want more of those characters than we get out of the comic books, per say. We want to see them in real life. We want to see them three-dimensional.And, we also enjoy the same fictional context in which there are the good guys fighting against the bad guys, and you can tell which is which, which is not always true of much of our culture today. We can’t tell who the good guys are, or the bad guys are. And, that whole business of a superhero sort of standing in and trying to bring about a sense of justice, we know it’s not going to happen too often in the real world, but we like to see it happen in the fictional world, at least. And so, there’s a strong narrative appeal there that the films answer to.But, the graphic novels now, while they are outgrowths of the comic book, this is really a very interesting new phenomena, in a sense, is the fact we’re calling them graphic novels is not just an effort to make them sound ‘high brow’. It’s an effort to try to identify that it’s something quite different. And this notion of telling stories, lengthy narratives about complex issues and problems through words and pictures has been a part of our cultural impulse all along.But it’s reaching fruition in a very different kind of genre, and there will be a whole new set of ground rules there. What amazes me is that there are so many young artists and writers who are stepping forward and want to participate in this creation. And were I a younger man, that’s what I’d try to be too. But as it is, I’m going to have to settle for teaching literature and teaching comics, at least in the context of American humor.


Kent Gustavson: How would you compare, I know you’re an expert on Faulkner, how would you compare Faulkner and Schulz? Do they live in the same world?


M. Thomas Inge: Probably not.[laughs]


M. Thomas Inge: In a certain sense, because the kind of worls where Schulz lived was kind of rare world which he built around himself, where as Faulkner immersed himself deeply in that whole southern experience down there in Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner was trying to deal with the dilemma of mankind, let’s say, in the larger universe. Schulz didn’t quite shoot for that high an aim. But what they both did in a sense, there are a few similarities.What Faulkner did was to renew the whole genre of the novel for another hundred years. He showed you could do things with fiction that nobody thought was possible. So he experimented and opened up the novel so a lot of other writers could step in and build on what he started. Schulz has come along and taken the common strip and done something very unique and special with it. After he started doing Peanuts, we began to notice a kind of direction humor took in the other comic strips.Look at the comic strip today, and they are all more or less directed toward satire and humor. There are hardly any adventure strips, any serious strips. Those strips disappeared. And what Schulz demonstrated was you could treat complex issues in that very brief form with a minimalist kind of art. And that you could do it in that space, appeal to readers, and communicate and provide good for the world.And so in that both renewed the art form, you see, made it novel for the present. In that sense they’re similar.


Kent Gustavson: So when you had conversations with Schulz, as in your book Charles M. Schulz Conversations, did you talk as friends? Was it a little more formal? What did it feel like?


M. Thomas Inge: Well, he was the kind of person who made you informal when you were around him. What I would call Mr. Schulz, I still do, in fact, but he said “No, you have to call me Sparky.”. I still have a little bit of trouble with doing that because I revere the man so much. Somehow just calling him Sparky felt like putting him on an equal plain, and I didn’t feel like I belonged there.But he made everybody around him relax, and he was so unassuming, so humble about what he did. Some arguments we would have would be about the comic strip as an art form. He felt that no it’s not art, and I would say well if anything in the world is art, what you’re doing is because for me what art is, is something speaks to succeeding generations. People come at it later on.You go look at the Mona Lisa generation after generation and people find interesting things in it. Are you going to be able to do that with the strip too? So, our discussions might more often than not be sort of arguments about that sort of thing. And then he would want to know why I like Faulkner and why I read Faulkner. One interesting writer we did have in common was F. Scott Fitzgerald. He was a great admirer of The Great Gatsby.And there are countless Peanuts panels in which you’ll find Snoopy pretending he’s the great Gatsby at one of his parties. Or Charlie Brown approaching the little red-haired girl in a way Daisy Buchanan was approached by Gatsby. I forgot his name there for a moment. In The Great Gatsby, there was something about the poetry and power of that particular novel. And they both came from Saint Paul, Minnesota, too, so they have a similar background.But that particular novel attracted his fancy, and his copy is marked up and you’d find quotations appearing there. So, that was one writer that he particularly enjoyed and one we shared.


Kent Gustavson: What is the importance, you know, for Schulz, what was the importance of having that classical connection? Having the literature in his work.


M. Thomas Inge: I don’t know that it was necessarily important to him. Only in the sense that great books are important to all of us. But he admired the kind of effect that Fitzgerald could achieve in a few words. He aimed to achieve that same kind of effect in a few pictures as well as in a few words. So, in other words, it sort of tutored him. I mean, one thing about Fitzgerald is that his books were brief; he was to the point. He was concise.And that’s what you have to do in a comic strip. That’s why Faulkner would not be a good influence, because Faulkner was all over the place. Fitzgerald gets right to the point, as Hemingway did. And so for him I think he learned how to write and how to draw, but at the same time he was the self educated person. He did make it through high school, did not attend college. And I believe he, as often the case who don’t go to college, they somehow feel like they missed something and they regret not having had that opportunity.I think his reading is deep reading, and he read lots. He read Dostoevsky, he read all the great books. It was never his part to get the education he missed. Which is a way you can do it. I often tell my students that I’m a guidepost, and I’ll point you to the library and point to the books to read, but you have to go there and read it for yourself. That’s where education takes place, where the learner takes initiative to learn, and he was a learner all of his life.And to me, it was interesting that he wanted to know about great music, about great books, and you know, he couldn’t even read music but you remember how many times he brought music into that comic strip.


Kent Gustavson: Oh yeah.


M. Thomas Inge: When Schroeder’s playing piano, what he’d do is get a piece of sheet music that he wanted and just copied it into the comic strip.[laughs]


M. Thomas Inge: He was so pleased when someone wrote a symphony based on the character’s that played it kind of all those years ago. Because he loved music but he didn’t really know a lot about it. And he loved literature, even if he didn’t know a lot about it in the practical critical sense.


Kent Gustavson: I’m excited to talk much more about Charles Schulz in a minute, here we got to stop for a dish identification. I’ll be back in a second.





		
		

			
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