David Swenson: 00:00 Good Day, Thomas Jefferson Hour podcast listeners, and thank you for listening.

Clay S. Jenkinson: 00:07 We're so appreciative. This program was, I'd have to say a little discursive.

DS: 00:12 I'm not even sure I know what that means.

CSJ: 00:16 Less focused on a single theme. We're responding to some mail and then responding to some audio recordings you've made of people who've come to visit us.

DS: 00:16 You were gone, unfortunately.

CSJ: 00:29 I was elsewhere. I was so sorry when you told me that we'd had a friend, named Mike, that I met in the Mediterranean long ago who happened to be in South Dakota and on a whim, drove six hours, drove up here and got here and the place was locked. But fortunately —

DS: 00:44 Well it wasn't locked but I was gone.

CSJ: 00:44 You were gone.

DS: 00:48 So he waited in the lobby for a couple hours.

CSJ: 00:52 And he wasn't here to tell us that we're morons or that we should be banned in many states?

DS: 00:57 No, he wanted to come up and meet us.

CSJ: 01:00 That's fantastic. Thank you Mike.

DS: 01:01 So I had him in the studio and we talked for a bit and you'll hear that.

CSJ: 01:05 I hope he comes on the Jefferson Hour tour in France, which is next autumn, 2019, finally. People keep saying to me, 'is the whole France thing over, are you ever doing it?' And there have been a whole series of reasons why we haven't been able to do it. But now we are. We're going to Jefferson's France in the autumn of 2019. We want everyone who wants that to come. There'll be two trips, there'll be the main trip and then there'll be the add on and the add on is the Canal du Midi or the canal —

DS: 01:05 Oh wow, that's ambition.

CSJ: 01:33 Jefferson — I've been on that trip. I led that trip once. Jefferson's time on the Canal du Midi was amongst the happiest time of his entire life. I've been on at once for nine days. This will be shorter, be about five, but there'll be two trips, the main trip and then the supplementary trip and that'll be next fall. So people should be looking for that. It's on the website, Jeffersonhour.com, and then there is the Steinbeck trip, March 2 through 8th in Monterrey and the two Jefferson Hour humanities retreats at Lochsa Lodge. This year, one on Shakespeare, back by popular demand and the second one is on water in the West, you know, water's becoming a bigger and bigger and bigger issue because of the population surge in the west and the results of global climate change, but listeners to the Thomas Jefferson Hour — this week was about listener response, some very interesting listener response. I read that great letter about television. Then you read a counter letter saying, no, no, that was too hasty. That judgment that we should shut off our television.

DS: 02:37 A little foray into American folk music from the 70s.

CSJ: 02:40 We talked a little bit about Paul Mccartney —

DS: 02:40 And John Prine.

CSJ: 02:44 And we mentioned John Denver, whether accurately or not. Quite a show. A lot of ground and then we had a —

DS: 02:50 We had a lot of fun with Mike.

CSJ: 02:52 Poor Mike. I hope he's not offended.

DS: 02:52 I don't think he will be.

CSJ: 02:54 We were doing our mystery science theater routine with Mike's commentary about how he drove from Sioux Falls up to Bismarck to see us.

DS: 02:54 You know what Mike is?

CSJ: 02:54 No.

DS: 03:03 He's a member of the 1776 Club. And if you would like to support the Thomas Jefferson Hour, my friendly reminder, go to Jeffersonhour.com. Click on donate. If you join the 1776 Club, you will gain access to just about every episode ever produced. You'll also be able to download — I don't know if anybody even has — Well, I know one person has — the audio book version of Common Sense, a couple of weeks ago

CSJ: 03:03 That you recorded — one only?

DS: 03:03 Well —

CSJ: 03:03 That's not very many.

DS: 03:03 Rick Kennerly did —

CSJ: 03:03 So people —

DS: 03:38 And he gave me a great review, said, you know, 'you could get a career doing this.'

CSJ: 03:38 David Swenson on his own recognizance recorded all of Common Sense. You should listen.

DS: 03:47 If all I hear from is Rick Kennerly and it's positive, I'm fine.

CSJ: 03:50 That's it. You could read to one.

DS: 03:54 But then also you did the Declaration of Independence.

CSJ: 03:55 It was pretty interesting for me to read it in its entirety because it's longer than you think. It's more detailed than you think. Usually you think, "we hold these truths to be self evident," but the bulk of it is this indictment of George III and the parliament of England.

DS: 04:11 We hope you enjoy this week's show. It was a lot of fun for us.

CSJ: 04:11 Next week we'll focus.

DS: 04:23 Good day citizens, good day, Thomas Jefferson Hour listeners, and welcome to this week's edition of the Thomas Jefferson Hour. This week we are joined by the creator of the Thomas Jefferson Hour, Mr. Clay Jenkinson seated across from me now.

CSJ: 04:35 Hello my friend. I have a letter I want to read to you. I walked into the barn and I went to the milk room where, you know, we have our postal cubbies,d there are letters to you, letters to me, but here, this letter was written by pen by a man named Daniel P. And I'm going to read it in its entirety.

DS: 04:35 Really?

CSJ: 05:00 It's short. "Mr Jenkinson, I write this in response to the essay on June 12, 2018 at the end of your program. That, sir, was a work almost on par with Thoreau or Emerson."

DS: 05:00 Now I know why you're reading it. It was a good one.

CSJ: 05:15 "Since hearing your essay, I have only turned on the TV for a couple of minutes. Now I sit here and glance occasionally at the strange black mirror affixed to my wall and somewhat scoff at the idea of reactivation of it. There has been a noted increase in productivity in reading and work around the house. I recently heard a song by John Denver entitled, blow up your TV. I have half a mind to do that" —

DS: 05:15 Actually that would be by John Prine.

CSJ: 05:15 Oh, he says John Denver —

DS: 05:48 Well, I think he recorded it, but it was written by John Prine.

CSJ: 05:54 "I have half a mind" — Now you're correcting my my fan. "I have half a mind to do that, but damn sure at some point I will want to see the next work by Ken Burns or David Attenborough. My sincere thanks to you and Mr Swenson for putting together this wonderful podcast. I have been listening a little over a year and hear the string music before I push the play button. Sincerely, Daniel, A. P. Isn't that beautiful?

DS: 05:54 It is.

CSJ: 06:23 And he's going to blow — and it's a John Prine Song. I've never heard it.

DS: 06:23 You've never heard that?

CSJ: 06:23 No, I've never heard it.

DS: 06:27 The chorus is blow up your TV, throw away your papers, move to the country, find you a home.

CSJ: 06:36 So it's a modern Candide. Voltaire at the end of Candide says, just go home and cultivate your garden.

DS: 06:37 Yeah, and that's the rest of it. Grow a little garden. Can a few peaches.

CSJ: 06:43 See? That's Candide. That's a modern Candide. I didn't know about it. That's great. So Daniel, thank you. I don't think that I can say the words Thoreau and Emerson without blushing, but the fact that you think that this, that these essays, these Jefferson Watch essays are useful gives me great joy. It's a lot of work writing them, David, every time we have. A Jefferson Hour coming —

DS: 07:05 But it may be a lot of work, right — I'm suspecting there are a few moments in your week that you enjoy more.

CSJ: 07:12 You know what I like to do, I like to have —

DS: 07:12 Am I right?

CSJ: 07:15 I like to have written. People say, 'do you like to write?' I say, 'yes. I like to have written.' Writing is hard, but I love the process and I love the chance that this gives me to step back and measure my terms a little and to try to provide some historical context, but also to give my own views without just blathering on as I am currently doing.

DS: 07:39 That's quite all right. Blather away.

CSJ: 07:42 I'm blathering on, so thank you Daniel.

DS: 07:43 Yeah. This is kind of a free form show.

CSJ: 07:45 He, I hope he's going to send $1,000,000 now so we can get this into every household —

DS: 07:45 You're so money oriented.

CSJ: 07:51 I'm not. I just want this program to have it's chance. Is that too much to ask?

DS: 07:51 Yeah.

CSJ: 07:51 Okay. Sorry.

DS: 07:56 We have to earn that.

CSJ: 08:01 The jury is in on that. If that's the case, the jury is in.

DS: 08:07 I would disagree with you on that.

CSJ: 08:07 I want grace not justice.

DS: 08:10 All you need to do is sit down and read all of the email. When you get done with this show, when you go back to the world —

CSJ: 08:18 Is it on the whole positive?

DS: 08:24 Well, it doesn't matter. It' discussions. It's not — Some of it's positive. Some of it's negative. Some of it is like really over the edge negative and some like the letter you just read —

CSJ: 08:32 That wasn't over the edge. That was truth with a capital T. How dare you!

DS: 08:37 You have a number of — we got one from Dan Silvia.

CSJ: 08:37 I know Dan.

DS: 08:44 Yeah. Okay. Well, he wrote about — 'it's unusual that a program inspires me to write twice, but here again, Adjustments gave me the cause. In this instance I take issue with your critique of television.'

CSJ: 08:58 Now see, just the opposite of Daniel.

DS: 09:02 'In my mind, television is a medium, a mode of content delivery, very much like the radio, the newspaper and the cineplex. Just as the radio became the ubiquitous technology and the television has become the dominant medium.' But his point is, it's just a delivery device.

CSJ: 09:19 Wrong. Because look, I get it. It's a medium, but the medium is the message. As Marshall McLuhan said. I have a widescreen television. I remember when it was installed.

DS: 09:29 Yeah, you know, that sounds good, but I don't know that that's true. I'll let you finish. I'm sorry.

CSJ: 09:33 What were you — what part were you interrupting about?

DS: 09:35 The medium is the message.

CSJ: 09:36 Oh, it is. Because if you have a widescreen television. When I sit in a chair and look at it, I'm just like a two month old infant.

DS: 09:45 Oh, and you think you're special because of the era you live in?

CSJ: 09:45 Yes.

DS: 09:49 I was just doing interviews — I was going to talk to you about this — all over the state at elder care facilities, and they talked about when you were on your farm you needed two batteries. They were six volt and many people uses their windmills to charge them, but you needed two batteries. Do you know why? One for the car and one for the radio and how people would gather on Sundays to a house where there was a radio. So this addiction to electronics connecting us. It's not new.

CSJ: 09:49 Fundamentally different.

DS: 09:49 It might be better.

CSJ: 09:49 Fundamentally different.

DS: 09:49 I don't think it is.

CSJ: 10:24 Because when you're listening to radio, as I do a lot, you are listening to the word. Your imagination may be picturing that word. But you're listening to the word and so it's primary — it's primarily a verbal exercise in listening ,and you're listening to argument and you're listening to nuance, and then if you suddenly have pictures of a terrible fire or an explosion or a riot or a building coming down that's being imploded, you are so drawn to the visual that it starts to shut down your capacity to listen with discernment, and as I was attempting to say, the quality of our HD televisions is such that were just mesmerized by them. They just, they have a hypnotic effect on us and they disarm us from a) doing other things, which is what my letter was talking about and b) from having a level of genuine intellectual skepticism and discernment.

DS: 11:22 Now, let me go back to Dan's letter. He says 'that television gives Americans another method of overindulgence moreover is more a symptom of society's ills than a cause.' And he ends by saying, 'please remember that without the television we would not have had Archie Bunker, Ken Burns or Walter Cronkite. We need to raise our standards and not shoot the messenger. Yours in pursuit of knowledge, Dan.'

CSJ: 11:49 Well, fair enough. I certainly believe that there is — I watched, at the insistence of my child, two things, one of which I want to talk to you about, but let me say the first one first, David. I watched a documentary on John McCain and it was outstanding.

DS: 11:49 I haven't seen that yet.

CSJ: 12:08 You've got to watch it. It was outstanding and — my daughter's in New York. I'm here and we talked afterwards and we both said we need more of him. We need more people like John McCain. But the second thing, this is, I bet you've seen this. Have you seen the late show thing about Paul McCartney in Liverpool?

DS: 12:08 Mhm.

CSJ: 12:23 That is the greatest thing I ever saw. Tell people about it.

DS: 12:26 A friend of mine came back and said, you have to watch this. I was in tears.

CSJ: 12:30 David, I wept through the whole thing. I was sobbing when the curtain opened and the people in the pub in Liverpool —

DS: 12:30 Don't give it away, don't give it away.

CSJ: 12:38 That's not a deal breaker.

DS: 12:41 It's hosted by James Corden and —

CSJ: 12:43 They go driving around in Liverpool —

DS: 12:43 And Paul McCartney shows up. So what's your point in all this?

CSJ: 12:47 But my point is that's great television. Visually. So I saw —

DS: 12:47 So is the John McCain thing.

CSJ: 12:57 I'm making the case for TV right now. I saw Paul McCartney in — live in Fargo a couple of years ago, but you know, you're like a mile away. In this karaoke thing, you see the — he's beginning to look a little frail, but he still has it.

DS: 13:15 Well, he does show his age, but he, my goodness, he's 76, I think, 75.

CSJ: 13:19 But think of this, David, how many people are there in the world who are very nearly universally admired. I mean, I'm sure there are some McCartney detractors, but he's very nearly universally admired. He is the living embodiment of the hopefulness of the sixties, the innocence, the optimism, the belief that this was the age of Aquarius. He's still alive. He's magnificent.

DS: 13:19 Yeah, it's great. It's great fun.

CSJ: 13:41 And — that's the kind of somewhat slightly fragile McCartney is singing a little out of tune a bit.

DS: 13:41 Back to your case for TV.

CSJ: 13:48 I'm saying that that was great television.

DS: 13:51 And it was great television because we learned something —

CSJ: 13:55 And the visuals really added to it.

DS: 13:55 We were engaged —

CSJ: 13:55 Yes.

DS: 13:55 But you're against television, like, reality TV?

CSJ: 14:03 Yes, I think that if we turn off our televisions — I think that for me it's like the fatal glass of beer. I either have to — I can't watch one hour per week. If I start watching television, I'm at Three's Company marathons. I'm there eating Cheetos at Three's Company marathons.

DS: 14:20 We'll find someone that can talk to you about that.

CSJ: 14:20 No. True. Don't you?

DS: 14:30 No. On this subject, it was quite an essay. And I stopped at the end of it and said, man, that's, you're onto something there. And a lot of people reacted that way. And we did get, if I may go back to letters, we did get a letter from someone asking, please how can we hear that again? And it's, you can find those, every week

CSJ: 14:46 They want to hear my essay on television?

DS: 14:47 Right. And you can find those every week, if you go to Jeffersonhour.com, you'll find links to that week's essay. Now, I don't know how long they keep them up. Yeah.

CSJ: 14:57 Wasn't he going to create an anthology of the essays?

DS: 15:00 Yeah, well we did last year, but this is a newer one, so for sure you can get it. If you joined the 1776 Club, which is a great way to support the show.

CSJ: 15:07 Or if you send me a case of wine, I'll put a hand-signed copy in the mail to you.

DS: 15:07 Any particular vintage?

CSJ: 15:07 Bordeaux please.

DS: 15:07 What year?

CSJ: 15:07 65.

DS: 15:07 And how many bottles?

CSJ: 15:20 They come in cases of 12 or 20.

DS: 15:21 Jeez, you don't ask for me. You are indulgent.

CSJ: 15:21 Hand signed.

DS: 15:26 You are indulgent. While you were away. I had a couple of encounters that I would love to share with you if I might. A woman that I met in Valley City.

CSJ: 15:38 Valley City, North Dakota, a town in eastern North Dakota.

DS: 15:39 It was just wonderful. And another gentleman drove, he drove six hours, to get to Bismarck.

CSJ: 15:39 What was his name?

DS: 15:51 I will reveal that in the next segment, but he drove six hours to come to Bismarck to visit us unannounced and I wasn't here.

CSJ: 15:51 I wasn't here, I was gone actually.

DS: 15:51 You were out of the state.

CSJ: 15:51 I was somewhere else.

DS: 16:03 If not out of the country. And I was out of the studio and he sat here and waited and waited until I returned.

CSJ: 16:03 Whoa.

DS: 16:12 He sat in our lobby at the studio for at least two hours.

CSJ: 16:15 Wait a minute, let me get this straight.

DS: 16:16 I'll get to it. Next segment.

CSJ: 16:16 He drove from South Dakota?

DS: 16:16 Right.

CSJ: 16:20 To the new enlightenment Radio Network Studio, not the barn.

DS: 16:20 Right. Makoché Studios actually.

CSJ: 16:20 And you met him?

DS: 16:20 I met him.

CSJ: 16:20 That's a long drive.

DS: 16:20 It is.

CSJ: 16:30 No, that's a long drive.

DS: 16:33 Right now, we need to take a short break. When we return, we will introduce you to mike and share part of the conversation he and I had. We'll be back in just a moment. You're listening to the Thomas Jefferson Hour.

CSJ: 16:57 So that's John Prine and that is the modern Candide from Voltaire. Cultivate your garden, blow up your TV.

DS: 17:08 It's actually titled "Spanish pipe dream." I can't believe you haven't heard that.

CSJ: 17:09 I had never heard that before. Thank you. But did you say John Denver recorded it? Covered it?

DS: 17:13 Perhaps, I do not know.

CSJ: 17:14 Maybe it was just a verbal slip.

DS: 17:14 You know who would know?

CSJ: 17:14 Who?

DS: 17:14 Crisler.

CSJ: 17:20 And I want to say Crisler sent you what appears to be a self portrait.

DS: 17:20 [Laughing] That's awful.

CSJ: 17:20 It's a picture of John Adams.

DS: 17:20 He sent a package and I just —

CSJ: 17:20 Why not to me, Crisler?

DS: 17:20 That's what I assume —

CSJ: 17:20 Why not to me, Crisler?

DS: 17:20 Everything comes to you.

CSJ: 17:20 I thought it was a self-portrait.

DS: 17:38 You're the one who asked for it. So I thought it was for you and I texted him back and said, you know, by the way, your package arrived safely. I'll give it to Clay next time he's in, and he wrote, he texted me back and said, it's for you dummy.

CSJ: 17:38 That's a double insult.

DS: 17:38 No, it's Crisler —

CSJ: 17:38 It's a double insult, Crisler.

DS: 17:53 It's Crisler's humor and he's a great guy.

CSJ: 17:53 It's actually well done.

DS: 17:56 It turns out he's quite a good artist. It's a portrait. We may want to post this on the site. It's a portrait of John Adams.

CSJ: 18:02 Oh I thought it was Crisler.

DS: 18:04 And I wonder why he thought I should have —

CSJ: