What, Me Worry?

I try not to pick up the newspaper much.

There's only one thing in America you can lean on, and that's to fight the bastards.

I think a lot of good will come out of the Seventies. It's good that Americans have been shocked, because, hopefully, we'll realize that it's time to fight. Our time for going to Las Vegas and playing house and pulling on our fucking peckers--you know, thinking that everything is cute and fun--well, that's all gone, it's all over.

What I lean my hopes on is that this setback will give the middle class a good smack in the face--like you give a hysteric. Not kill him but bring him back down to earth and let him say, "Whoa, wait a minute, what the fuck is going on here?"

What do I do for an outlet? What do I do to get the frustrations out? First I send my angry telegrams off to the President or whoever and try to make them slightly humorous. But for me to feel better, I go dancing--whatever kind of dancing is current and available--mostly rock 'n' roll. I go to a discothèque, where the music is really loud and nonstop, and the lights are low and you can dance. I dance by myself or with anybody who's willing to dance with me, and I'll dance and dance until dawn.

I don't ever get the blues. I don't know why--may be I'm dumb. Things aren't so bad. I realize that America is not the same as it was some years ago, but it'll get back on the track. I was proud of President Ford when he sent in the Marines to get back the Mayaguez, and I can just imagine when he called the Chiefs of Staff and said, "Go get that ship and get the crew out of there." I can imagine the Chiefs of Staff said, "Yes, sir!" And they went out and got 'em! And the President said, "Do a few retaliatory things," and they blew up about eight ships. Now, that's more like my America. Thank God.

I'm lucky. I can always escape into a fictitious life of another character. What I actually do is hope I can get a good game of tennis. I'm also lucky because I live on the beach, and sometimes when you're gloomy, you can just stand out in front of your house and give a long, loud scream toward the ocean, and you feel a hell of a lot better.

Heavy question. I don't think I could look forward to tomorrows in which I didn't believe. Things don't get me down a lot, because I'm the twin who finds a pony in the shit there someplace.

Ha-ha, well, I have my own way of doing things. I don't necessarily follow the Playboy magazine, because I'm afraid to look at it.

Basically, I think we have become a permissive society, out of balance many ways, and I think that the worst thing that we have done is that we have belittled God's laws.

When things weigh heavily on my mind, we do everything we can. The most wonderful thing that has happened to us is that we've managed to keep our mother-and-father audience, the family audience. And today, more young folks are coming over to us than ever before. I saw the thing coming on and I still see it coming on. I'm a great believer in the old-fashioned principles, and they're what I stick by in hard times like these.

How do I make it through? Well, put it down like this: Sometimes I don't make it through, because for me life isn't easy. To me, life is just a bowl of pits.

How can I be happy? The other night. I thought to myself about my life: From this point on, if I take excellent care of myself, I'll get very sick and die.

That's a question no one can answer without giving it some thought. I can't answer a question like that right now. Why don't you write your question, and then I can answer it intelligently? I don't want any of that other garbage. Write your question and I'll send you an answer.

I am extremely depressed about the way things are going in the country, particularly the unchanging stupidity of our leadership. The same old people who got us into the Vietnam mess--people like Ford and Kissinger and Rostow--are still being looked to as people whose opinions should be valued and who seem in theory to know where the country ought to go. I'm also depressed by the total lack of grasp of what our ecological problems are all about, what the energy problem is all about, and so forth.

Though I find it all depressing, I don't think I've lost my sense of humor, and I find that drinking helps. Drinking and my sense of humor are my crutches today. I drink a lot of wine, and that's very ecological: You keep your internal environment in good shape while the external goes gradually down the drain.

When I'm depressed, I just go to the bank and count my money. I find that nothing pisses me off so much as anybody who has a loaf of bread under his arm and is on his way to the Bank of America, crying.

Frankly, the nights aren't pleasant. There are just too many damn pieces of trouble floating around. What I do is go out to a night club, have about three more Scotches than I ordinarily schedule and listen to a singer who turns me on. That's one cop-out. Another is to light a fire in the indoor swimming pool and just float around as if the external world were going to go away. Another great escape from all this gloom is to get a client in the Bahamas: quiet, beautiful, white sand, no people. Get down there and sit in the sun for a couple of days and you almost feel like new.

The other thing is to keep punching.

I'm depressed easily by bad news, so I try to avoid it. I don't live in a make-believe world or anything--I'm aware of what's going on, but I don't dwell on it. When things are dismal, I work harder. These are supposed to be difficult times, right? According to what everyone says, if you read newspapers and watch the newscasts. But I've had so far my greatest year, attendancewise, box-officewise.

I consult very young children for advice.

I remember the Thirties. From there on, you got it made.

I'll tell you the truth: Anybody that hasn't been outside of the United States--in other words, in Europe or Japan or something like that--at four o'clock in the morning in those places, you cannot get a pizza.

I'll tell you the truth: I believe in alcohol. I really do. What also brings me up is if I get to a Holiday Inn and the menu is different. Silly little things like that are important. Doesn't that sound awful? It's reality, though.

Playboy ain't got any reason to be depressed, they doin' fine. The best. I'm on top now, so if Playboy wants to question me, they can put some money in the hand.

I don't feel like answering, but I'll answer anyway. I'm not depressed at all. Nope. I'm not depressed at all. I keep up my spirits by meeting new people all the time. I think it's meeting new people that keeps me going. That and traveling. I like everything fine. I'm doing all right. Yes, sir.

For Chrissake, what's all this talk about? Goddamn it, we got rid of a President we hated, right? And we've changed our foreign policy, we've gotten out of Vietnam. We should have gotten the fuck out of that country a long time ago. I feel great! I'm celebrating all the time! I never approved of the Vietnamese, I don't care if they die tomorrow, I don't give a damn about Korea. We're getting out of all those countries. Wuuuuuuunderful! This is one person who's very proud of us for having enough guts, finally, to turn our back and walk away.

I never get depressed and I never get spooked and I never get frightened. I'm an activist. I never escape; I just attack. I get angry and I go out and kick someone in the balls.

Well, you just opened up a fuckin' can of beans there. It's an open-ended question. Suffice to say that nobody's perfect; but you show me a country that's better. I've traveled the world, and let me tell you, baby, we're riding the crest of the wave.

When I'm depressed, I do the opposite of getting away from what's bothering me. I face it head on. If it means retreating in order to be pensive and thoughtful, all right. I'll do that. But I certainly won't run away. Head on, baby--the only way I know.

My crutch has always been success. I always go back to it. And in our American way of life, success means becoming number one. Success: adulation, power, money, whatever it is, I gained it. People whispering, Hey, that's Bill Graham!

The newspaper isn't a newspaper anymore. It's cement. It's a weight. You pick it up: "48 Killed in plane crash," "saigon falls," "agnew fucks perle mesta." and once in a while they write good news: "siamese twins split successfully." It's very sad, but i got to be honest with you; I'm not as good a citizen as I could be, I guess. But where do you go? Do you fight for the agriculture, do you fight for the old people, do you fight for better streets, do you fight for more trees, do you fight for better schools? I do what I can. But when there's so much wrong around you. I think what a lot of people say to themselves is: Fuck it, I'm going to take care of my own and try to live as good as possible.

I made a lengthy study of the bummer issue beginning in the late Sixties. As an avantgarde rock-'n'-roller, of course, I had been combating depression, the blues and a general dragged-out feeling back even then before it was popular. I see the current struggle for happiness as a vindication of our early efforts.

I explored many blind alleys. Picketing the blues didn't work. Organizing mass demonstrations brought no response. We seized the cerebellum, but our nonnegotiable demands were rejected with contempt. Finally, I took up a media campaign to expose and discredit depression wherever it had gotten a foothold, and I feel this will ultimately prove to be effective on some levels. If it's been only partially successful, I have only myself to blame, because for the last decade I have usually been ripped to the tits on laughing gas.

I've never had to rely on crutches, fortunately, but it looks like I'll have to start, now that our source of Southeast Asian dope has dried up.

What I do is go huntin' and fishin'. I can't do anything else about anything. What the hell, I'm no politician.

Well, not to describe my own nights, ha-ha-ha, but, ah, well, I make it through them very nicely, thank you. Playboy might be interested in that, ha-ha-ha.

Each time there's an exposé in the newspapers of something that I've smelled for a long time, I think we're just that much closer to getting at the truth and cleaning the scourge. Knowing what the disease is is the first step in curing it.

When I want to change my mood from bad to good, the thing that I've donè over the years is get on a horse's back and go fox hunting.

I try to keep my sanity in two ways: I travel about half the time, and as you travel, you get entirely different viewpoints about America than you do if you stay here. You recognize that Americans aren't the only people having problems. We have ours, but many other countries have theirs. Also, there's the fact that Seagram's over-all curve is going up. There has been a general trend toward lightness in drink for many years--toward vodka, toward less taste and flavor. But now there seems to be a reversal setting in: the growth of tequila, which is a very strong drink. Of course, Seagram's is into tequila, too. We're into everything. Things are OK. As far as the general economy here and abroad, I think there'll be a turnaround probably in early '76. However, it may lead to another, more serious inflation, and then I'm afraid we're in for the worst depression in the history of the world.

I work and save, because I know there's a depression comin'. Sometimes I get depressed and I won't look at a newspaper or watch the news on television for a week. I can see a depression comin'. I remember when I was little, it was right after the Depression and I know how things got. And that'll never happen to me again.

When I find myself wantin' to get away from it all occasionally, I go back to West Virginia and face reality, and look around me and count my blessings for what I can go out and do. Then I hit the road again and work like hell.

I don't see nothin' what's wrong, nothin' too much wrong. Recently, though, I was quite surprised to have the United States of America have the Mafia do things for them, you know. That's terrible, I think. That CIA thing. I'm surprised at the country; we're stoopin' pretty low to do things like that, you know?

To escape bad feelin's, oh, I don't know, I just stay home and stay in bed.

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, that's a good question. Well, that question "How do I make it through the day?" let alone the evening, in relation to the aspects of fulfillment on the basis of the discouraging depressed horizon which seems to permeate not only the 49 states on the continent but the areas outside of our orbit. Allow me to at least develop a certain defense against the machinations of the aforementioned tributaries which seem to stem from the basic fundamentals, which are rudimentary. This does not mean that one has to acclimate or even to communicate with the cerebellum which is a necessary ingredient in order to activate one to find some kind of relationship whereby we can absolve ourselves from any association or even indulgence. Outside of that, I think it's necessary to have a prerequisite.

Well, what I do when I'm distressed, I accept the elixir of Egypt, which is a God-given herb which cannot be grown by passing legislation. It grows without legislation. Sometimes I involve myself with people who are more depressed than me, and we can communicate on the level of grief, sorrow and despair.