Working. Part 32

I had been thinking for months, What will I do when I get fired? Will I smoke a joint in the city room? Will I meditate in the library? I wanted to do something to show, Hey, I'm better than you motherf.u.c.kers. I'm getting fired because I'm different. I don't want to be a cipher. I was thinking, How could I show that? By kidnapping Marshall Field? By shooting him? I had to think fast, so I looked at the editor and said, "I hope you can live with the conditions you're creating." And I just turned around and walked out and started to cry.

He hurried after me and said, "Wait a minute. I'm not creating these conditions, you are." I said, "No, no, no, I'm not the one that has the power. You're the one that has the power." I walked out of there. Then I hung around the office most of the day selling copies of Rising Up Angry.63 (Laughs.) I've gotten myself on unemployment. They were nice to me the first few times, then a woman told me to get a number. I wanted to tell her, f.u.c.k you. I can wait outside your apartment and knock you over the head and steal your money. f.u.c.k your money. It's not your money in the first place. It's mine. I worked for it. And if you don't give it to me, I don't give a f.u.c.k, 'cause I'll live anyway. When I was younger and applied for a job and the guy wouldn't give me a reason for not hiring me, I would say, "It's okay." I wouldn't yell at him, "You're a racist pig." I'd think, Fine. Mao Tse-tung will hire me to kill you. Or I could be a bank robber. But that bitterness, I don't like being bitter. I'm a pacifist.

I have picked a career for myself. I want to practice the kind of traditional medicine that is more spiritually oriented than modern Western medicine. I want to learn herbs and ma.s.sage and things like that, and meditation. I don't want to be dependent on other people. This notion of self-reliance is peculiar today. The frontiersman lived by his own effort. Today n.o.body does that. I want to be a frontiersman of the spirit-where work is not a drag.

STEVEN SIMONYI-GINDELE.

We're in the offices of the Capitalist Reporter, a sixty-four-page monthly tabloid. It's in one of the older office buildings along a mid-Manhattan street. Though the quarters are cramped, an air of busyness pervades. At work, among half-filled paper coffee cups and ash trays, higgledy-piggledy, are several young people, long-haired, casually dressed.

He, the publisher, is twenty-six. Born in Hungary, he emigrated to Canada after the revolution. He is as informal as the others. On his lapel is a large "Jesus Loves You" b.u.t.ton; on his feet, sneakers. His dog scrounges about on a blanket in this inner office.

"We report on people making it. How to start out on a small investment, how to invest outside the stock market and get a rich return. Like buying cheap land, antiques, farms . . . We do well-researched stories of people actually succeeding, with little or no capital, going into business for themselves and making a go of it.

"We've done what we preach. We started out with thirty thousand dollars-ten thousand dollars in capital and twenty thousand dollars in loans. After our preview issue we had only eight thousand dollars in the bank. We're now in our second year-we had a hundred thousand trial subscribers and have a fifty thousand dollar newsstand distribution-and circulation is growing. Right now, we're undercapitalized, so we're penny pinching. Each person has to do the work of two or three.

"Pat64 and I became partners in business eight years ago. It was several years of struggling, saving our money, putting it into ventures, and losing it and investing it again. Finally we found we have the ability of conveying a sales message in print."

I went to work when I was nine years old. I used to get up at three-thirty in the morning and deliver four hundred newspapers. I was bored by school and left in the last year. I was never afraid of working. I always enjoyed the challenge and I always enjoyed the reward. I did all kinds of things.

I was a bus boy when I was thirteen. It took me six weeks of steadily looking for a job. It was high unemployment at that time in Canada. I realized then the only security a person has is what he himself can do. There's little security in a job, working for somebody else. I like to control my fate as much as possible.

I don't believe the answer lies in making money. It didn't for me. By the time I was twenty-one I was driving a Cadillac and I could afford a fifteen-hundred-dollar-a-month seash.o.r.e apartment in Florida, go to shows, and spend two hundred dollars a night and take my mother out, my grandfather, and live like a king. But I was more frustrated than when I was making thirty-four cents an hour delivering for a drugstore in Toronto.

I couldn't understand why I wasn't happy. Happiness is not related to money. Being successful at what you're doing is the measure of a man. The measure of a man is standing on his own two feet. To succeed by himself without leaning on other people to support him.

My quest I have already found. I found that in the Bible. Until I was twenty-four, I never read the Bible. But I heard that G.o.d had a plan for every human being and I could have a direct contact with G.o.d through Jesus Christ. I asked Christ to come into my life. At that point, I realized what life is all about. My life became really worth living.

Before I found Christ, I learned how to ski, how to sail, how to fly, how to speak French. All these things I dropped after I had a mastery of it, because they didn't satisfy me. You can master making money like you can master algebra. After you get the basic essence, any person can do it.

Before I accepted Christ, I didn't feel I had a good deal until I really crushed a guy and squeezed the last penny out of it. So when I accepted Jesus, I realized I was a slave to this money. I called up Patrick, who was my partner at the time in another venture, and I told him I wanted to get out. We were in publis.h.i.+ng. We were selling books through the mail. Self-improvement, educational, s.e.x manuals. Quite acceptable, normal for the trade. We had a very successful campaign selling the book. We sold about 150,000 copies. It was a very profitable item. But I would not do it today.

I feel I could start any business. It boils down to a formula. You find there's a need for something. Then you supply that need. There is a spread between what it costs you and what you sell it for. That's what's called a profit. I don't know a fairer way of rewarding a man than by profit. What a man sows, so shall he reap.

Each man has a calling. The gifts G.o.d has given me is to be a businessman. To be able to organize, to be able to sell, to be able to understand figures and what not. I want to use these gifts for the glory of G.o.d. I don't want to do anything in my business life that would shame my Saviour. So I always look to guidance from the Bible on how the business should be run. My principles of doing business have changed altogether from two years ago.

Previously my guideline was: what you could get away with, that was right. The only mistake you could make is to get caught. You had this gut fear inside: What did I tell this guy last time he was here? That no longer worries me. I always tell the same story to everybody. Everything I do in business must be aboveboard-must be something I can face G.o.d with once I appear before Him after I die.

An issue of the magazine features in graphic detail the successful exploits of a strikebreaker in Canada. "Maybe strikebreaking is the wrong word to use. What that person does is supplies, in a compet.i.tive system of labor and management. Strikes is one of the legitimate weapons labor can use. Management also has a right to keep functioning. Because of physical threats made upon management, most companies are not willing to continue to function. Law enforcement has not been able to guarantee the personal safety of people for their right to run their businesses if their employees don't wish to work. What this company does is take photographic evidence of physical violence on people who continue to work for the strike-bound company, and takes them to court to restrain them . . . That's the essence of what I gathered in the story."

Patrick Garrard reflected another point of view: "Steve doesn't like unions. I merely have a mild distaste for them because they're bureaucratic. Steve regards the article as getting back at unions-let's sock 'em. To me, it was a good story, that's all. I was a bit worried about it because it was the only one in all our issues that could be construed as a right-wing kind of story. I don't want our magazine to get that reputation."

We're different from other business publications. Fortune and Forbes and Business Week talk about corporations and corporation executives. We talk about individuals and small companies. We have a lot of subscriptions from prisoners, who transfer nine dollars from their commissary account for the Capitalist Reporter. It's a substantial amount of money when you make twenty-seven cents a day. Many prisoners are natural entrepreneurs that have gone outside the accepted norms that society has set, and they've ended up rightfully where they are.

We have kids coming in here, long-haired hippies, who are very excited and want to buy back issues of the magazine or run an advertis.e.m.e.nt in it. I think a lot of hippies today have decided it is more fun to be successful than to be a failure. (Laughs.) I think it's become a fas.h.i.+onable thing now to be successful.

There are two kinds of people-some are gifted leaders, some are followers. The young leaders in the past few years have been negative, nihilistic, destructive-have run their course. Young people are now looking for other ways. Why am I alive? One answer is: A person must support himself. He can't expect people to bring him everything on a silver platter. The unhappiest people are the young ones who have everything at home.

What a lot of young people rebel against is having to go into corporations where they have to spend thirty years of their lives and come out as a wornout human being on a pension. They say, "Why on earth should I do that? There must be something more to life." It's more challenging to strike out on your own.

The Bible says if a man doesn't work, he shouldn't eat. I'm in full agreement. Unless he's crippled or mentally disabled, a man should work. When I was twelve in Canada, I found a bus boy's job. I searched door to door looking for work. If I would have dictated what I wanted, I would never have found work. I was willing to take anything . . .

The Depression in the thirties was a unique period. People were willing to work and there wasn't work around. I think the mentality of the thirties and the mentality today is different. Then people really wanted to work. Now the thing is to want something meaningful. I despise that word. They must be willing to take whatever they find and they must grow from that. Fulfilling, that's another one they stumble on. I didn't start out as president of a company with a hundred thousand subscribers. It was necessary for me to scrub toilets. I scrubbed them. Not that I liked doing it. But I didn't feel debased by it. It was better than doing nothing. Any work is better than no work. Work makes a person n.o.ble.

This is a lie about meaningful work. It comes from teachers, Ph.D.'s who've never really worked. They feel they have a special knowledge to impose upon a lower being, who goes to work when he's thirteen or fifteen and settles down and goes forward . . .

If I've done my best, I find my work meaningful. If I haven't done as well as I could, I don't find it meaningful. I don't think my work is any more important than a man sweeping the streets. It's important to me only because it provides my livelihood. Whether it's important to society only time will tell.

The only truth as far as I'm concerned is the word of G.o.d in the Bible. That is the only reliable proven fact that has been uncontested. You can read it in all the papers, Jesus Christ is becoming an issue today. Jesus Freaks is the wrong term. They're very normal young people. They don't take drugs any more. They don't promiscuously screw around with everything that walks any more. They live very healthy lives. Maybe compared to others, they're freaks.

I run three miles every morning. I come into the office around eight o'clock. I spend a half-hour reading five psalms and a proverb-and praying. Then I make a schedule of what's to be done during the day. I try to a.s.sign as many tasks as possible to my staff, so I can reduce my work. I need two or three additional people. A couple who are not pulling their weight I'm in the process of replacing. This is very painful. You have to interview a great many people before you can find that person who has the talent plus the right att.i.tude. This is not a normal time for us, so my work runs until nine o'clock at night. Generally my workday would be over at one ' in the afternoon.

No, I don't take my work home with me. You can become a slave to work. To be a successful executive, you must always be in control of your work, not let work control you. You make sure details have been a.s.signed to others. After you check these things out, you look for new profit avenues. You search elsewhere. Who knows? I may be interested in starting another business. Now I'm interested in studying the Bible. I want to spend more time doing that. I like to read. I'm sadly lacking in my knowledge.

If G.o.d calls me, I may one day become a missionary. I don't see beyond that. I certainly could be just as happy living on fifty dollars a week as I could on five hundred dollars a week. I can adjust my living standards. I somehow feel there is some kind of destiny ahead of me-that G.o.d wants me to use the gifts He's given me in different ways than just making me rich. I think there'll be something along that line in the future.

TOM McCOY He is twenty-three years old. He is a proof reader in the printing plant of a national weekly magazine. His father is a retired policeman; his mother, a retired social worker. "My father never saw himself as a cop. He became one during the Depression when there weren't any other jobs. He was worried about survival."

He majored in sociology at Northwestern University "'cause it was just about the easiest thing. I wasn't really fascinated. The only reason I was in school: I was either too young to object or, when I was a soph.o.m.ore in college, I figured I might as well stay out of the draft." It took him five and a half years to graduate. "I was dropping in and dropping out."

One of the things I like about my job is that the time will vary each week. I'll work a Wednesday night one week, a Thursday afternoon, and a Sat.u.r.day night. Next week it'll be Tuesday during the day, Friday at night . . . I never know when I'll be working, and it almost doesn't seem like working. The hours are weird, so I don't get caught in a rush hour. You don't get in a rut. I dig it.

It bothers me when the boss is there. He's usually in during the day. In the evening there's no supervision and I won't be worrying how I look. It's really pleasant. When the boss is around, if he sees you reading a newspaper or something, it grates him and he'll find something for you to do. That's the part of the job I dislike the most, having to look busy.

One of the older guys was telling me how amazing he found it that I would sit there totally oblivious to the boss and read a paper. That's something he would never do. It ran against his ethic. I think there's too much of an att.i.tude that work has to be s.h.i.+tty.

I noticed somebody talking on the phone the other day, one of the older guys. He said he was at the office. It dawned on me when a guy says, "I'm at the office," it means, "I'm a white-collar worker." It means, "I don't dirty my hands." He wasn't at work, he was "at the office." It really blew my mind. I don't think I've used that phrase in my life. I say, "I'm at work."

I'm not afraid of the boss. I think he's sort of afraid of me, really. He's afraid of the younger people who work there because they're not committed to the job. The older person, who's got his whole life wrapped in the organization, has a sword hanging over his head. The boss can keep him from getting a promotion, getting a raise. If he screws up, he can be fired. His career is hanging in balance. If I make a little mistake, I'll say, "That's too bad, I'm sorry it happened." This guy'll freak out because his career is dangling there. Consequently, the boss doesn't have that power over us, really. The tables are sort of reversed. We have power over him, because he doesn't know how to persuade us. We do the job and we do it fine. But he doesn't know why. He knows why the older guys work-because they want to get ahead. He doesn't know why we work.

I can't figure him out. It's a weird mixture of condescension, trying to be a nice guy-"Wouldn't you do this?"-and trying to be stern, a fatherly sort of image. He doesn't know whether to be nice or be stern. Part of it comes out of his own fear. He doesn't realize younger people resent this. I object to seeing this guy as my father. I would rather see him as some sort of equal or as a boss. Older people, he tells them what to do and they do it, because that's the way it is. But he never feels sure the younger people are going to do it. They want to know why. n.o.body refused to do anything, but we want to know why.

If there's a lull in the work, the kids'll go in the main office, which is plush, where the big boss works-and they'd sleep on the couches. The big boss complained to my boss that people were sleeping on the couches on Sat.u.r.days. He asked if I would pa.s.s the word along not to sleep on the couches any longer. I said, "Why? It doesn't make any sense. If there's nothing to do and it's the middle of the night and the people want to grab a nap and the couch is there . . ." He said, "Well, that's what the boss said." I just told him, "No, I wouldn't feel right telling them. You'll have to tell them yourself." It's really stupid. If the couch is there and somebody's tired, he should lay down on the floor to keep this guy's couch neat for the next Monday?

RALPH WERNER.

"I'll be twenty tomorrow." His parents are divorced and have since remarried. He lives with his stepfather and mother in the area of the steel mills, where most families own their own homes; the archetype, a frame bungalow. "We're one of the last neighborhoods in the city that is just about all white. There is a fear of black people. Why, I don't really know. They bus a lot of kids in from the West Side, but there hasn't been any trouble at school. I do have certain questions about them, but I try to view things from a Christian standpoint . . ."

He graduated from high school as "an average student. My initiative didn't carry me any further than average. History I found to be dry. Math courses I was never good at. I enjoyed sciences, where I could do things instead of just be lectured to. We called it labs. Football was my bag in high school. My senior year I made all-city halfback."

He is small, wiry, agile, intense. He wears an American flag pin on the lapel of his suit coat.

In my neighborhood the kids grow up, they get married right after high school, and they work in the mills. Their whole life would revolve around one community and their certain set of friends. They would never get out and see what the world's like. It seemed terrible to me.

I was planning to go to Western Illinois on a football scholars.h.i.+p. I didn't get it. My att.i.tude was kind of down. I couldn't really see myself working in the mills. I did, when I was a junior, full-time after school for about two months. I would work from two in the afternoon to eleven at night. Fortunately I never had much homework. I hated it. It's dirty. It's the same old routine day in and day out, and it's your whole life.

I was a laborer. That's where everybody starts in the mill unless you have a college education. I worked on the scarfing dock. We would burn the shavings off the steel. I would shovel 'em up and put 'em in a big tub, which would be carried off and remelted and made into steel again.

It wasn't that the work was so hard. You had a lot of time to rest. It was just demoralizing. I consider my morals high. Their whole life revolved around the mills, the race track, the tavern. They talked about s.e.x in a very gross way. The language was unheard of in a public place. (Laughs.) It just wasn't my kind of living.

After five o'clock all the important people had gone home. The office people left, and things would kind of darken after that. By six o'clock the mills were pretty well run by the foremen. Those two months heightened my awareness of what the neighborhood was like.

I can remember as a child I was scared of the mills. I used to see pictures on a steel mill calendar of a big strong guy shoveling coal. Big pits where there was fire. I wanted to get in. I found out it's not a nice place. There are foremen and something new called sub-foremen. The mills used to be rough, but now they're getting wild. It's racial tensions. It's not where I want to spend my life.

As I knew a few white-collar workers, I a.s.sociated with them on breaks. I was afraid to get too close to those that worked labor. Not because I was afraid of them themselves. They were all nice to me. It was just that I didn't care for their conversation. So I stayed with the white-collar workers. There were different cliques all over the mill, like I found in high school. There's cliques just about everywhere you go.

I think a lot of people who are in a higher position, the upper-cla.s.s people with a lot of money, who don't have calloused hands, don't have quite the appreciation of a dollar as someone who has worked in a mill, who knows what it's like to earn your money by physically working. And if you're sick, you know it's gonna hurt you. And if something happens to you where you no longer have your capabilities, they're gonna get rid of you. They have a deeper concern for life. They have a deep feeling for the political system than someone who's upper cla.s.s. Because they've worked, they keep our nation moving, they turn the steel out. They put their hearts and their fists behind it. They don't sit there and let the brain do their work. I think they have a little stronger character.

Yesterday was my last day of working as a salesman in a store in the big shopping center. I worked there six months. An expensive store, high cla.s.s. You don't come in there looking for a pair of socks. People are expected to spend a lot. It goes from upper cla.s.s to middle, several doctors, execs, important people who have a lot of money.

We had cards that were color-coded depending on how good the credit rating is of the person. Naturally the best being gold. They were a higher quality of people. I myself would only shop there because I needed dress clothes to work. Otherwise I wouldn't shop there.

There was a gray card or silver, which was a good credit rating, but these people weren't as financially well off as the gold. Then there was a blue card, which they'd pa.s.s on to the employees or those with new accounts, where we would call downtown every time they would buy something. Most people would dress alike, so it was hard to tell what somebody did by the color of their card.

With the blue card, they wouldn't release any merchandise until we would call downtown. Several times we couldn't get through on our phones. There was a constant waiting. So we would tell 'em, "We can't release the merchandise to you. We'll have to send it out." I saw several occasions where people with blue cards as well as silver cards would tear them up and throw them. I didn't feel it was right to cla.s.sify people like that. If you give 'em a credit card, whether they can work in a mill or can be a doctor, I feel everybody should be on an equal scale.

When I got out of high school, I thought I'd go into retailing. That's what my father did, my real dad. He was a salesman. This is what he's been all his life. But I didn't care for it. It's too seasonal. A lot of standing around.

My stepfather works in the mill. He used to be a pipe inspector. He's gone to be a clerk now, a better job. He's a lot more satisfied with life than my natural father. He gets along fine with the guys in the mill. He's happy when he comes home. He knows exactly what he's got to do in life. He talks very little about it. He doesn't express feelings, but he seems content. He's never said anything against it. It's a good paying job. He's looking for retirement in a number of years. Ten years, something like that. He's just going to last out his time until he can, which I think is great.

He also has a part-time job, which helps him waste his time away- collecting on a paper route for a news agency. The pay isn't that good, but it's something he likes to do. It gives him money which he uses on a fis.h.i.+ng trip every year. Oh, he's good at home. He likes to clean up the garage, cut the gra.s.s, take care of the house, keep it clean. I believe he's forty-five, give or take a year or two. This is how old my real dad is, too.

My real dad, up in Minnesota, he's constantly traveling. He does sales. Constantly having to talk his way to his next dollar. I have a little brother and sister which are ten and eleven, which he wishes he could spend more time with. He longs to just get a cabin up at the lake and just relax in life. But he knows that won't come for a long time. He seems very tired for his age, very wornout.

This past summer, I spent quite a bit of time with him, and he's had many inspiring words for me. He's told me several things that have echoed in my mind as I found depressing things in life. He told me: "Sometimes you have to make a decision in life, right or wrong." Those few words have kept my head above water several times. n.o.body's gonna take your hand and walk you through life. My dad has a lot of intelligence about things like that. He knows what life's about. He knows what you have to do in life to get ahead. This is why he's so successful as a salesman. Even though he's tired.

He doesn't-(a pause)-he no longer can really appreciate his job. Again, he's been at it for an awful long time. He's been with several firms, he's restless. He wants to be an individual. But he's growing older. He's growing older than he should. Time's catching up with him. He's caught up in his environment as well as somebody who got caught up in the mill.

My stepfather doesn't express himself. The other day he put an American flag sticker on his car-which some people might think a big deal. When he put that flag on his window, it kind of cla.s.sed him. There he is, a typical middle-cla.s.s American. I joked around with him about it, telling him he's become a capitalist and things like this. But he doesn't take an open stand. He's a quiet person who enjoys the natural beauty of life. This can be reflected on these fis.h.i.+ng trips he goes on up to Canada, Wisconsin, Minnesota. He enjoys the outdoors.

I thought, I gotta make a goal for myself in life. I have to try to reach something. In my junior year I got interested in photography as a hobby, which I eventually put quite a bit of money into. This is what I want, something I can enjoy doing, something I can express myself. And it won't be a drag of a nine-to-five job five days a week for the rest of my life.

He is about to enroll for a forty-week course at a photography school. "They can't guarantee a job, but she said they place every one of their students within two days after they leave."

It's something where I'll be able to take my camera . . . I hope I get in advertising. I can develop the pictures myself. I can see the result of my work. I'll know if I'm good, if I'm doing bad. I enjoy taking pictures of scenes, of people, of creating moods. I want to create a better mood than the next guy, so they'll use my pictures. If I'm put in as a photographer for a certain company and there's no compet.i.tion-no matter how the picture comes out, they'll have to use 'em if I am the only one-this is what I don't want. Because you're caught up in a rut. I have nothing to strive for, no one to beat. And if I can't beat no one, I don't want to play. (Laughs.) Compet.i.tion has always been an aspect in my life. I hate to lose and I love to win. Compet.i.tion has been involved in me since grammar school. It gives a person a goal. It makes you push yourself to be better. Some people are satisfied with placing second or third in life. I don't. I want to be the best at it and I don't want to be overtaken.

I was short in football and many people thought I wouldn't make it. But I didn't let that take advantage against me. I worked hard. I put a lot of time into it. All year round we were constantly playing football. When I got on the varsity team, I weighed about 130. I felt it an advantage to be small. I turned what a lot of people thought was a handicap into an advantage. I worked on speed, on brain over brawn. I'm not gonna knock that big guy over, so I'm gonna work on how I'm gonna get around him. It was almost like a business. You had to know what you have to do, what your opponent can do, and try to beat him at his weakness. Knowing your enemy is half the battle.

You noticed the American flag on my lapel, which I wore every day for a year now. I got four stickers all over my car. I think America is the greatest country in the history of the world. One of the reasons? Free enterprise. You can go to your heart's content in life. You can set your goals anywhere you want to set 'em in America. This is all part of the American spirit, to compete, to be better, to be number one. To go as far as you can. If the next man can't go that far, don't stop and wait for him. Life will pa.s.s you up.

There are times when I shoot my mouth off and times when I shouldn't. I don't want to create hard feelings about me, especially at the store. I was careful what I'd say and who I'd say it to. The length of my hair, I kept it clean, I kept it combed, it didn't fall in my eyes. But it was covering my ears a bit. I was cla.s.sified right away as a radical. Management didn't come right out and attack me, but I couldn't help feel something behind closed doors was going on about it.

And I was wearing a conservative suit, and I had the flag on my lapel. But I was still heckled about my hair. I didn't wear my hair to be a leftist, I'm a right-winger. But I wanted to see what it was like. I enjoyed it for a while, but last Friday I got a haircut. Now it's straight where I had it most of my life. I like it better. At the store I felt a warmer feeling.

Oh, yes, I can see myself in the future with a family, with a home, being called a typical middle-cla.s.s American. I don't see myself going up to the upper cla.s.s. I don't feel the need to. I'm going to prevent myself from being lower cla.s.s. I would like to stay just middle cla.s.s. I feel you can get a better taste of life.

My-quote-dream girl-unquote-has long brunette hair, doesn't have to wear a lot of make-up or put a lot of spray on her hair, because she's going to be naturally pretty. She'll be natural in the way she's dressed. I want her to have a lot of personality, because when she's fifty and I'm fifty and we're going up the ladder (laughs), there's going to have to be a lot more than just looks. It's going to be someone I can communicate with, who needs my guidance and my leaders.h.i.+p. And she's someone I can depend on. And she'll be a good mother. At first she'll probably be working. She can stay home for our first child and from that time on. I feel that her place is to take care of the house, to have my dinner ready when I come home. I hope to have three children, two boys and a girl. And I hope my daughter will grow up like her. My daughter will be protected by the two boys. She'll have security in them if I shouldn't be around. Plus I think it's great to have two boys in sports.

Compet.i.tion I hope is one of the things I can communicate to 'em. It creates a feeling of pride in yourself. When I've been beaten in a sport, I respect the guy. It's important that when you're beaten you should be gracious about it. But I really don't think about losing. Winning's the only thing.

I would like a colonial house of some sort, possibly one that leans toward a Mediterranean style. I like a lot of bold things in my house. I'd like a nice recreation room in the bas.e.m.e.nt, possibly a pool table. I hope my wife can play pool.

Eventually, I'd probably go into my own business. Once I get into something I'll strive to be the leader in it. I want to be in command. Like the football team. I strived to be a captain. My junior year I was. I enjoyed being looked up to, to be expected to come up with the answers. I don't want to be on the bottom. I want to go for the top. I want to win.

BUD FREEMAN.

He is sixty-five years old, though his appearance and manner are of William Blake's "golden youth." He has been a tenor saxophone player for forty-seven years. Highly respected among his colleagues, he is a member of "The World's Greatest Jazz Band." It is a cooperative venture, jointly owned by the musicians, established jazz men.

"I'm with the young people because they refuse to be brainwashed by the things you and I were brainwashed by. My father, although he worked hard all his life, was very easy with us. Dad was being brainwashed by the people in the neighborhood. They'd come in every day and say, "Why don't your boys go to work?" So he made the mistake of awakening my brother at seven thirty. I pretended to be asleep. Dad said, "You're going to get up, go out in the world and get jobs and amount of something." My brother said, "How dare you wake us up before the weekend?" (Laughs.) I don't recall ever having seen my father since. (Laughs.) I get up about noon. I would only consider myself outside the norm because of the way other people live. They're constantly reminding me I'm abnormal. I could never bear to live the dull lives that most people live, locked up in offices. I live in absolute freedom. I do what I do because I want to do it. What's wrong with making a living doing something interesting?

I wouldn't work for anybody. I'm working for me. Oddly enough, jazz is a music that came out of the black man's oppression, yet it allows for great freedom of expression, perhaps more than any other art form. The jazz man is expressing freedom in every note he plays. We can only please the audience doing what we do. We have to please ourselves first.

I know a good musician who worked for Lawrence Welk. The man must be terribly in need of money. It's regimented music. It doesn't swing, it doesn't create, it doesn't tell the story of life. It's just the kind of music that people who don't care for music would buy.

I've had people say to me: "You don't do this for a living, for heaven's sake?" I was so shocked. I said, "What other way am I going to make a living? You want to send me a check?" (Laughs.) People can't understand that there are artists in the world as well as drones.

I only know that as a child I was of a rebellious nature. I saw life as it was planned for most of us. I didn't want any part of that dull life. I worked for Lord and Taylor once, nine to five. It was terribly dull. I lasted six weeks. I couldn't see myself being a nine-to-five man, saving my money, getting married, and having a big family-good G.o.d, what a way to live!

I knew when I was eight years old that I wasn't going to amount to anything in the business world. (Laughs.) I wanted my life to have something to do with adventure, something unknown, something involved with a free life, something to do with wonder and astonishment. I loved to play-the fact that I could express myself in improvisation, the unplanned.

I love to play now more than ever, because I know a little more about music. I'm interested in developing themes and playing something creative. Life now is not so difficult. We work six months a year. We live around the world. And we don't have to work in night clubs night after night after night.

Playing in night clubs, I used to think, When are we going to get out of here? Most audiences were drunk and you tended to become lazy. And if you were a drinker yourself, there went your music. This is why so many great talents have died or gotten out of it. They hated the music business. I was lucky-now I'm sixty-five-in having played forty-seven years.

If jazz musicians had been given the chance we in this band have today -to think about your work and not have to play all hours of the night, five or six sets-G.o.d! Or radio station work or commercial jingle work-the guys must loathe it. I don't think the jazz man has been given a fair chance to do what he really wants to do, to work under conditions where he's not treated like a slave, not subject to the music business, which we've loathed all our lives.

I've come to love my work. It's my way of life. Jazz is a luxurious kind of music. You don't play it all day long. You don't play it all night long. The best way to play it is in concerts. You're on for an hour or two and you give it everything you have, your best. And the audience is sober. And I'm not in a hurry to have the night finish. Playing night clubs, it was endless . . .

If you're a creative player, something must happen, and it will. Some sort of magic takes place, yet it isn't magic. Hundreds of times I've gone to work thinking, Oh my G.o.d, I hate to think of playing tonight. It's going to be awful. But something on a given night takes place and I'm excited before it's over. Does that make sense? If you have that kind of night, you're not aware of the time, because of this thing that hits you.

There's been a lot of untruths told about improvisation. Men just don't get up on the stage and improvise on things they're not familiar with. True improvisation comes out of hard work. When you're practicing at home, you work on a theme and you work out all the possibilities of that theme. Since it's in your head, it comes out when you play. You don't get out on the stage and just improvise, not knowing what the h.e.l.l you're doing. It doesn't work out that way. Always just before I play a concert, I get the d.a.m.n horn out and practice. Not scales, but look for creative things to play. I'll practice tonight when I get home, before I go to work. I can't wait to get at it.

I practice because I want to play better. I've never been terribly interested in technique, but I'm interested in facility. To feel comfortable, so when the idea shoots out of my head I can finger it, manipulate it. Something interesting happens. You'll hear a phrase and all of a sudden you're thrown into a whole new inspiration. It doesn't happen every night. But even if I have a terrible night and say, "Oh, I'm so tired, I'll go to sleep and I'll think of other things," the music'll come back. I wasn't too happy about going to work last night because I was tired. It was a drag. But today I feel good. Gonna go home and blow the horn now for a while.

Practicing is no ch.o.r.e to me. I love it. I really do love to play the horn alone. They call me the narcissistic tenor (laughs), because I practice before the mirror. Actually I've learned a great deal looking in the mirror and playing. The dream of all jazz artists is to have enough time to think about their work and play and to develop.

Was there a time when you were altogether bored with your work?

Absolutely. I quit playing for a year. I met a very rich woman. We went to South America to live. We had a house by the sea. I never realized how one could be so rich, so unhappy, and so bored. It frightened me. But I did need the year off. When I came back, I felt fresh.

The other time was when I had a band of my own. I had a name, so I no longer worked for big bands. I was expected to lead one of my own. But I can't handle other people. If I have a group and the pianist, let's say, doesn't like my playing, I can't play. I don't see how these band leaders do it. I can't stand any kind of responsibility other than the music itself. I have to work as a soloist. I can be the custodian only of my own being and thinking.

I had this band and the guys were late all the time. I didn't want to have to ha.s.sle with them. I didn't want to mistreat them, so I said, "Fellas, should we quit?" I wouldn't let them go and stay on myself. We were good friends. I'd say I'd quit if they didn't come on time. They started to come on time. But I wasn't a leader. I used to stand by in the band! A bit to the side. (Laughs.) Now we have a cooperative band. So I have a feeling I'm working for myself.

I don't know if I'll make it, but I hope I'll be playing much better five years from now. I oughta, because I know a little bit more of what I'm doing. It takes a lifetime to learn how to play an instrument. We have a lot of sensational young players come up-oh, you hear them for six months, and then they drop out. The kid of the moment, that's right. Real talent takes a long time to mature, to learn how to bring what character you have into sound, into your playing.65 Not the instrument, but the style of music you're trying to create should be an extension of you. And this takes a whole life.

I want to play for the rest of my life. I don't see any sense in stopping. Were I to live another thirty years-that would make me ninety-five-why not try to play? I can just hear the critics: "Did you hear that wonderful note old man Freeman played last night?" (Laughs.) As Ben Webster66 says, "I'm going to play this G.o.dd.a.m.ned saxophone until they put it on top of me." It's become dearer to me after having done it for forty-seven years. It's a thing I need to do.

KEN BROWN.