--- In [email protected], Sal Sunshine <salsunshine@...> wrote: > > On Jun 18, 2011, at 9:04 AM, curtisdeltablues wrote: > >> > >>> But I "knew" it was Dick Cavett's show. Till I didn't. > >>> So that is what I was googling. And stupid Google > >>> searched what I asked for instead of what meant. Stupid > >>> Google! > >> > >> Curtis, I remember that show~~clearly. And it was totally > >> fascinating...2 old guys who had seen it all, from almost > >> completely opposite sides of life (outwardly, at least) > >> rapping. I also remember that question clearly and how > >> uncomfortable I thought MMY looked. > >> Sal > > > > Dick was clearly trying to provoke Maharishi into > > dropping the giggling holy man persona. But you had > > to be more of an insider to see that switch. And it > > happened from inside, not outside. He too much of a > > PR pro to let that happen on screen. > > Larry, not Dick. And he really wasn't giggling that I can > remember, at all. I just thought the question was kind of > tacky. I had heard Larry ask things like that of other people~~ > personal questions that seemed more designed for gossip than > anything else~~and figured his bosses backstage put him up > to it for the sake of the audience, because Larry himself didn't > seem all that comfortable with it either.
Total agreement with Sal here. I worked with Michael Dean Goodman to produce a better transcript than the sloppy one CNN put up, so I had to listen closely to it several times, over earphones (which often reveals vocal nuances you don't really get otherwise), while also watching the videotape. MMY was very definitely not in giggle mode, he was in Distinguished Holy Man mode, and that's how Larry King treated him until that last segment when he began asking personal questions. That's part of what made it so discordant, because the rest of the interview had been so ultra-respectful, bordering on reverent. Whether it was King or his producers who decided to get into the personal stuff, it seemed to me King left it until last because he thought all the other stuff was a lot more interesting and didn't want to distract from it; he also pretty clearly sensed the question about children was intrusive and, as Sal says, tacky. He was aiming to get MMY to say explicitly that he was celibate, but he backed off and changed the subject when he saw MMY wasn't going to do that. He went on to ask about MMY's age and his diet and his health, and then MMY, knowing the interview was almost over, segued neatly into his closing pitch, which King let him finish without interruption. The complete transcript--the Michael Dean Goodman version-- is here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/1455
