Latest / Troubled Men Podcast / TMP350 JONATHAN FERRARA LENDS A HAND

Transcript

TMP350 JONATHAN FERRARA LENDS A HAND · Troubled Men Podcast

• 0:15
  Speaker A: Greetings, troubled listeners. Welcome back to the Troubled Men podcast. I'm Renee Komen, sitting once again in Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge in the heart of the Clempire with my co host, the original troubled man for troubled times, Mr. Manny Chevrolet. Welcome, Manny.
• 0:32
  Speaker B: Hey man. What is going on?
• 0:34
  Speaker A: Oh, you know, same old thing. Supposedly summer's over, but it's still hot as hell out there.
• 0:39
  Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I don't understand what the big deal is. This morning on the way to work, the radio news that the top story was summer is over. It's like, but it's still going to be hot. I was like, yeah, I know that. And then on the way home from work, this headline story was summer is over tonight at like 7:30.
• 0:58
  Speaker A: Huh?
• 0:58
  Speaker B: And it's still going to be hot. So it's like you got nothing else. Yeah, you know, Slow news day, huh? Well, I don't know about that. I mean, I don't know if you heard, but the, our military forces are having war games in our city right now.
• 1:13
  Speaker A: Oh, I didn't know that.
• 1:14
  Speaker B: Yeah, you didn't hear. So they warn the city. Warned. If you see low flying helicopters or hear explosions, it's just war games going on.
• 1:23
  Speaker A: Okay. Nothing, nothing to worry about.
• 1:24
  Speaker B: Nothing to worry about.
• 1:25
  Speaker A: Nothing to be concerned.
• 1:26
  Speaker B: They're coordinated with the nopd, which that doesn't sound safe at all. You know that the army is coordinating with the NOPD to run these little actions they're doing. They're not really war games, I think, I think they're getting prepared for riots in the streets.
• 1:42
  Speaker A: Oh really?
• 1:43
  Speaker B: You know, once our fearless leader tries to pull a couple, whatever they call that on our, on our people and stuff like that. And so they're, they're, they're practicing in, in, in sanctuary cities right now.
• 1:57
  Speaker A: Huh. Okay. Suppressing the. Well, you know, so New Orleans is not a city that traditionally has rioted too much.
• 2:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, I know. Because they're too lethargic.
• 2:06
  Speaker A: We're distracted. You know, it's too warm. You know, it's, they understand that in the end it's going to amount to a big bunch of nothing. And you know why, why put yourself out?
• 2:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. So anyway, that's, you know, I haven't heard any explosions, but I did see some low flying helicopters.
• 2:25
  Speaker A: Huh.
• 2:25
  Speaker B: You know, so I, I'm surprised you didn't hear the story. It was a big story.
• 2:28
  Speaker A: No, not at all. Well, you're used to the low flying helicopters coming from la.
• 2:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's not a big deal to me. You know, the spotlight in my bedroom
• 2:36
  Speaker C: window and stuff like that.
• 2:39
  Speaker B: I've seen it all, baby. You know, in fact, one time I was banging this girl, okay. And the spotlight came in through my bedroom window and it just stayed there. I think the chopper pilots were whacking off. Yeah. I don't know.
• 2:55
  Speaker A: They were.
• 2:56
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 2:57
  Speaker A: Getting an eyeful.
• 2:58
  Speaker B: They were liking what they saw, baby. Okay, you know, I've told you over the years, chick stick.
• 3:03
  Speaker A: I know. Well, it's a fact. It's a fact. It's a well established factory. Chick stick, Manny.
• 3:10
  Speaker B: Yeah. You know, and so anyway, you know, I've been lit up all weekend.
• 3:14
  Speaker A: Huh.
• 3:14
  Speaker B: And I'm not holding back tonight like I did last week. Okay, well, now, no holding back.
• 3:19
  Speaker A: Okay. What were you.
• 3:20
  Speaker B: What.
• 3:21
  Speaker A: What was the reason behind you being lit up all weekend?
• 3:24
  Speaker B: I was thinking of certain people in my life that made me happy, you know, like those helicopter pilots.
• 3:32
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 3:33
  Speaker B: And so I just thought, you know, why not? Okay, why not? So I've been on a roll, man, for about 78 hours.
• 3:40
  Speaker A: Really?
• 3:41
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 3:41
  Speaker A: Well, you're going back to. You're back at work, right?
• 3:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, I've been back at work.
• 3:45
  Speaker A: Right. You know, but you're not letting that stop you.
• 3:48
  Speaker B: No, because there's a lot of things influencing me at work, like all the young ladies.
• 3:53
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 3:54
  Speaker B: You know, you see how they dress?
• 3:56
  Speaker A: Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There, it's.
• 3:58
  Speaker B: It's good stuff. Yeah, it's good stuff. You know, but anyway, yeah, so I'm doing that and war games are going on and anyway, what else is happening?
• 4:10
  Speaker A: Well, you know, we. We missed a couple of important celebrity deaths while we were on our little hiatus there on maternity leave. And, you know, one of them, I was thinking might be the. You know, when Tom Petty died, there was the idea that, well, the last person that everyone, the right and the left can both agree on that they liked is gone.
• 4:33
  Speaker B: Oh. Yeah.
• 4:34
  Speaker A: But then actually, it turns out there was another one. Dolly Parton.
• 4:38
  Speaker B: Oh, we didn't talk about this.
• 4:39
  Speaker A: No, no, no, no, because she. She passed away while we were gone and. Yeah, came and went, but, you know, universally beloved.
• 4:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, she was my friend. Both of them.
• 4:51
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 4:51
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:52
  Speaker A: Coat of many colors.
• 4:53
  Speaker B: You know, she had that great line, and I think it could be also, you know, pertains to Trump's Oval Office. It's like, it takes a lot of money to look this cheap.
• 5:07
  Speaker A: Right, right. You know, so, yes, it certainly does. Does apply. Well, you know, speaking of that, I. I saw some mock ups of that arc to Trump that That he's pushing.
• 5:18
  Speaker B: Oh God, yeah.
• 5:19
  Speaker A: It looks so absurd. Man, it makes Vegas look classy, you know, that, that, oh man.
• 5:28
  Speaker B: But I don't know, you know, I heard he said that the reset, the recession's unfortunate, but it's necessary step to get to the Depression.
• 5:37
  Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense.
• 5:38
  Speaker B: That's what he said.
• 5:39
  Speaker A: That makes sense.
• 5:40
  Speaker B: What's going on in this country.
• 5:41
  Speaker A: You know, he has no dummy, you
• 5:43
  Speaker B: know, the gas is crazy going on.
• 5:46
  Speaker A: Right. Well, well. And the other one we lost is the great Tim Curry.
• 5:51
  Speaker B: Oh yeah, Tim Curry, yeah, he was the great transvestite or whatever.
• 5:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Dr. Frank N. Furter and.
• 6:00
  Speaker B: Right, right.
• 6:01
  Speaker A: That's a Rocky Horror Picture show now that used to play that as a midnight movie in New Orleans all the time. Is that something? Would you go, did they have those in la?
• 6:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, they had them at the New Art Theater in Santa Monica. They had the Rocky Horror Picture show. Like I think was Saturday night Midnight.
• 6:15
  Speaker C: Right.
• 6:16
  Speaker B: I went once. Yeah, I just did.
• 6:18
  Speaker A: Didn't get it. Didn't get it. Yeah, I never went. But when I saw films of people watching it and you know people that would go back week after week, you know, and they bring the rice and they throw it at the screen and all that stuff, I thought, geez, man, this is like one step above Dungeons and Dragons crowd, you know.
• 6:37
  Speaker B: Well yeah, but then they started doing. I remember it got hip. They were doing the midnight shows of Mommy Dearest.
• 6:44
  Speaker A: Huh.
• 6:45
  Speaker B: In la, the new art. And people would throw wire hangers at the screen and stuff like that. That was a little bit more entertaining because it was actually a better movie.
• 6:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:54
  Speaker B: Than Rocky Horror. Now I'm probably going to upset some Rocky Horror fans, but I just didn't get it. I, I, I know you're not a big musical guy anyway.
• 7:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But you like Guys and Dolls, huh? No, no, I love that. I like.
• 7:09
  Speaker B: I thought you like guys and guys.
• 7:11
  Speaker A: Oh well, sure. Guys and guys, Girls and guys. Girls and Girls.
• 7:15
  Speaker B: Know.
• 7:15
  Speaker A: I like Mix and Match, Baby Doll.
• 7:17
  Speaker B: I like. There's not too many musicals I liked. I like the Marks Brothers comedies cuz they always had songs in them which were fun and those were funny.
• 7:27
  Speaker A: But you wouldn't necessarily call those musicals. Yeah, but you could. Yeah, I like Hooray for Captain Spalding.
• 7:34
  Speaker B: Right. And whatever it is, I'm against it. That kind of stuff.
• 7:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:38
  Speaker B: But not a big musical guy. Well, you know, but you know, it's funny. Speaking of musicals, like Broadway just like Hollywood is running out of ideas.
• 7:48
  Speaker A: Oh yeah.
• 7:48
  Speaker B: So Broadway now has a musical of the movie the Outsiders.
• 7:52
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 7:52
  Speaker B: You know, which was a Coppola film from an se hit novel. Which. The film was pretty good. It wasn't great, but they made a musical of it. You know, it's just like. Okay, whatever. It's like. It's like that time I tried to make a musical of the movie of Mice and Men. You know, I remember that I had songs like, lenny, Lenny, how did you get those rabbits in your hat? We ran one night.
• 8:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you know, that's. That was foreseeable.
• 8:25
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 8:26
  Speaker A: You know, the funny thing about those midnight movies is like, my parents would let me go out and play a music job as a teenager until at midnight, two o' clock in the morning.
• 8:36
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 8:37
  Speaker A: But if I had a night off and I said, I'm going to see this midnight movie, it's like, no, you're not. You can't know. Why would you go to a movie starting at midnight? Go to an earlier movie. It's like, no, it's a midnight movie. It's like, well, who goes to a midnight movie? You know, they didn't get it and they weren't interested.
• 8:52
  Speaker B: So you took them with you?
• 8:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You know, they got the family pass.
• 8:57
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 8:58
  Speaker A: Well, you know the other thing you brought up about the wire coat hangers? I was at the abortion clinic. Yeah, well, no, before that or after that, I should say. I was at a tenant's house trying to do a repair on a window air conditioning unit that wouldn't drain properly. It was kind of backing up and draining all over the sill. And I needed a wire coat hanger to kind of route out the drip pan stuff. And this girl had two closets full of clothes and not a single wire coat hanger.
• 9:30
  Speaker B: Oh, she's probably saw the movie.
• 9:32
  Speaker A: Well, you know, I thought, you know, Joan Crawford was wrong. You know, wire coat hangers do come in handy.
• 9:39
  Speaker B: Well, she just didn't like them because they were cheap.
• 9:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, right.
• 9:43
  Speaker B: You know, that's the thing. Right.
• 9:44
  Speaker A: Well, ultimately I was calling friends in the neighborhood to see if they were home if I could borrow a wire coat hanger. Ultimately, I couldn't get in touch with anybody. I googled on the maps. A dry cleaning place.
• 10:01
  Speaker B: When they gave you one, they gave
• 10:02
  Speaker A: me a wire coat hanger.
• 10:03
  Speaker B: Really?
• 10:04
  Speaker A: It all worked out.
• 10:05
  Speaker B: Didn't go to Hobby Lobby?
• 10:07
  Speaker A: No, no, I was, I was in Mid City. You know, I was trying to. Trying to not. Not make any big long drives. Well, I saw an interesting tidbit in the news today.
• 10:18
  Speaker C: You know,
• 10:23
  Speaker A: Rob Reiner's murderer son is back in the news.
• 10:27
  Speaker B: Oh, really?
• 10:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, he's. He's asking the court to enforce distributing his trust fund money to him because
• 10:35
  Speaker B: he needs to pay his lawyers that
• 10:37
  Speaker A: he was owed before he killed his parents.
• 10:40
  Speaker B: Right.
• 10:40
  Speaker A: And I guess, you know, he's going to appeal on the. The grounds that he's. After all, he's an orphan now, you know.
• 10:47
  Speaker B: Right. But does he have siblings? He has a couple siblings.
• 10:52
  Speaker A: He does, yeah.
• 10:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, Right.
• 10:55
  Speaker A: Well, they're orphans as well, you know,
• 10:57
  Speaker B: he's nuts, the kids.
• 10:58
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 10:59
  Speaker B: Yeah. He's got some problems and a sad
• 11:02
  Speaker A: thing, terrible thing to lose one's mom.
• 11:04
  Speaker B: But if you wanted. He should just do a GoFundMe thing.
• 11:08
  Speaker A: Ah, probably.
• 11:09
  Speaker B: So he'll probably make some money that
• 11:11
  Speaker A: I think there's a lot of people in America that would, that would support
• 11:14
  Speaker B: him, you know, I think so too.
• 11:15
  Speaker A: Luigi Mangione, you know, they're all behind that.
• 11:18
  Speaker B: You know, a lot of anti semitic people would probably give him money too. They did a good job there. Kid brother, you know.
• 11:25
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 11:26
  Speaker B: That kind of stuff.
• 11:27
  Speaker A: I'm sure you're not wrong there, man.
• 11:28
  Speaker B: You know, I'm not wrong about much.
• 11:31
  Speaker A: It depends.
• 11:32
  Speaker B: Anyway, our. Our guest has not even put in, has inputted anything.
• 11:37
  Speaker A: No, he hasn't. Hasn't picked up his microphone.
• 11:41
  Speaker C: I'm a little terrified. Also, nobody knows who the I am,
• 11:43
  Speaker A: so they will find out. And here's the thing. You're. They'll know who you are because even before your introduction, they'll see your name on the title of episode.
• 11:52
  Speaker C: All right, so I have. I'll tell you one, one funny thing. Like, I was at this, this music festival in New Mexico last week, and it was at Georgia o' Keefe's Ghost Ranch, and it's called Blossom and Bones. And basically it's middle of nowhere and high desert and you camp out. I can't stand camping. But I like festivals, right? So I was like, all right, you know that. And brought my Ambien with me to take care.
• 12:15
  Speaker B: Take care of.
• 12:17
  Speaker C: And so, so I'm there and there was this one of the, I guess the beneficiaries or like the groups that they had there with this noise for now. And I'm like, all right, you know, like whatever you kind of blow past. There's not that many. There's like maybe a thousand people this whole festival. I never buy T shirts. I just like, buy black T shirts, right?
• 12:36
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 12:36
  Speaker C: But there was this one T shirt I kept on walking past it, it said don't snitch on my snatch. So I literally walked past it like 20 times. I was like, it, I'm buying this T shirt. Like I don't even know. Like, it's literally, it's like just. But I think it'd be really cool, like wearing a suit and then says, don't snitch up my snacks to some event or something. Like, what does that mean? It's like, if you don't know what
• 12:59
  Speaker B: it means, then let me ask you what kind of music is at this festival for joy?
• 13:05
  Speaker C: So it was, so it opened up at the Cowboy Junkies.
• 13:08
  Speaker B: They're still around.
• 13:09
  Speaker A: They are.
• 13:10
  Speaker C: It's a little antiquated, but yeah, the same, Same song. Sweet Jane and then Violent Femmes played Arlo Parks, Sylvan Esso. Clap your hands and say yeah. This group called Folk Bitch Trio from. That was really good. From Australia. And then there was the New Pornographers. But Nico Case didn't play with, with with at that time. There was like four bands, like starts like ones at 4:30.
• 13:37
  Speaker B: It's like, it's like, I see why only a thousand people, but it's, I
• 13:40
  Speaker C: mean it's all the middle of nowhere. You, you can't just drive there for the afternoon.
• 13:43
  Speaker B: You could. Did you take mushrooms or you took the ambient?
• 13:47
  Speaker C: I can't say about the latter thing with the former thing. Ambient. I, I, I, I have a prescription.
• 13:52
  Speaker B: So. Yeah. Okay.
• 13:54
  Speaker C: So you know that, that's, that's.
• 13:55
  Speaker B: What does Ambien do? How does it help you? What does it, what is it for?
• 14:00
  Speaker A: For?
• 14:00
  Speaker C: I just, I have trouble sleeping. Have had trouble sleeping and I had sleep, I've sleep.
• 14:05
  Speaker B: How old are you? 75. Who doesn't have trouble sleeping at that age?
• 14:09
  Speaker C: So now I'm 59.
• 14:11
  Speaker B: But.
• 14:11
  Speaker C: So, I mean I basically that I just take it because it's, it's, it helps you get to sleep. It doesn't help you stay asleep. But then I also got a sleep apnea machine. I got like, this is, I have a, I like, I like, I have my Ambien prescription. I have a sleep apnea machine. I got eight fucking pillows. I got like, I got a mask, I get earplugs.
• 14:31
  Speaker A: Big production.
• 14:32
  Speaker C: Now take that and put, put that into fucking high desert, right in a tent that's like the size of your womb or something like that. You know what I mean? Not a great thing for that, for those.
• 14:44
  Speaker B: It sounds so uncomfortable.
• 14:45
  Speaker C: It is. But I was like, you know what,
• 14:47
  Speaker B: did you bring all your pillows with you?
• 14:49
  Speaker C: I brought one pillow thank God. I mean, it was pretty brutal, but the setting is amazing. And, you know, it's the high desert that, like, the mesas are. It's where Georgia Keeffe lived in.
• 15:01
  Speaker A: Painted.
• 15:01
  Speaker D: Right.
• 15:02
  Speaker C: So that has some symbolism to me.
• 15:04
  Speaker B: And is it where Gene Hackman died?
• 15:08
  Speaker C: I don't know, man.
• 15:09
  Speaker B: Okay, so.
• 15:11
  Speaker C: And I also like it. I like to go to places where it's. The topography is completely different than New Orleans.
• 15:16
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 15:16
  Speaker C: I mean, like, you can't see but 10ft in front of you here. There, it's like you see like 50 miles, you know, I mean, that. So that's, like. That opens up my mind.
• 15:24
  Speaker B: That makes me nervous out there. Why? Because I. I need the concrete under my feet.
• 15:29
  Speaker A: Too much open space.
• 15:30
  Speaker B: Yeah. All the animals and the insects.
• 15:35
  Speaker C: There wasn't many insects, but if your car breaks down, nobody's coming to get you, bro. They're in.
• 15:40
  Speaker B: Your cell phone's not going to work out there either.
• 15:43
  Speaker C: Not really. You know, which is good and bad.
• 15:45
  Speaker B: That's why you take the acid when you're out there, you know, you might as well, because, you know, someone. Something always happens on acid.
• 15:53
  Speaker C: Something's going to get you.
• 15:55
  Speaker B: Yeah. You know, those coyotes, man, they'll get you.
• 15:58
  Speaker C: So that was my. Don't snip.
• 16:00
  Speaker B: So is this place near Area 54?
• 16:03
  Speaker C: I don't think so. It's actually about an hour and a half northwest of Santa Fe.
• 16:06
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 16:07
  Speaker C: It's not. It's not that remote, but it's pretty fucking. And she was. Georgia O'. Keeffe, she was living out there, like, in 1929, as a woman, as a very famous painter.
• 16:17
  Speaker B: She was on Ambien, right?
• 16:18
  Speaker C: 100%. Well, if they had Ambien back then, they probably had something.
• 16:21
  Speaker B: Yeah. She was on the peyote.
• 16:24
  Speaker C: Probably anything the Indians were drumming up. She was taken, I bet.
• 16:28
  Speaker D: Right on.
• 16:29
  Speaker C: Right on.
• 16:30
  Speaker B: She was a photographer, right?
• 16:32
  Speaker C: Painter.
• 16:32
  Speaker B: A painter. Painter. Okay.
• 16:34
  Speaker C: Yeah. She painted, like, you would see a lot of, like the. They. They're like flowers that look like. Those are one thing. They also. A lot of maces, like, like mountains are chopped off. She was very famous for. For those things, but especially for, like, the flowers that.
• 16:48
  Speaker B: Like the Ken Russell films. Flowers that look like pussies or vice versa. I don't know.
• 16:54
  Speaker C: There's a lot of that out there.
• 16:55
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 16:56
  Speaker A: It's beautiful country. I was out there on tour just a month or so ago. Oh, yeah. Played in Santa Fe. They have the Georgia o' Keeffe Museum there.
• 17:04
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
• 17:04
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:05
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. You probably Played at the theater where these guys, Lenzic360, they own that theater and they produce all the festivals in New Mexico.
• 17:13
  Speaker A: So.
• 17:14
  Speaker C: They produce. I was like, I'm sitting there going, how the are these people making money with all these bands and there's only a thousand. It's like, it's like basically less people in the faded O stage, you know what I mean? I'm like, how do they make money here? And like, I think because they produce all the other festivals, they get people to come in for, you know, good rates and stuff like that, but yeah, it's a beautiful part of the country. Yeah, man, there's nothing there, man.
• 17:33
  Speaker B: It's like, you know.
• 17:34
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I always say, you know, out in the stillness of the desert, you can. You can really hear your own thoughts.
• 17:40
  Speaker C: 100% that. 100%.
• 17:41
  Speaker A: More than that. Yeah. Hear the.
• 17:44
  Speaker B: Well, that doesn't sound good.
• 17:47
  Speaker A: It's a frightening prospect.
• 17:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, it doesn't sound good for some of us. Right, right, right.
• 17:52
  Speaker A: I hear you, man. I can relate to both. I can only take it for a short period of time.
• 17:56
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:56
  Speaker A: And I got to hear the, the sirens and the, the car horns. What else, man?
• 18:01
  Speaker B: Let's get our guest in.
• 18:02
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 18:02
  Speaker B: Cuz, he's already talking his ear off, so let's get our.
• 18:05
  Speaker C: That's great.
• 18:06
  Speaker A: That's great. We like to like them. Like them when they come in with a head of steam. Our guest, fantastic guest here, he's a terrific fine artist, a painter, sculptor, photographer, author, poet. He's the co owner of the beautiful Ferrara Showman Gallery on Julia street for the past 27 years. He's the founder of the annual international juried exhibition no Dead Artists now in its 30th year. Other projects of his include Guns in the Hands of Artists exhibition and the COVID Era Hope photo project. And he's exhibited his work all around the world. His latest project involving casting the hands of New Orleans musicians is now underway. And we're going to get into all that and much more. But without further ado, the great Mr. Jonathan Ferraro. Welcome, Jonathan.
• 18:59
  Speaker C: Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure. That was nice to hear some of the shit that I've done. Cause I forgot half of it.
• 19:04
  Speaker A: I hear you, man. No, no, A lot of people say that.
• 19:07
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 19:07
  Speaker A: I was like, wow, I sound impressed.
• 19:09
  Speaker C: I'm impressed myself. Yeah, exactly. If somebody else is saying it's even more impressive.
• 19:13
  Speaker A: Right, right, right. Especially when I say it with such gusto.
• 19:16
  Speaker C: Right, exactly.
• 19:18
  Speaker A: Well, welcome to the show. We recently met on your most recent project. You invited me very, very generously invited me to come participate in the. The have my. My hands cast. And. And we'll get into more of that. Of that later on. But for now, let's. Let's go back a little bit in your life. I know you're not from New Orleans.
• 19:43
  Speaker C: No, I'm originally from right outside of Baltimore, Maryland. So I lived in. I call it Vanilla ice, Maryland, for 17 years. And then on my 17th birthday, my mother got a job with the Department of the army, and I moved to West Germany, back when it was West Germany.
• 19:59
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 19:59
  Speaker C: Yeah, in 1984. So moved to West Germany, Graduated from high school on an air force base, place called Ramstein Air Force Base, which is the largest Air force base in. In Europe.
• 20:10
  Speaker B: And was Elvis there? Wasn't that his base?
• 20:14
  Speaker C: You know, I thought he was Army. I think Elvis was Army.
• 20:17
  Speaker B: Yeah, he was Army. Yeah.
• 20:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:19
  Speaker C: But it was. It was a. And for this person who lived in the same house for 17 years, and all of a sudden, I'm in, like, another country. I can remember landing in the airport. I'm like, I don't know what the fuck any of these signs say. Like, it's all in German. And I was just like, I'd never been out of the country. And. And the next thing you know is like, I. I always say this story is like, I was in school on a Wednesday. I got there on a Monday. I was in school on a Wednesday. I was in the soccer team on a Thursday and Friday. I was out drinking.
• 20:43
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 20:43
  Speaker C: Because it was. Because I was 17. There was no. Yeah, there was no. There was no law against it. Right. It was just part of the culture.
• 20:49
  Speaker B: And all you knew about Germany then was Hitler, right?
• 20:52
  Speaker C: Pretty much, yeah.
• 20:53
  Speaker B: That's all you knew there. And you're looking for swastikas. You're thinking that stormtroopers are going to be places.
• 21:02
  Speaker C: Definitely. It definitely has an air of that. This was also in 1984. So this was during the Cold War.
• 21:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
• 21:10
  Speaker C: So it was a whole different vibe than it is now. There was. There was east and West Germany, and I remember I got to go to a couple. Like, we took some school trips. And, you know, I was living in Europe, so our school trip was like, we went to Prague one time. We went to, like, East Berlin. We went to Czechoslovakia. We went to Hungary. It was like, that was just like. That was par for the course when you live, you know, you're four hours from Paris.
• 21:32
  Speaker A: Right.
• 21:32
  Speaker C: And so that just. And I. At that point I got to see about 20 different countries in Europe. And also I didn't grow up with much money. And the exchange rate back then was like 3.3 Deutsch marks to the dollar, which was like. It was ridiculous, right? So a beer was a huge ass. Beer was like 50 cents. A leather jacket was like 20 bucks. So I, to me, it was like Monopoly money. I was like, holy. All of a sudden I'm rich, you know? And, and, and so how are you
• 21:59
  Speaker B: making your money at that age?
• 22:00
  Speaker C: Oh, no, I. My mother was.
• 22:02
  Speaker B: I was, I was giving you an allowance.
• 22:04
  Speaker C: Yeah, but I mean, it was like the. Allow more of an allowance.
• 22:07
  Speaker B: Dollars, not deutsche marks.
• 22:10
  Speaker C: Either way, it was good, you know,
• 22:12
  Speaker B: in the military or she just worked for the military.
• 22:14
  Speaker C: My mother was a department of the army civilian. So I always say she worked with people in combat boots. She wasn't. She was an occupational safety and health administrator. And so she was like the OSHA of the army.
• 22:26
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 22:27
  Speaker C: And so, you know, but all my friends, this was the great part. All my friends, their parents, because it was Ramstein, was like, you say pet United States Air Force Europe headquarters. So my friends, they were like, Their parents were like colonels and generals. And so like, they were like, like, I remember we would go out and like the. All we would never get with. Because over there it was like. Because they were officers, right? So. And, and. But I got to see so many different countries, and I'm not even sure the, the, the impact that it had on me at the time. I was just sucking it up. And it was also affordable, right? So we get a. We get in a car and drive to Denmark, you know, I mean, it was just like, all right, cool. Well, I'm down with that. And, and so then I. And then I graduated from high school there. I came back to college, I went to Penn State. Cause I was like, you know, didn't really know where to go to college. And so having grand bought it, I was like, all right, fuck it, I'll go to Penn State. It was one of the options I had. So while I was there, I kind of had an international business major. It was kind of like a make your own major. But what I did do is I got involved in this thing called the Penn State dance marathon. And it's the largest collegiate philanthropy in the United States. And it's. It was then and it still is now. When I was in college, I ended up having. I basically, this was my job. I worked about 80 hours a week doing this. And it Was fundraising, But I had about 2,000 students that worked for me. And we raised money for kids with cancer now. So I raised. We raised a half a million dollars in 1989. Now they raised like 17 million dollars. It's like, it's serious shit. And it's like a fucking business. And so I did. At first, I, I, I did. I did the bands, and then I did the entertainment, and then I did the whole. Then I ran the whole thing. And so that was really my college, you know, that was more my. That's what I did in college.
• 24:13
  Speaker A: That was the education that you got.
• 24:14
  Speaker C: Yeah, I didn't. It. I mean, I, I, I got a, I got a 3. 3 and graduate with international business. But it didn't mean shit. But it was also back in the day when you were like, in the 80s, it was kind of like Reagan era. You're like, get a job. Go work for Procter and Gamble, DuPont, Dora, Sell, whoever, like corporate American. I was like, that. I didn't want to do that, even though I had all kinds of job offers. And so my parents, when we. I graduated, my parents went back to Europe. I was like, I don't know what the I'm gonna do now.
• 24:40
  Speaker B: I'm like, right.
• 24:41
  Speaker C: I had a cousin who lived in Boston.
• 24:42
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 24:43
  Speaker C: And so I was like, all right, I'll go to Boston. I slept on his couch for, like, six months. Ended up getting a job as a bouncer at the Hard Rock Cafe. When it opened up there, and I actually was there for the opening of the Aerosmith's Pump album, I was like. I was at the feet of Steven Tyler, holding it, holding back the crowd. As I'm looking up, he's like, love it.
• 25:01
  Speaker D: I love it.
• 25:03
  Speaker C: That was the one cool thing. And then this was in the recession of 89, and then the last thing I wanted to do was doing anything in finance. Ended up getting a job as a banker with the sixth largest bank in the country, the First national bank of Boston. And I went through this private MBA program where they basically trained you in, I mean, accounting, marketing, public speaking, just everything. Like a private MBA for a year and a half. And the, and, and to. Basically, you would run your own branch of a bank in, like, it would say, like, like, like Jefferson Parish. You would run all of Jefferson Parish for a bank. And so I was like, I mean, that was the job. I had a suit, I drove a sports car, you know, and, and I was. I didn't really know that.
• 25:48
  Speaker B: I didn't know what bright lights, big city for you so.
• 25:51
  Speaker C: But what happened was at one point, and this is where my. My kind of creative life started. A friend of mine who was the public relations person at the Hard Rock Cafe, and she was an artist, she's like, you want to come over and paint some T shirts? I'm like, what are you talking about? And so I went over to her house. She had stretched out a T shirt over this cardboard form. And I was just like. Like, just fucking painted like crazy on this T shirt. She's like, man, most people, like, staring it for an hour, trying to figure out what they're going to do.
• 26:19
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 26:20
  Speaker C: So immediately, I was a banker by day, and I, like, had this house out in Watertown and about maybe 10 minutes outside the city, and I turned my basement into a studio. I was doing boutique. And I know what the fuck boutique was. I was burning shit. I was, like, pouring wax on stuff, painting on chef's coats, painting on T shirts, whatever. I was just like. It just, like, opened something up in me. And so how I ended up in New Orleans, it just so happened that at the. That it was my. And, like, this is, like, 90, 92. Maybe. It was my. It was time for the bank to lend people to the United Way. The United Way has a loaned executive program. And so it just so happened it was my division's time. So they said, oh, you have fundraising history. Why don't you do this? I was like, cool, I'll do it. So I got lent to the United Way for three months, and I went in there and just fucking crushed it because I had done this shit for. For my entire college career. And then they said, hey, do you want to. Do you want to go to this United Way of America training program? The only premise is you'd have to promise to move anywhere in the United States. I was like, you know what? Boston's kind of cold. It's racist. It's expensive. I'm like, it sure, no problem.
• 27:34
  Speaker B: Nail that right.
• 27:35
  Speaker C: So I took a week of vacation from the bank, went to D.C. met someone from New Orleans. They interviewed me. Two weeks later, they flew me down here. I remember I stayed at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel. It was terrible because it was like. It was so loud. I'm like, I don't. Don't put somebody. It's like, I don't need that, you know, to sleep. And they whine and dine me. Two weeks later, they offered me a job. I got in my car and drove down here, and, like, I. I didn't. I had never been here before. That My definition of the south was Florida. Right. This was not here. And so I ended up moving here cold turkey. And I was a corporate fundraiser in you for United Way. I was basically an ex banker paid to suck money from banks. And my lead volunteer at the time was Ray Nagin.
• 28:17
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 28:18
  Speaker C: I used to be like, hey, Ray, ask this guy for 50 grand. You know what I mean? And I'll be honest, he wasn't the best, brightest bubba the bunch back then.
• 28:25
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 28:26
  Speaker C: And so. And I. So I didn't know what he'd be here. So I'd, like, work during the daytime and I'd paint at night. I started painting on wood and I started painting on canvas. I tried to sell. I tried to. I painted on T shirts and tried to sell them in the French Quarter flea market.
• 28:38
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 28:39
  Speaker C: Right next to people, they're selling for eight bucks. It wasn't the best business.
• 28:42
  Speaker A: I was going to ask you, what were you doing with the T shirts in Boston that y' all were painting?
• 28:46
  Speaker C: Oh, I didn't. You know, I. I can't. Don't even remember.
• 28:49
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 28:50
  Speaker C: That. I mean, the first ones, I just started getting. Giving him away.
• 28:53
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 28:53
  Speaker C: But it, it, it. It hooked me. And then. So I was a fundraiser for United Way for about a year and a half, and then during the wild around the United World, they're a fantastic organization.
• 29:05
  Speaker B: Now, did you vote for Negan? Because I ran against them twice.
• 29:10
  Speaker C: You know, I. I honestly don't remember. Yeah, I mean, I.
• 29:14
  Speaker B: Good answer.
• 29:14
  Speaker C: I've known a bunch of the mayors, you know, I mean, and. And they all have their pluses and minuses. You know what I mean?
• 29:22
  Speaker B: Right. And for me, he was a good fundraiser. Or a better bullshitter.
• 29:27
  Speaker C: He was. Better bullshitter.
• 29:29
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 29:29
  Speaker C: Yeah, he was. He was. I mean, he was. He could talk and he just didn't fucking do anything. And if you're. If you're dirty, you're dirty. And that's just.
• 29:36
  Speaker B: You know, he did.
• 29:37
  Speaker C: Worst part is he didn't even, like, do it for that much money.
• 29:39
  Speaker A: No, no, no.
• 29:40
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 29:41
  Speaker C: People here. What did Oliver Thomas get?
• 29:43
  Speaker B: He did it for the T shirts
• 29:44
  Speaker C: for, like, 18 grand or something like that. It's like. Like that cost you more in legal fees.
• 29:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:49
  Speaker B: Jefferson. Bill Jefferson.
• 29:51
  Speaker A: That's just what he got caught for.
• 29:52
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 29:52
  Speaker C: But, you know, things. So. So this is a sidebar. But I do remember after Katrina, I was involved in that Operation Clean Sweep. Do you remember that? Basically, we, like, went to City hall with brooms and shit, and we got like, Renee Gill Pratt. We Literally got those people out of office. It was a lot of people that were involved in that, but it was one of those kind of like, we've had enough of this.
• 30:15
  Speaker A: And the good government move after Katrina,
• 30:18
  Speaker C: it was, it was a part of it.
• 30:19
  Speaker A: It's necessary.
• 30:20
  Speaker C: So, so, so getting back to it. So I, I, I was, I was working at United Way and I found myself, like, I would go in at 9 o' clock and leave at 3, and I go in at 10 and leave at 2. I'm like, this is fucking. The writing's on the wall.
• 30:31
  Speaker A: Sure. So.
• 30:32
  Speaker C: So I basically, I quit my job. May 17, 1993. I quit my job, sold my car, and I lived off the difference between what my car sold for and what my note was. I rode a bicycle for five years.
• 30:44
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 30:44
  Speaker C: And opened my. And then I waited tables at the House of Blues when it opened up. And then I opened my first gallery, a cooperative gallery. So I had gone down to Julia street and like, you know where I am?
• 30:56
  Speaker B: I did it on Julius Street.
• 30:57
  Speaker C: No, no, no. I'll tell you. So I had gone down to Julia street and like, I want to show my artwork.
• 31:03
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 31:04
  Speaker C: They're like, where'd you go to art school? I'm like, I didn't go to art school. Like, where's your resume? I'm like, what the fuck you mean, your resume?
• 31:08
  Speaker B: This is art.
• 31:08
  Speaker C: What are you talking about?
• 31:09
  Speaker B: Artist?
• 31:09
  Speaker C: So I was like, you know what? Screw you. I'll open my own gallery. So myself and three other artists, we opened a cooperative space called Positive Space. And it's. Right, it was. Is in 1995, right. Where magazine street splits right in between Aiden Gill and Juan's Flying. Now it's called. Now it's called Falcone. And they renovated that building. I went there, I was like, damn.
• 31:30
  Speaker B: For Edie Falcone from the Sopranos, probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:34
  Speaker C: So. So, So I basically was waiting tables six days a week and wait and working on the gallery during the daytime. And it was, it was the, it was the hood. Like, it was serious. Like AK47. Gunfire. Did you ever know Mikko Macchione? Miko. He's a theater guy, so.
• 31:54
  Speaker B: Oh, Miko. Yeah.
• 31:55
  Speaker C: Mikko. Yeah. So we used to do theater projects. Right. One time was like, we would. Our, our. The building abutted to it backed up right to St. Alphonso's Church.
• 32:05
  Speaker B: Mikko lives like part time in Mexico. Yeah, that's the crazy I told you about Miko. He was here once about a year ago.
• 32:12
  Speaker C: Crazy Mika.
• 32:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, he does. He at at what's the French holiday in July? The best dresses up as Napoleon and stuff like that. Motherfucker, man. He said he was doing some kind of show. And I had this great jacket. I was living above the Circle Bar. I had this great jacket that Dennis Hopper gave me. A Dennis Hopper jacket?
• 32:34
  Speaker D: Yeah.
• 32:35
  Speaker B: And he goes, can I use it in the show?
• 32:37
  Speaker C: Can I never give it back to you?
• 32:38
  Speaker B: No, no, no, no. He used it and he gave it back. And he never bothered to dry clean. It was just like a. It was like all wrinkled and shit.
• 32:48
  Speaker C: Nico was not the most aware self aware. He was not the most self aware person.
• 32:51
  Speaker B: What the fuck is this?
• 32:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:53
  Speaker C: So. So he would. So we would be doing these theater projects. We would, like, painted like a big pussy on the stage and just crazy. It was crazy shit, because we had. At that point, we didn't do anything to get anybody in there because we were starting totally from scratch. This kind of supersedes all of St. Claude. There was only one other space. It was called X Art.
• 33:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:14
  Speaker A: It was basically right down in the Warehouse District.
• 33:16
  Speaker C: He left. I'm not sure what happened to him. He ended up passing away, I think. But we were like the predecessor to St. Claude because there was. There was nothing besides Julia street in the whole city. Right. There was a couple places here.
• 33:27
  Speaker A: Economy Cafe was right next door.
• 33:30
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. And. Exactly. And so. But Mika. So he'd be doing a monologue and all of a sudden you just rented it Reddit and Mika would just pause and go, just our neighbors. And then keep on going with it. Because that's the. That's the hood we worked in. You know, we lived it. And so that. The one. The two memorable things that come out of that experience. One is 30 years ago, I created no Dead Artists, which is kind of like this annual juried exhibition. And it started out being just New Orleans, then it was state, then it was regional, and then national, and now it's been international for like 13 years. It's been a lot around for fucking ever.
• 34:09
  Speaker B: Right.
• 34:09
  Speaker C: And so it's basically a juried exhibition to give people an opportunity to cut their teeth in a commercial gallery. And like this. This show is actually up right now. There's 15 artists, five of them. One there's an artist from Taiwan, Iran, Scotland, Japan. And so we. And there's a bunch of New Orleans as well. And so that was one of the formative things back in the day that we. That we created was that. And the other was the thing you mentioned was called Guns in the Hands of Artists and Guns in the hands of Artists was directly related to the murder rate in New Orleans at the time was like 400. And so this artist, Brian Borrello, conceived of this project called Guns in the Hands of Artists, and we hosted it and I produced it at the gallery on Magazine Street. And it was basically. We worked with the mayor's office. We exchanged sewing machines for guns. The guns were then decommissioned, and then those parts, those decommissioned guns were given to artists to use as raw materials to address the issue of guns and gun violence. And in that show, there was like 61 artists. It was heavy on guns and light on art. I hate to say it, but that's the reality. But that show ended up. We ended up on Good Morning America, New York Times. Good Morning America. We were at the New York Times. Rick Bragg, before he went down and came back up again, he did a feature piece in the. It was on the front page of the New York Times. And then from there, we got a call from Good Morning America. They weren't. They weren't cell phones back then, really. I remember I was like. I said to my partner, I got to get a cell phone.
• 35:44
  Speaker B: Like, we can't. Now, these guns that were given to the artist, were bullets given to them, too?
• 35:49
  Speaker C: No. Well, you could. You. You could use bullets if you wanted to, you know, but it's more about the. About the. The thing to talk about the thing. But bullets were. They were. They were fair game because it's a part of the equation.
• 35:57
  Speaker A: They're all. They. They weren't fireable. They. They were.
• 36:00
  Speaker C: Oh, no, they were completely firing the decommission. They were crushed. A lot of them were crushed. And things have changed over the years as to how people decommission. They used to just take the firing pins out. Now they like fucking burn them, shred them, and it's like a whole different thing. So that really kind of set us on this path. And I would say us, really me, because I was the driving force behind it and ended up leaving it because I'm like, why am I doing all this work for these three guys that aren't doing shit on my own? And so. But that was kind of like, set up the ability that, oh, you could produce something really serious here. You know, I had that ability to promote, produce, pr, all that kind of stuff, and then work with the artist. So then I left that partnership and got a gallery, subleased a gallery on Barone street and opened. That's when I opened Jonathan Ferrara Gallery. It was like September of 1998.
• 36:56
  Speaker A: Well, well now. So. So you didn't go to art school, you just, you just start making art self taught.
• 37:02
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 37:02
  Speaker A: Did you have. When you came down here to New Orleans, did you have any established artists that were mentors or anyone that you.
• 37:10
  Speaker C: So when I. Well, some people. There is. There's one person in particular that at that time when I was at Positive Space, that was important to me. That was Bob Tannen. Oh, Bob Tannen. Bob Tannen was one of the. People may know him as one of the founders of the, of the Contemporary Arts Center. Conceptual artist, a man before his time. He was all. He worked with Buckminster Fuller, designed the Scrubby, you know, like all this crazy shit. He's very much. He's always been too far ahead of his time from a commercial perspective.
• 37:38
  Speaker A: Had Alex Chilton living in his carriage
• 37:40
  Speaker C: house on Barrack street with everybody. He was very good friends with Frank Gehry, the architect. They've done some work together. So he was. As a conceptual person and he was something was very influential for me in the beginning. And then, you know, there were. There's an artist named David Bradshaw who worked with. He worked. His. His partner was Team Gerard and David worked with William S. Burrows back in the day shooting basically.
• 38:06
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 38:06
  Speaker C: And he remembered saying I was going to call my gallery Flash Inc. And he's like, jonathan, use your name. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah, use your name. Best decision ever made. Right, because it's like your, where, where you go, your name goes. And so that was a really. That was an inspirational thing as well. So I opened my first gallery on Barone street and I was there for about a year and a half. We used to do some crazy shit there, you know. And like I like had the. I rented the front, there was a photographer, Burton Steele in the middle. And then I, I leased the back gallery to do sculptures of it. So we just have these fucking crazy parties and, and the other party parties and art go together in a lot of ways because you have to, you have to get people in, in a scene, if you will. And then that didn't work out with that landlord. And then I ended up buying a building on Coronelette Street. I would say I sold my mother and brother down the river because I don't have any fucking money. And so, you know, I. It was, it was at 841 Coronel, that street. It's right next to Bearcat, right across from Steven Chevrolet. But back then you could have had human sacrifices after 5 o' clock. You could have human sacrifices in the backyard, in the, in the alleyway because there was nobody around. It was like, it was safe, but it was safer, if you will. But there was just like literally abandoned. It was the whole. I mean, back then, you know, in 98, the downtown was like, you know, it goes down at night time. There wasn't no condos, not a lot of restaurants, you know.
• 39:31
  Speaker A: Right, right. We used to have the Mermaid Lounge and you know.
• 39:35
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 39:35
  Speaker A: You know, and again, you could, you could dump a body down there and that's the.
• 39:39
  Speaker C: Nobody would know.
• 39:40
  Speaker A: Nobody would know.
• 39:41
  Speaker C: No, that was. And it was kind of cool because you could do whatever you wanted. You know what I mean? And for me, that was when I bought that building. It was the, it was interesting how when you, you're an artist, you're perceived one way and then when you become a, you own land, you become a taxpayer, all of a sudden you're perceived in a totally different way. Right. Much more stroke, you know, it's like the bank is. I went, dude, five banks turned me down. And I, you know, I ended up doing most of the renovation myself, not knowing what the fuck I was doing.
• 40:13
  Speaker A: You seem like a hands on guy.
• 40:14
  Speaker C: Oh, I, I was. Not anymore. I got a younger partner who's. He's way more hands on than I am. He's great. Matthew Sherman. But the, the, the thing about it was, is that it was an 8,000 square foot building, right. And my dream was to, with no money, was to have the gallery on the first floor and then on the second floor to have commercial offices that could all work together. So like a kind of a commercial contemporary arts center. And so at the end of the day, gallery was on the first floor. Upstairs was the office of New Orleans Film Festival. A graphic designer, an architect. And then I lived in the back without any heat because I couldn't afford to live anywhere else.
• 40:50
  Speaker B: Right.
• 40:51
  Speaker C: And so that, I mean that space became. And it was a half a block off of Julie Street. It might as well have been on the fucking moon.
• 40:59
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 41:00
  Speaker C: You know what I mean? From where I am now to where that was. It was like, you know, there were. I mean, I. But I made it a destination gallery in the sense of people coming there for. I mean like I had like eight speakers. I mean, I'm like, I've mapped this place out as much as I possibly could. But you know, owning a gallery is a, like, it's, it's a. Being an artist is difficult. Owning a gallery is equally as difficult because there's A lot more bills that come with it.
• 41:30
  Speaker A: Right.
• 41:30
  Speaker C: You know, if you're a landowner, you got to pay that mortgage, you know, you can't just say, sure, oh, I'm done.
• 41:34
  Speaker A: Taxes.
• 41:35
  Speaker C: I can remember several times being upstairs in my. In my apartment, getting ready to go downstairs and going, please, Lord, just let me sell something. Please let me sell something. Just anything, Please. I'm. I'm so broke, you know, Sell some of your work.
• 41:49
  Speaker B: Sell some of your commission artists.
• 41:53
  Speaker C: So let me step. So I got into the gallery thing to show my own artwork. The cart starts leading the horse. It's like, that ain't gonna work, right? So I gotta rep. So I represent other artists I work with. Like now even then I work with artists from around the world. We have clients from around the world, but back then it was Slim Pickens. And you, like, I was representing hot, young, up and coming artists. But that doesn't mean big price tags. And like, how do you sell this stuff? And you could be famous. You could have a shit, 4,000 people walk in your door. Right?
• 42:22
  Speaker B: But that's a one piece.
• 42:23
  Speaker C: Yeah, you're fucked. I mean, you, you got to find a way. I'm still, I'm still 30 years into it.
• 42:28
  Speaker B: Gave them all wine and cheese.
• 42:29
  Speaker C: Well, so, so, so a side detour in my world of worlds. So I was like, you know what? 4,000 people come in here to feeds. Person would like to give me a dollar, right? That way, four grand. That would, that, would that be great. So I just happened to be installing a piece in. In Waveland, Mississippi, at Dorian Bennett's house, the realtor. And he's like, jonathan, you know that our bar is for sale? I'm like, really? And my cousin had owned a couple bars in New York. My brother was an entrepreneur and he's like, yeah, you, you buy the building, you get a bed and breakfast, you get the bar. And I was like, really? So I, like, called my brother and said, hey, what do you think? And like, literally within a week, we owned this fucking place.
• 43:13
  Speaker A: Wow. Really?
• 43:13
  Speaker C: And so. Which was. And so. But I owned it for. From 2004 to 2007, and there was a little blip in the middle of there called Hurricane Katrina.
• 43:22
  Speaker B: Right. So.
• 43:23
  Speaker C: But I figured if I could push all the people to the R bar after the opening. Yeah, I think a ton of money.
• 43:29
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 43:30
  Speaker A: Nice. Brilliant.
• 43:32
  Speaker C: I mean, you got it. You got it. Well, no, actually we ended up selling it for exactly what we bought it for.
• 43:37
  Speaker B: Right.
• 43:38
  Speaker C: But it was, you know, and, and owning a bar is a one way Ticket to an early grave. Sure. Especially that place.
• 43:45
  Speaker A: As brother Dave.
• 43:46
  Speaker C: No, dude, this. That place.
• 43:48
  Speaker B: In this place, he died a long time.
• 43:50
  Speaker C: He's just a walking skeleton.
• 43:52
  Speaker B: Right.
• 43:52
  Speaker C: He's a corpse again.
• 43:53
  Speaker A: You know, speaking of. Of drinks, this is. Would be a good time. I hate to interrupt you. You got such a head of steam going, but.
• 44:01
  Speaker B: But usually take a break around this time.
• 44:05
  Speaker A: So, Manny, tell the people nation you know the drill.
• 44:08
  Speaker B: We'll be right back.
• 44:10
  Speaker D: I will buy you pretty things Everything that saison brings When I'm rich, I'll buy you rings Now I'm poor so I will say you are my final change of mind I won't go back, no, not this time. To past and future Now I'm blinding you are my final change of mind I pull my hair, bite my tongue did you know I was once young? Too many groups I did belong I'm not the singer but the song I'm not the singer but the song. But can't never cross your moat Should I crumble? Should I hope? What should I do with all this? Do the sky.
• 45:40
  Speaker A: And we're back. Back with Mr. Manny Chevrolet. I am Renee Coleman, back with our guest, Mr. Jonathan Ferrara. Now, Jonathan, I know you're new to the podcast, but our listeners are familiar that this is a. With the fact that this is a listener supported operation. And to that end we have the PayPal and Venmo links in the show
• 46:03
  Speaker C: notes of every show.
• 46:04
  Speaker A: And we have a, a new, a new supporter here. Manny.
• 46:08
  Speaker B: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:10
  Speaker A: He supported us this week. Very generous support. I want to thank Randy Barton. Thank you, Randy. Not only did Randy support the show financially, he pointed out a few episodes that had broken links on them. And somehow in the, in the transition between, you know, podcast hosting companies, a few of the links got. Got broken. He. He puzzled out how they were broken and, and sent me a. A very kind email about it and I was able to contact the hosting company. They remedied it.
• 46:45
  Speaker B: And now where is he from?
• 46:48
  Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know where Randy Hales from, but shout out to Randy Barton. And also in the show notes, we, we have the links for the Troubleman podcast T shirts as well as the Patreon page. We have a handful of patrons who are supporting us week in and week out. Also we have what else do I say? Follow us on social media, Instagram, Facebook and rate review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to it. Give us five stars. Cost you. Nothing helps us a lot.
• 47:18
  Speaker B: And let's See, are we still big in Serbia?
• 47:21
  Speaker A: I think we are. I think we're still. I think we're right up there at the top of the charts in Serbia. And let's see, I have a couple of cool shows coming up. The last shows of the year for Loose Cattle will be at what, BJ's on October 1st and Music Box Village the next night on October 2nd with the Lost Bayou Ramblers. Everybody check that out. And the Iguanas have returned to our weekly gig at. On Sundays at the world famous Carousel Lounge and the Hotel Montlion. That's seven to 10 every Sunday. And we'll be there all through October and November and on, moving on to the past, the end of the year. All right, well, enough of that. Back to our guest, the great Mr. Jonathan Ferrara. Now, Jonathan, you were telling us you had the R Bar and you. You got rid of the R Bar.
• 48:11
  Speaker C: Yeah, thank God.
• 48:13
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 48:14
  Speaker A: And. And you have the new space.
• 48:17
  Speaker C: Yeah, I was in the space on Corona letstreet probably for about eight years or so and during Katrina and all those different things. And I did a number of different things that I'm proud of. One was called Art Docs, which is basically an artist healthcare program similar to the Musicians Clinic. So that was something. I did work in Cuba for a number of years where I did brought Cuban artists to the United States. That was interesting as well.
• 48:44
  Speaker A: You think all that United Way and financial stuff, it was all.
• 48:47
  Speaker C: I think it's all the same, you know, it's kind of all rolled together
• 48:50
  Speaker B: and it's all those Cubans go back.
• 48:53
  Speaker C: Yeah, they did, they did. They're pretty fucked right now. I've got some. Still got some friends in Cuba and it's a. It's a bad situation. But I tell you what, the Cuban people are fantastic. Cuban artists are great.
• 49:04
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 49:05
  Speaker C: And you know, they're just. They make something out of nothing. So that was a really great experience. And then.
• 49:11
  Speaker B: And they keep those old American 50s cars, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't they?
• 49:14
  Speaker C: They do. There's an old adage you say, if you want to keep your car run, just give Cuban mechanic two rubber bands and they'll take care of it for you. So it's an interesting thing, but they really can. I mean, they're very inventive people because they have to be.
• 49:27
  Speaker B: Right.
• 49:27
  Speaker C: So in about 2000, in 2007, I ended up moving my gallery to Julia street and it was like. Like the fucking world opened up in a different way. I mean, I'm in prime location. I'm Right at Julia and Chapatula, it's right next to Emeralds. And so I've had that space now for, I've owned it for 20 years. And, and one of the things that, like I said, I, I bought that space on Corona Let Street, I also bought, sold that space and then bought this space on Julius street is the fact that owning the real estate makes you once again someone that you are an invested person in the community and you're treated differently than just a renter. But also, you know, I used to make the thing, I was like, I could hang a fucking dead body in my space if I wanted to and nobody can say anything because if the bank gets their mortgage paid, fuck them.
• 50:14
  Speaker A: That's all I care about.
• 50:15
  Speaker C: And as an artist, as a creative person, that freedom, I call it, fuck you, freedom is very, very important, especially I think in the art world where you, you know, I put up some interestingly juicy shows, shall we say, that have some explicit material in them. And I don't, I'm not worried about it because I own the space. You know, somebody wants to shut me down from a, from a, you know, I don't know, indecent perspective. That's a whole different thing. That's why you have lawyers.
• 50:44
  Speaker A: It's not going to happen in New Orleans. No, not really. Really.
• 50:47
  Speaker C: And if you do, you have lawyers for that. It's just better press. Any.
• 50:50
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 50:50
  Speaker C: So I've been in that space for 20 years and over the course of that time the gallery has really morphed into an established gallery, an establishment. And so, you know, we represent artists from around the world and we have clients from around the world. There was a point for about 10 years where I was on the road for about three months out of the year doing art fairs. We, we did. Art fairs are like trade shows, you know, like Art Basel, Miami Beach. Think about that. We did two in a year period. We used to do like two in New York, one in Miami, Houston, San Francisco, Seattle and then Basel, Switzerland. So we did Europe for about seven years as well. And then I was also doing projects in Israel, Amman, Jordan, Berlin, Mexico, you know, just there. The art world doesn't really have any borders. There's, you know, there's nothing all about just shipping and money. Can you make it happen? The ideas flow freely. An idea in Cuba can be understood in the United States as equally doesn't matter with language. So the gallery has gone from being the ragtag thing that I started 30 years ago to we're a well oiled machine where we represent probably 30 to 40 artists and work with amazing roster of artists.
• 52:08
  Speaker A: We had former. You have former Troubleman podcast guest. The great Gina Phillips is one of you.
• 52:13
  Speaker C: Gina Phillips is fantastic.
• 52:14
  Speaker B: What about Keith Duncan?
• 52:16
  Speaker C: Keith Duncan, he's one that got away. He's with Arthur Rogers. He's a good dude and he does great work. This HBCU stuff that's up right now in Atlanta is really fantastic. And I am on the edgier side side of the presentation spectrum, if you will. I have a younger partner. So the gallery was Jonathan Ferrari gallery from. From 1998 until about two years ago. And then I've had my younger partner. Matthew Sherman has been my gallery director for the last 15 years. And so we became a partnership about two years ago. And we have kind of a succession plan because he's about 23 years younger than me. So, you know, now.
• 52:57
  Speaker B: Have you ever heard of the art dealer Doug Christmas from Canada?
• 53:02
  Speaker A: I'm.
• 53:03
  Speaker C: No, he's from la, but. Yes.
• 53:05
  Speaker B: No, he's from Canada, but I worked for him.
• 53:07
  Speaker C: But he lives. He's Acme Gallery in la.
• 53:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:10
  Speaker C: He's a piece of.
• 53:11
  Speaker B: He's a piece of. You're right. No, he. Him and Jane Erickson.
• 53:16
  Speaker C: Horrible reputation.
• 53:17
  Speaker B: Jane Erickson.
• 53:18
  Speaker C: But yet artists and collectors still worked with him.
• 53:20
  Speaker B: He got busted.
• 53:22
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 53:22
  Speaker B: Selling the same pieces twice.
• 53:25
  Speaker C: Notorious for not paying his artists.
• 53:27
  Speaker B: Right.
• 53:28
  Speaker C: And the clients knew that, but they couldn't get it. It's. The art world's a. You think the music world's up.
• 53:35
  Speaker B: He also got busted in Canada because, you know, when the Vietnam War ended, boat people came. They put boat people in Canada, America and all. And he got some boat people to be his servants. Him and Jane Ericson. I would doubt it, you know, to be his servant. So he got busted in Canada for slave labor.
• 53:55
  Speaker A: Indentured servants.
• 53:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
• 53:57
  Speaker C: The art world is filled with scumbags.
• 53:59
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 53:59
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 54:00
  Speaker C: But apparently he's still around 100%. Like fucking cockroaches. They come back. And usually it's more on the dealer side of things, the gallery owner side of things that people. And there's an. Artists have an inherent distrust of galleries because of people like him.
• 54:16
  Speaker B: Right.
• 54:16
  Speaker C: I'm not one of those people. Like, I take care of my artists. I've never not paid my artist.
• 54:21
  Speaker B: They.
• 54:21
  Speaker C: They come first. We put their careers first. We manage their careers. We say, look, you got. You go in your studio and paint. We'll deal with everything else. And we do.
• 54:29
  Speaker B: He did the most insane thing once. Cause him and Jane opened this restaurant In Venice, California. It was an old Crocker bank and they made into a restaurant. The wine cellar was the old vault. It was very cool. Yeah, Very cool. And they used to have this Sunday brunch, and I worked there for a year after high school because I knew one of the managers there. And they had this, like, baked ham with this weird, kind of crazy, beautiful. So much good, good sauce. Yeah. That people would come all over from LA to get.
• 55:04
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 55:05
  Speaker B: And he walked in doing. I mean, it's fucking crazy. Going nuts. So busy. He walks in, he goes to the chef, he goes, take it off the menu. We're taking it off the menu. It's like, what are you saying? I think the chef quit right there. He's like, fuck you, man.
• 55:21
  Speaker C: Unfortunately, the art world is filled with people like that and stories like that, because it. When you. Anytime there's money and creativity and this. This demand for certain products, if you will.
• 55:34
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 55:35
  Speaker C: It creates this. This gatekeeper mentality, and the gatekeeper thinks they can do whatever the fuck they want. And I don't. I am an artist First Gallery, and we are. And I came into my business as an artist, and so that's always been the. For me, the driving ethos.
• 55:53
  Speaker B: So you met him before?
• 55:54
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
• 55:55
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah. When's the last time you saw him?
• 55:57
  Speaker C: Oh, it's probably 20. 20 years ago.
• 55:59
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 56:00
  Speaker C: I could tell a story about it, but I won't.
• 56:02
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 56:02
  Speaker C: I mean, it was. I went to an opening with him. Yeah. Him and. Him and this major collector lady.
• 56:06
  Speaker A: So discretion is the better part.
• 56:09
  Speaker C: There's not going to get me any points here.
• 56:11
  Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. So.
• 56:11
  Speaker C: But. So. So where was I going with this?
• 56:14
  Speaker A: You're talking about opening the. The.
• 56:15
  Speaker C: The new space, the Julia Street. So the partnership with my partner Matthew, and. And really what's happened, and we're going to get to the. The project that we're talking about is that, you know, what that has done for me in the last two years is enabled me to get back to, 30 years later, my own artwork, which is the reason why I got in this thing. Not T shirts anymore. No, but, but so, so, so you know that I built a studio in my house, which Renee has been to. And because I knew that I wanted to get back into my own artwork. And about a year and a half ago, I started. Started making my own artwork. And so I'll give you the short story of it. But. So, like, I got two kids and we would go to these, like, Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras street things. And this lady would pull up and she would have like the, the hand, the hand wax dipping rig right where you, the kids dip their hands in like peace signs, little boys are doing fuck you and that kind of stuff. And so I had those sitting in my kitchen for a couple years of, of years. I was like, damn, these things should have melted broken. I think I told you the story. It's like they didn't. So I was like, I called lady, you know what, I want you to come to my house and dip my hands in wax. She goes, you have a party? I said, no, it's just me. I said. So she comes over with the rig sets at my front yard and I proceed to do these dippings of my hands kind of cupped together, like in an offering type thing.
• 57:39
  Speaker B: It's hot wax.
• 57:40
  Speaker C: This was this.
• 57:41
  Speaker A: It was hot wax.
• 57:41
  Speaker C: Yeah, totally. But you know, done burn you, but it's hot enough. So I then took those and cast those in plaster. And then I collaborated with the 3D printing laboratory at Tulanes architecture school. A guy named Nick Lacaze runs that. And so I then took those and they were, they were 3D printed. And then from there I put them through. I developed a process in my studio to turn them back into the texture of skin. And then I could paint them any way that I wanted to.
• 58:15
  Speaker B: So I don't understand because my wife is trying to explain, she's a graphic artist, 3D printing. To me, I don't get it. What is 3D printing?
• 58:22
  Speaker C: Basically it's a picture, something that instead of printing a photograph that's two dimensional, you're printing a sculpture and it prints it. When I say line by line, it's like it goes, it starts at the bottom, just kind of does a cross hatching grid pattern. And the computer knows what the exterior is going to look like and that it infills the interior. So it could basically fucking print anything.
• 58:46
  Speaker A: The material is, it's called poly lactate. Okay.
• 58:48
  Speaker C: Just plastic.
• 58:49
  Speaker D: All right.
• 58:49
  Speaker C: And so, so I go forward and, and I, I am working on. I had my first solo exhibition in 23 years at my own gallery this past June. I had produced pieces here and there, but this was like 50 pieces for my, my own gallery, which is a big deal, right? Why open the shit in the first place? And so, but this is the story that, that we'll get to about the Hands of music. So it's, it's November around Thanksgiving and I've been working on my show for about maybe two months and I have some, some pictures of the pieces that I'm working on. And I'm getting my car wash at the uptown car wash. Wash. I'm sitting outside, and up walks Ivan Neville.
• 59:29
  Speaker B: Is that the place with the parrots?
• 59:31
  Speaker D: I don't.
• 59:31
  Speaker B: I have no idea.
• 59:32
  Speaker C: And I. So Ivan Chapatulas. It's on Chapatoula. So Ivan walks up and we're sitting outside. His kid goes to school, or my kid goes to school with Trinity. And we're just kind of rapping. I said, yeah, you musicians, you get to, like, hang out with each other and vibe. And I said, us artists, we're in a room by ourselves, talking ourselves. Like, that's. That's the. The visual artist plight, right? You really don't work with other people that much. And so we're talking more than we started talking. This concept of engineered luck, which seemed to. Would become more appropriate about 20 minutes later. So as we're talking, I said, engineered luck is probably. It's kind of. I listen to this podcast. It's basically like things happen for a reason, and then what is the. What's the result of those reasons going forward? So we're talking about that. And I said, you know what?
• 1:00:19
  Speaker B: Let me.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker C: I'm gonna show you the hands I'm working on. So I show him these hands, like a picture of the hands that I'm working on. The sculpted. The hands are 3D printed. He's like, that's really cool, man. So we keep on talking, and he goes to leave. He turns around and he looks at me, and he goes, you should cast my hands. And I was like, cool, man. Whatever. I'm like, whatever.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker B: Now, 3D printing. Do you need glasses? 3D glasses to see them? I still don't understand this 3D printing.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker C: I'll show it to you because that's an example of it right here in front of me.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker B: So this came out of a copy machine?
• 1:00:51
  Speaker C: No, no, no. It's a. It's picture. It's a picture, a head of, like, a printing head, but it prints with plastic in a liquid form. And it keeps on going like this, over and over. It takes 17 hours to print something like this.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker A: It's not printing in the sense of on a page in two dimensions. It's like, yes, it's. It's. It's.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker B: So why do they call it printing if it's.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker C: Because it's the easiest thing for people to understand, I guess.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker B: I don't understand it.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker C: So.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker B: So.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker C: So moving on. At any rate, so Ivan says, you should print.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker D: You should.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker C: You should cast my hands. I Was like, cool, man, whatever. So I leave, and an hour later I'm like, fuck, I'm gonna. No, I know. I was like, I'm gonna cast all kinds of musicians hands. So that has led to what? I cast Renee's hands like two weeks ago, and I've cast 60 other art musicians hands. So I, I, I, they, they all come to my house in my studio. They sit in a chair. I say, put your hands in a playing position. I then take that one hand and I put it into this mixture called alginate, and it creates a mold of that hand. I do the same thing for their left hand, right? So then there's two hands. And so then these are. Then I then pour plaster into them, cut the mold away. Then I take those to the 3D printing laboratory. They scan those.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker B: Now, where is this laboratory?
• 1:02:20
  Speaker C: It's called 3D Nola. It's on Mac.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker A: You know what?
• 1:02:24
  Speaker C: It's about a block from my first gallery, Blue, believe it or not, on Jackson and magazine guy's name is Mark Dowie. He's a great guy. And so what, what happens is he then scans them and prints them. And then I put them through a process in my studio. Where you basically like, the hands I'm showing you now are the hands of. That's James Singleton. So this goes on the wall like this.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker B: Looks like he has arthritis.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker C: Yeah, he's got some fucked up hands. And so one, one hand goes up here, the other hand is down here. And so it, it, it, it's basically coming out of the wall in playing position.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker B: And that's where you put the handcuffs on, right?
• 1:03:02
  Speaker C: Handcuffs, yes. So now let me tell you this. So this is, this is. I started this, right, with like three people. And I said to myself, if I get like 50 people in a year, I'll be. I think that'd be great.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker C: So thus far, and it depends on the people you're talking about. So in the last seven weeks, I've cast the hands of Ivan Neville, James Rivers, Ben Elman, Bruce Sunpai Barnes, David Torkonowski, James Andrews, Stanton Moore, Kermit Ruffins, Tony Degrati, James Singleton, Johnny Badakovich, Irvin Mayfield, Adonis Rose, Jeff Rains, Lawrence Cotton, Greg Davis, John Papa Gro, John Cleary, Roger Lewis, Craig Klein, River Eckert, Jake Eckert, Rich Vogel, Carrie Brown, Charmaine Neville, Robert Mercurio, Glenn David Andrews, Irma Thomas, Jelly Joseph, Victor Goins, George Porter, Nadja Kojo, Tom Worrell, Cece Adcock, Mark Brooks, Don Vappy, Dawn Richard Mahmoud, Choki Renee Komen, Greg Stafford, Rockin Doopsie, Tank of the Bangas, Jonathan Froelick, Bruce Davenport, Bruce Daggerpont, Johnny Sansone, Alexis Marti, Patricia Fisher. And upcoming is Tom Drummond, Big Freeda, Wanda Rouzan, Anders Osborne, Reggie Scanlon, Dave Malone, Trombone shorty, Master P, Helen Gillet, Ben Jaffe, Joker Brawl Branford Marsalis, D. Delphio Marsalis, Jason Marsalis, P.J. morton, Sullivan Fortner, Big Chief, Monk Boudreau, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Aurora Nealon, Cyril Neville, Omari Neville and Jermaine Basel. And more are coming.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker B: Never heard of them.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker A: So that's a. That's a.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker B: So what are you gonna do with all these hands?
• 1:04:53
  Speaker C: Good question and good answer. Here's the answer. So. Oh, wait. I have a gallery on Julia street. So I guess I can show them there. Sure. So for Jazz Fest, so how much
• 1:05:04
  Speaker B: would you sell these pairs of hands for?
• 1:05:06
  Speaker C: There'd be $2,500 for a set of hands.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker B: Really?
• 1:05:09
  Speaker C: They're limited editions of 10. And so the other.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker B: No one's buying yours, Renee. So 2,500 bucks.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker C: The exhibition will be at my gallery next year during the summer.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker B: Now, where is this gallery again?
• 1:05:23
  Speaker C: It's at 400A Julius Street, Julia and Chapatoula's Ferrara Showman Gallery.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker B: Now, are you part of the gay White Linen Nights too?
• 1:05:31
  Speaker C: It's not gay, but it's definitely.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker B: I think it's very gay. It's very gay, it's very white.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker C: That's Southern decadence. You know what? Actually, I'll tell you the truth, it's not very white. There's a ton of African American people that come to White Linen Night.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker B: So.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker C: So there'll be an exhibition at my gallery during Jazz Fest and that's number one. And then also the New Louisiana Music and heritage experience, this 170 million dollar museum that's going in next to the convention center in the River District. There will be a permanent wall of artists that they select from the ones that I've done. There'll be a permanent installation in there. In addition to that, I'm working, hopefully working on something at Jazz Fest. We'll see what pans out with that. But the next thing is that there are a number of New Orleans musical music inspired festivals around the world. There's a Skona Festival in Switzerland. There's Peccioli in Italy. There's something called Casanola in Morocco, MNOP in Bordeaux, France. And so the idea is to. Actually, there's an event tomorrow night with the mayor of Petioli that Adonis Rose is hosting. I'm going to that to meet the mayor to talk about basically sending an exhibition. So I have a list of a hundred artists they can choose from. They want 30 people they choose from. I send an exhibition to Italy, and of course, I go there and curate it and do all the stuff with it. But that's a part of the process.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker B: See, I think a better idea would have been, you know, these are all rock stars. All musicians have the male 3D prints of their.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker C: Somebody's already done that.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker B: And females of their breasts.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker C: It was a very.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker B: And they're making bigger money.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker C: Probably was a very famous group called the Plaster Casters. That's it. The Plaster Casters in like the. You told me that in the. In the 60s and 70s where they would cast rockstars, Cops.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker C: So this is not that, but you could probably.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker B: You could probably.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker C: You could probably use that if you wanted to, man.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker A: If you got a plaster caster, you could get one of these hands and really, really go to town, man. I'll let you talk about interactive. So the.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker C: The idea also is that, you know, is to kind of create a living archive of New Orleans music. And that's what I've been telling people. But yesterday I cast the hands of Johnny Sansome. And as he was talking about the fact that people, artists and musicians in New Orleans all work together, right? And they don't cut each other's throats like they do in other cities, right? And he said that it's like one big family. And he goes, it's kind of like this. And he talked about all the hands. And I was like, I got it.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker B: This is like a family portrait, like Hands Across America.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker C: This is like a family portrait of New Orleans music. It really is, you know, and that's when he said that I was like, fuck, that's it. It's a family, but it's a family portrait, you know, and it's a living archive of a lot of the most important. And I've done something intentional in this. It's not just getting the most famous people. And that's it. It's like creating a scene. Like, I'm gonna do something like I'm hopefully gonna do Manny Fresh Juvenile, DJ Jubilee, Partners in Crime.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker B: Did you know Carlo Nuccio?
• 1:08:43
  Speaker C: Of course, yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker B: Money.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker C: No, but he was a dialect. That was a good guy. So that's. That's kind of the concept and the idea. But what's really great for me is that, as you can tell, I mean, I was just talk about the gallery is one thing, but if I start talking about my own artwork, I get, like, jacked up because it's like, it's my shit. Like, it's when you're playing your own stuff versus producing somebody. And it makes me alive, and it makes me. Gives me purpose, it gives me reason, it makes me a better person. It makes me a better partner in my business. It makes me a better father because I'm feeding the inside of me. And the coolest thing about these, that. About these. These casting processes. Like, I spent an hour today with Alexi Marti, who's from Havana, Cuba, and lives. Lived here for the last 15, 20 years. And we just had conversation. Like, John Cleary. You're like, Renee. Or like. Because people just are just there. They're there for an hour. You got to talk about something, right? So you're rapping to people and a lot of it.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, we had an amazing conversation during the time.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker B: Well, they're musicians. They have nothing to do during the day. Of course they have to talk.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker A: We have fertile minds, you know, nothing better to do. But.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker C: But from that perspective, it is like. That's been a real joy for me, is that I. I look around and, like, I got like, 70 pairs of hands. I'm like, fuck. I didn't realize I had all these conversations. And.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker A: Right.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker C: And it's. It's great. And then the other part of it is like, no, no one's really. See, you haven't seen what they look like, and now you see them. So people are excited about the idea without even seeing it. Right. And then when they see it, that's the visual impact is the best thing. So picture a room filled with 70 pairs of hands, all in playing position of all these different musicians. Right. You're surrounded by. And they're all the same color, which is like a mirror chrome. I kind of call it like the hand of God, you know? And so that's.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker A: You can feel the energy coming off of it. Like, you. When I went to. In your studio to do, you had like, Stanton Moore and Caroline Reilly sitting there, and I looked at. I was like, yeah, no, that looks like both of those dudes, you know, like, you can. You can see it just from the hands. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker C: No, and that's. And it's like, these are things. Like, I thought when Ivan said that, I'm like, okay. And then I thought of the idea I'm gonna cast, but I didn't think about what the details in the hands were to look like. Or like how Lawrence Cotton, who's 99 years old, his hands look like Nosferatu, you know, I mean, it's like. And. Or like James Singleton. Look, look how up. Look at, look how fucked up his.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker D: His.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker C: His thumb is. And I called him and said, right. I said, is that your thumb? Because he plays bass.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker A: The contours in the skin and, and what I was thinking when I was doing mine, I was like, oh, I hope all the veins on the top of my hand come out good. But I can see on, on James's here, they come out really good.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker C: But I mean, but you see all the detail. And the old, the older the guys are, the more juicy their hands are. Like River Eckert's hands look like baby virgins.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker A: Sure, sure.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker C: There was nothing on them. It wasn't even wrinkles, you know, so. So you see that and, and the different people's playing positions. Like, you know, I did rock and doopsie and. And like his. He's playing the washboard, you know, I mean, it's. Or like, or like, you know, like cool stuff. Like Bruce Daggerpont came in, right? And he starts playing some Cajun because he brought his accordion. I just started recording, he said, because he was. He loves to talk. Yeah. And we're just, you know, we're just rapping and he's playing some stuff and telling all about this stuff and that stuff. And you know, then he put. Puts his hands. It's like, it's just, it's.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker B: It.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker C: That part is like, I wish, I wish I could record it, but that's kind of invasive, you know what I mean? And so I don't want to do that.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker A: But you can only do so much, you know.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. And that time frame, you're also concentrating not up their hands when you're casting them, you know, you want to get all the materials. Right. And so. But a part of that is just the relationships. Like, I went to this event the other night at the. For the Louisiana Music and Heritage Experience. It was kind of like their opening gala informational thing. And it was like, you know, at the end there was. Who was playing? It was. So it was like Greg Davis from Dirty Dozen, Roger Lewis. Then it was George Porter, it was Irma Thomas, Robert Mercurio. And then over here was. Was River Record and Ivan Neville on the same keyboard. And I'm like, got him, got him, Cast him, cast him. I cast all those people.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker A: You got Roger Lewis.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker C: Yeah, totally nice, you know, but his hands were creepy too, man. They're like Long. But all these people, their. Their hands, and, And I think we discussed this, that the hands are. That are that moment where the shit happens, right? Unless you're a singer, it's a contact point. It's the contact point for you playing a bass and for every doing their thing, it's like, that's where the. The action. That's where the. The magic happens. And it's like I've just. This is just kind of a vibe. I have a very. My philosophy in life and in art is like, it's an open source, right? It's just like. Just like I'm not gonna. I'm gonna. I know which direction I want to go, but let's figure out as we guide along and say, okay, you should do this or you should do that, or maybe I'll think about this. And so I'm open to the ideas, and if they make sense, then, then great, you know, and that. And I've learned so much about the individual people, but also just like the position of their hands and, you know, and. And it's. It's all turned out right, which is. This is kind of crazy, you know? Now my job now is just to cast the people and paint the things.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker A: You know what I mean? Just keep working the process. Yeah.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker C: And then, and then, and then, then all the marketing will take over, the promotion and stuff like that. Like, I'd like to see an article in Rolling Stone magazine. I'd like to see an article in Relics or whatever the other music publications are. And, and so. And once again, I've owned a gallery for 30 years. I have a PR company that we work with. You know, we have. We have 60,000 fucking Instagram followers. I mean, it's like, you know, there's a machine that's behind me that has always been applied to other artists, and now I'm just going to apply it to myself.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker B: And what's the name of the gallery again?
• 1:14:30
  Speaker C: Ferrara Showman Gallery.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker B: All right, well, I think it's. We're getting ready to go, right, Renee,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker A: now we're kind of on the downslope of the podcast.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker A: Jonathan, what a great idea, man.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker C: Thanks for being a part of it.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker A: Oh, well, thank you for asking me, man. I'm so honored. And, and, and no, it's, It's. It's really brilliant.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker C: Come see it at the gallery in April.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, everybody go, go, go check it all out. And, and, you know, we'll. We'll. We'll will keep you apprised of all this when it comes out. Any final words or just.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker C: It's FerrariShoman.com. that's a little plug in there.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker C: You know. No, I just. I think that it's nice. It's nice to be excited about something and to see something have potential and to bring people together. And really, you know, the. The reaction of all the musicians has been the best part when they best
• 1:15:27
  Speaker B: part is if one of these artists, like you got Renee Coleman's hands, if he dies, it's worth a lot more money. Right?
• 1:15:33
  Speaker C: Well, it's funny you should say that, but I did James Rivers about two months ago, and he passed a month later.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker B: You sold them for $2,000, right. It's probably worth 50,000.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker A: It's great that. That you. You have. You were able to. To cap.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker B: My advice to you is to get the older musicians.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker C: And I've already. I've already got a lot. I'm getting a lot of the older musicians, really old ones, trying my best. And the other thing is, too, is that just so people know the musicians, they get a set of hands they have. I go and install them at their house. They also get a piece of the action.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker B: Oh.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker C: So that's something that I'm very adamant about and have told every musician about. That fact is that, you know that this is a collaborative effort across the board. Yeah, of course they want it, but somebody wants to give it, and I definitely want to do that.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker A: They say everybody wants a piece of the action.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker A: Well, Jonathan, thank you so much, man. Thank you for all the work you do. Thank you for having this gallery. You know, it's wonderful to see all my friends go show there and, you know, everybody keep an eye out for this project as it fruition. Hands of music. Great title. And as always on the Troublemen podcast, we like to say, trouble never ends,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker B: but the struggle continues. Good night.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker D: Good night, darling. Our time is at end it's clear we must abandon this land I'm weak why don't you make a stand? That's me selling out on the strand But I feel the pulse of the night Please don't expose me to light I'll fail but first I will fight why must the wrong always be right? The sky came to play me a piece. You're blind and you think this is art that se it ain't gonna part but I have your best interest at heart. I can't turn this shit into gold. These dreams, man, they're getting old. You're cold, baby, you're old why can't you do. Just do what you're told? I feel the pulse of tonight? Please don't expose me to light? I'll fail but first I will fight? Why must the wrong always be right? I came completely apart? You're blind and you think this is hard? And like you see it ain't gonna be hard sometimes. But I have your best interest at heart? Your best interest at heart? Yeah, I have your best interest at heart? You're blind and you think this is hard. You. But I have your best interest at heart?