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HuܾU0ՇrvC9ftyt=2ArEI8\A&=ÏYQ n;Yia:|>`-HNq^@Hڡ.U `_> C}3P〷sWKM{Ii VyH>2^Yjz=[/ *͑b+"fd*[ԕʌ.zF>_D$^$q޴d?Lhg 7è\5SDZ3#f9SĻʕstzζHԟrsuA}Yffjh7H|i uAa}J)Yv{@ >RA5VD'6Ap-> )bҫg?Y[EK7X _Ў`c1!Yhgم^?yL[A yWֳջgw 8q{Epzd<@DHCgcsMdqJmsL{mtkvءy \F*QZZrPLghɻ?W `3"?i}gئ"\M*Gn뮡&Ыn^e0FSLJE]_0L?8G{W€`Nf5|dj2UbHmE#8[L`Z9)apg5{V#"!ewYJThGd== Ԟ0JgI #3%OQ5- *OqCMg.0B׭_pزnۋrl'#`j8W> e40ԋ2`-%Y6*JB}JQq;F|H ,(و $.8XK+k}^~nÎi8E5@`eJ3ܶI-@dqzoA(9VC@ζM9W?6l؋NAn`?S;=ʎэmX˰>.hbn)ik Ҥz죟eGUέħ^d.o9n"vd!?*C=)@1 00:17:17,077 of being part of the family team, 326 00:17:17,161 --> 00:17:19,913 and that probably made me more sensitive to other people. 327 00:17:19,997 --> 00:17:23,500 I do remember that when I was able to go to a party-- 328 00:17:23,584 --> 00:17:25,252 high school, for example, 329 00:17:25,961 --> 00:17:30,257 I would often wind up asking people questions and never talking about myself. 330 00:17:30,799 --> 00:17:33,802 I think I felt, like, what's there to say about bussing dishes? 331 00:17:33,886 --> 00:17:39,058 And so I began to just kind of take notes on other people's affairs, 332 00:17:39,141 --> 00:17:40,768 and events, and news. 333 00:17:41,351 --> 00:17:44,438 And that probably led to the choice to be a writer 334 00:17:44,521 --> 00:17:45,856 about other people's stories. 335 00:17:52,529 --> 00:17:54,031 Oh, lemme see. You want some tea, Ben? 336 00:17:54,114 --> 00:17:55,991 -Yeah. -Uh, that'll be two--two teas. 337 00:17:56,533 --> 00:17:57,493 So, it'll be two cups 338 00:17:57,951 --> 00:17:59,369 and maybe a large container 339 00:17:59,453 --> 00:18:00,454 you know, with tea. 340 00:18:01,580 --> 00:18:03,248 So, when as a child… 341 00:18:03,332 --> 00:18:04,833 when did you first become aware that-- 342 00:18:04,917 --> 00:18:06,502 that there was something missing 343 00:18:06,585 --> 00:18:08,754 according to other people's standards. 344 00:18:08,837 --> 00:18:11,048 When did you know that you were in a sense, handicapped? 345 00:18:11,131 --> 00:18:12,382 I never really knew it. 346 00:18:12,466 --> 00:18:13,300 You know? 347 00:18:13,884 --> 00:18:16,762 In school, they didn't tell you that Hey, you have to deal with this. 348 00:18:16,845 --> 00:18:19,389 You must cope with a handicap. Did they do it positively? 349 00:18:19,473 --> 00:18:20,307 They never-- 350 00:18:20,974 --> 00:18:22,392 They probably said things. 351 00:18:22,476 --> 00:18:24,228 I cannot remember. I cannot--I don't even-- 352 00:18:24,895 --> 00:18:26,980 They must have been so insignificant. 353 00:18:27,064 --> 00:18:28,816 The only thing that was said to me in school, 354 00:18:28,899 --> 00:18:31,360 and this is like my early part of school when I was in Detroit, 355 00:18:32,778 --> 00:18:34,071 was like, you know, 356 00:18:35,280 --> 00:18:36,573 something that made me feel like 357 00:18:36,657 --> 00:18:37,991 because I was Black 358 00:18:38,075 --> 00:18:40,160 I could never be or I would never be. 359 00:18:40,244 --> 00:18:41,537 -Mm. -You know? 360 00:18:41,620 --> 00:18:42,454 Mm-hmm. 361 00:18:42,538 --> 00:18:43,580 You mean, that Black was-- 362 00:18:43,664 --> 00:18:45,290 being Black was considered to be even a-- 363 00:18:46,083 --> 00:18:47,251 a bigger weight on you? 364 00:18:47,918 --> 00:18:49,086 More of a handicap? 365 00:18:49,920 --> 00:18:51,547 I guess so. I mean it's… 366 00:18:52,297 --> 00:18:53,132 You know… 367 00:18:54,007 --> 00:18:56,009 You know, this cat said in the article one time, 368 00:18:56,093 --> 00:18:56,969 It was funny, man. 369 00:18:57,511 --> 00:18:58,887 "Damn, I mean, he's Black, 370 00:18:58,971 --> 00:19:00,180 he's blind and 371 00:19:01,140 --> 00:19:02,266 what else?" 372 00:19:02,766 --> 00:19:04,518 A lot of people are very sensitive about that 373 00:19:04,601 --> 00:19:05,435 but like… 374 00:19:05,519 --> 00:19:07,187 That made me, I guess, only because maybe 375 00:19:07,271 --> 00:19:09,356 I'm a Taurus or whatever, it just made me fight it. 376 00:19:09,439 --> 00:19:10,649 I said, you know, "Bullshit!" 377 00:19:10,732 --> 00:19:12,317 I don't want to hear that shit. You know? 378 00:19:19,575 --> 00:19:22,995 Sarah was the first born, followed by Barry and then me. 379 00:19:23,745 --> 00:19:25,956 I was followed by Shirley and then Burton. 380 00:19:26,790 --> 00:19:31,336 The firstborn son is pretty much the supreme leader of the kids battalion. 381 00:19:31,879 --> 00:19:33,422 And so I was in the middle, 382 00:19:33,505 --> 00:19:36,091 just kind of picking up the hand-me-downs from Barry, 383 00:19:36,758 --> 00:19:40,804 and not having that responsibility of being the one who has to go to college 384 00:19:40,888 --> 00:19:43,307 and and have a great white-collar job. 385 00:19:43,390 --> 00:19:46,143 And I didn't feel that pressure that Barry felt. 386 00:19:47,144 --> 00:19:51,315 We had a family of seven crammed into a two-bedroom, one-bathroom flat. 387 00:19:51,398 --> 00:19:55,110 Barry and I read our comics by flashlight under the covers. 388 00:19:55,652 --> 00:19:58,780 We also managed to get a pocket radio in the shape of a rocket. 389 00:19:58,864 --> 00:20:01,116 We would reach out our bedroom window 390 00:20:01,200 --> 00:20:04,953 and attach it to our clothesline, which is handy. 391 00:20:05,037 --> 00:20:09,708 Then you just dial the rocket base to pull in the station. 392 00:20:10,584 --> 00:20:14,504 And that was radio back in the early days of rock and roll, 393 00:20:14,588 --> 00:20:16,173 or rocket and roll. 394 00:20:25,557 --> 00:20:29,436 I was inspired by one of the greatest voices of all time, 395 00:20:29,519 --> 00:20:34,733 Gary Owens, who was a disc jockey on-- in Oakland, on KEWB. 396 00:20:34,816 --> 00:20:37,694 This has been KEWB instant news, 397 00:20:37,778 --> 00:20:39,279 no sooner done than said. 398 00:20:40,906 --> 00:20:43,033 - At the tone, music. 399 00:20:43,116 --> 00:20:47,371 "Hi there. Hi, gang. Gary Owens on KEWB Color Radio." 400 00:20:47,454 --> 00:20:52,793 So early on, I just kind of appreciated these entertainments in my life, 401 00:20:53,293 --> 00:20:56,380 and thought that possibly I could do that. 402 00:20:56,463 --> 00:20:59,383 We couldn't afford a new phonograph player, 403 00:20:59,466 --> 00:21:02,302 so Barry decided to make one himself. 404 00:21:02,386 --> 00:21:06,473 He got a children's 78 r.p.m. model at a thrift shop, 405 00:21:06,556 --> 00:21:10,352 and honed the cap stand down until the speed decreased 406 00:21:10,435 --> 00:21:14,064 to the speed of rock and roll: 45 r.p.m. 407 00:21:20,862 --> 00:21:23,448 So you understand why I looked up to Barry all the time. 408 00:21:24,533 --> 00:21:28,287 I kind of gravitated to people who were in some ways marginalized. 409 00:21:28,370 --> 00:21:32,457 Having come from my background helped to direct the way I went with subjects 410 00:21:32,541 --> 00:21:34,418 and the way stories were done. 411 00:21:34,501 --> 00:21:38,588 But in terms of a musician who was awe-inspiring 412 00:21:38,672 --> 00:21:43,427 and lived up to what I had been thinking about him as for many years, 413 00:21:43,510 --> 00:21:44,386 Ray Charles. 414 00:21:44,469 --> 00:21:48,974 He was the man in my mind, because as a kid in junior high school, 415 00:21:49,057 --> 00:21:52,019 I was listening to "Hit the Road Jack," "Georgia," and "What I'd Say." 416 00:21:57,607 --> 00:21:59,735 Ray Charles was famous before I got to him, 417 00:21:59,818 --> 00:22:01,278 but he was overlooked. 418 00:22:01,778 --> 00:22:06,033 He was being ignored by a lot of the rock culture audience. 419 00:22:06,116 --> 00:22:08,201 And I said, "Man, how about Ray Charles?" 420 00:22:08,285 --> 00:22:10,871 Without him, I don't know that we'd all be here. 421 00:22:10,954 --> 00:22:13,123 So-- and I'm sure he's got himself a story to tell. 422 00:22:13,206 --> 00:22:14,041 And he did. 423 00:22:16,752 --> 00:22:18,545 they had ads in the paper 424 00:22:19,338 --> 00:22:21,548 where they were trying to find anybody 425 00:22:22,049 --> 00:22:23,425 that could sing like me. 426 00:22:23,508 --> 00:22:24,343 Uh-huh. 427 00:22:24,426 --> 00:22:26,178 You think about that for a minute. 428 00:22:26,261 --> 00:22:29,014 Here I am and here's a guy will go and spend millions of dollars 429 00:22:29,097 --> 00:22:31,183 to find a White cat just to imitate me, 430 00:22:31,266 --> 00:22:33,143 and he'll do far better than me. 431 00:22:33,226 --> 00:22:34,519 Let's break it down. 432 00:22:34,603 --> 00:22:36,396 an-an-and tell it like it is. 433 00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:38,148 This is the real truth. 434 00:22:38,231 --> 00:22:39,608 When you get a guy 435 00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:41,234 who come up, 436 00:22:41,318 --> 00:22:43,445 man, say like an Elvis Presley-- 437 00:22:43,528 --> 00:22:45,197 an-an-and let's face it, man, 438 00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:47,199 you had more people going out 439 00:22:47,282 --> 00:22:49,618 shaking their behinds an-and stuff like that. 440 00:22:49,701 --> 00:22:51,078 What'd they call--Elvis the Pelvis? 441 00:22:51,161 --> 00:22:53,121 -Yeah. -You know where Elvis got that from? 442 00:22:53,205 --> 00:22:54,831 He used to be out on Beale Street 443 00:22:55,332 --> 00:22:56,541 in Memphis! That's where he saw 444 00:22:56,625 --> 00:22:58,085 the Black people doing that. 445 00:22:58,168 --> 00:23:00,045 We couldn't do that on TV. 446 00:23:00,128 --> 00:23:01,088 There ain't no way, man, 447 00:23:01,171 --> 00:23:03,173 There ain't no way in hell they'd let anybody, like-like, 448 00:23:03,256 --> 00:23:04,091 get on TV and do that. 449 00:23:04,174 --> 00:23:05,550 But he could be-- He's White. 450 00:23:05,634 --> 00:23:09,054 And when Ray Charles would talk about firsthand segregation, 451 00:23:09,137 --> 00:23:12,307 that wasn't even just in childhood, but even as a star. 452 00:23:12,391 --> 00:23:14,226 You see, I done seen all this, man. 453 00:23:14,309 --> 00:23:15,560 I know all about 454 00:23:15,644 --> 00:23:18,355 the places where I couldn't drink out of the fountain. 455 00:23:18,438 --> 00:23:19,898 I know all about the places 456 00:23:19,981 --> 00:23:21,400 I couldn't go to the bathroom 457 00:23:21,483 --> 00:23:22,317 when I had to pee. 458 00:23:22,401 --> 00:23:24,277 Somethin' that's natural for every human being. 459 00:23:24,361 --> 00:23:26,405 You understand me? And if I do it on the highway 460 00:23:26,488 --> 00:23:27,406 and the cops see me 461 00:23:27,489 --> 00:23:28,990 he gonna put me in jail for it. 462 00:23:29,074 --> 00:23:29,908 You understand? 463 00:23:29,991 --> 00:23:32,119 And maybe beat my head, too depending on where I am. 464 00:23:32,202 --> 00:23:33,578 See, I know all about that. 465 00:23:33,662 --> 00:23:35,122 Yeah, but I don't want to let 466 00:23:35,205 --> 00:23:37,124 that get into what I'm doing. 467 00:23:37,207 --> 00:23:38,875 I--I'm in this business for-- 468 00:23:38,959 --> 00:23:40,127 because I love music. 469 00:23:45,215 --> 00:23:48,385 Barry and I and Shirley and Burton 470 00:23:48,468 --> 00:23:50,512 all wound up doing a lot of restaurant work, 471 00:23:50,595 --> 00:23:55,183 packing orders, taking orders, waiting on tables, bussing dishes. 472 00:23:55,267 --> 00:23:56,101 That kind of stuff. 473 00:23:56,184 --> 00:23:58,520 We had to just do wash rice. 474 00:23:58,603 --> 00:24:01,064 I'm talking about a massive amount of rice. 475 00:24:01,898 --> 00:24:05,652 It's a storage area comprised of a room 476 00:24:05,735 --> 00:24:09,364 where we have a table and chairs, and we have a radio. 477 00:24:09,448 --> 00:24:14,786 And then there was a cage-like thing where there were sacks upon sacks 478 00:24:14,870 --> 00:24:16,705 of mostly rice. 479 00:24:17,372 --> 00:24:20,542 I said it was more of a holding cell than anything else. 480 00:24:20,625 --> 00:24:22,794 Or peel shrimp. 481 00:24:22,878 --> 00:24:27,549 As it turned out, I think all the kids were allergic to touching raw shellfish. 482 00:24:27,632 --> 00:24:29,968 Not that they were allergic to eating it. 483 00:24:30,051 --> 00:24:31,553 Just the work part of it. 484 00:24:34,890 --> 00:24:37,225 Being in that restaurant environment, 485 00:24:37,309 --> 00:24:40,020 you just knew all the time that you were different. 486 00:24:42,189 --> 00:24:47,569 nd so it was really a moment of hope to, at age 12, be escaping Chinatown, 487 00:24:47,652 --> 00:24:51,740 to go off to some area of the country I'd never even thought of: 488 00:24:51,823 --> 00:24:53,033 the Panhandle, in Texas. 489 00:24:53,116 --> 00:24:56,578 My father getting another shot at a business venture. 490 00:24:56,661 --> 00:24:59,748 Being a chef and operating a restaurant. 491 00:24:59,831 --> 00:25:03,919 And we wind up at this home of the main partner. 492 00:25:04,002 --> 00:25:06,004 And it's a wonderful house. 493 00:25:06,087 --> 00:25:10,383 It's an American house, large living room, a pet dog. 494 00:25:10,467 --> 00:25:14,596 Oh man, it seemed like we were in for a pretty good ride there. 495 00:25:14,679 --> 00:25:17,140 And suddenly, things changed. 496 00:25:21,394 --> 00:25:26,566 I learned that we are going to be housed not in a house, but the parking lot. 497 00:25:27,275 --> 00:25:31,404 They put us with two other chef partners in a low-slung two-room shack 498 00:25:31,488 --> 00:25:33,823 hidden in the back behind the restaurant. 499 00:25:33,907 --> 00:25:39,079 We had no more furniture than a jail cell, and no air conditioning or heating. 500 00:25:39,162 --> 00:25:42,499 It was in Texas that I could see discrimination firsthand. 501 00:25:43,041 --> 00:25:46,503 The local school district decided that I'd go to the all-White 502 00:25:46,586 --> 00:25:48,964 rather than the all-Black school. 503 00:25:49,798 --> 00:25:54,219 I was the only Chinese-American kid of more than 450 students. 504 00:25:54,844 --> 00:25:57,806 I'll never forget the gym teacher calling me Chop Chop. 505 00:25:58,390 --> 00:25:59,849 It was a very humiliating. 506 00:25:59,933 --> 00:26:03,228 Chop Chop, of course, from the Blackhawk comic book series. 507 00:26:03,311 --> 00:26:05,939 And it's amazing when I think back to it, 508 00:26:06,022 --> 00:26:12,028 it still stands out that this short, pudgy guy named Chop Chop 509 00:26:12,112 --> 00:26:17,409 had a very bright yellow face amid the pink and other faces 510 00:26:17,492 --> 00:26:19,744 that populated the comic book. 511 00:26:19,828 --> 00:26:22,831 And so, yeah, stood out, and not in a good way. 512 00:26:24,165 --> 00:26:27,127 In speech class, I learned to mimic Texas accents 513 00:26:27,210 --> 00:26:29,963 to camouflage my Chinatown upbringing. 514 00:26:30,046 --> 00:26:31,631 I tried to be cool. 515 00:26:31,715 --> 00:26:35,343 The passport to cool-dom in 1957 was rock and roll. 516 00:26:35,927 --> 00:26:38,763 So in the shack behind the restaurant in front of a mirror, 517 00:26:38,847 --> 00:26:41,224 I lip-synced to Elvis Presley songs. 518 00:26:45,312 --> 00:26:49,899 The coolest sounds were being made by Elvis, and Jerry Lee, and Buddy Holly, 519 00:26:49,983 --> 00:26:53,236 but also by Little Richard and Chuck Berry. 520 00:26:59,159 --> 00:27:01,536 My classmates in Texas invited me to join them 521 00:27:01,620 --> 00:27:03,538 for root beer floats after school, 522 00:27:03,622 --> 00:27:07,542 and to listen to rock and roll and R&B on the jukebox. 523 00:27:07,626 --> 00:27:10,712 Inside that jukebox, there were no racial borders. 524 00:27:10,795 --> 00:27:12,172 No segregation. 525 00:27:12,756 --> 00:27:14,549 Rock and roll was an equalizer. 526 00:27:14,633 --> 00:27:17,677 And for me, it was more than a way to have fun 527 00:27:17,761 --> 00:27:19,763 or to feel like part of the crowd. 528 00:27:20,347 --> 00:27:22,599 It was a way to feel Americanized. 529 00:27:30,357 --> 00:27:33,735 I met Ben when he was just getting out of high school. 530 00:27:33,818 --> 00:27:35,362 I've known him that long. 531 00:27:35,445 --> 00:27:36,780 I was born in Louisiana, 532 00:27:37,697 --> 00:27:40,367 and I came here in San Francisco when I was five, 533 00:27:40,450 --> 00:27:43,370 and I know what he's talking about for that era, 534 00:27:43,453 --> 00:27:46,081 because I'd gone through things down there myself. 535 00:27:46,164 --> 00:27:51,711 So I could imagine that that affected him, and he would fill the soul of that 536 00:27:51,795 --> 00:27:55,715 by living in Texas and being made less than a person that he was, you know, 537 00:27:56,508 --> 00:28:00,804 and that the deep sensitivity and the spirit that he has, you know. 538 00:28:00,887 --> 00:28:03,223 But it didn't wear him down. It helped him. 539 00:28:03,306 --> 00:28:07,435 It helps him in his writing, and the feeling the soul of the music. 540 00:28:15,652 --> 00:28:18,071 -Thank you, Jules. -Thank you. Very good. Yes. 541 00:28:19,989 --> 00:28:22,367 In Texas, the restaurant was not doing as well 542 00:28:22,450 --> 00:28:23,993 as they had anticipated. 543 00:28:25,161 --> 00:28:29,332 My father was a very good cook, but he never had much of a business head, 544 00:28:29,416 --> 00:28:32,627 and so his restaurants almost invariably failed. 545 00:28:32,711 --> 00:28:36,423 And then to go to Amarillo with high hopes and to have them dashed 546 00:28:36,506 --> 00:28:38,133 was very difficult. 547 00:28:38,216 --> 00:28:41,886 My father was upset with the restaurant. I was upset with the restaurant. 548 00:28:41,970 --> 00:28:43,888 And so, left to my wiles, 549 00:28:43,972 --> 00:28:47,851 I would grab some rocks and throw them at the neon sign 550 00:28:47,934 --> 00:28:49,269 for the Ding How restaurant, 551 00:28:49,352 --> 00:28:51,521 as if that really would help the situation any. 552 00:28:51,604 --> 00:28:53,565 But hey, you know, I'm 12, 13 years old. 553 00:28:53,648 --> 00:28:57,902 And so it wasn't long before we were packing up and heading back to to Oakland. 554 00:29:01,948 --> 00:29:04,117 And so I kind of went back to Oakland. 555 00:29:04,743 --> 00:29:08,747 Uh, I think I thought that, if at all possible, 556 00:29:08,830 --> 00:29:10,999 I would follow a different road. 557 00:29:11,750 --> 00:29:16,004 I thought about becoming a broadcaster or a writer or an artist. 558 00:29:16,087 --> 00:29:17,630 In high school, 559 00:29:17,714 --> 00:29:21,301 I began to write for the school paper, the Oakland High School Aegis, 560 00:29:21,384 --> 00:29:23,344 and then Commission of Assemblies. 561 00:29:23,428 --> 00:29:26,806 So I was already kind of straddling the two worlds. 562 00:29:26,890 --> 00:29:28,808 There were no opportunities at the time. 563 00:29:28,892 --> 00:29:32,604 There were no Asian Americans in media in general to speak of. 564 00:29:33,146 --> 00:29:37,984 And so nobody, least of all my parents, encouraged it. 565 00:29:38,067 --> 00:29:40,987 You know, they had the idea of Dr. Fong-Torres, 566 00:29:41,070 --> 00:29:44,282 or Benjamin Fong-Torres, Esquire. 567 00:29:46,493 --> 00:29:47,619 In the mid-'60s, 568 00:29:47,702 --> 00:29:50,038 just as I was going to school at S.F. State, 569 00:29:50,121 --> 00:29:52,999 it seemed like the world completely changed. 570 00:29:55,877 --> 00:29:59,130 As a reporter and then editor for the school paper, 571 00:29:59,214 --> 00:30:00,965 that pretty much became our beat. 572 00:30:03,009 --> 00:30:07,263 So I would hear about things like legalizing marijuana, sexual freedom, 573 00:30:07,347 --> 00:30:10,016 the war in Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement. 574 00:30:10,099 --> 00:30:12,393 All of that was going on on an almost daily basis. 575 00:30:15,146 --> 00:30:16,231 Off the pigs! 576 00:30:20,652 --> 00:30:23,029 During a Civil Rights Week event, 577 00:30:23,112 --> 00:30:26,908 I went and took the voting test that was being given 578 00:30:26,991 --> 00:30:28,660 to Black people in the South, 579 00:30:28,743 --> 00:30:32,372 and rigged so that there was no way you could pass the test. 580 00:30:32,455 --> 00:30:35,250 So I took it and did the best job I could, 581 00:30:35,333 --> 00:30:37,085 and failed miserably, and then wrote about it. 582 00:30:37,168 --> 00:30:40,213 People just were experimenting with all kinds of new ideas. 583 00:30:40,296 --> 00:30:42,632 At Berkeley, there was the Free Speech Movement. 584 00:30:42,715 --> 00:30:46,094 People today don't realize that before this happened, 585 00:30:46,177 --> 00:30:48,304 every movie you saw, every television show you saw, 586 00:30:48,388 --> 00:30:49,848 and every book you read was censored. 587 00:30:52,100 --> 00:30:54,686 Everybody was very scared about what were you students saying, 588 00:30:54,769 --> 00:30:57,021 what were they allowed to say and that sort of thing. 589 00:31:01,109 --> 00:31:02,652 Reagan called out the National Guard. 590 00:31:03,903 --> 00:31:06,948 There's pepper spray going on, there's a helicopter with pepper spray. 591 00:31:11,119 --> 00:31:13,162 The tear gas is in your eyes, you can't see. 592 00:31:16,374 --> 00:31:18,293 Knowing that you're part of a revolution 593 00:31:18,376 --> 00:31:19,836 is kind of an act of faith. 594 00:31:19,919 --> 00:31:20,920 You just have to know it. 595 00:31:21,004 --> 00:31:24,424 Ben was in the middle of this revolution from the get-go. 596 00:31:24,507 --> 00:31:26,676 And, you know, it all came together in the music. 597 00:31:33,349 --> 00:31:36,603 And the music itself was revolutionary. It was being made in a different way. 598 00:31:36,686 --> 00:31:41,566 individuals with their electricity, and their guitars, and their garage bands 599 00:31:41,649 --> 00:31:44,319 were creating the whole thing, producing it, creating it, 600 00:31:44,402 --> 00:31:45,945 writing it, performing it. 601 00:31:46,029 --> 00:31:47,697 That was all brand-new. 602 00:31:57,665 --> 00:32:00,668 San Francisco sound was known everywhere. 603 00:32:03,379 --> 00:32:06,174 The bands who were playing were also a major part 604 00:32:06,257 --> 00:32:08,718 of the definition of the '60s. 605 00:32:08,801 --> 00:32:11,346 The Grateful Dead, The Jefferson Airplane, 606 00:32:11,429 --> 00:32:13,765 and you had Big Brother and the Holding Company 607 00:32:13,848 --> 00:32:17,560 popping up on campus and just deciding to do some rehearsing there. 608 00:32:21,189 --> 00:32:24,108 We wrote songs about changing the world, 609 00:32:24,192 --> 00:32:29,155 and Ben Fong-Torres had a very accurate and forward-looking view 610 00:32:29,238 --> 00:32:30,740 of what was going on. 611 00:32:30,823 --> 00:32:34,535 We thought, it's actually possible that we can make a difference, you know, 612 00:32:34,619 --> 00:32:37,038 and maybe stop the war in Vietnam, 613 00:32:37,121 --> 00:32:40,333 and have people be a little kinder to each other. 614 00:32:40,416 --> 00:32:44,462 And I was still a student in graduate school at Berkeley. 615 00:32:44,545 --> 00:32:46,589 We were all, like, 18 and 19, 616 00:32:46,673 --> 00:32:50,301 and we were going to go, you know, we were going to get our asses shot off, 617 00:32:50,385 --> 00:32:55,682 you know, in Vietnam for a very specious purpose, you know. 618 00:32:55,765 --> 00:33:00,436 And so we caught on right away, because it was life and death for us. 619 00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:03,564 In the '60s, the lyrics of many songs carried messages. 620 00:33:03,648 --> 00:33:07,360 Artists were singing protest songs, people like Edwin Starr. 621 00:33:16,202 --> 00:33:17,954 -Give me an F! -F! 622 00:33:18,037 --> 00:33:19,622 -Give me a U! -U! 623 00:33:19,706 --> 00:33:21,249 -Give me a C! -C! 624 00:33:21,332 --> 00:33:22,625 -Give me a K! -K! 625 00:33:22,709 --> 00:33:24,002 -What's that spell? -Fuck! 626 00:33:24,085 --> 00:33:24,919 What's that spell? 627 00:33:25,003 --> 00:33:26,921 I'm well known for the song about the Vietnam War, 628 00:33:27,005 --> 00:33:28,506 called "I Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die." 629 00:33:28,589 --> 00:33:29,632 And I wrote it in 1965. 630 00:33:29,716 --> 00:33:32,385 And it became popular in 1969, 631 00:33:32,468 --> 00:33:34,929 Although it was banned on the radio and television, 632 00:33:35,013 --> 00:33:36,264 it's pretty commonplace now. 633 00:33:36,347 --> 00:33:41,602 But it was shocking to hear that kind of working-class language in 1969. 634 00:33:43,021 --> 00:33:45,690 But it was a new kind of protest song. 635 00:33:45,773 --> 00:33:47,900 It wasn't blaming soldiers for war. 636 00:33:47,984 --> 00:33:52,572 And it blamed politicians and parents and the industrial complex. 637 00:33:56,159 --> 00:33:59,078 You were one of those who was really candid 638 00:33:59,162 --> 00:34:04,751 about the price people paid for some of the excesses of that era. 639 00:34:05,293 --> 00:34:06,794 Yeah, that's a… 640 00:34:06,878 --> 00:34:09,297 a good thing about me and a bad thing about me. 641 00:34:14,761 --> 00:34:16,471 -All right! 642 00:34:16,554 --> 00:34:18,973 This was a young person's revolution, 643 00:34:19,057 --> 00:34:21,934 but it was really a cultural revolution, which meant that it was-- 644 00:34:22,435 --> 00:34:25,188 involved politics, sex, drugs and rock and roll. 645 00:34:25,271 --> 00:34:27,440 This is Jann Wenner. I'm the editor of Rolling Stone. 646 00:34:27,523 --> 00:34:29,484 Finally, Jann came over one day and said, 647 00:34:29,567 --> 00:34:32,904 "How about a magazine that would cover, not just the records and the music, 648 00:34:32,987 --> 00:34:34,197 but cover the whole culture?" 649 00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:38,201 As soon as he said we said, you know, we both agreed it was a hell of an idea. 650 00:34:42,246 --> 00:34:44,874 When Rolling Stone first came out in late 1967, 651 00:34:44,957 --> 00:34:47,168 all of us roommates would jump at it. 652 00:34:47,251 --> 00:34:50,922 You know, it was like a long-awaited drug shipment had finally hit the dock 653 00:34:51,005 --> 00:34:52,381 and we were down there grabbing it. 654 00:34:52,465 --> 00:34:55,593 And we would pass it around to each other, and we would devour it. 655 00:34:55,676 --> 00:34:58,471 But having just done journalism and written for the newspaper 656 00:34:58,554 --> 00:35:00,556 and covering some of the scene, 657 00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:03,142 because a lot of it was taking place at San Francisco State. 658 00:35:03,226 --> 00:35:06,312 So it was natural for me to want to write for Rolling Stone. 659 00:35:06,395 --> 00:35:07,814 By the time Rolling Stone started, 660 00:35:07,897 --> 00:35:09,899 that was around the time of the Summer of Love. 661 00:35:09,982 --> 00:35:13,277 It was a full cultural dropout revolution. 662 00:35:13,361 --> 00:35:16,239 Jann started the magazine straight from being on the Berkeley campus, 663 00:35:16,322 --> 00:35:17,532 so he knew what was happening. 664 00:35:17,615 --> 00:35:20,785 All through college, even in a leadership position, 665 00:35:20,868 --> 00:35:23,121 running the school paper, being city editor 666 00:35:23,204 --> 00:35:27,041 and assigning the stories to our staff of 25 reporters. 667 00:35:27,125 --> 00:35:31,003 I still felt like, "Yeah, you're your Chinese guy, 668 00:35:31,087 --> 00:35:33,506 and these people mostly aren't." 669 00:35:33,589 --> 00:35:36,968 I just felt like, I don't know if I can do this professionally. 670 00:35:37,051 --> 00:35:41,305 Get a job doing this outside of school, because there is nobody out there like me. 671 00:35:41,389 --> 00:35:43,641 And that's the way it is, Friday, March 6th… 672 00:35:43,724 --> 00:35:47,395 There was nobody who was Chinese American or Asian American 673 00:35:47,478 --> 00:35:49,814 doing anything in broadcast 674 00:35:49,897 --> 00:35:52,358 or in printed media except the Chinese press. 675 00:35:52,441 --> 00:35:55,444 I wanted to be out there, and how to get out there, 676 00:35:55,528 --> 00:35:58,531 I would pretty much take any means necessary. 677 00:35:59,323 --> 00:36:02,076 I had a job at the time at the phone company 678 00:36:02,702 --> 00:36:06,122 as an editor and writer for the employee magazine. 679 00:36:06,205 --> 00:36:08,207 Could not be a straighter job. 680 00:36:08,291 --> 00:36:11,502 I met Jann and got my first feature assignment, 681 00:36:11,586 --> 00:36:14,463 and that was an interview with Dino Valenti, 682 00:36:15,006 --> 00:36:17,175 who was a singer/songwriter. 683 00:36:17,258 --> 00:36:21,554 Wrote what became known as a hippie anthem. "Get Together." 684 00:36:30,855 --> 00:36:33,357 I started at Rolling Stone as a proofreader. 685 00:36:33,774 --> 00:36:38,321 I was the earliest editorial employee to last more than a couple of weeks. 686 00:36:38,404 --> 00:36:41,199 I had no qualifications whatever. I was just a freak off the street. 687 00:36:41,282 --> 00:36:43,618 I saw all the copy and I remember thinking, 688 00:36:43,701 --> 00:36:46,245 "Ben Fong-Torres, this guy is a real writer." 689 00:36:46,329 --> 00:36:49,582 I mean, we were dealing with whatever kind of flakes off the street 690 00:36:49,665 --> 00:36:51,834 wanted to write about rock and roll. 691 00:36:51,918 --> 00:36:56,255 And Ben was a serious journalist, and he was he was a skilled writer, too. 692 00:36:56,339 --> 00:36:59,884 I was encouraging Jann, like, "We gotta get this guy," you know. 693 00:37:00,593 --> 00:37:03,387 When he was first starting out with Rolling Stone,  694 00:37:03,471 --> 00:37:05,306 we were the punk of our generation. 695 00:37:05,389 --> 00:37:06,724 And we hung together. 696 00:37:06,807 --> 00:37:09,518 And so if Ben was writing something, 697 00:37:09,602 --> 00:37:11,687 I was inclined to go with it 698 00:37:11,771 --> 00:37:14,941 just because he was coming from where we were coming from. 699 00:37:15,024 --> 00:37:18,402 I was such a music nerd, because I loved the radio. 700 00:37:18,486 --> 00:37:20,029 I listen to Top 40 religiously. 701 00:37:20,112 --> 00:37:22,406 I collected surveys. 702 00:37:22,490 --> 00:37:25,618 The top 40 or top 30 of every week. 703 00:37:25,701 --> 00:37:29,413 And so it got to the point where a song comes on the radio, 704 00:37:29,497 --> 00:37:31,749 I can remember the color of the label. 705 00:37:31,832 --> 00:37:34,168 Roulette is red, Motown is purple and gold, 706 00:37:34,252 --> 00:37:36,128 Columbia is bright orange. 707 00:37:36,212 --> 00:37:39,382 To have that kind of knowledge instead of useful knowledge, 708 00:37:39,465 --> 00:37:41,008 that is pretty scary. 709 00:37:41,092 --> 00:37:44,387 That probably appealed to Jann, that he has someone who 710 00:37:44,470 --> 00:37:47,098 was a walking encyclopedia of music. 711 00:37:47,181 --> 00:37:48,224 And he offered me a job. 712 00:37:48,724 --> 00:37:51,435 So it was a choice of Rolling Stone versus a phone company. 713 00:37:51,936 --> 00:37:53,980 Duh! So I just jumped. 714 00:37:59,193 --> 00:38:02,113 It wasn't even a magazine then. It was like a two-color newspaper. 715 00:38:02,196 --> 00:38:06,242 Quarter folded, it was totally different from any publication out there. 716 00:38:06,325 --> 00:38:08,995 It was just what we had been dreaming of. 717 00:38:09,078 --> 00:38:12,581 I had to go to Goodwill Industries and buy a desk and a chair. 718 00:38:12,665 --> 00:38:16,711 It was just such a rush to see your name, your byline, 719 00:38:16,794 --> 00:38:19,547 to see how the pages were laid out, the photography. 720 00:38:19,630 --> 00:38:21,966 Jann had high standards from the very beginning 721 00:38:22,633 --> 00:38:25,886 with very little funding, and he just went to the limits 722 00:38:25,970 --> 00:38:29,265 of his own ability to create Rolling Stone 723 00:38:29,348 --> 00:38:31,559 and to be given a chance to join the crew there. 724 00:38:31,642 --> 00:38:34,395 It was out of this world, and it wasn't even Rolling Stone yet. 725 00:38:34,478 --> 00:38:36,188 But it was Rolling Stone enough for me. 726 00:38:36,731 --> 00:38:38,774 If you were a reader of Rolling Stone, 727 00:38:38,858 --> 00:38:41,068 you knew pretty much what the magazine was all about 728 00:38:41,152 --> 00:38:43,487 from the opening editorial in Issue One. 729 00:38:43,571 --> 00:38:46,032 Jann didn't talk about music. He talked about bullshit. 730 00:38:46,115 --> 00:38:48,075 You know, they talk about telling the truth. 731 00:38:48,159 --> 00:38:52,163 And people who are part of a new movement think they're telling the truth. 732 00:38:52,246 --> 00:38:55,166 And they are. They're telling a truth that hasn't been told before. 733 00:38:55,249 --> 00:38:57,543 And you find that in Dylan's songs. 734 00:38:57,626 --> 00:38:59,962 "You don't know what's happening, do you, Mr. Jones?" 735 00:39:00,046 --> 00:39:02,423 There was a sense that we knew what was happening, 736 00:39:02,506 --> 00:39:04,133 and the rest of you didn't get it. 737 00:39:04,216 --> 00:39:06,677 Look at the audience that subscribe to Time Magazine. 738 00:39:06,761 --> 00:39:09,347 It's a class of people that take the magazine seriously. 739 00:39:09,430 --> 00:39:10,765 But I don't take it seriously. 740 00:39:10,848 --> 00:39:13,559 If I want to find out anything, I'm not going to read Time Magazine. 741 00:39:13,642 --> 00:39:15,686 We had a core commitment to good journalism, 742 00:39:15,770 --> 00:39:17,605 honesty and reporting, telling the truth. 743 00:39:17,688 --> 00:39:19,940 But if we had to say something was bad music, 744 00:39:20,024 --> 00:39:21,359 we said something that was bad. 745 00:39:21,442 --> 00:39:24,945 Rolling Stone was a very strong voice in the music community. 746 00:39:25,029 --> 00:39:28,449 Rolling Stone also had a very strong political voice, 747 00:39:28,532 --> 00:39:30,785 and you couldn't separate those in those days, 748 00:39:30,868 --> 00:39:35,039 really, because the politics were-- and the music were both changing, 749 00:39:35,122 --> 00:39:36,957 and really intertwined very much. 750 00:39:45,049 --> 00:39:47,593 Just like the music of the Beatles, the Stones, 751 00:39:47,676 --> 00:39:49,804 and Dylan spoke for our generation, 752 00:39:49,887 --> 00:39:53,599 well, we had to have a newspaper that chronicled what we were doing, 753 00:39:53,682 --> 00:39:55,267 and that was Rolling Stone. 754 00:39:55,351 --> 00:39:56,727 Ben personified it. 755 00:39:57,269 --> 00:39:59,814 We were covering the revolution, the Free Speech Movement, 756 00:39:59,897 --> 00:40:02,650 the Civil Rights Movement, sexual liberation, 757 00:40:02,733 --> 00:40:04,235 and, finally, the liberation of music. 758 00:40:05,945 --> 00:40:07,863 And Ben was covering the music, 759 00:40:07,947 --> 00:40:10,241 so he was really at the center of everything. 760 00:40:13,702 --> 00:40:16,831 We were in it, we were close to it, we were in the thick of it. 761 00:40:16,914 --> 00:40:20,501 And we felt the impulse in the beginning that we are on some kind of mission, 762 00:40:20,584 --> 00:40:24,422 or some kind of crusade, and to tell the truth about the music, 763 00:40:24,505 --> 00:40:25,631 and about the generation, 764 00:40:25,714 --> 00:40:28,551 and the people doing that were really young. 765 00:40:28,634 --> 00:40:30,136 Not with a lot of experience. 766 00:40:30,219 --> 00:40:31,929 What happened in 1970 767 00:40:32,012 --> 00:40:35,015 was that we were really knocking ourselves out, 768 00:40:35,099 --> 00:40:36,267 putting out this publication. 769 00:40:36,350 --> 00:40:39,061 We'd be spending money and hiring people. 770 00:40:39,145 --> 00:40:41,105 Then they'd have to retract. 771 00:40:41,188 --> 00:40:44,817 It was like saving paper clips and, you know, that sort of thing. 772 00:40:44,900 --> 00:40:46,819 And he would pass out egg timers 773 00:40:46,902 --> 00:40:49,196 so you wouldn't have a phone call longer than three minutes. 774 00:40:49,822 --> 00:40:52,575 A journalist doing an interview in three minutes? 775 00:40:52,658 --> 00:40:56,954 On top of all the work, from time to time, there would be these financial crises 776 00:40:57,037 --> 00:40:59,623 that we would have to deal with, and people would be laid off, 777 00:40:59,707 --> 00:41:00,916 or there'd be the threat of it. 778 00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:04,378 Laurel Gonsalves and I, Laurel was in charge of advertising. 779 00:41:04,462 --> 00:41:05,588 I was in charge of music. 780 00:41:05,671 --> 00:41:10,634 We talked about it in the hallway, and then said, "Okay, let's do that." 781 00:41:10,718 --> 00:41:13,846 And we went into the Jann's office and volunteered for pay cuts. 782 00:41:13,929 --> 00:41:15,556 And he accepted them. 783 00:41:16,724 --> 00:41:17,892 Dumb us. 784 00:41:26,484 --> 00:41:28,027 Hmm. Wow. 785 00:41:29,403 --> 00:41:31,155 So you haven't been here in years. 786 00:41:31,238 --> 00:41:33,491 Yeah. It's been quite a few years, actually. 787 00:41:33,991 --> 00:41:35,910 Well, 50. But who's counting? 788 00:41:37,369 --> 00:41:41,040 I think I can see where Jann's office was. 789 00:41:44,210 --> 00:41:45,044 Maybe here? 790 00:41:46,128 --> 00:41:47,421 Well, I have a photo. 791 00:41:49,173 --> 00:41:51,175 -Do you want to--? -Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty close. 792 00:41:52,718 --> 00:41:54,261 Yeah. This is it. 793 00:41:56,305 --> 00:41:58,307 It's obviously a different space, 794 00:41:58,390 --> 00:42:02,520 and yet so much of it is what we came to work at. 795 00:42:02,603 --> 00:42:04,563 It seems like a lot longer now. 796 00:42:04,647 --> 00:42:06,941 No, it's just ridiculous to be here again. 797 00:42:07,024 --> 00:42:08,067 Wow. 798 00:42:08,150 --> 00:42:11,529 It really is a flashback to half a century ago. 799 00:42:11,612 --> 00:42:15,449 Half a century since working here. And what a different time it was. 800 00:42:16,951 --> 00:42:19,537 At Rolling Stone, what are the people really like? 801 00:42:19,620 --> 00:42:21,580 You've been taping them for two weeks now, Al. 802 00:42:21,664 --> 00:42:23,457 What's the big story there? 803 00:42:23,541 --> 00:42:25,960 It's real sick, Mick. It's real sick up there. 804 00:42:26,043 --> 00:42:27,628 It's serious business. 805 00:42:27,711 --> 00:42:28,796 It was stressful. 806 00:42:29,547 --> 00:42:32,258 I think it's probably the most stressful period of my life. 807 00:42:33,008 --> 00:42:35,135 That constant pressure. 808 00:42:35,970 --> 00:42:38,472 And something has to be done to correct that, and do that, 809 00:42:38,556 --> 00:42:39,682 and do that, and do this. 810 00:42:39,765 --> 00:42:45,229 After the big staff fight, we went down to a bare bones operation. 811 00:42:45,312 --> 00:42:48,816 The only editors left were me and Ben and Jann. 812 00:42:48,899 --> 00:42:51,151 People had no idea how small we were. 813 00:42:51,235 --> 00:42:54,029 It was just this little tiny handful of guys, 814 00:42:54,113 --> 00:42:55,364 and we were doing everything. 815 00:42:55,447 --> 00:42:58,158 That was when we really had to rely on Ben. 816 00:42:58,242 --> 00:43:01,161 Ben has a real way about him of rallying the troops. 817 00:43:01,245 --> 00:43:03,998 You know, in the early days, small staff and having to get out 818 00:43:04,081 --> 00:43:07,543 these major, major stories on insane deadlines, 819 00:43:07,626 --> 00:43:09,712 doing the work of three people yourself. 820 00:43:10,588 --> 00:43:13,716 I used to spend a lot of time out in Oakland with Ralph Gleason 821 00:43:13,799 --> 00:43:17,303 at the infancy stage of Rolling Stone, 822 00:43:17,386 --> 00:43:20,264 and that's all I ever heard, was Ben Fong-Torres. 823 00:43:21,265 --> 00:43:26,562 Ben is what I admire the most, you know. He is a 360-degree person. 824 00:43:26,645 --> 00:43:29,273 That's what I like, because he's got, without question, 825 00:43:29,356 --> 00:43:30,608 the intellectual, you know. 826 00:43:30,691 --> 00:43:32,443 But he can get ghetto in the New York minute. 827 00:43:33,569 --> 00:43:34,862 And he gets it quick. 828 00:43:35,613 --> 00:43:38,365 And that was where we confounded everybody's expectations. 829 00:43:38,449 --> 00:43:42,119 Everybody thought Rolling Stone was doomed, but in fact, it rebounded 830 00:43:42,202 --> 00:43:43,912 and became bigger and more successful. 831 00:43:43,996 --> 00:43:46,332 The music coverage, that's what made us survive. 832 00:43:46,832 --> 00:43:51,337 And, of course, that was Ben's gig. He really was our music maestro. 833 00:43:55,299 --> 00:43:56,216 First of all, 834 00:43:56,300 --> 00:43:57,885 in order for that guy to copy me, 835 00:43:57,968 --> 00:43:59,595 he gotta wait 'til I do it first. 836 00:43:59,678 --> 00:44:01,096 When you're first starting out, you… 837 00:44:01,180 --> 00:44:03,515 you can't just sign up for a couple of records. 838 00:44:03,599 --> 00:44:06,852 I'm concerned about what the audience is hearing, you know? 839 00:44:06,935 --> 00:44:09,938 Although they never hear these little misses and goofs and things. 840 00:44:10,022 --> 00:44:11,273 Linda Ronstadt. 841 00:44:13,275 --> 00:44:15,194 It was kind of like lightning in a bottle. 842 00:44:15,277 --> 00:44:18,781 It was just an unexpected thing that really resonated with a lot of people, 843 00:44:18,864 --> 00:44:21,742 and it just drew writers like magic. 844 00:44:22,493 --> 00:44:24,495 You know, everybody wanted to write at Rolling Stone. 845 00:44:24,578 --> 00:44:26,789 Ben, in a lot of ways, is sort of the lodestar. 846 00:44:26,872 --> 00:44:28,832 Kind of like the guiding light kind of a thing, 847 00:44:28,916 --> 00:44:33,212 because he could write these long profiles on people that really delivered. 848 00:44:33,295 --> 00:44:35,923 A lot of the people on our staff had never done it before at all. 849 00:44:36,006 --> 00:44:38,008 They didn't know the right or the wrong way to do it. 850 00:44:38,092 --> 00:44:40,219 When I was 22 or 23, 851 00:44:40,302 --> 00:44:41,387 Ben gave me assignments, 852 00:44:41,470 --> 00:44:44,181 and eventually they were published in Rolling Stone. 853 00:44:44,264 --> 00:44:49,019 So Ben believed in me enough, and that helped me believe in myself. 854 00:44:49,853 --> 00:44:51,647 He would take a manuscript, you know, 855 00:44:51,730 --> 00:44:53,232 to show people how to do a better job. 856 00:44:53,315 --> 00:44:55,025 Some of the longer pieces we would do 857 00:44:55,109 --> 00:44:56,902 became the model for the other people to… 858 00:44:57,695 --> 00:45:00,239 This is what a Rolling Stone major piece looks like. 859 00:45:00,739 --> 00:45:01,907 Ben showed us how to do that. 860 00:45:15,337 --> 00:45:17,089 You ever allowed yourself to get to the point 861 00:45:17,172 --> 00:45:19,633 where you say, "I'm just not gonna fall in love for a while?" 862 00:45:20,134 --> 00:45:21,885 Oh, I've said that plenty of times. 863 00:45:22,636 --> 00:45:23,971 It never works. 864 00:45:24,722 --> 00:45:27,182 Ben taught me so much about being a biographer 865 00:45:27,266 --> 00:45:31,520 and how hard you have to work, really, as a detective during the research phase 866 00:45:31,603 --> 00:45:36,275 to try to talk to as many people as possible who knew your subject. 867 00:45:37,109 --> 00:45:40,696 He taught me about persistence, and how even if you've done, you know, 868 00:45:40,779 --> 00:45:41,780 90 interviews, 869 00:45:41,864 --> 00:45:44,700 if you still can get that one more interview with someone 870 00:45:44,783 --> 00:45:46,910 that you think can really bring a unique perspective, 871 00:45:46,994 --> 00:45:48,704 don't give up, keep going for it. 872 00:45:49,329 --> 00:45:53,208 Ben was always very thoughtful, and very professional, and very focused, 873 00:45:53,292 --> 00:45:57,504 and very fatherly, and almost paternal, in a way. 874 00:45:58,213 --> 00:46:02,050 Ben had a very low threshold for any kind of unprofessionalism, 875 00:46:02,134 --> 00:46:04,470 incompetence, inefficiency. 876 00:46:04,553 --> 00:46:06,180 That was unacceptable. 877 00:46:06,263 --> 00:46:09,850 There weren't that many women doing what I was doing as a writer, 878 00:46:09,933 --> 00:46:12,060 a wannabe biographer at the time. 879 00:46:12,144 --> 00:46:15,355 But his encouragement to me kept me going 880 00:46:15,439 --> 00:46:18,275 when sometimes I really felt like I was going up against a brick wall. 881 00:46:18,358 --> 00:46:20,152 Ben introduced me to Bob Dylan. 882 00:46:20,235 --> 00:46:24,740 You can't underestimate the the kind of support and friendship 883 00:46:24,823 --> 00:46:27,618 that you get from people when you're just starting out. 884 00:46:27,701 --> 00:46:29,578 It was extremely important. 885 00:46:32,539 --> 00:46:33,457 Now… 886 00:46:33,540 --> 00:46:35,000 Ben was a core member 887 00:46:35,083 --> 00:46:37,211 of the three or four people who made all decisions 888 00:46:37,294 --> 00:46:39,922 about what was going to go in the magazine and not going to magazine. 889 00:46:40,005 --> 00:46:43,175 Not only did he and I and three or two other people share the decision, 890 00:46:43,258 --> 00:46:45,594 we shared the responsibility for writing as well. 891 00:46:46,178 --> 00:46:47,513 Ben was a double threat. 892 00:46:47,596 --> 00:46:50,140 The people in the outside world had no way of realizing that, 893 00:46:50,224 --> 00:46:52,309 because an editor is an editor, 894 00:46:52,392 --> 00:46:54,895 and he's kind of the behind-the-scenes sort of guy. 895 00:46:54,978 --> 00:46:57,940 But Ben was molding and shaping all the music coverage 896 00:46:58,023 --> 00:47:00,692 and making Rolling Stone what it was: 897 00:47:00,776 --> 00:47:03,737 the premium rock and roll magazine in the country. 898 00:47:03,821 --> 00:47:05,823 Although I don't think he knew it, 899 00:47:05,906 --> 00:47:08,075 he was certainly the focus of the magazine. 900 00:47:08,158 --> 00:47:11,161 Jann was the boss, but Ben was the heart and the soul of it. 901 00:47:12,162 --> 00:47:14,414 Whenever a story would come out in Rolling Stone, 902 00:47:14,498 --> 00:47:17,084 I don't care who it was about, I would read it because Ben wrote it. 903 00:47:17,167 --> 00:47:19,837 They weren't fluff interviews. They were they were tough interviews. 904 00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:23,048 It could have only been Ben Fong-Torres ho could have written that story. 905 00:47:23,131 --> 00:47:25,217 I have a list of stuff to ask you about. Marvin Gaye-- 906 00:47:25,300 --> 00:47:27,219 -All right. -We know this is a great 907 00:47:27,302 --> 00:47:30,889 kind of gift, when you get an assignment where you're seeing the person 908 00:47:30,973 --> 00:47:34,017 at a key point in their life, and they haven't done a lot of interviews 909 00:47:34,101 --> 00:47:35,811 and so it just comes tumbling out. 910 00:47:35,894 --> 00:47:37,813 -Yes. -And Marvin really gave you 911 00:47:37,896 --> 00:47:40,190 an amazing interview, one of his very best interviews 912 00:47:40,274 --> 00:47:42,109 Right. You're sitting there saying, 913 00:47:42,192 --> 00:47:47,614 "Well, what a tremendous piece of work you came up with with 'What's Going On.'" 914 00:47:47,698 --> 00:47:50,534 It's just a masterpiece. Your fans are saying it. 915 00:47:50,617 --> 00:47:53,287 Your critics are saying it. Your fellow musicians are saying it. 916 00:47:56,081 --> 00:47:58,166 And then the--the lyrical content, you're covering ecology 917 00:47:58,250 --> 00:47:59,710 you're covering your own sense of religion, 918 00:47:59,793 --> 00:48:01,336 you're covering, uh, Saving the Children, 919 00:48:01,420 --> 00:48:03,297 and, um, and simply talking 920 00:48:03,380 --> 00:48:05,549 to brothers and--and returning from war. 921 00:48:05,632 --> 00:48:06,967 Did all of this 922 00:48:07,050 --> 00:48:08,260 seem to flow together, 923 00:48:08,343 --> 00:48:10,846 or did you have these particular tunes in your mind, or 924 00:48:11,346 --> 00:48:13,056 particular subjects, or, or, uh… 925 00:48:13,682 --> 00:48:15,350 was that conceived also, as you said. 926 00:48:16,018 --> 00:48:17,853 Well…um… 927 00:48:18,687 --> 00:48:21,023 Well, what you're trying to find out, I imagine, is, uh, 928 00:48:21,106 --> 00:48:23,191 am I really a genius or a fake? 929 00:48:23,609 --> 00:48:25,444 -Oh, no! -And I think I'm a fake. 930 00:48:26,445 --> 00:48:27,988 That's already been established. 931 00:48:28,071 --> 00:48:29,823 I don't think that-- the concept 932 00:48:29,907 --> 00:48:32,200 has to do with genius or--or--or fakery or-- 933 00:48:32,284 --> 00:48:33,911 No. What--what it is-- But a lot of people 934 00:48:33,994 --> 00:48:35,037 ask me that same question. 935 00:48:35,120 --> 00:48:36,580 Will say, "Listen, tell me this, 936 00:48:36,663 --> 00:48:38,999 How did you put that damn album together?" 937 00:48:39,082 --> 00:48:40,167 -You know, I-- -Mm-hmm. 938 00:48:40,250 --> 00:48:42,711 a nut like you. I mean, really explain that. 939 00:48:43,837 --> 00:48:44,922 And I tell 'em. 940 00:48:45,005 --> 00:48:46,465 I listen to 'em, and it kinda bugs me 941 00:48:46,548 --> 00:48:47,466 a little bit sometimes. 942 00:48:47,549 --> 00:48:49,593 And then I'd say, "Well, I dunno. I just-- It just happened." 943 00:48:49,676 --> 00:48:50,719 And it really did. 944 00:48:51,178 --> 00:48:52,304 It happened through divinity. 945 00:48:52,387 --> 00:48:56,016 For a moment there, I think the enormity of the success 946 00:48:56,099 --> 00:48:59,978 and what he expected to be the expectations of him 947 00:49:00,062 --> 00:49:02,773 had him in a stir. 948 00:49:02,856 --> 00:49:05,943 He was already worried that it wasn't for real. 949 00:49:06,026 --> 00:49:07,945 I want to be liked so well, 950 00:49:08,028 --> 00:49:10,197 and I've got such a tremendous ego until-- 951 00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:11,531 if it's inflated-- 952 00:49:11,615 --> 00:49:13,367 I mean deflated or 953 00:49:13,450 --> 00:49:15,452 punctured or hurt at all. 954 00:49:15,535 --> 00:49:17,037 -Mm-hmm. -I'll withdraw 955 00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:19,039 -Mm-hmm. -Into my own little thing, 956 00:49:19,122 --> 00:49:21,625 and that's what's-- probably basically what's happened to me. 957 00:49:21,708 --> 00:49:23,335 -Mm-hmm. -And I'll fight 958 00:49:23,418 --> 00:49:24,628 from inside my shell. 959 00:49:25,629 --> 00:49:30,258 So he took little enough credit that he was uncertain about what might be next. 960 00:49:30,342 --> 00:49:31,593 -Wow. -As it turned out, 961 00:49:31,677 --> 00:49:33,512 given time, he came up with-- 962 00:49:33,595 --> 00:49:35,514 -"Let's Get It On." -Yeah. "Let's Get It On." 963 00:49:35,597 --> 00:49:37,349 -And "Here, My Dear." -"Sexual Healing." 964 00:49:37,432 --> 00:49:38,600 And all of that stuff. 965 00:49:44,064 --> 00:49:47,067 Ben was probably as famous as some of the people he was interviewing. 966 00:49:48,068 --> 00:49:50,320 Here we have a picture of Ben. 967 00:49:50,404 --> 00:49:51,405 He had a certain stature. 968 00:49:51,488 --> 00:49:55,075 Plus, he represented Rolling Stone, so people wanted to cooperate with him. 969 00:49:55,158 --> 00:49:58,453 Musicians saw him as a celebrity, whether he knows that or not. 970 00:49:58,537 --> 00:50:01,790 When I would call and say "This is Cynthia from Rolling Stone magazine." 971 00:50:01,873 --> 00:50:03,750 "We want to talk to the Grateful Dead." 972 00:50:03,834 --> 00:50:07,546 "Well, is it going to be Ben Fong-Torres that's going to be doing the interview?" 973 00:50:07,629 --> 00:50:10,757 "Because if it's not Ben, you know, we're not going to do it." 974 00:50:10,841 --> 00:50:12,467 The Airplane, The Grateful Dead, 975 00:50:12,551 --> 00:50:14,803 absolutely would not talk to anybody but Ben. 976 00:50:14,886 --> 00:50:16,638 We were all peas in a pod. 977 00:50:16,722 --> 00:50:19,599 We were issuing forth and sallying forth into the world. 978 00:50:19,683 --> 00:50:22,185 He knew them all. They all liked him. 979 00:50:22,269 --> 00:50:27,315 So Ben was more like one of them than a journalist 980 00:50:27,399 --> 00:50:29,109 they weren't really interested in talking to. 981 00:50:29,192 --> 00:50:32,446 He was more like a human being that dug the music, 982 00:50:32,529 --> 00:50:36,616 and that's what gave us the access that we needed 983 00:50:36,700 --> 00:50:38,869 to make that magazine what it was. 984 00:50:38,952 --> 00:50:43,457 Ben seems to have a pretty good handle on all kinds of music. 985 00:50:43,540 --> 00:50:47,002 And if he trashed us, I felt we probably had it coming. 986 00:50:47,085 --> 00:50:50,213 I thought that Ben was the publicist's biggest nightmare. 987 00:50:50,297 --> 00:50:54,384 We were getting interviewed for our big cover of Rolling Stone article 988 00:50:54,468 --> 00:50:56,053 when I was playing in Jefferson Starship. 989 00:50:56,136 --> 00:50:58,180 And he interviewed everybody and listened to it, 990 00:50:58,263 --> 00:50:59,389 and then just told the truth. 991 00:50:59,473 --> 00:51:01,433 But there we were on the cover of Rolling Stone. 992 00:51:01,516 --> 00:51:03,727 But it was said "Starship Wars." 993 00:51:04,728 --> 00:51:07,189 He told all the inner conflicts that were happening. 994 00:51:07,272 --> 00:51:10,525 Of course, it was just nothing but good journalism, you know. 995 00:51:11,693 --> 00:51:17,449 So, yeah, it didn't bother me, but it probably bothered our publicist. 996 00:51:17,532 --> 00:51:19,534 Upper record company management 997 00:51:19,618 --> 00:51:23,121 knew the M.O. of going in to Rolling Stone. 998 00:51:23,205 --> 00:51:26,291 This was a very prestigious national magazine. 999 00:51:27,876 --> 00:51:31,254 So to get on the cover meant the world to the artist, 1000 00:51:31,338 --> 00:51:35,592 and it meant the world to program directors across the country. 1001 00:51:35,675 --> 00:51:40,514 And it just opened up doors, and all of a sudden he is on a skyrocket. 1002 00:51:40,597 --> 00:51:44,267 He's a spaceman on the way to the moon. 1003 00:51:44,351 --> 00:51:46,728 Do record companies put pressure on you in any way? 1004 00:51:46,812 --> 00:51:49,606 -Yeah, they try. -How do they try? 1005 00:51:49,689 --> 00:51:51,399 Oh, just letters. 1006 00:51:51,483 --> 00:51:57,155 Letters and offers of extravagant expenses. 1007 00:51:57,239 --> 00:51:59,991 We'll fly you to New York to see this group, 1008 00:52:00,075 --> 00:52:02,035 or down south, or whatever. 1009 00:52:02,536 --> 00:52:06,331 There's just no way that I can respond to that by saying, 1010 00:52:06,414 --> 00:52:08,458 you know, "I'm-- I'll do the best I can." 1011 00:52:08,542 --> 00:52:09,960 That's just not the way it's done. 1012 00:52:10,043 --> 00:52:12,337 All of the record label executives, 1013 00:52:12,420 --> 00:52:16,258 they were happy if we, you know, did two out of 12. 1014 00:52:16,341 --> 00:52:17,467 If we're lucky. 1015 00:52:18,093 --> 00:52:21,388 But he was not afraid to tell me that he didn't like the record. 1016 00:52:21,471 --> 00:52:24,891 Ben was pretty straightforward about his feelings about music, 1017 00:52:24,975 --> 00:52:27,018 and I couldn't mess with his opinions. 1018 00:52:27,102 --> 00:52:28,770 Ben Fong-Torres had ethics. 1019 00:52:35,819 --> 00:52:39,781 The most memorable critical response to one of my stories 1020 00:52:39,865 --> 00:52:41,324 has to be George Harrison. 1021 00:52:42,909 --> 00:52:45,620 You understand your feelings about what you want to present 1022 00:52:45,704 --> 00:52:47,164 and being yourself. 1023 00:52:48,165 --> 00:52:49,791 And what you are now. It's just that there 1024 00:52:49,875 --> 00:52:51,793 there have been this talk have been the criticism. 1025 00:52:51,877 --> 00:52:53,128 You know I didn't force 1026 00:52:53,211 --> 00:52:54,921 you or anybody with 1027 00:52:55,005 --> 00:52:57,215 at gunpoint to come to see me. 1028 00:52:57,299 --> 00:53:01,011 He put himself into a difficult situation, 1029 00:53:01,094 --> 00:53:04,848 starting a tour, not feeling well, sore throat, over-rehearsed, 1030 00:53:04,931 --> 00:53:09,060 adamant that he was no longer a Beatle and therefore wouldn't do Beatles songs. 1031 00:53:09,144 --> 00:53:11,730 And if he did a couple of Beatles songs, he'd change them around. 1032 00:53:11,813 --> 00:53:16,943 A lot of the fans who still were wedded to their Beatles memories 1033 00:53:17,027 --> 00:53:19,279 would show up and be kind of disappointed. 1034 00:53:19,362 --> 00:53:20,989 He got a lot of criticism. 1035 00:53:21,072 --> 00:53:25,577 I reflected that criticism, and therefore got lambasted with criticism 1036 00:53:25,660 --> 00:53:29,289 for daring to be so negative about George. 1037 00:53:29,372 --> 00:53:30,707 Well, it wasn't me being negative. 1038 00:53:30,790 --> 00:53:33,460 I was there to chronicle the negativity. 1039 00:53:34,461 --> 00:53:35,420 That's what I was doing. 1040 00:53:41,384 --> 00:53:43,637 People talk about how romantic it must have been, 1041 00:53:43,720 --> 00:53:46,681 how fun it must have been, how wild it must have been. 1042 00:53:46,765 --> 00:53:49,434 Well, all of that was true to a certain extent. 1043 00:53:51,186 --> 00:53:54,814 There was a lot of bonding, and after work there was a lot 1044 00:53:54,898 --> 00:53:57,943 of going across the street to Jerry's and having a drink, 1045 00:53:58,026 --> 00:54:00,403 or later on going out to a concert together, 1046 00:54:00,487 --> 00:54:03,198 or meeting up at one of our homes and having a party. 1047 00:54:03,281 --> 00:54:05,283 We tested drug paraphernalia 1048 00:54:05,367 --> 00:54:08,453 under the collective editorial name Unwired Labs Limited. 1049 00:54:08,536 --> 00:54:11,790 We used to do this, I think, Unwired Laboratories, 1050 00:54:11,873 --> 00:54:14,334 where people would send in all kinds of paraphernalia, you know. 1051 00:54:14,417 --> 00:54:16,419 Bongs and roach holders. 1052 00:54:16,503 --> 00:54:20,882 And then we would take an evening off at probably Jann's house and test it all. 1053 00:54:20,966 --> 00:54:23,218 And Ben was there. So we were all testing that stuff. 1054 00:54:23,301 --> 00:54:25,053 So nobody was really straight. 1055 00:54:25,136 --> 00:54:26,805 Felton is full of bullshit. 1056 00:54:26,888 --> 00:54:30,809 Drugs was not Ben's thing. 1057 00:54:31,393 --> 00:54:34,688 Just not--and not part of the drug culture that existed in that office, 1058 00:54:34,771 --> 00:54:40,235 But didn't in any way feel like a stranger to that, or look down on it, or, 1059 00:54:40,318 --> 00:54:41,861 you know, felt any divide, just… 1060 00:54:42,696 --> 00:54:45,323 I don't do it, but I'm as cool as everybody else, you know? 1061 00:54:45,407 --> 00:54:49,202 And so it was not 24/7, 1062 00:54:49,286 --> 00:54:53,373 but lots of friendships grew within the Rolling Stone staff. 1063 00:55:04,634 --> 00:55:08,096 Annie Leibovitz began right out of the Art Institute in San Francisco 1064 00:55:08,179 --> 00:55:11,516 studying photography, and got a gig with Rolling Stone. 1065 00:55:11,599 --> 00:55:14,728 And then I began to work with her on the road and elsewhere. 1066 00:55:16,855 --> 00:55:18,440 -Hi. Hi, this is Ben. -Hello. 1067 00:55:18,523 --> 00:55:19,774 -Hi. Paula. -Hi, Paula. 1068 00:55:19,858 --> 00:55:22,444 -Hi. Hi. Annie's sister. -Yeah. 1069 00:55:22,527 --> 00:55:24,279 -Hi. -I will be Annie substitute. 1070 00:55:24,362 --> 00:55:26,114 -Hi. -She's over there. 1071 00:55:26,197 --> 00:55:27,407 Hi. Look at you. 1072 00:55:27,490 --> 00:55:29,367 -There is no substitute. 1073 00:55:29,451 --> 00:55:31,286 I guess you got your makeup on. 1074 00:55:32,829 --> 00:55:34,706 -I don't need it. -Hey, you look very handsome. 1075 00:55:34,789 --> 00:55:38,168 We met around 1969, 1970. 1076 00:55:38,251 --> 00:55:40,545 -Mm-hmm. -And we had 1077 00:55:40,628 --> 00:55:43,298 some of each other's best stories together. 1078 00:55:44,007 --> 00:55:47,427 Right? Because your first cover story, you have written in your books 1079 00:55:47,510 --> 00:55:49,512 was Grace and Paul. 1080 00:55:49,596 --> 00:55:50,555 Oh my God, yeah. 1081 00:55:50,638 --> 00:55:53,308 Every single one of those stories was a big learning experience 1082 00:55:53,391 --> 00:55:57,437 for being a young kid and being out there, and being with you guys. 1083 00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:00,148 You kind of like a season's experience. 1084 00:56:00,231 --> 00:56:01,608 -How old were you then? -What? No. 1085 00:56:01,691 --> 00:56:04,027 -We were all young and faking it. -That's not true. 1086 00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:07,614 Because I did a lot of the profiles 1087 00:56:07,697 --> 00:56:10,033 of rock and R&B and other stars, 1088 00:56:10,116 --> 00:56:12,827 Annie Leibovitz was often assigned to go with me. 1089 00:56:12,911 --> 00:56:14,204 She was 20 years old, I think, 1090 00:56:14,287 --> 00:56:16,790 And I wasn't much older, but she was right in there with me. 1091 00:56:16,873 --> 00:56:19,084 And so she became a kind of a partner. 1092 00:56:19,167 --> 00:56:23,421 The Rolling Stones, and Roberta Flack, and Ray Charles. I believe she shot. 1093 00:56:23,505 --> 00:56:28,259 Marvin Gaye. And it got to the point where we were so comfortable, 1094 00:56:28,343 --> 00:56:29,886 I with her and she with me, 1095 00:56:29,969 --> 00:56:33,056 that sometimes I would defer to her for a question or two. 1096 00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:37,143 I think she just knew when to put herself into the picture 1097 00:56:37,227 --> 00:56:41,731 and when to withdraw and help the story along. 1098 00:56:41,815 --> 00:56:44,025 So she was much more than just a photographer. 1099 00:56:44,109 --> 00:56:45,235 She was a participant. 1100 00:56:45,944 --> 00:56:48,696 One of my favorite that I did with you was really Ike and Tina Turner. 1101 00:56:49,280 --> 00:56:52,700 ] Someone once called Tina the female Mick Jagger. 1102 00:56:52,784 --> 00:56:57,580 In fact, to be more accurate, one should call Mick the male Tina Turner. 1103 00:56:57,664 --> 00:56:58,957 Um…the Stones… 1104 00:56:59,040 --> 00:57:00,625 You toured with them in '66 1105 00:57:00,708 --> 00:57:01,835 as well as in '69. 1106 00:57:01,918 --> 00:57:03,002 How did that first one come about? 1107 00:57:03,086 --> 00:57:04,671 Mick was a friend of Phil, 1108 00:57:04,754 --> 00:57:06,923 and during the time we cut "River Deep, Mountain High," 1109 00:57:07,006 --> 00:57:08,508 Mick caught our act a couple of times-- 1110 00:57:08,591 --> 00:57:10,927 And Mick wasn't dancing at the time. He always said he liked 1111 00:57:11,010 --> 00:57:11,928 to see girls dance. 1112 00:57:12,011 --> 00:57:14,889 And then when he came to see our show he was excited about, like, the show. 1113 00:57:14,973 --> 00:57:16,641 And I'd always see Mick in the wings. 1114 00:57:16,724 --> 00:57:18,143 And I'd wonder why he was always standin' there. 1115 00:57:18,226 --> 00:57:19,644 I thought well wow, he must really be a fan. 1116 00:57:19,727 --> 00:57:21,563 And then I'd come out and watch him occasionally, 1117 00:57:21,646 --> 00:57:23,106 and I remember he was jus-- they were just playing music, 1118 00:57:23,189 --> 00:57:25,817 and Mick would be beatin' the-- just beat the tambourine 1119 00:57:25,900 --> 00:57:27,110 like really, 'till there was no more. 1120 00:57:27,193 --> 00:57:28,528 -But he wasn't dancing. -Uh-huh.. 1121 00:57:28,611 --> 00:57:30,530 An' lo and behold, when he came to America 1122 00:57:30,613 --> 00:57:31,865 he was doing everything. 1123 00:57:31,948 --> 00:57:34,117 I said, "Ah, I know what he was doing in the wings, now." 1124 00:57:34,784 --> 00:57:36,077 So, he learned a lot of steps. 1125 00:57:36,161 --> 00:57:38,455 And I tried to teach him, like, the Popcorn and other steps 1126 00:57:38,538 --> 00:57:39,831 that we were doing, but… 1127 00:57:39,914 --> 00:57:42,000 He can't do them like that. He--He has to do them… 1128 00:57:42,667 --> 00:57:43,835 his way, like--like-- 1129 00:57:43,918 --> 00:57:46,045 In other words, like his interpretation of what he see us do. 1130 00:57:47,589 --> 00:57:50,008 Though there seems to be a mutual admiration 1131 00:57:50,091 --> 00:57:52,594 between these two icons of rock royalty, 1132 00:57:52,677 --> 00:57:58,266 Tina's harshest criticisms are aimed at what she considers her own shortcomings. 1133 00:57:58,349 --> 00:58:00,477 What do you mean by you don't like your own sound? 1134 00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:03,646 I don't sound pretty, uh good. I say I sound 1135 00:58:03,730 --> 00:58:05,273 arregh. Naggy to me. 1136 00:58:05,356 --> 00:58:06,357 Ah… 1137 00:58:06,441 --> 00:58:07,692 but you have sounded pretty. 1138 00:58:08,359 --> 00:58:09,819 I can sound pretty but nobody likes me 1139 00:58:09,903 --> 00:58:11,446 like that. Like I read in the, um… 1140 00:58:12,405 --> 00:58:13,656 some article in the paper that… 1141 00:58:14,532 --> 00:58:16,451 Tina Turner's never been captured on records 1142 00:58:16,534 --> 00:58:19,579 she purrs like a kitten on record, and she 1143 00:58:20,163 --> 00:58:21,289 she's wild on stage. 1144 00:58:21,372 --> 00:58:22,207 Ah… 1145 00:58:22,290 --> 00:58:23,541 And when I'm wild, you know they don't like 1146 00:58:23,625 --> 00:58:25,251 like a record I put out, Working Together? 1147 00:58:25,335 --> 00:58:26,377 I love that record! 1148 00:58:26,461 --> 00:58:27,587 That's how I like to sound 1149 00:58:27,670 --> 00:58:29,380 like the River Deep, Mountain High album. 1150 00:58:29,464 --> 00:58:31,090 But, like, nobody accepts me. They want me 1151 00:58:31,174 --> 00:58:32,717 sounding all raspy. 1152 00:58:36,721 --> 00:58:39,849 To hear that song for the first time in 1967, 1153 00:58:39,933 --> 00:58:43,436 in the first year of acid rock and Memphis soul, 1154 00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:48,149 to hear that wall falling towards you with Tina teasing it along, 1155 00:58:48,233 --> 00:58:51,194 was to understand all the power of rock and roll. 1156 00:59:01,162 --> 00:59:03,248 My hair is getting longer and longer. 1157 00:59:03,331 --> 00:59:07,627 And at one point, my father said, "You look like a girl." 1158 00:59:07,710 --> 00:59:11,297 In my view, of course, this is the way of the world. 1159 00:59:11,381 --> 00:59:15,051 This is how my friends are dressing and looking. 1160 00:59:15,134 --> 00:59:17,720 And he is insulting me. 1161 00:59:18,221 --> 00:59:20,390 So I was very upset by that. 1162 00:59:21,015 --> 00:59:23,643 People of our generation were on the forefront 1163 00:59:23,726 --> 00:59:26,437 of making social change, and Chinatown was no different. 1164 00:59:26,521 --> 00:59:31,484 The community was coming from a position where, for over 100 years, 1165 00:59:31,568 --> 00:59:32,569 it had been silent. 1166 00:59:32,652 --> 00:59:37,699 It had been left out of the mainstream, been denied political electoral rights. 1167 00:59:37,782 --> 00:59:42,245 We're Americans, goddamn it. We got a voice. We've had a voice. 1168 00:59:42,328 --> 00:59:44,455 We got a history. We got a story to tell. 1169 00:59:44,539 --> 00:59:45,623 And we're going to tell it. 1170 00:59:45,707 --> 00:59:47,709 And Ben was one of the first to do it. 1171 00:59:47,792 --> 00:59:49,877 Around when Jann formed Rolling Stone, 1172 00:59:49,961 --> 00:59:51,754 Gordon Lew created East West, 1173 00:59:51,838 --> 00:59:54,799 a small and bilingual newspaper in Chinatown. 1174 00:59:54,882 --> 00:59:59,012 And I just thought, this could be a fun adventure with a newspaper. 1175 00:59:59,095 --> 01:00:02,098 And I sign on pretty much right away. 1176 01:00:02,181 --> 01:00:07,729 I had a multi-tasking world of working at Rolling Stone by day 1177 01:00:07,812 --> 01:00:11,232 and working at East West by night on a volunteer basis. 1178 01:00:12,066 --> 01:00:14,527 So he help us to do the layouts. 1179 01:00:15,111 --> 01:00:18,156 But his writing was very, very good, 1180 01:00:18,239 --> 01:00:20,283 and he wrote very fast. 1181 01:00:20,366 --> 01:00:23,661 We was always amazed to watch him on a typewriter. 1182 01:00:24,454 --> 01:00:27,707 It was if the typewriter is on fire. 1183 01:00:27,790 --> 01:00:30,043 When he went to work for East West, 1184 01:00:30,126 --> 01:00:31,961 he did it out of a love of journalism, 1185 01:00:32,045 --> 01:00:34,047 but he also did it out of a love for community, 1186 01:00:34,130 --> 01:00:35,632 because what he was writing about 1187 01:00:36,424 --> 01:00:39,677 was about the life of the community and the future of the community. 1188 01:00:39,761 --> 01:00:41,554 We were not even aware 1189 01:00:42,221 --> 01:00:44,932 that how important a job he had 1190 01:00:45,391 --> 01:00:46,768 at the Rolling Stones. 1191 01:00:47,352 --> 01:00:49,020 And he's very, very humble. 1192 01:00:50,063 --> 01:00:52,982 Chinatown was in a social upheaval. 1193 01:00:53,066 --> 01:00:55,318 The community had a lot of problems. 1194 01:00:55,401 --> 01:00:57,862 Social problems, economic problems. 1195 01:00:57,945 --> 01:00:58,946 It was a pressure cooker. 1196 01:00:59,572 --> 01:01:02,784 People, out of desperation, trying to find a hold on on life, 1197 01:01:02,867 --> 01:01:03,785 turned to crime. 1198 01:01:04,494 --> 01:01:07,538 The Sai-yon Restaurant is a favorite haunt for many of the street kids. 1199 01:01:07,622 --> 01:01:11,000 The restaurant's owner, Kim Ng, said in a telephone conversation 1200 01:01:11,084 --> 01:01:13,795 that he and members of the Chinatown Restaurant Association 1201 01:01:13,878 --> 01:01:17,298 are being extorted in one form or another by the street gangs. 1202 01:01:17,382 --> 01:01:19,425 There's a story, and we're reporting it, 1203 01:01:19,509 --> 01:01:20,885 and we're talking to people. 1204 01:01:20,968 --> 01:01:22,804 We're trying to be balanced about it 1205 01:01:22,887 --> 01:01:25,807 and bring it to a wider group of our community. 1206 01:01:26,557 --> 01:01:30,436 One evening, there was some kind of an explosive 1207 01:01:30,520 --> 01:01:33,981 that shattered the front door of the East West office, 1208 01:01:34,065 --> 01:01:37,735 and apparently that was kind of a warning to stay away from coverage 1209 01:01:37,819 --> 01:01:40,571 of the youth and gang problems. 1210 01:01:40,655 --> 01:01:42,824 But Gordon was a man of principle. 1211 01:01:44,033 --> 01:01:48,871 A couple of weeks after that, I was covering a meeting of a youth group. 1212 01:01:48,955 --> 01:01:52,500 I was just leaving that meeting and walking down the street, 1213 01:01:52,583 --> 01:01:57,797 and two or three guys approached me and then just began to to work me over. 1214 01:01:59,966 --> 01:02:02,343 There was no accusation, there was no warning. 1215 01:02:02,427 --> 01:02:04,137 It was just beat-up time. 1216 01:02:04,220 --> 01:02:06,806 It was disheartening, because you're saying, 1217 01:02:06,889 --> 01:02:09,976 "Hey, we want to do-- we want to accomplish this." 1218 01:02:10,059 --> 01:02:11,102 And then they're saying, 1219 01:02:11,185 --> 01:02:14,272 "Well, you're exposing us to attention that we don't want." 1220 01:02:14,355 --> 01:02:16,065 Who knows what their reasoning is? 1221 01:02:16,149 --> 01:02:18,359 And it was just clashing forces. 1222 01:02:20,695 --> 01:02:22,864 Barry Fong-Torres, like his brother Ben, 1223 01:02:22,947 --> 01:02:27,243 felt that as a Chinese American, he should pitch in and help, 1224 01:02:27,326 --> 01:02:30,747 because Chinatown had been very much neglected for decades. 1225 01:02:31,289 --> 01:02:34,876 Barry, he was one of the few people who genuinely was looking 1226 01:02:34,959 --> 01:02:36,419 to try to help the young people. 1227 01:02:36,502 --> 01:02:40,047 When I was asked to do the documentary on Chinatown youth, 1228 01:02:40,131 --> 01:02:42,133 he was one of the people I sought out. 1229 01:02:42,216 --> 01:02:44,051 Speaking as a newcomer to Chinatown 1230 01:02:45,386 --> 01:02:48,639 and speaking from experience gathered outside of Chinatown, 1231 01:02:48,723 --> 01:02:52,351 I feel the potential for a rip-off of the program 1232 01:02:52,435 --> 01:02:56,689 is generated like money being taken for services not rendered, 1233 01:02:57,440 --> 01:02:59,817 like equipment being stolen. 1234 01:02:59,901 --> 01:03:01,027 Things of this nature. 1235 01:03:02,111 --> 01:03:03,988 It was late at night, 1236 01:03:04,071 --> 01:03:09,202 and we were playing Scrabble and drinking champagne together, 1237 01:03:09,285 --> 01:03:14,040 just kind of chilling out and relaxing at his apartment. 1238 01:03:14,123 --> 01:03:18,878 But in any case, we were startled when the doorbell rang. 1239 01:03:18,961 --> 01:03:23,299 And he picked up this big antique Chinese sword. 1240 01:03:24,675 --> 01:03:28,221 Looked at me and he said, "I'd better bring this with me." 1241 01:03:28,304 --> 01:03:29,222 "You never know." 1242 01:03:29,806 --> 01:03:30,973 And he kind of grinned 1243 01:03:31,974 --> 01:03:34,101 that mischievous grin of his. 1244 01:03:34,602 --> 01:03:37,230 And went out to answer the doorbell. 1245 01:03:37,980 --> 01:03:42,985 I heard some pops, and I… 1246 01:03:43,069 --> 01:03:45,696 I thought, "Maybe it's firecrackers." 1247 01:03:47,240 --> 01:03:48,449 "Somebody playing a joke." 1248 01:03:49,158 --> 01:03:51,369 But then there was just silence. 1249 01:03:52,912 --> 01:03:57,208 And I was overcome with dread, 1250 01:03:58,292 --> 01:04:01,921 because I… I think at that point, I knew what had happened. 1251 01:04:03,506 --> 01:04:06,342 So I went out to the gates. 1252 01:04:06,425 --> 01:04:08,344 Found Barry there. 1253 01:04:08,845 --> 01:04:10,221 And, uh… 1254 01:04:12,431 --> 01:04:14,517 I did have a chance to say goodbye. 1255 01:04:14,600 --> 01:04:17,520 I don't think he heard me, but, um… 1256 01:04:18,479 --> 01:04:21,190 it was our last moment together. 1257 01:04:27,697 --> 01:04:30,491 It was a real tragedy to his family 1258 01:04:30,575 --> 01:04:32,827 and to the whole community, 1259 01:04:32,910 --> 01:04:34,328 that this happened. 1260 01:04:35,746 --> 01:04:39,584 Barry was, I think, suspected of being a representative 1261 01:04:39,667 --> 01:04:41,669 of law enforcement when he really wasn't. 1262 01:04:43,504 --> 01:04:44,922 Yeah, he worked for the system, 1263 01:04:45,464 --> 01:04:49,927 but he was there to try to provide services to the community. 1264 01:04:50,011 --> 01:04:53,055 And so he was victimized by being a little too close, 1265 01:04:53,139 --> 01:04:54,765 by being an outsider, and by-- 1266 01:04:54,849 --> 01:04:59,312 by the paranoia that pervaded a lot of the groups. 1267 01:04:59,395 --> 01:05:02,440 Social, cultural, political going on. 1268 01:05:03,733 --> 01:05:05,484 His murderer has never been found. 1269 01:05:06,527 --> 01:05:08,571 There's been speculation about who it could be, 1270 01:05:08,654 --> 01:05:11,616 but his murderer has never been found, never been caught, 1271 01:05:11,699 --> 01:05:12,867 never been brought to justice. 1272 01:05:19,999 --> 01:05:23,628 It's hard for Ben to even mention Barry without tearing up. 1273 01:05:26,339 --> 01:05:29,342 So I was on the tour with Bob Dylan in 1974, 1274 01:05:29,425 --> 01:05:30,927 the one with The Band. 1275 01:05:31,010 --> 01:05:35,097 It was his first time out after his motorcycle accident in Woodstock. 1276 01:05:36,057 --> 01:05:36,933 So it was a big deal. 1277 01:05:37,016 --> 01:05:40,394 I assigned myself to cover the beginning of the tour. 1278 01:05:41,187 --> 01:05:44,649 And in one of the first shows I saw in Chicago, 1279 01:05:45,149 --> 01:05:46,359 I was in the audience 1280 01:05:46,442 --> 01:05:48,819 as he was doing "It's Alright, Ma ." 1281 01:05:49,654 --> 01:05:54,075 As the tour continued, Dylan shifted the performance of his classic songs. 1282 01:05:54,158 --> 01:05:57,328 He reinvented them by emphasizing different words 1283 01:05:57,411 --> 01:06:00,706 or just strumming his guitar a little faster, 1284 01:06:00,790 --> 01:06:04,502 which could be heard on the live album recorded later on the tour. 1285 01:06:09,340 --> 01:06:14,261 But the version I heard that evening was closer to the song's original form. 1286 01:06:14,887 --> 01:06:18,474 Just sort of came back to me, because he was saying those lines. 1287 01:06:18,557 --> 01:06:19,600 "It's alright, Ma." 1288 01:06:26,357 --> 01:06:32,279 Still, it just resonated for me, took me back to those horrible times, 1289 01:06:32,363 --> 01:06:37,827 and then catapulted back forward to being part of a large group of people, 1290 01:06:38,869 --> 01:06:43,082 all probably getting something different out of that song at that moment. 1291 01:06:51,465 --> 01:06:55,386 I know that even though I'm in the audience with a notebook, 1292 01:06:55,469 --> 01:06:57,346 just writing down stuff about the concert, 1293 01:06:57,430 --> 01:06:59,473 and observing the audience listening to The Band, 1294 01:06:59,557 --> 01:07:02,184 and watching Dylan's moves when he sang those lines-- 1295 01:07:02,268 --> 01:07:05,855 because he also sang in a very emotional way, 1296 01:07:05,938 --> 01:07:08,190 that there was no way for it not to get to me. 1297 01:07:08,274 --> 01:07:11,861 And so I think that I allowed myself in that story 1298 01:07:11,944 --> 01:07:14,113 to remark about Barry, and make that connection. 1299 01:07:14,989 --> 01:07:16,532 That's what music can do. 1300 01:07:16,615 --> 01:07:19,243 Just like Dylan's earlier performances, 1301 01:07:19,326 --> 01:07:22,371 his song I heard that evening spoke to my loss. 1302 01:07:36,218 --> 01:07:37,344 "Samba Pa Ti." 1303 01:07:37,428 --> 01:07:42,558 It's a song that it talks about being free from fear, 1304 01:07:42,641 --> 01:07:44,560 from issues, from luggage, baggage, 1305 01:07:45,186 --> 01:07:48,397 from situations of pain and despair, 1306 01:07:48,481 --> 01:07:53,527 because everyone is searching for eternal peace and it's here, there. 1307 01:07:53,611 --> 01:07:55,571 All you have to do is share. 1308 01:07:56,697 --> 01:07:58,074 -Carlos. -Hey! 1309 01:07:59,492 --> 01:08:00,993 -Got to get a hug. -Thank you. 1310 01:08:01,077 --> 01:08:02,912 -So good to see you again. -Good to see you too. 1311 01:08:02,995 --> 01:08:04,163 -We'll have fun tonight. -Okay. 1312 01:08:04,246 --> 01:08:06,248 -All right, okay. -Why don't you walk in. 1313 01:08:06,332 --> 01:08:09,376 Ben always has a very, very high consciousness, 1314 01:08:09,460 --> 01:08:12,880 you know, and as a journalist or whatever he sees himself as, 1315 01:08:12,963 --> 01:08:15,925 I'm very honored that we've been intertwining 1316 01:08:16,008 --> 01:08:19,970 and transmitting this consciousness for a long, long time. 1317 01:08:22,014 --> 01:08:23,390 We grew up here in the Bay Area. 1318 01:08:23,474 --> 01:08:26,769 We were, like, funky-looking kids from the Mission, but we all had a dream. 1319 01:08:27,353 --> 01:08:29,313 Ben, like, Ralph J. Gleason or-- 1320 01:08:29,396 --> 01:08:32,399 everyone was very important, and is still very important 1321 01:08:32,483 --> 01:08:34,401 in the way they opened doors for me. 1322 01:08:34,485 --> 01:08:36,612 I mean, I'm just a kid who was washing dishes 1323 01:08:36,695 --> 01:08:39,323 and living here in Mission High School. 1324 01:08:39,406 --> 01:08:42,743 The next thing I know, I'm in the front cover of the Rolling Stone 1325 01:08:42,827 --> 01:08:45,329 with this story about resurrection. 1326 01:08:46,288 --> 01:08:49,708 I'm very honored and very grateful the way the story was done and everything. 1327 01:09:10,896 --> 01:09:14,191 Ben, like myself, we share words that have power. 1328 01:09:14,275 --> 01:09:17,153 When people read them, they have a choice 1329 01:09:17,903 --> 01:09:22,992 to either embrace nothing and make it everything and be miserable, 1330 01:09:23,075 --> 01:09:25,494 or they can embrace everything 1331 01:09:26,328 --> 01:09:28,998 and make every day the best day of their lives. 1332 01:09:33,335 --> 01:09:36,422 Ben Fong-Torres is here. We're going to talk about Paul McCartney. 1333 01:09:36,505 --> 01:09:38,757 Ben, are you looking at his set? At McCartney's set? 1334 01:09:38,841 --> 01:09:41,302 -I have here in my hand… -Whoa! 1335 01:09:41,385 --> 01:09:43,929 …the McCartney setlist for the current tour. 1336 01:09:44,013 --> 01:09:47,057 You've written books on The Eagles, on Grateful Dead 1337 01:09:47,141 --> 01:09:49,143 on The Doors, on Top 40. 1338 01:09:49,226 --> 01:09:52,354 And he said, "You know, I was at Candlestick 1339 01:09:52,438 --> 01:09:55,774 when the Beatles played their final concert." 1340 01:09:55,858 --> 01:09:57,234 And that was, what, 1960…? 1341 01:09:57,318 --> 01:09:58,986 -'6, August 29th. -'6. 1342 01:09:59,069 --> 01:10:01,488 -Okay, -The last show of the tour. 1343 01:10:01,572 --> 01:10:04,158 The Beatles did not know it would be their last concert. 1344 01:10:04,241 --> 01:10:05,951 They were embroiled in controversy. 1345 01:10:06,035 --> 01:10:09,705 John Lennon had talked about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus, 1346 01:10:09,788 --> 01:10:11,540 and that didn't sit well with some folks. 1347 01:10:11,624 --> 01:10:14,627 And there was even some talk about tension within the band. 1348 01:10:14,710 --> 01:10:17,254 For us, though, it was still kind of Beatlemania. 1349 01:10:17,338 --> 01:10:19,048 The girls were screaming to the point 1350 01:10:19,131 --> 01:10:20,758 where the Beatles couldn't hear themselves. 1351 01:10:20,841 --> 01:10:24,303 They just raced through these nine or ten songs, got done, 1352 01:10:24,386 --> 01:10:27,139 escaped into an armored car and fled. 1353 01:10:38,234 --> 01:10:40,444 -Candlestick! -The 'Stick, man. 1354 01:10:40,527 --> 01:10:41,862 This is history. 1355 01:10:41,946 --> 01:10:43,489 Yeah. All right. 1356 01:10:43,572 --> 01:10:45,824 -Are you Ben Fong? -Hi, I'm Ben Fong-Torres. 1357 01:10:45,908 --> 01:10:46,951 -I know! -Hi. 1358 01:10:47,034 --> 01:10:48,202 -Rolling Stone. -Yeah. 1359 01:10:48,702 --> 01:10:50,204 -And you are? -Nice to meet you. Carol. 1360 01:10:50,287 --> 01:10:52,456 -Hi, Carol. -I came down from the San Juan Islands. 1361 01:10:52,539 --> 01:10:54,333 -Oh, wow! -Nice to meet you. 1362 01:10:54,416 --> 01:10:56,043 -Is this the first show you're seeing? -No. 1363 01:10:56,126 --> 01:10:58,420 Oh, man. A real fan. 1364 01:10:58,504 --> 01:10:59,880 -Yes. -Well, good to see you, Carol. 1365 01:10:59,964 --> 01:11:01,090 Have a good time. 1366 01:11:09,807 --> 01:11:11,350 How do you respond to the fact 1367 01:11:11,433 --> 01:11:13,936 that Wings is thought of as a family unit 1368 01:11:14,019 --> 01:11:15,646 or that the leaders of Wings 1369 01:11:15,729 --> 01:11:17,314 -are husband and wife. -Yeah. 1370 01:11:17,398 --> 01:11:20,192 so that you're not on the loose like Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin 1371 01:11:20,276 --> 01:11:22,236 -Yeah…yeah. -How does that affect you? 1372 01:11:22,319 --> 01:11:24,780 Uh, I used to think of that, you know and 1373 01:11:24,863 --> 01:11:26,865 when we first got together and I 1374 01:11:26,949 --> 01:11:28,450 had Linda in the group, that kind of thing 1375 01:11:28,534 --> 01:11:30,369 I really used to think, uh oh, you know 1376 01:11:30,452 --> 01:11:32,204 we've had it with the groupies now 1377 01:11:32,288 --> 01:11:33,956 and they're never gonna turn up and, uh 1378 01:11:34,039 --> 01:11:36,208 everyone's gonna think we're real old squares… 1379 01:11:36,292 --> 01:11:37,501 blimey, married! 1380 01:11:37,584 --> 01:11:41,380 I was a Beatles fan, and I attended the last Beatles concert. 1381 01:11:42,256 --> 01:11:45,592 I probably screamed at my TV set when they were on Ed Sullivan. 1382 01:11:45,676 --> 01:11:48,429 And so to sit with him, to tour with him, to travel with him. 1383 01:11:48,971 --> 01:11:52,224 This photo of Paul McCartney and me has been shown here and there. 1384 01:11:52,308 --> 01:11:54,935 I had pretty much done an interview with him already, 1385 01:11:55,019 --> 01:11:59,565 gotten to know him, and so neither of us was posing for a picture. 1386 01:11:59,648 --> 01:12:01,734 We just happened to be hanging out. 1387 01:12:02,151 --> 01:12:04,945 That was the culture at the time, that you had access, 1388 01:12:05,029 --> 01:12:09,241 you are not one of a hundred people asking for an interview. 1389 01:12:09,325 --> 01:12:10,326 You were one of one. 1390 01:12:10,868 --> 01:12:12,369 Things change, you know 1391 01:12:12,453 --> 01:12:14,538 I mean I, I kissed Linda on stage the other night. 1392 01:12:14,621 --> 01:12:16,957 And that's the… for me, that's kind of 1393 01:12:17,041 --> 01:12:17,875 wow, you know 1394 01:12:17,958 --> 01:12:19,335 I must be getting real relaxed up there 1395 01:12:19,418 --> 01:12:20,294 cuz you know, I'm not 1396 01:12:20,377 --> 01:12:22,504 I can't to that in public, normally. 1397 01:12:22,588 --> 01:12:23,922 I'm a bit kinda shy. 1398 01:12:24,715 --> 01:12:29,219 And so now to be sitting there asking him questions and being one on one… 1399 01:12:30,429 --> 01:12:34,725 On the surface, you're being a professional reporter, 1400 01:12:34,808 --> 01:12:38,020 but inside you're saying, "Oh my God, it's Paul McCartney. Marry me!" 1401 01:12:38,103 --> 01:12:40,814 Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Ben Fong-Torres. 1402 01:12:41,648 --> 01:12:42,483 Thank you, Paul. 1403 01:12:53,285 --> 01:12:55,537 Ben and I met when we were both students 1404 01:12:55,621 --> 01:12:57,456 at San Francisco State University. 1405 01:12:57,539 --> 01:12:59,708 I was chairman of Homecoming. 1406 01:12:59,792 --> 01:13:03,670 So I would go into the newspaper office and plead for publicity. 1407 01:13:03,754 --> 01:13:08,008 She was a member of the Homecoming Queen committee. 1408 01:13:08,092 --> 01:13:09,635 She was in the sorority thing. 1409 01:13:09,718 --> 01:13:12,721 She was the other side of the world, in my view, 1410 01:13:12,805 --> 01:13:16,600 because I was a journalist covering civil rights, war protest. 1411 01:13:17,810 --> 01:13:23,065 He looked like he was about 15 or 16 years old. 1412 01:13:23,148 --> 01:13:28,737 He had big black glasses, short haircut, a white shirt, 1413 01:13:28,821 --> 01:13:33,075 which I later found out was because he had to report to the family restaurant 1414 01:13:33,158 --> 01:13:34,243 every day after work. 1415 01:13:34,326 --> 01:13:37,079 I was able to keep up with Ben over the years 1416 01:13:37,162 --> 01:13:41,333 because he had a radio show on a radio station 1417 01:13:41,417 --> 01:13:43,544 that everyone listened to: KSAN. 1418 01:13:44,044 --> 01:13:46,422 The station used to do all kinds of personals. 1419 01:13:46,505 --> 01:13:49,258 It's close to 1:30 from KSAN in San Francisco, 1420 01:13:49,341 --> 01:13:51,176 the Jive 95 with Ben Fong-Torres. 1421 01:13:51,260 --> 01:13:52,511 Time for listener's personals. 1422 01:13:53,011 --> 01:13:57,057 Need someone to take care of my dog while I'm in jail. John. 1423 01:13:57,141 --> 01:13:59,560 When you call, remember, you can only have one call, all right? 1424 01:13:59,643 --> 01:14:00,769 I lost my dog. 1425 01:14:00,853 --> 01:14:04,314 And so I decided to call him 1426 01:14:04,398 --> 01:14:07,651 and ask him if he'd make that announcement on the radio. 1427 01:14:07,734 --> 01:14:11,447 So Dianne was calling in a lost dog classified on my shift. 1428 01:14:11,530 --> 01:14:15,701 So she said, "Do you remember me? Dianne Sweet from S.F. State?" 1429 01:14:15,784 --> 01:14:17,870 And my eyes went boing! 1430 01:14:17,953 --> 01:14:19,079 Of course I do. 1431 01:14:19,163 --> 01:14:20,873 She's a very pretty woman. 1432 01:14:20,956 --> 01:14:23,834 We said, hi, and that was about it. You know, no big deal. 1433 01:14:23,917 --> 01:14:27,004 This was, like, 1972, I believe it was. 1434 01:14:27,087 --> 01:14:32,342 Then my brother was killed, so she called and, uh… 1435 01:14:35,971 --> 01:14:37,639 And just said, um… 1436 01:14:44,480 --> 01:14:45,731 Never fails. 1437 01:14:48,233 --> 01:14:49,943 …and just said, "I'm here." 1438 01:14:52,112 --> 01:14:54,698 "And if you want to come over and have a glass of wine or whatever, 1439 01:14:54,781 --> 01:14:56,909 and it helps, then do that." 1440 01:14:56,992 --> 01:15:02,039 So I did. And so we saw each other for the first time in probably six years. 1441 01:15:02,623 --> 01:15:05,000 And so our friendship began at that point. 1442 01:15:05,709 --> 01:15:09,838 I lived in this little Victorian house, and I can just picture him 1443 01:15:09,922 --> 01:15:14,551 walking up the stairs, and my jaw dropped. 1444 01:15:15,302 --> 01:15:18,013 This was not anyone I recognized. 1445 01:15:18,096 --> 01:15:21,099 This wasn't the 16-year-old guy anymore. 1446 01:15:21,183 --> 01:15:24,311 We had that glass of wine, and that was the beginning. 1447 01:15:31,568 --> 01:15:33,403 I hadn't seen you in… 1448 01:15:33,487 --> 01:15:35,030 -six years? -At least. 1449 01:15:35,822 --> 01:15:37,741 But it was kind of a shock to see you 1450 01:15:37,824 --> 01:15:41,203 with long hair, and John Lennon glasses, and stacked heels. 1451 01:15:44,414 --> 01:15:45,415 Olive oil. 1452 01:15:47,501 --> 01:15:51,338 Ben's parents didn't find out that I existed 1453 01:15:51,421 --> 01:15:53,882 until a couple of months before we got married. 1454 01:15:54,633 --> 01:15:57,386 After we'd been together for four years. 1455 01:15:57,469 --> 01:16:01,390 My parents were like, I think, many Chinese adults, 1456 01:16:01,473 --> 01:16:02,724 parents of that generation. 1457 01:16:02,808 --> 01:16:06,562 Our grounding was to get married to a Chinese girl. 1458 01:16:06,645 --> 01:16:09,022 It'd be best for family and everything else. 1459 01:16:09,106 --> 01:16:13,819 This was very, very tough for Ben to have to tell his parents 1460 01:16:14,403 --> 01:16:20,367 that he was going to marry out of the Chinese community. 1461 01:16:20,450 --> 01:16:24,830 It was traumatic to me to have to accept the fact 1462 01:16:25,664 --> 01:16:29,918 that I would be someone's disappointment. 1463 01:16:35,465 --> 01:16:39,553 Fortunately for us, they did their best. 1464 01:16:39,636 --> 01:16:41,555 They did come to the wedding. 1465 01:16:41,638 --> 01:16:45,434 And, of course, the famous picture of Ben's father. 1466 01:16:46,435 --> 01:16:48,979 -So happily celebrating… -Yeah. 1467 01:16:49,521 --> 01:16:51,565 -…that I was getting married to Dianne. -Yeah. 1468 01:16:51,648 --> 01:16:52,983 -Yeah. -Yes. 1469 01:16:54,484 --> 01:16:57,863 When Dianne and I got married, Annie volunteered herself 1470 01:16:57,946 --> 01:16:59,740 as our wedding photographer. 1471 01:16:59,823 --> 01:17:02,951 That was an offer you do not say no to, that's for sure. 1472 01:17:03,035 --> 01:17:06,496 She has a picture of me in my little office writing the vows, 1473 01:17:06,580 --> 01:17:09,374 writing my personal vows on deadline, as always 1474 01:17:17,007 --> 01:17:20,636 At the end of her 12 hours of work, 1475 01:17:21,136 --> 01:17:25,932 she just handed over 21, 22 rolls of film. 1476 01:17:27,225 --> 01:17:29,227 These were just a gift to us. 1477 01:17:35,942 --> 01:17:38,320 -Come take a trip through time… -Oh boy. 1478 01:17:38,403 --> 01:17:41,448 And look at some of your assignments and inventory sheets. 1479 01:17:41,531 --> 01:17:42,699 Ah! 1480 01:17:43,992 --> 01:17:46,286 I remember getting some of these and just going, 1481 01:17:46,370 --> 01:17:47,496 "Holy shit." 1482 01:17:47,579 --> 01:17:52,584 It's like from from going to the Speckels Theatre head shop 1483 01:17:52,668 --> 01:17:57,255 to get Rolling Stone to, like, actually getting the assignment inventory sheets. 1484 01:17:57,339 --> 01:17:59,925 -You were a keeper, weren't you? -I kept everything, baby. 1485 01:18:01,134 --> 01:18:02,594 Because you opened the door. 1486 01:18:03,095 --> 01:18:07,140 Voice of God, howling dogs, the spirit of rock and roll. 1487 01:18:07,224 --> 01:18:08,475 This is good, solid stuff, man. 1488 01:18:08,558 --> 01:18:09,393 Thanks. 1489 01:18:10,477 --> 01:18:12,020 Thanks. Thanks. 1490 01:18:12,104 --> 01:18:13,939 Listen, I think you should be writing for us. 1491 01:18:14,022 --> 01:18:16,608 I've heard that you don't remember saying "crazy," 1492 01:18:16,692 --> 01:18:17,943 which we put in Almost Famous. 1493 01:18:18,026 --> 01:18:19,319 But you did say "crazy." 1494 01:18:19,403 --> 01:18:20,237 Crazy. 1495 01:18:20,737 --> 01:18:21,613 -Crazy. -Crazy. 1496 01:18:22,280 --> 01:18:23,281 -Crazy. -Crazy. 1497 01:18:23,365 --> 01:18:24,366 -Crazy? -Yeah. 1498 01:18:24,449 --> 01:18:26,493 Well, actually… 1499 01:18:27,577 --> 01:18:30,205 It's like hearing Bruce Springsteen sing "Born in the USA." 1500 01:18:30,288 --> 01:18:32,666 -Ben says "crazy," and there it is. 1501 01:18:32,749 --> 01:18:34,793 -I'll have to record one on MP3 for you. -Oh my God! 1502 01:18:34,876 --> 01:18:37,546 I just loved it because it was, like, sadness. 1503 01:18:38,255 --> 01:18:39,548 -"Crazy." 1504 01:18:39,631 --> 01:18:41,258 Happiness. "Crazy." 1505 01:18:41,341 --> 01:18:43,802 -Uh-huh. Yeah. -Contemplative. 1506 01:18:43,885 --> 01:18:45,345 Crazy. 1507 01:18:45,804 --> 01:18:46,638 Crazy. 1508 01:18:47,556 --> 01:18:49,683 You know, so I just felt it applied in so many ways in… 1509 01:18:50,350 --> 01:18:52,686 -Classic country song, "Crazy." -Classic country! 1510 01:18:58,066 --> 01:19:00,152 I got a ticket to go to the Rolling Stones show 1511 01:19:00,235 --> 01:19:02,154 at the Forum in 1973, 1512 01:19:02,237 --> 01:19:05,365 and Bobby Cowan, the great publicist, said to me, 1513 01:19:05,449 --> 01:19:09,786 "Ben Fong-Torres is down there, like, in those great seats on the floor…" 1514 01:19:11,413 --> 01:19:13,415 "…and do you want to meet him?" 1515 01:19:13,498 --> 01:19:15,500 And I'm like, "Yes, I want to meet him." 1516 01:19:16,418 --> 01:19:21,798 But I was 15, and I I didn't think you knew from my voice how old I was. 1517 01:19:21,882 --> 01:19:24,217 -So you were in the kids section? -I was in the kids section. 1518 01:19:24,301 --> 01:19:28,305 You and Annie Leibowitz were on tour with the band for that great cover story, 1519 01:19:28,388 --> 01:19:30,015 the one with Mick in the Hawaiian shirt. 1520 01:19:30,807 --> 01:19:32,893 You didn't see that I was 15 years old. 1521 01:19:32,976 --> 01:19:34,686 Because of your name, like many others, 1522 01:19:34,770 --> 01:19:39,357 I built up this exotic and Salinger-esque persona in my mind. 1523 01:19:39,441 --> 01:19:43,028 But then there you were, affable, utterly professional. 1524 01:19:43,528 --> 01:19:44,571 We spoke briefly. 1525 01:19:44,654 --> 01:19:47,282 I told you I was a freelance writer from San Diego. 1526 01:19:47,365 --> 01:19:49,034 I suggested the group Poco. 1527 01:19:49,117 --> 01:19:52,037 You said to send you 750 words. 1528 01:19:52,120 --> 01:19:53,371 I knew it had to be good. 1529 01:19:53,455 --> 01:19:54,748 And we shook hands again. 1530 01:19:54,831 --> 01:19:56,625 The Rolling Stones were now taking the stage. 1531 01:19:56,708 --> 01:19:58,794 Mick Jagger ripped into "Oh Carol", 1532 01:19:58,877 --> 01:20:02,631 but all I was thinking about was, I just got an assignment for Rolling Stone 1533 01:20:02,714 --> 01:20:03,757 from Ben Fong-Torres. 1534 01:20:04,716 --> 01:20:05,717 It was that simple. 1535 01:20:05,801 --> 01:20:07,552 My first story for Rolling Stone. 1536 01:20:09,304 --> 01:20:12,974 But you didn't know how old I was until you called a couple of weeks later, 1537 01:20:13,058 --> 01:20:15,894 and my sister answered the phone, and couldn't wait to tell you 1538 01:20:16,728 --> 01:20:18,146 -that I was then 16. -Mm. 1539 01:20:18,230 --> 01:20:19,898 -And I was mortified. -Mm-hmm. 1540 01:20:19,981 --> 01:20:22,067 I had already done another story for you. 1541 01:20:22,150 --> 01:20:23,944 And you put it into the magazine that I was 16. 1542 01:20:24,027 --> 01:20:26,446 That's right. We added it as a gleeful footnote. 1543 01:20:26,530 --> 01:20:28,532 -As a little footnote. -Right. 1544 01:20:28,615 --> 01:20:29,825 That started everything. 1545 01:20:29,908 --> 01:20:34,204 But you brought to it though, yourself, tremendous love of music and writing. 1546 01:20:34,287 --> 01:20:36,832 -That was the first thing. -I'm having a huge flashback right now. 1547 01:20:36,915 --> 01:20:40,293 I feel like I'm back in San Francisco in your office, 1548 01:20:40,377 --> 01:20:42,170 and I got some time with Ben. 1549 01:20:42,254 --> 01:20:43,839 -This is awesome! 1550 01:20:47,884 --> 01:20:50,178 The whole point about Rolling Stone magazine 1551 01:20:50,262 --> 01:20:52,639 is that it was a business, and still is. 1552 01:20:52,722 --> 01:20:57,561 Jann Wenner did not try to start a commune that published a newsletter. 1553 01:20:57,644 --> 01:21:01,231 And from the beginning, he wanted to expand that business 1554 01:21:01,314 --> 01:21:03,316 into other media properties. 1555 01:21:04,359 --> 01:21:06,444 And so in 1977, 1556 01:21:06,528 --> 01:21:08,280 the magazine moved out to New York. 1557 01:21:08,363 --> 01:21:10,740 Rock and roll was the background beat of rebellion. 1558 01:21:10,824 --> 01:21:13,827 Today, rock and roll is the music of Madison Avenue, 1559 01:21:13,910 --> 01:21:15,996 and Rolling Stone has moved to New York. 1560 01:21:20,292 --> 01:21:22,627 Are you going to be left behind or are you going to go? 1561 01:21:22,711 --> 01:21:25,755 And I chose to go, and I still don't know if that was the right decision, 1562 01:21:25,839 --> 01:21:27,173 you know, basically. 1563 01:21:27,257 --> 01:21:29,092 It was a big decision for everybody to make. 1564 01:21:29,175 --> 01:21:31,303 You know, some people wanted to go. So people didn't. 1565 01:21:31,386 --> 01:21:33,096 But I narrowed it down to only, like, 1566 01:21:33,179 --> 01:21:35,056 25 people I thought I really should take with me. 1567 01:21:35,140 --> 01:21:38,184 Ben was always, from the beginning, a key player, 1568 01:21:38,268 --> 01:21:41,479 and as it grew and grew, he stayed in that key slot 1569 01:21:41,563 --> 01:21:43,773 as one of the key most important editors at Rolling Stone, 1570 01:21:43,857 --> 01:21:47,861 until such time as we moved to New York, when I had to ask Ben to come with us. 1571 01:21:47,944 --> 01:21:49,362 And he said, no, he wouldn't come. 1572 01:21:50,322 --> 01:21:52,616 Jann announced that the magazine was moving to New York, 1573 01:21:52,699 --> 01:21:54,910 and I decided, ultimately, not to do that. 1574 01:21:54,993 --> 01:21:57,913 Not an easy decision, but we had just bought a house. 1575 01:21:57,996 --> 01:22:00,707 Dianne and I had just been married. 1576 01:22:00,790 --> 01:22:07,172 And after Barry's death, I was the de facto number one son, 1577 01:22:07,255 --> 01:22:08,590 and that meant a lot to me. 1578 01:22:09,132 --> 01:22:14,137 And so for me to leave my parents still in the grieving process, 1579 01:22:14,220 --> 01:22:18,099 that would have been very difficult, very difficult. 1580 01:22:18,183 --> 01:22:19,309 So… 1581 01:22:19,392 --> 01:22:23,897 Ben's parents, because their English was very limited, 1582 01:22:23,980 --> 01:22:28,068 they really needed Ben to help them navigate life, 1583 01:22:28,610 --> 01:22:31,988 because occasionally life takes one out of Chinatown. 1584 01:22:32,072 --> 01:22:36,451 Ben felt a great responsibility and a great willingness 1585 01:22:36,534 --> 01:22:38,662 to assist his family. 1586 01:22:38,745 --> 01:22:44,209 So when things came up that they needed help with, Ben was there. 1587 01:22:47,462 --> 01:22:48,755 You know, I wish, uh… 1588 01:22:49,339 --> 01:22:51,049 I could have stayed here. 1589 01:22:51,132 --> 01:22:52,884 I wish Rolling Stone didn't move to New York. 1590 01:22:52,968 --> 01:22:55,220 It was like--it was--you know, it was so great here. 1591 01:22:55,303 --> 01:22:57,055 -It was, I think, the… -You and me both, yeah. 1592 01:22:57,764 --> 01:23:00,976 the beginning of some kind of end, for sure, 1593 01:23:01,059 --> 01:23:03,520 -when Rolling Stone moved to New York. -It was a pivotal point. 1594 01:23:03,603 --> 01:23:05,355 -Come here. 1595 01:23:06,022 --> 01:23:07,107 So good to see you again. 1596 01:23:07,190 --> 01:23:08,608 Nice to see you too, Ben. 1597 01:23:09,526 --> 01:23:13,571 Luckily, I was able to carve out a position 1598 01:23:13,655 --> 01:23:19,411 as senior editor West Coast, and carried on for about three years. 1599 01:23:19,494 --> 01:23:23,456 Then it became clear that I was just no longer part of the core. 1600 01:23:23,957 --> 01:23:26,376 You can't be when you're 3000 miles away. 1601 01:23:26,459 --> 01:23:30,338 And so it was time to move on. 1602 01:23:30,422 --> 01:23:31,965 When I think about Ben, 1603 01:23:32,507 --> 01:23:35,677 I can't imagine, what does he do without Rolling Stone? 1604 01:23:36,469 --> 01:23:39,014 San Francisco was not what it is now. 1605 01:23:39,097 --> 01:23:41,349 You know, it was a sleepy backwater town. 1606 01:23:41,433 --> 01:23:43,059 There was no book publishing there. 1607 01:23:43,143 --> 01:23:47,439 There was local kinds of publications, and nothing on the national scale at all. 1608 01:23:47,522 --> 01:23:51,026 It was a little daunting to say, 1609 01:23:51,109 --> 01:23:55,655 "Oh boy, I'm going to put myself out in the marketplace." 1610 01:23:55,739 --> 01:23:57,657 Would they think of me as, 1611 01:23:57,741 --> 01:24:00,618 Oh, that's that guy from Rolling Stone, he can't write for us? 1612 01:24:00,702 --> 01:24:03,038 So it was definitely a challenge. 1613 01:24:03,121 --> 01:24:06,041 How long did that take for you to get back into the swing of things? 1614 01:24:07,000 --> 01:24:08,168 I think it took me… 1615 01:24:09,586 --> 01:24:11,171 a month, sorry. 1616 01:24:23,058 --> 01:24:25,143 Parade was the first one to come along. 1617 01:24:25,226 --> 01:24:28,772 And they happened to be, in terms of circulation, 1618 01:24:29,355 --> 01:24:31,524 the biggest magazine in the country. 1619 01:24:31,608 --> 01:24:36,279 So not a bad place to land from Rolling Stone. 1620 01:24:37,906 --> 01:24:40,075 You did a lot of fundraisers over the years, haven't you? 1621 01:24:40,158 --> 01:24:41,910 Well, yeah, when you do community events, 1622 01:24:41,993 --> 01:24:46,414 quite often they are for galas to raise funds for worthy causes. 1623 01:24:46,498 --> 01:24:47,832 Millions of dollars. 1624 01:24:47,916 --> 01:24:48,917 Oh yes. 1625 01:24:49,000 --> 01:24:49,918 Definitely. 1626 01:24:50,001 --> 01:24:50,919 At least millions. 1627 01:24:52,295 --> 01:24:53,755 Maybe millions of cents. 1628 01:24:53,838 --> 01:24:55,090 That's more like it. 1629 01:24:55,173 --> 01:25:00,595 Ben has really given himself to a lot of community events. 1630 01:25:00,678 --> 01:25:06,768 He makes appearances several times a month for nonprofit organizations, 1631 01:25:06,851 --> 01:25:12,440 and he's raised millions of dollars over the years for these organizations. 1632 01:25:12,524 --> 01:25:15,985 He's extremely generous, he's extremely giving. 1633 01:25:16,069 --> 01:25:20,031 You know, he's just good at it. He's been as good at everything he does. 1634 01:25:25,161 --> 01:25:28,373 I can't believe it's, like, 30 years. 1635 01:25:28,456 --> 01:25:31,918 How can it be that long ago that Ben took me under his wing? 1636 01:25:32,001 --> 01:25:36,005 Let me be his assistant as he started researching the Gram Parsons story, 1637 01:25:36,589 --> 01:25:41,261 and just brought me into the process so that I learned a lot by osmosis 1638 01:25:41,344 --> 01:25:42,220 working with him. 1639 01:25:42,303 --> 01:25:45,515 And now, three decades later, I'm off to the Grammy Museum. 1640 01:25:45,598 --> 01:25:49,853 I'm going to be giving a talk about my new Janis Joplin biography. 1641 01:25:49,936 --> 01:25:52,814 And Ben will be there right by my side introducing me this week. 1642 01:25:53,606 --> 01:25:55,608 So it's really a dream come true for me. 1643 01:26:04,492 --> 01:26:05,493 Sarah Lazin books. 1644 01:26:06,452 --> 01:26:07,287 Hey, Ben. 1645 01:26:08,413 --> 01:26:09,998 Did you get my email from earlier? 1646 01:26:11,499 --> 01:26:12,333 Okay. 1647 01:26:12,876 --> 01:26:17,005 Yeah. Yeah. You have several options. So, yeah, we can talk later about that. 1648 01:26:17,088 --> 01:26:22,635 My big passion is to take seriously this story of American popular music, 1649 01:26:22,719 --> 01:26:24,888 and that's what I've devoted my career to, 1650 01:26:24,971 --> 01:26:29,225 is working with writers to develop really serious, good biographies. 1651 01:26:29,309 --> 01:26:31,019 And Ben had such a great story. 1652 01:26:32,020 --> 01:26:35,106 The turning point in my life, there's just no question about it. 1653 01:26:35,190 --> 01:26:39,569 Aside from the happiness that I found with Dianne, 1654 01:26:40,153 --> 01:26:42,280 was the sadness that came with the loss of Barry. 1655 01:26:42,906 --> 01:26:44,782 And so that is the turning point. 1656 01:26:44,866 --> 01:26:48,786 That's where you are suddenly catapulted into a sobering up and growing up. 1657 01:26:49,287 --> 01:26:52,624 After he died, I had his books 1658 01:26:52,707 --> 01:26:55,752 and began to look at them, and began to really get a sense 1659 01:26:55,835 --> 01:27:00,673 of the country from which we all, in a sense, came. 1660 01:27:01,507 --> 01:27:03,092 And so I became interested, suddenly. 1661 01:27:03,176 --> 01:27:05,094 I had gotten to the point where I thought, 1662 01:27:05,178 --> 01:27:08,848 how stupid that here I am, a journalist and a reporter. 1663 01:27:08,932 --> 01:27:10,350 I'm supposed to get stories. 1664 01:27:10,433 --> 01:27:12,352 I'm supposed to learn the truth about people. 1665 01:27:12,435 --> 01:27:14,854 And the one group of people I had not done that with 1666 01:27:14,938 --> 01:27:17,023 was my mother and father. 1667 01:27:17,106 --> 01:27:19,317 And so I decided just to do it. 1668 01:27:19,400 --> 01:27:22,528 And it was the first time that I was able to ask my parents questions 1669 01:27:23,029 --> 01:27:24,656 about their lives, 1670 01:27:24,739 --> 01:27:30,078 coming to America, raising a family, what their ambitions had been, 1671 01:27:30,161 --> 01:27:31,663 what they thought of their kids. 1672 01:27:31,746 --> 01:27:34,332 You know, do you like us, by the way? We're just wondering here. 1673 01:27:34,832 --> 01:27:38,253 And so I gave them a chance to ask me questions. 1674 01:27:38,753 --> 01:27:42,966 And so that was probably the first time they learned about what Rolling Stone was. 1675 01:27:55,228 --> 01:27:57,146 And then, not too long after that, 1676 01:27:57,230 --> 01:27:58,856 I had a chance to go to China. 1677 01:27:59,899 --> 01:28:01,985 Be the first person from my generation from our family, 1678 01:28:02,068 --> 01:28:03,653 to go into the home village. 1679 01:28:04,237 --> 01:28:08,074 I was able to visit an uncle that I didn't even know I had. 1680 01:28:08,157 --> 01:28:12,287 I met a cousin and her parents, and others, 1681 01:28:12,370 --> 01:28:16,916 and they were in this pretty okay house that they said, you know, 1682 01:28:17,583 --> 01:28:20,003 "We are able to have this house because of your family, 1683 01:28:20,503 --> 01:28:21,838 that they sent the money." 1684 01:28:21,921 --> 01:28:25,508 And so it turns out, again, that my parents were not lying. 1685 01:28:25,591 --> 01:28:31,264 And the decor included the framed collages 1686 01:28:31,347 --> 01:28:35,393 of photographs from us in Oakland 1687 01:28:35,476 --> 01:28:38,313 back in the day, including high school pictures, 1688 01:28:38,396 --> 01:28:40,606 junior high pictures, wedding photos, 1689 01:28:40,690 --> 01:28:42,942 as much as my parents hated some of our weddings. 1690 01:28:43,026 --> 01:28:47,280 They shipped off the wedding photos anyway to share the news with their family. 1691 01:28:47,363 --> 01:28:51,075 It was obviously a stunning experience for me. 1692 01:28:51,159 --> 01:28:52,785 And the frustration, the… 1693 01:28:52,869 --> 01:28:56,289 Some of the anger of losing out on life in my youth 1694 01:28:56,831 --> 01:28:59,542 has really balanced out by an appreciation 1695 01:28:59,625 --> 01:29:02,795 of exactly what my parents went through growing up, 1696 01:29:02,879 --> 01:29:04,047 what they sacrificed, 1697 01:29:04,130 --> 01:29:08,426 and what they gave when they left their country for this one. 1698 01:29:17,935 --> 01:29:18,895 Ben? 1699 01:29:19,729 --> 01:29:21,064 Oh, Uncle Ben. 1700 01:29:23,358 --> 01:29:24,817 That's great. I like it. 1701 01:29:25,401 --> 01:29:27,153 You wrote a book that was one of a kind. 1702 01:29:28,029 --> 01:29:30,573 A story about our family that made it all clear. 1703 01:29:31,449 --> 01:29:34,285 Now I finally understood how the heck we got here. 1704 01:29:36,245 --> 01:29:38,122 You married family and friends. 1705 01:29:38,206 --> 01:29:39,582 You sang at my wedding. 1706 01:29:40,750 --> 01:29:42,335 You were just on CNN. 1707 01:29:43,086 --> 01:29:44,504 Where else are you heading? 1708 01:29:45,963 --> 01:29:48,383 On top of all I've said and all you've done, 1709 01:29:49,675 --> 01:29:51,761 all the success and all we've won 1710 01:29:53,262 --> 01:29:56,057 the most important thing has nothing to do with the above. 1711 01:29:56,933 --> 01:29:59,852 What matters most is it came with all your love. 1712 01:29:59,936 --> 01:30:00,853 Aw! 1713 01:30:08,277 --> 01:30:09,153 I'm old! 1714 01:30:10,738 --> 01:30:12,532 -And so 1715 01:30:12,615 --> 01:30:13,825 family remains loyal. 1716 01:30:13,908 --> 01:30:17,662 Family remains cyclical and circular. 1717 01:30:17,745 --> 01:30:21,874 hat's a lesson that I learned back in the '80s 1718 01:30:21,958 --> 01:30:23,793 and stays with me today. 1719 01:30:25,378 --> 01:30:26,838 -There you go. Okay. 1720 01:30:28,840 --> 01:30:30,341 -Adiós. -Thank you, thank you. 1721 01:30:31,050 --> 01:30:32,343 -Aloha. -Baby. 1722 01:30:43,688 --> 01:30:44,939 Yo! Yo! 1723 01:30:51,612 --> 01:30:55,950 Even though the music changes, and the business changes, 1724 01:30:56,033 --> 01:30:57,618 and the audience changes, 1725 01:30:57,702 --> 01:31:04,500 and the ways that music is carried or sold or delivered or stolen changes… 1726 01:31:04,584 --> 01:31:05,668 -Jann's ready for you. -Ah. 1727 01:31:06,169 --> 01:31:07,003 Okay. 1728 01:31:07,545 --> 01:31:08,796 Here comes Ben. 1729 01:31:09,547 --> 01:31:12,467 …there will always be those who are going to say 1730 01:31:12,550 --> 01:31:13,801 music is more than music. 1731 01:31:14,886 --> 01:31:15,887 -How are you? -Good. 1732 01:31:15,970 --> 01:31:17,430 -You're looking well. -Oh, thank you. 1733 01:31:17,513 --> 01:31:21,976 Look how skinny Ben is. Look at that. And look at that wild and hairy… 1734 01:31:24,020 --> 01:31:24,854 How funny. 1735 01:31:24,937 --> 01:31:26,981 Music is also communication, 1736 01:31:27,064 --> 01:31:31,110 it is also a message, it is also a way to change people's minds, 1737 01:31:31,652 --> 01:31:33,488 expand people's minds. 1738 01:31:33,571 --> 01:31:37,200 Whatever it is, music will always have more of a function 1739 01:31:37,283 --> 01:31:38,910 than just entertainment… 1740 01:31:38,993 --> 01:31:41,037 -Wow. -You remember when this was made. 1741 01:31:41,120 --> 01:31:42,955 This is my first cover. 1742 01:31:43,039 --> 01:31:44,832 …and that will never end. 1743 01:31:59,847 --> 01:32:01,057 Oh, I just turned my phone off. 1744 01:32:01,140 --> 01:32:02,099 Oh! 1745 01:32:04,560 --> 01:32:05,561 -Yeah. -Good to see you. 1746 01:32:05,645 --> 01:32:06,479 Yeah. 1747 01:32:06,562 --> 01:32:07,980 You look fantastic for an older guy. 1748 01:32:09,607 --> 01:32:12,026 Thank you for being part of this. 1749 01:32:12,109 --> 01:32:14,487 My pleasure. You were an important part of my career. 1750 01:32:14,570 --> 01:32:16,197 -I want to thank you for it. -Oh. How so? 1751 01:32:16,822 --> 01:32:18,824 Uh, I'll make up something. Just keep going. 1752 01:32:18,908 --> 01:32:19,742 No, actually, 1753 01:32:19,825 --> 01:32:22,954 you did a very significant article on me in Rolling Stone. 1754 01:32:23,037 --> 01:32:26,207 When I think back to it, I go back to when you were at the Boarding House. 1755 01:32:28,584 --> 01:32:30,253 And I dug you so much, 1756 01:32:30,336 --> 01:32:33,965 because you were so different, so radical, so ridiculous. 1757 01:32:34,966 --> 01:32:36,175 Go away! 1758 01:32:36,259 --> 01:32:38,177 Steve, we're here for the interview. 1759 01:32:38,261 --> 01:32:39,971 I don't do interview-- 1760 01:32:40,513 --> 01:32:41,931 Oh. TV. 1761 01:32:42,014 --> 01:32:43,057 Come on in. 1762 01:32:43,140 --> 01:32:44,475 Thought you'd notice. 1763 01:32:44,559 --> 01:32:46,727 I think you understand what I'm trying to say when I say… 1764 01:32:49,689 --> 01:32:52,775 And I remember coming to you after a show 1765 01:32:52,858 --> 01:32:56,821 and inviting you to my show on KSAN Jive 95. 1766 01:32:56,904 --> 01:32:58,781 And you came and did sight gags on the radio. 1767 01:32:58,864 --> 01:33:00,491 That's a good idea. 1768 01:33:02,368 --> 01:33:03,995 I really appreciate everything you've done. 1769 01:33:04,078 --> 01:33:05,246 Oh, thank you, Steve. 1770 01:33:08,958 --> 01:33:11,544 Welcome back to the Southwest Airlines Chinese New Year parade. 1771 01:33:11,627 --> 01:33:13,963 -I'm Ben Fong-Torres. -And I'm Julie Haener. 1772 01:33:14,046 --> 01:33:16,382 Also, welcome back to Geary Street for us. 1773 01:33:16,465 --> 01:33:19,135 We're back to our original vantage point, where… 1774 01:33:21,095 --> 01:33:24,307 All of experiences in which you are connected to your family 1775 01:33:24,390 --> 01:33:25,516 one way or another. 1776 01:33:26,517 --> 01:33:30,688 Now we realize that it's all part of the greater fabric of Chinese culture. 1777 01:33:32,231 --> 01:33:34,066 As a cook and a chef, 1778 01:33:34,150 --> 01:33:37,528 my father could go out and eat something, 1779 01:33:37,612 --> 01:33:39,947 and come home and recreate it without a recipe. 1780 01:33:41,240 --> 01:33:45,244 He enjoyed doing his own version of Chinese opera around the restaurant 1781 01:33:45,328 --> 01:33:48,205 when there were downtimes, when there were no customers around. 1782 01:33:48,289 --> 01:33:52,376 He would just yodel and sing, and he was really a pretty amazing guy. 1783 01:33:55,921 --> 01:33:59,050 We no more escaped our past than our parents escaped China. 1784 01:34:00,718 --> 01:34:05,181 They stay tied to their old ways, and now we begin to see those ways. 1785 01:34:05,264 --> 01:34:09,268 Those things that used to strike us as so odd and embarrassing, 1786 01:34:09,352 --> 01:34:11,854 so Chinese, in a new light. 1787 01:34:16,484 --> 01:34:20,946 And so you learn why now the weddings are the way they are, 1788 01:34:21,030 --> 01:34:24,867 or why funerals are the way they are, and it all ties together. 1789 01:34:39,256 --> 01:34:43,135 That you never really do escape the full circle of life. 1790 01:34:44,679 --> 01:34:47,973 It's seeped into us that it was to our advantage 1791 01:34:48,641 --> 01:34:52,645 to do the stuff, or most of it, that our parents asked of us. 1792 01:34:52,728 --> 01:34:55,815 And I think that, for the most part, it worked out pretty well. 1793 01:35:12,331 --> 01:35:14,041 -Hi. -Ah, Sir Elton. 1794 01:35:14,125 --> 01:35:16,001 -How are you? -Oh, wow. 1795 01:35:16,085 --> 01:35:18,421 -My God. Long time no see, really. -Oh! 1796 01:35:18,504 --> 01:35:20,172 Only 45 years. 1797 01:35:20,256 --> 01:35:21,382 -Really? -But who's counting? 1798 01:35:21,465 --> 01:35:25,928 It's not just a story. It's a story with Elton John or Bob Dylan. 1799 01:35:26,011 --> 01:35:29,348 It's just all these people whose music you love. 1800 01:35:29,432 --> 01:35:33,811 And can you tell me what the role of your being a father and a family man 1801 01:35:33,894 --> 01:35:35,438 on this farewell tour? 1802 01:35:35,521 --> 01:35:37,231 It's great. The boys are actually with us. 1803 01:35:37,314 --> 01:35:39,316 They're in Los Angeles. They're coming up… 1804 01:35:39,400 --> 01:35:41,986 So it's kind of hard to define that as a job. 1805 01:35:42,069 --> 01:35:43,696 I know that I was working hard, 1806 01:35:43,779 --> 01:35:47,742 but even before that concept of having a job that you thoroughly like, 1807 01:35:47,825 --> 01:35:50,077 I just knew that that's what I had. 1808 01:35:50,161 --> 01:35:52,121 -Nice to see you. -Good to see you. Fond memories. 1809 01:35:52,204 --> 01:35:54,206 -Hey, hang in there. All right. -Hey, hang in there. 1810 01:35:54,290 --> 01:35:55,416 Thank you so much, Sir Elton. 1811 01:35:56,375 --> 01:35:58,919 Nice jacket. I want that jacket. 1812 01:36:13,476 --> 01:36:18,773 He's keeping the music alive, and he's made a tremendous influence. 1813 01:36:25,529 --> 01:36:28,908 He was a Renaissance man, and still is to this day. 1814 01:36:34,538 --> 01:36:37,374 People back then that believed in the music, who dug the music, 1815 01:36:37,458 --> 01:36:39,210 it changed your life, it was your life, 1816 01:36:39,293 --> 01:36:40,336 and you don't give that up. 1817 01:36:41,253 --> 01:36:44,215 Yeah, he's still driven by the music. It does keep you young. 1818 01:36:47,301 --> 01:36:48,511 Crazy. 1819 01:38:54,178 --> 01:38:57,389 Subtitle translation by: Nick Lombardi