Q: Did you go to college as soon as you got out of the service the second time?
A: No. I had the GI Bill, but I didn’t have any money.
I took a job.
Q: Where? Doing what?
A: RCA/EDP in
We called it the Barking Dog Company, after Nipper, listening to His Master’s Voice.
We called it the Training Ground for the Industry.
Q: Did you live in
A: No, I lived in an efficiency apartment on
A bachelor pad. Beach Blanket Bingo.
I saw Mondo Cane in a drive-in theater. By myself.
I read the Sunday
magazine of the
Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, and Dick Schaap were writing for it.
I thought I was going to be a New Journalist.
I was also reading Marshall McLuhan and Claude Lévi-Strauss.
I ended up majoring in Anthropology in college.
Q: How long did it take you to save up enough
money to go to
A: My grandfather came into some money when the family dairy in Ojus was sold to land developers. Ives Dairy. He gave each of the grandchildren $1,000.
I sent off for an application for the next semester.
Q: Did your parents help you?
A: They gave me an
I wrote all my papers in college and graduate school on that machine. Then I wrote nine novels on it.
Q: Those were stout machines.
A: Yes. Very durable.
Q: Like you.
A: Like me.