4-part Hob Broun Interview: Tape 1 | Tape 2 | Tape 3 | Tape 4

The above is the 2nd tape of an audio interview of Hob Broun by Schuyler Ingle, recorded on cassette in September of 1985. The interview was never made public, except some of the material was used in this obituary in the LA Times. The recordings were intended to be used as reference only, so the quality is not great, and at times it was in inaudible or unintelligible, despite best efforts to clean it up. There were also gaps in Hob Broun's speech, being that he was on a respirator (which you can hear in the background), so a lot of these long gaps and small talk were edited out to make it easier for the listener (in this 2nd tape, 47 minutes were reduced to 14). On this tape, he talks about writing, his surgery, how he became a quadraplegic, Breece D'J Pancake, Los Angeles, horse racing, jockeys, and American culture in general. The following is a written transcript of tape 2. We will post the other tapes as we transcribe them.

Schuyler Ingle: How did you work?

Hob Broun: You see that picture behind you? That's my 1948 Remington typewriter, on which I was a very rapid press box 2-finger typist. Yah, I liked that. And I was living on, let's see, over here on 6th and Hawthorne, a weird neighborhood. And I worked from 2 to 7 every day. That was the only time I ever wrote with a set schedule. Sometimes I'd cheat, but I was pretty conscientious, 2 to 7 every day. And I was allowed 10 cigarettes to tie me over. I'd cheat about that, too, but I was also conscientious.

SI: What did you smoke?

HB: Salems. I used to smoke Kools, then they changed their package, or Newports.

HB: Yah, there's a certain sort of guilt fuel. If I didn't work, I'd feel bad about it. Like, what were you doing instead. Oh, it's different now. Now it's the focus of what I'm surviving for. Since I have to survive, that's the law. I have to fill the time, I have to do something. It still takes up most of my energy, and most of my concentration, what I'm not doing about it. When I'm not doing it, I think about it, I can't sleep. I spend a lot of time lying in that bed thinking. When I'm not thinking about the past, I'm thinking about that.

SI: You don't dwell on the future?

HB: Nah, there isn't any future. There's just the next day, that's all.

SI: What brought on the surgery, I never really have gotten that story.

HB: Well, there'd been a deterioration of, I had chronic bladder infection's all the time. Because when you have nerve damage you can't empty your bladder, it backs up. So you get infections, that's what it started out with.

SI: This was when?

HB: Let's see, maybe '78. Yah, it was about 4 years, following. I was impotent, I was constipated. My right leg started to go out on me. Then finally Freda said, well you should see a neurologist. She thought I had MS, that was her secret.

SI: You hadn't been looked at, in all that time?

HB: Oh I'd been to all kinds of urologists, and shit, but nobody figured that part out. We didn't figure it out until I was on the fucking table. I mean, I saw the X-rays, they looked at the X-rays. They told me I had a little cyst, I'd be out in six weeks. All my troubles would be over.

SI: What was it?

HB: It was a tumor the size of a banana, wrapped around my spine like a liana. And I was literally choking myself to death.

SI: What was the result of that?

HB: Well, according to them, my lights would have been out in six months. A far happier result than this, but uh, it was not to be.

SI: So there's no explanation for why this thing grows, or—

HB: No, it was benign. It was not the scourge of god, cancer. They approximated it had been there 10 years, like some tuber, potato, or something. And about 10 years before I had, I had some very strange episodes, for which I had gone into the hospital to take a whole lot of tests, and they said, "Take Valium." You know, sort of the wastebasket diagnosis. Since they couldn't find anything, well, it's in your head. Learn to relax, next case. So my guess is that's when it started. An act of god, as they say in the insurance business.

[becomes inaudible/unintelligible]

HB: No sensation. If somebody fucked up and broke my leg, I'd probably feel that. In some ways this is probably better. Most quads are young guys who went out one night and fucked up. They flipped their motorcycle, smashed their car. And I imagine they must just relive that endlessly. I can't blame other people. This in a real sense was done to me, I didn't do it. It was an act of god and the surgeon as his agent. I got to 33 before I got here. Some of those guys, Jesus, they're in their teens. They never really got a shot. They just have to sit and watch, and wonder what it would have been like.

[inaudible]

HB: I think the book probably changed. I think it was going to end up in the same place. I think I was as disgusted with modernism, before I went into the hospital, as I am now. Well, maybe not quite as much, now since I can't do anything but look at it, you tend to see more. That's basically what it is. Maybe that's why I'm into this period thing.

[unintelligible]

HB: Oh, just uh, the situation that we're all in here. Overdeveloped, western civilization, I just think it's hopeless and untenable, and I hope I've dispensed with it and need no longer say anything about it. I do have this other story line I'm working on, that I may develop. It's in, uh, it's at a remove.

HB: [unintelligible, but from Schuyler Ingle's notes: It's about this guy who goes to Surinam to direct a documentary. He's almost 50, he's directed a lot of trashy movies. Been in jail. So he's sort of older, much less intense. A whole different attitude, I just want to leave all that stuff out in the desert with that guy. It never really comes directly from me. It's all made up. Obviously everyone has their own filters. But the last thing I would think of is writing about being a quad. It would be like writing a letter. That old saying about writing what's in your own backyard: as a reader, I've never enjoyed those books where you can see someone's experience plopped down. I wouldn't mind hearing about it in their living room, but that's not the experience I want when I read a book. One review said, how much of this book is autobiographical. The only piece in there that's pretty much straight through is about my friend who went out his window. The rest is, well, I worked at CBS. I lived in a couple of those cities. But other than that, you'd really have to make an effort to piece it together. I knew that was going to be a problem. People are basically pretty literal minded, and they are just going to assume that "I" is I. None of that stuff could happen to one person, really. I'd like to meet him. One of the people who worked here wondered, "what will your mother think?" Well, fortunately my mother is an actress and she understands what illusion is about. She doesn't take these things as literally as other people.]

SI: Well, the other side of the, University of Iowa [undecipherable]

HB: Have you read this guy named Breece Pancake.

SI: Yah, it's like, several initials. I never read him.

HB: I recommend his book right now, I didn't have much of a taste for that stuff, but this guy really had a shotgun. He blew himself literally with a shotgun. Up close on one side. I don't remember if he was over it, or just short of it. But that was the one book he left behind. It's a real wallop, some of that stuff. I'd never heard of the guy, but that is his real name, too.

SI: Did you ever read T.C. Boyle?

HB: Yah. I liked Water Music. I have another book of his, Budding Prospects. My dad gave it to me.

SI: Flat in comparison.

HB: Well, the period thing is hard to do. You can really fall on your face. But I thought he pulled it off pretty well. But I've read other people's efforts where, some of them just get too far into it. Or you'll run across this sort of, this island of undigested research.

SI: How do you do the research?

HB: Well, Chuck goes to the library for me. And when you have a subject on which there is very little, it's easy. There just aren't a lot of books about Suriname, so. I've probably read most of them by now.

SI: You haven't taught yourself Dutch yet, though?

HB: I have a Dutch dictionary here. Oh, it's impossible. I finally got to watch a movie in Dutch, on Bravo, to hear what it sounded like, not very nice. I'm considering next year French and German and something else.

[...]

HB: I don't like cats. I don't think I would like enormous ones.

SI: How's Kevin [McMahon]'s screenplay going?

HB: Um, he's deep into the insanity of it all. And he's working on his first draft. It's those guys who really don't have jobs. They have nothing to do but work constantly. And nobody takes deadlines seriously.

[...]

HB: I always liked it there [Los Angeles], I don't know why. I had a feeling of complete safety in that town. That whatever happened there would always be a place to fall back. That's where my mom grew up. In Westwood, that's the last place to go. My mom went to Beverly Hills High.

HB: [... long undecipherable section, from SI's notes: They love the racetrack, those Jamaicans. We used to see them in great groups out at the Aqueduct. Jabbering in incomprehensible accents. Great excitement. They love the races. It was hard to get him [Kevin McMahon] rolling. I seldom made the daily double. We'd usually trickle in about the third race. He lost less money that way. He just won't follow the rules. I've been telling him the rules for years now, well obviously he wouldn't get any pleasure out of it, unless it was completely insane. You don't double up when you are behind. Basic stuff like that, you don't bet exactas, that shit will just murder you. That isn't to say I have won a few and bet them, and you don't bet every race. You have to be real selective, there are people who can make a living at it, but it's so much like full time work just to get that edge. You bet a few races a week where you've got that edge. Stay away from the rest of them, of course, I've never hit a four-figure exacta and Kevin has. He immediately spent $300 on Bill the Cat who had a blocked urethra. It's that feeling of vindication. You're not betting against the track. You're betting against all the other idiots who are there. Being right just feels great.]

[...]

HB: ... no, I mean the jocks, they make a lot. There was one at the track I worked at, was it 5'7", 5'8"? Weighed like 104 pounds. Had to spend two hours in the sweat box. Had probably broken just about every bone in bis body. And during the card at night, he would take a Coke bottle and punch a hole in it, through the cap with an ice pick and suck on it, so he wouldn't take on any liquid weight. What a life, and the guys were heavers, who could make themselves throw up just, you know, by an act of will. That way they could have a great big meal, and enjoy it, and then get rid of it a half an hour later, before it ever had had a chance to fuck with their livelihood. The big guys do the same stuff.

SI: How tall are you?

HB: 5'6".

SI: So you could've done the track, but you weigh too much?

HB: Well, they tried to talk me into some of that. No thank you. Um, most of them are shorted than me. This guy Cowboy Jones who was almost 5'8" was, I mean I don't know why he was busting himself at that height. He certainly wasn't getting rich like Ángel Cordero. He probably made maybe 25,000 a year. I mean, he was the best at that level, but he wasn't...

[...]

HB: The whole culture machine, it's just much too fast for me, I can't keep up. And not just popular culture, political culture. Who knows, in 2 months South Africa will be a footnote and something else will be chased, with the same hysteria. Oh, come on, we're behind the window. That's a bird feeder right there. Hey boy. It'll take five minutes for one millet seed, checking everything thing out. [...] There's a jay around here with feathers like an old hotel carpet. A very unsavory character.

[... barely audible small talk...]

HB: Well, you need to be a monk. They spend their whole lives doing that. Reading and puttering in the garden and stuff. That's all I want to—[tape stops]

[continued on cassette 3]