Flicklives

Last Summary Update: 01-19-2008

Mr Shepherd is Live
Airdate: Thursday - November 1, 1962

WOR Show
Original Airing

audio

(NOTE ABOUT TIME REFERENCES: Since there are many different copies of shows out there from different sources, all time references are from the beginning of one single recorded copy, since various copies, depending on when the recordee started recording, had news at the beginning or shortened themes. The times would vary from copy to copy.)

First Spoken Line After Theme Ends

There was this guy called up see. . . .

Show Description

[ Courtesy: Gary Hines - - ]   
  Mr. Shepherd is Live, where's the record, Mr. Melton from geography class played the flute, George Washington play 7th grade, Kruchev gets a Sullivan Guest Shot, Play it Louie, More Dorothy Anderson, Mr. Anderson was building house, Blown down onto metal stake, walks to hospital      
  

[ Courtesy: GROK Summary - - ]   
  This monologue (WOR, November 1, 1962) contrasts the mediated, abstract quality of modern life with raw physical reality, anchored by the story of a carpenter who walks into a hospital with an iron stake through his body.

Live versus record
A caller wants the "funny record" of the guy telling a story about the old man on the bus. The operator explains it was Mr. Shepherd, live. The caller keeps insisting on buying the record. Shepherd concludes that for many people only the record label itself is real; he is live (bad knee and all), not on a label.

Mr. Melton's flute
In seventh grade Shepherd played George Washington in a school pageant (hot cotton wig made by Miss Nelson, tin-foil buckles on loafers, satin knickers). His embarrassed geography teacher, the tall, thin Mr. Melton, played a flute solo that branded itself into Shepherd's memory. Years later, hearing the same tune in a fancy restaurant, he toys with a $24 filet of sole and cannot eat.

Love, maturity, and rewards
The Transit Authority launches a nine-hour course to teach clerks and porters to "love all human beings"; the class groans. A Barstow, California, publisher suggests rewarding Khrushchev for easing the Cuban crisis by letting him visit Disneyland. Shepherd piles on further rewards (Ed Sullivan guest shot, Chinatown dinner). He notes the editorial distinction that U.S. bases in Turkey are fine while Soviet bases in Cuba are not because "we're the good guys."

Abstraction, death, and romantic losers
Most modern work is abstract; people rarely touch the physical objects they deal with. Death has become a production - coffins carry the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval ("satisfaction guaranteed"). Castro and John Brown function as showbiz characters. Losers are romanticized: the Civil War South, future Nazis, Floyd Patterson after the Liston fight, Joe Louis's defeated opponents. Many people secretly believe a loser is somehow intrinsically right.

Mr. Anderson and the stake
The central story returns to Mr. Anderson, the Swedish carpenter father of a girl Shepherd was hung up on. Pure gristle, he carries nails in his mouth and builds entire houses. On a bitter February day a gust of wind blows him off a scaffold two-and-a-half stories up. He lands flat on his back on an iron stake that passes between his shoulder blades and out his chest. Stunned only briefly, he grabs the stake, pulls it out of the ground with his hands and feet, and walks two-and-a-half blocks to Christ Hospital carrying the stake between his shoulders. He sits in the emergency ward, lights a cigar, and points at the stake when asked what is wrong. "Mr. Anderson is still in business today."

Overall tone and point: Digressive, anecdotal, and quietly savage. Shepherd uses the record-caller, the flute memory, the "love" training program, and the Khrushchev-Disneyland suggestion to illustrate a world that prefers labels, abstractions, and romanticized stories to physical fact. Against that stands Anderson - the man who simply walks into the hospital with the stake still in him. The monologue treats the gap between the two as both comic and chilling.      
  