OpEdNews » The Great Louis Terkel. (You know him as Studs.)

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January 30, 2008 at 08:50:04

Headlined on 1/30/08:
The Great Louis Terkel. (You know him as Studs.)

by Lawrence Velvel Page 2 of 5 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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Isn’t it fit for a child to see?

“This is serious.”

“Does it have dirty words or dirty pictures.”

“What??”

“Does it? Come on, be a sport, lemme see. I won’t show it to the kid.”

With the determined step of an FBI man, he stalked toward the door. He had trouble with the lock. I opened it. “One for the road?” I was determinedly hospitable. He walked out without so much as a thank-you. His colleague followed suit, step by step.

Terkel then describes the last time he heard from the FBI, in a phone call from one Martin Shea, who, in a very funny scene, underwent a form of telephonic meltdown during the call due to Terkel’s responses.

The last time I heard from the FBI was a good twenty-five years ago. It was a telephone call. I was not in the best of moods. In sorting through my records, preparing for my disc jockey program, I had dropped a 78 rpm. It smashed into a million pieces. It was a collector’s item: “Joe Louis Blues.” Lyrics by Richard Wright. Vocal by Paul Robeson. Accompaniment, Count Basie and his band. I was furious as I answered the phone.

“Are you Louis Terkel, known as Studs?”

“Yeah!” Damn my clumsiness.

“This is Martin Shea, FBI.” It was a rich, stentorian bass. Strong, firmly American.

“Cut the shit. Who is it? Eddie?” I was in no mood for badinage.

“Shea of the FBI.” A note of uncertainty. An octave higher than before. A baritone.

“Fer Chrissake, don’t fuck around! Jimmy, ya sonofabitch!”

“I’m Shea of the FBI.” An intimation of tremolo. A tenor.

“Look, you cocksucker! I’m not in the mood. I just broke a valuable record. Understand?”

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http://velvelonnationalaffairs.com/

Lawrence R. Velvel is the Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, which educates the working class, mid-life people, minorities and immigrants. He is the editor of a journal called The Long Term View, hosts an hour-long TV book show called Books of Our Time, which appears in the New England and Mid-Atlantic states on Comcast's CN8 and is streamed on the internet, and hosts a radio program called What The Media Doesn’t Tell You. The radio program, which is carried on World Radio Network and is streamed on the internet, discusses important matters which the media doesn’t disclose (or insufficiently discloses) and the reasons for the nondisclosure.

Velvel wrote a 1970 book on the constitutionality of the Viet Nam War and civil disobedience, and a recent quartet called Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam, comprised of: Misfit In America; Trail of Tears; The Hopes and Fears of Future Years: Loss and Creation; and The Hopes and Fears of Future Years: Defeat and Victory.

Velvel blogs at velvelonnationalaffairs.com. His 2004 and 2005 posts have been published in Blogs From the Liberal Standpoint: 2004-2005.

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3 comments

36 year old Bid rose well above the ignorant environs of his family's upbringing and filled his mind with the extremes of subversive underground counterculture and illegal substances until he wound up sitting naked on the end of his bed in one of his empty rooms of this world, bleeding, and trying to braid a noose to hang himself with out of a trashbag that contained the last of his worldly belongings... Then he cut off all his hair and moved straight away to the wild unknown country where he c...

to see more of bio, click on member name
C.Bid36 year old Bid rose well above the ignorant environs of his family's upbringing and filled his mind with the extremes of subversive underground counterculture and illegal substances until he wound up sitting naked on the end of his bed in one of his empty rooms of this world, bleeding, and trying to braid a noose to hang himself with out of a trashbag that contained the last of his worldly belongings... Then he cut off all his hair and moved straight away to the wild unknown country where he c...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Excellent material...

Thanks so much for this inspiring and thoughtful piece.

Oddly enough, Studs has come up in many different forms around my house in the last three days -repeatedly. By this I mean stuff like opening a book at random and the first thing you see is his name... or even, like this afternoon -perusing Netflix and coming across some indie film that's description has two girls travelling the country with their camcorders and documenting it blah, blah, blah... and (yeah, you got it) they bump shoulders with Studs Terkel among other notables. Go figure.

Guess I need to go get his memoir, now.

by C.Bid (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 678 comments) on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 6:13:59 PM

56 years on this jumpin' green sphere. Musician. Own and operate a music store to help kids find a possible life long friend. I believe in the soul and the search. Happily married w/ 2 boys. Published songwriter. play bass, piano and gut string guitar. there are no solutions..only alternatives. Ask questions. Listen. Be fair and don't expect. Baseball is a mirror. Don't ask....unless you have time and a sense of humor. Peace is never easy, but worth it. Always.
mikel paul56 years on this jumpin' green sphere. Musician. Own and operate a music store to help kids find a possible life long friend. I believe in the soul and the search. Happily married w/ 2 boys. Published songwriter. play bass, piano and gut string guitar. there are no solutions..only alternatives. Ask questions. Listen. Be fair and don't expect. Baseball is a mirror. Don't ask....unless you have time and a sense of humor. Peace is never easy, but worth it. Always.

honesty and honor...what a combo!

Thanx for such an unexpected discovery, your Studs article. Thank you Mr. Velvel.

'Working' was my first Studs read. Makes me want to renew the joys of one of my Dad's "you gotta read this guy Mike". Jean Shepard is another Chicago attitude adjustment guy I heard on radio long ago tellin' a story about being stuck in a 1951 Korean foxhole with 9 Cubs fans. Seem like we are short these days on human stylists such as Studs and Jean.

That you are able to weave this so simply into our shortness of those two qualities so lacking in our leader base is not surprising.

I don't know how much intelligence per se plays into it. I'm kinda of the lean that it's more a common sense vitamin deficiency. Your quote that people can understand what is necessary for their well-being if it’s explained to them Honestly. BINGO. The funny thing is, after he spoke, they asked him all the right questions. They had understood everything he said and exactly what he meant. DOUBLE BINGO.

History is a buffet table for those who choose to eat. Taste it all I say. A little of everything and not too much of anything. Many of us I'm sad to say go hungry.

Studs is a chef.

Gotta read up on Wallace now. Thanx for the vine.

peace

by mikel paul (10 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 391 comments) on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 7:51:20 PM