i had some fresh notes and i had him sign them. and dinah shore signed it for me and bing crosby was singing. he said where in the hell did you buy this pen, in england? it won't write. and then for mother's day when dinah shore was over there, we were there. and went and to the foxholes and gave the guys white carnations. all the white carnations. and when we got into munich, munich is in germany. it's called -- they call it munchkin, and glenn miller and his band was there. they went down to the ocean. he had johnny who took over glenn miller band. so they got into munich and then munich, there was a radio station. so they fixed it all up and reopened the radio station. so they had -- they had to give it a name. so they called it munchkin. we called it munich. then on at 12:00 every day. so he did -- luncheon at munchkin. it worked out nicely for him. i'm trying to find something i can tell you, i had it written down. i don't want to forget them. oh, theal bos. we went to germany and germany, they were bombing us pretty close. wh

i had a month and a half to write half of a book. you know in the first half took a year and a half. i was teaching simultaneous, i was writing on the weekends and trying to write as fast as i could but it was researching. i was trying to learn the culture and understand it enough so it would be part of the book. i began -- i rented a place in lake tahoe and sat there for the entire month of august. it was september ninth or something. i had summer break from teaching and i just sat down from the time it was morning to the time it was cocktail hour. i always say this because cocktail hour got earlier everyday because it was so hard to write this book when i had to write it in a certain period of time like that. what i had done finally, in the end, when it's done i thought it was the perfect situation. i had to be in that situation to write this particular book because that was the situation that the character steven was in. he was in a place he didn't want to be. he was far from people he wanted to be close to. he was not in his terri

so i had the opportunity to demonstrate that at indian springs. i remember hoover was on the ladder with me. i said watch this i'm in a roll. oh, no, you don't. got a whole combat load, you can't do that. anyway, i said -- why did you do that? well, you had a chance to shine your ride in front of the crowd. i had designed that flight plan and charlie mary wblair was out and i threw my map on the floor. i have the two with the navigational equipment in them. i thought maybe i'd do a fuller flight. >> there's a strange element that creeps into the equation when guys panic. that dictates their behavior. i never understood it myself, but i have seen it a lot. shut up and die like a man. >> rolling in at about 15 seconds. >> i can't see it. >> okay. >> and we're coming down the ridge, and i said, i'm gone. followed him around and locked on to him. he's going downhill and they're saying fire, fire. in the meantime, my wing man is yelling brake. i said, no, time to guide the missile. full bottom rudder. i'm passing everybody. and i go after him. we're all

i had a nixon fountain penny gave him. so i then went back to saigon and reported on my conversation with -- to the ambassador and chief of operations there, military operations, and then about half-way back to reporting to the navy chief pacific, i got another call from haig said the search light wants you hear tomorrow morning to talk to the cabinet and a few congressional people. so i said well i can't because i got to talk to these people in hawaii. he said we got another airplane for you. you got an hour to talk to them and get on. so i arrived about 3:00 in the morning in washington and i had with me a gun which the south vietnamese general had given me from china to show me their weapons were coming from china. it was a disabled gun but it was kind after nice souvenir. so i decided i was going to show this to the cabinet an i thought how am i going to get this into the white house? so i called one of my aides about 4:00 a.m. and he figured out how to get it delivered to me. so i met with them and described what had g

and i had not done a show for a year and i was like alright.o i got the musicians, packed the house and she came and she, the show was great. >> smith: yeah. >> shannon: we packed the house, did all the characters, and she was like, you're coming to audition for saturday night live. and i was like yes! >> smith: great. >> shannon: and so they flew me to new york and i got to audition for snl at this little comedy club called, it was like a stand up club and basically i had five minutes to do characters, and there were all these girls that they'd flown in and i also flew in my comedy partner rob mueller to perform with me. and it was very nerve wracking like we're all waiting backstage and the girls and i brought costumes and wigs and the other girls were like you brought wigs? i didn't brought wigs. she brought wigs. it was a very like kind of nervous atmosphere, and i just thought, i felt so lucky that i was just even at that point where i was getting asked to audition. i was like, just enjoy it. >> smith: yeah. >> shannon: and i wasn't... i f

i shot him to death because of his sexuality because he had been with me and i -- i'm not gay, you knowand it bothered me, you know. it angered me a great deal. it made me really mad to think that the person had deceived me, you know, in this way and hadn't just told me the truth when we met. could have said, yeah, i'm a transsexual, you know. the person could have told me that they were a transsexual. we could have had a couple drinks and been friends and that would have been the end of it. i would not sleep with a transsexual, you know. there's no way, but i did, unknowingly, you know, and that bothered me at the time, and it still does. >> when we first started interviewing richard about the murder of his former wife, it was obvious he was still very conflicted about the situation. he was distancing himself from his former wife by referring to that person as him, them, that person. >> i wanted to take the person home and drop them off, you know, and then just go my way, get the marriage annulled and be done with it, you know, but i lost my temper and i started thinking about murderin

and i wished i had kept on going but i didn't.ound, picked him up, and that's when -- that's when it -- the night that it became a reality. it just seems so bizarre to me that -- that this obsession that i had been thinking about and wanting just -- all the parts are there and they make it possible to make it happen. >> what happened after you took him to the house? >> the house was empty. my mother was up in chippewa falls with her family. and my dad was living in a rented motel about five miles away due to the divorce. and i had pretty much had the place to myself. i was drinking a lot during that time. and just, i don't know, looking for something -- some way to find some fulfillment, some -- some pleasure. and i acted on my fantasies and that's where everything went wrong. >> this was the summer of 1978 when you took your first victim. >> right. once it happened the first time, it just seemed like it had control of my life from there on in. the second occurrence was 1984, roughly. and i met this guy at one of the bars downtown

that is the toughest job i have ever had, but i would never traded for another. vis: charlotte beers was undersecretary at the state department under colin powell, as we were just discussing, and she had a long and distinguished career, working with ogilvy & mather. and her book is "i'd rather be in charge," a title that does not need any explanation. "i'd rather be in charge: a legendary business leader's roadmap for achieving pride, power, and joy at work." charlotte beers, i enjoyed the conversation immensely. that is our show tonight. we will see you next time. until then, good night, and as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. join me next time for a conversation with the author "what is the matter with kansas." that is next time. we will see you then. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs sta

i had just gotten married. and i knew that i intended to have a child, and it never occurred to me it would be impossible or difficult to do this as a member of congress. so i find out later that no one has done this before. and it wasn't the easiest thing in the world because i was commuting from california to washington every other week. and i was just very fortunate that i was a very strong person and physically very able to carry on all my duties, all my responsibilities. one thing was very interesting. i had a bill on the floor that no one wanted to see passed because it was -- they said it was protectionalist legislation, saying that you had to have steel purchased within the united states on certain projects. they didn't know who was going to debate against me. they finally got wright who was then -- not the speaker, but he was speaker pro tem to debate me. he was the only one who agreed to debate a pregnant woman on the floor of the house. but i have to say that it was like having 434 godparents. everyon

i had in the book and in my heart what i thought it was, i almost knew that if i had gone back it wouldn't be the same. so i made the conscious choice of not going. now that you tell me this i'm thankful i didn't i think it would have destroyed what i created in my head. i thought places are best when they are imagined. i hesitated naming it after a place where my mom said what did exist. i'm glad i didn't go back. making that conscious choice would have changed had i gone back would have changed the direction of the book a lot. >> when i saw it it was so different than how an imagined from reading your books. >> does that teach you never to look up things. always listen to the writer? [laughter]. >> we have time for one more question. >> can't be our essay question. >> she didn't give us a question yet. i wanted to know what made you think of the title like the samurai's garden? >> oh , know the title story. >> i'm sorry. >> quickly. this is actually a publishing business thing. i had written on the contract because i was reading about samurais and gardens. at the time the contract. i loo

i realize that forces had -- i realized that horses had personalities when i had one. before that, as a city boy, i used to go out to be stable once a year. i had no idea about horses. but ho hrsavese really distinct personalities and their magical in many ways -- and they are magical in many ways. we are extremely careful with the forces. we have set procedures that are very rigid. the horse can run about a quarter mile -- when we do a race -- that cars can run a quarter of a mile and has to rest 20 minutes. then he can run another quarter of a mile and rest for 20 minutes. then he runs another quarter and that is it for the day. tavis: it is not in my contract, mr. mann. [laughter] >> for us to have eight courses in a race, we need at least 30 two horses -- 32 coursecourses. tavis: -- 32 horses. tavis: if i were to ask you what the takeaway was for the viewer, what is it? what is it you want us to wrestle with? what is the take away? >> a to have emerged from prison, having done a crime he did not commit, is motivated with the intentions for people who put him there.

i had a couple of setbacks. house after i left the senate and we wanted to move and get a much bigger house for our family with the seven kids. that house has lost 40% of its value. so i had to do a lot of paying down of debt to keep my mortgage payments down and to get my -- i suffered what a lot of people did. i took a lot of that money and paid down a rather significant mortgage to the point where i was -- my mortgage was still below the value of my house. that's been a bit of a hit for us. i have two kids in college and a child with a disability and needing care. we have had some expenses, and we have been very blessed to have the opportunity to handle those and still be on, in the black. >> obviously, you have earned considerably less governor romney, and yet you have paid a higher tax rate it seems from what you have been saying. how do you think the public will react to that? >> well, all of my income is earned income. i have very little -- i don't know if i have any dividend income or couple hundred doll

i had a chance to see this this morning and i am just so proud to be in a city where the leadership has taken this courageous step to talk about something, particularly for our youth, that we have had a really difficult time confronting. for the last 20 years, san francisco unified has been a leader around adopting curriculum, making wellness' centers and your resource centers available to our youth. it has not been enough. the court to all of this is always about the caring adults. what you have demonstrated for us today is the ability to reach out and connect with our youth and let them know that there is a caring faction in our community and every part of san francisco that is going to be there to help and not judge but to support. i am proud and honored to be standing here. i want to rattle off a couple of statistics that make this so much more important than some -- than anyone realized. nine out of our 10 lgbt youth in our schools continue to get harassed. one-third of them get one day -- skip one day of school due to safety confirms. there are four times more likely to commit sui

didn't into the tape of that as i had planned before. i was so interested in what was going on in each stage and each thing you hear and feel going up, and so i have that tape, but it's not particularly valuable, i don't think, or anything that hasn't been told a hundred times before. >> yes. >> in "the right stuff," you're depicted in re-entry as humming "the battle hymn of the republic" -- >> a bunch of garbage. no, the last -- >> "the right stuff," you were depicted on re-entry humming "the battle hymn of the republic." can you comment? >> yeah, comment, yeah. tom wolfe in the book i thought did a good job in the book. i enjoyed the book. i hope we don't have any movie producers here. if we do, that's too bad, because i just thought when they got hooked up with it, and they sort of hammed it up badly enough that it didn't bear a whole lot of relationship to reality. and the problem was, they had advertised that movie as almost being a documentary of the early space days. but i was not singing. i was working my tail off coming

i can say this. that we were all around a lot of drugs and that she had -- i hate to say that she had started before brown. >> you see, i think that's important, simply for the background to how whitney ended up in the situation that she ended up in, because it is a presumed assumption that the bad again all this is bobby brown, but as chaka khan hinted to me and you confirmed with that detail, it may be more complex. >> it was around us all. at that time, when whitney had started and had become a star in the '80s, we were just around it all and there in new york, the aids epidemic had begun to take over. in new york, it wiped out not only the broadway community but quite a few of whitney's friends, especially her piano player who she adored and treated so wonderfully and loving and warm and i got to see her again, that light. but it had -- it had begun. we were around it and i-you know, i don't want to call names of people that were around her at that time. they may all speak themselves and begin to be honest about some of the things that were going on back at that time. >> i think it's important t

now that i had my brother, i was desperate not to lose him. >> you hadn't had him until this. >> we had that cotten batting between us. we had a fierce attachment, when you are that locked together in this kind of angry, very strong bond, underneath that is the bond and the real attachment. so detachment and saying this is about him was impossible. part of that relentless cheer leading was my own failure was to say this is real and this is happening. we always think we can find a solution to everything and we can't. >> did he teach you that? >> yes. that we sometimes things we can't understand. >> knowing what you know now about how it was all going to play out, would you have done anything differently in the way of ongoing, this will be okay, we'll make this okay, we'll try everything kind of cheer leading? >> i don't think, i would have liked to say i would have been a more buddhist embracing nature. my nature is to be with that younger sister. i think i was trying to mirror what thought he needed. maybe silence is the way to go. >> this is an odd question, when you said i finally hav

richard mallory i killed for--he had--i needed his wheels to move the stuff, and he had the right amounted to move into the apartment, so-- >>but, what about the testimony that you gave in court about-- >>i just--like i was saying-- >>about the visine and-- >>well, i was just doin a lyin biz. that was just my lying gig trying to beat the system. >>really? so, that was really all--none of it was true? >>and he said, "it doesn't matter to me. your body will still be warm for my huge (bleep). and, he said--he was choking me, and i was holding it like this and he said, "do you want to die, slut?" and i just nodded no, and then he said "are you gonna--you gonna listen to everything i've got to say, have you do?" and, i jus nodded, yes. >>(attorney) then what happened? >>he takes the visine, and he lifts up my legs, and he puts what turns out to be rubbing alcohol in the visine bottle and he sticks some up my rectum area. and, that really hurt, really bad, cause he tore me up for a while. and then he put some in my vagina, which really hurt bad. then he walked around, back to the driver's seat

and i started to cry. and they hado keep reshooting and reshooting. >> there's a picture i want to ask you about over here. you've got president reagan here, jack benny, george burns, and you're going to have help. >> al jolson, isn't it? yes. yes. >> did you know all these folks? >> i didn't know al jolson. i knew jack benny and george burns and ronald reagan. >> what was his relationship to them? >> i don't know what this was. i don't know what this was. >> but root over height over he was a political -- >> this is a favorite picture of mine. grover cleveland and alexander. that was -- i love that picture. >> political question i want to ask you about is over here with president truman with your husband endorsing president truman right there? >> oh, yes. he was a big fan of truman's. >> are people surprised when they find out? >> yes, yes. >> what did he like about him? >> he liked him because he thought he was strong and direct and principled. he just liked him. >> were you interested in politics? >> no, i wasn't. i

i had an urge to do something like this. i was on vacation, what was supposed to be the week after the 2000 election, which, as it turned out, it was still going on in florida. i started then. i was addicted from the beginning. >> you were born where? >> i was born in st. louis, missouri in 1969. >> your parents did what? >> complicated. my father was a graduate student at the time. he was getting his ph.d. when i was born, my mother was working as an administrative assistant at washington university. they were hippies and academics. >> your mother died early? >> yes. she died in 1981. >> went to a web school. >> yes. it is a boarding school. a private boarding school in claremont, california. they have a small number of days students and i was one of them. i was a scholarship kid there. it is a great place. it was great for me. it was a great place for me. it helped me to start to become who i was. >> why? >> why was it important? >> what happened there that made a difference? >> it is a small place. you know, my family did

i think he had had two jury trials at that point. i had had none. and lo and behold tony serra walks into my court representing the defendant. i couldn't imagine why he was there for a simple misdemeanor assault case, but he was. and i thought, boy, this is just my luck. here i've got this famous tony serra, he's renown, he's in the press all the time, he has had a movie made about him, and i bet he's an arrogant jerk, and i get him. first trial he's going to make me look really bad. and this poor d.a., we're just going to look terrible. well, lo and behold tony serra comes in. he's a wonderful gentleman. he's gracious. he knows i've never tried a case to a jury. he knows that the d.a. has tried two cases to a jury. he guided us through this trial. he put on a fabulous show, as is his want, which was instructional and very, very interesting. he never took advantage of my inexperience or the d.a.'s experience. and by the end of the day when that trial was over -- of course, he won. but nobody on that jury would have ever suspected that i had never tri

i looked at it as the most difficult department we had to run. he wound up appointing someone who was a friend of mine and his as the -- for the public affairs officers and i told him that the -- because he was unskilled in pentagon language he would get cut up by them and he should retain the democrat for six months or a year, and that was jerry freedeim. >> i'm going to jump around because we don't have much time and there is a number of issues we really should cover. want to start with one you raised. tell us about the public affairs side of the space program. you said you had some -- about the moon landing. >> oh. dick was very, very interested in the whole space thing. he let agnew be the contact with it but he had an interest in it. the day we landed on the moon i was with dhosh w-- who was the astronaut? >> neil armstrong. >> no. >> you mean the very first one. the very first one was allan shepherd. >> allan shepherd. allan shepherd. allan shepherd and i were watching in the white house and nixon and bill rogers were watching in his office

i had -- i had a moral compass.so than you elevating us, we brought you down. >> i kind of stepped all the way out of my box with you guys. >> jimmy: is that something you want to do now, acting, now that you have a little bit more free time than you did -- >> well, i think it's something that i will pursue in the future, yes. >> jimmy: you will? >> yes. place mrauls [ applause ] >> jimmy: will you take orders from the director? >> oh, i'd love to. i think for myself, because i have a really, really full life and i'm not kidding when i say this, but actually acting is the time where i feel like i get to let go of myself, i get to take on another character and it really does feel like a vacation for me. >> jimmy: you should do more acting. is there anyone in particular that you would like to work with? >> you. >> jimmy: well, sure, i would -- >> you. i had fun working with you. >> jimmy: people are going to get a -- >> i went home jazzed the other day. that's why i was tweeting you all night. >> jimmy: you tweeted so

and i had good strong reason for my hope. i had faith in the union. i had fai the constitution. and above all else, i had faith in the people. thank you for your kind attention. >> a question. >> sir. >> there's a bit of a controversy along us 150 years later over you and the part you play in the decision in the trial of the lincoln conspirators. >> yes, sir. >> and in particular, the decision and unprecedented decision on the part of the federal government to execute a woman, mary sirah. can you tell us how that came about? >> yes, sir. i will tell you -- and i'm aware of the controversy, and i'm aware there are a number of different sides to it -- that in my view, she was guilty. i believe she was the person who kept the nest that hatched the egg. however, the controversy arises over this, having been convicted by military tribunal and having been sentenced to death by that same tribunal, five of the nine judges on the tribunal recommended clemency for her. in other words, that her death sentence be commuted to life in prison. i was unaware of that commutation recommendation.

but i had to leave it to them. i waited and prayed. >> narrator: the plan was for the firefighters to park a truck by the sea to suck up water, then lay 800 yards of hose and leave it spraying into the fuel pool. unique footage filmed that night from the frontline of the nuclear disaster shows the firefighters preparing to approach the reactors. >> narrator: they gave themselves 60 minutes to complete the mission. any longer would expose them to excessive radiation. >> (translated): when we arrived at fukushima dai-ichi, it was so quiet. no wind, an eerie silence. the first thing we saw was tsunami debris. the roads were violently twisted. i was worried we wouldn't be able to complete the mission in one hour. >> narrator: a radiation- monitoring vehicle set off ahead of the firefighters. >> within minutes, the route was blocked by tsunami debris. the firefighters now had to lay the hose by hand, taking radiation readings as they went. >> the alarms on the dosimeters signaled a dangerous increase in radiation. >> aft

it was amazing how literally presidents of corporations would respond to these 26, 27-year-olders i had in charge of these teams. but again, i think that was one of the real miracles in mission control here is that not only the team structure but the relationship between program manager, designer, flight controller, crew was one of absolute and pure trust and once a person was given a responsibility to do the job, everybody would snap to and support them. once decisions were made, you never second-guessed those decisions. this process continued for the first 24 hours and my team came back on console again to execute a maneuver that goes back to apollo nine. during apollo nine we did a lot of testing of the lunar module engine while the two spacecraft were docked together. and immediately as soon as we recognized we had to perform a maneuver to speed up our return journey, that's the set of procedures we fell back to. we updated these procedures based on the situation at hand. my team came back on console and executed these procedures and increased our velocity on return by almost 1,000

was draftein the army, and that was a good reason for leaving because, you know, i had to, and i ent in from cleveland in 1942, 1943. >> where did you go? >> camp robinson, arkansas, was where i first went for basic training, and from there, an office at orlando, florida, called afttc, american air force tactical training center, and it was a place where they trained high ranking officers from not only our country but all over the world, and it was very unusual that there wast a great dual of saluting down there, and i remember one day we put out a camp paper there, and one day one ofhe fellows on the camp paper, trying to make a deadline, came into the office and threw his cap down on the desk and he said, "that hall is lousy with generals again." that's th way it was there. >> how long were you in the service? >> well, i was in it until the end of 1945. >> here is a 1940 cartoon and we don't -- it doesn't say much in actual words but up here it says, "and so we say goo-bye." if you go across, to north china, ethiopia, austria, and then you come here, what are you getting

i had like two sentences in the wilbur force isr force. someone who took the book of god so seriously that he changed the world forever. i started talking about him briefly, and next thing i know, a publisher calls me and says, there is a movie coming out called "amazing grace" -- you know the song "amazing grace"? we'll sing it later. i didn't write the song, i just want to be clear. it was written by the amazing tony bennett. is he here? i wrote a book about wilbur force, and people would say to me, who are you going to write about next? some people say to me, about whom will you next write? as a yale major, i want to recommend the word "whom." if english is your first wo language, you might want to use the word whomitz. there is only one about whom i would write if i were to write a second biography, and, of course, bonehoffer. i did write that book than i, no one is more grateful to the lord for the people who are reading and talking about this book. i know that it was read. george w. bush when is insatiable pressure -- i just want to s

it was the moment i knew i had to turn the page. you just know. there is something that happens to you, i am going to turn the page. i was panicked. i was surprising him, he would have said no, i am too busy, i don't want you here. i spent a day running all over new york city trying not to freak out about the sirens buying flannel clothes, the right things for the orchard. this is ridiculous, i wear what i always wear, black. >> you are wearing a black cashmere turtle neck to the orchard? you can't do that. on the airplane, i am trying to learn the apple business. i have my files like a reporter. i realize i am treating my brother as if he was a source. i just wanted him to like me. i wanted to impress him. i had to do that little sister thing. the first rule was, put yourself into their world. the second part of this was understand how difficult it is and don't wait for a crisis, because the fact is, if you have this strange relationship with a sibling, you are already in kind of a crisis. you may not recognize it and maybe comfortable and okay wi

i couldn't believe that i had survived the jump. ch the footage, i see that i'm really just not focusing on what i'm doing. i'm sort of all over the place. if i could go back there, i would, you know, try to -- i wouldn't jump. >> for alex, the recovery is long and painful. >> i've had about five surgeries. i had one surgery in santa fe, new mexico, and i was flown back to ohio, where i had three more surgeries and basically had a lot of metal put in my body. the initial recovery took about two months until i was able to walk again. you would think after this experience, i would stop jumping but i sort of had the reverse thing happen to me. i wanted to jump more. >> alex and his brother returned to the rio grande gorge bridge a year later to try again. this time, alex skips the acrobatics and pulls his chute right away. >> yes! oh, my god! yes! sick, dude. yes! >> alex continues to seek new challenges and has since completed more than 600 b.a.s.e. jumps. >> that was the craziest [ bleep ] i've ever seen. >> to me, b.a.s.e. jumping is

so i had all of that as a kind of privilege. i had the knowledge.and my studies class at friends who were really simultaneous immersion and how do we get to vote when there first women of three conferences in an 18th century. and also, we looked at some of the issues of the day, and equal rights amendment and arguments about female equality and time. and still in touch with all of those teachers and all those folks, but clearly it had a huge impression on me. i went from taking women's studies at 12 within 10 years actually. >> or some other personal heroes? >> guest: should've crammed for some of that one. well, boy, right off the top of my head, early on in life it was prevent writers lake louise fitzhugh road. the spy and of course harper lee who wrote "to kill a mockingbird." those really shaped my life. i was very affected by billie jean king. that was a famous tennis match and 73 that i watched. shirley chisholm. my mother took me to hear her when she ran for president in 72. i heard her speak at the university. i was very much aware that a bl

i had to do what i had to do to survive and i'm not proud of the things sometimes that i had to do. ow what i mean? but that's just the way of life here. >> spears has tangled with the law for most of his life and is serving 28 years for dealing a controlled substance. >> i got plenty of regrets. for one, is that the time that i've lost, i regret leaving my kids, you know what i mean? i had to make my son believe that i was in the army because i don't want him growing up thinking my dad was in prison. if i could go back and change time, i'd live a whole different life. but this is what i done. and, i mean, you can regret it every day, but the only thing you can do is change it, you know what i mean? this is no life no more. see what i'm talking about? just like being here right now, you just don't hurt yourself. you hurt actually the people that cares about you out there. a reputation follows you forever. you know what i mean? no matter how much of my life i know i can be a better person, i still have that reputation that i'm a cold-blooded person. >> though spears appeared ready to

i had joined the k-9 units prior to coming inside the walls. by the time they opened it up for us, most of the fellows knew me already. i wasn't this strange oddity coming inside. like i said, it's all in internal affairs' hands now while you're on key lock. it's all in internal affairs. right now i need you to lose the sheet and i need you to lose all the posters off that back wall. acceptance of staff by inmates is a hard thing to earn in here. sometimes respect comes a little bit quicker than it does with males. a lot of it is ego when they're bucking the male staff, where they don't have to prove anything to a female. hey. i need you to take the clothes off the conduit because that's not allowed and that extra little shelf you've got going, that's a no-no. okay? you always have to have your eyes and ears open. you have to sense the atmosphere or the environment. but i have seen staff assaulted. i have seen staff die. it's a very violent environment and it can happen. nobody, i don't believe, really knows the true reasons why sometimes. >> i'

hey, i was tortured at bci. they hadhe intercom in the room, and they kept lyin' that it wasn't on, and they were using sonic pressure on my head, since 1997. >>sonic pressure? >>and every time i was trying to write something--and i think they had some kind of eye in the cell, i'm not sure, but every time i started writing something it went up higher. so, i'm thinking that they probably had the tv rigged. the tv, or the mirror, or something was rigged. they have a huge satellite on the compound, and after they put the huge satellite on the compound, it could've been rigged to the tv set, or the mirror, or something, cause the electrician, when he put the mirror on the wall said, "doesn't that look like a computer?" the back of it. and then he stuck it to the wall. >>and do you think, what, did it affect your mind, do you think? >>did that affect your mind in some way? the sonic-- >>it was crushing my head, and they were using sonic pressure continually. then, when i had three meetings with ms. fillacorda on it, every mee

>> i had heard african 6/8 rhythm. thm, you can dance to it if you are a two or 90. ♪ i wanted the melody to represent the northern part of africa. ♪ banality would represent the north. that is how it was. -- the melody would represent the north. we had some great percussionists from south carolina. that is how i created african cookbook. we had such a great saxophonist, we would say, cook book, cook. >> randy weston, a legendary pianist coming here on democracy now! -- , here on democracy now! ♪ this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. we continue with randy weston. percent down on stage at the tribeca performing arts center. >> you go to africa in 1961. where did you go? >> nigeria. there were 29 of us. the first pilgrimage to go home to the motherland. some of these people were geoffrey holder, myself, eight members of while hampton's band. this was with an organization called the american society of african culture. they used to bring african artists to new york. ethiopian painters, singer

notwithstanding, i had many ups and downs and many ros -- rows. becoming a commissioner was exciting, and i was delighted to serve. so many dbi they that easy for me. i want to pay special tribute to ed sweeney, who has always stepped up when asked to. -- so many in dbi made that easy for me. joe duffy, tom huey, niel free -- neil freeman. they've contributed so much to making changes that make it easy or easier for the stakeholders to do business. when i started, i had this notion that i would get things done quickly. little did i know that what i considered a six-month project would take six years and had been in the pipeline for, i believe -- one public speaker used to come in here early on when i was first commissioner, and he would say, "we started this conversation when i was 63. i am now 73." if you do that math, we are talking about 16, 17 years. now, i know for sure that the wheels turn slowly, but when they do, they grind. the commission secretaries' managed to buck that trend, and i would like to thank ann, now retired, and sony up for t