the question was, which book would you prefer to actually read, a book written by an egghead like you about ray charles, or a book about ray charles written in his voice i said i would much prefer to read the book with a raised voice. then you said -- and he said you should write the book you want to read, not the one that you believe you should write. that kind of changed everything. and then when i got with ray and i discovered there was a kind of musicality in his voice, because as you know he learned -- we learn to speak before we learn to something. then it occurred to me, if there's a musicality in his voice and when i kind of create his voice on the stage until page, in other words, when i pretend i am him, when the eye of meat becomes the eye of him, i will these sort of making music. there isn't anything i would rather do than to make music. then in doing ray's voice i discovered i had a gift for it. i'm not sure what the gift is but it's something about the approximation of the force. because as you know, if you just do a transcription, in other words, the words i'm telling

and i, i confessed to bill that i was the author of the title of that piece which was "scrambled eggheads on the right." [laughter] and i don't think he ever quite forgave me for that. [laughter] the other thing he never quite forgave me for was something i did to the sainted junior senator. when pat moynihan, who was in those years a very close friend of mine, ran for senator, for the u.s. senate in new york in 19, what was it -- >> '76? >> '76, yeah. and i was what somebody once called the -- [speaking in native tongue] [laughter] of that campaign. i'm not going to translate it. [laughter] you don't get it, that's just too bad. [laughter] and i was, i was, we were very close personal friends, and i was helping him to the extent that i could. and he had just won the primary against the abominable bela -- [inaudible] by a hair, by one point, something like that. >> she wore a hat on her head. >> she always did. and here we were running against jim buckley. and in a speech that he gave, i don't think i wrote it, but i read it and edited it. i suggested that we say we've just beaten the rad