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It's me, Don Toliver. If I could describe the open here, but I would describe it as very seamless. It's like you clip it onto your ear and then sometimes you can forget it's there, but it's not going anywhere because it's like clipped. It's kind of crazy. If I could bring my music with me wherever I go, it would just make life easier and seamless without interruption. To be able to have the music on hand like that without any interruptions would be great.
Check out Bose.com for more. Sex. Politics. IVF.
Mental illness. I bet you have rarely, if ever, heard these topics discussed in church. And I bet you've got questions about them that you'd love to ask a pastor. Well, there's a podcast that tackles these taboo topics. I'm Pastor Mike Novotny with Time of Grace Ministry and in my new podcast, Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike Novotny, I answer questions from people just like you as I open up the Bible to give answers that point people back to the truth and especially to our Savior, Jesus. To listen, just search, taboo questions with Pastor Mike.
This is Lee Habib here. Do you wake up every morning dreading that first step out of bed because of foot pain? I know I used to. Then I tried PowerStep, the number one podiatrist recommended insoles clinically proven to relieve pain. I was skeptical at first, but from the moment I put them in my shoes, I felt the difference. Support and comfort exactly where I needed it. Now I can go through my day pain-free.
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Here's Greg Hengler with the story. Poet W.H. Auden once said, There are good books which are only for adults. There are no good books which are only for children.
Children's picture books matter because they're a form of our first impression of literature and become the gateway towards our appetites for the written word and our knowledge of the world. This most distilled form of art expresses basic truths about life in such a poetic way that it assumes the form of intellectual mother's milk. The stylistic eccentricities of Maurice Sendak, Dr. Seuss, and Shel Silverstein form the bedrock of our childhood lexicon.
Shel's story is arguably the most eccentrically interesting among the big three. Born in 1930 on the northwest side of Chicago, Sheldon Allen Silverstein grew up in a second-story apartment crammed with relatives. His Jewish parents, an immigrant father from Eastern Europe and a Chicago-born mother, opened an unsuccessful bakery on the heels of the Great Depression. Though Silverstein's mother encouraged his early knack for drawing, his father made it clear that he was expected to join the floundering family business. Silverstein discovered his passion for drawing when he was five. The lonely eccentric kid spent his K-12 years drawing, reading, and listening to the radio. Sir, is it true that you are 2,000 years old?
Oh boy! They were his comfort and refuge from the perpetual boredom of school and his increasingly wrathful father. After a few unsuccessful attempts at college, he explained, I didn't get much attention from the girls, and I didn't learn much.
Those are the two worst things that can happen to a guy. But this delay in gratification would later reveal itself as a blessing in disguise. By the time I could get the girls, I already knew how to write poems and draw pictures.
Thank God I was able to develop these things, which I could keep, before I got the goodies that were my first choice. While serving in Japan and Korea, he found an unexpected outlet as an army cartoonist. When he was discharged and unemployed, Silverstein began submitting cartoons to magazines, while hawking peanuts and hot dogs to fans at Comiskey Park in Chicago. His break came in 1956 when he visited the offices of a start-up magazine for men and men its editor, himself an avid cartoonist and army veteran, Hugh Hefner. During those Playboy years, Silverstein shuttled back and forth between Chicago and downtown New York. He frequented folk clubs and began making his own music.
Scribbling away songs in the back of cocktail napkins and tablecloths, performing folk and jazz numbers in a low, gravelly voice. Silverstein was a prolific perfectionist. In 1964 alone, he published three children's books and one book for adults. Among them was The Giving Tree, whose breakaway success caught his publisher, who had printed a measly run of 7,000 copies by surprise. Sales of The Giving Tree doubled every year in the decade following its publication.
They have since approached 10 million copies in sales worldwide. Here's Shell reading The Giving Tree. Once there was a tree and she loved a little boy and every day the boy would come. He would climb up her trunk and swing from her branches and eat apples. And when he was tired, he would sleep in her shade and the tree was happy. But then time passes and the boy forgets about her.
But time went by. One day the boy, now a young man, returns asking for money. Not having any to offer him, the tree is happy to give him her apples to sell. She is likewise happy to give him her branches and later her trunk until there is nothing left of her but an old stump, which the old man, or the boy, proceeds to sit on. Come, boy. Come sit down.
Sit down and rest. And the boy did. And the tree was happy. This book has been described as one of the most divisive books in children's literature. The controversy concerns whether the relationship between the main characters, a boy and a tree, should be interpreted as positive, i.e. the tree gives the boy selfless love, or a negative, i.e. the boy and the tree have an abusive relationship. Lisa Rogack, in her biography on Silverstein, A Boy Named Shell, offered her take on the giving tree. Given Shell's disgust with the me first attitude among the folk singers and other artists who were creating art as a form of self-analysis, he wrote it as a reaction to their own mushiness. Silverstein was continually asked to defend his children's picture book. It's just a relationship between two people. One gives and the other takes, he would often repeat.
Every year, the giving tree appears on the list of top ten children's books of all time. Silverstein said that he had never studied the poetry of others and had therefore developed his own quirky style. Shell was no coward, nor was his goal to please the most amount of people. Therefore, he was no fan of political correctness. There was a time, now you take Little Red Riding Hood, for example, the three little pigs, you know. There was a time when, I know when I read Little Red Riding Hood, she goes, you know, to the, you know, she gets the directions from the wolf and she goes to the grandmother's house and the wolf's already been there and he's already eaten up the grandmother, you know. And now an earlier edition than this had the wolf, he eats up the grandmother, the earliest edition, and then he eats up Little Red Riding Hood too.
It was a moral story, you know, I don't know what the moral was really, but it meant something. And he eats the grandmother and then he eats Red Riding Hood. Well, by the time I was reading the story, he eats the grandmother, but he doesn't quite manage to get Red Riding Hood down completely because the woodsman comes in and kills him. Then as I was older, I read the book again, and what they turned it into this time was that he eats the grandmother, he doesn't get to Red Riding Hood, but the woodsman comes in and chops open the wolf's belly and the grandmother pops out, brand new. Well, now I think it is, he comes in, he doesn't even eat the grandmother altogether.
He just scares her and she runs away, and then the hunter comes in. Well, you know, eventually, you know, the hunter and the wolf and the grandmother are all going to sit around and play gin rummy. Schell wrote hundreds of poems and verses for children in best-selling collections like The Fiercely Imagined Works, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and A Light in the Attic.
Translated into more than 30 languages, Schell's books have sold over 30 million copies. And when we come back, more on the life of Schell Silverstein on Our American Stories. All right, we're all set for the party. I've trimmed the tree, hung the mistletoe, and paired all those weird-shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses, and I plugged in the Bartesian. Bartesian? It's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails, plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites too.
I just got it for 50 off. So how about a Closmopolitan or a mistletoe margarita? I'm thirsty.
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Don't delay. Sex, politics, IVF, mental illness. I bet you have rarely, if ever, heard these topics discussed in church. And I bet you've got questions about them that you'd love to ask a pastor. Well, there's a podcast that tackles these taboo topics. I'm Pastor Mike Novotny with Time of Grace Ministry, and in my new podcast, Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike Novotny, I answer questions from people just like you as I open up the Bible to give answers that point people back to the truth and especially to our Savior Jesus.
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Hi, this is Lee Habib here. Do you wake up every morning dreading that first step out of bed because of foot pain? I know I used to. Living with plantar fasciitis felt like a constant battle. Then I tried PowerStep, the number one podiatrist recommended insoles clinically proven to relieve pain. I was skeptical at first, but from the moment I put them in my shoes and sneakers, I felt the difference. Support and comfort exactly where I needed it and when I needed it, especially those really long walks I take each day with my wife. My foot pain vanished and even my back and knee pain was eased. Now I can go through my day pain-free. Go to PowerStep.com slash OAS and use code OAS for 15% off your first order.
That's PowerStep.com slash OAS and use code OAS for 15% off your first order. I have a way to make your morning more efficient. You can get caught up on the news in about seven minutes. That is my promise to you as the host of The 7 Podcast from The Washington Post. And in that time, I will run down seven stories, everything from the most important headlines to fascinating new information you might miss otherwise.
My name's Hannah Jewell. Follow The 7 right now, wherever you're listening, and we will get you caught up. And we return to the life of Shel Silverstein.
Let's pick up where we last left off. The Beatles were on the cover. The Beatles! Silverstein produced over 1,000 published songs, many of which have been used in TV shows and movies including classics like Dr. Hook's The Cover of the Rolling Stone, which was featured in Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe's tender, semi-autobiographical film about going on tour with rock stars in the 1970s and writing about it for Rolling Stone magazine. Wanna see my smiling face on the cover of the Rolling Stone. Shel also wrote The Ballad of Lucy Jordan, which was featured in Thelma & Louise, and he was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his song I'm Checkin' Out, sung by Meryl Streep in the film Postcards From the Edge.
If I found The fearsome looking bald bearded Jew wearing a long flowing pirate shirt and leather jacket that Goodwill would have rejected was also adored by the country music community. Now here in Topeka the rain is a-fallin' The faucet is a-drippin' and the kids are a-ballin' One of them is toddlin' and one is a-crawlin' And one's on the way He wrote One's on the Way and Hey Loretta, both hits for Loretta Lynn in 1971 and 1973. Well they're buildin' a gallows outside my cell And I've got 25 minutes to go And 25 Minutes to Go sung by Johnny Cash about a man on death row with each line counting down one minute closer to his execution. Well I'm waitin' for the pardon that'll set me free with nine more minutes to go But this ain't the movie so forget about me Eight more minutes to go On February 23, 1969, the night before Johnny Cash was set to record his live album at San Quentin Prison, he held a party at his home.
The evening ended as it usually did, with his friends tryin' out their latest songs. Bob Dylan sang Lay Lady Lay, Kris Kristofferson sang Me and My Bobby McGee, and Shel Silverstein offered up A Boy Named Sue. Here's Johnny Cash's son, John Carter Cash. Shel brought my dad a poem named Boy Named Sue.
And Dad read it and he laughed and he liked it. And he put it in his pocket. And this was right before he went to San Quentin to record the live album there. He got on stage for the live performance and basically remembered that poem in his pocket. He reached in and took it out and looked at it, turned around to the band and said, play something in A. And the band just began to play. And just a little 12-bar walkin' blues rhythm. And then Dad recited the lyric, first time he'd ever recited it live, ever.
And it was recorded and that was the big number one hit. Here's Johnny Cash singing A Boy Named Sue for the first time at San Quentin Prison. Well my daddy left home when I was three And he didn't leave much to Ma and me Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze Now I don't blame him cause he run and hid But the meanest thing that he ever did Was before he left he went and named me Sue Well he must have thought that it was quite a joke And it got a lot of laughs from lots of folks Seems I had to fight my whole life through Some gal would giggle and I'd get rid And some guy'd laugh and I'd bust his head I'll tell ya, life ain't easy for a boy named Sue Well I grew up quick and I grew up mean My fist got hard, my wits got keen Roamed from town to town to hide my shame But I made me a vow to the moon and stars I'd search the honky-tonks and bars And kill that man and give me that awful name Well it was Gatlinburg in mid-July And I'd just hit town and my throat was dry I thought I'd stop and have myself a brew At an old saloon on a street of mud There at a table dealing stud Set the dirty mangy dog that named me Sue Well I knew that snake was my own sweet dad From a worn out picture that my mother'd had And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye He was big and bent and grey and old And I looked at him and my blood ran cold And I said, my name is Sue, how do you do? How you gonna die? Yeah, that's what I told him Well I hit him hard right between the eyes And he went down but to my surprise Come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear Well I busted a chair right across his teeth And we crashed through the wall and into the street Kicking and a gouging in the mud and the blood and the beard I tell you I fought tougher men But I really can't remember when He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile I heard him laughing and I heard him cuss And he went for his gun and I pulled mine first He stood there looking at me and I saw him smile And he said, son, this world is rough And if a man's gonna make it he's gotta be tough And I know I wouldn't be there to help you along So I give you that name and I said goodbye I knew you'd have to get tough or die And it's that name that helped to make you strong Yeah, he said, now you just fought one hell of a fight And I know you hate me and you got the right to kill me now And I wouldn't blame you if you do But you ought to thank me before I die For the gravel in your guts and the spit in the eye Cause I'm the s*** that named you Sue Yeah, what could I do?
What could I do? I got all choked up and I threw down my gun Called him a pawn, he called me a son And I come away with a different point of view And I think about him now and then Every time I try and every time I win And if I ever have a son I think I'm gonna name him Bill or George Anything but Sue, I'm doing this thing Shell wrote A Boy Named Sue after hearing his close friend Gene Sheppard, known for the film A Christmas Story which he narrated and co-scripted, complain about being teased for his girl's name as a kid Oh, fudge Only I didn't say fudge I said the word, the big one A Boy Named Sue managed to become one of the most referenced country songs of all time The song also became one of Cash's most requested He played it at the White House for President Nixon and he played it on his own television show On April Fool's Day, 1970 Johnny Cash sang a truncated version of A Boy Named Sue with Shell on The Johnny Cash Show A lot of your writings have meant a great deal to me and for one song in particular that she wrote has been largely responsible for a lot of the success I've had lately Shell wrote A Boy Named Sue When it was Gatlinburg in mid-July and I'd just hit town and my throat was dry I thought I'd stop and have myself a brew At an old saloon on a street of mud Bare the table, demon starts at the dirty Mandy Howe, the name is Sue Shell's voice has been compared to everything from a creaking door or a rusty gate to the yelp made by a dog whose tail had been stepped on He agreed with the critique although he liked the sound of his voice Silverstein also co-wrote The Taker with Kris Kristofferson which was recorded by Waylon Jennings He's a helper, and he'll help her to open the doors that she can't on her own Shell also advised Bob Dylan on album lyrics for what turned out to be Blood on the Tracks released in 1975 Silverstein also wrote plays He even co-wrote the screenplay Things Change with legendary playwright David Mamet On May 10, 1999 Shell Silverstein died at age 68 of a heart attack in Key West, Florida From best-selling children's book author to Grammy-winning Oscar-nominated songwriter Shell Silverstein's unique imagination and bold brand of humor are beloved by countless adults and children all over the world And great job as always, Greg What a story about a great Chicago voice and that Shell Silverstein and David Mamet worked together, thank goodness they did Shell Silverstein's story in a way, an American story about storytelling, the life of Shell Silverstein here on Our American Stories Watch, I just pop in a capsule, choose my strength, and... Wow, it's beginning to feel more seasonal in here already If your holiday party doesn't have a bartender then you become the bartender Unless you've got a Bartesian because Bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds And I just got it for $50 off Tis the season to be jollier Add some holiday flavor to every celebration with the sleek, sophisticated home cocktail maker Bartesian Pick up your phone and shake it to get $50 off any cocktail maker Yes, you heard me Shake your phone and get $50 off Don't delay This is Tonya Rad from Scrubbing In with Becca Tilly and Tonya Rad This is what you do when you've just found that statement handbag on eBay and you want to build an entire wardrobe around it You start selling to keep buying Yep, on eBay Over that all-black everything phase list it and buy all the color Feeling more vintage than ever? It's out with the new and in with the pre-loved Next thing you know you've refreshed your wardrobe basically without spending a dime Yeah, eBay The place to buy and sell new pre-loved vintage and rare fashion eBay Things People Love How do we go about supporting government leaders when we may not want to vote for or support any of them? Do babies who die in the womb go to heaven? Are there only certain reasons in the Bible that are valid for divorce? Is IVF an option for Christian couples? I'm Pastor Mike Novotny and these are just some of the topics I tackle in my new podcast, Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike Novotny I answer questions for people just like you on essential topics that are not often discussed in church To listen, just search Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike This is Lee Habib here Do you wake up every morning dreading that first step out of bed because of foot pain? I know I used to Then I tried PowerStep, the number one podiatrist recommended insoles clinically proven to relieve pain I was skeptical at first but from the moment I put them in my shoes I felt the difference, support and comfort exactly where I needed it Now I can go through my day pain free Go to PowerStep.com slash OAS and use code OAS for 15% off your first order Hey it's me, Tyla Bose open earbuds are stylish The colour, the way it looks, it looks almost like an earring So I feel like I could go with anything My style is very fun I feel like I always look like I'm on holiday I just really like playing around with it and tying it to the music So yeah, I really feel like the music I'm making right now feels like a holiday So I want to look like it too Check out Bose.com for more
