WEBVTT

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Any flickering?

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Okay, it's September 21st, 1982, and I am about to go off to Northwestern to, for my

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first official act of the new school year, counseling freshmen about what courses to

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take this afternoon. And so it's sort of a circularity here of coming back to where I was in one of the first shots of the film.

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I was talking about starting a quarter and here I am starting again in a different place, something like that.

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At that time my wrist was giving me a lot of problems and it was keeping me from doing things.

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And it was the symptom, I think, of where I was at at that point. It was sort of a metaphor for what was happening to me.

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I really felt like my hands were tied about doing anything at Northwestern.

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I think that problem has sort of gone away with getting tenure and with the stress going down and staying away from school this summer.

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Right now I have another problem though. I got hemorrhoids.

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And so I think, and I have to put this cream, anisol, rectal cream with hydrocortisone acetate, and soak my rear end.

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And so I can really sort of say that at this point the symptom, the metaphor, is different.

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It basically comes down to being a pain in the ass.

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So that's a different place to be. And it feels good to be in a different place.

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My name is Tom Anderson. I live in Milwaukee. I'm known for my truck since the release.

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When was it that you came to Ann Arbor?

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1972, 1971.

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1971 in the fall. And that was the last year I lived in Ann Arbor.

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And I got to know him as a neighbor. And it was a small court that we lived on where there was closed off to traffic.

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And there were eight houses there. And whether you wanted to or not, you ended up knowing everybody in the court.

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Chuck was moved on the scene and was a real interesting person.

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And I got a chance to talk to him about his work a few times.

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And I have a real vivid memory of Chuck wanting to really go over in detail issues that happened in the course of his organizing work,

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especially situations where he was criticized politically by other people that he was working with.

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What kind of issues?

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I remember a time when you drove your own car in a snowstorm and assumed that you were going to drive it.

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And were criticized later for being a male showman as a pig for assuming that you rather than the woman who was with you should drive the car.

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But there was a sense of conscientiousness of wanting to really take whatever might have been legitimate in the criticism and take it seriously and not to be condescending.

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And then also a feeling of being hurt by a criticism and obviously that someone else did feel upset about something, whether it was your fault or not.

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And a very direct emotional response and a real strong feeling of a need to work it through and to really process the whole experience in some way.

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And I remember the setting of the conversation being a very small study that one had to stand in the door, sit on the bed, if one wanted to talk to Chuck.

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Five, four, three, two, one.

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It's the 9th of June, 1982, and I'm standing in Braun Court in Ann Arbor.

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And about 11 years ago I lived here.

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I lived here at 315 Braun Court with Carolyn Winter and her son Lainey Vanderslice and Joanna Hammond and her daughter Lori.

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I lived here for about six months when I was basically a paid outside agitator sent to Michigan by a political organization that I was working for, I was on the staff of, called New University Conference, which was sort of a post-graduate SDS.

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And I was sent to Michigan to stir up all kinds of trouble and to organize in higher education, particularly around community colleges and so forth.

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And so it's a little nostalgic coming back here and seeing that it's not changed all that much.

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And the reason I'm in town is visiting my old friend Martha Vasinas, who was my political mentor and dear close friend.

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And so that's what I was doing back then.

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And there's just as many dogs and animals here as there used to be when I lived here.

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I used to live here, I'm just making a movie about my past and that's why we're here.

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I lived here 11 years ago, across the way.

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Nostalgia.

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Oh, that's a nice little bark.

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And so we're just having fun today, we're just relaxing.

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And there's lots of old memories here. It was really lots of fun to be here.

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And those were interesting days.

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Julie is really good at this, she knows just when to draw in on somebody.

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5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

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I'm Tommy Anderson, I'm an old friend of Chuck's. I lived in Milwaukee, I worked in Milwaukee since 1972.

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But the year before that I lived in Ann Arbor and I was a house away from Chuck.

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And I remember real vividly, my most vivid memory of him at that time is inside a study on the second floor of a house.

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And it seemed that any time that I talked to him there, I was standing up the door, he was sitting at his desk working real hard

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and having to take some report out about his organizing work, getting it back to the authorities or the central committee

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or whoever it was that he had the report on, his organizing.

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And I remember the place being filled with books.

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And I was a little amazed. It was a real working scholars and organizers sort of office.

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And it was very cramped and you couldn't get too far away from Chuck if you wanted to talk to him and he was in there.

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And I remember the rest of the house being real dark, usually in the evening, and this room very, very, very light.

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And him sitting at the desk and then he talked real earnestly and especially if he had a problem with his organizing,

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he'd been criticized for someone, for being a male showman, a pig, for making some arbitrary decision.

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And he'd go over the scene in detail with me and tell me everything about what the person did and what he did.

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And it wasn't what he did, actually pretty natural.

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And he wasn't really trying to offend anybody. In fact, he was trying to be helpful.

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And he just couldn't, he didn't understand the person that ever said anything about this criticism in person.

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But then it was written up later, he found out three weeks later that he really offended someone.

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What the hell is going on here?

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And we talked, I remember some of the first serious discussions I had about Marxism in that room.

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And again, it was a question of getting a lot of information and thoughtful analysis, but he was also...

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In 1901, the Asian organization called and organized the...

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was a plan and an analysis of how higher education functioned.

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And analysis which included an analysis of racism, of sexism, and was essentially one of the best, I think,

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and most sophisticated analyses of a large-scale...

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Alright, Chuck, what do you think that you should do for yourself that you haven't been doing?

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I think I should go to the dentist.

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How long has it been?

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What's the dentist?

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Well, last time I went to the dentist was in Bloomington, Indiana, so that would have been 1973.

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And before that?

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1972, I don't know.

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No, I don't think so. I think you were in the Navy before you went to the dentist.

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No.

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Okay, well, why haven't you gone to the dentist?

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Well, I don't know. I think it's...

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Well, first of all, you have to have money to go to the dentist.

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No, you've had money now for years, five years. You've had that insurance.

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Typical political cop.

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Well, no sympathy.

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I had a bad experience with my last dentist.

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What happened?

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Well, I sort of got emotionally ripped off by this quack, I think.

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Did he do bad dental work?

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Yeah. I ended up with a real aversion and a real fear of dentists after that.

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Was there physical pain in the rocks?

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No, it was this real super hippie dentist who was supposed...

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and you were supposed to really groove on all this wonderful natural thing

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and taking care of your body and everything.

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But in fact, the whole thing turned out to be a real ripoff, I think.

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Why do you want to go back to the dentist now?

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I think my teeth need to be worked on.

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Are you planning to go to the dentist?

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Yeah, I'll go to the dentist. Yeah, I'm going to go to the dentist.

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When?

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Before my birthday. So it'll be recorded on the film whether I win or not.

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That's a promise.

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What else do you think you should do for yourself?

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I think I should pay my income tax.

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I haven't paid my income tax in a long time.

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I mean, they take it out of my check. I've never filed the forms.

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You might get some money back.

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I might.

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I can think of something else you should do for yourself.

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Uh-oh. What's that?

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Get your boilo camera fixed.

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The film Thighline Liar Triangulum.

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Oh, what do I think of that?

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I think that film is, I think it's realistic.

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Why?

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Why? I think it's realistic because it portrays a real event even though it changes it through scratching on the film.

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What, and the distortion didn't do anything to the realism, you don't think?

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I think it's emotionally realistic.

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On the part of the wife, do you think he realistically portrayed her experience or his own observation of it?

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It portrays his version of life.

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That's enough.

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Okay, let's back it up.

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Alright.

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Great.

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Okay.

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In June 1977, I was appointed for one year at Northwestern.

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They'd opened up a permanent position finally and I would have it for the next year while they conducted a search.

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So I was called right the night before I was leaving for my usual visit to California and John Hess to work on Jump Cut to a curriculum meeting,

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which Patty Winnell called, the division chairman called at night at his house over dinner.

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Well actually, Stuart Kaminsky didn't show up, he stayed at home and sent a memo, which was his usual procedure.

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Jack Ellis showed up after dinner and we sat there with Dana Hodgson and there was lots of drinking going on and I felt like I was supposed to get into the drinking and become one of the boys in that way.

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And as it went on, there was a very clear humiliation that was taking place in which Patty was basically producing Jack Ellis the Tears and treating him in a really horrible, shabby way.

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It shook me up so much.

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It seemed so, like I was being brought in like the new man in town, men who couldn't deal with their muck and just attacking each other and fucking each other up.

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I left, I went to California and the next few days when I was in California I was just really shook up and people recall me and know me.

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I just, I didn't want to work with people who treated each other like that.

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I needed them and I ended up signing a one year contract and going in and working with them, it's kind of a boys club in the coming.

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Happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Jack, happy birthday to you.

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Alright, alright.

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Moment of truth.

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Woo!

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Let's see it.

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Oh.

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Oh my.

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Good, excellent.

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You have to say to the camera.

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Oh.

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This light is fluid in the rest of the room.

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I like the fact that you're producing.

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Yay!

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That's not all, there's something else in there.

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Oh my goodness, save the box.

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Do I have to open the can?

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No.

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It's a beautiful box.

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Is there more in there?

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Yeah.

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Don't put the box in the can.

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The field is into their intelligence.

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The box is in their intelligence.

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Woo!

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Here, I'll open this.

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Ice cream.

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What is the hand that you're playing with?

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She's got a can, I love it, she's got a, do it already.

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Turn around, turn around in the camera.

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Oh.

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Here's for my last show, isn't it?

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Oh.

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Right.

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Yay.

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What a wall.

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Yay.

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I've arrived on the west coast.

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Look at the cake.

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I'm trying to get an ocean floor down this time.

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Try to tell us your cake is nice.

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Edgy.

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Edgy, no.

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And Chuck will now retire to read listening music.

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Hey, you got your name, Chuck.

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Hey.

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I got my name already.