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Source: Art H – Blackstone 1960 – Reel 0805-72 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: art-h-blackstone-1960-reel-0805-72-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:25:02
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The best is always last, you know. Ha ha ha ha. There's a psychiatrist in the house. I want to tell a story. This psychiatrist had a great big beautiful sanitarium. He took a lot of patients in who had a lot of money, and their families had a lot of money, and this particular instance, he realized that a lot of these patients of his were free load, and they should have been back out on the street, so he decided that he was going to screen them out. So he called two of them into his office at a time, and he said to this guy sitting here, he says, what does that remind you of? He said the hole in the donut. He says, you're back on the street. Says the other fellow, he says, what does that remind you of? He said Thursday. And he said Thursday, how do you get Thursday out of that? He says, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. You see, there are some outsiders here that haven't heard that before. Now our next on the program, are you just silly, tired, or tired, silly? I mean, what is it? I am, I'll tell you that. I'm silly, but silly. I'm sillier than usual. Art H., from Park Forest, Illinois. Hi. This is the most expensive engagement I ever played. I didn't expect as many out there as are out there. I'm thinking, man, these people can't stay awake that long unless they haven't got a place to sleep. I thought to myself, well, you wouldn't stay awake that long, would you?
I've been here a whole long day, just like the rest of you. I got here 8.30 in the morning. I sat through three conferences, I guess. I've been torn and wrenched and moved around every which way. And I thought to myself, well, when I get up here, whatever I do, I'm going to try and take it easy on myself and you. Now, as Al said, I'm in the music business, and it's not very important to anyone but me, but it does make it a little different.
I've heard many people say my story is not dramatic. Well, I can't quite say that. First time I got drunk, I was forced to get drunk. I think that's a little different. There was 18 hoodlums came into the place where I was working, and each one of them put a drink up on the piano, and they literally made me drink those 18 drinks. And I got so sick, I swore I'd never take a drink. Six months later, I was drinking.
I remember on one of these drinking occasions, sitting on a Chicago ash can about 2.30 in the morning and trying to call a cab. I remember that. I remember trying to call a cab, but the rest of it, a friend of mine told me who happened to come along a couple hours later, he says, what were you doing sitting there going like this? These are some of the things I remember about my drinking. I remember a boss getting four of us drunk one night, the night before we started work for him.
And the next night, he called two of us aside and he says, you two guys can't drink. It's a funny thing, of the other two fellows, one of them died from drinking at the age of 27, but he didn't tell him he couldn't drink. He told us to, we couldn't drink.
[00:05:11]
As I look back, there's been all kinds of signs where people have seen it. Of course, I haven't seen it. So the question comes up to me, what is an alcoholic? I'm not going to expound, believe me. I don't think I'm very wise. I don't think being in this movement has made me too wise up to this day. I know I wasn't wise enough to keep from getting sunburned. Nobody told me about these clouds, when they're down, you can still get burned. I found out the hard way.
What is an alcoholic? Well, let me tell you a couple of stories I've heard, maybe you've heard. A fellow comes into a cafe, bar, New York City, it's 8 o'clock in the morning, he's waiting for the place to open up. He's got a top hat, cane, spats, overcoat. It's wintertime. Sits down, orders a double. I'll have a double. Radio goes on, records, pretty soon an announcement, why suffer the rigors of New York weather, when for $25 in 25 minutes, you can catch a plane out of Hackensack, New York.
Another double, another commercial, another record. Gets the urge to travel. Says, Sam, I think I'll go out and get a little air. Says, well, as long as you're going out, how about getting me a corned beef sandwich and a cup of coffee. Dark, and a pickle. Okay. Here's the money. Well, no, pay me when I come back. Okay. He goes out, gets the corned beef sandwich, cup of coffee, the pickle, but on the way back to this bar, he stops at another bar. Sits at the bar, orders a double, same program, this time something clicks.
He gets a bus, he's in Hackensack, and four hours later, he's in Florida. Top coat, hats, spats, cane. Checks into the first bar, he can see, orders a double. There's two Broadway cops down there to pick up some criminal, and they know this character. Says, what are you doing here? Says, well, I was sitting at a bar in New York, and the radio was playing, and I heard this program. Says, the hell did you say? Says, it's the truth. So they call the airport, and says, well, he just got off. Well, book him right back on.
At six o'clock that evening, our actor walks in. I forgot to tell you that the bartender had been on the wagon seven years. He walks in the original bar that he started drinking, and the bartender says, where you been? He says, the Florida. Says, the hell you say? Says, the hell you say? Call up. And he called up, and he says, yeah, we just got off the plane. They both fell off the wagon, but good, and wound up in the hospital knickerbocker, and one turned out to be the other's sponsor. What is an alcoholic? This is a true story that they told me in New York when I came on.
There's a story about a guy that's sitting on 52nd Street, and about the fourth drink, he discovers that he hasn't got any dough. It's a sidewalk bit. He don't know what to do, and just about then, a cop comes by, and something clicks, and he says to the cop, he doesn't say anything to the cop. He points to the cop like this, the bartender wants you, and the cop walks in to the bartender. All eyes turn towards the cop walking in. There's a cab standing there. He jumps in the cab. He's still got no money. Take me to the nearest police station.
The cab driver drives him to the police station. He says, wait, I'll be right back. He goes upstairs. He says, I want to report a homicide. Where do I go? He goes upstairs. He sent him upstairs. He's wandering around. He sees a room. It says shower. He goes in there, takes a shower, gets through. Forty-five minutes later, he walks downstairs. He says, so long. The cab is gone, of course. He goes on his way. What is an alcoholic? I don't know. I didn't do either one of these things. I did crazier things.
[00:10:00]
But somewhere amongst those stories, I think I belong. And to me, that's a real good feeling, that I know I belong. I bounced around, not knowing where I was going, having some idea about making good and growing in the profession, things like that. Having no way of living, I was like the guy who said, you can lock me in a cave and come back 30 days later, and I'll still be alive. And they laid bets. And it's 30 days later, and they come there and they open the cave.
And one guy says to the other, look, he's living. And the guy in the cave says, do you call this living? Or a story about the two Negroes who are digging a hole, a grave, and this rich man is about to be buried in his pink Cadillac. And as they lower the Cadillac, one Negro looks at the other and says, that's what I call living. Yes, I indulged in a lot of that kind of living. And then came the day when I had to throw in the chips and call it quits.
It happened in a very funny way. A friend of mine who was my lawyer was also my sponsor, my drinking sponsor. He was the guy that when I would look off the stand, he'd be sitting there waiting with not one, but two of my favorite drinks and very little conversation. In the musical jargon, we call that a sponsor. That same fellow turned out to be my sponsor in AA. It just happened that he was walking down 6th Avenue. Instead of continuing on, he decided to go east.
Walked up to a bistro called Jimmy Ryan's where I happened to be, walked in, bought a soda, called me over, have a drink. I had one. He says, you look lousy. I says, you look great. What's the answer? He says, AA, bub. That's the first I've ever heard about AA. He says, well, call me up sometime. If you need any help, call me. Well, I had called any number of people, but they hadn't helped me. And unlike some of the stories you've heard, I wasn't without friends. I had a buddy who just came back from the war who owned half a bar.
His dad owned the other half. He was my buddy. I had at least four places to go to where I was welcome. It certainly wasn't welcome home, but I had other places where I was welcome. So I wasn't hurting for companionship, but I sure was hurting. And after a week of more hurting, I called my sponsor. And he says, meet me. I lived out in Long Island. He lived out about 88 in Manhattan. I met him. He never came to my house. But he always met me. He met me at 40th and Broadway. And he never failed to be there. He never carried me. He just carried the message.
He taught me like I've never want to forget, because this guy did a real good job of teaching.
[00:15:17]
I remember one day he says to me, let's see, you got no wife, she don't want you, you got no job. He took me up to the mirror, he says, breathe. Okay, we'll start from there. You got breath in the body. One time he took me in the subway. He says, look around. I looked around. He says, see anybody you know? I says, no. He says, if you was to drop dead, there wouldn't be a soul here that knows you. You talk about letting the air out of the balloon.
This guy did a masterful job. But the worst part was that after he got through, there was more to be done. I can go on about him, because that's the important part. Today it's a little different. Today I can sit in the cafe, at 9 o'clock I can see the roses come in. That's the young kids. They're about 19, 24. They come in and they got that nice look in their eyes. They got a good kick. And about 12 o'clock, it's another age group comes in. They're about 32, 40. A little more worn out. About 2 o'clock, we get the thistles and the thorns. This is the couple that at the tender age of 50, they have discovered love.
And they look at each other. Or they dance in, as if she's Greta Garbo and I don't know who he is. It's a real scene. Just a couple more things. When I came in, there weren't very many musicians, if any. There was one, but he wasn't attending meetings. And I had a hell of a lot of trouble wondering if I could ever perform, because I had never performed sober. I have never performed sober. And my performances weren't bad, because I've cut many records and I can hear them. And I know they weren't bad, because I can hear them today and I know they're not bad. So I couldn't use that excuse. But I had nowhere to go. It wasn't a question whether I could or couldn't.
The question is, did I want to go on living? And that I did, because from the beginning, I have been in love. I know what love is, because I've been in love with myself ever since I can remember. This has been the great love affair of mine. You heard about love today from all kinds of people. This is a different kind of love. And this I had to get over. So it was a little rough, that part. But as far as I'm concerned, Alcoholics Anonymous, this program, followed as outlined by everyone here, will work. And you can't help but getting better and better and better at whatever you do if you apply yourself. And that's the way it's been in my case. As far as I'm concerned, this is a success program. This is not a program of failure. This is a success program. This is for big boys. And big girls too. And I love it. I'm very much enamored with it. I spend a lot of time on it. Not enough. It's an adventure program. And I like adventure. And to me, there's no end to it. I've witnessed periods, but I see no periods. There are no periods that I see in this
[00:20:03]
program. There may be semi-colons, there may be apostrophes, I see no periods. Because from everything I see, it's all timeless. And that gives me a real good feeling about this whole thing. And I hope I haven't talked too much. Thanks very much. God Almighty, when will you get enough? My name's Joe. And I'm from Texas, which is no credit to anybody, I suppose. I drove in here and wanted to be sure of getting back, and I asked a filling station man, how do I get back to Texas? And he said, that's easy. Go east until you smell it, and then south till you're stepping. I have a peculiar affliction. There is none like it in California, I'm sure. I'm a wino. Now, don't make fun of the wino. Wine has some very wonderful medicinal purposes. It'll cure hay fever. If you drink it like I did, you won't cough, I'll tell you. There is a psychiatrist in the audience. He's one of my patients from down in Texas. But if there's any of you out there that are winos, don't feel bad about it. We have a very royal heritage. We were born to the purple, you might say. When they hauled me out of my apartment in Sacramento to take me to the hospital, there were 14 suits of purple underwear in the corner of the bathroom. Non-digestive after a little while. I came about that through a long process of tampering one way or another with drinks. Went down the line, and I got on wine quite by accident.
I met a little Irish bartender up in Sacramento, and I couldn't drink anything else. My system revolted at it. And he said, try a little of this wine, and then you can go back to whiskey. And I never have gone back to whiskey. I like what that stuff does to you. It's kind of like a closed umbrella going down, and it opens up. A lot of history behind us winos. Way back, I wanted to know where I came from. I made a lot of research on these things, characteristics and whatnot. It's not new disease. It came from way back there. They used to call me the hallucination kid, and I wondered where these DTs sprang from. And I hear these old AA members boiling over with the scripture. And I looked it up, and I found that the first case of DTs came out of the scriptures.
Fellow named Belshazzar. Ladies and gentlemen, I regret that we don't have enough tape here to finish Joe's talk. This is Charlie McTee, 210 East Davis Street, McKenna, Texas. Any of you should desire Joe's talk, I have it all complete. This is a talk that Joe made at Long Beach.