She’s a Snob About Snobs – Gert B.

About This Speaker Tape

The old Waldorf, New York City, and a childhood spent behind a "satin upholstered wall" of excessive money. Gert B. recalls a life where wealth acted as a barrier against reality, leaving her a "wholesome" girl caught between a brilliant father and a beautiful mother. She describes a trajectory of wreckage: three failed marriages, a descent into obsessive drinking, and a cocktail of Benzedrine and sleeping pills. She views her former self as a Siamese twin that had to die so she could live.

The turning point came not from a psychiatrist, but from a realization that she needed a Higher Power to act as a "porter" for suitcases too heavy to carry. After a near-fatal suicide attempt and a spiritual "shower bath," she traded her Lincoln Continental for a life of service. Now, she lives in a small house with studio couches, treating her remaining resources as bricks to build a shrine rather than weapons to slug people to death.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Gert opens with a jab at the Episcopalians and Baptists in the room.
• 3:15 Gert describes the 'satin upholstered wall' of wealth and the isolation of the rich.
• 6:40 Discussion of her childhood in the Waldorf and the pressure to be brilliant or beautiful.
• 12:20 Gert talks about her first failed marriage and her son Bill B.'s struggle with sobriety.
• 18:10 The transition into obsessive drinking and the 'indivisible line' of alcoholism.
• 25:30 Gert describes her suicide attempt with forty-five grains of Seconal.
• The 'spiritual shower bath' and her first prayer for help.
• 38:45 Gert discusses the 'porter' metaphor for turning her life over to a Higher Power.
• 45:10 Gert describes her transition to a life of service and giving away her money.
• 52:00 Laughter: Gert jokes about her house being full of 'old bum men' and women.
• 58:30 Gert reflects on the difference between 'for Higher Power or for Gert'.
• 62:00 Closing prayer of the long-dead slave.