Albert Einstein, one of my favorites, said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." And if that cat said it, it's good enough for me.
America gets the politicians they deserve. That's it. And you keep struggling.
And the police, because they are hired by the property owners, have the right to hit them on the head and throw 'em out. That's the society, that's how it's organized.
And you saw those ships go up. Boy,Coney Island never had fireworks like that. And all those men died.
As long as you gave it your best shot, even if in the opinion of others "you failed," you didn't fail.
Being a labor organizer in the 1930's? In the South? You faced death at any moment. Not the Ku Klux Klan - the poor people there who had no jobs. They were hired by the boss.
But find something that you absolutely love doing. And then get to love the way you do it. That's the uniqueness of all of us. That's it.
But they used to have a hundred thousand people there in Union Square Park.
During the Depression, people were getting evicted, ten a day. We used to come along and break the lock and put the furniture back in again.
Every Friday I used to have about fifty, sixty kids who would wait for me on Sunset Boulevard and I'd take them all to dinner. All runaways.
Everything is viable. But don't expect results.
From the circus I went to carnival, and then drifted into medicine shows. First I went out with somebody, then I had my own.
He has to find that answer. I can deal with somebody who's not in that kind of position and try to talk, and I do the best I can.
How could I not be aware during the Depression that people were starving?
I accepted a challenge. The industry I worked in just before the war, World War II, was the National Maritime Union.
I came to the big time radio in New York. That's when radio was king, there was no television.
I don't deal with memorabilia. I have no nostalgia items, I don't keep anything.
I don't own a newspaper, I don't own a radio station. That's it. I don't feel bad about that. I understand the limitations. I fight against them, I stretch 'em out. I'm not out to save the world.
I guess having been in my mother's household I was probably political at five or six. I don't know what you mean - what is "political?" You're aware of bread and butter issues.
I have an old brain but a terrific memory.
I know who I am. I don't have to brag. I know what I contributed. I know what I did. You think you can do it better? Hey, go right ahead. The stage is yours.
I prefer that for my own satisfaction over radio, there's no audience. TV, there's no audience. I need the response of the audience, even if it's a silent response.
I probably worked every single entertainment medium, including some that don't exist. I worked the circus, carnival, I had my own medicine show, I worked 18 years of radio.
I say that power works 24 hours. Otherwise they don't stay in power, they topple.
I started in radio in Chicago at WGN, which was then and still is, the largest radio station in the Midwest, owned by the Chicago Tribune.
I think people need housing. And there's empty buildings, I think people should live in there. If you want to call them squatters, trespassers, hey, I call Wall Street thieves!
I was a seaman The late 30's and then into the war. I was torpedoed twice, once in the Mediterranean and once off Murmansk.
I was an organizer in the Food, Agricultural and Tobacco Workers Union down in North Carolina.
I went to all the Love-Ins. I took my kids. I enjoyed myself.
I worked about eight and a half years in three different circuses - Barnum and Bailey, Cole Brothers' Circus, and Clyde Beatty.
I worked live television, plays, Broadway, Off-Broadway, films. Do what you got to do. Still do. The old mule still pulls the wagon. Not as fast, but still pulls it, gets it home.
I worked myself up into a clown and did a trick unicycle act and a trapeze act. I did anything to make a living.
I'll tell you what my secret is. It took me a long time to find this out. Find something that you absolutely love to do.
I'm for everyone having the opportunity to accept a $150,000 bribe.
I'm more important to me than any body you can mention. Do you know that?
I've been in the struggle over seventy years - it doesn't bother me I may not win.
It's not an accident. Not an accident. Never underestimate your opponent. They'll tell you that if you're a fighter. Never underestimate.
Just anything where I can work in front of an audience. So I prefer a circus, a medicine show, vaudeville, burlesque.
Like 600 other sea ships in a convoy. You never knew what you carried. You could have been carrying potatoes, which of course we weren't, or you could have been carrying explosives.
Most young people think television was around during the cave man days, but that's a "Johnny-Come-Lately," television.
My mother was a worker, a floor lady, a shop lady in the garment center here in New York.
My secret for success? I don't know what the hell success means.
Numbers are scary. Your problem is to get ten thousand people out on the street the first time they go to bulldoze that garden. And you won't. But that's not a defeat.
Oscar Wilde said the rich and the poor are equal - they can both sleep under the bridge. Right? Do they have a right? You're damn right they have a right!
People don't really understand their role in society.
That's where the term "soap opera" comes from. And then television came around, the old Dumont Network, days of live television.
The day that they attempt to bulldoze the first garden, if ten thousand people are standing there, the garden will never be bulldozed.
The ruling class is smarter than you, and they're more creative. And if you forget that lesson, you go down the drain. Because if they weren't, they wouldn't be around as long as they have been and as strong as they have been.
The struggle goes on. The victory is in the struggle, for me. And I accepted that a long time ago.
The United States, per capita, at a certain period in its history, had the most junkies of any country ever in the world - right after the Civil War. The most brutal war, the greatest amount of casualties that America's ever had.
There's a long history of underground outlaw papers - the Berkeley Barb, the RAT here, which was very popular in the Sixties. They lost their audience. Ten years is a long time for an outlaw newspaper.
There's more to anybody. Just because you haven't noticed it, that's your problem, that's not mine.
There's nothing wrong with being naive. But, after doing x amount of time, don't throw your hands up in the air, because, you see, everybody wants the "the win," they want it today. It doesn't happen.
Understood what the struggle was about. My mother. Couldn't read or write, but she had more sense than many a graduate from Harvard.
We would storm the Home Relief Centers, that or this person didn't get a check for eight dollars or something, and get hit on the head.
What motivated me? My mother. My mother was an immigrant woman, a peasant woman, struggled all her life, worked in the garment center.
You don't know what it's like to be in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. There is no more lonely feeling. You see nothing, nothing, nothing.
You follow me around and you will see total strangers greet me. Junkies, Wall Street types. That was not my aim.
You have to agree that these people shouldn't have the power. Go on Eighth Avenue and 35th Street and ask what the junkies do. They're looking for a fix. What do they do?
You see, I'm a lot smarter than the people who interview me. I'm very serious now. I created a character that people love.
You write about police brutality. Go back to 1909, you'll see about police brutality, it's not something new.
Al once had a job as a hot dog vendor at Ebbets Field.
Al has worked as a salesman, pool room owner, waiter, store detective, circus clown, and vaudeville performer.
Al married Marge Domowitz on November 1, 1956 and later divorced her on October 11, 1977.
Al had a local New York City radio show.
In 2003, due to complications during a surgery, Al's right leg below the knee and left toes had to be amputated after he spent a month in a coma.
Even decades after his role on the Munsters, if anyone on the street would see him they would yell, "Grandpa!"
He was a member of the Green Political Party.
When he ran as a third-party candidate for Mayor of New York City, he wanted to be listed on the ballot as "Al 'Grandpa' Lewis". His request was refused.
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