A Conversation with Ray Bradbury

you welcome to our sixth annual riders symposium by the sea at Point Loma Nazarene University I'm Dean Nelson on the journalism faculty at Point Loma Nazarene University and we have the privilege of having Ray Bradbury with us tonight ray has written more than 30 books more than 500 short stories and poems written for television written for screenplays written for everything from weird detective to or Weird Tales I'm sorry to to Alfred Hitchcock to Twilight Zone two screenplays such as the screenplay for Moby Dick he embodies what we believe is is the the great thing about writing which is good writing is good writing it goes across genres it goes across two different styles and Ray Bradbury it's a pleasure to have you with us thank you it's evening now you have said that you don't write science fiction that's right you write about people well I write fantasy and the only science fiction I've written is Fahrenheit 451 it's the art of the possible see Fahrenheit is a realistic science fiction novel it it could happen and that has happened of our portions of it we're witnessing part of it in our society now a local television news is sort of thing that's in Fahrenheit for if I want all the local television news today's crap isn't it it's all ten-second sound bytes 15-second sound bytes we're being fragmented all the commercials you watch have 30 clips of film for a 30-second commercial and 60 clips of film for a 60 second a commercial not so your mind is all over the place there's no thought that metaphors are scattered that you have the feeling that you're thinking but you're not thinking huh so what I put in Fahrenheit is Illustrated every night on television if you die you've got to be awfully famous to deserve more than 15 seconds huh so there you go all right now now you told the New York Times you told the New York Times years ago that my business is to present the future preventive prevent future all right because what I wrote what I started write down was a number of things from your books that you that you wrote about that years later have have actually happened and here's here's just a partial list the Sony Walkman I read about that in something you wrote 40 years ago that's in Fahrenheit yeah exactly lawns that grow to only a certain height and then they stopped growing I read about that in one of your books mechanical dogs there that was in Fahrenheit interactive television virtual reality technology space travel even references to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in some of your that's right and some of your books and I'm saying you wrote that you said that you write to prevent the future and yet some of the things you wrote about at least on some of these items have in fact come true well they people weren't listening were they and and you can't go against hungers and needs and we'll work our way through this and we're convinced we've got to watch TV and what we gotta watch is the better stations the cable cable stations CNN does good work Fox cable does good work and of course you can look at the old movies channels if you really want to get educated to the past of filmmaker that's that's terrific but local CTV News is an abomination though they're only out to to show you funerals diseases accidents rapes and murders all that good stuff all that good stuff that they don't care about humanity not for a moment they're off for one more disaster so that's that's why they put in the book no dude have you ever had the thought that you can actually see into the future I mean you've written so many things that have that have come to pass know if you pay attention to what's going on in front of you it's very easy to predict what's going to happen because human character doesn't change that much the the best thing I predicted and hope for was space travel of course landing on the moon and we've got to continue that we've been doing things with the space shuttle the last 15 years which is a bore you know that's not where we belong 200 miles above Earth we belong on the moon we belong on Mars goddammit you know and here we are with the damn space shuttle it lands like a plane I don't want to see a plane land I'm afraid that Clinton will come out at any moment okay okay now you you have this thing you called the theater of the morning that's right I want you to describe for our audience what the theater of the morning is what happens when you get up every year but people are saying do you write about dreams as no I write about a semi dream state the best time that's why I want you to pack your minds with lots of metaphors because when you wake in the early morning you're not dreaming and you're not fully awake and all the metaphors are turned loose in your head between your ears and you can lie in bed and watch them floating around in front of you and then two of them collide and make a new metaphor and you jump up and running your typewriter and capture it before it goes poetry like occurs that way quite often but if you're lazy and lie there and you get up five minutes later it's gone unless you have a fantastic memory and I don't so every morning I just love that moment of waking up with an idea floating in my head it's not a dream and that's not completely awake now you might experiment with this maybe it won't work for some of you but it's been working for me for years another good time is the shower taking a shower and the water hits you and you have total relaxation and your brains loose inside your skull huh and you can think anything you want to or sometimes taking a nap to nap we are not completely asleep and not completely awake these are all good states for discovering stories that might be of some help you all right now when you have you have also said in the past that you wrote for ten years and then at some point you realized you'd been doing it all wrong and then you wrote a story in one hour that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up and then you realized you were doing it right that's right what happened I learned not to look at other writers I learned to be myself up until that time I was so busy being enamored of other talents and why had to be them it's ridiculous you can't can't do that but I had a memory of an encounter I had when I was 8 years old on the beach back in Illinois and Lake Michigan and I was on the shore with this little girl and we were building sandcastles and she went out in the water and she never came back that was my first encounter with death I didn't understand I kept asking my mother why didn't she come back where is she they never found her huh so that memory came back on that day when I was 22 I was sitting out in the Sun with my portable typewriter and quite suddenly the memory of that little girl not coming back so I wrote a short story to bring her out of water huh 30 years later and then when I'd finished it tears were pouring down my face I realized for the first time I'd written something true and honest and real and wonderful and from that day on I began to go into my subconscious and drag out all these wonderful things so but thank God for that one memory Wow now talk talk to us for a minute about the difference between thinking and feeling when it comes to writing you you aren't real big on thinking first no well first of all you can't imagine a story you can't think of ahead you have to live it and these people that sell you want plotting there are books I've seen constructing the screenplay constructing the screenplay what the hell is that that's why so many screenplays are our lousy aren't that you can just see people sitting at a meeting saying but we'll do this next we'll do that next why don't we try this why don't we try that that's all intellectual crap it's it's all mr. Bathory and everyone trying to one-up someone else so you can't do that look on writing as a snowfield and it's pure and you have your characters that you believe in each of them has a destiny you've got to know what each of them lost madly huh and then you fire off a gun and send your characters running out on the fields of snow pursuing their dream their desire their want and after they run you look in the snow and you see their footprints there's your structure you see but you can't imagine that you got to run first it's like that writing is like any other love in your life we're all terrified of one another in certain age I took girls out to movies where I could afford to when I was 19 I just had enough money to buy a malted milk and a movie huh and walk the girl home and on the way home you think well when we get to her front door and going to say goodnight I grabbed her by the elbows and I give her a big smooch huh and you get to the front door and she opens the door and you look at her and you say night and you you walk down the street say Jesus Christ dummy dummy dummy and then the next night the same goddamn thing happens out was years before I was giving a lecture at the Unitarian Church 20 years ago I looked down the front row and here's this girl I used to take to the movies she's middle-aged now okay ah so she came up and she said ray she went to high school with me she said I heard you you know try and I said that's right she said you need a lift home I said yes he she said can I give you a lift I said sure so she drove me home and when we got in front of my house I reached over grabbed her by the elbows and gave her a big smooch and I said there I should have done that 30 years ago and we both broke apart yeah and we've been good friends since I I write to her I invite her to my place stuff and but I'm sure glad didn't marry her you know she had changed over the years and so it I and I've got a perfectly wonderful wife but there's a good example of the fears that we're working for working with you know in our writing and we don't know that the fears that we have so therefore when I did the lake that encouraged me to try other dreams of frustration and death and life and need huh and getting all these things out but it took all those years from the age of 12 to 22 you you write every day don't you you must write every day every day of your life I give us the piano player analogy a piano player who doesn't practice one day yeah he knows it well if you don't write every day you'll get sick the writing is a process of cleansing yourself as well as all the other things we don't know how it works but it does work I haven't gotten that yet huh I've never used a psychiatrist I've never used a psychoanalyst good riding is automatically cleansing of the soul now I don't quite know how it works but if you do honest work passionate work and and and deal with your real fears I think you can have a pretty good life and not need help from outside maybe it doesn't work that way for everybody but it sure as hell has worked for me here's the piano player analogy I was saying you you have said that if a piano player doesn't practice one day he knows it the trophy doesn't practice for two days his critics know it if he doesn't practice for three days then his audience knows it that's right and and the analogy you've drawn is that writing is the same way after a while if you know if you aren't doing it every day people will notice no I never give them a chance okay no the most I've ever gone without writing is sometimes when I travel but even there you got a pad and pencil with you and you get your work done so I don't feel well if I don't write the I hadn't experienced a year ago and I was in the hospital for a month and that was a real endangerment not only to my life but to my writing and it was really bad the first week because I didn't have a chance to write but after the second week then I began to dictate over the phone not it's not good writing dictation is is only 50% good stuff huh but writing the typewriter is the real stuff so there came the closest to being really depressed a year ago in the hospital but then as soon as possible I began to teach myself to type again and then I was back back in shape now in in many of your books there have been what at least I perceive to be a religious theme about some there have been many biblical references you in fact you rewrote the Last Supper scene in graveyard for lunatics where you said actually it wasn't that Last Supper that you know up there in the oh yeah there was another place but but my question and actually you've got a new book coming out for burned-out preachers and and rabbis and and priests yeah and and I'm just wondering is are there some religious themes under there in writings well all of our writing is religious I mean if you care about living at all isn't it you you don't have to make up a religion you don't have to invoke the biblical things that you learned in Sunday school you'd have to be technical about it if you were celebratory the Jews say to life don't they to life that's a great proclamation to that people have often said to me do you believe in Darwin Darwin's theory has a job believe in that do believe in the Marx theory of of the movement of the generations of animals a wishing themselves to new forms secret desires yes I I believe that do you believe in Genesis the first book of the Bible yes I believe that they said how can you believe all three I said because nothing is proven nothing is proven so there's room for a religious delicatessen huh I take some ADIZ some of those and some it down huh because we just don't know that's have you seen these various documentaries on TV the last few years tonight you're going to find the secret of life how did life come on the earth what makes the Sun burn that's cetera et cetera et cetera well you're tuned in and he'll let him tell you that they don't know the the earth came out of the Sun took a billion years to cool the rains fell the first primitive plants came up the the pawns of scum created niba like creatures but there was no life here lightning struck the chemistry of the world the inanimate minerals decided to live how come how come we don't know we don't know it just it just happened that's not much of an explanation is it it just happened that's really scientific is it that's what the scientists say it just happened well he'll give me some lightning I'll go make my own life so so the thing is there's room to believe it all because you are the inhabit ours of a miraculous world why have we been put here the question is asked time and again shall I give you the answer have you been waiting for the answer I've got it for you okay there's no use having a universe and billions of stars I've done shows for the Smithsonian planetarium and you look at pictures of star systems billions of light-years away huh there's no end of the universe it goes on forever they talk about the Big Bang I got into a lot of problems with the Smithsonian I wrote a program for the planetarium and I wrote a 30 page program and they sat back 28 pages of criticism just like most generators huh and I called him I said what's the problem they said well you got stuff in here that's not very scientific I said what do you want do you want to go back to boring people I've been in your planetarium and at ten minutes into the program everyone's snoring huh you I said should I tell you what's wrong with your planetarium you are teaching when you should be preaching you cannot teach with the planetarium you've got to preach let me raise my voice for you and stand back and I'll wake people up and make them care about being alive in this universe so I said what's the one thing that makes you the most nervous about my script for the planetarium he said well you got a thing there about the Big Bang Theory occurring twelve billion years ago in the this part of the universe I said when did it happen is that 14 billion years ago I said prove it they didn't like me I shouldn't have said that huh there's no proof there's no proof so after a while I called him on the phone after six weeks of arguing back and forth I said how much do you owe me right now they said sixteen thousand dollars I said give me seven thousand and let me go this is a bad marriage we're never going to make it you promised to take me into the woods and you never have pay me the money and let me go so I took my program and I came out and put it in the Air and Space Museum in Los Angeles down to exposition Park next time you're down there go upstairs it's a thing I've called windows on the universe and I have done a 12-minute program explaining the history of astronomy in the world and our future in space a million years from tonight okay so my experience the answer the question I posed a few minutes ago what are we doing here there's no use having universe is there there you know use having a billion stars there's no use having a planet earth if there isn't someone here to see it you are the audience you are here to witness and celebrate to witness and celebrate and you got a lot to see a lot to celebrate that's your business you put in your work you put in your stories otherwise get the hell out and and get out of our way and let us live huh if you're going to be a cynic if you're going to be a pessimist you there's no hope for you I can't help you you've got to help yourself but we are here as an audience God cries out to be saved whatever God is we have we have various names we make it much too anthropomorphic that's not what it's all about creation the universe Jehovah you name it it's all mysterious but we are here to be the audience to the miraculous we are privileged to but you're going to be alive once you're never coming back think of that you've got one chance to pay back uooo uooo to the universe the burden of proof is in your lap and in your writing and you got to pay back I demand it you get the hell out of here and do that and you're going to have a good life what in hell was the question well right I don't remember either he's wheat we was afraid that's me yeah we have we have just a couple of minutes left and so what I have asked you to do is to have you read a poem that you wrote about yourself that was in the wonderful book the Zen in the art of writing I'd like to if you'll permit till no experience I had in London 31 32 years ago when we landed on the moon to show you what kind of person I am people are always saying why do you like space travel well you you've heard part of my reasons that we are destined to go out from the earth to land on the moon again to go to Mars into Alpha Centauri to make life immortal for a few more thousand or maybe a million years life is worth it with all with all the bad things I know all the bad things I know the wars the Holocaust and the meanness the bad spirits but then I know all the good things too I know William Shakespeare and no Emily Dickinson I know Robert Frost I know Rudyard Kipling and though Dickens and oh sure my god we take them with us huh we take them with us we have a chance to live forever or almost because we are the cognizant part of the universe that's worth saving we've got to believe that we have to believe in ourselves so David Frost invited me to come on his show the night we landed on the moon in July of 1969 I arrived at David Frost's studio in London at 8 o'clock we landed on the moon at 8:30 and I prepared to go on to explain to people what the hell we were doing on the moon huh because I want people to know what I believe David Frost made a big introduction I thought he's talking about American Jean it's got to be me and he says then here he is Engelbert Humperdinck well Engelbert Humperdinck came up and sang his stupid song and then David Frost said we have in there another American genius here tonight I thought this time it's got to be me and he says Sammy Davis jr. well I knew Sammy and wonderful guy wonderful town and I've been with them the day before with my daughter's has terrific day but this is not the night for Engelbert Humperdinck and Sammy Davis I'm sorry it's the night to discover what the hell we're doing with our spaceships huh so I walked off the show producer came running after me he said what are you doing I said I'm leaving he said you can't do that I said wash my desk I said take your hand off my elbow and give me the hell out of here that's stupid asking there is ruined the greatest night in the history of the world we've been part of the greatest night in history and he screwed it up so they got me a cab and I went across London and I did a show on Telstar with Mike Wallace and Walter Cronkite and I was able to say all the things I've just said to you I never saw the tape until last year Krunk I showed it to me and god it's beautiful because I said all the things I want to say I stayed up all night in the morning Neil Armstrong fell out of the spacecraft and walked on the moon had dawn I was on seven different shows all around the world all night I cried all night I was so happy I walked back to the hotel in London at 9:00 in the morning exhausted but full of love and joy and out in front of the hotel there was a little tabloid newspaper in the headline read Neil Armstrong walks at 7:00 a.m. Bradbury walks midnight thank you very much thank you

Channel: University of California Television (UCTV)

Views: 72,963

Rating: 4.9203353 out of 5

Keywords: ray, bradbury, author, writing, science, fiction

Id: UU51N2s3B78

Length: 29min 2sec (1742 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 31 2008