About the iconic opera singer Maria Callas that includes footage of her performances as well as interviews with her. First news. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Shay's Stevens the Trump administration has imposed sanctions in response to Turkey's military advance into northern Syria vice president Mike Pence is to lead a delegation to Ancora to seek an immediate cease fire and P.R.'s Frankel or don't yes has more the vice president announced the Trump administration is imposing new sanctions on top Turkish officials including the ministers of defense interior and energy as well as the entire departments of defense and energy present from a very clear. That the United States is going to continue to take actions against Turkey's economy until they bring the violence to an end many Republicans strongly opposed the president's decision to remove u.s. Forces from the region which allowed the Turkish offensive against allied Kurdish forces the administration is defending Trump saying Turkey would have taken this action regardless Franco or Donya as n.p.r. News Washington a former Fort Worth Texas police officer is charged with murdering a woman inside her home Saturday Aaron York again was arrested hours after resigning today. Christopher Connelly has more Dean served on the Fort Worth police force for about 18 months the city's interim police chief Ed Kraus says he would have fired Dean if he had not resigned for failing to comply with the department's use of force and deescalation policies on Saturday morning Dean responded to a call for a welfare check at the home of a Tatyana Jefferson when he saw her through the window he ordered her to put her hands up and shot her through the glass her 8 year old nephew was in the room for n.p.r. News I'm Christopher Connelly in Fort Worth a white former Georgia police officer who killed an unarmed naked black man near Atlanta 4 years ago has been acquitted of murder charges Robert Olsen was convicted of aggravated assault making false statements and other charges Olson says he fatally shot 26 year old Anthony Hill because Hill disobeyed orders. Well as an Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan emergency crews are searching through the rubble of a partially collapsed hotel in downtown New Orleans Authorities say 2 people are confirmed dead the search continues for a 3rd person. Just Clark has more more than 100 people were working on the Hard Rock Hotel under construction when the building collapsed Saturday morning now slabs of broken concrete and steel are hanging precariously over a normally busy area New Orleans Fire Chief Tim McConnell says the building is so unsteady they've brought into cranes to help stabilize it it is still a very very dangerous building a very dangerous situation dozens of residents who live nearby have been evacuated in case of another collapse New Orleans mayor Cantrell says a federal investigation has already begun into what caused the building to fall for n.p.r. News I'm just Clark. You're listening to n.p.r. News. Good evening it's 8 o 4 I'm Dave Meier with k.c.a.l. You news the governor signed into law a bill by a Santa Barbara legislator to come up with a price tag for the taxpayers end of shutting down the state's oil and gas infrastructure s b $551.00 directs California's division of oil and gas and geothermal resources to develop a plan for assessing the cost of the shutdown and clean up of facilities and state regulated areas the legislation was authored by Democratic state senator had about Jackson of Santa Barbara or oil and gas companies are expected to bear most of the costs but Jackson says there are instances like platform Holly where a company's bankruptcy has struck the state with the cost of removing the oil drilling rig off the coast of deleted a 70 year old Ventura County man will spend the rest of his life behind bars after being convicted of repeatedly molesting 3 of his relatives prosecutors say Salvador but yes committed the crimes against the young girls over more than decade long period the man was convicted of more than a half a dozen molestation counts along with a number of special circumstances the prosecution's evidence included video one of the crimes was captured on a home surveillance camera but he also received a 78 years to life sentence for the crimes. Fire officials say a destructive fire that broke out on the edge of Los Angeles began beneath a high voltage transmission tower Captain Eric Scott told the Associated Press today that Los Angeles Fire Department arson investigators have only determine the origin of the fire not its cause the fire destroyed or damaged nearly 3 dozen homes officials say one man died of a heart attack in the fire that began in still more and rapidly spread to Porter's ranch a northern California pumpkin hobbyist has won 1st place at the $46.00 Annual World Championship pumpkin way off setting a record for the largest in California Leonardo your rain of Napa $115000.00 today when his pumpkin logged 2175 pounds way off spokesman Timothy beam and says arenas pumpkin is the 2nd largest in the contest history a pumpkin from Washington State weighed nearly 2400 pounds and one and Half Moon Bay and 2017 the 51 year old says he took up the hobby in 2000 and says he enjoys the pumpkin growing community he also won the Half Moon Bay contest in 2011 he says he always tells his pumpkins he is proud of them and encourages them to keep on growing it's 806. 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This is Fresh Air I'm Terry Gross My guest is Elton John he's still on his 3 year farewell tour but he's managed to take a step back and examine his life and career in his new memoir me he writes about his childhood becoming a musician songwriter and performer how he realized he was gay after he proposed to a woman as saying yes to a line of cocaine lead to addiction one of several addictions along with alcohol and food the rehab program that enabled him to get sober the health scare that nearly robbed him of his voice and other health scares that nearly killed him and what it's like now to be married to his husband David and raise their 2 children the recent bio pic Rocket Man was the fantasy version of Elton John's life the book is Elton John's more realistic account. Elton John welcome back to Fresh Air Congratulations on the book it's a pleasure to have you back on our show Thank you Terry it's lovely to be back with you so the book is a very candid description of your life before we get into some of the candid details that you write about in the book you were in the band early in your career as the keyboard player in his band the band it's called Blues ology you tell this really funny story at the beginning of the book where he had just had a big hit so now he was famous and you know young women were coming to the concert and kind of like really getting excited and screaming and he says on Mike he says when you say what he said well he said if you were grabbing the microphone he said if you break my microphone you'll pay me 50 pounds I'm not going on let's not the way to handle the situation. What did he tell you about all stardom and how to handle it. Not how to handle because I got to this point after a rocket man came out which was my 1st really big hit about 2 years into my career after your song. I got screaming goals some of my shows and I just feel that was rather funny because I wasn't David Bowie and I wasn't want to do and I was a mothball and I was a Mick Jagger. But I was at the piano and I got Stuart screaming dogs I thought I'm not going to Luckily they couldn't reach my microphone because I was playing the piano. But you accepted it and you loved it and you just went along with it I think John didn't know how to cope with it he just really didn't know how to cope all its life he'd been playing in clubs playing the blues suddenly goals young girls was screaming at him and I just think you know just never knew how to have a lot of course also with you when you had young girls screaming at you and everything like you were gay they didn't know that. Well he was going to hear you can't hear exactly Yes Yeah that's right that's right so what was it like for you knowing you were gay knowing they didn't realize you were gay and they were probably having all these like sexual fantasies about you know well I didn't worry about. It's like well I'm not interested in your you're interested but I'm not but it was very sweet and they were very I've still got a lot of most of my own it's a lot of women as well a lot of girls and lot of females I'm very grateful for that but I just kind of think that once I did find I think a lot of girls still we all wanted to mother me and you know we can make you straight we love you we love you and it's very touching when speaking of you and John Baldry being gay when you when you when you decided you were going to marry a woman when you were in your early twenty's he said to you John you're gay you can't marry her and. What was your reaction because I don't think you would had acknowledged that yourself if I hadn't and I just thought oh my god I remember where it was at the club it was called to be street. And I came home that night and we were so drunk and I told Linda the girl I was going to marry that I was going to marry her anymore because. I've never had a sexual experience I didn't know anything about sex I never had a sex experience at all I didn't have a sex I was 23 which was betrayed in Rocket Man that was the 1st time I didn't know anything about it I presumed you had to marry a girl because that was the way things were done but I did I didn't have sexual feelings for Bernie I just had great love for Bernie. And I wanted to cuddle him and I wanted to give him a hug I didn't want to go to bed with him. But I did love him more than I did love Linda and I mean when he said that I suddenly saw thinking Oh no I had no one in my family who was gay I had no we all stick to measure my gayness home except for long term bored of a song on and he was so when I look back now he was so outrageous and I didn't know him didn't think he was gay I didn't know about and I didn't know about I was so naive so that night thank God the epiphany came that night and I went home and you know dogged the bullet as it were. But I still didn't have sex for a couple of years 2 or 3 years later it's remarkable that you could be like a rock musician and remain a virgin till you were 23 you might be the only. Person. Well you know a lot about magicians go into rock music to pull goals to go that's one of the big attraction Well we can play onstage and we can flirt with the girls then we can go backstage and then we can have them we take them out and we can have sex with them that was never my motive I was just one of the play music I wasn't sex wasn't anything I was thinking about I was just wanting to play music I was so obsessed with music nothing and to buy a puff not he said you wanted to play music but on the other hand you write that you know early on like when you were a sideman with John Baldry that you thought what you really wanted to do was write songs and well you had a vision for Liberty Records and they told you you were not you were not ever going to be a pop star you weren't pop star material so. Did you think like you really weren't cut out to be a perfect maybe they were right that you weren't cut out to be a performer that your job should be behind the scenes or as a sideman Well I was getting fed up with playing to Cabaret people who were eating chicken and chips and not caring about the music and I so I didn't become a musician but this maybe I'd written a couple of songs for blues all of recorded and the lyrics awful but I wrote the melody and this edition for Liberty Records where I thought maybe I could be a songwriter I had no idea no intentions of being as Elton John superstar whatever I just thought maybe I can write music I went to the audition I said I do sing but I don't see much but I can write songs but I'm a terrible lyricist and hence he gave me the be on below which was you know could have been anyone below it was but his lyrics which I read on the train going home I didn't have any. Ambitions of that time to become someone who made their own records and became a star I just thought well maybe if I leave the band I could become a songwriter. And that would be fun and I'm still in the music business so it was just part of the process of the serendipity that happened to me that. If I had not gone to that meeting I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you now and then you look back and think. How did I have the courage to go to that meeting when I was chubby I had no self-esteem I was shy but anything was better than playing to people who were eating chicken and chips while you were playing you so you had no self-esteem or low self-esteem were the costumes that you like the crazy clothing that you wore the big glasses that was that in part armor to cover up your low self-esteem like something oh yeah it was because in my. Teenage years I wasn't allowed to wear anything fashionable at all. Nope point you know chisel toed shoes no fashionable coat so when I actually left home. And started to you know I think that was the late leaving home and beginning to wage and keeping myself and supporting myself but I decided to live my teenage years in my twenty's and you know I made up for lost time pretty quickly and I just I went hell for leather for I just had such a great time because I was in boring clothes. It sounds like a lot of your childhood years were great your parents bickered all the time your mother remarried and you like your stepfather but they bickered all the time they got married when she was 16 and he was 17 and you wonder if they were ever if they ever should have been together in the 1st place and your your mother sounds like she was a very moody and frequently angry person who could hold a grudge. And you even describe how when you you don't remember this but he was an auntie told you that when your mother was toilet training you should beat you with a hairbrush until you were bloody and she'd be you until you use the potty. So it is that is that kind of typical of what your child has like. But as my mother who did. My father my mother should never got it they got married very quickly after the war which a lot of people did. They were totally unsuited to each other my dad was in the Air Force I was away a lot my mom worked very very hard and and shops and also later in life at the Royal Air Force as well. And I was the product of I don't know how many times they must have had sex I don't think they must have had sex very often but I was the product of their marriage. The fifty's was an incredibly tough time to grow up and it was off to the war it was very conservative so if you were in a marriage and you wanted to get out of it it was very tough to get out of it because divorce was frowned on socially. Remember my uncle red coming when my parents would seem to get into was saying you can't get well what will the next door neighbors say that was what it was like I knew nothing about sex nothing I was seen in the children was seen in the. I love I had the wonderful up being with my grandmother my mother could be so much fun but she was Mecurio. They were like All in water the 2 of them nice thing about it is that they got when they did get divorced and my mother found Fred and my dad found it they found the love of their lives. Very happy about but the bit in between it was hard to take because I dreaded my dad coming home because it would be around mediately and then I would retreat to my room. You know look at my books look at my records to get my toys. Funnily enough I mean I just I found love in a moment objects because in a objects which I kept in pristine condition couldn't harm me or talk back to me so I always loved collecting things I did you know like as a kid. Books records you know toys Dunc dinky toys but mostly records and books which you know I never lent out to anybody because I they were and I still have my books where you became you became an obsessive shopper later in life and you collected every Yeah I'm I mean that it was a. Instigation of being an addict addict but it was because I felt safe with the objects I'm not with my parent so. And it gave me a determination you know with my dad not wanting to me to be anything to do with rock n roll when I was supposed to came in. I would be I would have determined to prove to him that my mother who took my side and said yeah he should do what he does and let him do the music because he loves it I was very supportive my dad of course hated it and I've been trying to prove to my dad that it's been Ok ever since so it gave me the determination to make something of myself. And it's just prolonging my life he's been dead for over 30 years and I'm still kind of doing knots like Well Dad I hope you're proud now it's crazy he was an amateur trumpet player wasn't. It was a trumpet player in a bad yeah yeah so why was he so set I didn't realise he didn't like rock n roll but still he must've appreciated that you were such a talented musician and you were studying classical music to a conservatory he just considered he said there was an expression called white boy which meant crook he said if I became. My mother read the letter to me it's in a thing called tantrums Elton would become a wide boy if he carried rock'n'roll is just does no future he wanted a solid future for me in a bank or in the Air Force or doing a proper job. You know it was all down you grew up in the fifty's you knew what it was like it was when Elvis came it was a revolution it was socially revolution and people were horrified and people who and in England was horrified who had you know conservative opinions of what was good at what was about the if I became a rock n roller my life would fall apart to a certain extent it was right I could say that but it also. Let's face it you had an amazing life you must have been so proud once you became famous and hopefully a little embarrassed that he tried so hard to discourage you from doing what you do no not really I never came to my shows you never wrote a letter saying Well done you didn't even try to capitalize on your fame like that's my son no no no. He had 4 other sons that he had with his marked down though he was over tactile father to them a loving he just you know I've done so much therapy and. I just look back and saying this was an unfortunate meeting of 2 people who should never met each other just here's how much do you think of that is like the music that was rock and roll and you think in any of that a strange man it was because you were gay I think it was a musical Sylvia Ok. You know I grew up I'm so grateful I mean I always had music in the house Terry I grew up with you know. Nat King Cole Frank Sinatra George Shearing this is great music great music I mean over from America obviously but great music but when I was like 9 years old I think I got songs for swinging lovers of my Christmas present by Frank Sinatra and I loved George Shearing he was a jazz player who pianist who was blind who came from Pena where I came from and when I 1st became successful in the early seventy's I went to New York and I phoned him and I said thank you for I grew up with your music. And it was fantastic and I was only 6 or 7 years old when I've your music but I loved it and it made me want to play the piano like you a lot I couldn't play as well as you I was very grateful to the music I had but when Elvis Presley came knocking on the door and Little Richard and Jerry Lewis who started jumping on the piano. That was what I wanted to do and that's kind of what you did Ok let's take a short break here and then we'll talk some more if you're just joining us my guest is Elton John he has a new memoir called me we'll be right back after a short break this is Fresh Air they can be a lot of psychological noise involved in teaching a plus 3 John Kerry. You keep messing up area not getting where they go but what if you replace all that chit chat. With a click. How an animal training tool is helping new. Craft this week on Hidden Brain from n.p.r. Wednesday night between 9 and 10 on you. This is Fresh Air and if you're just joining us my guest is Elton John he has a new memoir called me it seems to me in London that there was a kind of community of gay musicians who weren't necessarily out to the public to their listeners but people in the music world knew and. You know it wasn't as bad a closet as some closets were because there was this community of people and so like like you and John Baldry and and later Freddie Mercury and I mean there's you know David Bowie being gender fluid and but did you feel like there was a community there where there was a kind of safe safe place well there was a gay community that I got introduced to by manager John Reid was guy and he was the head of the town of Motown Records and make them. Your 1st boyfriend to Tony King that was the 1st real big games with who's in the book a lot who's my best friend and still works for me and he was the most exalted creature out of the Met when I 1st met him he. I want to be like he is. There was a gay community lawn but it still wasn't people went out but when I moved in with John Reed. Tony King said you might as well hang a flag out the window and say Ok right now because John was you know a big fixture on the London gay scene and I had no qualms once I you know once I'd done the dirty deed in San Francisco we don't read of course that set the floodgates open and I was I enjoyed the sex I knew it was a relief to find out that it was I was going to die and it was great and it was fun and it wasn't sordid and it was lovely everything I was told about that before was horrible. You know from that point on I flourished as a sexual human being but there was still was I mean in the sixty's in England you know you could still go to jail for being a gay people we used to go to North Africa. People go to forty's to go North Africa and have sex like Joel and people like that comedians like Kenneth Williams They all went to North Africa because the only sort of gay clubs were they get people into public toilets and people like John Gielgud were arrested in public toilets for having sex there were no one nowhere for gay people to go except maybe a few little clubs upstairs in Soho So it was the beginning of the gay scene in the early 1970 s. There was a club called yours and mine which David Bowie took me to I'd never been to a gay club in England before and that was fun but I never had a you know I never lived a lie about being gay John and I were living together in an apartment that we lived together in Aus we went to Los Angeles and played the Troubadour club we went to a gay club on Santa Monica Boulevard that was a little gay community but these people English entertainers I have always been very flamboyant and I think it's because of the music hall tradition that we have in England so we've always dressed up and so there's always been that you know Mick Jagger Mark Boal and David Rod Stewart you know. It's just a tradition and you know I don't thing. People cared to know so we had radio programs that were very very funny with blatantly gay humor and so you know how to very sense of the guy but I know something quite a blokey gay guy you know I like sports like football I like so but I had no qualms about being gay. I was just it was just a relief to know what I was so it's interesting that you and Freddie Mercury were friends and there have been bio pics about both of you in the past year tell us a little bit about what the friendship was like and what he was like offstage. Because John made my manager money to Queen. Freddie was one most exotic people I've ever met in my life. He was a posse he you know he came from. Madagascar I had a huge mixture of different blogs. And he was exotic and he was funny he was brilliant he was incredibly creative he was innovative he had the best sense of humor and one of the best if your friend of mine you have to have a great sense of humor and we used to hang out a lot together clubs in London and Monk bridges which was a Cannot club not a gay club but a good night club. Because John managed and we used to see a lot of each other. And he just made me laugh and you know he was I love creative people like that I like people who have a sense of humor about themselves and Freddie did. And so it was just always a joy to hang out with him there was never a dull moment with Freddie My guest is Elton John he has a new memoir called me after a short break we'll talk about his addictions to alcohol and cocaine and how he got sober and Laura Schwartz will review the d.v.d. Release of a new documentary about the iconic opera singer Maria Callas that contains interviews with an performances by her I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air. The new Bauer Family Foundation supports w.h.y. Wise fresh air and its commitment to sharing ideas and encouraging meaningful conversation support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from Subaru featuring the 3 row center with seating for up to 8 and a choice of 2nd row captains chairs love it's what makes Subaru Subaru learn more at Subaru dot com. And from Capital One committed to reimagining banking offering savings and checking accounts that can be opened from anywhere Capital One what's in your wallet Capital One and a. Sometimes Checking the headlines isn't enough but as the news gets more complex and changes throughout the day you need more here and now keep you connected to your world between Morning Edition and All Things Considered Here now is n.p.r. News every midday plus business books the arts and a few surprises you just have to listen to see listen here now between your other favorite n.p.r. News Monday through Thursday starting at 11 am on k.c.a.l. You 88.3 in Ventura County on a 2.3 and 1340 am in Santa Barbara with South Coast weather on k.c.a.l. You I'm Dave Meyer It's like mostly clear except for patchy low clouds and fog along the beaches after midnight lows mid forty's to mid fifty's However colder in places like Ohio for Tuesday sunny except for patchy low clouds and fog in the morning highs in the seventy's at the coast all way up to the eighty's in the warmer valley locations then mostly clear for your Tuesday night lows in the fifty's with some broth west winds up to 15 miles per hour in the Santa Barbara area the nice expected low in carpentering a 4951 and Ochsner this is k.c.a.l. You. This is Fresh Air I'm Terry Gross let's get back to my interview with Elton John he has a new memoir called me it's in part about how his addictions to alcohol and cocaine affected his personal and professional life and how he got sober. How were you introduced to cocaine I was in a recording studio in Colorado cubby wrong and I saw my manager John Reid sniffing something now I was very naive up on I didn't even know what marijuana was I didn't know my band smoked marijuana I never smoked marijuana. I don't know what maybe so I said what he's done and he was so he was quite embarrassed it's cocaine I said what does it do is it makes you feel good I said well I'll have a go. Why I said I don't know anyway I had a line of cocaine which I threw up immediately afterwards because it made me feel nauseous and it was horrible and then I. Said Can I have another one why when the earth would anyone who needs saying. It was complemented would want another line of cocaine after it made you throw up but I did. It made the thing with cocaine it's very speedy so it made me talk I was quite a shy person so I thought this is a drug that can open me up and make me feel relaxed and be able to talk to people. And of course it was full of gold. That was the start of a love hate relationship with it for. 16 years basically did you think it would make you more creative in your music either in writing or performing. No but it was an aphrodisiac for me but on the other it's the effort is he couldn't perform. So you know this was the drug that made me feel horny but I couldn't do anything about it. Is that why you describe yourself as having become something of a voyeur or yes kind of setting up scenes and watching you know I became the full Federico Fellini of. Yes I would like to watch you know you say that in the book so yeah yeah. And I think that's probably why I didn't get HIV And I didn't get aids in the 1988 because I didn't participate as much with what well that's really interesting so in some ways it saved your life it did. Cocaine nearly killed me but it saved me as well because I like to watch and fulfilled my fondest is so I didn't really participate in much sex and that was before you even knew about HIV Yeah and then of course it happened so quickly the terror of it all and then you know the New York Times stories and people John Reed's postal system Neil Carter died of Aids very quickly people started to the news dying. It was terrifying. Did you ever fear that cocaine and alcohol were turning you into like the stereotype of the spoiled untitled rock star Yes of course and that's what made it even was I mean when Ron White was in Indianapolis dying for that week which I was there for. Just to refresh people's memories right Ryan White was a boy who had hemophilia and got through a blood transfusion and you became aware of him and you know what it was and yeah you defriended if I knew the founder and for the last week of his life alone with a lot of other people who were friends of the family I was in Indianapolis at the hospital because of being Jeannie white his mother secretary but I used to come home to the hotel. You know the thing about drugs is I wouldn't ask for help because I knew had a problem and I knew my behavior was reprehensible and I came home to the hotel in Indianapolis I would be so ashamed that these people who had been through hell include Ron himself who never complained about it is family who've been treated ostracized by people in their community forgave the people I mean the forgiveness and the Christianity involved in their actions no hatred no it was unbelief and I came home I think I complained here about I don't want the wallpaper I don't like the. I should what kind of person have I become I've become the most despicable horrible person I complain about everything in my life I'm so blessed in my life these people have lost their son or losing their son who has never complained about being the most unfortunate man in the world by contracting h o b through a blood transfusion and here are my looking at everything and complaining about it and I said I really despise myself 6 months off. Rondout I was sober. You want to go into rehab and found that a lot of the rehab clinics wouldn't take you because they handle people with single addictions and you had several you had a food addiction a cocaine addiction an alcohol addiction. And so the place that you did go to was like a general hospital in Chicago with you know no fancy amenities or wasn't like a rehab for celebrity is there anything and it was like that was pretty humbling for you but but very productive is exactly what I needed there were no Celebrity Rehab said there were no rehabs with televisions legal I'm totally against those kind of things I was a boot camp I got up at 6 o'clock that morning I shared a room I had to make my bed I had to work a washing machine which I didn't know how to do. I was really really hot I went in kicking and screaming ready to get well but also you know I had a problem with all sorts. One point left and sat on the steps outside the hospital with my suitcase crying thinking what are you doing you're going where are you going to run to now and be behave like this yet again so I went back and I ate humble pie you have to have humility to get sober and I you know I needed humility and I listened and I listened and I listened and I've gradually it dawned on me and I really enjoyed my point in time in rehab because I thought I was the only person that took drugs and did what I did and of course listening to people in group therapy saying I did this I think oh you did have fabulous then I'm not the only person that did the so I didn't feel alone anymore. You almost left rehab because well one of the reasons why any was was when it got to talk of a higher power when it got to as you describe it the God talk you felt like that that is a snake not for me and you you really thought seriously about leaving so I'd like to know what upset you so much about the God talk and if you were able to find a way into that talk and kind to turn it toward who you were well the god thing I just thought I was angry at the gold for me represented you know a punishment. God will punish you for doing this God will punish you for doing that I hated the word God and I was you know I really resented the word God and someone said to me listen. Do you believe in something greater than yourself I myself cause I do you know there's been so many things in my life that have happened by chance all just you know decisions I've made that have been prompted by something inside of my soul Of course I only have to look up in the sky to believe in something greater than myself walk in the field or look at a mountain and I said well then. That's a high power is not a God I want I can do that I can do that it doesn't have to be the punishing gold that I you know. It's Sunday school it can be a higher power that you know sends me messages and I accepted that and I came to tell a lot and that was really very important for me well let's take a short break here and then we'll talk a little bit more if you're just joining us my guest is Elton John he has a new memoir called me we'll be right back this is Fresh Air. School in one of Cincinnati's poorest neighborhoods has spent almost 10 years trying to provide for students now leaders are trying to turn around the local economy to if you look at the prices you think Ok that's pretty affordable but we're having is an income issue I'm Ali would push for jobs in the neighborhood next time on Marketplace Tuesday at 3 in the afternoon also it's 6 30 in the evening on key c o u n p r for the California coast. Support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from Baird for 100 years Baird has partnered with individuals businesses institutions and communities working together toward their financial goals more information is available at Baird 100 dot com and from little passports a monthly subscription service for kids each package includes games souvenirs and activities from a new country designed to spark curiosity and cultures around the globe little passports dot com slash radio This is Fresh Air and if you're just joining us my guest is Elton John he has a new memoir called me. I just think about the disconnect I'm thinking about the disconnect between being on stage and having like thousands of people like screaming for you just stadium tens of thousands of people screaming for you and then being off stage and having to contend with your own problems your the things that you don't know how to do your own insecurities and your own failings and your own. Your own next you know extremes and everything it seems like but that must be really hard to connect like the famous person who's so beloved and wonderful on stage with a flawed person who's offstage and that's why you escape into drugs or alcohol and you just block it out. You block it out until the problem of the thing you're facing becomes such a monumental thing that you explode with rage and that's the way handle confrontation I just block it out I didn't deal with it until I had to deal with it and then it was a very very uncomfortable and painful procedure all the time and I kept doing it time and time again. So. Yeah it was. I hated my diction I hated the Web behaved I hated how I treated people I hated what I'd become but I'm grateful. That I had it because then I learned how to become who I am now and I'm proud of who I am now I like who I am. And you know. I basically 29 years old because I said I started to be a good person or start to try to be a good person or to behave properly when I was 23 and I know I was always a nice kind person but you know drugs bring out the darkness in you the recovery wasn't when I was on drugs that was horrible it was when I was off drugs another come down from it alcohol is a major depressant I was drinking a bottle Johnny Scott Black walk up Scotch don't walk a black Scott every day meet and so no wonder I was angry No wonder I was you know alcohol is a huge depressant How could you write songs that way I don't know. The only thing that was a constant Terry was that throughout all of this I still wrote songs like music was saved my life I love touring I love writing the songs I love recording and sometimes not in the best circumstances and not in fitness thought I should have been in all the right state of mind but it saved my life if I could have been the drug Ali that I was and I just become a recluse and done nothing but 10 years I wouldn't be here to vote dede but because I loved and I didn't take drugs constantly all the time that I've been stopped for 9 months but whenever you go back to something you love like cocaine it gets worse every time you can relapse you take more so you know the the fact that I love the music that also helps I'm up by touring making the record I just still love the music so it will remind me of how great my life was without the drugs and I think I will get well I will get well and then you know the madness of it all is while I was thinking up I'd be taking yet another line of coke and I will get well here's another one I would have seizures in the middle of the night I would have seizures and people would find me on the floor put me to bed 20 minutes later I'd be up doing cocaine again I was blue from sieges and I put me into bed and say we got to call the doctor I said No no I'll be fine but I got out the door I got the kind I started doing again the seizures were horrible they were of really distressing and that's how mad and how dangerous my addiction was and I looked back and it was sheer horror. Well thank goodness you've been sober all these years 29 years now it's been wonderful and I've learned so much so you're married you have 2 children now how long ago did you know you wanted to be a father because I'm thinking having the parents that you had wasn't their greatest role models sometimes like if you don't have great parents isn't speak well for the nuclear family and you might not want one. I never wanted to be a father I never wanted to have children until I went to the Ukraine on a visit for the Elton John Aids Foundation with David to an orphanage in Ukraine. And. A young boy there who was 18 months old called Lev levitated was me literally he just jumped into my arms and I carried him around for an hour and a half of the of the she would not leave my side he had a brother there called Artemus who was a chubby positive we stayed in the orphanage we were giving money to your village and supporting them and then I did a press conference after we'd done everything that we had to do and one of the questions about this little boy seems to be who is now sitting on David lap while I'm answering the question. This little boy seemed to have been attracted to you Would you ever think of adopting him and I went you know what I've never ever thought it would up to anybody really this kid has stolen my heart I would love to adopt him well in the Ukraine I was too old to adopt him and I was gay and that was another strike against me. I was too old Ukrainian law it was you know x. Soviet laws which was so you know. So anti gay and there was the mother. But we tried we you know even the adoption was in Britain well great we tried for about a year and a half to adopt this boy and his brother at the end of the day it became a national press thing where the press would go up and go to the you know find out who his mother was and his father was. It became fast and David and I sat down and said listen. This thing has become more important to get these boys out of the we can adopt them we have to get them out because after a certain time if you don't have tactile love you know it leaves a scar on you so we got to get these boys out she had they had a grandmother we got them out to the grandmother in Donetsk where they came from and. Sharp to be looked after them David then said to me Well what do you think this boy was trying you and I said you know my higher power God whatever you want to call it was telling me that it's nonsense he was telling me yeah you can be a dad you would love to be a good dad and I had never thought that before so they would say what you want to do and I said well you know it's hard be hard to adopt Let's have our own kids restoring it so David did all the investigation all the hub and we found a sari that we found an egg donor and to cut a long story short we had 2 children in 2 years from the same Sarah got the same egg donor Zachary Alija and again he plays a big part if I hadn't gone to that. Orphanage I would not have. Had children so that boy was telling me something it was a messenger from the angels or whatever and I truly believe that. Last year was wonderful because we got to meet them again and their grandmother and it was so touching and we were in. Kiev. They walked in and left him struck he burst into tears I burst into tears. It was the greatest thing in the world just wonderful boys and they're doing their flourishing grandmother doing a wonderful job we start to should we look after them still we care about them. But it's a wonderful story because it was made me a father. I want to thank you so much for talking with us it's really been such a pleasure to talk with you thank you so much for that. Thanks. John has a new memoir called me after we take a short break Lloyd Schwartz will review the d.v.d. Release of a documentary about the revered opera singer Maria Callas that includes interviews with and performances by her I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air. Next time on The New Yorker Radio Hour our reporters just back from China explained the simmering crises in Hong Kong and Beijing there is among the young this sense of nihilism this feeling bad but thanks Roland let the world see how the Communist regime is that's next time on The New Yorker Radio Hour Monday night between 9 and 10 on k.c. Oh yeah. Hello weenie is a marvelous time for tales that send a shiver down your spine are they fiction or are they true well on n.p.r. You can trust the news and informed public that is our mission with the stories you hear on Morning Edition we report on the planet and politics not so much treats and Halloween tricks to choose the facts not fables and ghouls choose Morning Edition from n.p.r. News plus live local news updates during your ride to work on k.c.a.l. You this is Fresh Air Maria Callas is one of the most recorded opera singers of all time though there are relatively few films or videos of her compared to the number of her recordings but that's been changed by the callous documentary called Maria by callous which is now out on d.v.d. And Blu ray our classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz was excited to see her in performances he'd never seen before and to learn new things about her life expressed in her own words. I hope there are actual people in me I would like to be . That there is the kind of that I have to live up to so I'm hoping both as much as I can that's the voice of Maria Callas in Tom volves documentary Maria by callous and this compelling and moving film consists almost entirely of her own words clips of her singing and home movies interviews and poignant excerpts from unpublished letters diaries and memoirs all suggest that she was as complex a woman as she was an artist's. The air. At the beginning of the film we hear Callas singing Puccini's most famous r e o l d from Madame Butterfly. Who vocally she's remarkably convincing as the pathetic young Cho-Cho son. In a rare film clip of a Chicago production of Madame Butterfly callus like most mature non Asian Sopranos doesn't look right but we can see how hard she's trying to avoid the stereotype how her every gesture is attempting to match what's in her voice it's a rare failure for a singer who completely embodied characters from Lady Macbeth to the consumptive Violetta a greater range of characters more subtly and more deeply developed than any other singer in history in one of the most thrilling passages in this film 2 years before she made her indelible complete recording of Carmen an opera she never appeared in onstage Callas sings Carmen's Hoben era this is a comic tour de force in which we can also see how Carmen's wit and independence will inevitably lead to tragedy if you don't love me anymore she sings I love you and if I love you watch out. To be. The director is very shrewd in his selection of arias and where he places them. We have callous singing the sexually liberated Carmen during the happiest time of what she calls her 8 year passionate friendship with Aristotle Onassis. Callous writes him a letter just as she is about to lose him to Jackie Kennedy. Metropolitan Opera star Joyce Di Donato is the sensitive and sympathetic reader here of all of callouses writings the emotional nakedness of this letter contrasts with the news reels and home movies we see of errors and Jackie I'm proud to admit it. But no you are my very breath. Brain Mighty Hand before we hear this letter we hear Callas sing Bill Ynys achingly poignant Aria about lost love noncredit a from loss unarmed. How quickly love dies a mina The Sleepwalkers sings and the half smile on calluses face is heartbreaking. 'd over her entire career callus wrote frank and honest letters about both technical vocal issues and intimate personal problems the film skips over callouses famous weight loss which suddenly turned her into an icon of glamour but most of the other major events of her life both personal and public are here interviewed in her dressing room in Dallas after being fired by Metropolitan opera director Rudolf being she angrily tells reporters that she was simply refusing to perform in what she calls the lousy and routine productions he offered her and we also see her later triumphant return to the Met in Tosca Callas says she would rather have been a wife and mother than an opera star but she had to devote herself completely to what destiny offered her of course the highlights of the film are the arias and we can be grateful that for once we get to hear most of them complete. In an extra on the Blu ray the director of the film says I really wanted the audience to experience what to me is the closest experience nowadays of callus on stage and Bravo he comes remarkably close. Warts teaches in the creative writing m.f.a. Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston he reviewed the documentary Maria by callus which has been released on Sony d.v.d. And Blu ray tomorrow on Fresh Air Our guest will be journalist Ronan Farrow his investigation into Harvey Weinstein's predatory behavior published in The New Yorker won a Pulitzer Prize Farrow had started investigating Weinstein while Farrow was employed by n.b.c. Farrow claims n.b.c. Slow walk and then declined to broadcast his reporting Farrah's new book investigates why reveals new allegations against Matt Lauer and new information about the private investigation that Weinstein launched against journalists investigating him and against the women making allegations against him I hope you'll join us Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller our senior producer today is Sam Briger our technical director an engineer as Bentham our associate producer of digital media as Malise even esper Roberta Shorrock directs the show I'm Terry Gross. Comes from this station and from life long life luck with Norton offers cyber security solutions to help keep hackers out of consumers' devices and personal information more about the ever evolving digital world is at Life Lock dot com and from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from the studios of California Lutheran University this is listener supported k.c.l. You. Maybe you start your day with coffee. Or at the gym. 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Oh you. For months the streets of Hong Kong have been paralyzed by pro-democracy protests. The question of just how to handle the situation has created what may be China's biggest political crisis since the uprising in Tiananmen Square in 1989 today on The New Yorker radio hour we'll talk with 2 reporters who just returned from China Evan Osnos and Jack fan there is among the young this sense of nihilism this feeling that if the tanks roll and let the world see help rule the communist regime is if they went into Hong Kong today with tanks it would devastate China's.