The 90s

Interview with Reggie Joule, an Alaskan Native Inupiat visiting New York City. Interview with Peter Fogel, bartender at the Mayflower Hotel bar.

00:00Copy video clip URL B-roll of The 90s #300 series schedule printed on paper. The episode scheduled for an April 30 air date, show #304, is titled Bar Talk.

00:23Copy video clip URL B-roll of a various neon store front signs: video, cleaners, mailboxes, liquor.

00:55Copy video clip URL B-roll inside the liquor store. The videographer, Skip Blumberg, shoots shelves of wine. The owner asks what he is doing. He turns off the camera to explain to her why he’s shooting. B-roll of candy cane liquor bottles for holiday gifts.

01:56Copy video clip URL B-roll of the Empire State Building at night.

02:08Copy video clip URL B-roll, without sound, a party in a gallery.

02:16Copy video clip URL The sound is back. Various New York City street scenes at night.

02:26Copy video clip URL B-roll of a diner and a bar.

02:40Copy video clip URL Change of location. Blumberg enters his apartment. His wife is unpacking groceries. She carries a baby on her back. They engage in idle small talk about the baby.

03:57Copy video clip URL Change of location. Outside of Julius Blumberg shipping company. The videographer walks through New York City in the morning a woman called Sue and a man called Reggie Joule.

04:45Copy video clip URL Interview with Joule who is from Kotzebue, Alaska. He says he’s seen a good bit of Manhattan while in New York. He notes that Kotzebue is on the northwest coast of Alaska, 30-miles above the arctic circle, population 3,500. In the region itself, he adds, there are eleven villages and a little over 7,000 people. He says when he left home it was thirty degrees below zero. He says that he is in New York working with Sue to develop a career resource center in his area.

07:20Copy video clip URL Joule notes that his people prefer the term Inupiat, an indigenous term. He notes that Eskimo was originally a French word someone else assigned to his people. Inupiat, translated, means “the people.”  He estimates the Inupiat population to be about 25,000.

08:21Copy video clip URL He says the hardest part of being in New York is his compulsion to look up at all the buildings as he walks. When asked what advice he would give to others coming to New York he says he would give them the phone numbers of people he knows in the city. “I wouldn’t wish anyone being alone in this city.” As crowded as the city is, he observes, everyone is in their own little space. He thinks walking around the streets in the day is for the most part safe, but would advise people to be careful and aware.

10:10Copy video clip URL Joule says he misses home a lot and is anxious to get back. He said he was very busy on this trip and that made the time go. He misses his family the most. Today is oldest daughter turns seventeen.

11:29Copy video clip URL Joule notes his concerns about the effects of war in the Middle East. “Will there be any terrorism in the US as a result? For me, New York City seems like a place for that to happen. I feel extremely vulnerable here.”

12:04Copy video clip URL He notes he doesn’t walk as much back home as he did in New York. Things in town aren’t spread out as much. He says where cold is concerned, he doesn’t know if his people like it so much as it’s simply part of the environment in which they live. “We’ve adapted to it.” New Yorkers are at once different and the same. He adds there are many different groups of Alaskan Natives: Eskimo, Indians, Yupik, Aleut, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Haida. He notes to some degree there is discrimination among the groups. No different from other places. He adds his people are trying to hang onto their traditional way of life, and to educate others.

15:44Copy video clip URL They stop and look at parrots in a shop window. Joule says the career development center, combined with services is area is providing now, they can streamline and introduce kids at a young age to career choices and education so that they can begin to know that they have choices. At the same time he hopes that young people will stay connected to their land and culture.

17:25Copy video clip URL Joule notes his people are endangered. Isn’t it better, from your perspective, to talk with a live Alaskan Native rather than somebody’s history book? They are standing near the World Trade Center. The videographer gets  shot of Joule with the twin towers.

19:07Copy video clip URL They talk about the blanket toss. It’s purpose in hunting is to allow a hunter to get high enough in the air to see terrain and game. The other purpose is to celebrate successful whaling and hunting seasons. He notes that his grandfather was a whaling captain.

20:30Copy video clip URL Joule says there are a lot of interesting people in New York. The cab drivers he’s spoken with, people from India, Pakistan, Turkey, Jamaica, all over the world! It’s kind of interesting. They are from places as far away as I am. When asked about racism Joule says that he thinks people are equal. Of the Inupiat people, he says “we are different and we need to maintain that distinction. We’re not better and we’re not less, we’re equal.”

22:54Copy video clip URL  The interview ends abruptly, mid-sentence. B-roll of street scenes. Traffic, a firetruck races down the avenue. B-roll of various buildings including the World Trade Center.

24:49Copy video clip URL B-roll of a baby. Videographer Blumberg is in an electronics store. The owner shows him a video camera from the 1970s.

25:22Copy video clip URL B-roll of a welder on a construction site. The videographer is on the escalators at PATH World Trade Center station. He meets with Tom Weinberg.

26:32Copy video clip URL Interview with Professor Paul Nader at Newark, New Jersey. He quotes Winston Churchill who said ‘Democracy is the worst form of Government in the world except for all the others. As long as we’re dealing with human beings this is as about as good as we’re going to get.’ Nader’s full interview is seen on tape 11148.

26:49Copy video clip URL B-roll electronic display noting stock prices.

27:13Copy video clip URL B-roll street scenes.

27:28Copy video clip URL Change of location. Mayflower Hotel bar. Audio starts out low. Interview with bartender Peter Fogel. He says this is the best job. You meet cool people. A customer says all there is in bars are pretzels and smoke flavored chips. Fogel says most people these days talk about the war. He doesn’t feel it’s the best conversation to have in a bar. He thinks sports, movies, and music are good conversation topics for a bar. Neutral. No politics and religion. He says this hotel and bar attract a lot of big name performers in music and movie industry.

29:46Copy video clip URL Fogel says sometimes he thinks about the reality of what he’s doing: serving alcohol to people. But, he adds, alcohol different people in different ways.

30:25Copy video clip URL  When asked if he’s ever had to ask a drunk to leave his car keys, Fogel notes he doesn’t really have to deal with that because most of his customers are hotel patrons.

31:37Copy video clip URL He adds that he is a big music fan and, working here, he’s met his idols: Lou Reed, Dire Straits, Grover Washington.

32:33Copy video clip URL He says he started bar tending in kids joints, shots and beer.

33:11Copy video clip URL The interview ends mid-sentence. END