Hudson River Radio dot com. It beats listening to nothing. Being Frank.
We're the only way to be is Frank. Hello, and welcome to Being
Frank. We're the only way to be is of course, Frank. I'm
your host, Frank Lebrono, and we'd like to thank you for joining us
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more information about the podcast. We bring our audience a new topical program virtually
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you want. It's certainly the intelligent thing to do. Tonight, we are
recording live on the twenty fourth of March, so you'll be able to hear
us either late in the day the twenty fourth, or certainly anytime on the
twenty fifth. Our guest has been a frequent contributor to Being Frank, bringing
us his unique brand of intelligent talk to share with us. Doctor Paul Levinson
is a colleague at Fordham University, where he's a media arts professor and often
quoted expert on the First Amendment. It he's so much more risking the predictable.
I will dare say that he is the renaissance man. He's a blogger,
a musician, composer, reviewer, and author to literally just name a
few. His science fiction books a multi award winning and his nonfiction books on
politics and media have been translated into fifteen languages. He has been quoted on
virtually every major TV news channel in his latest work, he combines his love
of music, the Beatles, and science fiction in its real life, a
radio play that presents a day in the life of an alternative universe, a
well known DJ, and of course the Beatles. Without further ado here to
explain it all as my friend and colleague, doctor Paul Levitts. And Paul,
thank you once again for joining us. Not some fun tonight, Arwick.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It's always great being on the
alternative, but tonight it's going to be especially good. We're pretty a pretty
alternative. I think that that's that, Paul, So why not anyway,
So let's begin before we actually get into the play. To tell excuse me,
radio play, let's talk a little bit about you know, your background,
and I mentioned and with a little bit of sense of humor, but
it's the truth. You really do so many things, and one of the
things is this radio play, amongst many others. But it's coming. If
you look certainly at your page, your personal Facebook page, etc. You
have a love of music and the Beatles in particular. What is it that
that grabs you grabbed you from the beginning as a young man with the Beatles
and continues to this very day. You obviously have a fascination with them.
Where does it come from. Well, the first thing that I ever did,
even partially professionally, was music. That was before I started writing science
fiction, before I began studying media history, writing about Marsha mclohan and I
way back in nineteen fifty eight, when I was just in sixth grade,
I created a group, an a cappella group called Little Levy and the Emeralds.
And it had nothing to do with being Irish. I just, I
don't know. I thought Emeralds was a good idea for a group name because
the Diamonds were a big hit. So even before the Beatles, I was
very very much into music. By the time we get into the nineteen sixties,
I had left Little Levy in the Emeralds. I broke maybe like one
person's heart, you know, my mother's, you know. And but at
that point I was part of a folk rock group that I created. Initially
it was called the Transits, and then it was called the New Outlook.
And you know, we were singing in subway stations. We weren't busking.
No they ever offered us any money. I don't know what one of the
places we would sing in, by the way, was Poe Park, which
takes a little bit of a place in the real life radio play that I'll
tell you about a little later. But anyway, when the Beatles broke in
in, you know, here in the United States, and it was a
really wild juxtaposition. It was really around the same time that John F.
Kennedy was assassinated, so you know, that ripped the world apart, and
you know, the Beatles came along and I wouldn't say they sewed everything back
together again, but they also did make us feel much better. And I
realized the first time I heard any of their music, which believe it or
not, was actually before the At Sullivan Show. They were on the Jack
Parr you know show he originally did the Tonight Show, and I remember being
struck by them. And by the time you know, they got to Ed
Sullivan, I want to hold Jahan was playing well over the place, and
it was crystal clear to me and the other people in my group, the
Transits then called the New Outlook. It was crystal clear to all of us
that this was something incredibly new in music, that yeah, it was rock
and roll, but it was much more than rock and roll, and you
know, part of it sounded like the Everly Brothers, part of it sounded
like the Kingston Trio. You know, they sounded a little bit like everything,
but also in a way sounding like nothing we had ever heard before.
And at that moment I knew that the world had changed, the world of
music had changed, and the world of everything else had changed in a very
real sense, that as the beginning of the nineteen sixties. You know,
we're talking about the end of nineteen sixty three, the beginning of nineteen sixty
four, that's when the sixties began, not in nineteen sixty or sixty one.
Well, you know, you and I are contemporaries, basically, Paul,
so certainly I certainly remember that time. I don't remember the Jack part
show so interesting. I certainly remember the Ed Sullivan appearances, and I remember
seeing them live because they were creating such a stir. But you and I
realized, and I think it might be important for some of our audience,
particularly our younger members, if we have them. Certainly, I don't know
that's necessarily our demographic. Iungus, remember, is ninety seven years old.
I think that just might be sad, But true, But I think what
I'd like to hit upon is the fact that it was so much more affected,
so much more than music. I mean, it was a cultural revolution
from the way we wore our hair, so the way we dressed. I
remember beetle boots. If you didn't have a pair of beetle boots, i
e. Those kind of low slung semi boots that they wore, weren't you
weren't all that hip. So it really was very much a revolution, as
you mentioned, beyond just the music, it really affected our culture. They
talked to that a little bit, if you would. Yeah, I just
want to say musically, you know, if you think about the Four Seasons,
the Beach Boys, the Cherrells, there were groups that were almost there,
and in fact, the Beach Boys pretty much caught up with the Beatles,
but the Beatles were the ones that made the breakthrough. And yeah,
their hair was a very important part of that. And you know, now,
of course I'm happy I have any hair, but back then I had
a lot of hair, and in late nineteen fifties, early nineteen sixties I
used to comb my hair. The expression in the Bronx was like a rock,
not like a rock in you know, in the ground like a rock.
I don't know what it was short for, but you know it's like
slick back hair, you know, sort of Elvis hair, sort of Pampa
do hair, believe it or not, That's the way I combed my hair
like in nineteen sixty nineteen sixty one. But pretty much as soon as I
and my friends saw the Beatles, and even more importantly, when we saw
what the girls around us really loved, we just let our hair grow,
you know, pretty long. And I remember, this is all the sounds
ridiculous. I'd been going to the same barber since I was I don't know,
eight years old when my father took me to this barber, and I
think I broke his heart because I went there, you know, after the
Beatles, and I try to tell him, look, I let my hair
grow along. I want like a little trim and you know, but I
want it long, and he was incapable of giving me a little trim,
so he basically scalped me. And that was the little last time I saw
him. And finally my hair grew long. And actually this is a video,
but I have a mustache today that I grew after Sergeant Pepper and the
Beatles debuted with their mustaches, So that's how much they influenced me. The
other thing is I'm the kind of person I'm always like singing harmony. Anytime
I hear a song, I've just been in a harmony part. There was,
and is to this very day, nothing more satisfying to me than putting
in a harmony to a Beatles song, in part because, in addition to
their music, their voices just blended together so beautifully. You think about a
song like Nowhere Man, even an earlier song like this Boy, it's such
a rich, satisfying thing to hear them sing. I want to search someone
talking about the comfort of hearing the Beatles harmony, and I think that's a
good word for it. And that's something that with me while these years.
I have to admit, to make a statement about a fashion statement, I
did have a neighborw jacket because the Beatles had neighbor jackets. I couldmit that
now. No, I still don't have it any longer, But at one
time, yes, it had. It really did. That had that kind
of influence. I think. Another thing Paul Worth mentioning too, was the
image of the Beatles at that time was quote unquote wholesome where coming up at
around approximately the same time the Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger would would perform in
a T shirt or sometimes a semi jacket, but certainly not that that dressed
up look that the Beatles had, that buttoned down image. They had that
kind of clean cut image that I think they were a little resistive of.
Certainly at one point they became very much so. But in the beginning the
Fab four they were a bunch of nice young men from Liverpool, so that
image was cultivated to a degree, but they eventually did rebel about that.
So some of your thoughts on their evolution as both musicians and people, Well,
you've touched on what the essential difference between the Beatles and just about every
other rock and roll group or rock group in history is, and that difference
is that the Beatles constantly evolved. They constantly changed not only the way they
looked, but the music that they made, the style of the music.
And this was a very courageous thing to do because the way things work in
the music industry is you have a hit record, and you know, the
record company says, go in and make another record that sounds pretty much like
the hit record because we don't want to take a chance on anything different.
Let's just keep going with the same stuff. So if you think about,
you know, you know, a group like the Chiffons, you know,
he's so fine, sweet talking guy. They a series of records. They
were all number one records, and they all sounded exactly the same the Beatles,
and I attribute this, you know, I don't know how much Ringo
contributed to this, but I attribute this most to John Lennon and Paul McCartney
and to some extent George Harrison. When they had a hit record and then
they came back into the studio, they deliberately avoided sounding too much like that
hit record. And the difference between one album and another was enormous. And
I remember, you know, thinking when Rubbist Soul came out, which is
to this day tied with Revolver for my all time favorite album. But Rubbert
Soul was so different from the albums in which She Loves You was on,
you know, even great songs like yes It Is you Know, which is
a halfway between I Want to Hold Your Hand and the songs on Rubbert Soul.
But the Rubbist Soul was just something that you you could hear it was
the Beatles, but it almost could have been a different group. And then
they took off with Revolver, going into the psychedelic, you know, realm
and you know, playing with guitar sounds and instruments, then Sergeant Pepper and
it just got better and better and better. And you know, if you
want to see the Beatles near the end of their career, of course,
there's Peter Jackson's wonderful documentary that you know, came on the year late last
year in November twenty twenty one. Um, but you know, you see
how they work there, and you see the chances that they took, and
you see the different uh styles that they would even perform in, even in
one group of songs or or one album. So you know, there's uh,
there's there's a very big difference. If if you think of, you
know, a basic Beatles song like um, I Want to hold your Hand,
and you listen to that, and then you listen to here, there
and everywhere, those two songs are from two different ears, and you know,
that's amazing in itself. But by the time we get to what Peter
Jackson put on his in his documentary, you listen to the Beatles performing up
there, and every song sounds completely different. And that is, more than
anything else, I think what kept the Beatles so vibrant, you know,
and so alive, and and that's why I remember in nineteen seventy six,
I was having a conversation with Neil Postman, who was a professor at New
York University. In fact, he became my PhD mentor, And he was
talking about popular culture that lasts a long time and popular culture that evaporates like
overnight. And I said to him, well, if you wanted an example
of popular culture that's gonna last forever, it's the Beatles. And he said
really. I said yeah, really, And he said, well, but
you know, a lot of people we don't really listen that much to Little
Richard anymore, you know, So we don't even listen that much to the
Supremes anymore. So the Postman knew something about music. And I said,
yeah, that's right. But the Beatles are different. The Beatles are here
forever. And you know, I've been quoted as saying that I think the
Beatles are now literally in the same league with Shakespeare, and a thousand years
from now, we're going to be singing and loving Beatles, songs, Beethoven,
Mozart, you know, composers, musicians from hundreds of years ago that
certainly remain in popular memory. And I agree with you, and you know
I was thinking when you said hold your hand. Immediately my mind went from
there to also a day in the life. In terms of contrast of music,
my God, from something very simple, a simple kind of everybody could
come to a much more complex both lyrically and musically. A day in the
life. It's just extraordinary contrast. We might give you a little allegory to
how important the Beatles were in my life, and I'll give a shout out
to a good childhood friend who's also a composer and musician, Jerry Patenti,
who lived down the street from me on Stillwell Avenue in Fort Lee, New
Jersey, not far from the George Washington Bridge, and we would eagerly anticipate
the release of every new album. And he had a nice victrola real excuse
me record player in his basement, and as soon as he got it,
we would rush downstairs immediately to listen to it over and over again, to
the point where eventually we might be able to sing a few of the songs
together, so certainly people of our era, that's I think. Any any
time we mentioned the Beatles, it brings mostly certainly fond memories for all of
us because their music was so broad. And you mentioned what could be certainly
amongst the greatest songwriting duos of all time, McCartney Lennon, What was the
secret to their success? Different people, often great friends, They loved one
another, but also had some Titanic riffs in their life of not speaking to
one another. It seems to be par for the creative process, where they
don't always see to eye to eye, but yet at the same time the
results of their creations are extraordinary. How did that happen? Why did that
happen? In your mind? Well, it's very interesting Lennon and McCartney.
First, let me say that a lot of what we think are Lennon and
McCartney's songs were written pretty much by one of them and the other just put
in a couple of lives or a couple of words. The early Beatles songs
were written by both of them, but as they evolved, they increasingly began
writing their own songs. So and sometimes you even you mentioned a day in
the life. You can hear two songs. There's the main thing of day
in life. I read the news today, oh boy. But then there's
a god Mahad. So that was written totally by McCartney. So they even
began doing that. But the reason why they worked so well together as certainly
as musicians in the studio, but also as songwriters, and the reason why
their harmonies were so tight is on the one hand, they both came from
Liverpool. They came from the same culture, they went up to the same
schools. You know, in that sense they shared a profound unity of culture
because you know, Liverpool is a much smaller city than New York City.
Two kids can grow up in New York City and completely different color cultures in
Liverpool. That's much harder to do. But even though they had that connection,
they also were very different people. And you know, Lennin was much
more sarcastic, He had a harsh side to him. He had a more
cynical side to him, and that is reflected in his music. McCartney was
much more of a traditional songwriter. He was at his best friend, he
was writing songs about love. I mean, he wrote some leninesque songs also
like Helter Skelter, but basically he was the softer side of that relationship.
And the two, even though they worked together, were very much in competition.
Who could come up with the better lyric, who could come up with
the better song, who could come up with a better record. They used
to almost come to blows over who would have the A side and who would
have the B side? And you know, sometimes EMI and Capitol made some
smart decisions. For example, how can you choose between rain John Lennon's song
in the Rain and paperback writer Paul McCartney's song I can't say which one is
better? They're both fabulous, and so em I said, hey, you
know what, We'll make them both the A side. So there was such
a brain group. They had no B sides. There was no such thing
as a B side for the Beatles, because even their B sides were great.
As a matter of fact, one of the things in the radio play
Yes it is one of my all time favorite Beatles songs was the B side
to Ticket to Ride, And by the way, Lennon is pretty much responsible
for writing both of those. And you know, as much as I love
Ticket to Ride, that is a great song, you know, an excellent
example of Beatles hard rock and you know again Lenna's like sock Chasm, But
yes it is is a real treasure just in terms of like the beauty of
the harmony in that song. So as we worked towards its real life radio
play, we have to mention also, as they did in the lead,
it combines science fiction, another one of your loves that you do quite a
bit of writing on. It's you, As I've mentioned, your books have
won many awards within the circle of science fiction writing. How does that work
into first your your overall writing philosophy, etc. And then towards the radio
play, how you combined again love of music, the Beatles, science fiction?
Where did your Where did your love from science fiction? Where's the germ
of that? Well? Going back to the nineteen fifties, In addition to
listening to and loving rock and roll and listening to Alan Fried live on w
I N S. That was one of the two well springs of popular culture
that I drew upon and imbibed and grew up on. The other was science
fiction and the novels of Isaac Asmo, the Foundation Trilogy, the novels of
Robert Heinlein, you know that those to me were as important as the music.
And I came to realize pretty soon that, at least for me,
they were really both coming from the same part of my soul or brain.
And that was true both in terms of appreciating a great science fiction story and
a great song. And it was true in terms of creating a science fiction
story or writing and singing a song. And when I eventually began doing scholarship
and you know, studying you know, Marsha mcluin's work and getting to meet
him and all that stuff, much to my surprise, I found out that
my scholarly work was part of that ball. Some people would probably say ball
of confusion. I say bull of creativity. And to this day, you
know, when I get an idea, first of all, I, you
know, have to think, do I want to write an essay about this
or a science fiction story, And there's always music somewhere involved in there.
I'm thinking about the music also, and usually when I'm thinking about the music,
it's almost like what music do I want to hear while I'm writing this.
But in terms of its real life, the story and the radio play,
I knew that there would be music involved in that story, I got
the idea to write it. P Forntell was a real disc jockey. I
remember him one one of my favorite WNWFM affordum student and started the legendary WFUV
radio seventy five years of public radio, roundbreaking, etc. And Pete Forntell
a big part of that as a student, and they went on to in
my opinion, certainly greatness as dis jussee. I listened to him all the
time. Certainly one of my favorites, if not the favorite to disjunctive mind.
But please continue, Paul, Yeah, well mine too. And Pete
tragically died in two thousand and twelve, and you know that's been on my
mind for a while, you know, I. You know, there are
certain people that you missed more than others. And it's not that Pete and
I were close friends, but even a few times that we saw each other,
it was always an occasion for a great conversation about one thing or another.
And a few years ago I saw that there was an announcement made about
an anthology of alternate Beatles stories, and they were the people who are doing
the anthogs were saying, send us you are the Beatles stories so I didn't
really write any story then. I just saw that, but I was busy
doing other things. But when I heard that, I said to myself,
somehow an alternate Beatles story tied into Pete Forna Tell, because I knew how
much he loved the Beatles. And you know, it was a couple of
years ago. These things almost always come to me when I'm driving someplace.
There's something about driving. I remember, I can tell you where I was
drivings on the spring Brook park Way. I was driving to Fordham University to
teach a class, and usually I'm thinking about what I'm gonna be talking about
in the class. But just suddenly popped into my head that what did John
Lennon and Pete Fornatell have in common? They both died way too soon in
different ways, and somehow I felt there's an alternate history story here in which
both Pete Forna Tell and John Lennon, and therefore the Beatles play a role.
And that was really the beginning of it. And the way I write
usually is, you know, you know, later that night or the next
day, when I thought about it again, I just sat down. I
pretty much wrote the first draft of the story, and I put in some
more details you know, later on, but that's pretty much how the story
was written a couple of years ago. Well, let's let's talk about a
little bit about the plot, the theme, How does it develop, set,
set the stage for us, what's happening, what's going on in there.
I listened to it. It's it's fun, it's fascinating, and we'll
give we'll give a website later that's that people can listen to it themselves.
But tell us a little bit more about the plot and the theme and and
some of the some of the things we should take from it. Well,
Pete loved the Beatles and as many people did, and I know that he
was as heartbroken as I was when when John Lennon was assassinated. So I
begin the story with Pete playing some music on WFUV, and it soon becomes
apparent that Pete is living in a different universe, a different reality from the
one that you and I and our listeners are living in a reality in which
John Lennon was not assassinated. You know, these things are such tragedies,
and it's something about John Lennon's assassination was especially tragic. I mean he's just
walking back to his apartment with Yoko in the Dakota, and I've really never
gotten over with that, by the way it's been. You know, it's
such an upsetting thing. He wasn't even a politician. So I situate Pete
in this world where that didn't happen. So Pete should be happy about that,
and he is, but because he doesn't know that John was assassinated.
But the essence of this story is whenever Pete plays a Beatles song, and
in particular, when he plays a Beatles song that he calls real Life and
that's the name of the Beatles song, he feels this strange in cohte bear,
this dread, this like the cosmos twisted up inside of him, and
that propels him to say, you know what, after his show is over
and we find, you know, listening to him, you know, talking
about things on his show, that this is an alternate reality that the Beatles
didn't break up in nineteen seventy. The story takes place, it's real life
takes place in nineteen ninety six. The Beatles are still together, you know,
some things are still the same. Dennis Elsis has just interviewed John Lennon
and you know, in our reality, Dennis Elsi said, you John Lennon
back in the early nineteen seventies, and this reality just took place, you
know, twenty five years later. And in this reality, Paul McCartney has,
for the first time in Beatles history written and recorded a song with someone
who's not a Beatle My Brave Face with Elvis Costello. In our reality that
actually took place in the late nineteen eighties. So this is like our reality
in many ways, but profoundly different in other ways. And but Pete he
plays this song real life, it's real, it really and he's almost brought
to tears by this. There's something about that song. He doesn't know what
it is. And that's the beginning of the story. And Pete decides to
you know, to clear his head, to go downtown to keep an appointment
he has with wn ETTV. And he decided as though, rather than walking
you know, on the ground to the Fordham Metro North station, which in
his reality is still conrail, he decides to go through the Fordham Tunnels and
which are real place, really exists under Fordham University in rose Hill. Not
everyone knows that that's right, and you know, they're very attractive vehicle,
you know, because they're strange. I actually uh use them in another completely
different story. Uh, and it worked very well in that story. And
so I have Pete walked through the tunnels, and somehow walking through that tunnel,
he finds when he gets downtown to Manhattan, he soon discovers that he's
in a different world. And in fact, we're going to play a clip.
And yes, I'm going to say we have a clip, if Neil
can get ready, we have a first clip that we call funny Money,
where when when in paying for his fare, he realizes that something might not
be quite right here. So let's let's it's only thirty seconds or so twenty
five thirty seconds. Let's play that first clip from its real life, and
it's called funny Money. Let's let's take a listen. It's real, it's
real, it's really He places a ten dollar bill in the open guitar case
with a flourish isn't that President Reagan? Right? When did they change the
guy in the money Alexander Hamilton's on my ten dollar bills? Okay, maybe
take a little horror there with with Ronald Reagan on money forgive me for the
political Hey might that might be a little horror part of the story. Forgive
me, But explain what's what's going on there, Paul in that clip.
So, first of all, Pete doesn't run into any problem on the train
downtown because he's not yet into the alternate reality. I mean, he isn'to
the altered reality because that happens in the tunnels, but he hasn't seen any
evidence of it on the train downtown except for one thing. He again,
he knows of this train as a Conrail network of trains, but he as
as the conductor who collects his fair walks away, and she's wearing a nice,
tight outfit, and he looks at her. He sees like on the
back of her shirt it says Metro North. So he just doesn't understand this,
what happened. This is like a special branch of Conrail or whatever.
He doesn't quite get it. But after that clip that you just played and
what's going on there is First of all, Pete asks this busk group,
can you play this song real life? That's what Pete knows, And the
buskers laugh at him and say, you know, we don't know real life.
You mean Real Love, right, but they wind up playing real Love
and the time that the alternate reality becomes crystal clear to Peters in a very
generous move, he basically makes this grand gesture of putting a ten dollar bill
into their guitar case. That's a pretty nice, uh, you know,
tip for buskers. And that's when this scene takes place, and you know,
one of the buskers says, you know, what's Ronald Reagan doing on
the money? Because if Peache still has the money from his reality, who
knows. Maybe in Peach reality, Reagan was a good president, so that's
why they put him on the money. But but these people are something and
something much closer to our reality, where Ragan was never on any dollar bill
or ten dollar bill. And this is really the first tangible evidence. It's
not a mistake. It's not like, you know, they put Metro the
auth on the back of the conductor's uniform for whatever reason. This is basically
tangible proof in hand that there's something very different about this world that Pete is
in. Well, one of the things I noticed, and it's interesting,
you have certainly some sound effects, some great music contributed by others, but
you're the voice of Pete Fournitel was that was it important for you to play
Pete, to be the voice of Pete for Titel? Yeah, well,
listen, you know, I, as a science fiction writer, have have
a lot of experience of reading my stories at conventions and so on, so
I'm used to putting voice to my characters. And when then I'm I have
to say. He now pronounces his name Vin Tease. But when I knew
him, he was actually my student in the Master's pro gram in which I
was teaching before I came to Fordham back in the early nineteen eighties, and
then he was Vin TC, so I still think of him as Vin TC.
Anyway, he is the incredibly talented producer who put in all those sound
effects. And he asked me, says, you know, who do you
think we can get to play Pete fourn to tell? And he said to
me, you know, I have this Rod Sarlon like announcer Bobby Roberto.
He'll be great, trust me, And he is. I think Bob Roberto
does a brand narration. And I said to you know, I said,
look, you know then I'll be happy to do it. He says,
yeah, you think you can do I said, yeah, so you know
he's a tough customer. Vin TC said, Okay, I'm gonna give you
a series of lines. Let me hear you read them. So I didn't.
He thought it was good and that's how I got to do it.
Great pause, We'll take a little break. I want to come back talk
a little bit more about its real life. We have a few more clips
to play from it. Talk about how well received the radio play has been
so far. FEV has played in a few other places. It's getting good
reviews, getting good playtime. So much more to talk about. But well,
let's take a quick break. You're watching being Frank. We're the only
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Being Frank. We're the only way to be is Frank. I'm your host,
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having every week as a new guest. This week our guest is doctor Paul
Levinson for the Media professor, one of my colleagues, an author, a
musician, a critic, and on and on and on, and we're talking
about his new radio play, It's Real Life, an alternative day in the
life if you will, of the Beatles and a former great New York DJ
Pete four ntell. Paul, we were talking about and you set up the
first incident where Pete four Nitel and his alternate universe if you will discover something
with money, and that's the first inkling. We have another clip about John
Lennon and the shock of realization something happened to John Lennon that he is not
quite aware of in his universe. Let's set it up a little bit,
Paul, and then Neil, I'm already will listen to that. Paul,
set it up for us if you wouldn't. Okay, So Pete is still
talking to these buskers because you know they sound great. They now saw two
great Beatles songs. Yes it is, and what Pete thought would be real
life and it turns out to be real love and and he's also now found
out that his money, at least some of his money, doesn't seem to
be any good in this terminal, Grand Central Terminal. He's continuing the conversation
with them, and they begin talking Pete and the buskers about John Lennon,
and one of the buskers says, you know, the last time she heard
that song Real Love was you know, they they played a video of it,
and it was so sad. She began, you know, crying,
and you know, Pete doesn't understand why I was. And remember Pete has
this feeling of fear every time he hears this, so also but he wants
to understand. He feels a kinship with this busker. You know, why
why did you feel so bad about that? And the busker says, well,
you know, you know he he was assassinated in nineteen eighty and like
yo, she's practically in tears. And this hits Pete like a bowling ball
in the face because it's one thing, the money, you know, is
not the same, and you know, in a way it's something that somehow
he always feared. But what this busker says to him is believable and and
this is like it's not a knockout punch because he's still there talking. But
this really hits him in the gut. And and it's important to keep in
mind, he's Pete forn A tell he would know if John Lennon was assassinated.
That's not something he wouldn't have heard of. That's not something he ever
could have forgotten. And so to hear this, Busker say that this basically
wakes Pete up completely to the fact of he doesn't know how he got here,
but he is not in the world in which he was when he left
Fordham University. All right, that's the setup. Let's listen. When did
you last hear that song? I saw the video on MTV the other night.
Very moving. I don't think i've seen it. What did you find
moving? The battas? I mean, you know, with Lennon and all,
it was very emotional. John always has a voice that pulls at your
heart. Yeah, and seeing him come back to life on that video on
this song was really something. Did something happen to John Lennon that he somehow
hadn't heard about it? Impossible? Well, yeah, I can imagine the
shock, as he said, because it's not only the reality of something different,
but the content of what was different, And I think people again,
remember we have listeners from outside of the New York area. Pete for Ntell
was a legendary NTS jockey in New York and certainly considered an expert on the
Beatles as well. So, as you mentioned, if anybody would know,
he would have known. How did it happened in his world? But so
interesting to be able to capture the emotion of that. How much of your
emotion did you write into that poll? Because obviously too as a fan,
as a musicologist, etc. It had to take a piece of your heart.
How did you use that to create that scene? Well, I think,
at least for me, and I think for everyone who writes, whether
it's music or just words, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, you want to
draw upon the deepest feelings you have in your heart and soul. And as
I said before, you know I lived through the nineteen sixties. You know,
the assassination of John F. Kennedy was horrible than Martin Luther King,
then Robert F. Kennedy. I mean, you know that was about as
horrible and terrible as it gets. But there was something about John Lennon's assassination
in nineteen eighty that was uniquely perverted and horrible. And I wouldn't say I've
gotten over John F. Kennedy's assassination. You know, it happened a long
time ago, but it has its place in history. I think we'd be
a much better world if he hadn't been assassinated. But I don't actively grieve
for John F. Kennedy. I you know, I feel terrible when I
think about it, but there's something about John Lennon's assassination that I still grieve
for to this day. And in that conversation, you know that you just
heard. I mean every time I hear John Lennon's voice singing, you know,
I feel that way because look, George Harrison tragically Guide of Natural Causes.
That's terrible too. He died way too young. But I don't feel
like that he was robbed from us. But with John Lennon, I do
feel that way. And you know, we don't want to get too much
into politics tonight, but you know, the guns in this country, in
the United States, are just insane, totally in saying, you know,
when are we going to do something about that? We're the only country in
the world and this lunatic got a gun and you know, just as easily
as going in buying a pack of cigarettes or a pack of chewing gun and
then snuffed out someone who brought so much joy in music to the world.
So yeah, all of that is always in my heart. And I basically,
you know, listen to the Beatles music and I feel that way every
time. As much as I enjoy it, a part of me feels that
way. And that's what I brought into this story in the radio play.
Well, I think to give it a certain perspective. And you mentioned Kennedy's
assassination as well, and I think it's one of those things where we all
remember where we were when we heard about Kennedy. I was a child at
Madonna Parochial School in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and I remember being brought
out of the classrooms and standing in the hallway and the mother superior or whatever
they called them at the time I've forgotten at this religious institution, went up
and down the hallway informing us, and then the crying and the whaling when
everybody realized that it was real. I think I was seven or eight years
old at the time, and I remember also the same thing where I was
hearing I think watching Monday Night football and Howard Cosell and his heartfelt shocked announcement
about the assassination of John Lennon. So he certainly reached the status where many
many years later, for so many of us, we remember exactly where we
were when we heard the news. Are your thoughts on that ball? Yeah,
you know, I have to tell you about the assassination of John F.
Kennedy. I remember where I was too. I was a freshman at
the City College of New York. I was taking a class in calculus.
I never liked math anyway. I didn't like math when I was a kid.
It's like the most boring thing in the world. I know there were
mathematicians who love it, not me. And someone is like a knock on
the door. A student is standing out there as a grave expression, says
something to the professor, and the student leads. The professor says, you
know, I have some really sad news. The President of the United States,
John F. Kennedy, has been shot and it seems he's been assassinated.
And the class, everybody in the class, and we were freshmen,
I was like sixteen years old, you know. It was the fall of
my first year at City College, I and the other kids in the class
stand up and are getting ready to leave, and the professor says, no,
no, sit down, We're gonna have to finish our math lesson.
And I remember that's always stuck in my mind as well. This guy,
this math professor, you know, not only does he love mathematics, which
I find a little hard to understand, he couldn't bring himself to dismiss the
class. He went on and taught the rest of the class for like another
twenty minute. So that's you know, just you know, insane. But
you know, I think you know this, you know issue of where we
were and and so forth. You know, you have all these coincidences in
life, and I think this is the first time I even talked about this.
So this is a very good question. Marshall mclewin, whom I work
with, you know, in the mid nineteen seventies and got to meet him,
and he was really a brain guy. He and John Lennon died around
the same time, h you know, at the end of nineteen eighty and
so for me, it was like like a double whammy. And I was,
you know, pretty close to Marshall mclewin and you know, I was
just talking about how I felt about John Lennon. But that was one hell
of an aggravating month. And you know, again you talk about the world
turning and changing, and you know, I'll tell you something else, I,
maybe wrongly, had always hoped and even expected that the Beatles would get
back together. And you know, the first thing that I was feeling when
you know John Lennon was killed is well, the Beatles were killed because they
can't get anybody replaced John Lennon. There was even some thought for a while
by getting you know, his son, Julian Lennon, who actually sounds pretty
good, but he wasn't his father. And Paul mccartnin even said, you
know, it's not right to Julian to put this much pressure on him.
So at that instant, you know, in December nineteen eighty, I could
see and feel and hear the world turn and not for the not for the
better. We have another clip to play, Paul, or a third and
last clip. It's a Beatles historic reference. Set that up for us a
little bit before. When we listen, Neil, get that ready, and
then well, but let's tell us a little bit about it first, Okay,
So we left Pete in the caverns of Grand Central Terminal talking to the
buskers. The buskers are telling him, and who cares anymore about who's on
the money. The buskers are telling him that John Lennon was assassinated in nineteen
eighty. Pete can't believe that. He feels in his heart and soul that
it's true, but he cannot believe that it's crazy. So he runs out
of Grand Central station and thinks to himself, I got to find a bookstore.
Oh yeah, there's a Bonds and Nobles a couple of blocks, you
know, up the street. He runs into Bonds and Noble, looks in
the encyclopedias, and what you're going to hear is his response a little later,
shocked, you know, to the core about what he found in those
encycloped That's a confirmation of everything he feared and dread. All right, let's
play that clip if you would. Not only was John Lennon murdered in nineteen
eighty according to those encyclopedias. The Beatles disbanded in nineteen seventy. Band on
the Run was a McCartney only album with his new band Wings released in nineteen
seventy three. Handle with Care a huge hit for the Beatles in nineteen eighty
eight. The biggest of the decade was instead recorded and released by a supergroup
that same year, a supergroup consisting of George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Boy
Orbison and two guys. Pete never heard of that. So you can't see
I see your smile. You're getting getting kick out of yourself there, so
I can see you. People can't when I can play Bo big big creds.
I got to Bobby Roberto. Wasn't that a great rendition of narration?
But I also laughing because someone who heard the the radio play and who read
the store actually beforehand. Another this jockey, his name is Phil Merkle.
He goes by the name of Captain Phil, and he has a show on
w USB radio. The first time he heard it, he said, you
know, how dare you do that to Jeff Lynn? You know, you
know, what do you mean? Pete never heard of Jeff Lynn? I
said, well, what do you want? He comes from an alternate reality,
right, That's that's what it was. And so that last piece,
basically I hope brings home to the listener the differences between the two worlds,
you know, the things that we take for granted. So just on that
last you know point, Handle with Ked, this great song about the traveling
Wilburies. You know who are the Traveling WILBURI is the supergroup you know,
you know Roy Orbison, you know Bob Dylan, et cetera, et cetera,
and you know they George Irrison obviously in Tom Petty and Jeff Lynn,
we know that reality like the back of our hand. But Pete comes from
reality where Yeah, Handle with Care was a great song, but the Beatles
are still together in nineteen eighty eight, so George brought it to the Beatles
John and Paul said, yeah, it's a great song. Let's sing it.
So there's a version of Handle with Care out there in an alternate reality
in which the original Beatles are singing it. And that's what that scene is
supposed to bring home. Ultimately, Paul, what do you think people should
take from its real life? What can they take away from it? I
don't know the ultimate nature of reality any more than anybody else does, but
I have always thought and felt that the lives we are living here there could
be a hundred a thousand other variations on those lives, and obviously novels and
movies have been you know, made about that. You know the girl we
had a crush on and junior high school and maybe like we made out at
some party and then that was pretty much the last time we saw each other.
There's a reality in which we got happily married and now have grandkids.
I mean, I think that there is more to life than just this world
that's all around us, and I have no idea how to get there.
I don't know whether or not that's just a feeling or a reflection of what
the reality ultimately is. But that's what I want listeners to think about after
they've heard this play, that maybe maybe it doesn't have to be It didn't
have to be this way the way it is for us. Okay, where
can our listeners here? The entire We play a few clips, the entire
play is how long entire plays, like twenty three twenty four minutes. And
then when you go to the site, you'll also hear an interview that wasn
acted with me, but completely different from this interview because I don't want to
take anything away from it, but couldn't possibly is good because this interview was
our interview. That was Krem give us the site ball where Yeah, so
it's it's it's Killer Watt dot co CEOs. That's Killer Watt k I L
L E R W A T T dot c O. And when you go
to that site, that's the radio station. Look Killerwat and uh it broadcasts
someplace from Brooklyn overlooking the Gowanas Canal. God help them, but I know
what they seeing in that canal. But when you go there, the first
thing you'll see is Bobby Roberto presents its real life and you click on the
player and that's when you and you can see all the credits also in the
radio play. Well, we'd like to thank our guest doctor Paul Levinson for
being Frank and his intelligent conversation. Of course once again, and a special
bank to our listeners who take the time to give us a voice in their
lives. Remember we offer a fresh topic every week and you can catch us
wherever and whenever you get your favorite podcasts remember like Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio,
Speaker and more. You can also check us out on the Being Frank
Facebook page. And we'll leave you with two last little nuggets. Of course,
our slogan, and of course I had to take it from the Beatles'
Hopefully you'll appreciate this, Paul, and everyone will. The love you take
is equal to the love you make. Very poignant says it all right there,
And we have some closing music, some of your music, Paul,
that's also part of the teleplay that you wrote. Tell us a little bit
about it. Set it up for us, please, Okay. So you
know, as a science fiction writer, I sometimes write songs, not stories
or novels. And back at the end of two thousand eleven, I got
in touch. I can't remember how we met. I think somebody recommended he
wrote music. I wrote lyrics that maybe we could write some songs together.
His name is John Annelio, and you know, we talked a little bit
and he said, well, send me some lyrics and I'll, you know,
you know, put it to music, see what you think. So
one of the lyrics I sent to him is a song called If I Traveled
to the Past, and it's a mixture of time travel and romance. And
if you travel to the past and you fixed things with someone, and how
would you know to change that in the first place? In the present,
Why would you have traveled in the past in the first place, so that's,
you know, one of the prime paradoxes of time travel. So we
wrote that song in two thou eleven. In two thousand and eighteen, I
began recording songs for Welcome Up. Songs of Space and Time. You've played
some of them at the end of some of our previous interviews on our other
shows. And one of the songs that I played for the producer Chris Hoisington,
who is part of Old Bear Records. That's the label on which the
album was released, and they have great studio, Old Bear Studios in Batavia,
New York. He heard that song if I traveled to the past and
say, hey, this is a great song. Let's record it and put
it on the album. So we did record it. How did it get
into its real life? I don't want to give too much away about the
very ending, but there's yet another twist in this story, and it has
to do with a this is something that happened in our reality. In our
reality, Paul McCartney contacted Isaac Asimov and said to late nineteen sixties, hey,
maybe we can write a musical together, you know, send me a
treatment I'll write the songs, and Asimov sat down and wrote that I'm not
going to say anymore, and I will say though, if you haven't heard
that, the reason is it was never made. But in Pete's new alternate
reality, it turns out that it was made. And this song, which
I wrote with John Annelio Chris Hoisington produced. We took the track of that
and a British singer by the name of Spencer Hannibus you'll hear is a great
voice, and he sang if I traveled to the past over the track that
Chrissington produced, and this is what pretty much rolls out the radio play at
the end. It's real life a radio played by Paul Levinson. He gave
you the website where you can check it out. I highly recommended, folks.
It's an awful lot of fun, Doctor Paul Levinson, thank you once
again for joining us, and of course thank you to Neil Richter, the
mailman, our engineer drove our bustle all the way to our final destination.
And of course thanks to our listeners for being frank with us. I'm your
host, Frank Lebono, and we'll see you on the next Being Frank now.
What you heard in the radio play was the backing track of that recording,
which was produced for My Record. The track was produced by Chris Poisington
and it was sung in the radio play by Spencer Cannabis. And here now
is if I traveled to the past, If I traveled to the past to
change all man, So you loved me then, and you love me now?
What I have known to travel back in the first place? If I
travel best selfast the other world was blind? God a slip, good time,
good to slip the vine of paradox that turns the best into the worst
place. It ain't simple, It ain't round to turn the sun into the
darkest night. If I can make it work just one time, I could
have it all. I could make you mind. If I travel to the
best. No, I'm never tell a sing, so my list would be
sealed except when they brushed against your sweet face. If I travel to the
past to change your mind, so you love me then, and you love
me now? That I have known to travel back in the first place.
No, it an't symbol. It ain't by to tell the sun or to
my dark this night. Look, if I could make it one, just
one time, I could have it off. I could have you mind.
If only I could travel back through time. If only I could travel back
to time. This is Hudson River Radio dot com, your local Rockland County station,