TWO BODIES INTERTWINED

THE LATEST BUNDLE OF NOTES FROM FLIGHT FACILITIES IS MAKING ME SWIRL IN MY CHAIR,
AND WANT TO DIVE UNDER WAVES WITH FRIENDS ON NEW YEARS EVE.

THERE IS A SAMPLE FEATURED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TRACK, AUDIO FROM AN 1959 60 MINUTES EPISODE
BETWEEN JOURNALIST MIKE WALLACE AND THE FAMOUS ROD SERLING
- SREENWRITER, PLAYWRITE, PRODUCER AND NARRATOR -
BEST KNOWN FOR "THE TWILIGHT ZONE".

SERLING DISCUSSES THE TERMINOLOGY OF PRODUCING SOMETHING COMMERCIAL AND ARTISTIC 

AND IF THE TWO BODIES CAN EXIST SIMULTANEOUSLY

A CONTENTIOUS TOPIC OF CONVERSATION

SERLING DOES IT JUSTICE, AND ELABORATES
THAT AT THE END OF THE DAY IF YOU ARE HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU HAVE PRODUCED

THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS

YOU ARE YOUR OWN BEST AND WORST CRITIC
WHERE IS THE HARM IN MAKING ART TO ENTERTAIN?

Mike Wallace: Herbert Brodkin, a TV producer, associated with some of your earlier plays, has said this about you. He said, "Rod is either going to stay commercial or become a discerning artist, but not both." Now, has it ever occurred to you that you're selling yourself short by taking on a series which, by your own admission, is going to be a series primarily designed to entertain.

Rod Serling: I remember the quote. He gave it to Gilbert Millstein when Millstein was doing a profile on me in the New York Times. I didn't understand it at the time. I fail to achieve any degree of understanding in the ensuing years which are three in number. I presume Herb means that inherently you cannot be commercial and artistic. You cannot be commercial and quality. You cannot be commercial concurrent with have a preoccupation with the level of storytelling that you want to achieve. And this I have to reject. I think you can be, I don't think calling something commercial tags it with a kind of an odious suggestion that it stinks, that it's something raunchy to be ashamed of. I don't think if you say commercial means to be publicly acceptable, what's wrong with that? The essence of my argument, Mike, is that as long as you are not ashamed of anything you write if you're a writer, as long as you're not ashamed of anything you perform if you're an actor, and I'm not ashamed of doing a television series. I could have done probably thirty or forty film series over the past five years. I presume at least I've turned down that many with great guarantees of cash, with great guarantees of financial security, but I've turned them down because I didn't like them. I did not think they were quality, and God knows they were commercial. But I think innate in what Herb says is the suggestion made by many people that you can't have public acceptance and still be artistic. And, as I said, I have to reject that.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE, AND CATCH THE FULL TUNE BELOW.

A MUST LISTEN.

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