Name: Julie Ridge, Manhattan Island Swimmer, on Letterman, July 27, 1983
Uploaded: 2018-12-16T20:13:11.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Julie Ridge, Manhattan Island Swimmer, on Letterman, July 27, 1983' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-12-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Julie Ridge, Manhattan Island Swimmer, on Letterman, July 27, 1983' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-12-16. Transcript available.

Hi there, and welcome back to the program, ladies and gentlemen.
Tomorrow night on This Is A Very Show, Michael Keaton will be here,
and also from the Tubes, Fee Waybill will be joining us,
and a man who sings backward, David Fuhrer, will be joining us,
and also, being that tomorrow will be Thursday,
we'll answer our voluminous viewer mail.
My next guest, and this is unbelievable to me for many, many different reasons,
became the first person in history to swim around the island of Manhattan,
not once, boys and girls, twice.
We're delighted that she could be with us here tonight.
Please welcome Julie Ridge.
Julie.
Hi, Julie.
Nice to see you.
Have a seat, if you will.
You are a very attractive young woman,
and I guess it's no coincidence that in addition to being a fine athlete,
you're also an actress, aren't you?
Yes.
And are you now appearing in anything that people would recognize or know about?
Not currently.
You were in the cast of a Broadway play not long ago, though.
Yes.
Am I allowed to say what?
Well, if you want to say it, I don't know.
Sure.
It's all right with me.
I was in the cast of Bo Calcutta on Broadway for about a year and a half.
Now, I guess the next question after we establish that is,
why would you want to swim around the island once, and then why twice?
I didn't want to swim around once.
I wanted to swim around twice because it's never been done.
I swam the English Channel last September just out of sheer love of swimming
and wanted to do something that no one had ever done before.
Yeah.
What is the total time that you were in the water?
21 hours, 2 minutes, and 46 seconds.
21 hours, nearly a full day in the water.
Did you eat while you were in the water?
Yes.
You take feedings every hour.
And what kind of stuff do you eat?
How do you eat while you're...
Was this like the East River you were eating in?
East River, Hudson, Harlem.
I was eating all around the island.
But what kind of stuff would you eat?
They tossed me a bottle.
Like bikers use.
Not cars passing, but just...
I have an escort.
Yeah.
Some people do that, too.
I have an escort boat.
All right.
Explain that.
You have some people...
Coming around with me, yes.
Do you have a trainer on the boat or your family?
I had a crew of the most marvelous people I could possibly have had on board.
And it guards me very carefully.
It watches me.
It monitors me.
It makes sure that nobody gets nearby.
It tells me if I'm going too slow or too fast.
They feed me.
They talk to me.
They keep me company.
They let me know what helicopters are flying around and taking pictures.
What are you aware of in the water?
Can you see where you are?
Can you see landmarks from the water?
Yeah.
I did a lot of sightseeing.
I enjoyed it.
It's a terrific way to see New York.
I was ahead of schedule most of the time.
So they kept telling me to slow down, which meant I could spend more time
looking at the city.
I saw what is probably the most gorgeous sunrise I have ever seen in my life as
I was coming up under the Brooklyn Bridge finishing the first lap.
Is this dangerous to do?
How do you mean?
Barge traffic.
I'm serious.
I see coming by the Hudson River in the morning, there's barge traffic, there's
tugboats.
It stinks.
I mean, is it dangerous?
Are your health in jeopardy for doing that?
My health is not in jeopardy, and I don't consider it dangerous.
In fact, last year and this year, there is a race around Manhattan, a swimming
race, once around.
People swim the island more often than people realize.
Jeez, it seems so unappealing.
I mean, it's such an amazing feat that you were able to swim for 21 hours.
But the fact that I'm a little concerned about it.
In fact, the man who pilots the circle line warned you of a couple of things.
This is a boat that takes tourists around the very route that Julie made.
He warned you about what?
Mostly debris, kids from Randall's Island throwing things in the water at swimmers.
Dead things floating, which I saw none of at all.
Okay, now dead things floating, he specified what?
He specified bodies.
Bodies.
See, this is no day at the beach, folks.
I thought I spotted Jimmy Hoffa, but...
But now when you asked him how many had he seen, he mentioned that he double
figures.
He's been running the circle line for 20 years, though.
All right.
In addition to that sort of stuff, there are actual hazards, the tides and...
How do we want to do this?
Where did you start, Julie?
Okay, the island is like this.
Oh, that's how it goes.
Okay.
This is the top and this is the bottom.
Where do you want to show this, Hal?
Over here to...
That's fine.
Okay.
Okay.
Where's 89th Street?
89th would be...
Right about here.
Yeah.
Okay, I started right near Gracie Mansion.
Swam up north into the Harlem.
Now, how is the East River there?
That's actually just a straight, right?
It's not really a river?
It is a river, and it moves very fast.
When I was finishing the second lap, in fact, I was...
I could have floated and gotten up.
Oh, so the current runs this way?
Yeah.
If you time it right, you've got to make sure that you hit everything properly
so that everything's
going with you, because otherwise it can go against you and you can't possibly
swim against
it.
But it was flowing so quickly on that second lap that the people on shore
watching me around
here, trying to watch me finish, had to run along the shore to catch me at the
finish.
Folks could actually ski behind you.
Yes.
All right, now, then you get up into this.
What is that?
Then we go up into the Harlem River, which looks a lot longer on this map than
it seemed.
That's interesting.
You mean you didn't look at a map before you did this?
No, I'd seen the map, but this looks different.
Well, it is an amazing accomplishment.
Okay, and you go up to Harlem, and then you cross right over.
You go up to Harlem, and then you, it is truly an island.
You can swim all the way around it, underneath all the bridges, and you swim up
to the Spite
and Dival.
I'm blocking you.
I'm sorry.
That's all right.
And then you come down the Hudson.
And gosh, this is remarkable.
Because after you get through Spite and Dival, which can be a tricky place, the
currents are
kind of circular, and they're whirlpoolish, and children should not play in
that area because
people have drowned up there.
The boat has to make sure I go through where it's safe, and there isn't a whirlpool
going
that will suck me under.
We got through there without any difficulty at all.
And from there, then you can see the GW Bridge.
On the first lap, it was really very beautiful.
It's night.
It's dark.
The bridge is lit.
You can see very clearly just about everything.
Now, you started at 10 o'clock at night.
What was the reason for that?
It was 10.30 at night.
It was specifically to start with the current taking me up the Harlem River so
that I had
enough time to get down around the battery.
There is a slack time down around the battery, which lasts about an hour and a
half, an hour
and a half, hour and 15 minutes.
And you have to round the battery during that time.
I don't know what the slack time is for.
What is that?
Is it a union deal?
There are a lot of things, actually, about this.
I don't know that well.
That's why I hired somebody who knows it better than I do.
However, the East River isn't going to be real helpful if you hit it at the
wrong time.
You're talking about currents and tides?
Currents and tides.
Yeah.
So was this the place where you had to tread water for two hours?
No.
I had to tread water at the start again.
Okay.
When you went back up to 89th.
Right.
At the 89th.
Again, because at first the Harlem's coming down.
And then it switches and it goes back up again.
Uh-huh.
I don't understand how that works.
So how long did you end up treading water at that point?
I treaded water for about three hours then.
I swam around in circles, though.
And people, some friends of mine, came and jumped in the water without any
shots at all.
And swam around with me and told me jokes.
But treading water for three hours is a monumental task.
That was the only difficult part of the entire swim.
What do you think about it?
Because you've got a full day now and the only person really you can talk to, I
guess, is yourself, right?
Right.
So what do you think about it?
I purposely go and see a movie or a good show right before I'm going to do a
very long swim.
And I play it back a lot.
I went to see War Games and Brighton Beach Memoirs.
I would have something to play back as I was swimming.
I think about this swim was almost easy because I didn't have to worry about
thinking about things.
There was so much to look at in terms of the island and spotting points and
knowing when I was passing things.
I could tell how much progress I was making.
I could tell how well I was doing.
The crew was making faces at me and holding up signs and talking to me during
feedings and keeping me company.
Did you win any money for this?
Any kind of cash remuneration here?
No.
No.
Just a spot in the world record books.
What did you do afterwards?
Showered, hopefully.
I went home.
Yeah.
You had a shower?
I took a long bath.
And then my Shiatsu therapist gave me a very thorough workover so that I could
wake up in the morning.
You mentioned shots.
You didn't, before the thing, have a gamma globulin shot?
I did, yeah.
You did have, okay.
Because I was going to be in the water for so long.
I don't think they're really necessary, but just for peace of mind, I had cholera
and tetanus and typhoid.
See, now we're getting into it.
And gamma globulin and polio.
Well, congratulations to my way of thinking.
This is just an unbelievable thing to have accomplished.
You must be very proud.
And thank you for your time, Julie.
Thank you.
Nice meeting you.
Julie Ridge, ladies and gentlemen.
We'll be back with Kurt Steele.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.