Latest / The Joe Rogan Experience / #2508 - Joe Eszterhas

Transcript

#2508 - Joe Eszterhas · The Joe Rogan Experience

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Past.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Check it out the Joe Experience showIn by Day.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Joe Rogan Podcast, by Night, all day.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's rock.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: You need the headphones never no.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, if it's okay, If it's okay with you, and
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: I know I've seen it both ways and you don't
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: have to wear them, okay.
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  Speaker 1: You you were telling me about your cane. That cane
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  Speaker 1: is amazing.
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  Speaker 2: It's it's amazing. It's it's carved by the Dogon people
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  Speaker 2: who were in in Mali and the the Uh. It's
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  Speaker 2: a family that has been doing it for a hundred
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  Speaker 2: years and many of them were killed in the Rwandan Wars.
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  Speaker 2: It is, it's heavy. It's beautifully done, I think, and
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  Speaker 2: it's been a close companion of mine for many years.
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  Speaker 2: It seems to be indestructible.
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  Speaker 1: It's pretty awesome looking. It looks heavy. The Dogon people
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  Speaker 1: have a very strange origin story. It's a fascinating origin
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  Speaker 1: story that involves is it a the it evolves like
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: here it is. That's I don't what. I didn't want
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  Speaker 1: to misspeak. So here it is. The centers on the
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  Speaker 1: Supreme Creator Ama and the cosmic journey of the amphibious
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  Speaker 1: water spirits known as the Noma, so they have this
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  Speaker 1: crazy cosmic origin story that's a part of their mythology.
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  Speaker 1: Alma then attempted to procreate with the Earth, but the
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  Speaker 1: pairing was flawed. It's like a very strange descendant of
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  Speaker 1: the Arc. According to the Dogon traditions, the Noma descended
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  Speaker 1: to Earth from the Serious star system and a giant
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  Speaker 1: Arc like vessel. The vessel contained the eight original human ancestors,
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  Speaker 1: along with the seeds and animals needed to populate the world.
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  Speaker 1: Those are the.
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  Speaker 2: Dose amazing, amazing and crazy story. I have a daughter
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  Speaker 2: who is the nature of aographer. I mean, there's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of work in Africa and she knows all about
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: that stuff.
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  Speaker 1: So you were telling me before we got roll, and
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  Speaker 1: I said, save this for the air, that Vladimir Zelinsky
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  Speaker 1: and his wife have seen Basic Instinct how many times?
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  Speaker 2: Fifteen at least fifteen. There's a recent biography that had
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  Speaker 2: said that that began when they were recording, and that
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: they had known each other before, and one day she
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  Speaker 2: saw him with his tape in his hand. He said,
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  Speaker 2: what is in? He said, Basic Instinct? And they then
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  Speaker 2: they saw it together and it has such an effect
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: on them that they that they played it together many times,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: at least fifteen times during on their anniversaries. Now I'm
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  Speaker 2: not sure what that said. And then you know, and
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  Speaker 2: I know that some people think the movies had a
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  Speaker 2: kind of amatory effect on them. But the other thing
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  Speaker 2: that's interesting to me is that if you see it
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  Speaker 2: fifteen times, is there really fucking up to the point
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: where you go to war with but with Putin? I mean,
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  Speaker 2: is that the real key to why it happened?
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  Speaker 1: Well, in his defense, Putin attacked first.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I like Zelansky very much as a figure,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm I'm very sympathetic to the Ukrainians because I'm
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  Speaker 2: I've got a Hungarian background, and in nineteen fifty six
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  Speaker 2: the Russians devastated Hungary and a similar freedom fight. So
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  Speaker 2: maybe maybe it gave him the balls and the wisdom
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  Speaker 2: to go after Putin.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe just a warning, Yeah, who knows, might have nothing
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  Speaker 1: to do with the war?
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  Speaker 2: Might not?
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  Speaker 1: You made some crazy fucking movies, man, it really did.
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  Speaker 2: It will be bere eighteen of them that have been made,
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  Speaker 2: and there have been like thirty four scripts that hadn't
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  Speaker 2: They've been sixteen that haven't been made. And I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I kid around and I say there's a
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  Speaker 2: twisted little man inside and that he who lives in
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  Speaker 2: some spot that I'm not sure what exactly is, but
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  Speaker 2: he's twenty nine, born twenty nine, he will died twenty nine.
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  Speaker 2: And with anything that has a relatively strong sexual content,
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  Speaker 2: he wrote, the fucking thing. I'm just an old guy
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  Speaker 2: giving him the space, you know. So when the when
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  Speaker 2: the recent deal was made for a record amount of
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  Speaker 2: money for Basic Instincts three, because there was a sequel
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  Speaker 2: to it that was that was a dot piece of
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  Speaker 2: shit and I had nothing to do with it. But
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  Speaker 2: this would be three, and my title for it is
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  Speaker 2: his basic instin Jezebel, the twisted little man can put
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  Speaker 2: together the story that I that I think people will
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  Speaker 2: have fun with. But it's but it's it's continues in
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  Speaker 2: that same vein, and it seems to be his specialty,
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  Speaker 2: you know. So let's see what happens.
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  Speaker 1: I like how you refer to yourself as like another person. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: there is.
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  Speaker 2: You know, there's a thing with with little kids where
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  Speaker 2: they haven't have a companion, an invisible companion, right, Twist
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  Speaker 2: a little man is my main one. I have others
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  Speaker 2: smart Dwaine as one. An interesting Jesus of Nazareth is another,
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  Speaker 2: you know, and then these these people are very very
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  Speaker 2: close to me. Tis the little man. There is a
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  Speaker 2: darker presence than the others are. The though Twain is
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  Speaker 2: a cross between the two of them, and I absolutely
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  Speaker 2: love him.
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  Speaker 1: So when you were writing things like basic instinct, do
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  Speaker 1: you do you really feel like you were channeling like
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  Speaker 1: another person? Is that what it felt like?
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  Speaker 2: It felt? Well, let me the backdrop, the the I
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  Speaker 2: wrote it in thirteen days, the and and then and
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  Speaker 2: then I felt like you like they just poured out
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  Speaker 2: of me. And there is a background to it. And
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: that is that the cats and Tramail character, and then
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  Speaker 2: the nick current character. Many many years before, in college,
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  Speaker 2: I had an affair with a I was an eighteen
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  Speaker 2: year old kid, and I had an affair with a
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  Speaker 2: faculty member's wife, a serious affair, and the the wey.
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  Speaker 2: She was sophisticated, smart, beautiful, sassin exactly the kind of
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  Speaker 2: woman I've always fallen for, and the the uh and
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  Speaker 2: she had a profound effect on me. Now at the
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  Speaker 2: end of the at the end of the year, she
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  Speaker 2: moved on, and I discovered that there was a different
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  Speaker 2: student that she was with each each year, and that
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  Speaker 2: her husband looked the other way. The uh was she
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  Speaker 2: thirty nine and I was eighteen. I was a very
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  Speaker 2: green eighteen because I grew up at the immigrant kid
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  Speaker 2: the the the I. I fell in love easily. But
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  Speaker 2: falling in love easily also meant a lot in terms
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  Speaker 2: of learning things, because I I was an immigrant and
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  Speaker 2: I really didn't know this country, and I was shy,
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  Speaker 2: and and I learned a lot. Sometimes I think more
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  Speaker 2: from the from the women that I was together with
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  Speaker 2: being in college and through the rest of my life.
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  Speaker 2: Then I preferred the company of women always because they
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  Speaker 2: weren't armored off in nail macho. But anyway, she was
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  Speaker 2: stuck there in my memory. And then when I was
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  Speaker 2: a police reporter, almost a decade and a half later,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: a decade later, at the plane dealer, I had a
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  Speaker 2: buddy who was a cop that I liked very much,
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  Speaker 2: who had been involved in three or four shootings. And
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  Speaker 2: when we got to know each other and we spend
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  Speaker 2: time drinking together and we did a lot of that,
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  Speaker 2: I started wondering out if he really liked the shootings.
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  Speaker 2: Was it an itchy trigger finger, or did he just
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  Speaker 2: get off on it. So somehow these two characters were
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  Speaker 2: in my head and then I thought about them a lot,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: but they didn't come together. And then I thank banks
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  Speaker 2: to the twisted little man. One day the two came
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  Speaker 2: together in a love story, and that was the rid
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  Speaker 2: that was the genesis of base against Me. And by
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: the time I wrote it, I had thought about it
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  Speaker 2: subconsciously and directly for a long time. I would wake
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  Speaker 2: up in the middle of the night and shoht know
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  Speaker 2: it's down, which happens to me sometimes when I'm very
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  Speaker 2: involved in the script. And I wrote it in Hawaii.
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  Speaker 2: I went off to Hawaii by myself. I let the
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  Speaker 2: sun beating me up. I storeded some coke, the which
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  Speaker 2: which was an habit in those days. And after thirteen
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  Speaker 2: days of all of that, and the other thing I
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: did was listen to the stones all the time. I
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  Speaker 2: love the stones. I love the Bluish all the time.
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  Speaker 2: I was an immigrant kid, and the stones just blew
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  Speaker 2: everything else out during that period of time for me.
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  Speaker 2: So I listened to that. At the end of thirteen
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  Speaker 2: days that I had this script, I went went back
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  Speaker 2: home to Marin, typed it up, sent it, almost sent
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  Speaker 2: it to my agent with the title love Hurts, and
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  Speaker 2: I was going out the door the twist the little Man.
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  Speaker 2: I had another thought, and I raced back inside and
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  Speaker 2: wrote towards basic Instinct, sent it to my agents. They
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  Speaker 2: auctioned it ten days later. My main agent, Guy Macawaine,
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  Speaker 2: who became my big brother, and and U and one
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  Speaker 2: of the people that they loved in life. Everybody bit
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  Speaker 2: on it. The It wound up selling for record three
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  Speaker 2: million dollars and then it became a towering hit to
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  Speaker 2: this day, it trend the uh just now I've gotten
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  Speaker 2: the critics at the beginning were critical, the mildly critical. No,
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  Speaker 2: actually the critics were really after the movie, and then
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  Speaker 2: through the years the critics have had a change of mind.
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  Speaker 1: And isn't that funny?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? It just the woman named Camille Backbe, who was
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  Speaker 2: a main feminist critic who went up against the movie
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  Speaker 2: very strongly recently, not recently, but in the past five
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  Speaker 2: or ten years, has come around and said that that
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  Speaker 2: the movie is the example of it's a post feminist classics,
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  Speaker 2: she says, and it's about women who don't who don't
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  Speaker 2: have to hide their sexuality. So made such a turnaround.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I wonder did you ever have a conversation
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  Speaker 1: with her?
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  Speaker 2: No, I've never met her. She teaches I'm somewhere on
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  Speaker 2: the East coast, and then she has a towering reputation,
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  Speaker 2: but I never met her. I usually don't listen to critics.
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  Speaker 2: It's through the eighteen films, and you know I don't.
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  Speaker 2: I don't listen to critics. I worked for the director
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  Speaker 2: Richard Mark Wand who directed Jacket Edge and The Hearts
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  Speaker 2: Excuse Me in The Hearts to Fire, and we worked
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: on another another one together, and Richard has said to
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  Speaker 2: me that critics should be taken out into the backyard
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  Speaker 2: and shot. Okay, work for another director, Mike Vigas on
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: One night sand who said that critics should be taken
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  Speaker 2: out of the backyard and head butt at to death.
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  Speaker 2: I was sympathetic to both, to both things.
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  Speaker 1: It's so wild that your you were formed by this
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: relationship that you have when you're eighteen with an older, horny,
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  Speaker 1: smart lady who's like, you know, kind of wild. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: and then a cop who might have been a shady cop.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, And how the two came together and yeah, in
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  Speaker 2: this twisted thing called creativity, you know, and they come
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: out of this Maelstrom. Now, the other thing I'm sure
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: was an influence is by the time I did that,
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  Speaker 2: I'd been through four years of police being experienced, covering
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  Speaker 2: cops two and Dade, Ohio, and two in Cleveland and
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  Speaker 2: excuse me, and that consisted of at that point driving
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: around in a company car that got the police radio
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: and responding to whatever was going on. On occasion, you
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  Speaker 2: got there before the cops got there, and then they're
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  Speaker 2: the one that really just stuck in my head and
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  Speaker 2: got inside me was was there was one with the
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  Speaker 2: report of the shooting a suburb in Dayton, and I
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: got there, there were no cops there, that the front
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  Speaker 2: door was wide open. I walked in. I I passed
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  Speaker 2: the body of the guy who I who had shot
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  Speaker 2: himself in the blood all over the wall, and then
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  Speaker 2: a woman who was his wife that he shot. And
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  Speaker 2: I heard someone in the back of the house screaming
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  Speaker 2: and crying, and then I walked went back there. And
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  Speaker 2: the thing that was really got to me is she
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  Speaker 2: was screaming and crying in Hungary and it was an
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  Speaker 2: old lady who was the mother's mom. And then of
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: course I spoke fluent Hungary and I grew up Hungary
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  Speaker 2: and Uh and there was something about the scene that
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  Speaker 2: that's with me to this day. The other police being experienced,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: I had Joe. There was that was very moving. Was
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: I covered the mc glenville urban uprising in Cleveland. It
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: was a big one and there were six or seven
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  Speaker 2: policemen the shot and killed the I was crouched behind
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  Speaker 2: a a a car on the street dugging down with
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  Speaker 2: with ten feet in front of me was a was
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  Speaker 2: a cop bleeding badly, bleeding, moaning, and the the the
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  Speaker 2: and at the same time there were gunshots coming from
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: the from this apartment house. And I heard that the
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  Speaker 2: that the gunshots were coming from a group of so
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: called black nationalists led by a man and Fred ahm
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: At Evans. I knew both men. I'd gotten from the
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: police beat the the the the cop was Hungarian. His
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: name was Elmer Joseph, and he would come around to
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  Speaker 2: the little office and the policeman all the time, and
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  Speaker 2: I knew him and and the black man was named
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  Speaker 2: Fred ahm At Evans, and he would come by in
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: his dashiki sometimes at two in the morning. Because I
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: worked the overnight ships sometimes and we had the greatest talks,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: you know, drank a lot of beer and smoked a
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  Speaker 2: lot of dope and got to be pals. And he
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  Speaker 2: was leading the group of Black nationalists and who had
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: been were shooting these policemen. And I was behind this
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: this this car's wheels a few feet away from the
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: whole ship and I and I found the whole thing
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  Speaker 2: so frightening and so disturbing that I pissed my pants.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: So the four years of police but they rather incidents.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: I covered the the urban uprisings in in Detroit, two
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: in Cleveland, and one in Newark. It was very involved
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: in the civil rights movement, the and you know that
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: that's what I did. I I covered whatever was breaking
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: in much of it was dark stuff. So by the
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: time that wok up happened between Catherine Katherine Trammel and
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: they current, there was a lot that went into it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I could imagine like what the insane life experience
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: to be able to see all those different crime scenes
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: and witness all that.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And you know, the what happened was that I happened
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: to pick a field that journalism, I thought, and so
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: did Hunter. One of the things that we became friends.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: We were both poor kids and the and we both
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: dreamed of being novelists, novelists Thompson, Yeah, Aunt Thompson. And
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: the way that we chose to begin that it was
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: by doing journalism, because no one made a living writing novels,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: and we both had to make a living. So the
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: the under the Road stuff for the National Inquiry and
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: then moved down to Rolling Stone and all of that,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: and I did it on a local level. And the
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: the that put us into a culture that was exploding.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: The American society was exploding, the black situation visa VI.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: White racism was surrenderus. So there was a dynamic in
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: the country that we were on top of because of
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: what we did. So I saw a lot. I saw
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: a lot on the refugee camps because I was and
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: I began my seven years in refugee camps in Austria
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: and then grew up dirt poor in an urban city,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: the the Uh. And I saw a lot of a
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff there as well. There was that was
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: dark and then moving, and and and profoundly effective.
• 16:45
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  Speaker 1: from real world experience, Yeah, which is so much more
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  Speaker 1: effective and makes sense why your stuff was so dark
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: and wild.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does make sense. The the and the you know.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, I was I was a kid in Cleveland
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: and growing up we lived in a very poor part
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: of town, near West Side, and there's a bar next
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: door and the and I said, I slept in the
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: on the couch in the living room that overlooked the bar,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: and when one night and I was looking out the
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: window because I always was the neon lights and Puerto
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Rican hookers and all of that stuff. They're really interested
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: a little kid who spent most of his time playing
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: with as Mark Twain said, with this packer. You know
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: it's and so this was all very exciting stuff. And
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: the one night of watching one one day and I
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: saw this man on the stab another one to death
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: and fall down and bleap to death.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Oh how old were you?
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Twelve? Oh Jesus, Yeah, So there are reasons why. The
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: other thing with my scripts is almost everything in my
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: scripts is somehow comes from some kind of personal die.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: You know. Big Shots, which was a little movie that
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: it was very popular with kids, came from my son
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Steve's experience in Marin County with a black friend and
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: how they tried to make that venture work. And that's
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: what the movie is. It's a little movie about two
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: kids of white getting a black kid. I'm trying to
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: become friends the the There was a movie I did
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: called Checking Out with Jeff Daniels, and that was about
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: the middle life crisis. And suddenly, now at the end
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: my early to mid thirties, I was scared shit list.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: I was going to die here I am at fucking
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: eighty one talking about thirty something. But but so there
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: we was. There was a comedic thing that came out
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: of that basically came out of where it were did.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: But there was almost with everyone, and there was some
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: kind of betrayed came out of out of the ocean
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: that at that particular point, if you remember, there was
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: all this right wing craziness where there were militias that
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: were shooting people, and there were jamborees where the where
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: the right wingers got together betrayed, which which came out
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: in the mid eighties. There were several incidents in Oregon
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: and in the northwest parts of the country which got
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: a lot of publicity. It was before Timothy McVeigh, but
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: all roughly in that same period. So I decided under
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: a false name to go to one of these jamboreezes
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: and see what the hell is going on? Essentially my
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: journalism experience that went into it, and then out of it.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: I concocted to throw mess between Deborah Winger and Tom
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: barnsher So. But they owned some kind of a tie.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Telling Lies in America, which is one of my favorite
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: little movies. With Kevin Bacon and brad Renfrow semi out
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: about autobiographical in terms of the issues I had as
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: a high school kid with bullying and all of those
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: kinds of things. Then the becoming an American citizen, and
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: the they were shot, and then incidentally, right where I
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: grew up, in front of the apartment house where we lived,
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: the and I remember hearing a TV reporter in Cleveland
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: interview an old man was watching the the the shooting
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: and saying, did you know Joe and he grew up here?
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: And he said, yeah, I was a bartender there, and
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: then he said, ship Joe is just a fucking refugee
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: trying to make his way in the world. That he
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: nailed it. I mean, that's really what not a complicated thing,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: but that's really what happened. The only the other the
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: only one. Other things and nice things have been said
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: about me through the years, but the only other thing
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: that's that I really treasure and absolute love is uh
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: I covered I interviewed. I was rereading the night before
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: he was killed in the plane crash in Cleveland, and
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: the and the we started. We began speaking around midnight
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: after a show at a place called Leo's because you
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: and uh and we began talking around midnight and talked
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: till three thirty in the morning, and the Uh we
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: did a lot of beer, We did a lot of
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: gym beam, We smoked a lot of really powerful tie
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: stuff and had a great time. And at the end
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: of it, when he had had to go go, he said,
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: give me a fucking hug. And I gave a hug,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: and he said, you know what you want. He said,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: You're a fucking white nigger, That's what you are. And
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: I love that stayed with me all the time the
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: old times, that he's a force of nature. People said,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: if Shakespeare were alive today with his name b cho
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: s all that bullshit. What Otis said and what the
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: old man said I thought was really great.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: You know. Well, hearing that Otis riding was such a legend.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Oh he was.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: He's so young too. He died.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: He was really I was in a thirty someplace. But
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: listen to listen. The interviewed him. They went home the
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: next day at the plane dealer right there was Sunday
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: and it was working. I'm literally the day after the interview,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: and uh so I'm sitting there in this hall like
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: city room and the I see a city editor that
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: the Associated Press wire machine start dinging, and in those days,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: if it had more than like four or five dings,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: there was some bad thing that happened. So I said,
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: I saw a city editor come from the city desk
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: to this dinging machine and he's staring at it. The
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: fucking thing is still dinging, staring at it him. Then
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: he looks at me like that in the city room
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: and then looks away. So I saw that, and then
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: I got up and went to the dinging machine, and
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: I noticed his plane had crashed the way. It's another gig,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: and I was probably the last man who really spoke
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: to him at length.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: The I left the office right then and said the
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: fuck it. For the rest of the mid day, there
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: was a bar across the street, drank myself silly and
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: went home with the waitress. I mean, you know, it's
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: just horrible, but but I saw a lot. To get
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: back to your point, show, I did and in different ways,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: and said, I try to write a movie about all this,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: called Blaze of Glory, and the the we put it together.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: A man named John Aptett was going to direct it,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: and there was announced that Cuba Gooding was going to
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: play Otis and the whole thing fell apart at the
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: last minute for financing reasons. Into this day, has never
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: gotten made.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: But I'm a writer.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: What else can I do with someone that I loved
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: and meete I except write about them in that way?
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Right, So with anybody who writes interesting things the way
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: you do has to have had some interesting life experiences.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: You don't get those kind of scripts that you wrote
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: from a sterile environment.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, sometimes not that. The
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: after my my conversion to christian the Christianity later late
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: in my life, I wrote three Christian scripts and none
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: of them were made. And one of the one of
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: them wasn't made was it wasn't made because the one
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: of the priests involved with potentially getting Christian financing, I said,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: we need more incense, right, And my response to to
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: somebody who interviewed me about it was, I don't write
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: fucking incense. I write flesh and blood. And so it
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: wasn't made.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by you need more incense?
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Well, to make it more him like, to make make
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: and give it a sense of piety to take it,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: to make it inspired the people. So that they become
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: the Catholic in the specific case, and that it was
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: too secular. And I think what happened to me with
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: all three is that I fell between views and between
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: so called Christian films and secular films, and and so
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: that's why we never got the finance all for him.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: You see, you fell between Christian films and secular films.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: You mean in the way you were writing it, that
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: you weren't writing it specifically as a Christian film or
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: specifically is a secular film.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: The way I was writing it, naturally that wrote everything else. Yeah,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: but that political considerations there, they're said, the clergical, clerical considerations.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I was just writing it from my heart, and that
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: was the gritty to get Christian kind of financing and
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: on the other hand, too religious to get the secular finance.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: That's too bad, because that bridge is probably what would
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: bring more people to Christianity where they can relate to it.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: I agree with you absolutely. And then my argument was,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: you know, these could be hit movies because of my
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: movies in a lot of cases have been These could
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: be hit movies. And that's more important than than than
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: than spiking people with incense.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: It's interesting how Hollywood has always rejected those kind of
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: religion film. Religious films like The Passion of the Christ.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: No instance, that was a huge movie.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Well it's not just a huge movie, but in my
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: mind it was like a prayer, you know. The I
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: watched it each Good Friday, and it was a huge movie,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: beautifully done, and the the it was it wasn't officially
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: endorsed by the Catholic Church, although I saw him. I
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: saw in Cleveland a a meeting where a priest organized
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: a preview screening of the movie and they had like
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: seven hundred people the Faulhole watching it. There was such
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: an interest in it. But part of that part of
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: the reason, I think you raise a good point, because
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: I think part of the reason it was such a
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: towering yet was it it was real. It wasn't It
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: wasn't incense piled, It was real. There was you got
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: a figure who bled, and you really show what happened
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: up on that cross and how awful that kind of
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: pain is, and the movie really reflected that.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: No, it was horrific. And there was also that Willem
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Dafoe film.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: What was that one called The Last Sentation of Christ? Yeah, yeah,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: the I agree with that. The I always I love
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: that vote. I mean, I he's one of my favorite
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: actress the and and I liked it. And it's also
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: very real, that historically real, yeah, you know, the the
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: the notion that that Jesus of Nazareth, you know, was
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: as Fred Rogers figure who wasn't really a real man,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: whereas the Bible says he was a true man and
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: true God. The that show really showed is that film
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: really showed as the human side, and and my conception
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: of Jesus, who I revere and who was one of
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: my one of my close friends that I speak to
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: speak to on most days, the is that he was
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: true man and true God. He was a Jewish jealous,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: a freedom fighter against the Roman Empire. He was crucified
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: by the Romans. The as a freedom fighter, he hung
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: around blue collar guys and and uh and the fishermen
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: and hookers and tax collectors who were the lowest of
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: the low back then, as they should be now, but
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: they were then, and those were the people that he
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: primarily buddied around with. That's that's Jesus of Nazareth, and
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: and that that side is completely ignored by most films
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: accepted two that you mentioned specifically better, like that.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: The last time touched to the Christ, I don't remember.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I remember there was some controversy around it, but I
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: don't I was too young to really be paying attention to.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Like how it was the very fact that Jesus had
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: a relationship that was clearly indicated as being sexual with
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Mary Magdalene, who was depicted as a prostitute. Now, the truth,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: historical truth, is that Mary Magdalene was a few years
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: older than Jesus and a woman of means who had
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: advised advice Roman builders and in a city called Seraphin,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: and then was one of the people who financed Jesus
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: as he swept through Galilee and the rest of juday A.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: There's another scene in the in the in the Bible
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: where where an unnamed woman goes to Jesus and and
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: washes his feet and then washes his feet.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: With his hair.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Right, this unnamed woman by a pope in the sixth century,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Gregory the Great, was picked to have been Mary Magdalene.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: Nation of Mary Magdalene. There's no, no, nothing that says
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: that Mary Magdalene was a whole cur of any kind.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: And then there's no proof for that in any way.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: So the fact that The Last Temptation of Christ did that,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: and and and and and brought the two of them
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: together in a sort of semi love story without of
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: course any real sexuality to it on film, is why
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: it was so criticized. Corsese's house was picketed, and I
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: think the studio at that point was run by Lou Wasserman,
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: whom I knew from from Cleveland because he was in
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: He was a he ran a racing wire in Cleveland
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: before he went, but he was a legendary man. He
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: was picketed as well.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: So was it just Catholic people and Christian people that
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: were upset about this mostly? Yeah?
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: So yeah, but it was It.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Was very unusual for a Martin Squaresese film to be
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: a religious film too, absolutely like a depiction of Jesus,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: who people were much more averse back then. I feel
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: like sometimes like religion goes in like peaks and waves,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: and I think there was a wave of atheism back then,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: and Hollywood was very non Christian to put it mildly, Yes,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: it wasn't that the Christian themes and films were never promoted.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was absolutely right. The U is not as
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: bad now in that sense as there was it was
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: in those days. They and I think that that part
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: of it frustrates me is that is that there would
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: be an openness to that and in the Christian films
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: if they were real, if they didn't, if they weren't
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: full of incense and piety. Right, you know, what we've
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: done to Jesus over the years is make him a
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: kind of red rogers figure. You know, he wasn't that,
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: you know the I'm not even sure that Jesus really
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: said do not resist violence. You know. Jesus also said,
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: if you have a cloak but not a sword, sell
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: the cloak and buy a sword. He also said the
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: I come not to make peace. I come not to
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: make peace, but with the sword.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: So the there's been a lot of of of church stuff,
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: and then especially I think Catholics are more guilty of this,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: to romanticize and sort of cosmeticize the figure of Jesus
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: of Nazareth.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Well, there's always a problem when human beings add their
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: own interpretation to an ancient story, absolutely and do it
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: for to fit their own narrative.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's a great problem. But in this case there
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: is historical evidence on the other side, and they simply
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: ignore that and pretend it doesn't happen. The Nastic Gospels,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: they are full of of so called revolutionary things. And
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: the truth is that the Nastic Gospels were written forty
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: years thirty forty years after the death of Jesus, whereas
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: the sant the Gospels, the ones that the Church have accepted,
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: were written eighty ninety years after the death of Jesus.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: So they had to have been taking secondhand from people
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: who said they saw things, where with the previous there's
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: there's a shot that people directly saw them. The people
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: in the Church gospels who were named by Matthew, Mark,
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Luke and John were not the people who were in gospels.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Is Matthew, Mark, Lucan John, Then nobody knows who writes
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: them they took with those names, but they were they
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: were not those people.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had no idea, absolutely no doubt. Even the
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: even the churches admit that at this point.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Two thousand years is such a hard time for us
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: to conceptualize, to put her into our heads as to
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: how much time has passed, Yes, such a you know,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: to try to get an accurate understanding of what was
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: going on back then. It's insanely difficult.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: I have become a since since my my sort of
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: conversion to it, to Christianity, and I would style myself
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: a devout Christian, but not a not a devout Catholic,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: even though I go to Mass and I love the
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Mass and believe in it. But since since two thousand
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: and one, when this process really began, I've become a
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: real student of the historical Jesus, the the Uh and
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: I learned more and more and I'm more and more
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: astounded at what's been done. Be cosmeticize this man who
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: is Jesus.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Well, it's also he had some of the most profound
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: and insanely resonating teachings, like even today, the words that
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: he spoke two thousand years ago there's still today people.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, they resonate with people. And if you live
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: your life by the teachings of Jesus Christ, you will
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: be a better person. It is a great framework to
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: live your life, which is incredible when you think about
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: a person that lived so long ago.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: He is a much better person to pick as your
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: imagined companion than Mark Twain.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Your a magic companion. Let me ask you this when
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: because I have a long timenversation with mel Gibson about this,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: what do you think about the Shroud of Turin?
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Well, there was a study done, a major study that
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: was done by by the Catholic Church, led by John
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Paul two, whom I really admired the and read a
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: lot about through the years. That and this is a
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: scientific study that discovered that the Shroud of Turin came
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: from thirteen thirteen or thirteen twenty. The Now, this is
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: the huge controversy about it, and there are those people
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: who who feel that that absolutely is Christ. And I
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: must say that when I look at it, when I
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: look at that figure, and I've done that a lot,
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: and in my house we have several blow ups of
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: of Terin's Christ. It's very very moving. The but the
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: the evidence to what there is, it seems to indicate
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: that it comes from the thirteen hundreds.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen that as well. But then I've also
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: seen people that say that that evidence there's some controversy
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: about that evidence there is, and that some of the
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: cloth they believe dates to far earlier, and it's the
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: type of cloth and the way it's made seems to
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: indicate that it's far older. I don't know how much
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: of the cloth they've carbon tested. You know that that
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: is also an issue, and whether or not it had
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: been repaired, whether or not there had been additional pieces.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: I don't either. But you know what, ultimately, when I
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: look at that, when I look at bad Jesus, and
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: I've done that quite a bit, that face really moves me.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: So in a sense, I don't give a shit.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: At the very least, it's an insanely compelling piece of art. Absolutely,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: at the very least. Absolutely, But there's also a lot
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: of very strange mysteries as to how that was created
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: in the first place, because it's not a die, and
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: they're not exactly sure what caused that image to appear
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: or how if that is a piece of art. They
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: don't know how that art was created. And the fact
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that they really only could see the accurate representation of
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: it once they saw it as a negative is also
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: very interesting, because who's going to make a piece of
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: art where you can only really appreciate what it looks
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: like when you see it as a negative, especially when
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: you're talking about something that you're doing. You're making something
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: in the thirteen hundreds hundreds of years before photography's ever created.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: So what are you making and why is it so
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: compelling when you look at it in the negative, And
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: if you're talking about something that was created by an
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: insane burst of energy, which is what the proponents of
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: the Shroud of Tourm being legitimate think. They think it
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: was created by this insane burst of energy on Jesus' resurrection.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm agnostic on it. I don't have no
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: idea whether it's real or not real. But I find
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: it fascinating that they have no real explanation as to
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: how it was created.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: The I'm pretty much of a completely ignorant miss on
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: anything they have to do with science. You know, I've
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: blinked an algebra and geometry and even biology, although I
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: caught up with biology from personal experience. But but I
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: just don't know. It doesn't matter to me ultimately, because
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: I moved when I look at that, when I pray
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: and before that image and I look at it, I
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: moved it. So as far as I'm concerned, for me,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: it's real. It may not be for other people.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Well, like I said, it's at the very least, it's
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: an insanely compelling piece.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Of absolutely, absolutely.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: But the thing that I don't want to dismiss the
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: possibility that it's real because I'm fascinated by just the
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: mystery of how can you pull up an image of
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the the negative version of it.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: I was trying to look up a bunch of stuff.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: You guys are there's no answers for you.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: There's no answers in terms of why.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: It's like I was looking for an accurate recreation someone's made,
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: you know, in the last two hundred years, and doesn't
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: seem to be one.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: No, no one has. Yeah. When you look at the
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: image and you realize that this is an actual negative
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: of the original shroud, you just you stop and think, like, well,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: what would someone do if you if this is the negative, Like,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: how would you create that as a positive? Because it
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: can you show me also the positive image of it,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: what it actually looks like. Okay, so here's this is
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: one image, So this is what it actually looks like.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: This is the actual shroud, And when you look at that,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: you go, okay, I see like shadows. It's very interesting.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: And then switch over to the negative and it all
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: comes to life and there's marks from the lashes from
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the whip marks, there's there's bloodstains from where the rods
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: went through his wrists. It's very fascinating. Yeah, and again
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: this is not die, it's not ink, and they don't
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: really know how it was made. And again no one
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: has been able to recreate this.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: That the cloth was made most likely from a loom
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: that wasn't invented until like the thirteen hundreds.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, that doesn't.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: Necessarily mean that's where for sure came from, though, But right, right,
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: but here's the image. It's just like, how how is
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: the image chancer of the cloth?
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: I asked, just, you know, does anybody have any idea?
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: I've seen a video where someone gave some sort of
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: scientific explanation, but I don't know if I could remember
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: how to find.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: It right now? Says it behaves like a photographic negative
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: negative and show some three D information, which is unusual
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: for normal artwork. The chemical theories that body heat, sweat,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: or vapors reacting with the cloth, example ammonia or lactic
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: acid from sweat may have been proposed, but don't reproduce
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: the shroud's sharp, non blurry details. Simple heat or scorch
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: theories likewise fail to match the very shallow, non burned
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: discoloration of the fibers human or mad made. Human made
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: image theories. Painting or rubbing from bass relief has been tested,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: but studies have not found pigments in the amounts or
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: patterns that would explain the image, and there's no clear
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: brushstrokes primitive photography. Some suggest that a medieval camera using
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: light sensitive silver salts and lenses could have projected a
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: body or statue onto the cloth, and experimental replicas show
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: that it's at least physically possible, though historically speculative and
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: now here's the weird one. Radiation bursts of energy theories.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Some researchers argue that a brief, intense burst of ultra
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: violet or similar radiation from the body could have discovered
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: discolored only the top fibrils, producing a non contact image,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: even where cloth and body didn't touch. Proponents sometimes linked
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: this to Jesus' resurrection, but the need the needed radiation
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: billions of watts without burning the cloth is far beyond
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: anything observed in nature, and this remains a speculative face
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: based idea rather than an established physical mechanism. In short,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: there's no consensus mechanism the image transfer process is still unexplained,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: and every proposed method has serious problems when tested against
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: the cloth's measured properties. Wild I mean, there's no other
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: piece of artwork that's that fascinating, because every other art
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Michelangelo's work, you know, and all this incredible art, it's art.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: You see what they did. There's brushstrokes, there's chisel marks
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: they made. You know, they made incredible sculptures. But it's
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: clearly man made art. This is a different thing. It's
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: a very strange thing. If you can't recreate it today.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: If they could recreate it today, people would be doing it.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: They'd be making their versions of the shroud of charge.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know that that's been done historically. Well you know,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: whether there it's some you know, there's some nutbag of
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: decided to do business over recreating this round or drink?
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Is there? Did they carbon tested? And what are the
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: what are the arguments that it's older? Because I do
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: know that there have been some very recent arguments that
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: the testing was incorrect and that it's older. See if
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: you can find out what that is, whether or not AI,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: whether perplexity our sponsor has some sort of a bias
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: like the thing is it's like pulling from all these
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: when when you get an AI response to something, it's
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: pulling from all these articles in the web, and most
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: of the articles seem to indicate that people think it's
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: at least either a hoax or an elaborate carbon dating.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: Scene that could happen in nineteen eighty eight, So I
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: don't know that they're going to.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Supporters of an earlier date argue that the nineteen eighty
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: eight radiocarbon results nineteen eighty eight is a long time
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: ago sampled an anomalous or contaminated area, and that other
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: historical and scientific clues point to a much older cloth. Okay,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: what is the scientific arguments contaminated repaired sample. Some research
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: claimed the nineteen eighty eight test piece came from a
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: rewoven or heavily handled corner, so its carbon date reflects
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: medieval repairs, not the original cloth. Alternative dating methods X
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: ray or crystal crystallographic aging of linen fibers has produced
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: dates compatible with the first century, though these methods are
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: newer and not widely widely accepted as definitive. Pollen and
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: dust analysis reports pollen grains and mineral dust consistent with
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: the first century Middle East, rather than only medieval Europe,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: which proponents say supports a much older origin image property.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Some argue that the image, microscopic features and bursts of
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: energy type characteristics require technology or phenomena unlikely in the
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Middle Ages, implying an earlier extraordinary event. Well, why don't
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: they do a retesting. They probably don't want to know
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: that it actually is From the thirteen hundreds.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: John Paul Doom really believed in it. He went to
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: see it in turn several times, he said, even moved
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: by it. And that's when they launched this big Vatican investigation.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: And he never said in any way that he agreed
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: with the investigation. That it just seemed to drop the
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: whole issue. Then from what I know, he never went
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: any further, you know, but he visited it twice. It
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: went out of his weight. Where is it.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: It's currently in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud. But
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: so here's interesting was who found it and when and
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: why or whatever.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: The early undisputed record appears in the nineteenth the thirteen
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: fifties rather in Leary, a village in France, where the
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Knight Geoffrey de Charney displayed a cloth claimed to be
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Jesus' burial shroud, how he obtained it, and where it
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: was between the first century and the fourteenth century or unknown.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Later theories trace it e speculatively through Odessa and constant
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Constantino Lope. I can't never say that Constantinople, but these
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: links are debated. Interesting, what does it look like? How's
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: it displayed? That's how it's displayed.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Constantinople was named after Constantine, who was the first Roman
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: emperor who made Roman Catholicism the national religion.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: Brian. Wow, so you can go check it out. And
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: how big is it? Well, they got that sucker walled off? Huh.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: From my impression, Joe, this was this was over the
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: length of Jesus's body, right, so it's longer then certainly
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: I expected.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Well, you can see it's both sides, so apparently folded over.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: I wonder what all those markings are, those small triangle markings, Like,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: what is all that like? These things?
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one other picture was pointing those out. There might
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: be the burn marks that it was saying that there's
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: burn marks on it.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: Again, it's it's two thousand years old in theory.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Just imagine if it's real that's the thing. It's like,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: I never want to dismiss the possibility that it's real,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: because imagine, if it is real, that is.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: I absolutely crazy. I agree with you, and I in
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: my mind it's real, and I pray to it, and
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: you know, and I don't try not to worry about
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: whether it's real or I know that I'm moved and
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: that's that's you know, that's good enough for me.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: What led to your conversion to Christianity? I mean from
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: a guy making these wild, insane movies.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Jamie, can I ask you for some water? This is
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: water right here owing great thanks.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Chime. Chime is
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• 51:06
  Speaker 1: dot com slash disclosures for more details. How long ago
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: did you convert to Christianity?
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I grew up Catholic. I was an ultar boy
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: when I was a kid. The I knew one really
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: great priest in my life who helped me without my life,
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: the I became a lapse Catholic. And then when at
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: the day end of living in in La in Malibu,
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: actually I was it was usually successful, was a screenwriter,
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: of course, and the and I was beg interviewed all
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: over the place, and people were stealing mail from my
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: mailbox and all that shit, and and I should have
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: been overwhelmingly happy with that. But something was missing, I felt,
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: And I couldn't really put my finger on what that was,
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: but something was missing in my life the end. Then
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: I got throat cancer, stage four throat cancer. The UH
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: shortly after we moved back to Cleveland, you know the
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: UH from the from Malibu and then the the Cleveland Clinic,
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: and then a surgeon named Marshall Strom did a surgery
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: that they had never done in this country, that Switzerland,
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: where they took something They took the a muscle from
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: the left side of your neck and attach it to
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: your larynx. Stage four was very dicey, and and he
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: was very honest with me about how the icy would be,
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: and he did it spectacularly. And and here I am
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: at eighty one the But in the course of all
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: of that, when I was, when I was terrified, and
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: and uh and uh and red really frightened. From one
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: day to the other, I ran across the Jesus reading
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: him and in Barley Naomi's influence, because Naomi also grew
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: up Catholic, and she had a a very and this
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: strong in the the and the very strong faith. And
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: and then I went to church a couple of times
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: and I and I loved the Mass, the Mass itself,
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: and in the in the course of recovery, and it
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: was about a three year of recovery. For for some
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: time I couldn't speak, and then I spoke like Brando,
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: and then I squeaked the the in the course of
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: my recovery, and I did everything I could physically to help.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: I jogged and walked and did all of those things,
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: and I recovered. And I felt afterwards that wasn't the
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: reason I was able to beat a stage four cancer
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: had to do with my prayer life. And then I
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: started reading voraciously about Jesus of Nazareth and the Apostles
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: and all all of that ancient Jewish history, Catholic history,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: and some of that really moved me as well. The
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: the so I started going regularly to church and the
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: waved and Naomi, and then as the boys were born,
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: even with the boys as well, and as time went by.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: As time went by, the I also started having issues
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: with the Catholic Church. I continued going to the Mass
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: because that was a very special thing to me, but
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: I had issues with with the history of anti Semitism
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: in the church. The issue was with sexism in terms
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: of not allowing women to be priests. The the issue
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: was with the with the pope making so called infallible decisions,
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: and I just shut them most of that off, although
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: in the process of it, my Christianity didn't suffer at all.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: But but sometimes I felt like I was becoming a
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: kind of an agnostic Catholic the and and my faith
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: in Christ. And then even as all of that happened
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: is unflagged. I still pray to Jesus, very specifically to
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: Jesus the Uh. And he continues to be a major
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: important figure in my life.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: So your issues were with the organization, Yes, the church.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I respected Martin Luther's revolution because he revolted
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: against those same kind of issues. But the the the
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: as I said in the Mess, you continued to hold me.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: Worship is terrific, and I really believe in it. I
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: actually then the kind of worship that really moves me
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: is black spiritual worship, full scale, emotional, I give myself
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: to you Jesus kind of worship. The and and I
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: felt and I didn't want to then. I didn't want
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: to really switch to switch religions because I had my
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: basic Christianity, you know, and that's it continues to be
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: important to me.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: So you you felt moved by like Baptist, Yeah, black Baptists.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: Black Baptist said the whole emotional Yeah, throw up your
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: arms and say okay here I am, take me Lord.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: It definitely seems a lot more fun.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: It's fun.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: They're having way more fun.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: It's fun. The I also have been very fortunate to
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: the course of my life to have black friends and
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: and uh to share the black culture that was involved
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: in the civil rights movement. I had a shotgun stuck
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: in my belly by a deputy who'd been and dieted
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: for killing it. Untild to get the fuck kind of
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: Shoba County. I had the good fortune to have luncher
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: at the Reverend Martin Luther King, the new stokely Carmichael.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: What was that like?
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Well, that was the one the most amazing thing. He
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: was in town because of a of ape and the
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: depth of ain and a minister in a protest, and
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: and the he was an un heralded appearance, and I
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: think it was partly before he became the tower and
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: international figure and the the the he was standing back
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: to the airport and he could have find he couldn't
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: find his ride. And I happened to be right there,
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: and I said I can I can drive you, reverend,
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: and drive your Reverend King watching He said okay, So
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: again we on the way to the airport. He said,
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: are you angry? I'm amongry? Can we stop someplace? I said, sure,
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: so we did. And the what would amaze me about
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: the man is that he was more interested almost in
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: hearing about my refugee camp experiences and what that was
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: like and how that worked and all of that. He
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: said he didn't know much about it. Then he really
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: then he was about that, he was about talking about
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: the civil rights movement.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: He was very, very moving and a powerful figure the end.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: Then I just drove him to the airport. But the
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: the the there was something about the man that was
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: absolutely magnetic, you know then and that I felt, yeah,
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: and then but then I also when I was in college,
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: I had a relationship with the young black woman and
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: that brought me much closer to the black culture. I
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: mean there was an ethnic fucking kid, you know, and
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: the refugee and I certainly needed lescense in that whole
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: cultural area. And I got them and then I sought
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: them out. And uh when when when I was at
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: the Rolling Stone, you Knewton was over in Oakland and
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: he would come over sometimes. The I think partly had
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: partly suspect because the Rolling Stone, we had some of
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: the beautiful women in the world working there. We didn't
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: have every condition when it got real hot. They didn't
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: wear on top at all, So what about that spread?
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: So it s fun they were topless.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: They were topless when the way, when it got real hot?
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: What year was this is in the sixties.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: I was at Rolling Stone from the seventy one to
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: seventy six wild I was right in there in the
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: in the in the years where the cultural revolution was exploding,
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: the women's revolution was was what was it exploding? And
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: then to be at Rolling Stone at that time was
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: like being in the vortex of all of that, you know,
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: the UH and it was just a crazy time, you know,
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: the the the sexual revolution was at its absolute height,
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: and the the UH. I always, as I said to you,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: I've always really loved smart, sassy, sexy women, and that
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: will love filled.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: With I'm sure what year was the birth control pill invented?
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: I have a dam and well, guess sixty five, sixty four.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Let me guess. I'm just taking a wild swing. I
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: have no idea.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: The FDA and introduced the mark in.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: Nineteen sixty sixty eight, sixty sixty zero, nineteen sixty interesting. Yeah,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: well that had a big.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: Factor, right, yes, absolutely.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Because before you know, women were in a situation where
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: every time they had sex they could get pregnant absolutely,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, but then you've got
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: this pill that's fucking with their hormones. That we found
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: out now that women that have been on it for
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: a long periods of time they make poor choices in
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: terms of mates, and it does a lot of weird stuff,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, learning a lot of weird stuff. Yeah, and
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: also it's very dangerous for them. A friend of mine,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: his daughter died. She was seventeen years old. She was
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: on the birth control pill and she was smoking cigarettes
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: and she I guess smoking cigarettes and birth control pills
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: for some people can cause blood clots. I don't understand
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: why or what, but that is an issue. Right, You're
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: not supposed to smoke if you're on birth control. See
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: if that's still the recommendation. Well, obviously they tell you
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: not to smoke, period. But I think there's some potential complication.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: Smoking while taking oral contraceptive that contained estrogen significantly increases
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: the risk of severe cardiovascular events like heart attack, strokes,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: and blood clots. The risk is particularly high for women
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: over thirty five. Quitting smoking or using alternative birth control
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: is highly recommended.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Joe Anne more fun at Rolling Stone than he
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: had any other time into my life. I bet you did.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: I I had Yon Winner in here once. Yeah, I
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: saw it was an interesting conversation.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: He kept looking at his watch.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Well he was you know, who's Yon Winner of twenty
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: twenty four or five? Not Yon Winner of nineteen seventy five. Yes, absolutely,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: you know, not they on Winner. That was the editor
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: when Hunter Thompson was writing crazy stories. You know, different
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: times people change.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: You are a big Hunter fan, huge, and then I know,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: and so am I. And I wanted to talk about
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: him because and I really haven't a chance to talk
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: about him specifically. A Hunter really wasn't the cause of
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: my whole huge success even as a screenwriter. Let me
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: tell you how. I was a reporter at the Plaine Dealer,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: and I had read Hunter, of course when he was
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: the National Observer during those kinds of pieces from Latin
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: in America before he discovered Gonzo the and and I
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: covered at a Plane Dealer. I covered at Asian named
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: El's Angel shootout of a bar called Barto's Cafe in Cleveland,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: and I wrote a story Worry about It that the
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: Associated Press picked up and put on their national wire,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: the and I get a note shortly afterwards from Hunter Thompson,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: who had read this story on the AP wire and
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: wrote me a note that said, I'm barely bairaphrasing big fucker.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: Now there are two of us who know how to
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: write about El's angels. That really pisses me off. All
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: the best undressed out.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: Well, that must have been a fun thing to get.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I was. I was as excited about that
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: as my two sons were to meet you, Rogan. They really,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: they really, it was really really something. So okay, that
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: time goes by and I get a call from Rolling
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: Stone when I've heard of the first I do a
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: couple of freelance pieces for Rolling Stone, went on Kent
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: State one year afterwards and the other. I forgot what
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: the other one was. But then then I get a
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: call from the managing editor, Paul Scandalon, who incidentally was
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: the it was. It was the backbone of the editorial content.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: He's come from the from the Wall Street Journal and
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: he wanted to take on the New York Times for
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: Rolling Stone. So then they want me to do a
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: freelance piece on narcotics agents corrupt narcotics agents so I
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: go out there and I discovered that that Hunter had
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: been after them to hire me because of that piece,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: and they kept saying a good guy and all of that.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: Then when I'm at Rolling Stone, I write a book
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: called Charlie Simpson's Apocalypse that a Hunter love is by
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: Now we know each other and and we're friends and
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: then we enjoy each other's company. And then I write
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: this book and Hunter gets me as agent, who is
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: the top literary agent the country, and then gets me
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: as publisher, which is Random House, to to publish it
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: and then to boot blurbs it. When when the book
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: comes out and somebody a United Artist sees it. Oh,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: and then the book becomes a finalist for the National
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: Book Award, one of four finalists. Okay, so somebody a
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: United artist reads the book, reads, because she reads all
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: the finalists reads the book, calls me out of the
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: blue and says, you know you've got really cinematic talented.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: You thought about writing a script And I said, no,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: I haven't. And I go to meet them and they
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: hire me and I write fist all of that which
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: led to my success and screenplays and in the cinema
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: was snche daughter. Wow, and the friendship we had was
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: was it? I never. Our friendship was in San Francisco.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: He lived in in the Woody Creek the end he
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: would come to town. Our friendship was in town. But
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: we ran a lot together. We enjoyed each other. We
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: drank together. We both like drinking. And on occasionally we
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: wouldn't a good story. We would go down to San
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: Francisco was famed for its stripper barred area, I think
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: around o' farrell's reet and stuff. And he and I
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: went down there together. There was a famous stripper show
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: in one of those clubs. And one of the times
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: we get down there, he of course would take acid
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: before of every trip down there, I would do acid.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: But but I said, I did acid once and under
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: wound up holding me for an hour. The but that
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: was a guy from Cleveland, right, which he always wand
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: you know we got here from Cleveland anyway. The I
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: would I would snort some lines. And we go down
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: there and we were waiting for about an hour, and
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: you know, the place filled, but the girls haven't come out,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: and Hunter suddenly gets up, hurls his arms up in
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: the air and says, where's the pussy we want? Pussy, right,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: great memories of my life. Of course, they settle him
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: down and all of that. And then when they when
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: they started coming very loudly, equally, finally, finally pussy. He
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: was a you know, larger than life, no doubt, colorful figure,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: but also what he was. And then I discovered this,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: and he didn't really share this with that many people.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: He was very very.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: Well read, well read the he had a whole other side.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: There was a very sensitive and un hippie like like side.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: I saw it most clearly once I was married at
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: the time to Way To, a former reporter at the
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: Plain Dealer, was very very straight and really rejected the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: whole hippie thing and worked in California for a small
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: suburban paper. And Hunter and that never met her, but
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: had hurt her, and he said I'd like to meet her.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: So he asked him to dinner. And Hunter came to
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: dinner our small, tiny apartment in Nevado, and and and
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: my wife at the time, the cooked a Hungarian chicken
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: pupria cosh dinner. Okay, it's Hungary's most famous meal. And
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: and he sat there with us. And what I discovered
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: was that the boy from Kentucky was there. Underneath all
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: of that firepower and all of the all of that
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: larger than live behavior, he was sensitive and quiet and
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: and the and they got along like gang bus, you know,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: the and and actually interestingly, when when when I drove
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: him after dinner, I drove him back to town, he
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: for the ride back, he derated, berated me because I
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: was having an affair with what he called this hippie chick.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: He says, you have this wonderful wife here, and you're
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: fucking around with this hippie chick, I mean the true
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: biration and anger and and all of that. He had
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: that side as well, Yes he did. If we had breakfast,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: there was at four in the afternoon, and he he
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: and what he ordered were four more garito, six beers
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: and maybe maybe toasts with with scrabbled eggs. And and
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: in that sense he he had more tolerance than anyone
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: than I'd ever seen. And my tolerance in those days
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: for Boots especially was also very high. But but I
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: never see anybody quite like him. He had a great
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: sense of humor, the h the as many many years later,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: he wanted me to write the screenplay for Rum Diary,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: and I hadn't seen him in a long time, and
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: I had just met Naomi with the course up too,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: whom I've now been married thirty two years, and and
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: the and he wanted me to go to Aspens so
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: that we could talk about it. And I called on
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: and I said, listen, lad over heels in blood with
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: this woman, you know, and uh, other wants me to
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: go out there. Tell me the truth. We're kind of shape,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: is he and yeah, and sort of pauses and he said,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: well he could, and then he's another pause and he says,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: but you know, the Stones were in Denver and and
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: Mick and Keith I decided to come visit him. So
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: between gigs, so they hire a driver and they drive
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: up here and they have they have a terrific time,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: and but they're about they're there about three or four hours,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: and they've got a gig that night. So they say,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: I say, we got to go, we got a gig
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: and blah blah, and other gets all upset and says, well,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: you just got here and they said no, no, we've
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: been here three or four hours and stuff. Well, he
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: continues to be upset and he leaves the house for
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: they're sitting there and suddenly they are gunshots. He had
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: going out and shot the tyres out on the on
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: the on the Stone's car. So I never took Naomi there.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: I was fighting too frightened. Well, let's see, it was
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: in the ninety ninety something for maybe he said somewhere
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: around five four five and then three three four five somewhere.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: And the going hard for thirty years point.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, he had at least and also the end for him,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: I've read and heard it was very sad because and
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: then the sadness wasn't caused by the drugs. It was
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: caused by booth. And he was in the arm's opinion,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: and then he saw him open in Woody Creek, and
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: in his former wife's opinion, Sandy's opinion, it was the
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: boost that did it. The uh you know his but
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: he began being old and he needed a wheelchair. He
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: could hardly walk. The sheet drove him in the wheelchair.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: And at one time I think in the New Orleans
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: when when they were visiting Sean Sean penn on the film,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: he actually fell out of the wheelchair in the middle
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: of traffic, and that she couldn't Anita couldn't really pick
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: him up. And so they get help and cars are
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: going by and all that ship and then and then
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: he also broke broke a leg when they were visiting
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: Hawaii at the Kaholla. So it was, as he said
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: in his suicide note, which I thought was the most
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: gut wrenching and but also terrific suic I note, it
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: was no fun anymore. The fun was gone. Nothing was fun.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: No football, no this, no that, no fun.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: Well, when the.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: Body goes yeah, it's hard to have fun.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: The problem with booze, yeah, exactly, Well, the.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: Problem with many drugs, but particularly the problem with booze.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: You know, you're breaking down your body over and over
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: and over again, and with a guy like Hunter who's
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: doing it every day.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: There's a famous piece that this reporter wrote when he
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: went to visit Hunter, and he documented Hunters drug and
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: alcohol use throughout the day, you know, like six in
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: the morning in the hot tub with champagne, like that's
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, and then him sleeping and
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: then him waking up and doing all the drugs and
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: then getting ready to write. And what was the guy's
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: name who wrote the there's a a guy who took
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: me and my friend Greg Fitzimmons reading it out and
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: turned it into an E d M song. Really yeah no, no, no
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: from right but the but the singer the song, Yes,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: the guy I'm sorry, the guy who wrote the yeah. Yeah,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: it's like electronic dance music song. We played it before
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: many times, got it. I can't believe. It's like Beardy Man,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: thank you. This guy Bearded Man put it to music.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: And it's hilarious.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a tragic story in a lot of ways,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: but in his prime, the writing that he did was
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: in many ways it was the narration of an era.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: It was, and it was genius, you know, the he
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: there was. You know, there was this think called the
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: new journalism, and I practiced that, so did people like
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: Age Lee's and David Elverson and Larry L. Kinge. But
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: then undertook that and created an entire new genre that
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: the gunzo journalism thing was his and there was there
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: was a kind of humor that that just knocked you down,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: and they were totally revolutionary. And the the tumb Wolf said,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: who of course was one of the people the founders
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: of the New journalism, said that he was today's version
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: of Mark Twain in terms of what he was able
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: to accomplish. Two books, especially, I taught the the Fear
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: and Loathing in Vegas, of course, and the campaign book,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: the seventy two campaign Book, which in my mind is
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: the best political commentary including all of Teddy White's books.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: It's fantastic. Yeah, if you're and loathing on the campaign trail.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: And he also had this freedom that was very different
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: from all these other reporters because he was a one
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: time guy going to go in there and follow the
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: campaign for the entire time and then wrote this book
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: about it.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: But Jo, these were all staid, the shoe tie wearing reporters,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: and you turned this in, this big creature loose on
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: them and on the campaign drail. And of course they
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: all fell in love with him, and they did because
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: he was such a free spirit compared to what there
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: lives are.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: Of course, well, imagine you're doing this boring thing, which
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: is following a bunch of fakers as they're telling you
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: how they're going to change the country, which you know
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: they're not really going to do because you've been doing
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: this for twenty years absolutely, and then along comes of
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: guys like, let's do as God pussy's. All of a sudden,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: you've got this fucking maniac who's drinking and saying wild
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: shit and writing wild shit, and he doesn't have to
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: be held to the same standards as everyone else because
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: he knows it doesn't matter. If they never have him
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: back again, it's fine.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: I'm so sorry that there wasn't here with Trump's time,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: because that could have been fucking wild and hilarious. But
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: there's also Bardy that says he would have liked Trump.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: I know this is heresy to liberals, you know, who
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: do think that he's a you know man, he would
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: have be able to absolutely hate him and all of that.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: But I'm not certain of that. And and I think
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: that certainly in terms of his style, he would have
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: liked things about him.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: Well, I think he would have liked the fact that
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: he's this wild character, absolutely completely wild character that has
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: never existed in all of presidential politics before. There's never
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: been anything like him, no good or for bad. There's
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: never been a guy like him.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: We did today. I mean, he had shit fit with Natanie, yeah,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: and he said, you know, the you're fucking crazy. Yeah,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: you would have been in jail except for me. I
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: saved your ass. What other president, for God's sakes, has
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: ever spoken like that, only publicly but us? And in
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: that sense, you know, I'm I'm I'm proud of being
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: a deplorable. I'm from Cleveland, you know, the the the
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: I grew up among poor people and blue collar people.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: And he's the first president and that that didn't talk
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: down but Tug directly does.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. For good or for bad?
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: I mean he's he is who he is, which is
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: very odd. You know, it's a very it's a very
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: odd person.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of questions and in certain areas,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: you know, the ice area, and that bothers maybe the
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 2: whole ship with the ballroom and all of that stuff.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: Well, the ballroom doesn't bother me that much. That's to
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: me trivial construction, like whatever, the the ice stuff. What
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: bothers me is we're opening the door for militarized police
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: on our city streets. As many people say, like what,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: We've got to get these immigrants out of here that
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: are illegal. There's a lot of criminals in this country.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of people that are committing crimes. I
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: understand that. I understand that perspective. My perspective is not
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: that you need to get the criminals out. It's that
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: it is a very slippery slope when you give people
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: and they're trained for seven weeks, they're not trained for
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: very long. They're trained for much less time than police officers,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: much less time than military. And then you have this
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: militarized police force that has no identification in there on
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: the streets. That's a precedent that you might like it
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: when it's for a cause that you support, but that
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: could easily be for a cause that you do not support.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: That militarized police force could be going door to door
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: and confiscating guns. That militarized police force that you could
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: you could find other ways where a different ruler could
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: use this precedent in a very damaging way for our
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: free society. That's my perspective on it, and.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: I agree with that. The the when they start calling
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: people like like that the woman who was killed in
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: Minnesota and the guy the domestic terrorists, you know, the
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: it's an abomination, and which which woman is? Then that
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: woman who was shot by ice in Minneapolis, and then
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: the guy afterwards the week afterwards was also shot by ice. Yeah,
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: and to call them domestic terrorists. But they gave credit
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: the Trump. He got rid of Christ, you know, and
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: he got rid of that guy who was that was
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: there that Tom Holman replaced.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: Well, Tom Holman was already in charge. That guy was
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: in a different position, but they did get rid of
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: that guy. That also, that guy had a very odd
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: way of dressing that was very like he wore outfits
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: that were like reminiscent of like Nazi Germany. Like he
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: had this very weird thing coat that he would wear
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: all the time. And a lot of people are saying,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: this is a very odd choice for someone to be
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: wearing who's being accused of fashion. See if you find
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: some photos of that dude. The coats that he was
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: wearing were a lot of people like I had to
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: make sure that this was an AI. I was like,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: is this real coat that he's wearing. It is a
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: very strange I mean, not accusing him anything, it's just
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: a fucking coat. But it was a lot of people
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: online were pointing out like, this is a very odd
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: wardrobe choice for someone who's in charge of, in many ways,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: othering human beings. The other thing that's a problem with
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: this whole ice thing is and It's not the fault
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: of the ICE people or even this administration, is that
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: many of these people were encouraged to come here. That's
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: what's so fucked. Imagine if you're living in Guatemala and
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: you're encouraged to come to America. You live in a
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: terrible third world situation, you have a wherever you're living,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: it's like deep poverty. You're told that they'll help you
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: get across the border. They'll they're literally transport you into America.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: They'll put you in these cities and you can get
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: on public assistance. You have a bad back, they'll put
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: you on Social Security. There's all these different programs that
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: are incentivizing people to come to America. The Red Cross
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: is giving you maps, people are showing you how to
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: do it. They're letting you across the border. They're letting
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: you into the country, and then two years later you're
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: being chased down. Two years later, you've got masked ICE
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: workers that are pulling me. It's like, it's very inconsistent. Obviously,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: this is a completely different administration, but I feel for
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: those poor fucking people that were told that they can
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: come here and that there was going to be a
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: pathway to citizenship, so they upend their life. They come
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: to America and the only way they know how. And
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: when people say, oh, they should do it legitimately, sure,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of people do it legitimately. And I understand
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: their perspective that it's a very difficult path and no
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: one should be able to cut that line. And they
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: went through it the right way. However, these people, that's
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: not an option for them. If you don't have any
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: money and you're living in a third world country and
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: people encourage you to come to America, I most certainly
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: would have come to America just like they did.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: Joe. I did my parents. Did you know I might
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: personify the American dream in terms of what happened to me,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: you know, the the what they said in the campus
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: was the streets of America are paved with gold. When
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: where we lived on Lorraine Avenue in Cleveland, there was
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: a there was a Hungarian poet, a mad poet. His
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: name was a dream Dad. It would would go up
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: and down Lorraine Avenue screaming in a Hungarian old one,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: the old one which means where is it? Where is
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: the gold?
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: Right? Right?
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: But look, I came in here as as a kid
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: I couldn't speak the language we knew no one. I
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: got into Seria jew and out of trouble. I got
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: out of that. I studied. I was a total auto diject.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: I did it. Wasn't a good student, but I did
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: reading the UH. I went to I went to college.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: The the I had did I wanted to be did
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: jockey for a while, and the named Joe Anthony. It's
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: a song to sue the sad supron secretary, right, and
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: this kind of ship. They went to college and I
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: did well in college. I won a big award, and
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: as a senior the the UH, I kept working and
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: then and I also through the year. It's kind a
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: terrific amount of help from Americans. Couldn't have done it
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: without him, beginning with a with a bus driver named
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: named Henry Jackson, a black man who had been adopted
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: by Hungarian parents and spoke Hungarian, you know, moving on
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: to people in in college who helped who I found him,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: and then a great deal of help. I couldn't have
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: done what I achieved without the help of other people
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: of other Americans and the and and then to top
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: everything off, you know, the Hollywood and eighteen films and
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: all of that. Yes, I think that is the personification
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: of the American dream. And and then the many of
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: the immigrants that come here are looking for the same dream,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 2: and many of them are saying what matt Ashima has
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: said on the Raine Avenue, Old One, Old One.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: Where is it right? Yeah.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: Part of the reason that the that the is tough
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: in Minneapolis breaks breaks my heart is is that I
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: these are these Latino people are my cousins and brothers
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: in terms of not the the killers and not the
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: gang members, the people who are gardeners and who work
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: in the stores and trying to make a buck and
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: they have kids, and that they're trying to survive.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: Well, it's just ICE story too.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: Part of the ICE story is that a lot of
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: these officers are Latino now, including the two guys that
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: shot Alex. Those two guys were Latino, and they took
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: these jobs because these jobs give you. First of all,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: you get a fifty thousand dollars signing bonus to join ICE.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: I mean that's a significant amount of money for someone
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: who's in debt or who's struggling. So this is how
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: this guy dressed. Look at this guy dressed. That's kind
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: of crazy. See that image. Yeah, look at that coat.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, come on, that's a it's kind of a
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: crazy World War two military code, a little odd when
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: everybody else is. You know. The other thing is the masks.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: I understand, I understand the need for them. That they
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: get docksed, their families get docked, and it's very organized.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: This is not organic. These protests are not organic. I
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: understand all these arguments. Yeah, it's it's also sets a
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: very bad precedent. This is the problem with it all.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: But you know, the real thing is you shouldn't be
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: able to have organized is paid for protests where you're
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: paying people to protest, and you're paying people to cause violence.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: And then you're also using people as political pawns and
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: moving them into the country so that you could change
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: like when when you have congressional seats, it's all based
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: on the census. The more people that are in the town,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: regardless of whether or not they're legal or illegal, you
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: get more congressional seats. So they use them for political points.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: They do absolutely political games.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the same old game, and that game should be illegal.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: That that shouldn't be legal. The idea of the American
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: dream is a beautiful dream, and they've corrupted it, and
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: they've they've taken this and used it for their own gain,
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: and you know, and they've weaponized empathy, and it's it's
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: a real problem. It's a real problem for those poor
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: people that came over here looking for a better life.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: Listen, I have an idea run for president or righteous speeches, Listen,
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: is really terrific out of then, I think you're right
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: to be concerned. You see it, Yeah, listen, I'm eighty
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: one years old, but I really see it too, you know,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: And there's great dangers there that I hope my sons
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: that don't.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: Have militarized police on the streets for that reason is
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: it's a very dangerous present. But then there's the other
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: question is like how do you get all the criminals out?
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not the guy, you know, I'm
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: not the one, but I'm I am very concerned with
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: this dangerous precedent. That's my feeling of it. So I
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: just worry that people accept it because they want this
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: result now and they don't realize that this could set
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: up this being a common occurrence. I mean, we saw
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: some of it during COVID. There was some militarized police
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: on the streets keeping people in lockdown in certain cities,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: they utilize the National Guard and they did things like
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: that that scares the shit out of me. Scares the
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: shit out of me when you have a justification for
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: militarized police with masks on that are just grabbing people,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: and some of these people are American citizens. It turned
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: down a lot of more Americans, hundreds of them were.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: You know, we had the same syndrome. I covered the
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: Kent State massacres. Yeah, I covered that, and the one
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: of the things that I saw is the rhetoric that
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: was coming from James Rhodes, the governor at the time,
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: and from Sylvester del Courso it was the head of
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: the National Guard was absolutely the main thing that they
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: created that atmosphere that that caused that hurting. Yeah, absolutely
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: the end today, just sadly, we see many examples of that,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: and yeah, they're great dangers.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you would think that we would learn, but we
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: go through cycles where we learn, we get better, and
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: then we repeat the same things again. You see that
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: with racial tensions, you see that with political unrest, you
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: see that with a lot of different things in this country.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: It's like we learn for a little while and then
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: we forgot.
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 2: Mark Twain's wisdom once again comes through. Mark Twain said
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: politicians are like diapers, and they should be changed often
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: and for the same reason.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He also said history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: He also said a little bit of the subject. But
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: I love it. He said the he said, when the
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: mind and the pecker argue, the pecker always wins.
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, he was essentially the original stand up comedian.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, you're absolutely right. I mean, you're so right. I've
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: actually been thinking about doing some peace on him the
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: sum if you know the history the but but in
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: the beginning, he was a stand up with his so
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: called lectures that he did all over the West, and
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: then then he did then he wrote some books, the
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: books that he's famous for. But he went bankrupt and
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: nearly at the end of his life because of bad investments.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: And then he did around the world tour of stand
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: up all over again. And usually they said he was
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: a a a poets of the profane, because these are
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: usually for mail audiences. He published a little book called
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: on Masturbation, which is about the glories of masturbation. The
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: only thing I've heard that's that's close is a he's
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: a in a send up by one Joe Rogan, which
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: there's a great line that says, if you're married and
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: have kids, the only the only place to find peace.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: Then Tway would say with the pecker, that is if
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: you ran a motel room and locked the door. You know.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: But he had the same kind of of of of
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 2: verve and love in terms of being a stand up,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: being outrageous, pushing the envelope, and that that's the whole
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: side of Twain has been sort of hidden under the
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: notion that he is the great of beans. Huck Finn
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: and Tom Sawyer and all of that nobody talks of.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: They wrote a book called Letters from the Ear from
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 2: the Voice of the Devil. He wrote another one he
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: called The Mysterious Stranger, which is about Jesus coming back
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: in a very dark way. And then he wrote one
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: that was published in the thirties that hasn't been republished
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: called Dwayne he erupts.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: So yes, he was so right when you say he
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: would stand up. He was a first rate stand up.
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: He was the originator because he was essentially a very
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: witty author who wrote very provocative things, very hilarious things,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: and then would read them publicly. And when he was
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: doing these speeches where it would go and you know
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: whatether you call it poetry or whatever it was. There
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: was no stand up comedy back then. There was no
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: name for it. Yes, but he was just riotously funny.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: People loved them and they would go to see them
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: because they were funny.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: And then the initial audiences were mostly male audiences, right
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: they Yeah, I mean yeah, I think he's a great
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: and he's never been really done. The they do a Bees,
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: a fictional bees about Twain as a as a stand
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: up well with pushing the envelope, with all these things,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: I think would be a lot of fun.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: It would be a lot of fun. The only problem
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: would be, like, the cultural context are so different back then.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: It's almost like, did you see Lenny the Dustin Hoffman
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: a great film. I mean, I think Dustin Hoffman fucking
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: nailed it. It was as close to Lenny Bruce as
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: you're ever going to see someone portray Lenny Bruce. The
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: problem is the world has changed so much since nineteen
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: sixty that a lot of the outrageousness is gone and
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: it seems very pedestrian, like the things that he is saying,
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: because he was such a groundbreaker in society was so
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: locked down and so conservative, and so you know just
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: that there was just the way people communicated was much
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: different back then. The understanding of culture and of race
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: relations and sexual relations was very different back then. And
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: so the outrageousness of what he was saying back then,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: it just doesn't really translate. Because in many ways, I
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: think stand up comedy in particular is a window in time.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: It's a window into the way people behave. Films are
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: that way as well, especially like if you go and
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: watch a lot of old films, it's a window into
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: how people perceived reality back then.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: The there's there's some stuff that's rarely been published from
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: Twain that hasn't really been seen very much, that was
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: left in places like the University of California Archives that
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: they go at the past what we know from Twain,
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: and and I think there's so much of it. There's
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: something called Twain's Notebooks that that hasn't been published in
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: their full form, certainly that they may still be shocking
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 2: the and I mean I'm still playing with it because
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: I'm reading and reading and all of that. But even
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: if I never do, it's so much fun reading about
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: him and his life because he was such an interesting character.
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: Well, I hope you do write something about it, because
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: it would be great for people to see and to
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: get an understanding of him, because I think a lot
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: of young people, particularly today, just think of him as
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: an author, just think of him as the guy who
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: wrote Tom Sawyer.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry he's been pushed into being almost the kids writer, right,
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 2: speaking of stand up And I want you to know,
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 2: and I don't think you know. Did you know that
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: Sam Kinnison dedicated a c D to me?
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: Did he really?
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: Sam Kinnison? One of his one of his the last
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 2: CD was called leader of the Band B A and
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: then E D. And at the flip side of the
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: CD he thanks a bunch of people or Ringue's open
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: record people and all of that, and then also sling
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: shown Penn and then after all of that, in larger
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: letters than the others, he says, and the very special
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 2: thanks to Joe as her house or write Egg's letter
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: to Michael Ovitz.
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. What letter did you write to Michael Ovitz?
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 2: Michael Ovitz was the was the top top dog, the
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: agent in town running c AA and the And I
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: was leaving CIA because my best friend in the rabbi
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: and the business was an agent named Guy mac Owen,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: who had been running Columbia became an agent again. So
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 2: I was leaving CIA because of my love for Guy.
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: And I went in to see Ovitz and said, I'm
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: leaving the agency. And Ovid said, if you leave the agency,
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: then my foot soldiers who go up and down Wiltship
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: Boulevard will put you under the ground. Oh Jesus, what
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: you know? So the I thought about it for a
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks and I and I and I wrote
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: him a letter which essentially said, fuck you. You know
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 2: I'm leaving. I'm going back to the prison he started
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 2: me in the business and the prison I love and
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: I turned into a major controversy with headlines all over
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 2: the place.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: And I put you on to the ground a strong words.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: Oh man, there's a There was a producer named Bernie Brillstein.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 2: He wrote memoir lately. Years later we said those exact
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 2: words had been used to him as well. Wow, yeah,
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 2: so the and you know what, And as time went
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: on he became of he said that that the whole controversy,
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 2: it's really hurt him because other people had been threaten
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: that way, and he had a reputation for that, and
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: he would and he actually was out of the business,
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: not not not not much past that. But but Ginnison.
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 2: I love Ginnison's work. When I saw that thing, I
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 2: was overwhelmed.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: He was one of the greats.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: He was one of the greats.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: Was one of the greats. And I still maintained that
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: for like a period of two years, two or three years,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: he was the most profound and revolutionary stand up comic ever.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: I agree. He came out of nowhere. He was so
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: different than anybody else, you know. I was introduced to
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: Kennison by a girl that I work with. I was
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: working at a gym called the Boston Athletic Club in
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: South Boston. It was a girl that worked at the
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: front counter who was hilarious. He was a volleyball player,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: really hilarious girl. And she told me about Kennison and
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: re enacted one of his bits in the parking lot
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: of the club. Told me what she saw on TV
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: about he had that bit about homosexual necrophiliacs paying money.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: She's on her stomach laying on that. She was so funny.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: She was on her stomach in the parking lot, going, oh, oh,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: life keeps fucking in the ass even after your dad,
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: It ever ends, it ever ends. And I was laughing
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: so hard that I couldn't wait to go out and
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: get that videotape. And I got that video tape. And
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: I was only nineteen at the time. I had never
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: even thought about doing stand up yet, but that was
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: like one of the first times that I was like, oh,
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: this is stand up. Yeah, Like I didn't know that
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: this was stand up. I thought stand up was like
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: did you ever notice like that kind of stuff what
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: you'd see on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: had no thought ever that this wild shit was stand up.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: And you know, credit to HBO, because before then you
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: would never be able to see that kind of comedy.
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: The only way you'd be able to see it is
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: in the movie theater. It'd have to be like Richard
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: pryor Live on the Sunset's Trip, which predated that by
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: a few years, And no one had any understanding that
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: there was this kind of stand up comedy out there,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: that this wild motherfucker who used to be a priest.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: He used to be a preacher and he comes to
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: LA and is this wild coch Norton, fucking demon comedian
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: who's just different than anybody else before him, just changed comedy.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: There's a few people, there's a few characters along the
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: way that have just completely changed comedy, and I think
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: Kennedy Kennison is one of the big ones.
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 2: It was absolutely amazing. I endured him. I thought he
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: was a groundbreaker. And when I saw the CD a D.
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: I have two of his albums. Two different people have
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: gifted me his first album, God, what is it called?
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: Is not?
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: Is it called Louder than Hell? I think it's called
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: Louder than Hell? And uh, they're signed. Both albums are signed.
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: Both signatures are totally different. So I don't know which
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: one's real or either one of them are real. And
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: that's the problem. Like people buy stuff off eBay, they
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: want to give you a nice gift, they buy an
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: autographed album and they might not even be real.
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 2: He was a preacher and that last conversation when he
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 2: died with Jesus, when he's conversing it mind.
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's having literally having a conversation with someone as
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: he's dying.
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's obviously Jesus is a Jesus figure. I mean,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 2: it's at my time, I'm amazing, especially amazing considering where
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 2: he came from, what what he went through, what he
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: did with comedy, and then then that ending. Yeah, there
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: was a movie made. It wasn't there, but it wasn't very.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: Good about Kennesse. Yeah, I don't know. I think.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about that too.
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: I have a problem with re enactments of a guy
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: who is that profound. Someone's playing you know, it's I
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: try not to watch because it's just the the actual
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: work of the guy. Going back and watching his HBO
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: special and watching his stand up appearances on Letterman and
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: listening to his first album, the first album I listened to,
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: it was like Jesus Christ, this guy is incredible. It
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: was just so different, so crazy, and you know, and
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: he was the first guy that was like open about
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: doing cocaine, opened about partying, you know, I mean, he
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: was he was a wild boy.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: It reminded me, I'm sorry, Hunter and turns of being
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 2: wild to buy coke. My first story when I was
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 2: at Rolling Stone was it was it was a piece
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: about narcotics corrupt narcotics agents, and as a result of
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: the stories, the guy who was the head of the
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 2: narcotics agency in the state of California had to resign.
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 2: And as a result of that, I started getting plastic
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 2: baggies full of coke at Rolling Stone from the Verio
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 2: dealers who appreciated my work. Now, whenever Hunter was there,
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: I would present him with the bag and he would go,
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: holy right, you getting me from people. One of the
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 2: things that it's the divider offensive is that if I
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: would have handed over.
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: And that was back when cocaine was actually cocaine.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It wasn't stepped on, you didn't get in friends
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: and all, you didn't have to worry about dying of
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: an overdose.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: It was the only drug drug besides it, besides smoking
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: dope that that I really really enjoyed it. I said,
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: I tried acid once and not her hats hold on
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 2: to me because I was so freaked out.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: I can only imagine when I watched Show Girls, I
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: was like, whoever wrote this was doing coke? Was literally
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: one of the first things I've said. I've always said,
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: that's like one of the heightens of cocaine movies.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 2: Not anymore, but but certainly the memory of it, whether
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: Influence influenced by cocaine.
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 2: The uh garanteino was over. They loved you. I loved
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 2: show Girls.
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: It was a wild movie. And I remember, you know,
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: because it was that girl. Was her name Elizabeth by
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Berkeley, who was from Saved by the Bell, Right,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: So she was like this America sweetheart from this really
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: nice sitcom. And then all of a sudden, you know,
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: she's half naked and she's a showgirl and it's like.
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: Whoa, and and she's having an a bear with Bulver
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: over and he's moved out with his wife, is living
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: with Elizabeth Berkeley?
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: Right? Crazy? No, yeah, geez Louise. Wild times right.
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 2: Absolutely fun, really fun Jimmy Hendrick story because he's the
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: Jimmy Hendrix experience, and I wondered whether he had any
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 2: kind of a godfather impact on under Joe Rogan experience.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. I stole the name from Jimmy Hendrix,
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Andrex. I mean, when we first started doing the podcast,
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: I was I would always listen to Voodoo Child on
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: the way to the comedy store. I'd listen coming over
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: Laurel Canyon. That was one of my favorite that and
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: Whole Lot of Love. Those are my two favorite songs
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: to listen to on the way to the comedy store.
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: I have like a soundtrack that I listened to to
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: get myself psyched up for shows.
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 2: You'll love this story. And Okay, I'm a reporter at
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 2: the Plaine Dealer and the Oliver Our editors barely know
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 2: about rock and roll. And as I said, I've loved
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 2: it all my life. And when Andris came around, I
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: loved his work. And he's in Cleveland and for an appearance,
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 2: and the fucking Cleveland cops have gone crazy and they're
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: saying that this cosmic riot and it's obscene and all
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 2: of that stuff. And I asked him up to my
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: city editor and asked and delm I'd like to interview
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 2: with Hendricks and covers concert. So I do cover his
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 2: concert and is jammed in the Cleveland arena and people
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 2: are loving it, and I've set up a date to
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 2: interview with him the next morning. I get to Cleveland Hotel. Okay,
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: So they show up the next morning and I'm the
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: Plain Dealer reporter. I've got a tie on and a
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 2: sport coat, you know, and and uh, and they go in.
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 2: I think it's nine thirty, and he's up, but he's
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 2: barely up, and he's he's wearing shorts and a T shirt,
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 2: and his hair is you remember his hair, but on
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: this occasion there are a lot of beads and things
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 2: in his air as well, and it's totally scruffed up.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: The and we talk about rock and roll, mostly in
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: his background and the fact that he had been I
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: think as a backup and as a as a kind
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 2: of guitarist and a Rick and Nelson band that had
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 2: been in Cleveland a couple of years before. Then he'd
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 2: done this priest before he went out on his own.
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: And uh, then we get along and uh we begin
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: smoking dope, of course at nine thirty, and by fucking
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 2: eleven thirty, we both got the munchies. And he said, man,
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 2: among you you know, and you got any want to
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: go to any place? I've had a car waiting for
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: me downstairs. So I said, sure, we go down and
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: then Mitch Mitchell and Chas Chandler join us the other
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: members of the experience who were equally He's looking like
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 2: city characters, you know, but it's that time of the morning,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: it's after a concert all of that. So we pile
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: into this limbo and I direct them to go to
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 2: the book I wrote is the center of the Hungarian
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 2: community in Cleveland and the center of the Hungarian committee.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 2: On book I wrote as a restaurant called the Bullet, okay,
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 2: And I direct them to go to the Bulleton. Now
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: they know me at the Bulleton because I used to
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 2: live on book I wrote, And the big stretch Li
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 2: Mo pulls up play glass window front and filled with
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 2: old ladies with a bush cousin, guys, very formally dressed.
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: We get out in front of the place, and these
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: Martians three marches to get out of the car, and
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 2: I leave them in and now I'm guarant looking. I'm like,
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 2: what the fuck?
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: What is this?
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 2: You know it made me the They're just following me in,
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 2: and said, I see Jimmy looking around and ship so
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: they see to us. The major d knows me, so
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: he calls me aside and he says, what are these people?
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: Who are these people? And I said, Jimmy Hendrick's big
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: rock and roll story. You know he's in town. And
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 2: he said, oh. Then Hendrick says, ye, Jimmy Hendricks. So
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: we sit down. Then Jimmy says, you order for me, great,
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: So I ordered a chicken pupa cash for him, which
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 2: is the big Hungarian meal, and and Chas and the
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 2: Mitchell order something else but put very hungarian stuff on
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 2: my advice and the the Interestingly, as we're sitting there,
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: then the matre d is obviously spoken to people, because
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: old ladies are coming around asking him for an autograph.
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: We meet please, Wow, Wow, and he's gracious, sure the
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 2: the but he loves his pupperacash and wants to order another.
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 2: At this point, we knocked up two bottles of wine,
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: I think, and we're still rolling from all the dope,
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: so they bring that. At the end of this he
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 2: had three orders of chicken pupper cush he signed, We
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: had like four bottles of wine. We staggered out of there.
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: The he signed, I would guess ten autographs for people
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 2: would come around bowing, and then as we walk out
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 2: of the restaurant, he takes a face I haven't been
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: there and says, hungry, hungry.
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. Ron White was telling us a story the
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: other night in the Mothership Green Room, the comedy club
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: Green room, and he was saying that when he was
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: I think he said he was thirteen years old, he
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: went to see the Monkeys and Jimmy Hendricks opened for
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: the Monkeys. He said it was the worst booking of
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: all time. You've got exactly so this is when Jimmy
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: Hendrix was emerging. Really haven't become Jimmy Hendrix yet. And
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: so he's the opening act for the Monkeys. And so
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: you have a bunch of kids that are there to
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: see this really cute band that was, you know, pieced
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: together by corporate executives, essentially you know, the Monkey's Fun Band.
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: But you know, they had a TV show and it
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: was a very clean, sweet TV show. Heyahs, you know,
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: and then you've got this guy opening up for them,
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: this just jamming on the good Wow. They were freaked out.
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: They're like, what is this? Like what is going on?
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: And he said nobody liked it. It was terrifying to
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: people like who is this guy with his guitar? Like,
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: what the hell is he doing?
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: Great story. The Many years later, I thought her about
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: writing here Hendricks movie and working with a producer brand
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: named Ben Myron, and Ben rounded up his brother and
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: uh we actually brought him from Alibu and we unfortunately
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 2: we discovered that the rights were so screwed up in
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 2: between relatives that there's never been a Jimmy Hendrix movie, babe,
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: because people couldn't agree on on the deal of any kind.
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 2: But it still would be a terrific movie.
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, Oh, it would be a phenomenal
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: movie there. I believe there was at least one bio
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: docu drama, wasn't there, Jimmy, I believe. Do you remember it?
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was Ondred three thousand from Alca. They like
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 3: couldn't really use all the music and stuff.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: I think, Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't hear Jamie.
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: He said it was Andre three thousand from Outcast and
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: that they couldn't use all the music.
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: I see.
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 3: I think I came out ten even like ten.
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 2: That was an issue back then too. I remember that.
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a picture. That's right, Jimmy, that's right. Wow.
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 3: Also that the day after you're talking about in Cleveland,
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 3: there's a recording of the concert.
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, shit.
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 2: That's my Facebook? Is that right? Cleveland concert? Yeah?
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 3: Wow, there's a I've got a few different links. They
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 3: kept taking me to Facebook, but there's a bunch of pictures.
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 3: Whoa March twenty six, nineteen sixty eight.
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 3: Then there's a recording of the concert too.
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: So you can listen to the recording from the I
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: was trying to get in here.
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 3: There's like there's an article from his legendary trip to Cleveland.
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 3: But this was like paid wall, so I couldn't get all.
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 2: The stuff behind it. Whow Man, the nicest guy I
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: can imagine. Yeah, very nice guy. I just laid back.
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: Well, he was just insane. One of the not not
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: even one of a generation, one one of one talent.
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, to this day, if you ask most guitarists,
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: who's the greatest guitarist of all time, it's Jack Hendricks. Yeah,
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: that's crazy. The one guy who died at twenty seven
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: years old. And would he die in nineteen sixty nine
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: or nineteen seventy, Yeah, somewhere there that that guy, to
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: this day is universally regarded as the greatest guitarist of
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: all time.
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 2: You know, I interviewed and it was known as the
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 2: Grim Reaper at the Plan Dealer because I interviewed Hendricks,
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and us and they all died
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 2: in the old idea of you know, I did a
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 2: feature onse Polisiana and people would have come up to
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 2: me at the plan dealer and say, what do you
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 2: have against Ose? Why do you want to.
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. It's just unfortunate that they all die, and
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: they all died at twenty seven years old, which is
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: really right. Yeah, Hendricks, Joplin, and marrisl all died at
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: twenty seven, and who else Kirk Cobain Amy.
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: Winehouse at twenty seven.
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all twenty seven. Twenty seven is the magic
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: number for insanely talented people to die young. Yeah, very weird.
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: You've had an incredible life, man.
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I've been blessed. I've been really blessed. First of all,
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 2: the fact that I'm still here at eighty one, considering
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 2: some of my excesses in the past, is miraculous, truly is.
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 2: Instead of smoking when I was thirteen, stopped when I
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 2: was sixty.
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: WHOA.
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 2: Then I had to stage four cancer and Marshall's throwing
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: surgery saved me. The you know, the I drank two
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 2: most of my life until I was seventy and I
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 2: finally stopped then. The only because I have a hard
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 2: headed Italian Polish wife who said, enough, you're falling down.
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 2: You're taking twelve pills and you're falling down. No fucking more, okay,
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 2: end it now. Shortly after we're married, after literally after
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 2: we exchanged the vows, she turned to me and she says,
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 2: she whispers, she says, if you cheat on me, I'm
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 2: going to fucking hunt you down and kill you. Okay.
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 2: I listened to her. I listened to her. I listened
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 2: to this one.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: So sounds like a fun lady.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: She is. She is, and she's I'm very proud of
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 2: her because at sixty seven, the mother of four and
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 2: truly the true head of our family. She's writing her
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 2: first she's written in her first novel, which is called
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: Dark Church, and it's set in in Draculas, Transylvania, and
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: it's a a kind of of Gothic thriller. The and the.
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 2: I bring it up because I promised her that I
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: would make this plug and I fear that if I don't,
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be a lot of drunk in troubles.
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Joe.
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: I love it when someone does something like that when
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: they're in their sixties, just say fuck it. Something I
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: always wanted to do. Let's do it. I think it's fantastic.
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: I just love when people do, like, fuck your age,
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: who cares? Just put it out, I write it.
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 2: I agree. Yeah, but I have lived it, lived an
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: amazing life, and and I'm very thankful the I've seen
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 2: a lot the and I've come out on the other side.
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of darkness too. But when it's
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: all over. Graham Green, who's in writer that I admire,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: and died I think in the late seventies, and he said,
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 2: we get to a point where we see the fence.
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 2: The fence is there, but we can't see over the fence.
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 2: But the closer we get to the fence, the more
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 2: curious we are about what's on the other side of
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 2: the fence. And there are some people who decide that
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 2: they're too curious, people like Hunter and jump over the fence.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 2: I'm not doing that, but I'm approaching the fence. Well,
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 2: I've lived a terrific life. And only once again, only
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 2: only in America, you know, really America.
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, only in America. Well, I'm glad you're not jumping
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: over the fence. No, I'm glad we got a chance
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: to talk.
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I really did admire his note no more
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: fun note it should be.
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean that's how he lived and at
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: the end of his life obviously it was not fun
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: No no.
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 2: But Dway and Wayne keep going back to twayinn is
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 2: a good one. I think he said the orgasm is
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 2: God's own paidback for all the suffering vide overlooks in
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 2: the world.
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: That's funny. Well, it's like writers in particular are They're
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: so important to culture because they can put down thoughts
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: in a way that reshapes the way people view things.
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: You know, we talked about Hunter in the sixties and
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: the seventies. He was the voice of that generation. Like
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: he was the guy that was this intelligent guy that
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: wasn't a part of the elite establishment, that wasn't a
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: part of the rich fat cats, but was also famous
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: and well known, but stuck true to his thoughts and
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: his beliefs. It was able to articulate things in a
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: way that gave you this understanding of what was going
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: on with the people that to this day, if you
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: read Fear and Loathing on the campaign trail, or if
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: you read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or you know,
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: any of his work, you know, the Kentucky day Derby
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: is decadent and depraved, like it's just a phenomenal encapsulation
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: of something. Yes, yeah, it's so important, it's and we
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: don't have a lot of that today unfortunately. You know,
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: you got a lot of podcasters and a lot of
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: you know, people making YouTube videos and tiktoks and just
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: not a lot of like great writing that encapsulates things
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: where there's like one figure that we turned to to
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: read their stuff on things. And Hunter was that guy.
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, he was as anyway was previous generation, you know,
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 2: under and I talked a lot about it anyway, Yeah,
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 2: because of our backgrounds and earning on living and all
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 2: of that. And I think that the fact that a
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 2: Hunter ended it as he did was was was sort
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 2: of taught out many many years before it brought the ways.
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: Example inspired by Hemingway. Yeah, unfortunately that's how he did
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: it too. Yeah, And they both shared in common that
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: they drank to excess.
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. But you know, when I when I was a
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 2: boy wanting to be a and I wanted to be
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 2: a novelist and a screenwriter, a boy the Holy Trinity
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 2: where Amyway Fitzgerald and Faulkner, they all died of alcoholism anyway,
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 2: shot himself. Fitzgerald had a a art attack at a
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 2: very young age while working as a hat Hollywood screenwriter incidentally,
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 2: and Vaulkner and Philo for worse. I think in his
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 2: early seventies ripped, ripped, totally drunk, and these were the
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: idols of young people coming up.
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: Then, you know, what do you think it is about
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: alcohol and writing that go hand and glove.
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 2: The I For a while I drank all day black
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 2: coffee and going act the U. And then then later
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 2: on in life the I didn't have my first drink
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 2: until noon, and what they make way was eleven o'clock
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 2: and uh, and I measured it until at night and
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 2: and then it was gin before it was white wine.
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 2: And part of it is that if you're lost in
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 2: this imaginary world that's in your head all day, you
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 2: can't get rid of it, you can't make it stop,
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 2: and and the buoye makes it stop so that you
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 2: could continue your normal, vermeilial daily obligations and schedules without
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 2: having this this stuff in your head all the time,
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 2: trying to crowd it out the fact that sometimes excuse me.
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 2: The fact that sometimes I wake up in the middle
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 2: of the night and take notes of some thing that
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 2: their character says. There's something indicates that I can't get
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 2: rid of it. With the boo is when I was drinking.
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 2: If I drank it off, I could get rid of
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 2: it and begin it again the next day. It's partly
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 2: freeing yourself. It's an interesting points. Partly freeing yourself from
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 2: something that you've created yourself. So in that sense, you
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 2: create something then that that can hurt you, even if
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 2: you created it. My greatest enjoyment with driving the screenplays then,
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 2: I mean it gives me a terrific amount of pleasure
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 2: is knowing that it's going to take When people see this,
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 2: it's going to make their own lives more pleasant for
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 2: at least two hours. They will enjoy it. They may
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 2: they may laugh at it, but it will take them
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 2: out of their own existence. Is in a pleasant way.
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 2: That ain't bad to be able to do that with people. Oh,
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 2: it's huge, and then that's very important to me.
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: People think of it as trivial, that entertainment is trivial.
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: I don't think it is at all. Shapes perceptions of
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: the world exactly.
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 2: You do the exact same thing. You make people's lives
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 2: better by enjoying what they're watching. And that's that's that
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 2: is not as important or as dramatic as my daughter
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 2: in law, for example, we just got her medical degree,
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 2: who literally literally saves people's lives. The incidentally, the classic
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 2: Hollywood story I the Calissa and then Alyssa Asters works
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 2: in Texas at a hospital and she just got her
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 2: medical degree. But to show the influence that Ollywood has
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 2: on our culture, the other day, she walks into her
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: room and there's a gigantic, big guy there who's yelling
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 2: and screaming. You know, this is the sweetest person in
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 2: the world and u and has a wonderful smile and
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 2: really is great with people. That she's trying to calm
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 2: him down, and she's, what's wrong, what's wrong? And she
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 2: describes him as a really big man and screaming and
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 2: and he said, what's wrong, what's wrong? And he yells,
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 2: I want Brad Pitt. That's fucking in Texas. You know
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 2: it's the hospital. When he says, you want Brad Pitt,
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 2: I want fucking back Brad Pitt. But why why do
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 2: you want Brett Pitt? Because I want to fuck him.
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 2: That sweet factory confronted with this mad man. What the
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 2: Brad Pitt one more examples the need of the powerful
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 2: effect of the culture. So when I watch something, I
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 2: don't want some guys say to read to see it
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 2: and say this is the result I want Brad Pitt.
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 2: Nor do I want vladimis Abski to start a fucking war.
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 2: But I do want people to enjoy it.
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: That's hilarious when you see, like when you say that
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: the alcohol silence the voices. I always thought of it
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: as the other I thought of it as like alcohol
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: releases people from their inhibitions and allows them to tap
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: into this voice.
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I think that happens with some writers, but that's
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 2: never been my problem. The uh, there's something about going
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 2: into a little room wherever you are, and you don't
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 2: have to be a Hollywood, could be anywhere there's as
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 2: long as there's a little room in the house you
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 2: can escape to and then sit there quietly and make
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 2: it up that that that you that you think will
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 2: that people will enjoy. As long as that's there, that's
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 2: that's all. That's all I really need. And you know,
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 2: the now, occasionally maybe I will play music without stop
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 2: on certain scripts. There's the same way with would Better Go,
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 2: And I listened to him a lot and Dylan, of course.
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 2: I did a movie with Dylan, you know, the which
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 2: was also funny experience and the But sometimes there's music.
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 2: It's not coke anymore, it's not it's not go nac anymore.
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 2: With coffee. I drank so much coffee that finally one
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 2: day we had to call an ambulance because I thought
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 2: I was having a heart attack, become allergic to it.
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: It was just caffeine ambulance.
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 2: Caffeine ambulance are driving me down and mare in general.
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 2: And there's a traffic jam, there's construction right and they
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 2: think I'm having a heart attack. And I jump out
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 2: of the ambulance and I run up to the guy
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 2: with a hard hat and I'll never forget it, says
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 2: breaker Off on the name of brinker Off, and I'm
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 2: yelling at him, I'm having an art attack, you motherfucker.
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 2: Get these guys out of the way. I'm dying. Of course,
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's worse than the guy who wants
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 2: to fuck Brad Pitt. It gets out of the way.
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: Well, crazy, It's just coffee after all the coke and
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: all the other craziness.
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you will leaven that gun. So I had to stop.
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 2: I stopped the coffee as well. Then the years after
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 2: I stopped it, I was in New York and I
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 2: ordered a decap espress, so there wasn't decap when I
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 2: was up for two and a half days with that
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 2: mean he was sleep So obviously I said to totally totally.
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you lost your tolerance for it. But the.
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 2: I never had it that never, I never felt it
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 2: inspired me. Now the with basic instincts writing it the
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 2: in the sun, in the Hawaiian sun, you know. And
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 2: of course all through all of this it was non
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 2: stopped smoking, you know, I mean the two packs of
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 2: days smoking beginning with Lucky's and Marlboroughs and moving out
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 2: the goal was and occasionally cigars and pipe and all
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 2: this ship the the But so I did do that,
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 2: but I never felt that the that the coke was
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 2: inspirational and it was enjoyed, It was enjoyable and it
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 2: was fucking dynamite sexually, you know. So and that also
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 2: comes in handy, But.
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: It wasn't what fueled your writing. Nicotine.
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, that's you know.
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: That's also Stephen King said that that when he stopped
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: smoking was one of the most difficult things that he
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: ever quit. Like quitting the booze and quitting coke and
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: all that stuff was one thing, but quitting cigarettes, he said,
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: he really noticed the difference in his writing.
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 2: Well, the the Yeah, I went through that, and I
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 2: was warned after after my cancer surgery by this Army
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 2: surgeon that I liked so much that if you smoke
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 2: or drink, you're dead. You know you're dead, understand that,
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 2: And so I took it seriously. The the drinking, My
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 2: idea of not drinking at that point was switching from
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 2: Tanger eight to white wine. And of course that guy
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 2: out of hand after until Naomi jumped into the whole
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 2: prey you.
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: Know so and now you're completely clear and.
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 2: Totally I've been first, completely clean.
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: Does this all line up with your conversion to Christianity?
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I I I needed Jesus of
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 2: Nazar's and help seriously to be able to do all that.
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 2: The and I did a lot of praying, but I
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 2: still believe in prayer, and I believe in worship. With
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 2: a group of people. There's a special kind of inspirational
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 2: thing that I feel.
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I agree with you. I think there's something
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: about all those people collected together. Yeah, it's just like
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: when you go to a concert and you feel the
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: music with all the people that are enjoying the music.
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: There's a similar thing that happens at a church.
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 2: Very similarly.
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: We're meant to be together, you know. We are tribal
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: people and we're meant to be together. And there's something
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: about groups of people together, especially in a positive way,
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: that unite us and connect us in a way that
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: it's very profound. It's different than anything else. It's different
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: than watching it on a screen. There's something about being
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: in the presence of other people that are doing the
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: same thing.
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you can feel a vibe. Yeah, and the
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 2: vibe is it goes deep in the it's really inspirational.
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 2: And when it's really working, I feel almost transported them
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 2: on a different level, you know, and I feel myself
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 2: being on that level and it's wonderful.
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And you can see all these other people experiencing
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: the same thing, and it's it's very transformational, really it.
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: And you know, I was talking about the parking lot
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: of church is like the best place on earth because
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: no everybody lets you go. Everybody lets everybody go in
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: front of them. Everyone's kind, you know, it's it works,
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: that's what's crazy. Like the teachings of Jesus do work. Yes,
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: if you follow them, you will be a better person.
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 2: Yes you will.
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 1: But people are very cynical and rightly so they're very
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 1: afraid of people manipulating them. They're very afraid of cults.
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: There you go, You got your cross right on you.
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: That's a nice one too, like that because people are
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: very afraid of people telling them that they know things
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: that they have the answers.
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the uh, I'm I'm I'm not afraid of that.
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm skeptical of it. But it depends on where
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 2: it's coming from. And sometimes I don't know who you are,
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 2: but sometimes I could feel something very special with someone
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 2: who is talking about those kinds of things.
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: You know, you can feel the difference, and the difference
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: between that and someone who's not genuine is very apparent.
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: You feel that as well, like it's just it bothers you,
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: you know, like I don't want to hear this guy
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: talk about.
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 2: This, but you know what, if you have a ship detector,
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 2: and you do, and so do I. If you have
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 2: a ship detector, you can really feel that and pick
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 2: it up, block it out.
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think your ship detector works with virtually everything.
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: And I think the audience gets it too, you know, people.
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 2: I agree the the in terms of if my if
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 2: my ship detector advises me to do something, almost always
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Well this is Joe. It's been an honor
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: having you in here.
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 2: You're such as been such a pleasure. You are truly
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 2: what you do is you have redefined in the interview
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 2: and you made it into a very special conversation. Conversation
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 2: chat between two guys who think they'll like each other,
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 2: and they talk for hours and they're inspired and they
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 2: they come out liking each other. And you do that
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 2: to people, and I think that's a great GIF. Thank you.
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 2: I thank you for the Joe Rogan experience.
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. It's an honor, thanks, an
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: honor to meet you, in honor to have you on here,
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: and I really enjoyed the conversation. It was awesome.
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you.