Audio Interview, Peter Fisher, 1974
- (Music playing, Peter Fisher singing)
- If you want to free someone, you'd better free yourself.
- If you want to be someone, you'd better be yourself.
- What I want is what I am, and I want it now.
- What I want is what is what I want, got to get it now.
- If you want to free someone, you'd better free yourself.
- If you want to be someone, you'd better be yourself.
- What I think is who I am, who I think is fine.
- Who I think is where I am, what I do is mine, all mine.
- If you want to free someone, you'd better free yourself.
- If you want to be someone, you'd better be yourself, yourself.
- What I am is who I am, and I am myself.
- If you want what I've got, better be yourself, yourself.
- Oooh, yeah, if you want to free someone,
- you'd better free yourself.
- If you want to be someone, you'd better be yourself.
- If you want to be someone, you'd better be yourself.
- If you want to free someone, you'd better free yourself.
- BRUCE JEWELL: In the gay community
- for your book, The Gay Mystique, which
- was published about two years ago.
- PETER FISHER: Yeah, it was published in 1972.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And could you tell me
- something about what you intended
- to accomplish with that book?
- I know it's now being used as a textbook in one
- college in Rochester.
- It seems to be a fairly--
- PETER FISHER: Yeah, it's being used in a number of places.
- Basically, what the publishers, Stein and Day
- wanted me to write-- they came up
- with the idea of the title, The Gay Mystique,
- and then proceeded to look for somebody to write the book.
- And I was in GAA at the time, organizing a demonstration
- against Harper's Magazine.
- BRUCE JEWELL: That was for their article--
- who was it that--
- PETER FISHER: Joseph Epstein, it was a very anti-gay article.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Joseph Epstein.
- When he wished us all off the earth.
- I think that was the one.
- PETER FISHER: Exactly.
- So we held a demonstration in their offices, part of which
- was presenting them with several articles by gay people,
- asking them to print the opposing view.
- Which they refused to do.
- And one of the articles was mine,
- and George Caldwell who was the managing
- editor of Stein and Day saw it.
- And so he suggested to me that I submit an outline,
- because they were interested in doing a book like that.
- And basically their concept of the book
- was a book that would be written to sort of explain
- the gay world to straight people.
- They didn't want a thing that was merely from the movement
- perspective, they wanted a more general book
- that talked about some of the myths and misconceptions
- that the straight world, and even many gay people,
- have about homosexuality.
- So I tried to write a book that did that.
- But I also tried to write it--
- I tried to show it from a human point of view,
- by writing about my own life, my own experiences.
- I think so many of us gay people go
- through almost a standard pattern of experiences because
- of growing up in a society that has been
- so negative about gay things.
- I know when I was a teenager at first, wondering if I was gay,
- I went to the library and all I could find-- homosexuality
- was listed under psychosis, and the books
- were filled with these descriptions that
- called me sick and twisted, and this and that.
- And it was very damaging.
- And so one of my own goals was to write
- a book that would sort of tell it like it is,
- and a book that would be there for young people who wondered
- if they were gay to read, and maybe
- get a less frightening and less disturbing
- picture of what sexuality is about.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I've sometimes found
- people are remarkably insensitive to things
- like those book titles.
- For a long time, I felt that myself.
- Like announcing that I was a homosexual would be like saying
- I was a psychotic, sick, perverted deviant.
- And you don't exactly tell your friends
- and family things like that.
- It was pretty bad.
- I guess Barbara Gittings is changing
- the library scene a bit.
- PETER FISHER: Yes, she's been a remarkable person.
- She organized a group called the Gay Task
- Force within the American Library Association.
- This was gay librarians who examined the books that
- existed, and criticized many of the very anti-gay ones that
- were in libraries.
- And criticized, basically, the fact
- that all things that were positive about homosexuality
- had been carefully screened out of most libraries.
- And the Gay Task Force, I was very fortunate to receive--
- to be a co-winner of their award at the gay book
- of the year in 1972, with Lesbian/Woman-- along
- with Lesbian/Woman by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon.
- And I think that by each year focusing on gay books,
- and also by providing a gay bibliography,
- the task force with the librarians
- does a remarkable job for us.
- They were the first professional association to organize,
- now there are gays organizing within the medical profession,
- lawyers, sociologists, psychologists,
- there are gays organizing within all professions.
- And it may be that we will get employment protection
- this way faster than by work on the type of civil rights laws
- that we're also pushing for.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well covering information about homosexuals
- is not--
- the medias often do a pretty effective job
- of keeping the facts away from people about lives.
- Though that seems to changed, I noticed when WH Auden died,
- he--
- one magazine, either Time or Newsweek--
- I forget which one-- did mention that he was homosexual.
- Though when they went on to talk about his lifelong interest
- in freedom and justice for people,
- and the inspiration for his poetry,
- and so on, they never made any connection whatsoever.
- The homosexuality was just something that happened.
- And had no relationship to his work as an artist.
- And I don't think that's very often true.
- So like looking at the Sistine Chapel and all
- those male figures and assuming that Michelangelo's sexuality
- had nothing to do with the type of paintings he painted.
- Well, we've been in the gay--
- PETER FISHER: That reminds me of something, in that we
- had hearings just recently.
- It was the third or fourth round of public hearings--
- third round of public hearings on our civil rights bill
- in the New York City Council.
- And as usual, the testimony in favor of it was overwhelming.
- Many, many prominent people from all areas of--
- all walks of life, all professions and everything.
- But there were, as usual, a few people coming down
- to testify against it, religious cranks, and people
- with hangups about homosexuality.
- But there was one man who came down and he went and he--
- first of all, he went through an incredible trip
- of saying that ours was a love so evil that it was hate,
- and that if the bill passed, America would be taken over
- by psychic mutants, which is how he viewed gay people.
- But the thing that brought it to mind
- was that he then went on to say how homosexuality was just
- a sign of decadence.
- And as an example, he used Greece and Rome,
- two civilizations, he said, that were
- built entirely by heterosexuals, and destroyed by homosexuals.
- And that's-- everybody in the audience there,
- in the city council chamber laughed.
- But there is an incredible pattern
- where the gayness of, you know, major historical figures
- has just sort of hidden away, and pretended that there really
- weren't any gay people in history,
- or that there aren't just a prominent gay people today.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I'm often amazed by the Greek and Roman
- business, because in both civilizations, so much of it,
- in fact, reaches height under the ruling of homosexuals.
- PETER FISHER: Exactly, and the Renaissance also.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Not-- if we were going
- to attribute to declines of empires,
- we could just as easily attribute them
- to heterosexuals.
- We might even think of our own country in that,
- in its present period.
- PETER FISHER: It was during the period
- when Rome was declining that Christianity became the Roman
- power.
- And it was then that gay people were
- put to death in the coliseums, and it
- seems to me that was a sign of decay,
- rather than the gay people.
- And I think that the pattern has been in history, that when
- there was the freedom for wide diversity of lifestyles,
- including homosexuality, and a flexibility
- and fluidity of roles, that these were the most
- creative periods, such as the golden age of Greece,
- and the Renaissance.
- And I think that if we're really entering a period now where
- gay people are allowed to exist as part
- of the rest of humanity, and there is that kind of freedom,
- we may be going into a new period
- where there will be a real renaissance, and new burst
- of creativity.
- I think we certainly need it.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I think there is an emphasis on politics
- which perhaps is, in a sense, too great.
- The legislators and the city councilmen
- actually did not create the laws which discriminate
- against gay people.
- And now, for reasons of their own,
- they're afraid to change them, frequently enough.
- However, the society, it seems to me,
- as a whole has not shown itself that unresponsive.
- PETER FISHER: No, you're really right, there, you're right.
- Because I think in city after city,
- as this kind of legislation has come up,
- when the hate mongers have turned out
- and started their propaganda, it has turned out
- that the average citizen was pretty decent,
- and was not about to treat gay people that way.
- And this is the amazing thing here--
- which, the firemen called their rally, for last Tuesday,
- and they were saying it was going to be a rally of 5,000
- people, and that they wanted all organizations,
- and all straight people-- they specified in the ad--
- to support it, and to beat this abominable bill.
- So we were expecting a really hideous scene
- down at City Hall.
- And we had decided that we would have no--
- we were not going to seek any sort of confrontation
- by sending a group of gays down to demonstrate or anything,
- we felt we'd just let them do their ugly trip.
- But many of us did want to go down just to see what happened.
- So we went down and looked around,
- and it was really so refreshing.
- Here was this small band of firemen in uniform,
- fire officers with white hats, trying
- to get people to sign their petition against the bill,
- and trying to give out leaflets.
- And people didn't want to bothered,
- they weren't listening, they couldn't even draw a crowd.
- Finally at the peak of it, about forty fire officers
- appeared on the steps of City Hall with flags
- and spoke over a microphone, you couldn't hear a word they said.
- And they marched down to the City Hall parking lot
- and milled around for about a half hour,
- and that was the rally.
- And they just were-- if they had at a maximum maybe 300 or 400
- people, probably half of whom were gay people there,
- just to see what was happening.
- You know, it was just a total flop.
- And so they immediately announced,
- when the press was interviewing them, that they canceled it.
- That that was why there was nobody there.
- Which was totally untrue.
- And it made us all feel so good, because we really
- felt that it was something that New York City could
- be very proud of.
- That when there was a call for hate, people didn't turn out.
- And I felt it was something that the fire department could
- feel enormously proud of, too.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You know, my feelings are, I
- guess contrary to some degree, to yours.
- As I said, I don't feel that people by and large,
- have been unresponsive.
- I don't feel there's a basis for alienation
- from the general society, other than for the reasons
- that other people seem to get alienated as well.
- It seems to me that one of the problems the gay movement has
- yet to meet at all successfully is setting up
- some kind of alternative models, as we
- were discussing about earlier.
- And we find-- at least I find-- many of the meeting
- places that gays still go to are the same things that
- have been around for ten or fifteen years.
- The attitudes within these places
- are just as repressive as they ever were.
- The general styles of social interaction
- are just as unbecoming.
- And this is something that gay people
- could deal with, insofar as it involves relationships
- among ourselves.
- And as a step towards this, a certain number of us
- are more or less out.
- A certain number of us have demonstrated by being out,
- that you can be out without facing enormous problems.
- I'm interested to know, you know,
- what you think we might be doing in that type of area?
- We're already getting into areas like music
- again, with albums being released.
- Clearly there's been a big impact here,
- sometimes you wish that some people hadn't taken up
- the theme.
- I'm thinking of somebody like the New York
- Dolls, who are, I gather, straight,
- and really no credit to anyone.
- And so how do we take advantage of what is now a society which
- is becoming more responsive?
- PETER FISHER: Well I don't know how we take advantage of it.
- I think it's just sort of--
- it's happening as a large process, that
- very slowly being accepted into the mainstream
- of American culture.
- Oh, I shouldn't say slowly, really.
- I think it's-- I'm surprised at how fast it's happening in some
- ways.
- Something like popular music, it's so important to me
- there be gay music, because the songs that
- are played on the radio, day after day,
- shape the consciousness of the people who listen to them,
- I think.
- And I think it's very important that gay people have gay music
- to listen to, that they be able to tune into a station
- and hear gay music that expresses their reality,
- and their consciousness, and their experiences.
- And not just in the guise of heterosexual terms.
- So many beautiful love songs that have become old standards
- were written by gay people, about people they loved.
- And yet they're always assumed to be--
- they're always taken in a heterosexual context.
- BRUCE JEWELL: One of the things that I
- find saddening is that there are a great many writers
- and playwrights in this country who are gay--
- more and more of them are coming out--
- and yet, they're really still writing
- for a heterosexual audience.
- And I think there's a big difference between gay people
- who write, or do work for heterosexual audiences,
- and gay people who are doing it--
- doing their artistic activities for gay audiences.
- It shapes-- I find usually that the material that
- comes out straight audiences is to my mind, unsuccessful.
- And in fact, usually fails to convey very much of what
- gay life is really like.
- You have to speak to people who you
- assume have some understanding of what you're speaking about,
- in order to really say very much.
- And I'm wondering here, again, if we can't look forward
- to more activities, theatre, literature.
- There has been some literature, there
- was a book-- what was it called, The Lord Won't Mind.
- It was a perfect piece of trash, as a matter of fact.
- It was pro-gay, but still--
- it was trash.
- PETER FISHER: It presented a world that was so unreal.
- BRUCE JEWELL: It was just incredible.
- And that was on the best seller list,
- I think, for weeks and weeks.
- PETER FISHER: If it had said the lord won't mind if you're gay,
- it wouldn't have sold, because gay people would
- have been afraid to buy it, because the word gay was on it.
- And this is one, you know, the oppression works two ways.
- For one thing, straight business people, publishers,
- music people in the music industry, promoters, whatever--
- don't want open gays, or haven't until very recently.
- They wouldn't go near an openly gay person,
- for any sort of artistic endeavor.
- And the other thing is that gay people themselves,
- for fear of being thought to be gay,
- have often shunned anything that was openly or proudly gay.
- And it's a real shame, because there's so much gay talent that
- has just been stranded.
- I've seen-- like several gay cultural ventures here
- in the city have just folded because no financial backing
- could be gotten.
- Everybody's working on a volunteer
- basis, people writing for magazines,
- nobody getting any pay.
- And yet you couldn't find a single gay businessman
- or businesswoman in this city-- you have so many successful
- gays in it--
- who would put anything behind it.
- Venture after venture has gone under like this.
- There are a number of really fine gay plays
- and musical revues around which should get a wider hearing,
- which should be recorded.
- And I think that there are a lot of wealthy, closeted gays
- who are afraid to go near it for fear
- that somehow it will rub off on them.
- And it's a shame, because these people are probably
- in a better position than anybody else
- to be out of the closet.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I don't know.
- It's difficult for me to say what's going on, or even--
- there was-- in Rochester at the Kodak,
- a gay play was put on at the Kodak buildings there.
- And it played for two days, a Saturday and Sunday,
- and it was absolutely packed.
- It was put on by Kodak employees,
- I guess they were gay Kodak employees, which
- is very interesting.
- Here the company is actually supplying
- the facilities for the production of a gay play
- by gay men.
- PETER FISHER: That sounds like a first, as far as I know.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And it was packed, you know.
- It went over very well.
- Peter, I know you are interested in the phases
- that movements go through.
- Sociologists have outlined some of them,
- and we can observe them for ourselves
- as people who have been active in one movement or another.
- What kind of phases do you think the gay movement
- has gone through, is going through,
- and can look forward to?
- PETER FISHER: Well it's really--
- it went through an initial stage where
- there were a few organizations, working very quietly, sort of
- behind the scenes.
- The early Mattachine society was really revolutionary
- for its time, but it was a much more quiet operation
- than gay organizations are today.
- It worked behind the scenes, providing legal services,
- and attempting to use educational means
- to change society.
- And with the Stonewall rebellion in 1969,
- the movement really entered a new phase of activism.
- It started off with GLF, the Gay Liberation Front, militantly
- visible, politically committed.
- And in the course of the next year,
- GLF spun off the Gay Activist Alliance,
- which was also militantly visible and political,
- but it was a single issue organization.
- The Gay Liberation Front had basically
- been working on the theory that all minority groups had
- a common struggle, and so the gay fight,
- gays should align themselves with other struggles.
- What ended up happening, at least
- in the opinion of many people, was
- that although gays turned out in support of many other issues,
- none of the support was returned.
- And gay people were usually left off the lists
- of oppressed minorities--
- blacks, women, Chicanos, Indians, everyone,
- check them off down the list-- but they never quite
- got to gay people.
- Or if we were included, we were always the last on the list.
- And when there were rallies, nobody
- wanted to have gay people--
- gay speakers speak along with the other ones.
- So there was a feeling that the gay movement
- needed to at least go through a period of being a single issue
- movement, where we worked on our own issues,
- on issues concerning homosexuals,
- and we didn't focus on other issues.
- Of course, and so, an organization like GAA
- was formed, which is a single issue organization,
- and its members could participate
- in other political causes outside of the framework
- of the organization.
- But the organization itself was only to work
- on issues affecting gay people.
- And that gave us the kind of focus, I think,
- that made successful activism possible.
- And I think it launched the era we're now
- seeing all across the country, of gay activism.
- You see it in major cities in virtually-- no, in every state,
- in every single state.
- You see it on the campuses of most large universities.
- And the single issue concept is very strong in the country now.
- Some groups adhere to it more firmly than others.
- But I think that as this--
- I think that that era will eventually pass.
- I think the era of activism will eventually pass,
- and there will probably be a quiet era.
- When you think of the gap in time between feminist work
- at the turn of the century, and throughout the century,
- then the real rebirth of the women's
- movement in the last decade or so.
- We may have a long period of quietness also.
- I don't know, I think that today movements evolve,
- and grow, and die, and are reborn much faster
- because of the operation of the mass media.
- I think we've gone through stages
- of getting into the media a lot faster than earlier
- civil rights movements.
- I think we'll also probably, you know, evolve and pass
- onto another stage faster, too.
- One possible direction that I think we'll eventually be going
- is based basically on the way I perceive the world.
- I think that one of the major problems facing the world
- is overpopulation.
- And that if the world is not to become just a nightmare,
- we're going to have to come to grips with that problem.
- We're already on the brink of very terrible famines
- in the coming years, in Africa and other parts of the world.
- We have a terrible imbalance in the distribution of wealth
- and resources, and every year the population increase
- goes on.
- It's just going to be made worse.
- I think that what will have to come
- will be a reinterpretation of the nature of sexuality.
- So that sexuality is not viewed primarily
- as a reproductive function, but rather
- as a social one, an expressive function.
- And I think that gay people and other sexual minorities
- will necessarily have to get their rights,
- as this new view of sexuality comes in.
- For that reason, I think that the gay movement,
- or the gay cause, is intimately, and theoretically,
- and basically, linked to women's liberation, to other movements,
- conservation, ecology, zero population growth.
- I believe that ultimately--
- and really, also, really in the very near future-- already
- we're working very closely with the other minorities
- in city politics.
- There isn't anything like a common front,
- but we are now beginning to get support
- from black politicians, and Puerto Rican politicians.
- The women's movement has been very
- supportive of the gay movement recently.
- It started off initially with a lot of fear about gay women,
- and purges of lesbians.
- But I think that by and large they've gotten past that.
- They've been very, very helpful in organizing
- the hearings and the testimony we've
- had in relation to our bill, and they've
- been supportive in other demonstrations,
- and other programs.
- I think that the two movements are very, very
- basically linked.
- It's-- sexual freedom for women and for gays are inseparable.
- But we're still at the point where, for example,
- GAA is a single issue organization,
- and now is a feminist organization.
- And the issues have not merged together,
- but I think that the longe range, they may.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Do you think if we do have a quiet period,
- then this might provide an opportunity for more grass
- roots work within our own people?
- The gay movement came very suddenly,
- I'm not really sure that we have ever
- been too successful at explaining issues
- that exist to gay people.
- One of the comments that I've often heard
- is, well, it's my private life, and I
- don't want to involve myself with my private life
- in public matters.
- Actually, the underlying tone there
- is that the person is afraid of his private life.
- In fact, it's not a private life--
- PETER FISHER: Or that it's a separate compartment, isolated
- from the whole rest of their existence.
- BRUCE JEWELL: But it's really not a private life when
- you have to be afraid of it.
- Privacy is something that has to be built.
- When it isn't existed, then you become afraid
- of your activities.
- And that is the tone I get to those types of comments
- about my private life.
- It's really not private, because they're
- afraid that it will become a basis
- for other types of action, their work or something like that.
- PETER FISHER: Well, I don't think that the movement will
- become quiet all of a sudden.
- I think there are many years of gay activism left.
- It's still working itself out all across the country.
- I think that the era of gay activism
- will probably be over when the sodomy laws have been repealed
- in the states of the nation, and there are fair employment laws
- protecting gay people, human rights
- laws protecting gay people throughout the country.
- But I think that what we move on to then
- is what you're talking about, which is the need
- to translate these political changes into a much more
- meaningful change in the situation
- gay people live in, the way gay people perceive themselves.
- To bring these changes home to the gay population.
- And I don't think politics can do that, at least
- that's been the experience in New York.
- The movement has touched only a tiny part
- of the gay population.
- And lots of-- not that--
- I shouldn't say that there haven't been some influences--
- but most gay people don't identify
- with the movement, don't identify themselves
- as open homosexuals.
- And I think that that won't happen, you won't find people
- coming out in large numbers, and adopting
- proud self-confident lifestyles, until there
- have been cultural changes.
- And this is why things like gay music,
- gay literature, gay films--
- all these different gay ventures--
- are very, very important.
- Because they provide new ways for gay people
- to see themselves, new models for people to base their
- lives on.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Peter, I know you're working on a new book.
- Could you tell me something about that?
- PETER FISHER: Well yes, it's a novel set--
- well, it spans the year 1972.
- And it's a story about-- it's a gay love story, really,
- two people falling in love.
- It's narrated by one character, who,
- at the beginning of the book basically thinks he's straight,
- because he's managed to suppress a lot of homosexual feelings.
- But by the end of the book, he is in love
- with the other character.
- And I set the story against, sort of,
- the backdrop of the events of 1972, which I thought
- was a very, very important year in the country's history.
- I felt as I was living through 1972--
- when the Watergate burglary was revealed, and a lot of things
- were being revealed, that most of the country
- didn't seem to be reacting to--
- I felt as though we were living through a period that
- was going to be looked back upon by history
- as a very important one.
- It was sort of the heights of the imperial presidency,
- with Nixon rising to his landslide,
- and really taking control of the government.
- And so I felt that year that I wanted
- to write a book about what was happening,
- I wanted to immerse myself in it.
- I immersed myself in the media, and the events, the Watergate
- hearings, tried to soak it up so that I could write
- a book about what was happening to the country, what
- it felt to be like in America.
- In that, the last year the Vietnam War,
- with the Christmas bombing, and the many horrible things
- that were going on.
- And at the time, I wished there would
- be something like a chance for the truth to come out,
- but I didn't really think there was much chance.
- I've been since--
- BRUCE JEWELL: The truth about Watergate?
- PETER FISHER: Watergate, yeah.
- I've been given a great deal more hope
- by the fact that the truth has come out,
- and the country does seem to be waking up, and returning
- to some of its older principles that it was founded on.
- At least making the attempt.
- But anyhow, I wanted to write about that year,
- and so that's what the book is about.
- And I'm hard at work on it.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And it's a gay story set
- with this kind of background.
- PETER FISHER: Uh huh, well also--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Are you showing any interrelationship
- between the characters and the background, or is it--
- how is that being handled?
- PETER FISHER: Well, basically, I'm showing how, you know,
- what the reactions of the narrator are.
- What the reactions-- what my reactions
- were to the events that were going down.
- I also bring in--
- there were a number of things happening that year in terms
- of the gay movement in New York City, which
- is where the story takes place.
- It's pretty much an autobiographical book,
- just taking my life and putting it
- into several different characters.
- But a number of the things that happened that year
- show where the gay movement was at.
- Such as the beatings at the Inner Circle dinner
- at the Hilton, there was the defeat of Intro 475.
- There was the involvement of the gay movement--
- not of the movement, but of some people
- in trying to work with the McGovern campaign.
- So it's really just--
- there are connections.
- I think that it was maybe a pivotal year
- at the gay movement, too.
- We certainly have gone on to better
- times in the gay movement, it was a very bad year
- for gay rights.
- We took a lot of defeats, a lot of painful defeats.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You've completed this book now.
- PETER FISHER: Well it's not completed,
- I've completed several chapters and the outline, the basic plot
- structure.
- So I'm at the point where I want to go look for a publisher now.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Do you have an idea of what
- the name of the book will be?
- PETER FISHER: Oh yes, I have it very clearly in mind.
- I don't know how a publisher will feel about it,
- but it's called Numb Nuts.
- Nuts.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Numb Nuts?
- PETER FISHER: Numb Nuts.
- And the reasons for that are hard to explain
- without going into it.
- But one of the characters in the book
- is based on Marty Robinson, who was
- one of the real most inspired spirits of the early days
- of the movement.
- And Marty once had a rap to me about--
- he works as a carpenter, he works with the hardhats
- on construction sites.
- And he one of the most common terms they use for each other
- is numb nuts.
- It's a sort of slang expression of affection.
- He was pointing out how strange it
- is when men have to sort of castrate themselves
- in order to be affectionate.
- That the only way they can relate to each other
- was by numbing the affection, numbing their feelings.
- And Marty felt that the whole country
- was really numb in 1972.
- That Nixon and his administration
- were very adeptly playing upon the feelings of the country,
- and dividing the country, and numbing people
- to the kind of things that were really
- being done, the kind of things that
- were being done in their name.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, he had a silent majority
- that he talked about, and he intended to keep them silent,
- I think.
- PETER FISHER: Yeah, well anyhow, that metaphor
- of Marty's and the whole numb nuts thing
- just struck me as sort of a central concept
- to a lot of what my book was about.
- About the country needing to wake up, and not waking up.
- And also basically about exploring the kinds of roles
- that men are trapped into, being forced to deny their sexuality,
- and be cut off from their feelings.
- That's another process that's going on in the story
- as the narrator develops, and becomes
- more aware of his own feelings.
- He becomes less and less numb nuts,
- which is the nickname that Marty gives him.
- So I don't know how a publisher is
- going to react to a title like that,
- but that's what I think the book should be called,
- and that's what it is to me.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Are you planning any more books?
- You've written one book now on an essentially social
- political issue, and now a novel.
- Do you have any other plans?
- BRUCE JEWELL: I have several different books in mind
- that I want to write.
- There is mostly fiction, I really
- want to try to develop fiction as my writing form,
- because I think it's more flexible.
- The kind of things I want to talk about are more easily--
- I think they're more easily done in fiction.
- I don't know.
- We'll just have to see how it goes.
- But I want to write a--
- a couple of sort of science fiction books
- I'm interested in writing.
- Basically it's very difficult to know where I'm going,
- because I've got a lot of irons in the fire,
- I'm working with music, and with painting, and with the writing.
- But I think that probably the writing
- is the thing that will be most central for me.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you very much, Peter,
- I've enjoyed these few hours in your apartment,
- and hope to meet you again.
- PETER FISHER: Thanks a lot, Bruce.
- (Music playing, Peter Fisher singing)
- Feel the shapes upon the water.
- See them sail along the breeze.
- Children wander through the forest looking for the trees.
- Someday when ships come in we will all be free.
- Stand beside me by the water looking out to sea.
- See the sail against the sunlight.
- See the sunlight fill the sky.
- If you dare, sail the sunshine.
- Careful not to fly too high.
- Someday when ships set sail, we will all be free.
- Come with me and share the sunshine, sailing off to sea.
- The magic of the moment.
- Sing a song of birth.
- Come and sail the inner ocean, see what life is worth.
- Someday, when we're all together, we will all be free.
- Come and join the last adventure.
- Come and sail the sea.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Silver ships upon the water.
- Golden dreams beyond the sky.
- If you dare to sail the sunshine,
- don't forget to say goodbye.
- Some day when ships come in, we will all be free.
- Stand beside me in the sunshine, looking out to sea.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye.