Talk to Me

I saw a great film the other night, "Talk to Me", about the life of "Petey" Greene, Jr. (1931 1984), an American TV and radio talk show host who rose to notoriety just before Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, in a time when social consciousness was exploding to the tune of vibrant soul music. Don Cheadle played Greene, and Chiwetel Ejiofor played Dewey Hughes, the man who believed in him.

Greene's father was a pimp / professional con artist. At age 30 Greene was living out his legacy, serving a ten-year prison sentence. Having left school at 16, he had fought in Korea, been dishonorably discharged for heroin possession and subsequently supported himself as a con artist and drug dealer.

It seemed as if he was going nowhere and fast, but in fact prison just stopped him going down that road. Life had better things in store for him. He had better things in store for himself.

He had an unquenchable thirst for life, an absolute irreverence for morality that had no real substance; and he despised hypocrisy. He was a performer at heart with seemingly no fear, and boy did he have a mouth. Not surprisingly, he became hugely popular as the prison DJ. But he wanted his freedom, and he had a dream - to work on radio. He also had an imagination nightmare combination for prison authorities!

One day an inmate climbed a prison tower and threatened to commit suicide. The whole prison was on the verge of a riot, and Greene was called to try and intercept. Which he said he would, in exchange for an early release. Reluctantly the prison warden made the deal. Greene got the man down in minutes. When the warden was in awe of his powers of persuasion, Greene drily said to the side "it took me 6 months to persuade him to get up there in the first place". He was irrepressible, you just couldn't keep him down.

Once out of prison he convinced the straight-laced Dewey Hughes at respectable AM radio station WOL to give him a job as a disc jockey. He was their worst nightmare, always drunk, often late, and at a time when part of America was trying to pretend that racism was just fine or alongside with poverty - didn't exist, and the other part was fighting for the truth to be acknowledged, he used the radio station to lash out at injustices, telling it like it was.

It got him fired. But Hughes believed in him. He locked the station owner in his office and Greene in the studio so he could do his show! The phones started ringing off the hook and Greene's job was safe.

A man of courage who rose above his legacy, found solutions, acknowledged the truth of what was happening in America and wasn't afraid to tell it like it was. He couldn't be gagged with threats. He was unstoppable, and gradually earned the admiration of his employers, co-workers, and peers. Not to mention those he gave a voice to.

Hughes became his manager and had great vision for Greene. It was a symbiotic relationship. Greene had no fear of telling the truth as he saw it perhaps because he'd known what it was to have nothing to lose. But he couldn't deal with the world. Hughes was equally passionate about life and the truth, but he was afraid to speak out. His strength lay in knowing how the world worked. Whilst they thought their vision was the same, their partnership flourished.

But over time it became apparent that Hughes' vision was detached from the people Greene loved so much and felt connected to. He longed for the fame, glitz and glamour, but Greene didn't, and when Hughes made it available for the taking, he walked away. To move "up" in the world would have required him to control his mouth and pander to people who didn't want to face the truth, and he wouldn't.

The two men parted with bitter words at that point, and stayed apart for many years, each pursuing his own path, but they came together towards the end of Greene's life, and were able to acknowledge that they couldn't have gotten where they did without each other. Greene could say the things Hughes didn't have the courage to say, and Hughes was able to do the things Greene didn't have the courage to do.

Fulfilling your heart's desire and making it in the world aren't the same thing. Some people are really skilled at one and others at the other. Not everybody even wants both, but for those who do, I think it's okay if you only know how to do one; you can hook up with somebody who knows how to do the other bit. I was left with a good feeling at the end of that film, that it's enough to just be who you are. And I had a sense of the miraculousness of how people come together and fit together.

Nice title: Talk to me .