aired 23 May 2023, USA
Yeah, I don't know how much I know, but … I knew my father.
Y'know, I've said it, I said it, and it is true what I said, what my uncle said, yeah, my father was a ... a brute. He was, he was tough. But also he built and he acted.
And there are many people out there who will always tell you no. And there are a thousand reasons ... I mean, there always are ... a thousand reasons not to, to not act. But he was never one of those. He had, you kinow, a vitality, of force that could hurt, and it did. But my God, the sheer ... I mean, look at it. The lives and the livings and the things that he made.
And the money. Yeah, the money. The lifeblood, the oxygen of this wonderful civilization that we have built from the mud, the money, the corpuscules of life gushing around this nation, this world filling men and women all around with desire, quickening the ambition to own, and make, and trade, and profit, and build, and improve. I mean, great geysers of life, he willed. Of buildings, he made stand. Of ships, steel holes, amusements, newspapers, shows and films and life bloody complicated life!
He made life happen. He made me and my three siblings, sorry. And yes, he had a terrible force to him and a fierce ambition that could push you to the side, but it was only that, that human thing, the will to be and to be seen and to do.
And now people might want to tend and prune the memory of him. To denigrate that force, that magnificent, awful force of him. But my God, I hope it's in me. Because if we can't match his vim, then God knows the future will be sluggish and grey. Now, there wasn't a room from the grandest state room where his advice was sought to the lowest house where his news played, where he couldn't walk and wasn't comfortable.
He was comfortable with this world and he knew it. He knew it and he liked it. And I say amen to that.