I'm Not Sure About That Role Any

There's Some Brain Damage, But It May Be That Very Brain Damage That Allows Me To Do The Work I Do.

In The Depression, Besides Everybody Being Poor, Our Entertainment Was Much More Primitive And Innocent. The Comic Strip, Which I So Venerated, Was Still A Very New Form. Movies Had Just Become Talkies. Radio Had Just Gone Coast To Coast For The First Time. Network Radio Had Just Begun When I Was A Kid. So All Of These Forms Were More Or Less In Their Infancy, And Feeling Their Oats. Comics Were Fresh And Funny And Nervy, And In A Sense, Defiant Of The Prevailing Culture.

I Was Doing Cartoons And Mocking White Liberals, Mocking The Attitude Of Government Who Said To Go Slow, While Intending To Do Absolutely Nothing For Black People, Then Called Negroes. And I Had A Lot Of Fun And I Expressed A Lot Of Anger. That Was A Thing That Was Important To Know At That Time. As I Was Emerging Into More And More Into Politics That I Was Angry.

Over The Years, I Discovered Over And Over Again That Once You Lose Control, You Have A Chance Of Getting Good At It. And Once You're Controlling The Work, It's Not Going To Be Very Good, Or It Won't Be As Good As It Should Be.

I Found It Was My Good Fortune To Somehow Be Able To Work In These Forms That I Loved When I Was A Kid. I Love Movies And I Could Write Screenplays. I Love Theater And I Could Write Plays. I Mean, They Would Be My Own, I Could Never Write What Was Used To Be Called The Well-made Play. But My First Play, "little Murders," Turned Out To Be A Great Success And A Great Influence On Plays At That Time.