Eugene B. Bergmann
ebbergmann@aol.com
ebbergmannshep@gmail.com
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Thanks for your excellent work chronicling Shepherd’s life and work. Here’s my online aggregation of some audio and web resources to hear him:
https://artlevinereports.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/how-to-hear-online-americas-greatest-live-sto/
Thank you,
I am aware of most of these sources, but I’ll be checking out the others too. Very helpful.
Excelsior!
Gene
Thanks for everything, really. I am part of a small internet network, inspired by Shep, the Overnightscape Underground, where we do our best to perpetuate Shep and his works. Some time, would love to have you do a segment or twenty for us! Am especially enjoying the Leigh Brown piece you are currently posting.
Hello Eugene,I wanted to write to you and give you an”atta boy”on your Shepquest.I look forward to each new writing and look forward to the next one immediately when I’m done reading.I just wanted to be a voice from out in the internet that acknowledges your fine work…..Dennis
Thank you. I very much appreciate the support.
Hello. I enjoyed reading through your blog, and wonder if you know of a recording of the Hutton’s Ad Lib radio piece you referenced? My grandmother owned that restaurant (it was on 47th and Madison, by the way), and I’d be curious to hear Shep’s piece of the same name. Thank you! Sarah
I don’t know of any recording as I’d just been given info of such a radio broadcast. I’ve very grateful to find exactly where Hudson’s AD LIB was, as my drawing of Shepherd’s has been something I’ve wondered about for years. Please let me know if you know if anything else about the restaurant and about Jean Shepherd having visited it.
Dear Mr. Bergman: I enjoyed reading your Shep book, as well as your blog. My first exposure to Shep was through his Car & Driver columns in the early 70s when I was a lad. I wasn’t fully aware of the extent of his career until just after he died. I’ve been enjoying listening to his shows & reading his stories ever since. The reason for this message is to give you the following link to a part of the Internet Archive that has a number of vintage baseball radio broadcasts from 1933-1973, including White Sox games from 1936 & 1937. This is a link to a game against the Red Sox (my team) from July 31, 1936:
[audio src="https://archive.org/details/classicmlbbaseballradio/1936+07+31+Red+Sox+at+White+Sox.mp3" /]
It’s rather interesting to listening to this game knowing that Shep probably listened to this very game, as well as hearing about “Banana Nose”, Mike Creevich, Jimmy Dykes & the other White Sox players that Shep talked about.
Thank you for you comments, Joe, and thanks for the baseball link. I assume that in addition to my EXCELSIOR, YOU FATHEAD! book, you’re also aware of my book, SHEP’S ARMY, that has dozens of his army stories transcribed and commented upon by me.
You assume correctly, sir! I also have all of those syndicated show box sets that you did the liner notes for.
That’s great, Joe. EXCELSIOR!
Gents, I was one of those little kids in Jersey who would hide under the covers with a small transistor radio hanging on every bit Shep did. I had an autographed copy of In God We Trust, that disappeared while being lent around amount friends. I saw him down at Princeton one year. I remember on my freshman orientation tour of our high school (Watchung Hills) when the tour guide opened up one of those foreign language training desks with the tape machine, and there, in the corner was a little sticker that said “Flick Lives”. I knew then and there, there are others!!! Excelsior, you fat heads!
Seltzer bottle!
Has anyone commented on the fact that at the end of the theme, there’s a brief snippet of Shep’s voice like he was singing in the background? So maybe his theme all those years was a pirated copy?……
Searching back through my foggy memory, I believe that the record of the theme that had been used for years got broken so they searched tapes of some old broadcasts and chose an ending in which, for whatever reason, he happened to say “Ah” and, not cutting that off, they continued to use that “Ah” version from then on. For Shep’s comment, see pages 196-197 of my EXCELSIOR, YOU FATHEAD! where I quote him from an interview in 1998.
Thanks.
Your followers might be interested in a new podcast series, A Look Behind in Rewind, doing nostalgic storytelling, Shep-style. Latest installment is a tribute to Jean Shepherd, https://bit.ly/ShepLives , featuring In God We Trust, A Christmas Story, a Shep autograph encounter, and more. Other episodes available at https://bit.ly/ALookBehind . Please share – thanks!
Are you aware of the great website-repository of everything Shep–www.flicklives.com, maintained by Jim Clavin.
Also my two books about Shep–EXCELSIOR, YOU FATHEAD! THE ART AND ENIGMA OF JEAN SHEPHERD and SHEP’S ASMY stories (my transceiprions, organization, and commentaries of some Shepherd army stories told on WOR).
Met Shep and spoke with him a few times. Just finished both books, found the Bio quite disturbing, but kudos to you for letting it all hang out . FYI – also bought copies for a friend ( if you’re getting residuals make sure they $end them to you ) .
Thank you. Yes, I get a small check a couple of times a year. –I didn’t do it for the money.
Dear Mr. Bergman,
I’m now reading “Excelsior You Fathead”, but being the lazy guy I am I skimmed both the index and your list of shepherdisms. I have two comments. I do not claim to be the Shepherd scholar you are, but I did listen to Shepherd on the 2 inch speaker of my transistor radio for many years when I was supposed to be asleep.
1: Shepherd was the first person I ever heard to use the word “hippie “. I try here to quote but this is from more than 50 years ago: “You can see all the hippies down in the Village, sitting in the curb, eating popsicles and thinking great thoughts.”
3: My understanding of the origin of your book’s title was a caller, when Shepherd had challenged his listeners to come up with the New York State motto. The caller, obviously young, told him, but Shepherd asked him to repeat it, at which point the caller replied with the immortal words, “Excelsior, you fathead!”
Now, I could be all wrong but I remember both of these events happening while I was attending Stuyvesant High School , which means it was between 1963 and 1966.
Thanks for your book, and
Hang loose!
Norm Friberg
I hope you did not skip the introduction–which in part describes how the book is organized.
Seltzer bottle!
Loved your bio of Shep.
Thank you very much! My publisher and most others refer to it as a “biography.” I refer to it as a description and commentary on Shepherd’s art.
Cheers! And Excelsior!!
Hello everyone my name is evan bergmann son of Eugene Bergman am I just want to say that my pops Eugene Bergman oh yoll know is not doing very well and he’s weak getting old so I’m just letting you know