[music}

Mal Sharpe: We have just stopped a gentleman, a young man who’s in the Navy. Can we have your name please?

Lewis: Lewis.

Mal Sharpe: Lewis, I’d like you to meet James P. Coyle.

Lewis: A pleasure to meet you.

Mal Sharpe: Now, Lewis, Mr. Coyle is going to tell you very briefly about a film he’s working on here in the city and after he finishes, if you want to discuss any aspect of it feel free.

Lewis: I’d like to. I really would.

Mal Sharpe: OK, fine. Mr. Coyle, would you tell Lewis about the film?

James Coyle: Very good. The name of the film is “Daring But Dead”. The idea is very simply, it centers around a bank robbery which takes place in a city. We hope to approach it in a unique way, and we’re actually going to film it in a bank. Do you understand the nature of it?

Lewis: Yeah, I mean, I’ve come to feel like I’d like to know it. I really would.

James Coyle: Right. Right. Everybody in the bank will be actors, but we’re going to try and get the main role, in other words the protagonist of this film. We’re going to use a person without dramatic background. Would you yourself be interested in giving a crack at that role? There’s no money involved, but there’s a possibility for fame.

Lewis: Yes, I really would. I mean, I feel it’d be a good film. I really do. I honestly do.

James Coyle: The idea is that you are to go in the bank, ask for eleven thousand dollars. You can use some type of a weapon or an [??].

Lewis: Huh.

James Coyle: And we are actually, I’ve chosen Mr. Sharpe from the radio station and myself are playing two of the other roles in the film. We’ll be sitting out in a car outside the bank. Would you be willing to give it a try?

Lewis: I would be, because I’m a good as being in the Navy and I know I could do it. I mean I just walk in. I’d hold it up.

James Coyle: Yeah.

Lewis: Because, I mean, the man that has never committed a crime before is the one that can do it. It’s true. I could do it. I can get hold of a machine gun. I can get hold of any kind of weapon you want.

James Coyle: Would you be willing, we’re doing some filming this afternoon, would you be willing to try it?

Lewis: Yes, I would.

James Coyle: Fine. We’ll go off to a bank here. Would you be able to get hold of a weapon this afternoon?

Lewis: Yeah I would.

Mal Sharpe: You won’t see the cameras. We’ll just go in and look like a regular bank robbery. No cameras. Nothing.

Lewis: Right. I would. I would. I’d go in there.

Mal Sharpe: And you’d come out with the money and meet us in the car.

Lewis: That’s right.

Mal Sharpe: Let’s go. Ok? Fine. What’s wrong?

Lewis: The plot. What do you mean “What’s wrong?”

Mal Sharpe: Well, are you going to go with us?

Lewis: Yeah, I’ll go with you. What do you mean “Go with you?”

James Coyle: What are you going to do?

Lewis: I don’t rob a bank.

James Coyle: OK let’s go. Are you ready?

Lewis: Yeah I’m ready.

James Coyle: Come on. Come on.

Lewis: What do you mean “Come On?”

Mal Sharpe: We’re going to do it now.

James Coyle: We’ve agreed to hold the bank up right?

Mal Sharpe: What’s wrong?

Lewis: What do you mean “What’s wrong?” You guys actually want to hold up a bank right now.

James Coyle: Right.

Lewis: I know you do. You guys got a gun?

Mal Sharpe: No.

James Coyle: No.

Mal Sharpe: You were going to have the gun.

James Coyle You would be the guy who would go in the bank.

Lewis: What kind of guys are you?

Mal Sharpe: We’re just out to make a buck, if we can use a guy who’s got no criminal experience.

Lewis: You really are, huh?

James Coyle: Yeah.

Lewis: You guys are all right. Which bank you going to hit?

James Coyle: The bank right down on the corner.

Lewis: You guys are just going to walk in there?

James Coyle: You walk.

Mal Sharpe: You.

Lewis: Me.

James Coyle: You walk in. We wait outside in the car.

Lewis: You guys got a good scheme.

James Coyle: You know, we’ve discussed it with you pretty openly you know the score.

Lewis: Yeah. Yeah.

James Coyle: We get you to go in the bank. You take the risk. We sit out in the car. We get the money. If you’re caught, you know, you don’t even know who we are. So we have no past association with you.

Lewis: That’s right, see. I get shot by the cop, and you guys don’t know nothing.

James Coyle: Right.

Mal Sharpe: We just drive off. You’re lying there.

Lewis: I’m the stoolie, right?

Mal Sharpe: You’re a pigeon.

Lewis: Yeah. Yeah.

Mal Sharpe: You’re lying on the steps of the bank, riddled with bullets, and we’re driving across the bridge.

Lewis: Yeah, I’d want one of you guys with me.

Mal Sharpe: Where?

Lewis: In the bank.

James Coyle: Can we explain something to you?

Lewis: Yeah. Yeah.

James: And you won’t be angry with us?

Lewis: Nah. Nah.

James Coyle: This is all in the interest of humor.

Lewis: Let me say one thing.

James Coyle: Yeah?

Mal Sharpe: Go right ahead.

Lewis: You two guys with a scheme like that, just stopping a guy on the street with a policeman right next to me. You could actually pull off a job like that.

James Coyle: Sure.

Lewis: You could. Three men. I’m serious.

Jesse Thorn: You’re listening to “The Sound of Young America”. I’m Jesse Thorn, America’s Radio Sweetheart. My guest on the program was also the very first guest on “The Sound of Young America” I’m pretty sure. My memory’s a little hazy, but I’m pretty sure he was the first ever interview guest on “The Sound of Young America” five or six years ago. His name is Mal Sharpe. He’s here to talk about a new CD compilation of his radio work with James P. Coyle. Together they were Coyle and Sharpe. It’s three CDs and one DVD of a television pilot they produced. They were innovators in the field of the street put-on, doing fake man-on-the-street interviews, complex pranks, and all in the mid-1960s in San Francisco. Mal welcome to, welcome back to “The Sound of Young America”. How are you?

Mal Sharpe: Great. God, it’s great to be back. I’ve just, you’ve been so busy, it’s been hard to get on the show Jesse.

Jesse Thorn: I know. You email me every week, and then you have your people email me and at one point you were pretending that you had been kidnapped and the kidnapper’s demand was that you get on “The Sound of Young America”.

Mal Sharpe: Yeah. It’s hard. It’s hard.

Jesse Thorn: So let’s do this a little bit chronologically. Before you were in Coyle and Sharpe, before you met James P. Coyle, what were you doing with your life? You were graduated from school, and you had moved out to the bay area.

Mal Sharpe: Yeah. I had like six months to kill because of it’s unfashionable to say this now but I had to go in the Army. I’d been in ROTC in college because I didn’t want to be an enlisted man and run through fields in Korea unfortunately. But anyway, so and so I went of to San Francisco. There was this kind of beat generation scene going on out there, and I really didn’t know anything about the bay area or anything. I just kind of borrowed some money from some loan company in Lansing, Michigan and flew across America and arrived in San Francisco. Kind of a blank slate.

Jesse Thorn: Did you say “Borrowed some money from some loan company”?

Mal Sharpe: Yeah the Eagle Loan Company in Lansing, Michigan. You know I got money to get an airline, a ticket on a Boeing 747.

Jesse Thorn: This is like, was this like that company advertising loans for potential beatniks or something?

Mal Sharpe: [laughs] Yeah right. Beatniks, going to San Francisco? Yeah right. Beatnik, yeah come in. You know 4% you know per year.

Jesse Thorn: We’ll invest in your career in performance poetry.

Mal Sharpe: [laughing] Right. Anyhow, I don’t know. I needed the money, and I borrowed it from this loan company and flew out to San Francisco and that was it.

Jesse Thorn: What were you doing when you. Well first of all, how old were you at this point?

Mal Sharpe: I don’t know, about 22 or 23. I got a job in Macy’s, you know, Mr. Sharpe in the Sporting Goods Department, and kind of just you know looking around you know. “On the Road” in my own way I guess. A lot of people were on the move then and heading west, out to the west coast.

Jesse Thorn: This is still the 50s right? Is this like ‘58 or something?

Mal Sharpe: Well it’s about ’59, yeah that I yeah that I came out to San Francisco.

Jesse Thorn: What was the city like in that time?

Mal Sharpe: Well, you know, it was before the hippies and kind of the beatnik thing was going on, but that was kind of in certain parts of town, North Beach. San Francisco was kind of a simple, we were just talking about this the other day, there still kind of a naïveté to San Francisco. It wasn’t in any way a hip or big league city. You know, if you wanted to really do anything, you had to leave here and go to L.A. or New York. All the advertising agencies had, you know, little accounts. But all this stuff was bubbling under in San Francisco, you know, the whole Lenny Bruce, Mort Stahl thing and the Kingston Trio and the Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond, all that stuff was kind of going on in this very kind of sunny, foggy, innocent atmosphere in a way. It was kind of a breeding ground, I guess, but you know somehow you didn’t even know it that much you know. Things didn’t have that kind of media buzz like “Whoa, that’s a happening place,” or anything. It was kind of a sleepy place in a way.

Jesse Thorn: So how did you end up meeting Jim Coyle?

Mal Sharpe: Well, you know, you could, I didn’t have much money, and you could move into these you know they were called “Residence Clubs”. They were like boarding houses. Even that term is probably gone now from the American psyche. But they were like these mansions that had been turned into these rooming houses for young people. And you could move in, and for about 80 bucks a month you got a little room you know in one of these San Francisco mansion. They were fantastic, but they almost were in disuse. So you could have a room and two meals a day for about 80 bucks a month, which was a great deal, and sort of lead your life instead of renting an apartment which would have been $140 a month.

Jesse Thorn: And Jim Coyle was living there as well?

Mal Sharpe: Yeah. I went down to supper one night and sat at, you know, you sit down at some table. And I don’t know. He was going on and on. He was telling these two young women about how he belonged to some religion or something like that, and they went out to Marin on the weekend and then they would lay on these rocks in the sun like turtles or something and commune with nature and the sun. I don’t know. Some weird thing. And I said “What is this guy up to? This is such.” But he was so convincing , and these girls’ jaws were dropping, you know, and I was kind of convinced by it too you know? But I was also intrigued and went up to his room where he was reading Bruckner and Mahler, I mean listening to Bruckner and Mahler on his record player, reading Nietzsche.

Jesse Thorn: It would probably be more impressive if he was just sitting around reading Mahler.

Mal Sharpe: [laughing] Yeah right. The score. Or he had Mahler frozen, and he was.

Jesse Thorn: [laughs] There’s something, I mean like, one of the things I was thinking of as I was watching the DVD that’s included in this set, is that the credulousness of Jim Coyle. He’s so sincere that it’s almost like, there’s almost something terrifying about it. At least there was for me. Like, I was like, “Whoa. Like this is weird.”

Mal Sharpe: Yeah, Jim, he’s kind of such an regular looking guy, but he kind of had that thing Andy Kaufman had you know. Where Andy Kaufman, it’s so believable that it kind of scares you. You’re like, “Is he really yelling at the audience, or is he really antagonizing these people? Or is this a joke?” You know. Don’t you think? I mean.

Jesse Thorn: Yeah, I mean, watching it I was thinking you know I was looking at you and I was thinking, “Well this makes sense to me, you know, because you’re really, you’re a very genial guy you know. Similarly regular looking to Jim Coyle.” And I was thinking you know, “I can see why people would realte to this guy.” And then I’m looking at Coyle and I’m thinking, “Man, you know, like, I think that I would accept whatever he told me was true because almost because I would be worried that like if he that I would be a combination of convinced that it must be true and sort of like concerned that even if it wasn’t true, if I somehow pierced the bubble of truth that he was creating, that he would explode or something.”

Mal Sharpe: [laughs] Can I get a copy of that paragraph?

Jesse Thorn: Yeah.

Mal Sharpe: Well, it’s very true, you know. That’s very true. You know, he I’m glad you picked up on that. I mean, he was so intense. He was so, I mean, he would walk in the door and sort of look like what in those days the typical IBM executive who was like the model American citizen, you know, Irish and of ruddy complexion and sort of an ordinary looking guy to a certain degree. But then, yeah, this intensity would build up, and he would sweep you into his aura. And yeah that’s what he would do with people. And of course Jim Coyle was a guy, he was kind of a harmless con man, but he lived to put people on. You know, this is not just something he did as an act, which is sort of something more my thing. I kind of enjoyed being with him and doing all this, but Jim almost compulsively wherever he went, if he went with you to a party, you knew he was going to go over and start in on the hostess. And it was kind of even getting uncomfortable maybe you know. He was one of those people.

James Coyle: Can we have your name please?

Walter Schwartz: Yes, Walter Schwartz.

James Coyle: Walter, Oscar Mendares who was a person of medical background here in the Bay Area, has come up with a rather interesting theory. He claims that the head, the actual size of the head, including the current limitations that exist because of the ramifications of the bone structure, the actual size of the head can be expanded to accommodate actually spatial dimension not only for increased brain power, but for many of the activities in the body which would, if they took place in the head, would be more efficiently performed. Would you go along with this idea?

Walter Schwartz: Certainly I would go along with this idea if it would serve any fruitful purpose, individually, collectively, or for the good of society.

James Coyle: Do you think that people participating in this experiment are going to feel self-conscious? Their heads won’t be rounder. The heads are actually elongated in some cases two or three times the head as it is today. In other words, it becomes very high and narrow.

Walter Schwartz: Yes, they may, some may feel self-conscious, and some may even desire that because of a sort of status seekers.

James Coyle: What do you mean, exactly, by that?

Walter Schwartz: Well, they may feel slightly superior that they have gone through an operation, and now they have greater potential than the average citizen.

James Coyle: In other words, you think perhaps some snob appeal would develop along with the elongated head.

Walter Schwartz: Yes, it could appeal to some people in this way that they would have an elite society through expanding the head size.

James Coyle: Would you be willing, yourself, to submit your head for such purposes?

Walter Schwartz: If I thought and I was convinced that it would serve any useful purpose either to myself, individuals collectively, or society as a whole, I certainly would.

James Coyle: And you wouldn’t feel at all embarrassed that your head would be elongated perhaps as long as your body?

Walter Schwartz: No, no, I wouldn’t. I don’t believe I would at this time.

James Coyle: If you were staying in France, and you had this elongated head. You got a hotel room and the bed, most of the French people are a little shorter than average Americans, the bed was rather short, would you, and your head was the same size as your body, which would you place on the bed, your body or your head? One section would be drooping onto the floor of the hotel. Which section would you place on the bed?

Walter Schwartz: I would place my head on the bed, and the rest of the body would hang over and straddle on the floor or whatever or chairs or whatever would be necessary.

James Coyle: And when the maid came in in the morning, if you were still sleeping, she opened the door what would she see asleep on the bed?

Walter Schwartz: My head.

Jesse Thorn: You’re listening to “The Sound of Young America”. I’m Jesse Thorn, America’s Radio Sweetheart. My guest is Mal Sharpe of the 1960s put-on group Coyle and Sharpe. Their new CD box set is “These Two Men Are Imposters”. We’ll be back in just one minute.

[music]

Jesse Thorn: You’re listening to “The Sound of Young America” from maximumfun.org. Let’s return to my interview of Mal Sharpe from Coyle and Sharpe. What was the appeal of being with somebody like that who to was who was at the time maybe a little counter-cultural but otherwise a pretty regular guy?

Mal Sharpe: Yeah. I don’t know. It was kind of dangerous. I mean he had such a sick sense of humor. He was so bright. It was just very funny, and he was also very intellectual and you know he did read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and all his stuff kind of drew you in. He’d almost have like acolytes. Well, he didn’t have a lot, but there was always one or two other people around. They were kind of held in his sway in a weird way, you know. So but to go out with him and you know he’d turn his collar around and look like a priest and we’d go to movie theatres and they’d say “Oh Father Coyle, come right in.” And you know, you’re just conning someone at the counter out of a box of popcorn, but there was still something. He just loved playing the part of the priest or something like that. I can’t explain it. Just hanging out with a guy like that was really fun.

Jesse Thorn: Well, what led the two of you into thinking that this could be something besides just something you did as a goof?

Mal Sharpe: Yeah, I think we both wanted to you know have jobs, do something to make a living. You know, even though he conned his way into jobs, he always had some job. One time he even flew as a co-pilot in a training program for TWA.

Jesse Thorn: [laughs]

Mal Sharpe: I mean it got that far you know. But you know we kind of thought, “These things are kind of funny.” You know we, after I went into the Army and I was stationed in Long Island City and I lived in Greenwich Village cause they didn’t have like an Army post. I was I made Army training films, and I went and I lived in Greenwich Village in this room and one day I bumped into Coyle on the street. He had come back from San Francisco. We weren’t even in touch. So we hooked up again in Greenwich Village and we’d stand on the street corner and try and sell people posters or we would go to you know weird social events and we were just having a good time. And we finally decided well what if we could go back to San Francisco, go back and be out in the sunshine again and record this stuff and do something? We just thought it was so funny and you know. At least we enjoyed it. So that’s kind of it. It was vague, but you know the kind of thing young people do.

James Coyle: Can we have your name please?

Mrs. Paulson: Yes, it’s Mrs. Pat Paulson.

James Coyle: Can we ask you a question? Would you yourself approve the idea of a commercial agency the purpose of which is to purchase children from homes and then redistribute these children to other homes on a lease basis for a profit.

Mrs. Paulson: Well that might not be a bad idea. Of course, I don’t know, I would miss mine awful much.

Mal Sharpe: There’s a group here in the city which actually is getting children. We’re not sure of the source yet. They’re getting children and they have between 50 and 75 children, and they are renting them out to people in the area.

Mrs. Paulson: Yeah?

Mal Sharpe: Yes.

Mrs. Paulson: How? How can they do that?

James Coyle: Well they

Mrs. Paulson: And what about the parents.

James Coyle: They have actually purchased these children from the parents. They have purchased these children. The parents have gone along with an idea whereby the children are turned over to these people permanently. For instance, if somebody wants a little nine year old boy in his or her home for the weekend, there is a set fee. Do you approve of this?

Mrs. Paulson: No I wouldn’t approve of that. I think any child away from its own home would be unhappy.

Mal Sharpe: Even if it was getting a percentage of the profits from the organization. In other words, if the child knew that he was going to get 25% while he stayed with a group of people.

Mrs. Paulson: Well to a child I think the happiness of their own home is more important that any money.

James Coyle: You don’t you don’t think that it might be helpful to a child to have a very commercial attitude in regard to himself at an early age?

Mrs. Paulson: Well.

James Coyle: Knowing that he is being leased?

Mrs. Paulson: Everything is too commercial. This is this is the whole world today is too commercial.

James Coyle: We are ourselves involved in this agency, and we have two of the children with us today. We’d like you just to meet them and tell us whether they’re happy or not. Would you do this? They’re right here.

Mal Sharpe: They’re right here.

James Coyle: Fellas? Will you meet them?

Mrs. Paulson: Well yes, I’ll meet them, but I don’t think that they could give me a reaction right now.

Mal Sharpe: What’re your names boys?

Ronald: I’m I I’m Ronald.

James Coyle: How old are you, Ronald?

Ronald: I’m 13.

James Coyle: And what is your name, young man?

Andy: Andy

James Coyle: And we’ve been sending you around to different homes in the community now for about four and a half months. Would you describe yourself as unhappy or happy?

Ronald: I I feel fine about it. I think it’s really good.

James Coyle: And your little friend here, once again, how old are you?

Andy: Nine.

James Coyle: You have little freckles on your face there. How many homes have you been to in the last three years?

Andy: About 14.

James Coyle: He’s been to 14 homes, and you can see can’t you, wouldn’t you say from looking at them they’re happy?

Mrs. Paulson: Well they look happy enough. They have a bag of candy. That’s enough to make any child happy.

James Coyle: Right, exactly, and we have given the candy to them. We’re taking care of them. And you say you’re opposed to this.

Mrs. Paulson: Well, no, in my opinion you aren’t taking proper care of them. They should be home eating a carrot stick, instead of eating a bag of candy.

James Coyle: Maybe that’s right, and now this afternoon normally these two fellows, they’re actually brothers. Normally, we rent them on a weekend basis for $17 a day. Now you’ve shown some interest in them. You think they should be at home this weekend. Could we let you have them for $10.50 the two brothers Ronnie and Andy in your home this weekend?

Mrs. Paulson: Heavens, no. I have two of my own. That’s enough.

James Coyle: As a trial. Don’t you think if you had Ronnie and Andy in your home over the weekend, you would be able to determine whether they are happy?

Mrs. Paulson: No, I don’t see any normal boy standing on a street corner talking to strangers saying that they’re being paid money to go live with somebody would be happy.

James Coyle: Ronnie? Can we ask Ronnie and Andy, would you like to go to this lady’s home this weekend?

Ronnie: Yeah.

James Coyle: And you know it’s at the discount rate. You won’t be getting your full 25%.

Ronnie: Doesn’t matter.

James Coyle: How about you?

Andy: Okay.

James Coyle: Andy would you like to into this lady’s home?

Andy: Uh-huh.

James Coyle: Well, Ronnie, tell us, what was the last home you were in? What was it like?

Ronnie: It was very, it was a very nice home with some nice people who already had three children.

Mal Sharpe: See they already had children. Could we place them in your home this weekend? And we give them come sedation so they aren’t too wild. This is one of the reasons why they’re willing to go.

Mrs. Paulson: I think you ought to be out teaching these boys to play baseball instead of standing on the street trying to sell them.

Jesse Thorn: You’re listening to “The Sound of Young America”. I’m Jesse Thorn, America’s Radio Sweetheart. My guest is Mal Sharpe of the 1960s put-on group Coyle and Sharpe. Their new CD DVD box set is “These Two Men Are Imposters”. It’s at CoyleandSharpe.com. Let’s get back to my interview. I mean one of the really remarkable things about this story is the fact that it happened all in the early 1960s was very fortuitous because this was really sort of the first period in time that technologically you could do this as anything more than running illegal con games. That you could do a prank and document it well enough that it could be something that could entertain others because this was the first time that there was actual portable tape recorders among other things.

Mal Sharpe: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that’s a really good point, and we didn’t think of that at the time, but you know I’ve been interviewed by the BBC. They consider us like you know historical figures and this sort of thing. But yeah, for the first time there were smaller tape recorders, not what we have today but still smaller, and they were used by mostly Private-Is. It was a famous Private-I in San Francisco, Hal Lipskitt or something like that, Coppola’s movie “The Conversation” kind of I think was base on his career. But we went down, and we were hanging out with these Private-Is at this store that Brooks Camera, but they also had in this camera shop they also had miniature tape records and microphones, and we’d be out there with our Private-Is and they’d be stuffing them in briefcases and stuff and that’s what we did. We were kind of the first entertainers probably that walked around with this gear in a little briefcase.

Jesse Thorn: Was this did you actually have a job doing this before you went out and bought a tape recorder that fits in briefcase, or did you buy a tape recorder that fits in a briefcase in order to think that you could get a job doing it?

Mal Sharpe: No we bought the tape recorder. I mean we had the tape recorder and this little gear for probably two years before we ever made a cent. I mean, we just bought this thing and started walking around San Francisco. And we walked around San Francisco for two years. Every single neighborhood you could imagine, being in neighborhoods we didn’t even know existed. Things like the Excelsior District. We didn’t know where we were. We would get up everyday and just go to a street that was different, that had a bunch of stores we hadn’t been in the day before, because we’d walk into stores with this hidden stuff. You know, mortuaries, and antique stores, and printing shops just you know whatever the next store was, and we’d stand outside for a second and try and come up with a premise and if nobody else was in there and the guys was like you know available you know we’d strut in in our suits and propose something to the fellow.

Jesse Thorn: What were you doing with this tape that you were recording? When like did you have like a were you creating your own “Best-Ofs” and inviting girls over to listen to them or what?

Mal Sharpe: No we weren’t. Interesting concept. No, we were just collecting this stuff and ultimately we got a contract with and we would edit them. We would sit in Jim’s house with some early editing you know splicing tape which is gone and razor blades, and we’d put these things together and make little demo tapes and go around to radio stations and ultimately here in San Francisco we got a record contract with Fantasy Records. They threw us out though after about six months, but yeah you know we were just collecting the stuff. It’s just some dream you know. That the adventure would go someplace someday. I can’t explain it. Haven’t you done something like this, Jesse?

Jesse Thorn: [Laughs]

Mal Sharpe: Isn’t this show like?

Jesse Thorn: Me?

Mal Sharpe: But yeah I don’t know, we just did it. I don’t know why. We just thought it would work out.

Jesse Thorn: What were the things like that you created at the very beginning?

Mal Sharpe: On this new box set, “These Two Men Are Imposters”, I have a bunch of unedited, early stuff that we did. I found some stuff in some drawers and things that had never been used before. It was on these big reels of 10 or 11 inch tape. And it would be things like, we’d go down to the Marina District in San Francisco. There would be an apartment for rent. You can hear us kind of walk in and one of these tacky kind of landlords lived in the building you know like a supervisor. You know like that.

Jesse Thorn: Sure.

Mal Sharpe: And we would you know, the hidden tape recorder would be clunking away. We’d be walking up the stairs with him and he’d show us the apartment and like in this particular thing that’s in the CD, Jim then explains that he doesn’t really care about the rooms. That it’s the closets, he lives in the closets.

Jesse: [laughs]

Mal Sharpe: And he doesn’t want any light in the closets. So then the guy is all involved with “Well why don’t you come in this room? This is kind of a dark room, and maybe if you get a closet in here, you’d like to look.” And you know things like that. You know wandering into apartments for rent. We did a lot of things in mortuaries where we walked in and told the mortician that Jim had had an unsuccessful life and he wanted to be buried and dug again to like renew this life to start again.

Jesse: [laughs]

Mal Sharpe: And the tape recorder would be in the briefcase on the guy’s desk and we’d all be kind of tense and you know he’d say “Well who will be coming to this funeral?” And it was always several of our friends and one animal.

Jesse: [laughs]

Mal Sharpe: Kind of a highlight for us would be when the guy would say “What kind of animal?” It was always wolverines or cattle or something that would have to be tied up that might attack somebody but probably wouldn’t. So it’d be this whole scene taking place in some graveyard where you’d be burying Coyle and digging him up and there’d be wolves trying to get at him and you know stuff like that. And it would be places like that. Antique stores where we did a lot of things involving death for some reason. Antique stores where we our uncle had died without signing a document that would have given us a lot of money, and if we could dig him up and bring his body back to the antique store. That particular store had a kind of furniture that was in his home. He’d be comfortable and we had a way of getting his arm to sign the document, you know.

Jesse Thorn: [laughs]

Mal Sharpe: Could we bring the body in that night? You know stuff like that. They would call the cops a lot. We’d end up jumping on buses to get away from the sirens and things.

Jesse Thorn: There’s tape of you and you guys getting arrested on that third CD that you mentioned.

Mal Sharpe: Right. Yeah that’s another thing. That particular tape was lost for years and we had signed an agreement with the judge when we were going up for trial that we would never play it anywhere, but I figured since it was forty years later. Yeah, I mean, we had been out in the avenues in San Francisco, and we stopped some guy in a suit. He was walking towards his car. We asked him if we could borrow his car for the weekend, and we wanted to go over to Marin and go to out to eat at some outdoor restaurants and things like that and we’d bring it back on Monday. And he didn’t want to lend it to us, because he didn’t trust us, and of course we’d always explain: Wouldn’t an experience like this, if he got the car back on Monday, wouldn’t he realize that he could trust human beings, and it would be a very learning and growing experience for him.

All the time of course that we were talking, we were growing more and more suspicious. Deliberately so. So it turns out, he wouldn’t do it and he got in his car and he drove away and we walked down the street and we were interviewing some kid on a street corner. And the cop car pulled up, the guy was in the back. And it turned out he was a cigar salesman or something. He had been collecting all this money. He had this money on him and he thought we were setting him up to rob him so he got the cops. They grabbed the briefcase out of my hand with the hidden tape recorder in it. So it recorded the whole arrest. And this was in days before the Miranda thing where they had to tell you your rights. Ultimately, we were in a cell and they called me out because they suddenly discovered the tape recorder and they didn’t know how to turn it off. Anyway, we had a trial. They had a jury. It was jury selection day at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco, and they called us in the back room and the judge said “This is ridiculous,” and “If you sign this waiver and never play this tape of the arrest again, you guys can go home.” And we were happy to do that.

James Coyle: This particular car.

Man: Just a plain, ordinary, simple car.

James Coyle: Just a smaller car this would be. What would be the chance, when you’re finished with it this evening, of taking a spin in it?

Man: Rather hard. I live way down in Mill Bridge.

Mal Sharpe: Well we could go with you now and then when you get done tonight we could just go off for a ride. [??]

James Coyle: Why don’t we get you home on a bus or something like that. Can we take a spin in it?

Man: That’s just not very ethical that’s all.

Mal Sharpe: What do you mean “ethical”?

James Coyle: What do we look crooked?

Man: No.

James Coyle: Evil or something?

Man: No. Just that it’s a company owned car, and I’m not allowed to lend it out.

James Coyle: Are you intimating we’re going to steal the car?

Man: No.

Mal Sharpe: Let’s forget the company policy. You sit in the back seat and we’ll take it out for a spin tonight.

Man: No thanks.

James Coyle: You can bring somebody with you.

Man: No that’s all right.

James Coyle: Can we drive over the Golden Gate Bridge now?

Man: No.

James Coyle: Well, could I just ask why so we’ll understand?

Man: It’s just as I told you. It’s against company policy. I’m sure if you go right down here, they’ll let you drive any one of their sample cars if you’re interested in buying one.

Mal Sharpe: Well, we want to drive one somebody’s already had.

Man: Yeah, well.

Mal Sharpe: We really wanted to drive in your car. We saw you and then we saw the nice little car.

James Coyle: Could we have it over the weekend?

Man: No. I’m sorry. I told you it’s against that company policy.

James Coyle: Just Saturday and Sunday.

Man: I’m sorry.

[a whistling sound]

James Coyle: No?

[car door bangs]

James Coyle: Get the sound of the motor

[car starts]

James Coyle: Do you want it?

Mal Sharpe: I don’t know. I really don’t.

[car drives away]

[break in tape]

Mal Sharpe: Excuse me. Are you in a rush?

Man: Yes. I have to go now, sorry.

James Coyle: You walk up and down the street here frequently enough?

Man: Yeah.

James Coyle: Ok we’ll see you. Thanks a lot. Take it easy.

Mal Sharpe: Say “Hey” to the police. Here we go.

Policeman: Get your hands out of your pockets.

[sound of something dropping]

[sound of a police dispatch radio]

[shuffling and scuffing of shoes]

James Coyle: Do you think it’s easier with that thing, with that tape recorder in there?

[more shuffling and shoving sounds]

James Coyle: I [??] sighted the car. We wanted to tell you.

Man with the Car: Well, I mean, it’s rather unusual.

[car doors shut.]

James Coyle: Can we explain what we did?

Policeman: Right but you’ll do the explaining down at the police station.

James Coyle: We wanted to tell you.

Policeman: You two gentlemen ever been arrested before? No arrest records? Here or in any other state?

Mal Sharpe: Here in San Francisco.

James Coyle: It’d save a lot of time.

Policeman: That’s all right. We’ll talk down at the station.

James Coyle: One thing. We’d like you to take it easy. The case is a precision instrument.

[jostling and some tape feedback]

James Coyle: We should have the right to tell you.

[car door opening and shutting]

Jesse Thorn: That’s an actual recording of my guest Mal Sharpe and his partner James P. Coyle getting arrested in San Francisco in the 1960s. We’ll have more with Mal Sharpe when we come back on “The Sound of Young America” from maximumfun.org in just one minute.

[music]

Jesse Thorn: You’re listening to “The Sound of Young America”. Let’s get back to my interview with Mal Sharpe. Were you learning anything doing these over these I mean before you were even on the airwaves you were doing this for two years. Were you like refining techniques?

Mal Sharpe: Yeah. I think we developed a lot of premises, a lot of rapport. Yeah, with a lot of chops that even to this day is very useful to me. You know, creating things, premisizing, having concepts in your head before you walk into a situation. We learned a lot, you know. Human nature. Who would be the good subjects. That we had to get people with good voices, people who spoke up. We loved to get truck drivers. “Prolies” as we called them. Good Proli types, you know. But, you know, get these truck drivers to yell and scream at us. You know, construction workers. So it was a good kind of human interest learning experience for us.

Jesse Thorn: When you were on the radio, you were doing a lot of pranks that involved sort of the artifice of being on the radio.

Mal Sharpe: Yeah.

Jesse Thorn: And a lot of man-on-the-street kind of stuff. And probably my favorite one of your pieces involves Jim Coyle explaining that he’s building some sort of artificial Hell in which. [laughs] And the and he’s involves like zombies and people throwing bats or something. And the whole premise of which is you’re interviewing, you’re offering a San Franciscan a job on the radio. And so you’re telling him you’re unfolding this as the job that you’re offering this guy.

Mal Sharpe: Right.

Jesse Thorn: Who of course takes it.

Mal Sharpe: Yeah.

Jesse Thorn: There’s something kind of, there’s something really specific about the pieces that you did where people knew they were being interviewed for the radio. There’s a very special kind of quality, isn’t there, about the way the people are when they’re being , you know, when they’re plucked out of media obscurity and told they’re going to be presented to everyone.

Mal Sharpe: Yeah, yeah, of course. And bear in mind, this was 1964. By then we had abandoned the hidden tape recorder. We got hired by KJRA Radio in San Francisco. You know, the hidden stuff would take days sometimes to get a good one. But on the radio we had twelve pieces a day. So yeah and so we kind of presented ourselves as guys from the radio station. I was usually the guy with the microphone. This is another edition of San Francisco Job Opportunities. You know, today we’ve met a gentleman on the street. And you name is? And the guy would say “Allen Fifner.” I’d say, “Mr. Fifner, this is James P. Coyle with Today’s Job Opportunity.” [laughs] I mean, you know, it was, you know, people were naïve then. They hadn’t had a lot of people out on the street with microphones and they thought they were involved in a legitimate thing. And then, of course, Coyle would tell them that he had dug this pit under the ground in San Francisco. And there were bats down there and eels and sharks. And they’d have to wrestle with these things. But anyway he would present it in a way that was quite convincing. And we never offered the people a lot of money to do these things. They do that a lot now on these pranks on television. We never offered them money. It was usually just an experience. And the one you were talking about, the guy really went for it. You know, he just thought it was sounded intriguing. There were like ex-marines. I mean, you could offer some of these guys experiences. You know, we had an amusement park called “Peril Village” where we were going to tie them up in a chair and we’d burn them, burn the chair up.

Jesse Thorn: [laughs]

Mal Sharpe: They’d say, “Yeah, I want to try it. I like adventure.” Surprises walking around the street.

Mal Sharpe: This is Mal Shape with another in the series “Job Opportunities”. Everyday I bring an employer out onto the street, and have him offer a San Franciscan an interesting and novel job. Now I have James P. Coyle with me, our employer of the day. And I’ve just stopped a young man who we’re going to offer a job to.

James Coyle: Hi, I’m James P. Coyle, and I’m very glad to meet you.

Man: Same here.

James Coyle: The nature of the job is it’s a little unusual. Just like anything else, there are certain risks entailed in it. You would be working down in a pit.

Man: mm-hm.

James Coyle: In which I have created, for scientific endeavor, I have created intense flame. People throw objects in the flaming pit. You go through. You pick them up. They name the object. You pick them up, and I charge them admission.

Man: mm-hm. Yeah I think that’d be interesting, something new and exciting. You know, like you’re saying.

James Coyle: The reason I ask, I had an employee before and I will tell you this directly and honestly. He was a little careless and incautious. I gave him specific instructions, and he perished. Now, I wanted you to understand this before we get any further.

Man: Yeah.

James Coyle: He did perish.

Man: I understand. Well that’s mistakes can happen sometime.

Mal Sharpe: Now as I understand it, the death index on this job, they give us a death index, is about 98%. In other words, if you took this job the chance of your actual perishing would be 98% in favor of your perishing.

Man: It’s a chance. I like to take chances.

James Coyle: What we’re trying to do really is to create a living Hell. Have people pay admission. They look down into the pit. They see you down there. The flames are all around you. There will be four maniacs with you, and you’ve got to control them.

Man: Now wait a minute now. I understand that you said four maniacs?

James Coyle: Yes.

Man: Yeah. And you mean I got to tell them what to do or try to keep them together or something like that?

James Coyle: Yes exactly, control them and see that they don’t interfere with you because they will. That’s what they’re going to try and do.

Man: Uh-huh.

James Coyle: They’re fully costumed. They’re fully protected, and they’re going to be attacking you. And this is part of the attraction.

Man: Oh, I see. It sounds very interesting.

Mal Sharpe: Have you worked with maniacs before?

Man: No, never.

James Coyle: Have you worked with flame before?

Man: No not necessarily.

Mal Sharp: One other aspect. Large bats fly through the air. You’ve seen bats haven’t you?

Man: Yeah.

Mal Sharpe: These are very large bats with I might say extremely large teeth from the photo I saw. They’ll be swooping down over your head. Would the bats at all deter you from doing your job?

Man: No, I don’t think so. If I had a job to do, I’d try to do it regardless of the bats or anybody else.

James Coyle: Now I am, I’ll explain the situation. To start with I want to be sure you can handle the job. I am paying $46 a week initially. Is this agreeable?

Man: Sounds OK.

James Coyle: And I am offering not only the $46, but during the 12 hours you’ll be down in the pit every day, I will provide nourishment to you. In other words, I will provide one meal during that 12 hour period. Will that be satisfactory?

Man: Sounds OK.

Mal Sharpe: Have you ever consumed bats?

Man: No I haven’t.

James Coyle: Would you look forward to the idea of actually consuming a bat?

Man: Eating one?

James Coyle: Yes.

Man: I guess so.

Mal Sharpe: In other words, your lunch. You go down and open up your little brown paper bag that Mr. Coyle had prepared, and inside there there would be a bat and then you would just prepare it down in the flames.

Man: Oh, I have to cook it myself.

Mal Sharpe: Yeah.

Man: Oh no.

James Coyle: What?

Man: Oh no. I, well, I, if you could cook it for me I wouldn’t mind eating it but you know.

James Coyle: What?

Man: A bat. As long as I didn’t see it cooking you know. I don’t think I could devour it.

Mal Sharpe: Have you ever had any experience with snakes, large snakes?

Man: No.

Mal Sharpe: See the bats actually their foes down in this pit, the reason why the bats are there, is because there are snakes in the pit. The bats attack the snakes and the snakes will be crawling around your feet as you’re trying to handle the maniacs.

Man: Yeah, I’m not scared of snakes though.

Mal Sharpe: What?

Man: I’m not scared of snakes.

James Coyle: Are you at all, be honest, are at all afraid of the maniacs?

Man: No not really.

James Coyle: What are you going to do with them if the start attacking you?

Man: Fire them off.

James Coyle: This is what the people pay for.

Man: uh-huh

James Coyle: The people who are looking down in the pit pay to see you surrounded by flames, picking up objects that they throw down to you,. You’ll be attacked by the maniacs and the bats. The snakes will be crawling at your feet. You understand, this is what the people pay for.

Man: Yeah. We that’s, they pay to see it. Give them their money’s worth.

James Coyle: Now you are, what I’d like to know is that you fully understand the job. Can you in your own way recapitulate what I have told you about the job so that we know that you do have an understanding of it?

Man: Yeah. It seems to me, you want me to work in some kind of a pit that you say you’re trying to develop a living hell. And in this pit, I wear some sort of a uniform and there’ll be a lot of flames, and I have to work with maniacs, watch out for bats flying around. And I’ll get one meal a day. It’ll be enough for twelve hours, and I’ll have to eat a bat.

Mal Sharpe: And you will take the position?

Man: Yeah, I’d like to try it.

Jesse Thorn: You’re listening to “The Sound of Young America” from maximumfun.org. I’m Jesse Thorn, America’s Radio Sweetheart. My guest is Mal Sharpe. In the 1960s, he and his partner James P. Coyle walked the street of San Francisco interviewing pedestrians in remarkable ways. Mal has just released a box set of their work together. It’s called “These Two Men Are Imposters” and it’s available at coyleandsharpe.com. Let’s go back to the interview.

I mean one of the remarkable things about it, and I think the sort of the combination of Jim Coyle’s bizarre sincerity/commitment and your sort of cosign on him as being acceptable, was that people really seemed to like sincerely want to be demonstrating that they’re really hearing you guys out and really giving this careful thought and a thoughtful response. Like no matter what.

Mal Sharpe: Yeah. Well I mean we were pretty believable and we were really interested in drawing them out. Hearing what they had to say. Yeah, you know, once again I have to say, the early 60s people, people didn’t have the you know the cynicism about the media. They really, finally it was a chance to talk on the microphone. It was kind of interesting to them I guess.

Mal Sharpe: Can we have your name please?

Julia: Julia Derry.

James Coyle: Julia?

Julia: Yes.

James Coyle: And you work down here in the financial district?

Julia: Yes, I do.

James Coyle: A group of people in the musical world here in our city are exploiting animals for the purpose of making music. Would you say that you are essentially opposed to the idea of taking an animal and trying to evoke music from an animal?

Julia: Yes. I’m very much against the idea. Yes.

James Coyle: Why do you say that Julia?

Julia: Well because it’s cruel. It’s not right to do this sort of thing to animals.

Mal Sharpe: Even if it allows an animal to make beautiful music?

Julia: I don’t think an animal can create beautiful music.

James Coyle: You mean to say that if you could actually take a wolf or lets say a jackal in your arms and actually press over the body of this jackal the bow of a violin or a cello and beautiful music from the contact that the bow has with the animal, you don’t think that you yourself would be entranced and would overcome any misgivings you might have about it?

Julia: I don’t think so because I’m sure it would hurt whatever animal it was, and I mean if it didn’t hurt it at all, I think that would be fine but.

James Coyle: Like the animals were doped?

Julia: Well, if they were completely out and it didn’t injure them in any way, yes, I suppose that would be okay. But it’s a bit of a strange idea anyway I think.

James Coyle: Would you yourself, if you knew that you could get a really enjoyable and uplifting musical experience by attending a concert in which animals were used as stringed musical instruments, live animals, would you hesitate to attend this concert?

Julia: No, I’d love to go and see it just to see what it was like but I mean I’m against it but I’d like to see what sort of thing they could produce. But um

Mal Sharpe: If you knew for instance that the violin, what would normally be considered the violin section, was going to be composed of weasels. You came to the concert hall. You sat down, and the concert began. You looked over and what would you see in the arms of the violinists?

Julia: What would I see? Weasels of course. What? What? What do you mean?

James Coyle: And if you yourself found that taking a small let’s say coyote in your arms and running over the back of the coyote, actually over the backbone of the coyote is the means, the bow of a violin.

Julia: mmhm.

James Coyle: And you found that you could make a beautiful sound and you could become a virtuoso of this sort of music and actually benefit both actually and materially.

Julia: Yes?

James Coyle: Would you tour the world?

Julia: Well, I suppose if it if I got any money out of it I would yes if it was.

James Coyle: What do you think you would do?

Julia: I’d tour the world playing on a coyote.

Jesse Thorn: How did you how did the two of you dissolve your partnership?

Mal Sharpe: That’s a good question, Jesse. We had done a television pilot that you were mentioning earlier [??] for a company in L.A.. We finished that. We couldn’t get another radio job. And the partnership was getting a little frayed, much as other partnerships and marriages and things begin to get a little bit of pressure on them. Jim was a kind of very, very eccentric guy, extremely paranoid. It was hard for me sometimes to deal with it. And but anyway he was married. I was married then and we were living in west Los Angeles. And one day I went over to his house to kind of do something and no one was there. And the landlord told me that they had left. Jim and his wife Naomi had gotten in his car and taken off. They’d gone to New York and that was the last time, well I didn’t see him then, but I didn’t really talk to him again for 18 years. You know, he just split. And it was over. And it was kind of relief in some ways that it was over because it was getting to be a bad marriage.

Jesse Thorn: I can only imagine that you know this relationship must have been kind of seriously intense. I mean, I don’t honestly I can’t imagine anything dealing with the man that I see on the television screen as not being intense. I imagine like eating a grapefruit with him would be intense.

Mal Sharpe: Well, it was you know. And I think when we were both single and we were just drifting around San Francisco sitting on curbs and eating sandwiches and having these adventures, it was a great adventure. You know, it really was a great adventure. I think in a way why I’ve been attached to this stuff my whole life and maybe even put out this box set. I could’ve left this go a long time ago, but it almost represents some kind of youthful exuberance and stupidity and intensity that you can only have when you’re 24 or 23 you know. And I don’t know. I don’t know where we started this question because I’m lost in a lot of different thoughts here. But yeah, ultimately it was probably too intense. It was too intense.

Jesse Thorn: You went on to basically make your career out of doing this kind of thing and you eventually sort of became known as the man-on-the-street guy.

Mal Sharpe: Right.

Jesse Thorn: Both locally here in the, excuse me not here in the Bay Area, I live in Los Angeles now, both locally in the Bay Area and nationally. Was it how is it different to work to be working by yourself for so long after having this kind of catalyzing five or ten year relationship with a partner?

Mal Sharpe: Well, you know, I sort of left doing the thing with him. I went to work kind of with a company in L.A. that created radio commercials and I really enjoy that work. We were creating in the middle of the 60s the Beatles were happening and sound got really interesting, the mood synthesizer arrived, and this whole thing sprung up. And I loved creating this stuff and making it but I kept getting calls for man-on-the-street interviews. So slowly I started taking these things and developed this style. It wasn’t as antagonistic and as intense as my thing with Jim. And ultimately I fell into my own style which is a little more friendly, a little more drawing people out, bringing out their humor, having a good time with them on the street. And so it was rather different, but still very enjoyable to me. And compared with other jobs I could have had, even the one I had at this production company, it was great being outside all day you know, walking around with a tape recorder. It was, I liked meeting people and engaging them and having a good time with them. So it turned out pretty for some weird reason nothing I’d ever contended to do in life could turn out to be a nice career.

Jesse Thorn: Well Mal thank you so much for coming back on “The Sound of Young America”. It was really a pleasure to have you.

Mal Sharpe: I’ve really babbled away here Jesse.

[Both laugh]

Jesse Thorn: Well that’s the objective isn’t it? It’s an interview.

Mal Sharpe: You just got me going man. You’re a good interviewer.

Jesse Thorn: Mal.

Mal Sharpe: Good to hook up with you again.

Jesse Thorn: Mal Sharpe is still on the radio these days on KCSM in San Mateo, California KCSM.org every Sunday night with the show “Back on Basin Street”. And you can also see him playing with his jazz band in North Beach still pretty regularly right?

Mal Sharpe: Yeah, Enrico’s Sidewalk café, the Savoy Tivoli in North Beach and over in Sausalito in the famous No-Name Bar.

Jesse Thorn: Well thank you much, Mal.

Mal Sharpe: All right, thank you Jesse.

[music]

Jesse Thorn: Well that’s about all the time we have for this week’s “The Sound of Young America” broadcast. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I’ve been your host, Jesse Thorn, America’s Radio Sweetheart. This show is produced by Speaking Into Microphones. Our theme music was written and preformed by Dan Grayson with help from myself on both counts, and our incidental music was produced by DJ W. If you have thoughts about the show, we would love to hear them. You can call us or email us. The phone number: 206-984-4FUN. Or can email me directly: jesse@maximumfun.org, and my girlfriend said I should spell that. Of course you can visit us on “The Sound of Young America” webpage at maximumfun.org and check out “The Sound of Young America” blog everyday brand new updates from the world of music, culture, arts and comedy, and things that are awesome. Special thanks this week to two local businesses that have helped out “The Sound of Young America”: One Heart Press, makers of fine printed goods, made business cards for the program. They’re at oneheartpress.com. And Bro Prints in Santa Cruz gave a price break on the printing of our brand new “The Sound of Young America” t-shirts, so thank you to Bro Prints in Santa Cruz online at broprints.com. We’ll catch you next week on The Sound of Young America”. Bye bye.

[music]

[end of tape]