Cold Brew Conversations X: Rich Wexler

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Colebrew. Got Me Like This week
it's a special edition. It's a cold Brew Conversation. This
time it is with the creator of the instagram, Vintage
Annal's Archive. There's also a website, Vintage Annal's Archive, and
there's a podcast, Vintage Annal's Archive Podcast. His name is

(00:23):
Rich Wexler. He's also a photographer. He's based in Philadelphia.
We talked to him about all the famous underground artists
he's connected with through his Instagram and through his interviews.
He's even interviewed Tracy Gunns. He managed to meet Paul Rubins,
had become friends with Paul Rubins through his work. His

(00:46):
website and his instagram bring you into the worlds of
many artists he might not have known, but all high quality,
often strange, my favorite kind. And he's also helped us
promote the movie about me, Chris crofton Nashville Famous, directed
by Seth Pomeroy, and uh, we talk about lots of stuff.

(01:10):
I'm gonna start the show with a little clip of
Heavy Metal Parking Lot, which is a heavy metal parking
lot is a movie about the parking lot scene outside
of Judas Priest concert in the late eighties in trying
to thank Maryland and just a thing that some guy
took a camera down to the Judas Priest concert parking lot.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
And got, you know, gold.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
And so anyway, I'm gonna start the show with a
little clip of that. Rich has interviewed the director of
that film, among many others, And anyway, enjoy this Colbrew
Conversation ten with Rich Wexler.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Who are you here to see tonight? Judas Priest is
the best, always has been.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
They're gonna show how.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Young people suck up today.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
I mean the air forcing about air force? Fucking party?
What's your name? Grab man? Like grab a d and ship?
Where you're from?

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Where are you from?

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Where I'm from?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
From? Fucking the West coast?

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Man?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
You came all the way here to to see the band?
Are you're just you're just passing it now? You know?

Speaker 3 (02:25):
That's He's like, are you right now?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
That's yeah, I'm on that. That's Is that all right?

Speaker 3 (02:34):
That's what kind of jokes you're doing?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, fucking air there came a so so you guys
like christ right, Yeah, how about docking? Has anybody feel
back what it is today? Are they really about the best?
I mean, their better. What other shows have you seen here?

Speaker 3 (02:53):
But there you going, Hey should legalized drugs. That is
a fact, that's what they should go for, right exactly,
exactly full in this parking lot anyway, and then that
shit exactly. Man, there's enough burnouts out there to go

(03:14):
hands across America.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Ship man, I got it.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Joints across America. Yeah, exactly, the joint someday fits across Americans.
Everybody's smoking.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
I'm a good life.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Hello, and welcome to Cold Brew Conversations. I don't know
which episode this is. I think it's episode ten.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Maybe it's either nine or ten. I've only done ten
interviews maybe. Usually usually my podcast is just me and
my brother bullshitting about.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Politics and bigfoot, okay, in whatever order. So today I
want to tell you, guys, I.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Have a wonderful guest, very interesting person that I am
still getting to know.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
And ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Rich Wexler, Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
So. Rich is runs a podcast called Sorry, a web,
an Instagram account and website called Vintage Annals Archive.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
It's also a podcast.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
And then there's a podcast, and there's also Vintage Annals Archive.
Like basically, Rich does lots of things so I'm part
of the beginning of this interview will just be like
origin story, just vintage annals archive. I'll describe to you
guys my listeners as something that I had seen.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
It's collects things that.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
I'm interested in, strange old ephemera, strange old movies, talking
about artists who take photographs, artists who whatever, kind of
artists that may have slipped through the cracks basically of
history and bringing him back to the to the to
the sort of you know, people who might not have

(05:17):
time to comb through, especially serving people like me who
maybe I know the obvious weirdos like r Crumb or
you know, like Charles Bakowski or something, but I don't
necessarily know. I'm well, I'm always open to more, and
I want more weirdos. I want more smart people that
got rejected by capitalism, smart artists that didn't find a place,

(05:39):
you know, that that that that actually often have the
best things to say. And I think that's what Rich
is doing. And he's doing it on a pretty grand scale.
He does it like really exhaustively, and it's and as
a result, he's been rewarded with a very big audience
and a big audience including some other very big artists,
like I guess.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
I was reading Amy Sedaris, who I'm a huge fan
of Amy Sedaris.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Like a hugely influential comedian that a lot of people
don't even know about actually as an example, I mean,
the people who do know her do know her, but
they don't know probably you know how what an important
figure she is. Yeah, so anyway, Rich Wexler is also
a photographer.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
But can I add something about yeah, sure, because Amy
is actually part of the origin story of my page.
I don't know if that's okay, So go ahead, Yeah,
you take it away. Even with them, I'm just like,
I don't know what I've been doing my page for
fifteen years. I think I didn't know Whenstigon worked. So
for the first like year or two, I literally would
do like eighty posts a day because I thought it
was like randomized. I don't know if there's anybody who's

(06:41):
still on there from the beginning that they are. I'm
gonna pay the money. But like eight years in I
got a I got a repost from it was I
forget that this really great what's his name? I always
forget the name of it. It's a really great parody site.
And I just can't her name. And it was a

(07:01):
post of something they did, and she just wrote something
salling by and run my page, and I'm just like
a guilty gew and I'm like, oh shit, she's calling
me out, and so I sent her an apology. But
she was just boosting my page. I didn't understand.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Oh, she was just doing it for he was just like.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Like basically saying stolen that prection by me, But like
I just read it like as as she was calling
me out and not recommending my page and back.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
I don't understand anything either, Rich.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
I don't understand when people are especially if people are
playing around like I'm not good at as a formerly
bullied person, Like oh yeah, I don't like like people
like giving me shit for example, like I take it
really literally, yeah, you and I both.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
But she was really helping me sure like with.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
My friends who don't have that disorder can make fun
of me, and then I get it better now.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
And within like this is when Instagram worked a lot better.
And within probably four or five days, I got like
five six thousand followers and that's what built That was
really the firste that built an audience. I mean, I
like doing this ship. I don't know how long I
would have lasted doing it for four hundred people. Sure, yeah,
I like to think I would have lasted longer, But

(08:18):
I don't know if I would have.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
So what post was the amis? What post was that?
Amy Sidara said.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
Uh, I gotta look it up.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Give me a s Amy Sidaris has her own account
that is like has a ton and a ton.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Of followers, a million or something.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
Oh and she's not like, you know, even like outside
of who she is, she's like a master of like
vintage ship. She got that show. It was it was
just do you know liar Town? What that is?

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Heard of it? But I don't know.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
There's a great book they put out. It's the best
parody shit ever made. There's a book called Liar Town
the First four Years by a guy named Sean Tarachi,
and it's just like the best parody. And it was
like something about it was a business. It was like
hond on. I got to look it up. It's like
business dolls.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
So most people who listen to Colebrew got me like,
probably know whom Harris is.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
But I'll just say, you can't see my screen canyon
barely Anyway, This says business dolls twenty projects for the
home and office. This is like a it's a guy
sad with a mustache with a doll with a mustache
saying twenty projects for home or office. It's just very
dry like parody. That's very accurate.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
So this wasn't a vintage thing. It was a parody thing.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Well, it's got vintage immagery. They they are very good about,
like he's a master. He's like a master like Resiner.
It's just using it's just using like something that the
picture is probably real, maybe not the doll, but yeah,
that was like that. That was like it blew my mind.
And it's a shame because it was great, but like
that's the end of the days of that happened. And

(09:59):
she reposted it I did maybe two years ago and
it got forty new followers and it was so it's
like that's just that that world ended then. But I
got lucky to be to be benefiting that. But anyway, it's.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Like, really is David Sadaris's sister.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
I mean, he's the more famous Sadaris, but Amy, at
least among the masses.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
But Amy is a She was.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
A favorite guest of David Letterman. She was Strangers with
Candy was how I first found out about her.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Were you a big fan of Changer at Candy?

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (10:33):
And I didn't, you know, I didn't realize, you know
how like star studed that, like even in retrospect, I think,
what was the name of the guy, Like, I mean,
Stephen Colbert was on Stranger Stranger with the Candy before
he was Stephen Colbert, you know, and Amy was on
that as just playing this drug addicted sort of recovery.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
It was it was like a parody of her recovery
sort of.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
It was I did I got you know what Mitch
Rouths is actor Mitch Rouths. Mitch Rouss was one of
the writers on that. We wanted creators and writers and
it was it was in Second City and and uh
second City, Yeah, and I interviewed him and so it
was like a parody of like after school specials. Yeah,
but like really really dark and you know, really dark, yeah,

(11:26):
really like there's like that they were They did a few,
like some of the most famous after specials were like
Scott Bayo one where he's a stoner, one where he's
an alcoholic, just like I.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Just saw the top was I just saw Maddie's Secret,
the New Job movie, and that was based on Kate's Secret,
which I think was a movie of the week called
Kate's Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Kate's Secret was.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
A Meredith Baxter Bernie movie about Bolimia, which I guess
John really was obsessed with and made sort of like
this kind of a parody of it with this new movie.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
There's also this this musical writer who did a musical,
Michael R. Jackson is my favorites. He did a musical
called A Strange Loop, and he also did one I'm
gonna forget what it was called, but it was based
on the same idea.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
He's like, what's his name?

Speaker 3 (12:16):
Michael Jackson. He wrote a musical that won a Pulitzer
only at the time, and it's not that didn't happen
a lot with musicals, but anyway, one of his one
the reason I knew about Kate's Secret was one of
his hold on a second. This is me also plugging,
indirectly plugging, but me.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
Know, people people like to be directed, I mean me included.
I like to be directed to.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
I want to I want to like, I want to
respect it. It's your interview.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Oh no, no, I just want to know. No, whatever
you're but I want to part of your thing is
you're doing it right now.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
Let me just pull this up because actually your whole.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Thing is what you're doing right now, you're turning people
onto other ship.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Well, he did a musical called Wiker Own Danger, which
is all based on like growing up watching these soap operas,
but also these like lifetime movies, which is which Maddie's
secret falls under. These they're you know, they're kind of
like they're always they're either political or they're like about
drug abuse there. I mean, they're they're so like the
kind of thing I'm sure have you ever seen, like

(13:17):
an anti drug ad that makes drugs look better than
you should. It's like that that's the comedy in those.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Well I'm of that age, so like I was in
class when they when the guy from the police department
came and had that suitcase with all the samples of
all the drugs in it, and like it.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Had the opposite effect of Yeah, he was like, don't
do it.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
If you see any of these things that are in
this fucking cool ass suitcase.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Don't fucking do any of them, even.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Though they look like the coolest things you've ever seen,
especially in the suburbs, when all you'd ever seen was
a lacrosstic like any other ship. I just I was
like the most fascinating thing. Everyone wanted to track down
that suitcase.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
They're just teaching a bunch of teens how to how
to grow up to be Hunter as Sampson.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, I don't even know if they thought.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
I guess they thought that they were doing something good.
But yeah, all those old I mean they could also
be quite gruesome, like with the ways they tried to
get you to stop doing stuff, which also can be titillating,
like uh in it by mistake, like you know, like
the drunk driving films where they show these bloody accidents
and stuff. But I mean when you're dealing with capitalism,
like bloody accidents and like, those things can look kind

(14:22):
of exciting. If you're growing up in the suburbs, you know,
it's like, fuck, I think I want to take and
drive just so I can get involved in something better
than home ech uh so so yeah, like I'm from that,
Like I remember those those sort of gruesome slash very interesting.
I mean, it's like reading Helter Skelter is supposed to
be like an anti Charles Manson book, but it made

(14:43):
me fascinated with Charles Manson. It sort of changed my
life like so that Yeah, those things backfire a lot,
especially for society so drab, and.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
I feel a lot of what they also do, like
a lot of that stuff kind of like turned artists
into being subversive, Like I feel like that kind of s.
It also influenced like the Simpsons and just taught people
how to, like I don't know, just to be subversive
in a way and how to like just make have
fun with that kind of shit.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
Oh well, yeah, because it was also like overt, like
it was really overt, like most of the controls that
like teachers try and control your mind, but you don't
really the teachers aren't aware of it, and maybe you know,
and they don't know the.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Curriculum, especially back in the seventies, you know they didn't know. Yeah,
they didn't. I mean, you know they are sort of
well intentioned teachers who might be doing brainwashing.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
But these like anti drug things were very overt, like
do not do this, you know, like they really stood
out and were accidentally exciting.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
Do you happen? Do you come from like a religious background,
did you ever.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Get a lot of Catholic Like in the nineteen seventies,
I was an altar boy and stuff.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
But that was like the way I got into show business.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
But were you also like kind of brainwashed with some
of the like anti rock and roll kind of shit.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah, but it was like like I didn't grow up No,
I didn't grow up with like I know, especially moving
down to the South, Like I know, tons of people who.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
You know were really given a.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
Serious like you know, had a serious opposition their parents
had a serious opposition to certain kinds of art.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
I didn't really have that.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
My mom didn't want kiss. She said she didn't want
to put money in the pockets of kiss. So I
couldn't have Kiss Alive too. But but but it was
like I wasn't like oppressively I could have some like
I had to sneak of Steve Martin record into my
house underneath my beer can collection.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
So there was a little bit of that, yeah, but
you're aware of it.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
And there was one of my favorite like I kind
of you know, I'll just again, I want I want
you to lead me, but I'm just gonna talk for
a while to sure go ahead. But one the reason
the way I got into all the I didn't you know.
The way I got into archiving, I guess was through
like manically collecting images before Instagram, like in the days
where just you got to go to blogs and online

(17:07):
shit and I would just have an archive of like
probably two hundred thousand images. But the first few years
I just collected ship. But I got into it from
like being interested in like a fhemeral video. You know
what I mean by ephemeral of.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Course education films?

Speaker 3 (17:21):
Yeah, sure, okay, Yeah, And one of my favorite there's
this guy, uh it does Skip and I always get
his name with last name Eisenheimer, who does av geeks
with av Geeks. Yes, I am Skip's amazing. I met
Skip at this this great it was ephemeral film fest
ten years ago or fifteen years ago, and there's just
people that like sat around for two days watching footage

(17:43):
of shit.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
But it was great, which would be so fun, and
I watched that.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
It doesn't have quite the same effect if you can't
talk about it with people afterward because.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
I watched it. Yeah, but there was I mean, like
you know, you know Jeff Krulik, these are all guests unplugging,
He's Jeff Culick directed Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Oh of course, God yeah. Fuck. Also heavy Metal Parking
Lot is like the greatest thing.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
I got to interview John. I got to interview him
and John Haynes, who's the other director. And Jeff is
just like you would love Jeff. He's just done real
shit on his own.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
He's a damn He's like to me, he's like a
you know, he's like Moses or something. I mean that
like for me finding that the fact that he's stuck
had the smarts, smarts, I really say that that's a coffee,
the fact that he had the smarts or just to
go down to the goddamn parking lot outside the deaf Leopard.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
I mean the Judas Prieste concert in nineteen eighty two,
when no one was doing that kind of shit.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
No one was doing like that was not considered something
that was worth Who would ever care what happened in
a parking lot? And thank god he did because now
there's a record of it, because that was everybody's life
back then.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
He's just he's like, now, if you can't.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
Know, people listening to this podcast, if you have not
seen Heavy Metal Parking Lot, and luckily now you don't
have to like sadly for Jeff. It's available. You can
find it pretty much.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
You can watch on to Be for free.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Son. Yeah, just go find it.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
It's a great artifact and it shows you how we
grew up before the Internet and before phones.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
And it was really you know, I got, I mean
talking to I love talking to older school dude. Sometimes
I love talking to older school Jewish guys because I
just relate to them. But talking to him and John
for an hour and a half was amazing. And then
I got, I don't know if you know John Ross Bowie.
He's an actor. He was in Big Bang a show
called it Speachless, and I interviewed him because he is

(19:36):
is it you know, he's equal punk and metal head.
But you know, we just I just we talked about
like I guess the main band with Jewish priests and
Dokan was the opener and yeah, and it's so like
it's just there's so many lines in it that feel
like there's some some I think Jeff's skill set is
there's things that are so authentic that people make like
Jeff that it almost seems more like a narrative because

(19:59):
you can't believe that real life is this weird and
whatever you did in that thing, it's magic because it's
almost unreal in its reality.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Well, it's like grey gardens.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yeah, it's like my introduction to this sort of stuff
was really I did not come from I grew up
in not you grew up in a city, right, you
grew up in.

Speaker 3 (20:19):
I grew up but not in the city part.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
But well, okay, well I don't I don't know how
you ask you in a minute how you found your
way to weird art and whether that was through your
parents or through because I me it was it was
like harder.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Well, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
It was hard for me because I didn't growing up
in the suburbs of Connecticut, you know, like the wealthy suburbs,
which is an important caveat the fact that it was
a very wealthy suburb made it made it like frozen
in time because wealthy, wealth wealth. The taste of the
wealthy don't change. I mean there's slight tweaks, but not much.
They wear the same outfits for a thousand years. They

(20:56):
have the same interests and.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
So they do that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yes, So it's like it's like really like the place
where you had I mean the movie theater shows the
same movie for four years running, you know, and it's
always like river runs through it.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
You know.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
It's just like it's a real cultural blockade.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
So yeah, like like uh, the Maslees brothers seeing seeing
uh Gimme Shelter, which I saw on PBS. Uh, and
then finding out about Greg Gardens and finding that at.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
This weird video store in New York called Evergreen Video.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
Those were things that changed things for me. And they
were there was a scavenger hunt element to it. And
I started sort of late and I and I and
then I got involved in trying to make my own
weird art.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
So it was like I.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
Just sort of mad shorts like Super eight, Right, what's
that you made? Like shorts and Super eight?

Speaker 2 (21:48):
No, No, I didn't do that. I just I just
acted in things.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
And I acted in a Super eight film if you
were thinking about that, Like that was the first thing
I ever did, you know that was artistic? Like my
friend was like, you know, I started to understand that
I was strange because my friends started wanting to put
me in movies and so yeah. So also I found
out I was strange when my ceramics teacher in eighth
grade told me I reminded her of Warren.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Oates when I was in eighth grade.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
Warren Oates, the guy from What's that the character actor
from fucking like, uh long, bring me the head of
Alfredo Garcia, like I mean, and I went to look
up that guy to find out if he was cute or.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Something, because I was hoping i'd be speaking Scott Bao.
I was hoping that maybe Warren Oates looked like Scott Bao.
But Scott Warrenhoas was like fifty eight years old. Yeah, so,
so like I found out about I don't even know
why I said that, but I forget but but but uh.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
So, go ahead, yeah tell me, how did you?

Speaker 3 (22:43):
I mean, you and I have the similar experience. I
was gonna say, like, you know, I'm I'm fifty five.
You're around there a little older. I'm fifty seven, about
the same thing. I mean, I was just a weirdo.
I was. I don't it's weird. I don't like some
ment I'll talk to people who have not know a
lot about like film and art. I'm just like, I
don't know shit compared to people because I don't really
come from like art shit in a certain way. But

(23:06):
I think like I, you know, I just got diagnosed,
but as autistic, which I've kind of known for a
long time, and I think I was just a very
I had very particular interests, you know, thinking back about
like I you know, collecked a lot of vinyl between
like thirteen and eighteen, and it's like, you know, I
don't know, like there's no thinking about the like how

(23:29):
people consume music or video and shit. Now it's just
sad to me because you just based it on covers, right,
you know, you went to the and you just like
you know, you could afford it, you'd buy stuff just
based on the cover, the cover art or maybe you
heard of it as well. But also like I got
really extremely lucky for two reasons. As myke fuh, you know,

(23:50):
we had a vsage player at eighty two, We had
a VCR early family of VCR where I don't think
parents understood the technology of VCRs or VHS tape, so
they just like let you go to the fucking rent
whatever you wanted. And I remember watching like movies that
were definitely damaging to my psyche, like you know, like
carry Extracist at like eleven and twelve, like, I don't know,

(24:13):
I liked horror stuff. But one of the things I
did is my father, my father's best friend, who was
also a pornographer, had a video store, and the best
thing in the world is he let me go down
to the basement and take posters and shit. Oh wow,
So that's and I think I just always picked out
I remember, like I would just pick out the weird shit.
There was a few. There was like some VHS tape.

(24:33):
It's a hard thing that came with like a plastic
knife and fork. I think, like microwave something. I just
like the weird shit. I mean, you know, the same
way I liked vinyl, because sometimes you get vinyl. I
have a poster that's.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Huge, like what you just said, I mean having a
having a family friend who was a pornographer.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
Well, because there's more stories about that, but you.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Like, if that's a way into like and being able
to play around in his video store.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
Back to anything I wanted it essentially from his Oh
you know I had I had a huge eight foot
tall toxic Avengers stand up, you know, I w yeah, yeah, smart,
I would have. I would have collected this ship and
put it away right now. Anyway, and then I and
then one other thing I've what was kind of cool
is like I had experiences that I can't explain to
you because I wasn't. I didn't think I was an

(25:15):
artsy person. When I was young. I remember there's a
you ever been through Philly, you know the TLA Theater.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
I've been to Philly and I've played music, and I've
been there played but I and I don't. It's been
a long time. And I used to go see shows
at kyper Pass, and I used to go see shows
at U Trocadero.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
But I that was South Street you know where? Yes, yes,
so South Street had a theater called TLA. It's still there.
It's been there for fifty years. But when I was young,
they would do plays. I saw a little sep of
hors there, the musical. I remember seeing Laria Anderson Home
with a Brave. I cannot tell you how I wound
up at home with a brave. I didn't know anything
about Larry Anderson. My sister was in the art ship,

(25:52):
which was kind of a cool way to get into stuff.
Although her taste from arranging but not in film, she
turned me onto some stuff. So like even seeing stuff
like that when I was young then, I guess because
Philadelphia didn't have a strong like film rep repets, you
know like repic you know older films and yeah, rep
film that through I guess distribution because there was nowhere

(26:14):
to show artsy shit. They would have movies play the
local theater that I would see, like you know when
we go see like Karate Kid. I remember seeing the Cook,
the Wife, the Lover and oh yeah, the and I
was like for fourteen that blew my brain. I remember
seeing true stories there, which was like changed my whole world.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yeah yeah, And so there was there was like that's
a you know, pornography was away in for me in
a weird way because pornography this is crazy, but it
was also stuff. It was a whole other world, like
you know, like pornography, pornography the eighties with like seika
and stuff that was like an aesthetic like you know,
even in the eighties, like they were still doing like

(26:55):
weird like pastel kerchiefs tied around the women's in like
peroxided hair and stuff, and like it was like another
It was so low class compared to what I'd been
raised to around lacrosse and boats and all that stuff.
So for me, pornography, first of all, it was just
plain old intriguing to a kid, just from a sexual standpoint,

(27:16):
but also as an aesthetic. That shit, to me was
so weird looking. And then you combine that with pro wrestling,
which was another way I saw, like sort of that
was my introduction to theater because I considered the old
territory wrestling to be like regional theater.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
But those aesthetics.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Appeal to me, the aesthetic of old pornography and the
aesthetic of wrestling. I started to realize that through clues
that that there were other worlds out there.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
And so for you, did you have a.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Parents Like this is just interesting to me because you
said you're renting, I guess renting like Carrie when you're
eleven or twelve. Like I don't know if my mom
might have, like when I was that age, like stop
me from doing that, or you know, like if my uncle,
who was like involved in pornography, was like my friend
was say you can go in the basement and grab
all the posters. My mom said might have said, no, no,
I don't want you doing that, or something like that.

(28:08):
So was there a certain amount of like your parents
were like open minded or.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Well, okay, yes and no, my parents are not artsy.
The one thing my parents gave us is they took
us to a lot of concerts, So I got to
see a lot of amazing shows. Like I'll think over
over the years, I got very lucky. There's just theater
and around near Valley Ford's music Fair. Enough you have
a music fair. There was two or three different towns. Yeah,

(28:35):
year and around it was gonna I know what you're
talking about.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, those music fairs. And we had a membership in
West Music Fair and long Ham, Yeah, and.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
We had membership. And one of my favorite shows I
everady got to was I was thirteen and it was
Eddie Murphy delirious right, and like there's a part in
that concert which I think he says at the end
or towards dan where he's like, hey, parents, if you
thought it's gonna be gummy, gearing for something else, I'm
gonna be cursing a lot. My mom looks at me
like we're gonna leave, And because we were in the

(29:02):
front row, I'm like, if we're leaving, I am I'm
gonna be I'm gonna make a stink a stink. So
we're not going anywhere. Yeah, and so you know, like
be exposed to that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
So you saw Eddie Murphy Livedie.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Murphy Live when I was thirteen, that's crazy. Yeah, I
can't I remember it, but it definitely had an impression.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
It doesn't matter. That's like I.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
Saw air Supply the other thing that really that place
another my parent. I'm a huge musical theater person and
that was a huge, like that's one of my biggest obsessions.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Just quick, have you seen air Supplies video they shot
at Coney Island. I'm sure you've seen it.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
I don't know. I'll tell you.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Coney Island just because Coney Island they got they accidentally
did a pretty good, like little documentary about.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Coney Island as well. Check Air Supply video. I forget
which one, what song it is, but I'll send it
to you.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
Yeah, I mean it's funny. They're the only apparent. So
we waited to meet Air Supply after the concert and
apparently they like were assholes. And there was a little
girl who was like eight or not and it was
their birthday and they wouldn't sign the thing for her.
It's all I remember. Yeah, sure, and it's also weird,
which they were huge. I don't know, like it's so
weird to think about air Supply because it's like it's

(30:10):
like air Supply is like it's like it's another version
of like village people. It's like how did people not know?
Like these are two dudes singing to each other about love,
like they weren't say love songs to each other. But
I mean it's pretty gay. I don't know if it's homosexual,
but and I'm not maybe bad about that, but it's like,
how did a band of two dudes singing love songs

(30:30):
each other like not get like run out of the
streets from a bunch of like homophobes.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
I don't know, And I don't know.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
I just always think about the name like air Supply
and what a crazy name it is for a band.
So I mean, yeah, so you were a musical theater
so yeah, So okay, how did you.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
So your parents were into music?

Speaker 3 (30:52):
Okay, parents were really into like musicals and music, and
they really wanted to. I don't know if they did
it on purpose, but they really exposed like I don't
think i'd be doing any of this shit. I was
very different. My parents are great. I'm very different from them,
but they love me and they're good people, and like,
I don't know, I think when you're when you feel
like you're really different from your parents, they don't really
understand you. You kind of rebel and you get a

(31:13):
little mad. But in my like, as I got older,
I was like they really Without them, I wouldn't be
doing any of this stuff without being exposed to all
this art, to all I mean, I remember, like we'd
go to the Poconos a lot and see these like
like remember we went to like Engelbert Humperdinks, like or
Robert Humperdinks had had a resort with this picture everywhere

(31:35):
in every room, and it's amazing these like little shows
in eighty to two on small stages with dancers and comedians,
and like, I am so obsetted with that shit. So
I think, really like I think I'm just always been
curious and I've always liked music, and you know, I mean,
I think just being on the spectrum, I was always
upset with shit and horror movies was a huge, huge,

(31:57):
like introduction to the weirder world. I feel, I feel
like I don't think I explored it when I was young,
but there's so much overlap with like horror, you know, comedy,
even horror art. I mean there's a lot of like
horror art film. So I think maybe I kind of
guy exposed to art film through like horror, like you know,
like like Rosemary's Baby, look at something like that. Sure

(32:19):
you know it's you know, And I don't know, I
think that did.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
You watch those did they watch those movies? Did they
take you to those movies? Did they were you?

Speaker 3 (32:28):
Were you an only child or did you I have
a sister who's a year and a half and she
did expose me to.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
A lot of year and a half older Yeah, okay,
so you guys, did you guys go as a group
to see like air Supply, like you and your.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Society went to a lot of musicals, went to a
lot of films. I will never forget. I don't know
if I told this before seeing again Another Again. This
is another oddity because it was like a movie that
wouldn't have never normally been in a theater like this,
But I remember seeing the Meaning of Life at a
very mainstream theater near my house with my father, who

(32:59):
had a real bad gag reflex. So do you ever
see any of life.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yes, you mean the scene in the restaurant, So see
in a restaurants.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
So my father within two minutes, three or four minutes,
runs out of the theater, throwing up in the aisle
and runs to the bathroom. And I've never seen a
movie affect a human being like that. I think the
best way I can kind of explain this overall is,
I don't know if this is because I was in
the spectrum. We're just kind of a weird shot kid.
I mean I always had friends, but I think I
always preferred being alone to a certain extent. And I

(33:32):
think like for me, a record or a film, or
a book or a musical felt like a friend. Something
about these animate objects or well I don't know if
I got you know, inanimate, but just something about like
something about these movies and things in these albums, I
just were like my friends. Yeah, And I think like

(33:52):
I took them in as they were like real in
a way that I don't know if everybody, I feel
like you probably experienced that to a certain extent.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
Well, I didn't really connect very well with the kids
and that like on my block, and that that was
sort of what your sort of friend group was kind
of limited to back then you couldn't drive or anything,
and so it was like, you know, whoever was on
my block was like who I had to hang out with,
and we didn't really connect, so I didn't know. I

(34:21):
didn't think about that much. I didn't think about that
that much because you just dealt with it. I mean,
they want like bad people. I just they were. One
of them was this guy was super into sports, so
we could never really all I wanted to. He had
Atari and I didn't, and I just wanted to play
Atari all the time.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
And he wanted to go outside and like throw the
ball and I never wanted to do that. I always
wanted to play Atari, and he was really like controlling
about the Atari. He just didn't want to let me play.
I didn't care.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
We didn't have Atari, so it didn't even matter, like
the Space Invaders, you know, like I'm talking about the.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
First Atari, you know, just like yeah, Space Invaders.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
I would even I mean, Tank is like the worst
game ever, and I was I would have been down
to play Tank in instead of you know.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
Yeah or whatever.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
But that was just the way it was.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
So I played football, you know, and I just put
up with not being able to play as many video
games as I wanted to do. But you know, then
once I was loose in the world, then I was
all about video games or about whatever. I was into
carnival shit like that was my well, just like ski
ball or whatever you go in to an amusement park
or fucking any kind of like cheap thrill.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Type stuff is my stuff.

Speaker 3 (35:27):
Yeah, I know, I'm in the same and so like I.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Think my I didn't really think much about my relationship
to wrestling at the time, like pro wrestling, But in retrospect,
I understand why it was such an obsession for me
and why the rest of my family and friends were
sort of like, I don't understand, what the hell's the.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
Matter with you?

Speaker 1 (35:44):
But it was like for me, I just had a
deep connection to odd behavior. I was fascinated by people
who are who are strange and and and I just
was in a town that didn't offer much of that,
So I didn't really know how much I was connecting
with like the album covers in the record store, like
that was like my favorite thing. Looking back at it,

(36:05):
that was one of my favorite things to do. Like,
but in the context of at the time, I didn't
think of it as important because really, my dad would
take us to the record store against our will and
stay there for three hours talking to the fucking guy
behind the counter.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
We all want to die.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Because we were like eight and five years old. But
I didn't realize how much like me, flipping through all
those albums was like another clue, like this is not
where I want to be.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
I want to be wherever this is. Like, Yeah, seeing
the cover of acdc's like if you.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Want Blood You Got It? Yeah, Like I just I thought.
I think I saw that when I was like six,
you know what I mean. So my thing wasn't My
parents wouldn't let me watch Maybe Carrie when I was six.
I'm sure I probably didn't come out yet, but you know,
but I did get to see the cover of If
you Want Blood You Got It. Looks like a fucking
actual murder, and I thought that the ACDC had died

(36:59):
in the making of the cover because I didn't know,
so I was like, why they.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
God damn, they're so hardcore.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
I was like, they're so like I don't think I
knew the word heavy metal, but I was like, this
rock and roll is so crazy that they killed themselves
to make their album cover, you know, and that was
like instead of a turn off to me, I was
like where does that happen? You know what I mean,
Like where does that happen? Instead of like playing touch football.
So like for me, it was like I didn't realize
how much my friends were like and Prince became my

(37:28):
ultimate like my first real like crush, like in a
way like not not like I'm not attracted to them,
but like it was like I went crazy when Prince
came along, and that was like.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
The calm like controversy album No No.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
I was eighty it was eighty three, and I heard
One Doves Cry on the radio, and that was like
changed my That was another moment where I went crazy,
Like I went crazy for wrestling, like I went crazy
for One Dove's Cry. I went crazy for Prince. I
saw Purple Rain seven times, like no one else in
my hometown saw Purple Rain seven times.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
You know, It's it's hard to understand because I think
you and I had a similar experience. But it's like,
you know, I'll go to a movie or something and
I'll say with an audience and the trailers are coming,
They'll be the dumbest movies everyone's laughing and I'm not,
and I'm like, right, I'm like either I'm like I'm
either having to think why are these people such stupid idiots?
Which I don't love thinking but I do, or what

(38:25):
am I not getting? You know? I remember like having
to in college, trying to dumb myself down, so like I.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Just lively and drinking, like drinking was.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
My I didn't. I didn't. I didn't drink until I
was eighteen.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
I was thinking it was my thing for making myself
able to hang with jocks.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, so what I what occurred to
me when you were talking, was, you know, growing up
in a mainstream world. I think even today, some of
my favorite films are mainstream movies that are very subversive,
because what brought me into the weird world was all
that was all the ship that got through all this
subversive ship. I mean, you know, I don't think I

(39:04):
understood fully how the Muppets affected me until like years
and years later, because that whatever that was, Sespe, I
don't remember it really affected me as much. I'm sure
it did, but the Muppets, like some of the Muppets,
it was so weird. It was kind of dark, and
yet and yet like it, I just felt like this
is my these are my people, Like the Muppets changed

(39:26):
my whole life.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
So I was, you're a big Jim Henson guy.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
I mean, Jim Henson has changed I'm born to his birthday.
Jim Henson changed my life. And I always my joke
is that I don't know how I feel about religion,
but there's a picture of a bearded, long hair guy
on my wall and I follow his teachings and that's
and that's that's Jim. But it just like I think
it was the first thing that made me like feel like, oh,
it's okay to be weird. Do I you know, I
got really lucky in doing my The other the other

(39:53):
big in terms of the page, yeah, the other biggest,
biggest champion was Paul Rubens, who randomly, like this is
eight years ago, I don't remember what I did a
post randomly like tagged him, just thinking whatever, and then
he liked it, and I was like, holy fuck, Like
Peter Herman just liked the post and I thanked him,
and then we went back and forth for about two

(40:13):
years and he was my penpal. Yeah, we didn't talk
a lot, but like it was nice. I tried to
get him. I feel bad I tried to get him
on the podcast because I was like, I don't know,
I've not been great at working for other people, and
I was I just left a job because I just
couldn't fit in and I just wanted something bigger because
I didn't want to go back to working. We could
never figure out. I felt bad that I drove him
a little crazy trying to negotiate. I didn't know he

(40:35):
was dying, but he really like he blew up our
page in such a good way, and he championed and
he would send my content to all kinds of people
I found out by and you know and Magdison, Yes
so and was one of my early guests. So I
got really lucky.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
She's amazing, amazing I didn't really want but I fuck
crazy resumes and just like.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
Such a yeah, such a great human down the earth,
like knowledgeable.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
I heard need how'd you get a hold of her?

Speaker 3 (41:02):
Well again, like the page is that the podcast wouldn't
exist without my page. I've gotten very lucky to have
a lot of big people following me and like posts,
and I've and once they follow you, you can communicate
and I've just I guess I don't. I try to
be like respectful, but I also like, if there's an opportunity,
I try to take it.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
You remind me of Greg Jurkington that way. Greg Jurkington
has no problem reaching out to his heroes, and like
he doesn't do it in an obnoxious way. He does
it in a way like like very smart. He's like,
who do you think is blowing up fucking Anne Magnuson
on a daily basis? Probably nobody, you know what I mean,
Like she means the world to me, but she doesn't
mean as much. I mean, like, I bet you anything,

(41:41):
it's worth a shot. They might not be busy till
me do that with so many big people, Like it's incredible.
And he got to be friends with so many of
his heroes because I probably like emailed them, you know.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
So I want to conect with Greg in a second.
But so basically what happened is, you know, I didn't
know Paul was sick, so he would he would he
would have He would send me a message apologizing for ghosts. Man.
I'm like, don't worry, I didn't know why, And it
was just nice. He would send me just like he
really liked the OCHI watching Mermaids I post a lot
about Huh.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
It was just like those ones in Florida, like the Springs.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
I'm sure you found this too. I'm sure there's some fans.
I know there's some bigger fans of yours, like what's
the guy from? And chat me? Greg's a big champion
of you, but also like Jane, what's the my morning Jacket?
Jim James James. Yeah, I don't know if you experienced this,
but there's something about when somebody who you respect a
lot the likes you're doing. It makes it feel like
it made me worked ten times harder. And also another

(42:34):
thing that I didn't know, I don't think I thought
about since I was sixteen, how much that Peelee's Big
Adventure really changed really like spoke to me as a weirdo.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
Oh god, I'd never thought about it either, But that
was another sort of avant garde thing that sort of
slipped through into the mainstream.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Yeah, and then so so anyway, so I found that
after and I kind of it's gonna sound bad, but
like you know, I hadn't I stopped hearing from Paul Obviously,
I don't know he was dying, and I said him
a nice gift, and ever heard anything back. And I
was feeling a little like, I don't know, I was
feeling a little like I was being a little bratty
and being like, oh man, why hasn't he why can't
he help me? And then like apparently and I asked

(43:11):
him if he shood the podcast, and he said he
should so he's so he on reason I got the
interview was because Paul recommended and that just changed everything.
I was like, I didn't get he was looking out
for me the way he was awesome and Greg, you know,
you know I got, I got. I just reached out
to Greg because I knew about him. I liked this stuff.

(43:31):
I mean, Greg turned me onto your work.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Yeah. Greg has been a big help to me. And
he's a guy that's also a collector.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, of.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
And I do it as much as I can.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
I mean, I don't have much power in terms of
like helping people, but I have had my people that
I try to elevate because you know, yeah, like Greg
is one of those people where he has just like
really I think, I mean, howviously flattering myself, but good taste,
you know, and he's pretty authentic outside the box taste,

(44:05):
and it's not he hates like cookie cutter comedy, you know,
and like as I do, but also cookie comedy cutter
comedies where the money is so you end up like
sort of cut out of the money if you don't
do stand up a certain way and there's so little
money anyway. But as far as like you end up
like needing hand up is a big deal to someone
who's doing something a little bit differently, because if you're

(44:27):
not selling chicken fingers in a comedy club, and that's
still a measy amount of money.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
And I know, I know lots of comedians who can
function in that and do really good stuff. I can't.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
I'm not.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
My best work is not it's like very meandering and
it doesn't quite work in that kind of a setting.
And I have, like my friend Kristen to me does
amazing work in a comedy club setting, but I just don't.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
I can't really do it.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
And so like people like Greg like just saying to
me when he first saw me do stand up that
you're great at stand up, you know, it's just like
a huge I was like, I can't even believe him,
you know, because I was like, well, I I think
it's some kind of thing. It's you know, basically, it's
like you get insecure because if you're doing something in
a way that's not the quote unquote right way, you
start to feel like it's maybe not an art form

(45:13):
or it's some kind of broken art form, but you're not.
You're you're actually well, you know anyway.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
I think you're so.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
Greg was a big help, you know, and just like
Paul Rubins, like these are people that you know probably
also see themselves in other people who are trying to
do stuff differently because it's just like Paul Rubins, what
are the chances that Paul Rubins ended up having the
career he had doing something as weird as pee Wee Herman.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
I mean, it was like it's amazing. I mean, he
you know what I love about him. It's like I
got you know, I got again. I had a bit
of a connection to Paul, and so when the doc
Mary came out, I was able to interview Matt Wolf
because Matt Wolf was a follower and also I was
a huge fan of Matt Wolf, who did who did
a doc Mary called Recorder The Marion Stoke Story, which

(45:56):
is about a woman who lived in Philadelphia, who recorded
our vhs for fucking fifteen years, and I saw you go.
I think it's a great documentary. He's a great documentarian.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
She like recorded everything on television right for like forever.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
Yeah, for like thirty years, twenty four hours a day.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
I want to know what the her aim was. That's incredible.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
I think she was just documenting. She went in to
document like reality, like and I'm a photographer, Like, I
don't do a lot of protest shit, but when I do,
it's because I want to be there documenting the reality
of it, because you know, like I I try. I mean,
I don't know. I consider herself an activist. I like
to make sure I'm Jewish, so I understand minority to
a certain extent. I liked, I've always I feel like

(46:36):
I left I felt left out a lot as a kid,
So I like to just include everybody as just who
I am as a person. And so like I'll go
out to a festival and I'll make sure i'm covering
I'm taking pictures of people that might be disabled, not
not like because I don't only if they're interesting, I'm not.
It's not exploitative and I'm taking pictures of black people,
and I'm taking pictures of all of women and all
people because and I'll go through I'll like have my

(46:59):
phone and I'll see people sets of photos and it's
all white people, and I'm like, how did you did? You?
Were you the same thing? I was that? So I
think there's something about what she I think understood is
she wanted to record the reality, the truth before it
was gone. And if you think about where we're at now,
I'm really glad that that that that exists because it's real,

(47:20):
it's the real.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Well that's like I follow this SMU, Southern Methodist University.
They've just digitized their like the local news from the seventies, sixties, seventies,
donated all their footage to their entire library to SMU,
and SMU is digitizing all those news reports.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
And I ended up.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
Talking to somebody because I posted something from one of
those things and and one of the people who works
there said, I work on that archive, And you know,
I was like, what is the point of it? Like,
is someone majoring in like ancient local news at Southern
Methodist University? And she's like no, like we but yes,
in a way, it's like a way too for people

(48:07):
who are doing history degrees or polycide degrees to look
at real time evidence of what people were thinking, because back.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
Then especially, they asked a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
On the street stuff and that was not you know,
at all controlled in the way it is now like
if you see a CNN interview with someone on the street,
they're gonna cut it. And this is all sort of
raw footage of like if you want to see what
was up in the seventies.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
So it is an actual social history.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
It's not just like for me, it's just like I
get a kick out of seeing glimpses of the middle class,
you know, But this there's a so anyway, she said, no,
there's a purpose to it. It's not just novelty to
see like people and crazy with big lapels. So I'm like, oh,
are you just doing a big someone doing a big
lapel major?

Speaker 2 (48:50):
You know. So it was like, you know, it's just.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Like very but it's those sorts of archives actually end
up being valuable, just like the same as fucking heavy
metal parking lot, Like thank you for poking a camera
in there. Do you understand what a what a piece
of history that is? And we all live through a
million scenes like that, like a heavy metal parking lot,
but no one thought.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
To record it except for Jeff, and that is unbelievable
to me.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
So it was really cool. So there's another documentary and
I really like named Ruth Lightman, who made a documentary
called No One Asked You, which is about like the
recent fight of keeping abortion legal, and it's amazing. It's
shot over for eighty years. It was with Liz. I
forgot Liz's name, but Liz is one of the founders
of Daily Show that you kind of use comedy for politics,

(49:36):
and she made a documentary called Wywood, New Jersey that
was shot in like ninety four on film.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
I've seen you promoting it and so now I've been.

Speaker 3 (49:43):
So fucking good. And it's interesting because you know, I
don't think I would have put it together before. But
it really feels again like when I watched that documentary,
it almost feels like it's a dockumentary. And it's because
it's so authentic that it almost seems unreal, like how
is this real? And so there's some documentaries that are
so well done and so real that I feel like their.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Narrative American movie.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
I haven't. I've never seen that.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
You've never seen an American movie. Gonna you love it?
It's oh, you've got to. You should bump into this
top of your list. It's one of the greatest things ever.
It's I mean, it's it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. And
the way that heavy metal parking lot is or Yea
Gardens is, it's up there for me.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
Have you have you seen? Have you do you watch
the documentary? Now? Have we talked about this?

Speaker 2 (50:27):
I've watched some of that.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
I gotta know.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
I don't like to see people parody documentaries because I
consider them sort of holy.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
Not it's so I would. I'll send you a link.
It is a link on YouTube, but I think I
might offenish you. But it's the parody they did. It's
not a parody. They did one based on Gray Gardens
called a Strange Passage or Sandy Passage.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
I'm sure it's awesome. I get hostile toward it's not.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
It's I just watch that one because that's a good example.
It's it's sometimes they do go look, sometimes I don't
they do. Sometimes I feel like they veer in to
doing things too accurately, but they're they're taking them. They
know that they know the resource material so well and
they're honoring it so it's not making fun of it.
And this one is so well done. Uh and they're

(51:13):
you and they're using I don't know anyway, I would
just watch that one, but I want to get I
want to I want to get back to you, and
kind of I think, like I'm just I just don't
like bullshit. I think, you know, being on the spectrum.
I just think I've always had I've always bored by ship.
If things weren't real and they were phony, I just
or they were not interesting. I didn't like them. And
I think I was just bored by the normal ship.

(51:33):
So I watched a lot of weird ship because I
just couldn't watch the same dumb ship. And I think, like,
you know, thinking about like your you know, it's funny.
I think I'm lucky to have interviewed a lot of
comedians that are kind of in the same world, and
I feel like there's this connection, Like you know, I'm
gonna plug your Nashville Famous Chris Chris, but it's coficially

(51:54):
called Nashville Famous.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Chris Craft and it's called Chris Craft and Nashville Famous.

Speaker 3 (51:59):
And you know, it's insue because I had already you know,
i'd already interviewed Greg, which was, you know, was one
of the highlights I was one of Like, there was
one of the biggest moments for me. There was something
personally really rewarding about getting someone like Greg, not not
getting someone getting Greg because I didn't know much about it.
To be honest, I didn't know. I didn't know very
much about him. I just kind of I just got

(52:21):
that he was someone I needed to talk to. And
then I interviewed Josh Fadom, it was also an amazing comedian,
and and then I got lucky to interview Johnny Pemberton,
and and then thinking about you guys, it's like, oh,
like now I kind of understand you're all kind of
there's a relationship you could tour together. What it makes sense.

(52:45):
You guys are doing very different things, very different ways.
But like I know, I know for I know for
I know for Josh was it was highly influenced by
by Greg. I know that Johnny fits in there somewhere.
I know you talk.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Yeah, so I don't even know, you know, I don't know,
I know Greg's been an influence on a lot of people.
So I I didn't get to know Josh and Johnny
till I moved to Los Angeles, and I'm so grateful
to them because they were a couple of the people
that I met that I connected with.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
I listened ahead, look, I listened to your episode with
Johnny for when I as research for him, and it
was one of the most effective ones because.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
It's hard back I did those so long ago.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
Well, I think there's something like around Josh, Like Josh,
Josh and Johnny are playing with the format, and you
would certain maybe a certain extent, are playing with the
form like I think they don't want to do they
don't want to do boring interviews, so they're playing with
the format. They're fucking around with it. I didn't realize
it's funny until I really learned about Johnny. I didn't
realize how much of influence that you know who most

(53:55):
cap motion cap what's his name he did Phonny phone
calls motion.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
Oh like a like an artist, like a sort of
name like Ocean, Castle, Potion Castle, Castle, Longmant.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
And I love you Know. I didn't really know much
about Greg's Phony album, but that I knew much about
and that ship is amazing. And then I kind of
was able to pick up that that Johnny had some
DNA from from him, and I just you know, like
I don't know, like I I don't consider myself like
alternative or like artsy, but I'm able to understand. I

(54:34):
just think I like when people are doing you know, uh,
being raised on the Muppets did a big thing being raised.
I got lucky that my mom got me a bunch
of books and got me like all the life in Hell,
all the mac Granning ship, which yeah they're might they're separated,
but my yeah, yeah they're alive.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Are they nearby? Do you see them?

Speaker 3 (54:55):
Mom? My dad is in Philly here and there. I
see him like maybe once a month for like six
months out of the year.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Are they excited about what you do? Supportive of it?

Speaker 1 (55:03):
Do they do they think it's Do they constantly say
like I don't know where you came from? Or do
they say like do they just you know, like there's
a certain amount for me, like where I think certainly,
Like my dad was like what are you you know
what how did this happen?

Speaker 3 (55:19):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Kind of like what are you? I don't understand?

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Like, and I kind of lost my connection to my
dad in some ways because I was something he didn't recognize.
How does that feel for you? Do you feel like
your parents like to use the current term see you
and and and and my mom definitely saw me. She
didn't have any problem with it.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
My dad did not. He had no idea what I
was doing.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
You know, I'm in this.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Not that you don't have to talk about that if
you don't want to.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
I just I always like to ask people about their
parents because for me, like like you're saying, like them
taking to you to musical theater, Like they might not
think that's a big deal, but it's huge because if
you're inclined.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
To be interested in.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
Spec or that's a bad way to put it, but
just like a you know, like those sorts of things
are formative, whether they know it or not, and it's
a great thing to put a kid in front of it.
Just every every time my parents took me to see
John Denver, which I barely remember, but I remember those
I remember those times. You know, I don't remember them
necessarily that well. I mean I took my girlfriend to

(56:20):
see John Denver when I was seventeen.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
So I remember that.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
But but but in general, like my parents exposed me
to things that electrified me in the way that I
knew something was like, oh, this is.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Where I want to be. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
I want to be in this arena. I don't want
to be on the soccer field. I want to be
here where this is. This is unpredictable and amazing. I
just felt the feelings that I which meant I was
attracted to show business basically or like just expression expression
show business is the wrong way to put it.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
I didn't know anything about show business.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
I just knew this is a place where people get
to express themselves who are weird.

Speaker 3 (56:55):
And that's what I want. Yeah, I mean I as
of like eleven twelve. I have a good voice, I've
done I performed a bunch of musicals. I wanted to
be on Broadway. I didn't have I didn't have the
talent to be on Broadway or the Drive. But I
was up. I mean, I was obsessed with musical theater.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
I still, so were your parents like?

Speaker 3 (57:14):
Fine?

Speaker 2 (57:14):
So I guess the question is like were they supportive
of that?

Speaker 3 (57:18):
So it's a hard thing that It's a hard thing
to say because I realized that my parents relationship was
based on vacations, okay, and also like going to see
shows and going make sense, only they never they didn't
really get along or even interact too much outside of
those things. I mean, they took me to Disney World
fucking four times. I told lay Miss four times more

(57:41):
than I wanted to see lay Miz to be honest, Yes, sure,
I think you know so like and I don't know
if they ever you know, my they supported my I
always did a lot of ship. I didn't take a
lot of shit seriously as a kid. I feel like
I took me a very long time to get a
work ethic. In fact, I only think I've really had
it until the last five or six years. But they did,

(58:02):
you know that they that was how they connected. So
I think, like, you know, I mean, I remember, like
with Valleyford's music fair seeing, I got to see uh,
what's her name, Winnie Houston opened up for Jeffrey Osborne.
She was not really known. I got to see Jack
Denison with my father.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
So that was awesome.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Like their their need to see shows too, whatever it was,
that relationship together, that's a good thing.

Speaker 3 (58:30):
I think something about music and art experiencing with them.
Like also, my dad, like it's funny he would sing
along and he never knew the words. So my whole
life is my dad's like rockamn doing on the dada
and he just never got and it was hilarious to me. Yeah,
my parents, Man, well, I just think it's generational guy,

(58:51):
you know. So what's the tricky is? I like they
always supported me. I didn't. I got I was I
was in Greece in musical Greece. In my high school,
I play Kinicki, which was kind of a shrik of luck.
I applied for the musical. I don't. I'm not a
I'm not a chorus guy either. I'm either I have
a leader. I don't want to do your shit. I'm
just I just don't.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
I'm competitive in a way that I'm not ihone. This
one me too.

Speaker 3 (59:13):
There's a way that I'm competitive that I'm not proud
of that. I'm like, either I'm going to be like
the first or second lead or I'm not doing it.
And when I was, I was in the chorus and
I don't know, I just like my sister was musical theater,
my sister also was like my sister. I We had
along now, but she was critical of my voice because
I just didn't I was just not confident, and so

(59:34):
I think part of me I wanted to prove to
her that I could be in them, because she was
the lead in all the musicals in my high school
and I just wanted to like be like, I'm I'm
good too. Sis Sure. But what happened was about two
weeks before the musical, the guy who played Kinicki failed
a class and he was no longer qualified to be
he was longer able to be in the musical, and
they brought me in for two weeks and I learned

(59:55):
the part and it was great, one of the best
experiences of my life. I you know, I still don't
understand like stage. I think about stage right a lot,
like I was so shy in high school. I would
I was not shy. I was in camp. I was
in bubble with the Jewish youth group. I was very
popular because I could deal do very well in a
small community. Because I also had this natural connation to
want to bring everyone together. So I think I was

(01:00:18):
a leader because I just wanted people to be well. Yeah,
I just think I can. I can do very well
in a small community, but I don't do. But in
high school I was lost and I had no right.
My whole personality changed. But something about like me to
being in the musical, like it was there was this area.
So we didn't have any punkids high school. We had

(01:00:38):
metal kids. And I was definitely a metal for me.
I was upset with Ozzy Osbourne between thirteen and fifteen,
fucking what's that first album with? Uh, mister Crowley with
the first one? Whatever? Albums upsets with and I just
like I couldn't be metal because I just didn't dress
that way. But like I had another jacket front of

(01:00:59):
the musical, so I'd go and I'd hang out in
the metal area because I had the jacket.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Well it was a smoking section, did they it was?
Was there a smoking section?

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
I mean there was, but it was like a bit
younger than.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
No, No, there there was no. I tried to be punk,
but I would have gotten my ass kicked. But I
was as punk as I could be. I used to
work at echoing the Bunnyman like I wasn't you know.
I got lucky again. My parents, you know, would also
support concerts. I remember seeing the Cure when I was
sixteen at the Man Music Center. They saw what's they
didn't take me. I went by, I got dropped off.

(01:01:30):
I don't know. My mother was so worried about everything,
but I guess if she knew I was to be
safe and I was a friend, she didn't, don't. I
don't understand it, because, like you were talking before about
like parents and stuff, my neighbor, I guess, recognized me
as a weirdo and gave me this like a treasure
trove of punk albums like the Buzzcocks, you know, huge.

(01:01:51):
I didn't understand it at all. I wasn't really in the
punk at the time. And my mother took away this
the sex Pistles album because she knew that somehow she
knew that Sid killed Nancy. Have no idea how.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
It's funny what parents knew.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Yeah, it was like my mom knew that that Steve
Martin said pussy on his stand up record.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
And I wasn't allowed to have that. And I was like,
do you know that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
I think she knew that because I think I think
Nancy was from Philly, if I'm not mistaken, I think anyway,
And so it's like it's just weird because it's like
you know, and as much as like my I didn't,
I wasn't. I don't think I was this son my
dad wanted, but he was supportive, like you know, he
was proud of me the musical. So but like when
I went to I wanted when I thought about college,

(01:02:33):
I wanted to go to art school because I didn't
really want to go for anything else. He's like, no,
because he wouldn't. He wouldn't give me money to go
to art school or theater school.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Okay, so there was a little bit of that making.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
So it's like this weird thing where you know, this
is remember that horrible thing by Robert Folkem his name was.
Some of the things I learned in kindergarten one of
the cheesiest, like chicken soup for the soul. I mean,
I want to read this for a second. It's kind
of awesome, but also like in the way that you
it's awesome when you're when you're like twenty one, but

(01:03:04):
then once you're like not a dumb like smoke, I
don't know, I know what you mean. Yeah, let me
read it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Like some popular like Jonathan Livingston, Seagull who's a big deal.

Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
I love I love Jonathan. Also, have you seen the
film version of that?

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Is that the one is Neil Diamond in that? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
Doesn't music? Yeah, okay, he just I was pretty obsessed
with Richard Boss.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
I don't think I ever saw it, and no, I
don't think I ever saw.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
Her to watch It's all like, I don't know how
they made it, because it's all it's all just birds.
It's real birds, and somehow they're like communicating and ship
not you know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
SO want you to go to the wait.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
I want to resource that because it because it explains it.
So all I really need to know I learned in
kindergarten by Robert Uncommon thoughts on common things. Most of
what I really need to know about how to live
and what to do and how to be I learned
in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the
graduate school mountain, but there is a sandpile at Sunday School.
These are the things I learned. Share everything, playfair, don't

(01:04:02):
hit people, put things back where you found them. Blah
blah blah. Maybe it's is wrong, but I relate to it.
But there's something that there was something in like I
look at this as adults like this. I don't know
if you found this in yourself or like with the
people you know. But like as a kid, you make art,
you make music. You don't think about it's fun. You
just do it. It's cool, and then like when you're older,

(01:04:24):
you start to judge it, and it's like now it's
like it's not fun anymore because now either you have
to make money at it, or you got to like
do a show, or you need to get attention. And
it changes and I think something about either maybe it's
not that or something something relate to him. It's like,
you know, when you're in kindergarten, you're just having fun
making art. I was a known artist and I wasn't

(01:04:47):
I was good at copying. I am not a good
I'm three D person, I'm not good at two D.
I was really good, but I could copy cartoons really well,
so I would win awards for like art, but like
I could not draw for shit. I still can't drop
for shoot. I went to art school when I was
older for animation and did like an animation degree and
I had to take painting and drawing and I hated it.

(01:05:08):
I know, my brain does not work like to use
to use a three dimensional object to you know, to
take take something in real world using a two dimensional
object to capture it, make a little three D. My
brain was like, why am I? Why am I not
just using three D? And so I got more I was.
I got more in the like sculpture, because I'm like

(01:05:29):
I could do that. I could. I could make something
look real from physical to a physical object. I just
couldn't work from two D to three D.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
So you did not go to art school? Did you
go to a did you go? Well?

Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
I went to a trade school, so it was it
was art, but I didn't. But this is when I
was like thirty five and lost.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
Oh oh so so okay, so what did what? What did
you go to? Where did you go to school? When
your dad was like, I don't want to pay for
you to go to art.

Speaker 3 (01:05:51):
School, I mean I think they did. They I didn't
have a choice to go to school, which I'm kind
of happy they made. They made that because I don't
know if I would have gone to school.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
So where'd you go?

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
I went to Temple Universal. I wound up being in
a fraternity and fucking around. That's why I like you know,
it's funny for me to think about like who I am,
because you know, I'm pretty out there, like I I'm
pretty straight, but I but I kind of identify as jender,
not conforming, just in terms of like you talked about,

(01:06:19):
like I don't really have guy interests. I like sensitivity,
musical theater, you know, crying, Like I think I just
was very sensitive, which is why I think I love
show tunes. So I never really related to like being
like a male in that same way I hated sports.
I sucked at sports. Wait, I didn't get to share
a story. Can I share a quick story with you?

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Yeah? Sure?

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
I think I meant to share to do and then
we didn't have time. This is the best way I
can explain my connection to sports. And my father was
a big sports guy, like too much my father my
grandfather too. Okay, I was not only the son my
dad didn't really want, not one but didn't prefer And
I was also the grandson of a granddad who, like
I was a wrong grandkid. Ye sure, because I just

(01:07:00):
like didn't care about sports. I got opportunities I was
able to hold. I have a picture of myself with
the Stanley Cup. My parents had the Only thing I
liked is we get to go to the Flyers in
the seventies, the broad Street Bullies, and watch a bunch
of guys check each other onto the fucking We sat
right behind the glass and it was all fights and
it was that was yeah, yeah. And so I worked

(01:07:21):
at this camp and again, like this is where I
say genderal conforming because I just don't I can't fit
in with straight Like, hey, let's go watch sports, and like,
I don't know, sports canna be fun for certain things,
but I don't want to sit and watch a fucking
baseball game for more than ten minutes, right, And playing
sports is so fucking boring. And I was un recently competitive,

(01:07:41):
so I wanted to hurt people, which didn't feel good. Right.
So anyway, I'm gonna a story about.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
Two ye go ahead, Yeah, it's fine. So I worked
at a.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
Camp and again, the camp is very gendered. I don't
think I was aware of this shit when I was young,
but I think I was. And I was like, so
they like not only was a gender, they made they
made you like, they made you be a captain, and
I'm like, I don't want to be a fucking sports captain.
I don't care about sports, sure, and but they made
you didn't have a choice. And the guys are like

(01:08:11):
the guys I went to camp with. Again, we're a
lot of the guys I grew up with from like
in Nastiam were just huge sports guys and they were
so into sports that they took it so seriously that
they convinced the camp to do a draft, which is
like kind of ridiculous if you're thinking about, like, these
are a bunch of kids who were like unathletic, who
like are not goods, mostly Jewish kids who were bad

(01:08:32):
at sports. Yeah, and also like I didn't like that
it meant you had to go scout games and you
have to like, you know, all the kids that were
good were get like four or five. He went around
and you had a scout and so they would, you know,
a bunch of counts would go up to, oh hey kid,
you're really good. Cool, and then other kids were just ignored.
I mean I was picked last almost everything I ever
did with sports, and it didn't feel good me too, right,

(01:08:54):
And so.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
I've gone on about sports being and then we talked
about help, but all I don't know what they're going
for and some for unless they were just for fun.
But the real organized sports, yes, the worst fucking instincts.

Speaker 3 (01:09:07):
It's interesting to me because I got really into taking
portraits of sport of athletes, and I was it was
a way to connect with sports in a way that
I never imagine anyway, So they make us do they
make us do this sports thing? And I'm also like,
this is bullshit. I don't like. I don't want to
make kids feel bad. I want so So basically, if
you won, it was the leagues, right, and the first
event was tug a war, and if you won tug

(01:09:29):
a war, you want to get seven wins and as
long as you like won at least three other games
out of like ten, you would you be the champions.
And so somewhere in my brain, the other thing was
the reward for leagues was a pizza party, but it
was like outside food pizza. It was like real pizza,
which you never got a camp. Yeah, And I think
my brain is just I think I was just always smart.

(01:09:50):
I'm connecting things that my brain is like, all right,
you tugle war is the first thing you want to
fuck with this in some way, I don't know how
yet and you want to make the kids who are
an't included included. So basically what I did was I
went up to all the My team was the largest
kids at camp. I pretty much my team was fat camp.

(01:10:10):
My team, my team was every I based it on
the heaviest kids at camp because if because that would
win Tuggle war. Oh okay, right, and and and and
I call it. I don't like telling his story because
it makes me it's like very fat phobic looking back,
But it was sure this eighty three and I called
the team the gut busters, which is not a nice

(01:10:31):
thing to call any team. It was like I knew
my kids knew they were on the fat team.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
Like there was no way around, there was no there
was no nobody was ever telling anybody it was wrong
to call anybody fat.

Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
Back then it was like there's a different time.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
Everybody was insulting everybody every which possible way.

Speaker 3 (01:10:46):
But but I think they it was obviously said, like
it was obvious what I did. And I'm just instead
of like making them feel weird, I'm just gonna call
it out. I remember like doing cheers, like who are
you gonna call gut busters?

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
Wait?

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
No food?

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
I mean and it was like, I know, there was
no there was you could call someone fat back then,
and it didn't. It didn't like I mean, it was
so normal. It wasn't like I I in some ways,
I think it's like, uh, it's not great. It's like, no,
it's not, it's not. But it was like so run
of the mill. It probably didn't feel quite as personal
because everyone was always calling everybody fat.

Speaker 3 (01:11:19):
I don't know, man, I was a very I grew
up as a very chubby kid, and I still have
issues around I was like, I was like bliemic when
I was fifteen. I like, I used to weigh one
summer I weighed one hundred and fifty six and now
I weigh like two twenty five to thirty or forty.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
Well, don't because Maddie's gift, My god.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
The only problem with Maddie's Gift is like so much
if it's about Bolimia.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
I mean, I'm okay with that too.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
It's kind of the worst part of the movie just
because it's hard to like he's I know what he's doing,
but it's like also like it ends up being pretty
much like pretty narrow, harrowing.

Speaker 3 (01:11:51):
I had years of food addiction shit. I but that's
something I'm okay with now.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
But yeah, I don't think you have to feel bad
for calling your nineteen eighty three tog a war team.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
Gut busters, is what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 3 (01:11:59):
I just don't think. I Also, I don't think people
understood like, you know, girls, you'll hear a lot about like, oh,
women's magazines make girls feel like they can't be real
because they can't measure up. What do you think? I mean,
look at some of those eighties like work on magazines.
It was the same look at like Tom Cruise in
the in eighty three, like we were given the same
version of men that was unrealistic and unattained. So you

(01:12:21):
would feel like you were, like, what's wrong with you?
You don't look at these guys? And it was very
It was I look at the same thing like I
looked at that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
As I compared myself to athletes constantly. I mean, I
was told explicitly by my adult coaches that like, I
was not gonna do well in life because I wasn't
a six foot tall muscleman, and I didn't. I took
that to heart because these were adults telling me this shit.
You know, I mean, so, yeah, men, we're all under
under all these absurd capitalistic pressures that are all mean

(01:12:52):
and horrible and meant to squash your spirit. And also,
you know, I'll just say something before I forget it.
What we're talking about. What we're talking about really is
the instinct when a certain kind of intelligence. And that's
not to say I'm like super smart. I'm super smart
in some ways, and I'm also very you know, math
and things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
I'm not, you know, I mean, there's.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
Certain emotional things I'm smart about. So I can look
at an order of society, even as a kid, and
say this is a made up order. This is just
a version of I mean, you hear about Native Americans
and you're like, as an intuitive or like that kind
of or emotional kid, you say, oh, that's a way
to live, Like why did we choose this mean, horrible

(01:13:32):
way to live where you have adults telling you you
suck at lacrosse?

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
Like why is that?

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
So? Like, I think theater and art is a way
where you get to create an alternate reality.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
Because there is no official reality. The official reality of
America in the nineteen eighties was a made up and
we continue.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
To live in a made up reality, and I think,
what for me growing up in that environment as a kid,
it wasn't good at sports, or you growing up up
not knowing your autistic or not knowing or whatever, gender
identity stuff or whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
There's no room for any of that. So you want
to create.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
Or you see art or you see pro wrestling and
you say, oh, here's a place where you can anything goes.
I just want to be where anything goes anyway. So
that's that's what I think.

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):
It's it's I think there was I think about this
a lot. I think, and I want to say for you,
I feel like comedians are very some of the most
intelligent people because they can they can see they can
see the kind of bullshit in between, they can see
what the reality of people, and they can make it funny.
And that to me is high intelligence, even if it
might not reward you in the in the workforce world.

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
But it also doesn't make you the most popular person.
It makes you the most popular person with people who
are like minded, but it does not make you popular
with the people who are actually trying to run a
society based on who's the tallest and muscliest. So you
end up like even as a kid, I did not
connect with a lot of adults because they saw me
as a threat yea, and because I was not talk

(01:15:00):
to adults if I was stop doing the things. And
that's like really hard, you know, if you have nowhere
to turn In a small town like New Canaan, Connecticut,
where I grew up, there was nowhere I could go
to say is there someone else who have a different
opinion of you know, like can I have a different outlook?
And is there anybody who supports that? And most people
would say, no, You're gonna be a stockbroker and you

(01:15:22):
just need to stop acting like this. Well you need
to calm down and stop being weird and stop caring
about fucking pro wrestling and Prince and just go to
fucking Wall Street and shut the fuck up. Yeah, and
that's what America's about, and that's what life's about. So
you're a dysfunctional person, and that's what I get the
message I got And then I meet people like Greg
Turkington and he says, you're.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
Not a dysfunctional person. I mean he wasn't the first.

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
One, but you know, I mean, those are the things
where you get validated by other people who've had that
same experience.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
Well, and I think that it Like, I don't know,
I feel like I try to be a healer. I
I would never call myself that. I try to just
you know, when I interview people, I'm honoring them. I'm trying.
It's hard. Sometimes people will be a little self deprecating.
I'm very deft deprecating, and I'll kind of challenge that
because to me, I'm choosing people that I have a
lot of admiration for and I think the best of them.

(01:16:08):
And it's a shame because you know, you think about
social media everything else. Like the fact that you know,
I like where you're at because you've stayed on this
path for fucking thirty forty years and are finally getting
some attention, and it's it's you know, I don't know,
it's like it's a it's a mixed Imagine you getting
ten times the attention and what that would might do

(01:16:29):
to you in a bad way. Yeah, it's a weird thing.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
It's also a great way of life. I mean, like,
look at the people we meet, Look at the people
we get to meet.

Speaker 1 (01:16:37):
We get to meet people who are honest, I mean
honestly weird, you know, I mean, there's being weirdest to
be honest, because you're told in a society to hide
your weirdness. Someone like Paul Rubins went all in on
his own vision.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
That is too too much in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
Yeah, but that is you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:16:56):
But that is like that is inspiring because he has
to fight the forces those coaches that saw him in
middle school and said you better start acting normal, Paul Rubens,
or you're not going to have a job, you know,
when he said no, I'm not gonna you know what
I mean, Like, those are the people that to me,
I saw that, and I saw that as a way
I wanted to live because I wanted to live a

(01:17:17):
fun and interesting life. Underneath all of anything I wanted
to I wanted to have a fun, wild life.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
And I did not want to have a boring life.

Speaker 3 (01:17:28):
I was, I was, I want to really two things.

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
I wanted your story about the Tuggle War first, maybe
did you wait?

Speaker 3 (01:17:35):
Wait? I want to do a comedian And George could
stand the thing real quick, well basically we we want.
We wound up winning, and it's like those kids never
were champions before that, especially as a team. Sure and
I think the only thing was hard was like like
we only we we want. The only reason we wanted
that we were really good at kickball because kids could
kick with a lot of power and just and just run.

(01:17:57):
These kids are so slow. Every basketball game was just
like the other team at the court with my team
running totally like winded after them, and then it just
going back and forth. My kids just stayed in in
the middle half of the going back and forth because
they couldn't catch the other team. Ever. Sure, sure, and

(01:18:18):
it was and it's you know, it was kind of
I mean, it's it's it's humor to me now. And
also like because I hated sports, like I don't know,
every kid got the same amount of time play. I
didn't care if we won because I didn't care. It
was not the goal, right, And that really that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
It's like I just don't considering what I went through
because of sports. I just I'm not like abolished sports,
but like reimagine them as as non competitive or reimagine
them as you know something. But I mean, like, yeah,
sure we end up with pro sports and they're fun,
you know to watch, but and I do enjoy, you know,

(01:18:56):
watching the Super Bowl or I really enjoyed watching that
soccer soccer last night in Mexico versus England. I mean,
I can see the value, but the amount of trauma
that goes into creating those sports is like, well, I'm
told huge amounts of kids being fucking just rejected constantly,
and it's I was rejected constantly explicitly through that thing.

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
Yeah, and it was like I learned to live with it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
And some would say it's a character builder, but then again,
you know what I mean, it's like that's the thing
is I'm not sure that's true, and that's what I
was sold even as it was happening. It was like, okay, mom,
I I went to this tryout and I didn't get it,
and all the other kids, you know, got it, and
now I'm like stuck in this league.

Speaker 2 (01:19:36):
It's for little kids.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
I was stuck in a league with kids that were
younger than me because I couldn't graduate to the next
league because I didn't make.

Speaker 2 (01:19:42):
The tryout, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
And that's like it's hard, but that's like what do
you you know? And that's not you could say that's
a character builder, but it's really not. It's just a
simple sad thing. It's a sad thing that makes kids sad.

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
And I think once I got in the theater, that
became sports for me. In fact, it's ironic is I
don't know if you ever saw Glee, but essentially Glee
told the story of kind of my high school experience
because it was cool to be in theater only because
the captain football team, who was also the president's school,
was in the musical, which then all of a sudden,
all the sports kids that bullied me for fifteen for

(01:20:18):
like eight years were now friendly with me because I
was cool with the president.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
Sure. And also, the kids who end up doing well
in sports have a equally horrible time once they hurt
their knee and then they have to be a real
estate agent and then they're miserable forever, you know, and like,
you know, and it's it's I mean, there's no there's
no you know, I'm not saying that I had a
uniquely bad and I you know, I it's survivable. I
just think sometimes, you know, I just think a lot

(01:20:44):
of the things that were considered.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
Character builders were actually just things that hurt people.

Speaker 3 (01:20:48):
That's all. Yeah, Well, I want and I want to
go back to like comedy because I was I mean again,
you know I got I got to see Jackie. I'm
pretty sure I got to see George Carlin, but I
can't prove it. Sure I got to see Bill Cosby
at a time when he was good to see. Sure,
I mean, I was upsessed with Richard Pryor. I had
all these comedy albums, even Woody al I mean, I
hate to mention these people, but.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
Like signing up Woody Allen and what Monty Python were
two things my.

Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
Parents again and sketch comedy. I got. Really, I got
lucky to be exposed at CTV when I was like fourteen,
and I you know, like and like in the Young
Ones I saw when I was thirteen. So I think
that all that shit kind of like made me push
further into being a weirdo because I related to that stuff.
I got it, and I was like and it made
me feel like like that. That's that's what I mean

(01:21:36):
by like these things are friends because they made me
feel like a normal person.

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
Well, also, Monty Python.

Speaker 1 (01:21:41):
Their whole point was to make fun of social order
and make fun of things that were serious and say
this is ridiculous, Like we you know, an office setting
is a place where you can do silly walks and
you don't have to act like the way you're supposed
to act in an office at all, you know. And
even though that wasn't like that, that's just like a
way you find out, Like I mean, their whole thing

(01:22:04):
was absurdism. It was, yeah, take this up, buttoned up
thing that people take seriously and fucking make it insane.

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
And that to me was like, you know, just so informative.

Speaker 1 (01:22:16):
I didn't think of it as informative at the time,
but the point was that this is all made up.
And that's what really we're suffering from right now is
we feel like we're stuck in this system that we're
in that's beating us all alive.

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
And it's like we are making this ship up. We
can unmake it up.

Speaker 3 (01:22:29):
And also like thinking about the Simpsons, thinking about like
you know, early some coming, like there is like there's
a lot of pop culture in there, there's a lot
of art. There's a great sketch off to send to
you CTV. I can't tell you how much I changed
my life. It's like celebrity film farm film blow up,

(01:22:50):
and it's basically you know, John candy and I think
what's the name he died a few years ago, just
kind of reviewing films and having guests on and what
is like all about art films and how they're basing
all the movies they love on being good or bad
based on how many blow ups and how many things
blow up in the movie. And they're and they're talking

(01:23:10):
and they're talking about like like you know, like fucking
foreign French film and they're talking about how one of
the films they loved blow up didn't have any blowing up,
and it's just it's like they were. It's so smart
because if you know, if you know culture and film,
like again Simpsons. I didn't get this as a kid,
but when I was older, I'm like, oh, it's rewarding
me for being nerdy and smart and knowing things.

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
Sure well in terms of in terms of like what
you're talking about. I have to ask while it's on
my mind.

Speaker 3 (01:23:38):
Yeah, Tracy Guns, Oh my god, I love trying.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
How the fuck did you end up interviewing Tracy Guns?

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
And this is just I want to plug right now, Rich,
just plug Rich Wexler's like world and enter into it.
I suggest all the people listening to my podcast, Enter
into Rich's World.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
Check out all the people who's interviewed. They're very a
very diverse roster, including Tracy Gunn, founding member of Let's Roses.

Speaker 3 (01:24:03):
I'm sorry, Yeah, go ahead, if you're cool with that,
I'd like to just focus in the podcast for a
little bit. I don't how much more time you.

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
Have, Yeah, like we should do about fifteen more minutes
or something.

Speaker 3 (01:24:10):
All right, let's get into the podcasts, because that's what
I need the most. So I got lucky in the beginning.
I don't know what it was. I just it took
me a year to early put the podcast together. I
think one of the reasons is my photography was not
getting any kind of love that my main page was
so the originally the idea of the podcast was to

(01:24:31):
promote my photography. But also what I realized is I'm
just a very curious person and I love hearing people's stories.
And in the same way I was curious about people
I took their photos of. I started to become curious
about the people I was posting about and wanting to
kind of dig in more. Yeah, And I don't know
what I didn't. I had not done it and it's weird.
Is I used to do a lot of the reason

(01:24:52):
I got an interviewing is I used to do a
lot of photography, and it's how I would get to
know people. I remember, I got really lucky to do
a photo shoot with Joe Joe Gerano or Joe Duck
Talcolm from The Dead Milkman. You know Joe.

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):
Yeah, No, I don't know. I don't I don't know them,
but I know The Dead Milkman.

Speaker 3 (01:25:10):
And the way I would do is I would just
interview them is a way to get know them because
it made me comfortable, just the way I got to
know people, and and you know, and that's really what
led me. And even on the street, I'll ask you
what questions. I'm just a very naturally curious person. And
I don't know, I feel like I'm getting better at
this I don't know if I'm good at this point,
but I'm learning more. I'm listening better. But I think

(01:25:30):
I you know, that's what got me into it, and
then like I got lucky in the beginning. My first
interview was Kevin Allison, who I had met previously, who
was in the state, which I didn't know as a team,
but I like, now, Stephen, you know Stephen Tabolowski.

Speaker 2 (01:25:43):
Nope, I know.

Speaker 3 (01:25:45):
Stephen Tabolowski was in character actor, he was ned Ryerson
and Groundhog Day. He's in everything. Anyway, that was great.
I mean I got lucky in the first ten or
twelve interviews included Stephen Tabolowski. Paul Williams was my like
ninth interview, Austin Pendlinton, who was a very well known actor,
who is who was the stuttering lawyer in my cousin Vinnie?

(01:26:10):
And then Tracy Paul I just Paul just.

Speaker 2 (01:26:13):
You know, in terms of people listening Paul Williams, I mean,
what supported Who the hell is? Who the hell is
interviewing Paul Williams?

Speaker 3 (01:26:21):
And I wouldn't. I had to track down Paul for
about three years.

Speaker 2 (01:26:26):
That's incredible. Anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:26:27):
I don't think i'd still be doing this without Paul support.
And then yeah, Tracy was its twelfth and what I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
Like Tracy ty end up being the twelfth. Yeah, that's
what I want to So.

Speaker 3 (01:26:37):
Tracy, I think it's weird, Like I don't. My podcast
is still growing. I don't have a great huge numbers.
I don't make any money at it. I can't really
monetize it. I'm hoping that changes one day, just because
I want to do more of it. Not the goal,
but it'd be nice. But Tracy was a fan of
the page, so like, you know, I got to interview
Margaret Choe because she was a fan of the page,
and also they followed me so I could I could

(01:26:57):
directly email them. I'm sure someone gave me a tip
within my first few months to join IMD pro for
sixteen a month because then you could actually interview, you
could actually reafep with publicists and their managers. Okay, I
didn't know any of that, so I just so like
he liked the page. I dug Tracy and that was
one of my favorite interviews. Like Tracy, you know, like
he's in He's in Tracy's world as Tracy's, which I

(01:27:20):
can get. But like he's telling me stories about him
being in high school and playing in bands with fucking
Slash when they were fifteen, Like what a cool fucking
story to hear. He's also like, you know, he's a
rock guy, but he is like pretty spiritual. I really
did a deep dive on La Guns and there's like
so much weird shit in there. That you wouldn't expect.
I'm always looking, I think, just because I'm bored by shit.

(01:27:43):
I'm always looking, even in something that's like La Guns
is kind of mainstream metal. But there's so many layers
to what he was doing. There's so much more to it.
He's a spiritual guy.

Speaker 2 (01:27:53):
That was just a treasure.

Speaker 3 (01:27:54):
I haven't got to.

Speaker 2 (01:27:55):
Listen to it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:55):
I haven't listened to it. I just noticed it while
I was looking at it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:58):
And also like I didn't know what the I had.
I mean, that was one of my favorite.

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):
Was just stuck out.

Speaker 3 (01:28:03):
You know, he's just great and he was you know,
he was you know, he's a rock star. I mean,
he was a huge and he talked to me, you know,
he he I thought there's some song we wrote when
he was seven. He tell me a story that he
was he was listening to Kashmir is that song from
the Death in his car and it just changed his life.
The swirling, something about the swirling of the music.

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):
Sure that makes sense. They had a song called Malaria
on their album Cocked and Loaded that was like kind
of like a Eastern influencer.

Speaker 3 (01:28:32):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and you know, I think growing
up in this in you know in the eighties and seventies,
like I went from like heavy metal to like black
like so R and B to like R E M.
Like I feel like it just had I guess I
felt like I had there's a lot of more freedom
in what you could like, and there was you could
just dig in all this, especially when you were thirteen four.

(01:28:53):
I mean, I there was three years I don't listened
to Genesis. Yeah, and I think something about the freedom
to move in and out of that ship, not judge myself,
and also liking chow tunes as well.

Speaker 2 (01:29:02):
My first kiss was that was at a Genesis Invisible
Touch concert.

Speaker 3 (01:29:08):
Oh man, well, I just from something I was going
to bring up before. One of the biggest influences in
terms of like culture. I guess what's going to see,
Like there's laser shows at this planetarium. Has you ever
seen any of those when you were a kid?

Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
Yeah, that shit trick ye laser Floyd And I mean
it was like, yeah, they used to have for people
listening lay like loud classic rock. Well it wasn't classic
rock then, it was just regular current rock.

Speaker 3 (01:29:33):
But it was like all it's like these kind of
rudimentary laser things. It was usually in a planetarium, and
that I mean I I spend five years doing visuals
for bands based on being inspired by that kind of shit. Yeah,
you know, I to do visuals for rock bands for
a bunch of years, and that, you know, I just
had a lot of fun with it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
I bet that would still do well. I mean, like
you know, but they would want they would want like lame.
They would probably make the laser show too complicated.

Speaker 3 (01:29:58):
I've actually wanted to. I wanted to try to make
this happen. One of the coolest things. You know. The
band called the Espers by a chance.

Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
I've heard of them. I've heard of it.

Speaker 3 (01:30:08):
It's freak folk that came out of Philly ten twelve years.
It's got Greg Weeks is an amazing musician. You would
dig his stuff. And then remember they did like a
whole soundtrack of something in the planetarium. It's a concert
and I didn't go to it, and I wish I
would have that ship. I wouldn't be doing anything that shit, really,
I mean, I've done a lot of events over the years,
and because like that shit really influence influenced me.

Speaker 2 (01:30:29):
I wonder if you could make money doing indie rock
laser shows like laser shins.

Speaker 1 (01:30:37):
I'm I'm also kind of thinking I think people would
get stoned and go listen to like.

Speaker 3 (01:30:42):
I think you'd have to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:43):
You'd have to.

Speaker 3 (01:30:44):
I think the way to do it the best, which
would be hard, is you know, I said sometimes I again,
I used to do visuals on an occasion, I would
do visuals with live film on a projector and it
would break during the thing, and like it was just
it was cool, but it was never like economical.

Speaker 2 (01:30:59):
Laser blazer will co.

Speaker 3 (01:31:01):
So I think that would be great, but I think
it would only work either if you had a program
that really now the visuals or you had access. I
don't know if you know about that. There's this guy
that does you know the bear Bear band. It was
like there's like animatronic bear band.

Speaker 2 (01:31:16):
Oh yeah, yeah, sure, definitely, uh, doctor.

Speaker 3 (01:31:18):
Mary about them? And I love that chick because and
he just he plays new music and it's amazing and
there's there's a value. I think we're all kind of
disillusioned with AI and shit, but I'm also seeing this
really cool. Like other thing that's happening is that people
that understand like DIY culture. I think people are sick
of the phoniness and they want shit like that. They

(01:31:40):
want to go see some shitty, some weird.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
Well, so I'm not totally kidding, like I think, I
think people would. People are turning away from the you
know ai, I mean they want analog. I mean people
are There's obviously a movement, and there will be more
and more movement if there's still a world left after
we get done with all this automated junk, you know,
to our toward letting this go and wanting human.

Speaker 3 (01:32:03):
But I'm seeing real stuff, seeing it happened. I collecked. Finally,
I shoot Polaroid. Those two things have been the best
sellers in the last five years of anything. Oh wow, Okay, yeah,
So I think there's just like this, I think, and
I think our generation is what's gonna lead it because
we understand one thing I've been trying to do. I've
been trying to go on tour for a long time.
I don't I just don't have the money.

Speaker 2 (01:32:22):
I was going to ask you that, and I forgot
to ask.

Speaker 3 (01:32:23):
Well, and this ties my photography. One of the best things.
So one of the biggest influences of my life was
I used to strift. I still love drifting. It's been
a lifelong passion. And I got lucky. I found it.
It was a view Master disc, but it was like,

(01:32:44):
not a professional one, and my friend bought it. I
didn't know what it was. And I bought the other
one and I looked at it and it was picture.
It was personal photos of people from the sixties in
three D, and all I can tell you when I
put it on, it blew my brain. And people talk about, like, oh,
the first time I heard fucking you know this band
it boom, It blew a pole in my brain. And

(01:33:07):
I and I started collecting them over about ten years,
and I finally figured out how to make my own
and so I did a show of those of my
own personal photos in three D. I have a projector
that's made in the fifties, in the fifties that projects on.
So they basically made this personal Viewmaster. I don't know,
I don't here. Let me choke you. Yeah, sure, anyway,

(01:33:39):
so this is this is actually what coming back in
the photography. So it's a three D camera shoots to
two lenses stereoscope, sure, and then it shoots on slide
film and then you get these little like see how
that's coming out. It's the worst thing in the world
to edit because you have to, like it's paining ass,
But like it was so cool And to this day,

(01:33:59):
nothing else captures anything as real as that. I've been
thinking about doing something for people's pets while they're alive,
because nothing else makes something look as three dimensional as
this system.

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:34:13):
And so that was, like, you know, that really led
me back in photography. Eventually. I was, you know, I
like film shit, So I was like doing polaroid. It
was costing me so much money to shoot on film
and on this thing because this is like really expensive
to do that. I just I landed on digital because
I just couldn't afford I mean, I have a collection
of about five thousand polaroids I've shot over the last

(01:34:36):
fifteen twenty years and it's you know, and if you
look at that, do the math on that, that's about
forty five one hundred dollars. Well, every picture costs you
two bucks and you lose a bunch a lot of money.
But you know, but again, like going back to what
we're talking about, I grew up with phonol albums. My
you know, my mother always gave me a camera. Like

(01:34:59):
if I really look at my mother, she was the
reason I'm a photographer because she always whatever it was,
and I think something for me, I think, I don't
know if it was it was about autism. Something about
being able to make the world smaller in a little
screen made me feel safe. I I've gone to New
York for fifteen years, and I over the last five
or six years I've tried it or eight years, I've

(01:35:19):
tried to be like, I want to make sure sometime
close New York. I want to like do more work
in New York because I'm so close, and it's also
where all my most of my photographers are all women
who came up in the like sixties and seventies in
New York. And I went and some men and I
wanted to. I mean, I want to. Whenever I'm there,
I feel like I'm like in the I'm kind of
in the path of my like four parents, four fathers,
four mothers, if you know, sure, sure, And for years

(01:35:43):
i'd go into it. I would be so overwhelmed I
get there, I'd be freaking out. I'm pretty dyslexic as well,
and so like I always get lost in trains and
I was just wrong by amount of people. But with
my camera over the years, it makes me I love
going to New York now because I can just talk
to people. I can just hey, can I take a
photo of you? I can just turn them. That's a
world away. If if it's overwhelming, then me I could

(01:36:05):
make a frame. And so without that three D shit,
none of that would happen. That's what got me back
into it and photography. It's weird because again, like it's
you know right now, I'm looking at a lot of things,
Like you know, we're talking about work. I just left
a job. I can't talk about it legally. Sure, it
was a horrible experience because I was a special a teacher.

(01:36:25):
I was you know, not only am I having a
I still whole trauma from teachers. I mean I had
a ton of trauma from teachers growing up because I
was weird. I couldn't focus. I just didn't do you know.
A Math was like math still makes me have panic attacks. Sure,
and there's so much trying. You know, it's like when
you're in that world and you're seeing kids who are

(01:36:46):
also like being affected by the system, Like you know,
the way we worked is we'd be in a room
with four other teachers, and seventy five percent that classroom
was a classroom, so like I'm supposed to teach while
other people are like in there and I don't have
an office because it's a classroom. And it made me
insane because I couldn't do anything because how to fuck
can anybody operate? And the thing I would have communicated

(01:37:09):
is them, It's like, if I can't operate, these kids
can because they were I knew those kids. I was
one of sure, and yet they didn't. They they you know,
they just wanted to They wanted to make money. They
pushed more kids, and eventually it broke me. I don't
want to get into how I left, but it was
like it was really bad. And now I'm kind of
at a place where I think you're you're at and
you've been and I and I have a lot of
respect for what you're doing, where I'm like, I can't.

(01:37:31):
You know, you hear a lot of actors talk about
or music where they're like I just couldn't do anything else,
Like I tried everything and I failed. And you know
the thing about you know, the job I had before
that was equally shitty. And I remember, you know, when
I interviewed Paul Williams, one of the best days of
my life, because you know, he wrote the mupp movie.
I saw that that changed my brains. It got so

(01:37:53):
in the theater as a kid. And I remember going
to my work and then being put down.

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):
Wait, he wrote the Muppet movie.

Speaker 3 (01:37:59):
He wrote the music form up and movie, and so like,
I had the best day of my life. And then
I got to my job and I'm like, and I'm
sure like an idiot because like, I don't fit in.
I'm weird. I have very different ideas about how education
should be and how it shouldn't be. I don't fit in.
I'm I'm definitely like a black sheep of the school,
and and and and that happened for years, and then

(01:38:21):
even this last time, my work was so effected, it
was so negatively affecting my self esteem that I just
couldn't like. I made a promise with myself then that
if it ever got that bad again, I would fucking
walk out. Nothing is worth and and you know it's
it's but it's it's a touch swing too, because I
had money coming in and I had time, but I'm
at a point now where I'm like, I'm not going

(01:38:43):
back because I've never had that kind of success. Now.
I don't make money doing the podcast and page, but
I've never had success no one ever. You know, I've
never met pee wee Hermann at my fucking job and
told me he liked me, right, And so this is
go ahead ahead and some things where I've landed. Now,
I'm like, here's something I'm good at and I've gotten
really far, Like I don't know, I mean that, okay,

(01:39:04):
I measure success in in who I've gotten to meet.

Speaker 2 (01:39:07):
Talking this ties into John early Man.

Speaker 1 (01:39:09):
This time, this, this, this ties into in a really
good way, and a good way to sort of start
wrapping it up is that we should just do this
again too, because I didn't even get so many things.

Speaker 3 (01:39:21):
It's honestly just good talking to. I just feel like
you're someone I would just enjoy talking to.

Speaker 1 (01:39:25):
I could tell we yeah, we're friends. I mean, this
is also a modern way. If there is an upside
to zoom, it is a way to hang out with
someone that you never otherwise. I mean, by the time
I got up to Philadelphia, you know, it might be
two years from now, so we're hanging out, you know,
and and it's fun to listen to people meeting each other.
And that's what I enjoy a lot on podcasts where
you meet, we see two people who.

Speaker 2 (01:39:46):
Click and and and and get along. And I think
that's really a neat thing to document.

Speaker 3 (01:39:51):
And I think when we're yeah, and I think they're
they're like, this is my comfort zone. Like, you know,
I can be real, I can bring to it. There's
when I'm not shooting. I'm a very outgoing person. Something switches, right,
I'm sure maybe when you're doing comedy, Like it's almost
like you're watching yourself and you become somebody else, and all.

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
The same consciousness that accumulated from your years of being
feeling self conscious ends up being a gift in certain
certain art forms.

Speaker 3 (01:40:18):
And so it's and it's like at a certain point,
I'm fifty five, I'm gonna turn fifty six in about
a month, and I'm like, how many how many more
years am I gonna give ninety percent of my work
to make somebody else more money and be braided while
I do it?

Speaker 2 (01:40:30):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (01:40:32):
Yeah, Like, and I don't know if I had survived
like this. Last the last thing I'll say is this
last job. I had ten days where I was where
I was, so I was being harassed by someone at
work and I was in a I had what was
considered kind of tonic anxiety where I had an anxiety
attack for ten days straight. I could knock it out
of it, sure, and I and I and I decided

(01:40:53):
at that point I am not going back to that. Yeah,
that sounds horrible anyway, but go on, sorry, man, Well, just.

Speaker 2 (01:40:59):
Gonna say this.

Speaker 1 (01:41:00):
This is there was a weird moment, or it wasn't
a weird moment. It was just a moment when I
was watching Maddie's Secret, this John Really movie. And I
don't know much about ghen really, uh John Really, you know,
is like he was around when I was in LA
he was doing better than me.

Speaker 2 (01:41:20):
That made me mad, you know, like mad, just like
I get mad at people.

Speaker 1 (01:41:24):
Just so I hear about him too much, I get mad.
So I'm like, I don't think I like Gohener really,
you know, just in the back of my head. I'm
not actually thinking that really actively, But in general, I
feel triggered by John Early and Gate Berlant because they
were around I was around them, and Kate was quite
nice actually I didn't know her well, but like one
time at a Greg Turkington show, at a Neil Hamburger show,

(01:41:45):
we stood next to each other. I think she did
an opening set and so she was actually quite nice
to me, and like we didn't know each other, but
we ended up like I don't know, I wasn't on
this on the show that night, but whatever it was.
But I still will build up resentments, like, you know,
like I'm tired of hearing about John really and Cap
per Lant, right, like, oh, those jerks, you know, those
popular kids or whatever, like the little things that the

(01:42:06):
things that you think, you know because of just whatever
human nature, how you grew up, whatever it is. But
I'm also like, I'm aware enough now to know that
those voices are suspect and I should just sort of
let them go, you know, or like you know, but
but I'm like some of my roommates like, you want
to go see this John Early movie, And I'm like,
oh god, I'm I'm probably gonna hate it based on

(01:42:27):
nothing really, you know, but instead and this is a
good thing. So I go because I because I'm old
enough now that I say, no, I'm not gonna let
my imaginary resentments of John Early when I know nothing about,
you know, except that everybody likes him, which makes me
mad or whatever. So I'm like, I'm gonna go and
I'm gonna keep an open mind. And then it turned
out John Early was introducing the film. It was here

(01:42:48):
in town at the belt Nice and he seemed.

Speaker 2 (01:42:52):
Fucking lovely, and he introduced the film. He told a
little bit about the film. The film is.

Speaker 1 (01:42:58):
It's put out by Magnolia Pictures, but I think they
sold it out of the Toronto Film Festival. He made
that movie basically, they all kind of I don't know
if it was self funded, but they basically made their
own movie, you know what I mean. They shot it
mostly at John's house or Kate Barlance has shot.

Speaker 2 (01:43:15):
Yes, So it's like, what, I didn't know that and that.
So then I'm getting inspired.

Speaker 1 (01:43:19):
Then I'm thinking differently about lots of things all at once,
because then I'm feeling all these feelings like oh wow,
I like the sound of that, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:43:26):
Then I see the movie and it's good.

Speaker 1 (01:43:29):
And it was well, the first half hour is great,
and then it gets into the Bolima stuff and it
just gets sort of like it just kind of Lingers
in the Bolimia rehab for a long time, which probably
was like true to the Kate's Secret Thing, which I
had never seen that movie. But in general, I'll put
it this way, it was a piece of art and
it was entertaining, and the first half hour was absolutely hilarious,

(01:43:51):
and in general I enjoyed the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:43:54):
And I was like, all I thought was, what the
fuck am I doing? Do I sit around worrying so much?
Now this is I wasn't trying to be too hard
on myself either.

Speaker 1 (01:44:03):
I was just like, I need to do more stand
up gigs. I need to film them, I need to
put the stupid words on them on Instagram. Even though
Instagram has been totally fucked with and now it doesn't
reach anybody. It doesn't matter even as an exercise to.

Speaker 2 (01:44:19):
Get my stand up out. What am I doing with it?
I have all these thoughts.

Speaker 1 (01:44:24):
Instead of yelling at my mom about how fireworks are
capitalism's orgasms or whatever, I could be get me talking
to the masses about fireworks being capitalism's orgasms, which I
do through my advice column and stuff. But it was
just like John Early, I have resentments against this guy
because he's like fucking doing stuff that that I could

(01:44:47):
do too, and and not that you know, if John
really happens to be risking. They're not real resentments, but
those resentments to keep you from being like it's like,
I don't care what whatever it is you have to do.

Speaker 2 (01:44:58):
You have to do the steps, you you have to
get up, you have to do, you have to do
your best. And I suffer from depression so it's difficult,
but you know, You've just to do this stuff. I
want to make a movie, you know. I mean, I'm
not gonna make a movie. That's probably not what I'm
gonna do.

Speaker 3 (01:45:11):
But I was inspired by the whole you find yourself
being more generous people when you're doing your own shit.
I think there's something about, at least for me, is
if I'm doing my own shit, I'm not resentful of people.

Speaker 1 (01:45:23):
No, and I just build up like like really, uh,
just stuff from high school. Wanted to be a popular
kid in a.

Speaker 3 (01:45:31):
Town that was like trauma. It's like trauma, it's trump.

Speaker 1 (01:45:34):
So I'm like, I've luckily gone to tons of therapy
over the years and yeah, uh, and it really has
helped me to understand like when I hear those voices
saying John really is a jerk or whatever. It's like, no,
you're just like that's yourself, like from sixth grade, just
being mad that you feel lonely, so so like that.

Speaker 2 (01:45:50):
Stuff, being able to self soothe, enjoy a movie. See
it as like slightly.

Speaker 1 (01:45:55):
Flawed, but who cares. This guy made something. It's like
a piece of art. It's like all artists flawed. But
it's like it was like this guy did something to me.

Speaker 2 (01:46:04):
It was inspiring. It made me think about I want
to do more in the.

Speaker 1 (01:46:09):
Area that I'm good at and less less, you know,
less like I worked for Amazon all last year.

Speaker 2 (01:46:14):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:46:15):
Like that is that's what I mean. If you ever
want to make a movie. I'm looking to get into directing,
into shooting. I have a good eye. Now that's where
I want to go now. Anyway, I just want to say, yeah,
go ahead, Yeah. I just want to relate to what
you said because I had the same feelings on Tim
and Eric for about a decade because when they were
in Philly, I I used to I booked Eric's band

(01:46:37):
for a festival and I used to be there. I
used to rent my projector out so I would be
at their events. They were they were not known at all,
and I and I like, I feel like I don't.
I didn't like them. I avoided them because I felt
like I could have been in their world and I didn't.
I didn't take a foot in. And I love them.
There's nobody who's doing ship that's closer to my aesthetic
than Tim and Eric and I event to let go

(01:47:00):
of it and got over it. Yeah, but it's and
it's funny, like when I think about this, I trust
my gut a lot. And for as many times as
I've had the same thing you are where I'm judging
people and this and that, there is some time that
it was still accurate where where I didn't like someone
for a reason and they were kind of shitty people.

Speaker 2 (01:47:17):
Oh well sure, I mean like, uh.

Speaker 3 (01:47:19):
But it's better to nugget sucking that.

Speaker 2 (01:47:21):
I just think I can tell the difference, you know,
I can tell the difference. I can tell the difference,
especially because usually.

Speaker 1 (01:47:27):
It's somebody I don't know, you know, And it's like
if well, when when it's unhealthy, it's someone I have
no you know, I haven't even heard anything negative about them,
and I'm just mad because they're doing something that I
wish I was doing.

Speaker 2 (01:47:38):
That's as simple as that. Yeah, I mean and I
and I can then I can self soothed by saying, yeah,
but you do this and you do that. You know,
like that's just the simplest way to do it. Well,
that's you know, you don't make movies because you don't
make movies, but you do other stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:47:51):
But I can also use that resentment to understand that
I'm like not doing enough that makes me happy, Like
I'm not doing enough of my own work, which is
why I thought of it, because you said.

Speaker 2 (01:48:02):
I want to be doing more of what I do best.

Speaker 3 (01:48:05):
Do you feel like you are kind of doing this
as a way to get back at people who didn't
who like I think, I am doing this a little
bit where there's people that are like the people that
don't talk to me ever, people that have dropped me
part of me just once feels like I'm at the
end of day, I'm just wondering. I'm doing this so
I can that they can learn that they've that they
don't know me. Now they're left out whatever engine.

Speaker 2 (01:48:26):
If that's one of the engines, it's not, I think
that's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:48:30):
Yeah, I find it to like, I just think, you know,
being on this back, you know, I've just been over it.
I've been I've been judged, I've been I've been dumbed down,
I've been reestimated, and so I like, you know, there
also being honest.

Speaker 2 (01:48:43):
You're being honest right now, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:48:45):
Like everybody's motivated by these things. Everybody's motivated motivated by
a bunch of different things. But we are hyper hyper
analytical and the emotional arena, so we're thinking about these
things in a deep way, which is actually helpful because
someone listening right now to this podcast is going to say, hell, yeah,
one of my engines is trying to prove to people
who don't like me that I'm still fucking surviving.

Speaker 3 (01:49:05):
It's still me wanting to get those people back in
my life, even though they're so it's it's weird, it's
I won't say one more thing than I really will go.
Is Alexander talking about understanding George's character and understanding Larry
David and having these two things which I think I
have maybe you have, where there's a part of me
that's like super ego and knows I can do really

(01:49:26):
good at things, but there's another part of me that's
entirely self deprecating and and and and has no confidence.
And like Larry and George are those characters are just
that's those things going to bat all the time?

Speaker 2 (01:49:40):
Well is that on your is that on is that
is that him? Is that interview on your channel? Anywhere?

Speaker 3 (01:49:46):
I can look it up? I just randomly, I can
link it.

Speaker 2 (01:49:48):
I'll link it to the just send it to me
this podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:49:51):
You am I understanding George by understanding Larry being this
person who like has you know, in some ways there's
a lot of ego but also has a lot of insecure.
That's That's how I That's my whole life, and I
think I would.

Speaker 2 (01:50:03):
Say that's almost every artist you know.

Speaker 1 (01:50:05):
I mean, it's the insecurity that makes the the the
informs that fills out the colors inside. The outline is
the insecurities and the and the obsessions and the things
that that that that that you have clung to by trying.
You know, I don't know, that's that's too big of
a concept for me even to say. But basically, you
have the com you have the insecurity, but you also

(01:50:27):
have like these sort of obsessions that have kept you going,
and then you eventually want to tell people about them,
whether it's through writing songs or whether it's through showing
them the things. It's like you want to show them
your way through. That's what I think is, you know
what I.

Speaker 3 (01:50:42):
Mean, it's kind of dangerous because you never really get
you never really get you know, you never you don't
win that way, like like you know, and part of
me things like that, if I wasn't so se apricat,
I didn't hate myself so much deep down in certain ways,
I wouldn't be doing as much. Well I am, I
relate very much, but it's tricky, it's and it's like
and then you know, it's like if you don't get,

(01:51:03):
if you don't get off that cycle, you're not going
to be any better at the end of it.

Speaker 1 (01:51:07):
Well, no, but doing this stuff. That's why I think
podcasting at its best. I'm I'm happy to be podcasting.
I don't think this is I think this is like
a legit art form and I and I think that
what we're talking about right now is like where else.

Speaker 2 (01:51:21):
Would this be happening. I mean, it's not like we'd
be on sixty minutes talking about this shit.

Speaker 1 (01:51:25):
Because we're not famous enough, but we have some interesting
shit to offer, you know what I mean, And that's
awesome and you have your offering.

Speaker 2 (01:51:31):
It and and and uh, you know, we're just uh
we think I was.

Speaker 1 (01:51:37):
I grew up to think like, you know, in some ways,
if you weren't famous, then you know what, you know,
what are you even doing or something?

Speaker 2 (01:51:43):
And that's completely wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:51:45):
And we're learning that as we go in this weird
system where there's now five people that that somehow take
up all the space that everyone has, you know, like we.

Speaker 2 (01:51:53):
Get five celebrities that are supposed to be anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:51:56):
It's just like we want this. We want communities full
of people who are telling about their experience. And that's
I think is happening.

Speaker 3 (01:52:03):
And I think, like that's why I landed on you.
I wanted to help. I admire underdogs. I admire people
that see the world differently yet keep pushing through and
doing their stuff. And I wouldn't like I'm not mentioning
any you know, I don't think i've I've ever never
done an interview that I didn't choose to do, and
I like it's all, you know, it's like I got

(01:52:24):
you know, I got to interview Will Uh We'll buy
the Principility. I mean that was amazing. And he's another
person who's just like very pure, very interesting, like you know,
not exactly not exactly mainstream, and I just I liked,
you know, I like to tell people stories that haven't
been told, especially if they're a little weird.

Speaker 1 (01:52:41):
Yeah, before we go, I just wanted to mention I've
been having this on the You've probably seen it, but
Bever Trilogy.

Speaker 3 (01:52:46):
Fo yeah, I mean, I know. The last thing I'll
say is I got to interview Christmakover for about five hours, okay,
and I got to interview Trent Harris, who made Bever Trilogy.

Speaker 1 (01:52:57):
Oh my god, for is fucking yeah, where he's the directors,
the focus of it. Basically that's just the most incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:53:07):
Mean, check out my interview with Trent Harrits because oh my.

Speaker 2 (01:53:09):
Gosh, that Trent Harris is the guy who made me.

Speaker 3 (01:53:11):
That is you would love him. I think he enjoyed
talking if you were an interview. He is another of
these people like Jeff Koulik, who's just make he's just
making these things. He got lucky, but he's like failing
ninety percent of the time, and he still goes he
he got lucky with Spiritual Dy to a certain extent.

Speaker 1 (01:53:27):
I like misadventures as much as I like seeing Uh god,
you know, I don't think I've ever watched her.

Speaker 3 (01:53:36):
No, No, I know what it is. I know what
it is, big film, and he made it.

Speaker 2 (01:53:40):
Okay, I remember him in a documentary.

Speaker 3 (01:53:42):
Yes, you know, I think you know. But again, these
are like hearing stories from people like this blow my
mind because I'm just in awe.

Speaker 2 (01:53:49):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:53:49):
I love the stories of the of hearing the behind
the scenes of directors making movies and having the misadventures
involved in making a movie, which is such a huge undertaking,
especially if you're a sort of a person like us
who's not like a megalomaniac and used to painting with
broad strokes. And another just mentioned another movie. If anyone
wants to watch.

Speaker 2 (01:54:08):
Beaver Trilogy four, it's just a document about the director.

Speaker 1 (01:54:12):
It's not the best documentary I've ever seen in my life,
because I whatever, but it's it's beautiful and it works.

Speaker 2 (01:54:18):
It doesn't matter whether it's the best documentary ever. The
story is what's important. Bever Trilogy four, Go find good.

Speaker 3 (01:54:26):
Tren Harrits is a great website to you can buy it.

Speaker 1 (01:54:28):
He was so cool in that movie, just seeing his
process and like his he's open about his insecurities.

Speaker 3 (01:54:33):
It's so great her to be intense if you don't
know him in the same way I can be intense
of you don't know me. But like it was one
of my he went to with Larry Charles, who did
who did? Seinfeld? He's just this kind of like gruff guy,
but when you get to know him, he's super sweet
and super chill.

Speaker 2 (01:54:48):
Have you seen one last thing? This is why we
could go on forever, because I he's seen the movie
about the making of Island of Doctor Moreau.

Speaker 1 (01:54:59):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:55:00):
I think it's called Lost Souls about the director.

Speaker 1 (01:55:03):
About the director, it's about the director basically and his
experience trying to make He made a small indie movie
and then he became They put him in charge of this,
you know, ginormous fucking blockbuster.

Speaker 2 (01:55:16):
And he and he just did. He was totally overwhelmed
and he had a nervous breakdown.

Speaker 1 (01:55:21):
And and and val Kilmer was the main reason for
his nervous breakdown because val Kilmer bullied him so relentlessly
on his own set that he eventually had to be
taken off the film, but he didn't leave the island.

Speaker 2 (01:55:32):
He ended up he pretended to fly away, and then
he lived near the set. It's fucking incredible movie. It's
ah god.

Speaker 1 (01:55:39):
I think it's called Lost Souls the Making of the
Making of the Island of Doctor Moreau. Again not well,
it's not a perfect documentary, but the story it's just
sort of like heavy metal parking Lot. Like, thank god
someone told that story, you know, because it's just such
a great story.

Speaker 3 (01:55:56):
I'm dyslexic, I'm not a good reader. I'm a visual person,
and like, I don't think i'd be doing anything either
if I didn't really get into documentaries when I was
like twenty three. Some of my favorite films of all
time are documentaries.

Speaker 1 (01:56:08):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:56:08):
I saw an American Family by Mistake on PBS.

Speaker 3 (01:56:11):
Oh right, it was.

Speaker 2 (01:56:12):
They showed a rerun to that, like at some.

Speaker 1 (01:56:13):
Point in the next another interview that knocked me out,
Like just seeing that I'd never seen anything like that. Well,
thank you, And I want everybody to if they would
just check out Rich's body of work. I mean, he's
got photographs, he's got podcasts, he's got this awesome Instagram account,
just turning you on to other obscure, beautiful artists and photographers.

Speaker 3 (01:56:36):
One thing I want to push is on the website.
For about five years, I did these deep dives. There's
a thirty of them about people like this. There's one
on I think there might be one on Beaver Trilogy.
They're like, there's one on like the sex musicals in
New York City in the eighties, these porn musicals. One
on TV. Herman went on Paul Williams, I mean, I'm
a teacher, and this is what I want. I wanted
to make this more educational, because that's really I look

(01:56:59):
at this stuff in terms of what the work I'm doing.
I feel like part of me just wants to be
a cool older brother and turn people onto certain things. Hey,
check this thing out totally. Another part of me is
like and to me it's also teaching. It's like, oh,
you should, you would like this. I've actually been thinking
about doing a job called movie therapist, where I like
talk to someone about their problems and I recommend movies

(01:57:20):
that they watch where they can.

Speaker 2 (01:57:22):
That's a very good idea.

Speaker 3 (01:57:25):
One of my many ten jobs.

Speaker 2 (01:57:27):
Yeah, I have a lot of ideas too. Like they're
all good. Thanks for doing this, man, well, thanks for
coming on.

Speaker 1 (01:57:32):
And this has been cold Brew Conversations number ten or
something like that with a Rich Wexler from Vintage Annal's
archive and many other Vintage animals as well, So thanks
so much, Rich.

Speaker 3 (01:58:07):
Leven.

Speaker 2 (01:58:08):
After midnight bade him to the dawn.

Speaker 3 (01:58:14):
The man tell them allan that I'm gone.

Speaker 2 (01:58:18):
I'm gone.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Betrayal Weekly

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Cold Brew Conversations X: Rich Wexler

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Betrayal Weekly

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

Cold Brew Conversations X: Rich Wexler

Betrayal Weekly