FAST SCRIBE COURT TRANSCRIPTION SERVICES
SMIRK V. KBNK BROADCASTING
LIVE BROADCAST INTERVIEW: Tape 366A
BEFORE: THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE SIDNEY LINDEN,
Folly Beach Court House,
Kimball Hall
Folly Beach Township, South Carolina
September 30th, 1999
Appearances:
CYNTHIANA SMIRK PLAINTIFF
ALBERT JONES DEFENDANT
GENERAL MANAGER,
KBNK BROADCASTING
EDWARD A. ADAMS INTERVIEW SUBJECT
OWNER, GARDEN OF EDEN SERPENTARIUM
Live television interview, July 13, 1998, between CYNTHIANA SMIRK, PLAINTIFF, identified as “Host,” on The Local Focal Show broadcast by KBNK, South Carolina’s Community Voice, with EDDIE ADAMS, INTERVIEW SUBJECT, Owner of The Garden of Eden Serpentarium.
(SMIRK and ADAMS seated in front of a big billboard with a bug-eyed boy being constricted by a brightly colored python.)
SMIRK: Today’s rags-to-riches story features Eddie Adams, owner of one of South Carolina’s, most popular attractions, the Garden of Eden Serpentarium.
ADAMS: (removing a large green tree python looped around his neck) Thanks for having me, Cynthia. It’s an honor.
SMIRK: So tell me, Mr. Adams, how did you get into collecting snakes? You have an unusual business.
ADAMS: When I was ten, I found a bull snake in the backyard and the neighbor kids paid me 25 cents to see it. (Green tree python noses down Smirk’s arm and Smirk moves chair away.) I made ten bucks that day. That was a lot of money in the Sixties. Then I got the idea of letting it bite me. Kids started handing me their whole allowance!
SMIRK: You let it bite you?
ADAMS: It was an important life lesson. You may not realize how much people love to be scared.
SMIRK: (moves chair further) Ummm…. How many snakes does The Garden of Eden have?
ADAMS: We’re within cobra-spitting distance of 666 hot snakes.
SMIRK: Hot?
ADAMS: Venomous. The hotter, the higher the interest, really. If a snake is likely to kill you, people come from miles away.
SMIRK: (faintly) Isn’t yours a dangerous job?
ADAMS: That’s why they pay me the big bucks. (Laughs) No, not really, not if you know what you’re doing. (Disengages the python wrapped around his leg and offers it to Smirk.) You try it.
SMIRK: No!
ADAMS: (Adams puts the python in a cage, then holds up a tiny green snake) This little sea snake has venom that can drop a musk ox but its fangs are so tiny, it can hardly break skin. Here, hold out your hand.
SMIRK: (getting up) No, don’t! Put it away!
ADAMS: (lifts a large cobra out of a cage with a snake hook). See, I’m calm. King Kong, my oldest king cobra, is calm. Just don’t make any sudden moves and keep his head away from your meaty parts.
Ms. Smirk: (off camera) I’ll just be over here… by the door.
Eddie Adams: Oh, heck, Kong is stone blind. Plus he’s so old, he’s practically geriatric. (The cobra strikes. ADAMS raps the snake on its snout with the snake hook). Bad King! (ADAMS appears to be looking around for interviewer.) He must be hungry. Usually he sleeps through these interviews.
SMIRK: (Off camera) I can’t… Sorry! Got an emergency at home… the hell out of here…(SMIRK’S voice inaudible.)
ADAMS: Well, that that went well. What’d you think, Kong? Did they get your best side?
(Cobra strikes at camera. Picture goes to black. Unidentified voice on tape: “Shit!”)
It probably won't go in the novel; not on the spine of the drama,but it was fun to see my antagonist's show man side more acutely. Plus, I didn't have a name for the geriatric king cobra so that was a small gift. You just never know where stuff comes from. BTW, I read your Thanksgiving piece in the car coming back from Oregon; I loved that there were 2 Thanksgiving (never enough gratitude to go around) and thought the children smoking weed for their first Thanksgiving was one of those details that comes from heaven. I look forward to it coming up in your fiction!
A good strategy, indeed, for developing character(s). I'd be curious to know if the interview revealed something about either of them that you may not have been aware of. At the very least, this scenario has piqued my curiosity about your work-in-progress.