Edge of Absurdity
Airdate:
Tuesday - December 4, 1962
WOR Show Original Airing
(NOTE ABOUT TIME REFERENCES: Since there are many different copies of shows out there from different sources, all time references are from the beginning of one single recorded copy, since various copies, depending on when the recordee started recording, had news at the beginning or shortened themes. The times would vary from copy to copy.)
First Spoken Line After Theme Ends
I'm down there in the subway, you know. . . .
Show Description
[ Courtesy: Gary Hines - - ]
Edge of Absurdity, subway candy machine, how is it in outland, east St Louis party, just out of Army, Ruth, playing footsie, on date and her possessive mother.
[ Courtesy: GROK Summary - - ]
Shepherd opens with a comic subway candy-machine disaster: he carefully selects a nutty chocolate bar, inserts his hard-earned dime, and nothing comes out. He bangs and shakes the machine only to find a sign telling him to call Susquehanna 6SJ7 for service - another dime he won’t get back. This launches a digressive riff that includes him singing "Indian Love Call," a childhood memory of a fourth-grade classmate (Alex Joshua) who could sing it beautifully despite being unappealing, and several commercials (Show magazine with Al Capp on Doris Day, WOR Children’s Christmas Fund, and a four-thousand-volt "Freeman Shockrod" walking stick sold as a Christmas gift).
He briefly notes a Taiwan news item in which a recent Christian convert hit a Buddhist with a hammer during a religious argument and received 3½ years in jail. He also responds to a listener letter complaining that he should stick to philosophy and stop the "ricky-ticky" songs and noises.
The philosophical core is Shepherd’s claim that we constantly live "on the edge of absurdity," held upright by a metaphorical rubber band between our shoulder blades. A capricious wind of chaos periodically blows us out over the cliff; we flutter, then snap back while watching others get blown off. He compares this to the infinite regress on a Dutch Cleanser can or facing mirrors, and suggests death is simply the day the rubber band finally breaks.
Two concrete illustrations of sudden chaos follow:
1. Kansas listeners who could only receive WOR by driving to a remote hilltop every night. Dozens of cars gathered in the dark with lights off; police eventually raided them, and over a hundred people spent the night in jail for simply listening to the radio.
2. An East St. Louis "slumber party" that began with a handful of girls in the basement and exploded into a 150-person drunken melee. Uninvited teens crashed it, beer and liquor littered the neighborhood, police ran a shuttle of squad cars, a judge and school officials were called in, and the last kids left the station at 4 a.m.
This reminds Shepherd of a long-suppressed personal story from just after his Army discharge. While attending school he becomes smitten with a cool, Grace Kelly-type classmate named Ruth. After library footsie and a polite date (Chinese food, the movie *Open City*, malts), he drives her home in his meticulously polished Ford. As they pull into her suburban driveway, her enraged mother appears out of the darkness, beats him through the open car window, screams accusations, and throws rocks at the car as he flees in reverse. He ends the monologue mid-escape, still shaken by the sudden plunge from virtuous date into pure absurdity.
News Articles Read by Shep During Show
Shep would often read articles he recently read or were sent in by fans
Time
Image
Description
28:15
Noisy Slumber Party
WOR ID
Time
Station ID (All times approximate)
14:09
speaking of about to fall, this is Wor AM and FMsville New York and we'll be here for a while. . .
This Show
