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The sunlight is bright, the air is crisp.
SHADOW: What's your formula for changing the world, for improving
things?
LEWIS: I don't know what that means; that's all bullshit. Life is
specific. Even if you're not political, that's political! You
can't shoot buckshot. You wanna be a millionaire? Fine! Put on
the blinders, like a fucking horse. If you shoot buckshot, you
gotta go for the target.
SHADOW: Let's say we're talking about specific issues: police
torturing people in police precincts, or people being evicted
from housing, or gardens on the Lower East Side being bulldozed
and replaced by condominiums. We put out a newspaper to try and
convince people that things like that are not in their interest.
Do you think the alternative press is a valuable counterweight to
the mainstream press?
LEWIS: Everything is viable. But don't expect results.
SHADOW: Maybe we're being naive, but maybe we serve some
purpose...
LEWIS: There's nothing wrong with being naive. But, after doing x
amount of time or years, don't throw your hands up in the air,
because, you see, everybody wants the "the win," they want it
today. It doesn't happen. The struggle goes on. The victory is in
the struggle, for me. And I accepted that a long time ago.
You write about police brutality. Go back to 1909, you'll see
about police brutality (laughs), it's not something new. People
don't really understand their role in society. I'll take this
where your newspaper goes: the destruction of the gardens. And
they're gonna be destroyed, there's no question about it. The
powers that be have so convinced the mass of people -- "Fuck the
gardens, those fucking freaky people carrying that horse shit and
fertilizer. A building is more beautiful than a fuckin' flower"
-- you have to say the mass of people are bought. The day that
they attempt to bulldoze the first garden, if ten thousand people
are standing there, the garden will never be bulldozed. You have
to understand, the power structure and the errand boys, the guys
who carry the bedpans for the power structure, the politicians,
councilmen, congressmen, senators, whatever, they only understand
one thing: numbers. It's numbers of voters.
You get fifty people out, "Fuck 'em. Get the local precinct,
hit 'em on the fucking head." Get ten thousand people out? God,
that's four hundred cameras, it's all over European television.
Scary. Numbers are scary. Your problem is to get ten thousand
people out on the street the first time they go to bulldoze that
garden. And you won't. But that's not a defeat. Because all you
can do, all I can do, is, I do a show, I influence those people.
Hopefully they'll carry that message forward.
Shadow Interview with Al Lewis
things?
LEWIS: I don't know what that means; that's all bullshit. Life is
specific. Even if you're not political, that's political! You
can't shoot buckshot. You wanna be a millionaire? Fine! Put on
the blinders, like a fucking horse. If you shoot buckshot, you
gotta go for the target.
SHADOW: Let's say we're talking about specific issues: police
torturing people in police precincts, or people being evicted
from housing, or gardens on the Lower East Side being bulldozed
and replaced by condominiums. We put out a newspaper to try and
convince people that things like that are not in their interest.
Do you think the alternative press is a valuable counterweight to
the mainstream press?
LEWIS: Everything is viable. But don't expect results.
SHADOW: Maybe we're being naive, but maybe we serve some
purpose...
LEWIS: There's nothing wrong with being naive. But, after doing x
amount of time or years, don't throw your hands up in the air,
because, you see, everybody wants the "the win," they want it
today. It doesn't happen. The struggle goes on. The victory is in
the struggle, for me. And I accepted that a long time ago.
You write about police brutality. Go back to 1909, you'll see
about police brutality (laughs), it's not something new. People
don't really understand their role in society. I'll take this
where your newspaper goes: the destruction of the gardens. And
they're gonna be destroyed, there's no question about it. The
powers that be have so convinced the mass of people -- "Fuck the
gardens, those fucking freaky people carrying that horse shit and
fertilizer. A building is more beautiful than a fuckin' flower"
-- you have to say the mass of people are bought. The day that
they attempt to bulldoze the first garden, if ten thousand people
are standing there, the garden will never be bulldozed. You have
to understand, the power structure and the errand boys, the guys
who carry the bedpans for the power structure, the politicians,
councilmen, congressmen, senators, whatever, they only understand
one thing: numbers. It's numbers of voters.
You get fifty people out, "Fuck 'em. Get the local precinct,
hit 'em on the fucking head." Get ten thousand people out? God,
that's four hundred cameras, it's all over European television.
Scary. Numbers are scary. Your problem is to get ten thousand
people out on the street the first time they go to bulldoze that
garden. And you won't. But that's not a defeat. Because all you
can do, all I can do, is, I do a show, I influence those people.
Hopefully they'll carry that message forward.
Shadow Interview with Al Lewis
.