SUMMARY
What
do Liberace, Bush Sr., Timothy Leary, Christine Jorgenson, and Marlene Dietrich
have in common? Along with hundreds of other influential figures who defined
the 1960’s, they were all interviewed for a one hour radio show deep in the heart of
Texas by radio personality J. Kent Hackleman. The interviews, evocative and
vivid in their representation of America during Vietnam and the 60’s sexual
revolution, are now all that remains of my grandfather.
Jay
Kent Hackleman started his career in the 1950's and he was one of the first talk show radio hosts in Houston, Tx. During his time at KTRH Houston, he launched two
successful radio shows: Tradio,
and Anything Goes, which he later named The Way We Were.
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For
almost 20 years, Jay Kent interviewed the most prolific, controversial, and
political figures from around the world on KTRH. It was his goal to get people
talking, and more times than not, people would call in to discuss the topics of
his interviews sparking a public debate. The Way We Were became known as a public forum to talk about
the unconventional through interviews with the famous.
The purpose of this campaign is to fund the professional digitization of the entire
collection of THE WAY WE WERE, thus
creating a living history for a new digital generation. $10,000 includes the shipping, handling,
and processing of 300 magnetic reel-to-reel recordings that were originally
aired and recorded on KTRH Houston. Throughout the campaign I will
be releasing more information about the individuals who were interviewed, Jay Kent's family, as
well as updates from the BLANK on BLANK series with PBS.
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“THE PAST IS PROLOGUE”
Papa Jay was my grandfather. When he passed away, he left an entire
collection of reel-to-reel magnetic tapes that no one has heard since they were
originally aired.
One of Jay
Kent’s tag lines was, “the past is prologue,” and now as his granddaughter I am
a new media artist who focuses on nonfiction, and community based
storytelling. In my own work, I blend documentary and experimental modes
of representation to explore questions of identity and queerness,
performativity, and historic
parallelism. I’ve always known that I wanted to be a storyteller, but had no
clue that this curiosity was so embedded in my genes. You can view my own work
at lisslafleur.com.
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In the summer of 2014, I began digitizing three of the tapes with the PBS series
BLANK ON BLANK, a nonprofit dedicated to uncovering, preserving and reimagining
the American interview.
With
BLANK ON BLANK, I was able to hear my grandfather interview:
LIBERACE,
on what he would do as president of the United States
MARLENE
DIETRICH, on war, sexism and the youth cult
and
TIMOTHY LEARY, on LSD
These
interviews are cut into to 5 minute short films, and Animator Patrick Smith has
brought my grandfather back to life by re-visualizing the interview.
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BLANK ON BLANK, Liberace, Illustration by Patrick Smith
These
short films will be released this fall and spring online with PBS Digital.
EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
$1 digitizes 1
minute of tape > $30 digitizes 1 tape > and $60 digitizes 2 tapes
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The MediaPreserve Audio Visual Laboratory, in Pittsburgh, is a place where history is made — and remade — time
and again.
The MediaPreserve provides careful, cost-effective and
efficient transfers of audiovisual materials of all types. To ensure that all
assets are handled, transferred, and assigned metadata according to current
professional standards and practices, The Media Preserve staff includes
librarians and archivists, preservation experts, engineers, and IT specialists.
Unlike other preservation studios, The MediaPreserve does not
use robotic systems to run the multiple ingest studios: engineers monitor every
asset from beginning to end.
THE WAY WE WERE is not just
about looking back, but looking ahead.
This is a rare opportunity to listen to audio from a critical time in
our world, and for me as an artist to explore how the personal is political. Many of the same
controversial themes are still being discussed today: war, women’s rights,
abortion, higher education, equality, censorship, writing, performing, and so
much more.
My grandfather
believed in the power of community, history and public discourse, and this is
why I’m launching a crowd-funded campaign to preserve the collection and
include a new generation in the process.
This
is an opportunity to take part in a living history that’s been ignored for far
too long. The seal has been broken, and now with the help of the MediaPreserve
Center, It’s my goal to digitize his entire collection of 300 magnetic tapes.
After this campaign…
After
properly archiving and digitizing all of the tapes, snipits from each recording will be placed on a website grouped by theme and date. Future funds will be
raised to support the creation of a book, film, and interactive website. It’s
also my goal to have all of the original tapes placed within a collection at a
University for further research and safe keeping.
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