David Remnick (2:15)

Okay, wait a minute. Who's Vinny?

Wahini Vara (2:16)

Vinny is a spokesperson for Lizard Squad. At least now he is. He's also a hacker who was part of Lizard Squad. He says his arrest had nothing to do with actual Christmas attacks, but the search warrant says otherwise.

David Remnick (2:28)

So Wahine, what's the meaning of all this? What implications does it have for all of us going forward?

Wahini Vara (2:35)

So here's the thing. In the past we thought of hacking as something that people with some technical expertise could do, right? Like hackers were scary guys who knew all about how to program compute computers to do Bad things. Well, so now what's happening is that these guys and others are creating tools that allow anyone to hack, and so it sort of lowers the bar for this kind of criminal activity, which has major implications.

David Remnick (3:01)

So how does the hacking tool work?

Wahini Vara (3:03)

Well, I asked Vinnie the same thing, and he said the tool is so easy that my grandmother could use it. But I'll let him explain the details.

David Remnick (3:09)

He's never met my grandmother or my.

Vinny Omari (3:11)

Mother in the simplest way that I could probably describe it. You put an IP address in of the website or the home connection or anything basically that you want hit offline. You put the seconds in or minutes or hours, and you just basically send the attack. And all the servers that are connected to the Lizard Stressor tool, they basically send packets towards that IP address and just flood it. And that will cause the IP address or the server on the other end to just basically die down.

Wahini Vara (3:40)

And by packets, you mean just in layman's terms, kind of like messages or requests? Right?

Vinny Omari (3:46)

Put it like this. Like, imagine if someone was to send, like, 50,000 text messages to your phone at once. Your phone would probably have a seizure or something.

Wahini Vara (3:55)

Right? What was the point of lizardsdresser? Was it to make money? Was it to force companies to make their own computer systems, their websites more secure? Or was it just for fun?

Vinny Omari (4:05)

Yeah, it was literally just for fun and to rake in some extra money, I guess, or the main goal was just to see how many people would actually buy the service. Like, and a large sum was made in the short amount of time that it was up and running.

Wahini Vara (4:17)

How much money was made?

Vinny Omari (4:18)

I can't give you an exact number, like, the exact number off the top of my head, but, like, I believe it was. It was definitely over 10,000.

Wahini Vara (4:25)

And what was done with that money? Did you split it among yourselves, or is it sitting in a bank account somewhere, or.

Vinny Omari (4:31)

No, I. I didn't actually touch any of it, like, especially because I was on bail, because this happened after I got arrested. I'm always in it just for the fun, I guess, or just to see what we can achieve, you know, I'm not sure who else took anything. Like, I just didn't get involved with the money.

Wahini Vara (4:44)

As I recall, in the BBC interview, you described yourself as a spokesman for Lizard Squad. What did you mean by that, exactly? What was your involvement?

Vinny Omari (4:55)

Well, to be honest, the BBC 5 Live interview was just a complete, like, joke.

Gloria Steinem (4:59)

If.

Vinny Omari (5:00)

If you listen to it, like, you'd probably maybe hear me and my friend sniggering in the background. It was that was a complete joke. Like they just, they were really serious about it and we thought that it might be funny. But the Sky News interview was like serious.

Wahini Vara (5:12)

And a couple of days later you were arrested.

Vinny Omari (5:14)

Yeah, I was arrested on the 29th.

Wahini Vara (5:16)

Well, let me ask you this. The website of Lizardstressor said at one point there was a disclaimer that said permission is granted to stress test dedicated servers and networks owned by you. This is the opportunity to make your firewalls better, not to misuse against the law. And I wanted to ask you, do you, I mean, did you really expect, who did you expect to see using Lizards dresser? Did you think people would be using it to target their enemies or did you think owners of websites would use it to test their systems and see if they were secure enough?

Vinny Omari (5:48)

No, owners would actually do that. I mean, if actually came to owners using Lizard Stress or any other stress testing tools like that, they'd most likely use it against their competitors. But the majority of them were just home connections really, to be honest, because they're like simple and like a bunch of kids nowadays on Xbox or when they're playing on their PlayStation 4 or 3, they just like to take down other people. Like when they're playing Call of Duty for example, they knock off like a member or two on the other team just so they have the advantage of two extra players on their team just so they can win.

Wahini Vara (6:20)

I see. So this isn't necessarily some kid and Nebraska trying to take down Amazon.com or something like that. This, this, this is some kid in Nebraska trying to take down some kid in Iowa who he's playing. Yeah, a game with.

Vinny Omari (6:34)

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually tried to take down Amazon. I doubt they would because a lot of money would be needed. An investment of at least like £200,000 or $300,000 roughly, around that much would be needed just to take down like Sony and Microsoft.

Wahini Vara (6:51)

It's unusual, right, for a hacker or somebody involved in a hacking group to be so public about what he or she is doing. And it seems to me that after you were public about what you were doing, that was one of the things that may have triggered this arrest. And I wanted to ask why. I mean, you're talking to me now. Why be so public about what you're working on?

Vinny Omari (7:13)

Well, here's the funny thing. My arrest actually, according to the police that arrested me, it actually wasn't in regards to the attacks during Christmas. It was actually in regards to someone sending me $2,000 to be a leader in one of my gaming groups in an online forum. As soon as I went on Sky News and they saw my face and everything, I mean, they obviously knew who I was. Then they decided to come straight to my house and on the warrant papers where they had the warrant to come to my house and take everything.

David Remnick (7:44)

It.

Vinny Omari (7:45)

It basically did explain that there was a PayPal fraud and hacking into computers, and there was a couple of random other charges along with Microsoft and Sony intrusions. But on my actual charges, the Sony and Microsoft attacks, they weren't listed on there and they've been dropped as far as I'm concerned.

Wahini Vara (8:04)

So when I. When I tried to visit the Lizard Stressor website recently, it seemed to be down. What was going on there? I've noticed that a couple of times in the past when I've tried to visit, it's been down. And is there another way that people can access the service?

Vinny Omari (8:17)

No, it was actually taken off because there's quite a story behind it. At the beginning, it was just created to make money. Recently, I'm not quite sure if you saw it, but basically the website that all of our servers were connected to, it was basically really vulnerable to several attacks. And the database was just leaked, along with every single user's emails and passwords and whatnot on their payment methods. The National Crime agency actually arrested six to eight people, I believe, and they're still looking into another 50 people.

Wahini Vara (8:49)

I'm curious about how your family reacted to all this, how your friends reacted. Did people in your life know that you were involved with Lizard Squad before this?

Vinny Omari (8:58)

No, not really. My friends, obviously, I don't really try and connect myself with a lot of people because that's usually the downfall of everything. But, I mean, I can't really say that now because of the position that I'm in. But, yeah, I mean, my family, they knew my dad would always tell me to stay away from the computer and stuff because he always felt like that I was doing dodgy things and stuff because most of the time I'd have like loads of servers and most people don't have that stuff usually on their computer screen, so.

Wahini Vara (9:28)

And how did you explain it?

Vinny Omari (9:30)

Well, I tried explaining in the simplest forms, like, I mean, I showed him, and after a while he understood, like, after, like a year or two, actually. But at the beginning he thought that I was selling drugs. So.

Wahini Vara (9:42)

Let me ask you a little bit about the. The ethics of hacking and of these kinds of attacks that Lizard Stressor allows people to perpetrate. Are they ethical, are they unethical? Is there a gray area? Does it depend on, on who you're targeting?

Vinny Omari (9:55)

For example, the attacks from Lizard Stressor.

Wahini Vara (9:59)

The attacks, the, the kinds of attacks that Lizard Stressor allows people to make?

Vinny Omari (10:05)

Well, that's pretty hard to say. It really depends on the person, I guess. Sure, someone could have actually used it to like test their website security, but like, the chances of that actually happening are very slim. That's probably the only way that I could probably say that it's ethically or morally right. So it's pretty useless. So yeah, there isn't much of a, of an ethical form of service, like, especially if it's like stresses and stuff like that or the tool specifically.

Wahini Vara (10:33)

So you would argue that as long as people are using things like lizards dresser to take down other people's servers, that isn't an ethical use.

Vinny Omari (10:42)

Yeah, that's, that's obviously as, as well as that it's illegal.

Wahini Vara (10:46)

So do you still consider yourself a member of Lizard Squad, for instance? Are you still interested in hacking activities that would be considered illegal? Or are you now, you know, are you on. Now on the other side of things? You, you describe yourself on Twitter, I think as a security researcher or a security analyst.

Gloria Steinem (11:05)

What.

Wahini Vara (11:06)

How would you describe yourself now? And is that different from how you thought of yourself a ago?

Vinny Omari (11:11)

Well, all security researchers or analysts, whatever you want to call them, they all do hacking anyway. So like, it's just, it depends on which side you're on. You're either on like the legal side or the illegal side.

Wahini Vara (11:21)

Right.

Vinny Omari (11:21)

And the legal sides basically either finding yourself a job in a security company, working with the government, working for the government, being a snitch or any of the others. Myself, I've always just been in it just for the fun of it. Right now, I mean, I'm doing like a computer security and forensics course at a university in London and I only started like a month ago. My main and initial goal was to actually work with the National Crime Agency or some sort of policing agency in the UK or in the US and help them. Right now the forensics teams, especially in the uk, they absolutely, like, they suck really bad in my opinion. They definitely need to like hire hackers. I'd assume it would be a lot easier. And because I'm still in bail right now, my next bail is on the 25th of November. I'm not sure what's going to happen. Like, I'm not sure if my charges are going to get dropped or if they're going to get extended again for several months or I have to, like, pretty much just, like, wait for my next bail date just to be able to, like, actually make a judgment for myself.

David Remnick (12:20)

That's the British hacker Vinny Amari, formerly with the group Lizard Squad, talking with New Yorker contributor Wahini Vara. So, Wahini, if this isn't available anymore, so what, does this have any lasting ramifications?

Wahini Vara (12:33)

I mean, this tool itself might not, but it lays the groundwork for others certainly to try to do the same thing. And so it sort of puts this idea in the air that hadn't been out there before.

David Remnick (12:42)

So we're gonna have an army of kids in junior high school and high school who are gonna get a hell of a lot more sophisticated about hacking. That sounds great. Possibly terrific. Thanks, Waini.

Wahini Vara (12:53)

Thanks, David.

David Remnick (12:56)

In just a moment, a woman searching for her biological father finds that he might have been as extraordinary as the rumors said.

Adriana Alti (13:04)

The best was a guy named Big Brown who had long poems. I always thought this was the best poetry I ever heard. Now you have Bob Dylan saying this is the best poetry you ever heard.

David Remnick (13:16)

The search for Big Brown. That's just ahead in the New Yorker Radio Hour.

Adriana Alti (13:33)

David.

David Remnick (13:34)

I'm David Remnick. The last two weeks on the show, we've been hearing the story of a woman's search for the biological father she never knew. Her name is Adriana Alti, and she's a close friend of Gilla Poor, a writer for the New Yorker. You can find the first two parts at newyorkerradio.org, but let me see if I can summarize it quickly. Adriana is mixed race. She was adopted into a white family in Massachusetts, and she found it difficult to talk with her parents about it.

Adriana Alti (14:02)

But I am different, though. And they're like, no, you're not. And I said, but I look different. And they're like, well, you're just the same. You're just the same. And it doesn't matter if you're what color you are. You could be orange, you could be blue, you could be white. And I'm like, well, I'm not orange or blue. I'm this other color.

David Remnick (14:19)

As a young woman, she got to know her white birth mother, whom she calls Nina. In this story, Nina told her some outlandish stories about her biological father, a man named William Brown. He was a street poet in Greenwich village in the 60s and a favorite of Bob Dylan's, but nobody knew where he was. They didn't know where or when he was born. And William Brown is a pretty common name. So Adrianna and Jill Lepore spent a long time searching for him, and they were stumped until they tried his nickname, Big Brown.

Jill Lepore (14:50)

Big Brown. And just like doing a basic Google search for, like, Big Brown and Bob Dylan, he pops up.

David Remnick (14:58)

Adriana Alti picks up the story there.

Adriana Alti (15:00)

You put big brown in YouTube and, you know, his album comes up.

Jill Lepore (15:06)

And Adriana starts emailing me, oh, my God, I found a recording.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (15:10)

Here he is, the poet with his album, Between Heaven and Hell, Big Brown.

Adriana Alti (15:17)

There are all these songs, and then all of a sudden we have his voice. And suddenly. So suddenly I can hear, you know, this is him talking the blues rhyme.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (15:25)

There, blowing away any chore of gladness until you find that you're like a sunken man in this ocean of sorrows and sadness.

Jill Lepore (15:37)

It's a bit of a mystery when it was recorded, but it's seven tracks and it's Big Brown. It's called Big Man. The first Big Brown, the first man of poetry. Like, there's one that's called Me. And it starts off, the greatest cat I ever met is me.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (15:55)

The greatest cat I ever met is me. There's been no cat I could love, all pet.

Jill Lepore (16:04)

It's very, very funny poem. It's so winking and parodic, and it's just funny.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (16:12)

Look at me. I'm a sly, witty guy But I maintain my eye and don't love nobody.

Adriana Alti (16:21)

So we had this, you know, very exciting moment where we had found this recording. And then. But of course, then there was. There was a, you know, brief lull, so. Because we went to dinner and we weren't. We weren't talking about it because we'd been. We'd been talking, talking, and we weren't talking about it. And I said, oh, no, she's gonna move on. So I said, what about this Danny Fitzgerald character? Why don't you look into that?

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (16:44)

So.

Jill Lepore (16:45)

So Danny Fitzgerald is a blues musician, and he lived in New York in the 1960s, and Adrian had found an album that he recorded. Talk about that time I met Big.

Gloria Steinem (16:54)

Brown in Washington Square Park.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (16:57)

Yeah, he was a poet.

Gloria Steinem (16:58)

What's name got a lot of his help from him. Bob Dylan.

Adriana Alti (17:03)

Right. So I said to Jill, well, can't, you know, why don't. You know, why don't you just call Dylan?

Jill Lepore (17:09)

So I got an email address for the guy who handles Dylan's email, and I wrote to him, and we thought he would talk to us, but in the end, he didn't talk to us. But Adriana found something else.

Adriana Alti (17:18)

Yes, I did. It turns out that he has given Interviews where he talks about Brown. He said all these black guys would come up from south of the border. And recite poetry in the park. Now they'd call them rappers. The best was a guy named Big Brown. Who had long poems. Each one was about 50 minutes long. They were long, drawn out. Bad men, stories, romance, politics. Just about everything you can imagine was thrown into his stuff. I always thought this was the best poetry I ever heard. Now you have Bob Dylan saying, this is the best poetry you ever heard.

Jill Lepore (17:54)

That's not nothing.

Adriana Alti (17:55)

That's not nothing. And that's. Nina, actually, was. What she was saying was true.

Jill Lepore (18:02)

If Big Bounty had been performing in Harlem. It would have been just like. Just like another guy. And people would have been like, yeah, he's very. He happens to be very good at doing it. But it stood out in a different way, I think, in Greenwich Village. Than it would have in a different neighborhood. In fact, it stood out so much to people who were interested in the 1960s. In the study of folklore and folklife. That a bunch of folklore scholars began collecting these things. These things that are called toasts, which are these. They're like braggart poems. They're these rhyming poems about. There are. A lot of them are about hustlers. They tend to be sexually outrageous. There's a lot about pimps and prostitutes. And they have this whole badass thing going on.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (18:48)

Honky Tonk Bug, the hip cat stood Was digging a game of poop. His pants wasn't sagging. But this cat wasn't bragging. Cause he knew he was looking real cool. He was choked up tight. My name is Abiodun Oyewole, and I'm a poet educator.

Jill Lepore (19:04)

Abiyidoun Oyewole was a founder of the last poets in 1968.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (19:09)

Selfish desires are burning like fires. Among those who hoard the gold. So many of us who were researching. The whole oral tradition situation in America. We had to go back to the Toast. Just like those folks in the Toasts had to know something about High John the Conqueror and People who Could Fly. Which are folktales that we brought with us from the slave plantations. And so that was really just a part of your learning. Learning process. If you wanted to get down with what they call the spoken word. And those who stole the people's gold are definitely corrupt. Credit cards, master charge. Legacies of wills, real estate. You know, I know the toast were born basically in prison. A lot of guys would just sit around and be creative. You know, it's like. It's a necessity is the mother of invention. So you don't have a tv, you don't have your boys on the block. You don't have all the things to do that you would have to do if you were not incarcerated. So you're sitting around, your mind is still working, but how do you direct it? So guys would create stories. They would create these phenomenal stories. Of all these colorful characters, of course, Dua, Ella Dufontaine was one. She could persuade you to do things that you didn't want to do and give her money that you didn't want to give. But she always came out on top. I was standing on the corner in.

David Remnick (20:38)

The middle of the square, trying to.

Adriana Alti (20:40)

Make me some arrangements.

Jill Lepore (20:41)

Doriella Du Fontaine is a toast. It's a toast that Brown was known to have performed in Washington Square park. And in 1969, the Last Poets recorded a version of it with Jimi Hendrix.

David Remnick (20:51)

My main man band, Super 98 BO.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (20:57)

It's that hand in the glove. When you look at it, I mean, with Big Brown and Ginsburg and all the beat poets were doing down the Village. It's alive and well today in more ways than one. I mean, these guys represent something that we are trying to capture now. We've got a whole generation of young people who are living, breathing and dying with the word.

Jill Lepore (21:21)

David Amram is a well known composer and conductor and jazz musician. And in the 1960s he was living in the Village and knew a lot of the same people that Big Brown knew. He hung out with Ginsburg and Kerouac. And he tells the story about a time he brought a classical composer who was visiting from Europe down to Washington Square park to meet Brown.

Gloria Steinem (21:42)

I said, brown, this is a guy from Tondaleo. He's from Holland and he's a wonderful composer. He came all the way over here, Symphony played his piece. He wants to check out old American Brown. I said, come on with me, man.

David Remnick (21:54)

So we walked over and he gestured.

Gloria Steinem (21:56)

So he took us to the middle of the fountain. He said, here's where you're going to see and hear it all. And Big Brown said, see what I'm. See what I told you, man. And then he started one of his raps into Tom's ear. And Tom put his hand up to hear Brown. And then with his other hand on his other ear was listening to all those great sounds. At the same time, Brown had become like a sports announcer describing all the different things that was happening and then also giving a little rundown of the people who were playing. You know, saying that Cat's from Ohio and he ran away from home. And he's a songwriter and there's recording players, families lived in the Village, like for two generations and doesn't speak English and went through the whole routine. And Tom said, now, he said, I've seen and heard America.

Vinny Omari (22:54)

Let me say first that I accept.

David Remnick (22:56)

The nomination of the Democratic Party.

Adriana Alti (22:58)

One thing I found which was very. Actually very strange, and it took a while to figure out what it was, was it was Big Brown was nominated for as a presidential candidate as part of the Beat Party of America.

Jill Lepore (23:12)

So I looked it up in the newspaper, and it turns out There was an AP wire service story. In the summer of 1960, when Nixon and Kennedy are the nominees for the major parties, there's a third party ticket. The Beat Party of America holds a mock presidential primary contest in Greenwich Village. And during the first round of voting, Big Brown got the most, got the most votes. So the AP wire service story reads like Big Brown's lead startled the convention. Big, as the husky Negro is called by his friends, wasn't the favorite Sonny of any delegation. But he had one tactic that apparently earned him votes in a chatterbox convention. Only once did he speak at length, and that was to read his poetry.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (23:56)

No, I don't indulge in politics, but I spoke of the UN Nation on foreign situation and possible integration. Didn't nobody speak but me. I'm with the whole South Seattle.

Jill Lepore (24:09)

Nina had always said she didn't know whatever happened to Big Brown, but she had heard years later that he was run over by a steamroller in Hollywood and killed. And I thought I put that in the category of crazy ass things that Nina says that no one could possibly believe because that is out of Looney Tunes. Like, that is not a real death. That is what happens after Wile E. Coyote drops an anvil on your head. Then Danny Fitzgerald says on this recording we're listening to on the way home.

Gloria Steinem (24:34)

Says, and then he went to California.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (24:40)

And he got run over.

Jill Lepore (24:42)

I mean, maybe he really did get run over by his team earlier. It was really hard to find out. Adriana tracked down all kinds of people that might have known Brown. Danny knew this guy named Bill Gross. Brown once stayed in Gross's apartment, found this guy named Ned Otter. His father had taken pictures of Brown when Ned was a kid. There were pictures of Brown on the wall of his apartment. And so we asked all these people, what actually, what happened to him? Did he really get run over by a steamroller?

David Remnick (25:06)

I heard that he had been in.

Gloria Steinem (25:09)

California and been On a beach.

Vinny Omari (25:11)

I don't know why the name Manhattan.

Jill Lepore (25:13)

Beach comes to my mind.

David Remnick (25:15)

I believe the version I heard was that he got in a fight or that he was attacked at night on this beach and stabbed. And this is what comes to mind. I know Danny says he was run.

Vinny Omari (25:27)

Over, but I believe it was some.

Gloria Steinem (25:30)

Kind of a violent, violent death. I heard he was rubbed out by mobsters. I heard he was shot during a card game, like a poker game shot or maybe run over.

Jill Lepore (25:43)

Did you ever hear run over by a steamroller? No. Okay, because that's the one we keep hearing. Did you ever hear stabbed on a beach?

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (25:51)

No. Did you say, my friend, that you're not afraid on this day when you meet death? Will you tell me that when the day arrives and you take your very last breath? Now you've got to die. You know that's true. But you say it bothers you now. Oh, I see.

Adriana Alti (26:11)

Everyone who said anything about him or anything I ever read about him is that he is not only as a character, but he's the kind of person that you. You know, if he's around, it's not like he's going to go unnoticed in that sense, either he's gone or he's in some way so diminished from what he was that, you know, is not recognizable as the same person. So either way, he's this person. Can't be around, because how could someone like that be around and not have anyone take note?

Jill Lepore (26:45)

So once we kind of really were hunkered down looking for a big brown. I thought, oh, I should see if there's any. He's this poet, you know, there's all these collections of poetry and in sound archives all over the place. So I went to, like, the obvious places, like the Woodbury Poetry Room at Harvard and looked through their archive and just various. Then I went through oral history collections, trying to see if anybody. Oral history movement in the 1960s. Someone surely sat this guy down and did an oral history. I came up with nothing. So then I was looking through the. Finding guides to the collections at New York University, which is in Washington Square, was pouring through the Larry Rivers collection. Rivers was this kind of beat artist of some renowned in acclaim. And he was also a filmmaker. He was a painter and filmmaker Rivers.

Adriana Alti (27:24)

Actually, I had known him mostly as, like, a painter. So I didn't. I actually didn't know about this film that he had made. He made a film, a documentary of sorts about breasts. And I was like, oh, okay, here we go. You know, this is a perfect setup for what we're going to hear is probably not going to make me very happy.

Jill Lepore (27:44)

Yeah, we didn't know that it was.

Adriana Alti (27:45)

Yeah, we didn't know.

Jill Lepore (27:46)

We just saw it was brown on tape. We had no idea it was about breasts.

Vinny Omari (27:49)

Like, for instance, if you're with the.

David Remnick (27:50)

Woman, isn't it mainly that you make.

Vinny Omari (27:52)

The aggressive suckling gestures and that she very rarely.

David Remnick (27:56)

I mean, I have.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (27:57)

Women are looking for you continuously, as hard as you're looking for them. If they like you or if they're curious about you, they are seeking you as strong as you looking for them, you know.

Adriana Alti (28:06)

You know, Larry's trying to sort of lead him down this. Like, how do you feel about breasts?

Gloria Steinem (28:11)

Are they.

Adriana Alti (28:12)

And brown goes off in this whole sort of. Well, you know, they're part of the woman, and you get to know the woman, and they're something. Oh, good, good. He's good. He's a good, good man. I was proud. I was just. I just felt like, oh, he was led down this path. It could have been really very unpleasant to hear. And he just was great.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (28:34)

They're talking. They're talking just like you talk out of your mind. Absolutely.

Vinny Omari (28:38)

Well, what about elbows?

Gloria Steinem (28:39)

What's wrong with elbows?

Jill Lepore (28:40)

Why?

Gloria Steinem (28:41)

What?

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (28:42)

I never went out that far. Well, that's what I'm trying to say.

Jill Lepore (28:44)

But then I'm sitting there thinking, like, just ask him, like, where were you born? What year were you born? What's your Social Security number? What's your actual number?

Adriana Alti (28:52)

I mean, here somebody's actually talking to him with important questions.

Jill Lepore (28:56)

I want to know.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (28:58)

I mean, unless a cat can play her, you know, for the sound and the rhythm and the jazz that comes from her, you know what I mean? She's just, you know, just a nice girl.

Jill Lepore (29:06)

I was thinking about after lunch when I said, what are you gonna do now? And you're like, I'm gonna go back.

Gloria Steinem (29:10)

And I was like, why?

Jill Lepore (29:11)

We already listened to it and we transcribed it mostly. And you're like, I just want to listen to him.

Adriana Alti (29:17)

Yeah. It's probably simplistic to say, but, I mean, they make him, like a real person where. I mean, I've known of him, about him since, you know, I met my birth mother. So for almost 30 years. And I didn't ever really sort of get from her the feeling of, like, that I knew him. So it kind of has done that. It's interesting what, you know, what Lemur was saying about being in the village. And, you know, he's an artist, so he was there. And, you know, Brown was performing. He's an artist, and he was there. But there weren't really black people, that many black people. There was predominantly a white thing. The people were there because of their art and because of their, you know, what they were trying to do. And that's something that I've had a struggle with in that, you know, I went from being very young to going to art school, where I was, you know, maybe one of two black people practically in the whole, you know, school, or at least my class. And, you know, not just an artist, not a black artist, not a white artist, but you're just an artist.

Jill Lepore (30:32)

Most of us go through life finding people and losing people and finding them again. And that's actually a big part of why I'm a historian. I like to figure out where things came from, but I also like to find things have gotten lost and find people that have gotten lost. So this story has actually been really hard for me because I thought we would find him, like, find him, meet him, find out exactly what happened to him. And it's really hard to find a guy named William Brown. But I know, too, that it's meant so much to Adriana to find out what we have found. And I kind of think that she's kind of put the pieces of him back together in a way that brings him to life. She was visiting when we were kind of finishing up doing the research that we had done, and she said, I have to go home now because I've just ordered 50 pounds of brown clay. It's going to be delivered, and I have to get home because I have to be there to pick it up. And I said, okay, hold on, wait. Like, back up. What are you gonna do with 50 pounds of clay?

Adriana Alti (31:27)

I decided to make some sculptures of him.

Jill Lepore (31:31)

So what does that. What does that mean to make him? To make him?

Adriana Alti (31:35)

Well, you know, I mean, it means literally means, you know, putting the clay on the armature and making his face, like, now that I know what he looks like and could sort of guess, you know, I have a whole. I'll have actually a lot of ideas for different things that I want to do based on, you know, him. I don't know. I have. It's been. It has actually been a while that I've been very, you know, excited to make something, and I don't know.

Jill Lepore (32:02)

So do you feel like you found him?

Adriana Alti (32:05)

I feel like. I do feel like I found enough to feel like I knew who he was, and, you know, it makes me very happy in a way that, you know, But When I was younger, I didn't want anything to do, you know, with that at all. And by the time I had, you know, sort of gotten old enough to realize that, you know, it's not bad to be brown or whatever, I didn't. I hadn't lived as part of a black community, a community of color, and I. So I felt a little like I'm almost like a. Like an imposter in some ways. Like I felt that I was, you know, appropriating something. And I. Because I didn't feel connected myself to it. And maybe that is what I'm doing, but I know that I feel more connected to it. And I feel like I, in a way, have a. Have a right to, you know, this person who's like. Turns out, is like a pretty great guy, you know. And I'm very, you know, I'm very happy about that. I'm happier than I would have thought that I would be. I definitely didn't anticipate that I would feel, like, connected to him in a way because, you know, I met my birth mother and, you know, she is my birth mother, but I didn't ever. I couldn't see myself in her. And I don't know him, but everything I have heard about him makes me feel like I know him. And I. I feel like I am like him. I mean, I'm actually like somebody where. I mean, I've never been like anyone that I've ever known. So, you know, and still felt like that I could claim them.

Jill Lepore (33:52)

In a way, you are like him. I mean, I think for me to see. To see that photograph and see how much he looks like you. And the first time you sent me the record, listening to that first track, I remember just like, oh, my God, how can that be inheritable? Like, you sound like him to me. So it fills in a lot for me. So I feel in this very different way. I'm so happy to have found the best poet Bob Dylan ever knew.

Narrator/Poet (various readings) (34:25)

When you get all you long for in your struggles in life Then the world make you king for a day. Go to the mirror and look at yourself and see what that guy has to say. For it is not your mother, your sister or your brother whose judgment upon you must pass. The guy who counts most in your life is the guy staring back from the glass. He's the one to live up to Never mind all the rest when he's with you Clear up to the end and you'll pass your most dangerous, difficult task if the guy in the glass is your Friend, you could be like Jack Holme and chisel a plum, thinking you're a wonderful guy. But the guy in the glass say you're only a bomb if you can't look him square in the eye. You could fool the whole world down the pathway of years and get pats on your back as you pass. But your final reward will be heartaches and tears if you cheated with God in the glass to thine own self be true.

David Remnick (35:38)

New Yorker staff writer and professor of history at Harvard, Jill Lepore, talking with her close friend, the artist Adriana Alti. And Bob, if you're listening and you want to come on the show and talk about Big Brown, just give us a ring. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. David I'm David Remnick. Welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I want to turn now to one of the most important figures in the history of American politics and feminism, one of the founders of Ms. Magazine and the author now of My Life on the Road, which is a kind of autobiography through travel. And I was honored to be in the studio with her a few days ago, Gloria Steinem. We started off by speaking about her book. Your book is called My Life on the Road. It wasn't called that in the beginning. You had a different title, and it was called Because Everyone Matters. And your editors said, or you said, maybe we should think better of this. Why?

Gloria Steinem (36:51)

Well, actually, you know, I'm really good at giving other people titles. I'm so good at.

David Remnick (36:55)

That's what editors do.

Gloria Steinem (36:57)

I love it, but I'm not so good at doing my own titles.

David Remnick (37:01)

Isn't it true that Ms. Magazine at one point, before it became Miz, was called Bitch? It was called something else. There was an idea.

Gloria Steinem (37:09)

It was called Sisters, and then people thought it was a religious magazine. It was called Bimbo, and it was called all kinds of things, and it was called ms, even though at the time we didn't know that this was a term from centuries ago in England that was just a abbreviation of mistress, which, like master, doesn't betray marital status. We didn't invent it. We just found it.

David Remnick (37:34)

But why did you not decide to call this Because Everyone Matters.

Gloria Steinem (37:37)

I mean, we had lots of titles, Nomad, you know, but then Nomad sounded random, even though nomads themselves are not random.

David Remnick (37:45)

But did it conflict with Black Lives Matter?

Gloria Steinem (37:46)

Yeah.

Jill Lepore (37:47)

No.

Gloria Steinem (37:47)

My favorite title was America as if Everyone Matters. A little irony here. We need a little irony. As if Everyone Matters. And I was still campaigning for that. But when Black Lives Matter came along as a hashtag and has become so deeply important. I didn't want it to take away from that or seem to be derived from that. Actually, my book was another book, a different book, which was published in India last year, is called as if Women Matter. So you can see I was fond of this concept.

David Remnick (38:21)

We get right off to the races with this book with its dedication, that often that usually doesn't happen. And the dedication is to Dr. John Sharp. And I'd love for you to tell us who he was in your life and why you dedicate the book to him.

Gloria Steinem (38:37)

I was living in London, on my way to India. I had just graduated from college. I was on my way to India. I was working as a waitress in an espresso bar. I was pretty sure that I was pregnant. And I was doing all the things you're not supposed to do, like go horseback riding and throw yourself downstairs. Other superstitions. And then I met an American playwright who made me understand that it was somewhat possible in England because if you got two physician signatures that said your life was at risk, essentially that it could be performed legally in London. So I picked a name out of the phone book, literally a nearby name. And he was a wonderful, gentle old man in a bed sitting room. And he said, as I say in the dedication, that he would take the big risk of being the first person to sign for this abortion if I promised him two things. First, I wouldn't tell anyone his name. And second, I would do what I wanted to do with my life.

David Remnick (39:50)

Wow.

Gloria Steinem (39:51)

Now, I've always remembered that, and I've always honored the name part. But I know since he was a very old man at the time, and this was a half century ago, and given the changes in the world, I think now he would want to be known as someone who knew the laws were wrong and unjust.

David Remnick (40:13)

Are you surprised that at this date, so many years after Roe v. Wade, that we're still arguing about this in our Senate campaigns, Congressional campaigns, and most of all in the presidential campaign, as if, almost as if Roe had not happened. We're not arguing about loving, about interracial relationships and marriages. We're arguing about this. Why is that?

Gloria Steinem (40:38)

Well, it took me a while to figure it out, too, because they don't tell us this in school. Economics courses ought all to start with reproduction, not just production, because it's actually more basic. But they don't. So what we don't learn is that reproduction is kind of the whole ball game. And who controls it is the most fundamental question.

David Remnick (40:59)

We're in the middle of a presidential race and Hillary Clinton, who I know you've supported for a long time, had a confrontation with a discussion with members of Black Lives Matter and we want to run a tape of that and then we'll discuss it. You were saying that what the Black Lives Matter movement needs to do to.

Adriana Alti (41:17)

Change white hearts is to talk about.

Gloria Steinem (41:20)

Look, I don't believe you change hearts.

Jill Lepore (41:22)

I believe you change laws, you change.

Wahini Vara (41:24)

Allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate.

Jill Lepore (41:28)

You're not going to change every heart.

Adriana Alti (41:31)

You're not.

Gloria Steinem (41:32)

But at the end of the day, we can do a whole lot to change some hearts and change some systems and create more, more opportunities for people who deserve to have them to live up to their own God given potential.

Wahini Vara (41:46)

To live safely without fear of violence in their own communities, to have a decent school, to have a decent house, to have a decent future. So we can do it one of many ways. You know, you can keep the movement going, which you have started, and through it you may actually change some hearts.

Gloria Steinem (42:05)

But if that's all that happens, we'll.

Jill Lepore (42:07)

Be back here in 10 years having the same conversation.

David Remnick (42:11)

Now that conversation has led to a lot more conversations, whether it's online or at kitchen tables. And I wonder what you thought of it.

Gloria Steinem (42:21)

Well, I understand where that's coming from. You know, there was a great South American novelist, one of the great novelists who said the people could withstand floods and pestilence and killings, but when the laws were unjust, they went crazy. So there is a kind of betrayal, trauma, you know, you might say that comes from the law. But she's underselling culture. Culture is really just deep politics. Do we have a democracy in our house? Do we see violence at home? If so, as children? That's going to make it seem normal and inevitable until somebody in a social justice movement raises the possibility, you know, that it's, that it's not inevitable. So, you know, the law tends to change last and often needs to be subverted by culture.

David Remnick (43:13)

Is it just a question of different roles? I mean, in the mid-60s you had a movement pushing on race. Lyndon Johnson essentially said to the movement, if I'm going to have a Voting Rights act, you have to make me. Hence Selma came about and Selma, that's what Roosevelt too. And Roosevelt, as Obama is always fond of quoting. So is it a question of differing roles or do you think that Hillary Clinton is a little bit deaf to this new movement or new stream of the movement?

Gloria Steinem (43:43)

You know, I don't know. She has more Black support than any other candidate, more than Bernie Sanders, more than any other candidate. But I don't think it's really, you know, you can't understand what it's like to be black in America unless you're black in America. You can't understand what it's like to be a female human being unless you're a female human being in some ways. But we can strive to empathize with each other first. Empathy is first, and then listening. I think there's a very simple activist rule, which is if you are in a situation in which you have more power, then you have to be careful to listen as much as you talk. And if you are in a situation in which you have traditionally or that moment have less power, you have to talk as much as you listen, which is sometimes just as hard.

David Remnick (44:34)

This goes to your metaphor that you talk about in the Book of the Turtle. I wonder if you could tell us that.

Gloria Steinem (44:40)

I was in college taking the least scientific science course I could possibly find, and it was geology. And we were on a field trip in the Connecticut River Valley. And I, of course, was paying no attention because I had discovered a turtle, a huge, really pretty big turtle who was embedded in the mud on the side of the road. And I was sure was going to crawl up on the road and be crushed, right? So I picked up this turtle with some difficulty and lugged. I mean, it was snap. Was very pissed. Walked all the way down the road and had just slipped it into the water of the river when my geology professor came up behind me and he said, you know, that turtle has probably spent weeks crawling up that road to lay its eggs in the mud on the side of the road. And you have just put it back. All right, I felt terrible, but it was too late. However, it took me decades to understand that was a political lesson. Always listen to the turtle. That is, the person who is experiencing something probably knows more about it than the experts.

David Remnick (45:51)

Gloria, we're sitting here at a time when the evident hostility toward Hillary Clinton for various reasons and from various directions is quite clear. You've been watching her for a long time. What's the reason for it?

Gloria Steinem (46:06)

Well, to address some of the deep reasons for hostility to women in leadership roles, women of every race, Hillary and everybody else, I think, in a deep sense, we won't escape this until men are raising children as much as women are, and women are as active in the world outside the home as men are. Because right now we associate, most of us women, too, have been raised by women as infants and little Children. We associate female authority with emotionality and nurturance and home. We don't see it as a comfortable kind of leadership in the outside world, a rational leadership where we've mostly seen men. So I don't think this is going to go away easily. It's going to take quite a long time.

David Remnick (46:57)

So it's not peculiar to Hillary Clinton?

Gloria Steinem (46:59)

No, it's not.

David Remnick (47:00)

Or American ness?

Gloria Steinem (47:01)

No, it's not. No. I mean, part of the reason that we have female leaders earlier in other countries is because they have stronger family systems, you know, in India, say, with the Nehru family. So the family mitigates the disaster of being a female, so to speak. I'm happy to say. I think we're more democratic than that. We don't quite view families in the same way. So when we finally get an elected woman, I think she's much more likely to really represent the majority of the country.

David Remnick (47:35)

Seven years ago, you wrote an op ed piece for the New York Times, and it was the moment of an intense rivalry between Obama and Hillary in the primaries. And I wonder what lesson you derive from it, because it caused a real storm. It was highly supportive of Hillary, but it had things to say about. Well, it was comparative, about black suffering and feminism and the history of women. And you kind of stepped into it in a way. And I don't. Maybe you could describe that and what lesson, because you were usually so adept at these situations, whether it's bringing others onto the stage or using your own influence to be inclusive, that this was a moment where it was the first time I remember seeing, wow, Gloria Steinem's in a situation. And it's inevitable that anybody that's, as you say, a media worker might have that happen. How do you look back on that?

Gloria Steinem (48:37)

Never let your text be edited on the telephone, even if it's the New.

David Remnick (48:42)

York Times advice to the young journalists out there.

Gloria Steinem (48:47)

It was a very bifurcated experience because I got all these phone calls from people who knew me telling me how wonderful the column was and how it had changed the results of the primary in New Hampshire and how much, because I had posited the idea that, you know, what if Obama were a woman? And I had made clear in the text of the column that I supported them both, you know, that I would. I wanted sequentially, one should be president, then the other, that race and sex were intertwined, that you couldn't uproot one without uprooting the other. But what really happened was that the one sentence that was from the kitchen to the White House that that sentence, which could be construed as making a value judgment, was used as the pull quote. And once the pull quote got on the web, then there was all hell broke loose. Yeah, if people read the whole column or if they knew me, you know, it was extremely painful. It was very painful.

David Remnick (49:46)

How so? How did you experience that?

Gloria Steinem (49:49)

Well, you know, to be misunderstood makes you feel crazy. You know, I mean, it was thinking I had said something that I spent my lifetime not saying. But it was. In the end, it was a great experience because my friends rallied round, you know, in a wonderful way. And also because at the end of it, I suddenly remembered something that the great Florence Kennedy said, which is that the purpose of kicking ass is not that you get your ass kicked at the right time for the right reason, but that it keeps your ass sensitive. So I thought, good. You know, this is a good result.

David Remnick (50:35)

Words to live by. That was Gloria Steinem. Her new book is called My Life on the Road. I'm David Remnick. Now, when I need to stretch my legs or clear my head in the office from whatever I'm doing, I like to roam the halls and see what people are up to. Let's go pop in on Rebecca Mead. She's a staff writer for the magazine and she always seems to know what's going on and what's interesting. A while back, she wrote a profile of Lin Manuel Miranda who wrote the Broadway hit Hamilton, and she interviewed him recently on stage for the New Yorker Festival.

Gloria Steinem (51:10)

Hey, Rebecca, how you doing?

Rebecca Mead (51:11)

I'm all right, David.

Gloria Steinem (51:12)

How are you?

Rebecca Mead (51:12)

Would you like a seat?

David Remnick (51:13)

I would. By the way, you were great.

Rebecca Mead (51:15)

Thank you. Did you stay.

David Remnick (51:16)

I stayed about 45 minutes to watch you and Lin Manuel at Miranda. He was a charm bomb, isn't he? Oh, my God, it was hilarious. I mean, I loved Hamilton, but he was just out of control funny.

Rebecca Mead (51:28)

He's really wonderful. He's. Yeah, he's sort of just charisma incarnate.

David Remnick (51:33)

God almighty. So, what have you got going?

Rebecca Mead (51:36)

Well, one thing I've been doing is listening to the soundtrack of Hamilton.

David Remnick (51:40)

Really?

Rebecca Mead (51:41)

Yeah, I just happen to have it queued up. I'll bet you do. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you what. I know there's so much. You've seen the show have. So, you know, I haven't seen it on Broadway yet.

David Remnick (51:51)

I saw it downtown, which, you know, gives me downtown cred. And my son saw it on Broadway and it was nuts about it. He thought it lost nothing in translation.

Gloria Steinem (51:59)

Right.

Rebecca Mead (52:00)

So it's the story of the Founding Fathers. The story of the beginning of America told through hip hop. And here we go.

Vinny Omari (52:07)

Strike me as a woman who has never been satisfied.

Adriana Alti (52:11)

I'm sure I don't know what you mean.

Rebecca Mead (52:13)

You know, Lin has talked a lot about how when he started reading Ron Chernow's biography, which is the book that it's adapted from, how it was just obvious to him that Alexander Hamilton's story was a hip hop story. Because he's this kid who comes from nowhere and he's poor and he's an orphan and he's got nothing, and he just pulls himself up and makes himself into. To, you know who, the first Secretary of the Treasury. What I love about it is that Lyn manages to bring the Founding Mothers into the story, too, and does it in a, you know, like a really good feminist way. So I approve.

Jill Lepore (52:55)

I asked about his family.

Wahini Vara (52:56)

Did you?

Adriana Alti (52:57)

His answer. His hands started fidgeting.

Jill Lepore (52:59)

He looked askance.

Adriana Alti (52:59)

He's penniless.

Gloria Steinem (53:00)

He's flying by the seat of his pants.

Jill Lepore (53:02)

Handsome boy. Does he know it? Beach buzz when he can't even grow him.

David Remnick (53:06)

Rebecca, you got anything else going on?

Rebecca Mead (53:08)

I do a lot of walking and I listen to a lot of audiobooks, and mostly what I listen to is, like, great works of literature that I read, you know, 100 years ago. And now you can do that.

David Remnick (53:21)

Haven't read from do it. I cannot do it. I almost drove a car into a tree listening to a great production of King.

Rebecca Mead (53:27)

Well, I don't drive. You see, I mean, if I was driving, it might not be safe. But I'm just walking. It's you driving into me that I need to worry about. So I'm right Now listening to D.H. lawrence's the Rainbow, and I haven't read Lawrence. I haven't read Lawrence for so long. And I read him when I was a teenager. And then sort of when I got a little older, I said, oh, Lawrence, he doesn't know anything. He gets it completely wrong about women. And, ugh, it's horrible. And now I'm reading the Rainbow. He understands women completely.

Jill Lepore (53:58)

Really.

Rebecca Mead (53:59)

It's just. I mean, reading him on motherhood, how did this guy never had any kids. Is a man know so much about what it feels like after you've had a baby and how your emotional relation to that baby is? I'm staggered by it.

David Remnick (54:13)

Well, you sold me. I'll read the Rainbow.

Gloria Steinem (54:15)

Take care, Rebecca.

David Remnick (54:16)

Thanks a lot.

Rebecca Mead (54:18)

Bye.

David Remnick (54:21)

That was the New Yorker's Rebecca Mead. And I'm David Remnick, and that's it for the New Yorker Radio Hour today. Thanks for joining us. We'll be back next week with more stories. If you're listening on itunes, let us know what you think. And don't forget to rate the podcast. Thanks a lot and see you next week. Next time on the New York Radio Hour. I'm going to get my butt kicked by the Atlantic Ocean when the writer William Finnegan takes me on my one and only attempt at surfing.

Jill Lepore (54:53)

Yeah.

Adriana Alti (54:55)

Oh, Jesus Christ.

David Remnick (55:00)

I'm David Remnick. That's next time on the New Yorker Radio Hour.