A Mighty Wind (2003)

Michael McKean: Jerry Palter

Photos 

Quotes 

• Mark Shubb : [lost driving around in New York City]  Do you have a map?

  Alan Barrows : I - I have a map, but I don't have it in the car.

  Jerry Palter : Oh. Were you planning to study it later, just kind of academically?

• Alan Barrows : They had no hole in the center of the record.

  Jerry Palter : No, you had to provide it yourself. A drawback.

  Alan Barrows : So, the people complained that you'd get this vinyl, of course, in those days, it was kind of up to you to center it and make the actual...

  Mark Shubb : It would teeter crazily on the little spindle.

  Alan Barrows : The hole. And that was, of course, we had no control over that aspect of it, but...

  Jerry Palter : But, they were still good records. It was a good product.

  Mark Shubb : If you punched a hole in them, you'd have a good time.

• Jerry Palter : [listening backstage to Mitch & Mickey singing "Kiss at the end of the rainbow"]  I know this song. This is that really pretty one. With the kiss. Turn that up a bit. Remember, where they used to...

  Mark Shubb : The kiss.

  Jerry Palter : Wonder how they're gonna handle that.

  Mark Shubb : 5 dollars says they do it.

  Jerry Palter : You're on.

• Jerry Palter : We go out there, we do the song we're known for, we get it out of the way and then, 'hey, here's the icing on the cake.'

  Alan Barrows : What's the icing?

  Jerry Palter : Well the icing is the rest of the act.

  Mark Shubb : That's the cake.

  Jerry Palter : No, that's the dressing.

• Jerry Palter : Things have been going really well. We got some gigs here, working at the casinos. It has been a time of changes, but change is good. Change is life.

  [camera pulls out to reveal Mark Shubb dressed as a woman] 

  Mark Shubb : It was like a great big door opening for me... Town Hall... after that concert, I realized I wanted to spend as much of the rest of my life as possible playing folk music with these gentlemen...

  Jerry Palter : Right back atcha.

  Mark Shubb : ...and I wanted to spend all of it as a woman. I came to a realization that I was - and am - a blonde, female folk singer trapped in the body of a bald, male folk singer and I had to LET ME OUT or I WOULD DIE.

  Jerry Palter : When you put it that way, it's almost poetry.

  Alan Barrows : Almost.

• Alan Barrows : I always thought it was "hey nonny no, nanny ninny no" and I'm getting kind of confused with all the nannies and the ninnies.

  Jerry Palter : There's no nanny, just take that out of the equation. It's "hey nonny no, nonny ninny o".

  Mark Shubb : Iron clad rule, Alan. Nonny before ninny.

  Alan Barrows : Well, I don't sing this one anyway.

  Jerry Palter : No, so it's kind of academic.

• Jerry Palter : We don't want people to reach for their remotes here.

  Mark Shubb : It's public television.

  Alan Barrows : They don't have remotes.

• Jerry Palter : [the New Main Street Singers perform 'Wandering' in the background]  You swear to God you didn't talk to Menschell about the set?

  Alan Barrows : Why would I talk to him about it?

  Jerry Palter : You didn't tell him what we were opening with, right?

  Alan Barrows : I never talked to him about it at all.

  Jerry Palter : Okay,

  [turns to Mark] 

  Jerry Palter : so you were talkin' to that Terry Bohner kid, in his blue sweater...

  Mark Shubb : All I said was, 'Oh my goodness, isn't it warm?' Nothing about the set.

  Jerry Palter : Well, it's gettin' warmer now...

• Mark Shubb : All right, I don't think finger-pointing is gonna help us here, I... I think it's very clear what we do.

  Jerry Palter : What's that?

  Mark Shubb : I'm going to suggest we be bold.

  Jerry Palter : Yeah, let's hear it...

  Mark Shubb : We open with Wandering.

  Jerry Palter : Did you miss the last couple of minutes? They're currently butchering...

  [to Alan briefly] 

  Jerry Palter : Turn it back up again. Do you... you wanna hear it?

• Mark Shubb : We give the audience a choice. We say, you can enjoy 'a toothpaste commercial', or do you wanna hear folk music?

  Jerry Palter : I think they'll have already brushed their teeth by that time; It's not even germane.

  Alan Barrows : Well, here's the thing, you can't have on a bill, especially on a folk bill, you cannot have two people doing the same song. It doesn't work; they're just gonna be flat-out confused...

• Mark Shubb : Mr. Irving Steinbloom came down and he signed us to Folk Town - which was the label to be on.

  Jerry Palter : Terrific label.

  Alan Barrows : Later on we were kind of moved down the food chain a bit to the Folk Tone label which was a subsidiary.

  Jerry Palter : It was a decent label, they just didn't have the distribution.

  Alan Barrows : They didn't have any distribution.

  Jerry Palter : No distribution at all.

• Mark Shubb : I just got a mental picture in my mind of us on-stage in the show. And we weren't wearing the old stuff, the old gear, the old... .

  Jerry Palter : We're talking about the dickeys?

  Mark Shubb : Haberdashery.

  Jerry Palter : Well, I think I'm on record as Mr. Anti-Dickey.

  Mark Shubb : You were Mr. Drop-the-Dickey.

  Jerry Palter : Drop-the-Dickey.

• Mark Shubb : It's just a very retro look.

  Alan Barrows : I'm totally available for the discussion of it. It just - it sounds like you're thinking the image that we had - was a retro image of something that wasn't retro because we weren't retro - because we were then.

  Jerry Palter : Right. It wasn't retro then; but now, to try a retro thing, it might just look kind of...

  Mark Shubb : To do then...

  Jerry Palter : Sad.

  Mark Shubb : To do then now would be retro. To do then then was very now-tro, if you will.

• Mark Shubb , Alan Barrows , Jerry Palter , Terry Bohner , Laurie Bohner , Mitch Cohen , Mickey Crabbe : [singing]  Oh, a mighty wind's a-blowing, It's kicking up the sand, It's blowing out a message, To every woman, child and man, Yes, a mighty wind's a-blowing, Cross the land and cross the sea, It's blowing peace and freedom, It's blowing equality, Yes, it's blowing peace and freedom, It's blowing you and me!