Episode 436 - Johnny Knoxville
Guest:Are we doing this?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Are we doing this?
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:WTF?
Marc:And it's also... Eh, what the fuck?
Marc:What's wrong with me?
Marc:It's time for WTF?
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:With Mark Maron.
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fuck, Nicks?
Marc:How are you?
Marc:Hi.
Marc:Hello.
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my show.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:You'll be hearing this the day after.
Marc:A very sad day.
Marc:This is Sunday that I'm recording this.
Marc:And this morning I was told, I was informed that Lou Reed died.
Marc:And it was it was sad.
Marc:It was horrible.
Marc:I know he wasn't well.
Marc:It's very odd because like three days ago I saw a picture of him and he didn't look the right color.
Marc:And I knew his liver was bad and that he was struggling.
Marc:And I remember listening to I just listened to Loaded all the way through Velvet Underground Loaded.
Marc:like three days ago, and I remember wondering how long he was going to be around, and it always blows my mind when that happens, where you're thinking about somebody in a certain context and something horrible happens.
Marc:Well, he passed away, and I spent today...
Marc:listening to Lou Reed, listening to little bits and pieces from his entire career.
Marc:You know, I have the records and just remembering just how important that guy was to me.
Marc:I mean, some of you know the story about me going to Kenmore Square and waiting online at Strawberry Records to get my album, my Transformer album signed by Lou and
Marc:And asking him that question, you know, just wondering what I was going to say that would resonate and asking him what gauge pick to use.
Marc:And he said, medium, man, you got to use a medium.
Marc:And I do.
Marc:I did.
Marc:I loved Lou Reed.
Marc:I loved him because he gave me a portal into a world that I just found so exotic, sexy, sexy.
Marc:wrong-ish, but also inspirational and also an incentive.
Marc:You know, there was a time where the first time I listened to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, I listened to Live in 69.
Marc:For some reason, that was the first one that I listened to.
Marc:It's a double album.
Marc:Remains one of my favorite albums.
Marc:And I picked up Transformer after that and then Loaded and then the other Velvet Underground records.
Marc:And then I got into his solo stuff.
Marc:Well, Transformer is solo, obviously.
Marc:And I stayed with him, man.
Marc:I stayed with him all the way through.
Marc:All the way through.
Marc:I listened to most of the Lou Reed albums.
Marc:Maybe the last couple I didn't.
Marc:But I remember listening to the fuck out of New York.
Marc:I listened to the hell out of New Sensations even.
Marc:Today I listened to Street Hassle, Transformer.
Marc:I listened to the first Velvet Underground album.
Marc:He was just a poet, man.
Marc:He was the real deal.
Marc:He was a difficult man.
Marc:He was a difficult artist to wrap your brain around.
Marc:but he created a beautiful language like Baudelaire or Wimbo.
Marc:He took on what most people would dismiss as morally bankrupt or ugly, confusing, and he embraced them, celebrated them, elevated them, and really, really just amplified...
Marc:The range of the human spirit, man.
Marc:That guy was the real deal.
Marc:A real fucking artist.
Marc:And, yeah, I had talked to John Cale about him.
Marc:And it's just sad.
Marc:I mean, it's not like he didn't leave an amazing abundance of work for everybody to enjoy.
Marc:Some of it very difficult.
Marc:But it's still sad, you know, when these guys go, these heroes.
Marc:Well, my personal hero.
Marc:And, you know, I hope he I hope he's at peace, man.
Marc:I don't know what goes on.
Marc:And I know some of you assume that it's all over.
Marc:But, you know, he's always going to be here, man.
Marc:Lou Reed is always going to be with us.
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know what else to say about about that other than, you know, there's loss.
Marc:But, you know, I am glad to have known his work.
Marc:I really am.
Marc:And RIP Lou Reed.
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:Go listen to a Lou Reed record.
Marc:If you don't know Lou Reed stuff, get into it.
Marc:Get into it now.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:The darkness and the beauty is one.
Marc:And that's the best you can do.
Marc:I fucking love you, Lou.
Marc:I love you.
Marc:I'm going to miss you.
Marc:Johnny Knoxville is on the show today, by the way, and I want to say a few things about him.
Marc:But I saw Def Blackcat the other day.
Marc:He continues to be my spirit animal, but he's not a spirit.
Marc:He's a real deal.
Marc:Here he is.
Marc:I'm starting to question his motives a little bit.
Marc:It's interesting.
Marc:He's coming around a little more.
Marc:He looks good.
Marc:Been hanging out on my deck.
Marc:He came to put some food out the other day.
Marc:And he just... He ate a few bites of the dry food and he stood there.
Marc:He just sat there next to the food looking at me.
Marc:I was in the doorway.
Marc:He's just looking at me.
Marc:And I'm thinking, what does he want?
Marc:You know, and I romanticize.
Marc:I anthropomorphize.
Marc:I project my feelings, as you know, onto these animals.
Marc:I thought, well, he's trying to say something.
Marc:What is it that this cat wants?
Marc:Is he just looking at me?
Marc:Just checking in?
Marc:Is he just being supportive?
Marc:No, he looked like he wanted something.
Marc:Then I realized that...
Marc:He probably wants wet food.
Marc:And the weird thing about wet food is I never feed that cat wet food.
Marc:I don't put wet food out for the for the strays.
Marc:I don't put I don't put wet food out for any of my cats.
Marc:I have some stashed occasionally as a treat.
Marc:But the interesting thing about deaf black cat is the only time I gave that cat wet food was when I trapped him in that horrible trap.
Marc:And it took a few days to do that.
Marc:But I put the wet food out that led him into threat.
Marc:Now, the interesting thing to me about that in looking at deaf black cat as my spirit animal is that he wants that wet food.
Marc:He remembers that wet food.
Marc:He doesn't remember what was probably the most traumatic experience of his life, I'm thinking.
Marc:Maybe outside of a couple of close calls with some coyotes that I can only speculate about.
Marc:But he ate that wet food walking right into that trap.
Marc:And I have to imagine that left some emotional or psychic scars on him.
Marc:I mean, that's a big deal to be trapped in a box when you're a wild animal.
Marc:And that's the only time I gave him the wet food.
Marc:What's my point?
Marc:Is when something's really, really good.
Marc:We forget the traps.
Marc:And that is something we all share, isn't it, animals?
Marc:So Johnny Knoxville is here.
Marc:Now, Knoxville is a great guy.
Marc:I'd never met him before.
Marc:I went to see his new movie, Bad Grandpa.
Marc:And, you know, there's a lot of good bits in there.
Marc:There's a lot of funny pranks and a lot of funny shit in that movie.
Marc:That's what you're waiting for.
Marc:You're waiting for that next, you know, thing.
Marc:And you'll get a gut punch in there.
Marc:Sometimes you go to movies like if I can get about two or three killer laughs.
Marc:You know, that's fucking something that's worth the price of admission.
Marc:I think.
Marc:But Knoxville is interesting because I remember when Jackass first came out, the first Jackass movie.
Marc:And I, you know, I hadn't seen it.
Marc:I saw the coming attractions.
Marc:I didn't really watch the show on MTV.
Marc:I was already too old for MTV or to pay attention to it.
Marc:But I saw the coming attractions.
Marc:I'm like, well, this is sort of bro-y.
Marc:This is sort of jockey.
Marc:This is sort of, you know, what are these guys just fucking off?
Marc:And then, like, I just couldn't help myself.
Marc:I went to see it, and I was like, holy shit.
Marc:This is some punk rock business here.
Marc:This is a weird brotherhood of fucking, you know, envelope-pushing prank cowboys.
Marc:This is some crazy shit.
Marc:I mean, there's no experience that you can even compare to seeing the first Jackass movie the first time you see it.
Marc:I would love to have that experience back.
Marc:I would love to be able to look at that movie again with new eyes.
Marc:It was fucking crazy.
Marc:And it's interesting because throughout the conversation that I had with Knoxville...
Marc:You know, I just couldn't get it out of my mind that, you know, there is something, you know, almost primal about the type of laughs you get from those moments of of of shocking people or taking chances.
Marc:I mean, you look at his Wiki page, he's called a daredevil.
Marc:That's a that's a pretty impressive title to be a daredevil.
Marc:But there's also something about pushing the envelope.
Marc:I mean, the amazing thing about the punk element of what these guys were doing is they were risking their lives in some of these pranks.
Marc:They were risking their bones, their eyesight, their lives.
Marc:They were pushing the envelope to get these weird, deep, genuine, irreplaceable laughs.
Marc:And that's not nothing, man.
Marc:I mean, that's not nothing.
Marc:You know, some of that shit is going to hold up forever.
Marc:I mean, unlike a lot of, you know, a lot of comedy just gets dated or whatever, but that shit operates at a primal level.
Marc:And I think there's definitely a genius to it.
Marc:And there's definitely something you can't trivialize in the risks that these guys took.
Marc:it's a very interesting moment when I'm talking to him where we talk about the, uh, the death of, uh, his friend, Ryan Dunn, that, that really, really moved me.
Marc:So, so strap in Johnny's a good cat.
Marc:And, uh, we had a great talk and he, he was injured and,
Marc:when he showed up which i found to be appropriate uh but i i i had great time with this dude this dude's uh he's you know he's an original all right so let's uh let's go talk to johnny knoxville
Marc:How you doing?
Marc:Good, man.
Marc:What have you been doing all morning?
Marc:Just radio?
Guest:Yeah, I got up at 5.30 to do radio.
Guest:Do the junket?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Get on the phone?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You're on with Joe and the shit man.
Marc:Ha ha ha!
Marc:i've gone back to whoring yeah yeah you're on with jack and terry and johnny and the little guy's name is widget they all have that radio voice too yeah yeah and it's uh it's just weird sometimes when you get like five minutes the end they're like so what do you what they got their little questions and then there's the laughing and then you you don't even it's almost like you're not you're you don't even know if you're part of the conversation and there's that little delay too yeah yeah that screws me up did it go well
Guest:As well as that goes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What'd you do to your hand, man?
Guest:I tore, I ruptured a tendon in my finger.
Guest:I was filming a promo at a frat house dressed as Irving Zisman.
Guest:As the grandpa guy.
Guest:Yeah, three hours of makeup.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And sitting in the audience with the students watching the movie and one of the students dosed me with ecstasy.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:I swear.
Guest:No, but I mean like, does that upset you?
Guest:No, it confused me for a second.
Guest:For the first 30 seconds, my heart starts racing.
Guest:I'm like, I don't remember taking anything.
Guest:You don't remember.
Guest:And then I got that feeling.
Guest:I'm like, I hadn't taken it since my 20s.
Guest:And I remembered.
Guest:And I think if any other production, if the quote unquote talent had got dosed, they would shut down.
Guest:But I texted my producer.
Guest:I'm like, I think I'm pretty sure I just got dosed with ecstasy.
Guest:He says, do you need a hug?
Yeah.
Guest:So we were like, let's just keep shooting.
Guest:And one thing led to another.
Guest:We got great stuff.
Guest:The wheels fell off.
Guest:And I think it was going through a table or hanging off the basketball rim.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It was fun.
Marc:Did you see the guys that dosed you?
Marc:Were there two laughing kids?
Guest:No, I know who it was.
Guest:I know who it was.
Guest:And I have no bad feelings towards them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If it had been acid, I would have been pissed.
Guest:Yeah, because that's a day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's 12 hours and you can't do anything about it.
Guest:You can't do anything.
Guest:You're stuck.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:Just got to ride it out.
Guest:That's no fun, man.
Marc:Not if you don't do it on purpose.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like, I had other plans.
Marc:Now you've got to wrestle with me.
Marc:Did you do a lot of acid?
Guest:No, I only did it two or three times.
Guest:Yeah, that's enough.
Guest:I did, the first time was windowpane, which is weird.
Guest:So they say.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Windowpane.
Guest:Yeah, they put it in your eye.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Liquid acid, they put it in your eye.
Marc:Where the hell did you get that?
Marc:When did you do that?
Guest:I was 18 or 19.
Guest:I just moved here from Tennessee.
Guest:Welcome to L.A.
Guest:And someone had liquid acid, and they're like, it works best in your eye.
Guest:I'm like, here you go.
Guest:Boom.
Guest:Yeah, and it worked pretty good.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you travel?
Guest:No, I was at the beach, and so we just- Kind of did that thing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Laughed a lot, walked around in circles?
Guest:It was fun that time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you have a dark one?
Guest:Once I took acid with this guy, and he had two big, you know what band dogs are?
Mm-mm.
Guest:and they're across between like a mastiff and a rottweiler big yeah and it was just me him and this other dude and we're all just sitting in you know tripping on acid in this house with these two huge dogs and it was hot and i remember being thirsty and i don't know if i had the wherewithal to drink water yeah you know it wasn't it wasn't fun yeah it's too scary to drink water that's the last time i did it
Marc:The dogs would have been the killer for me.
Guest:Well, they're the size of a Great Dane, but like a Rottweiler.
Marc:Right, and they're thick, right?
Marc:They're like bull mastiffs.
Guest:Yeah, and when you're on acid, they become even bigger, and then they get smaller, and then they get bigger.
Guest:It was too much.
Marc:Sometimes they're evil.
Guest:Sometimes they're just dogs.
Guest:Sometimes we cuddle.
Marc:Yeah, other times you're like, you're Satan.
Marc:So I saw the movie.
Marc:I want to know what's going to happen with all that footage at the end.
Marc:Because it's one of those things.
Marc:We'll talk about the arc of the whole event of your life if we can.
Marc:Because at the end, when you watch the stuff you do, in this movie, Bad Grandpa's got a narrative, but then it's got the bits dropped into the narrative.
Marc:And then like the party is like, well, at the end when they're going over credits and you see these things that you didn't use.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're like, why didn't they just put those in there?
Guest:Well, I mean, we say, I haven't counted, but say there's 50 bits in the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We'll film over a hundred just to get those 50 bits.
Guest:yeah and with this a lot of stuff fell out because as you said there's a story in this and we in jackass is just vignettes we never had to service a story so because of that we filmed a lot of stuff with spike jones playing gloria no lady yeah and it worked and we got such funny stuff but it didn't work for the story right and so and same with katherine keener played my wife yeah
Guest:hilarious stuff with her, but it didn't work for the story.
Guest:So we have all this footage.
Guest:We've already got a lot on the DVD we're releasing, but we're going to do a whole other release, like a Bad Grandpa .5.
Guest:We always do a 2.5, 3.5 with all the jackasses.
Guest:So this one's...
Guest:got probably more than any of them because of the the you know things fell out because of the story but also this one people want to know how he shot it and did it and we're going to have a lot on there about that because it's people you know how do you prank a funeral people might ask and let me let me try can i guess
Marc:Did you already talk about it?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You've already talked about it somewhere.
Marc:Yes, somewhere, yeah.
Marc:You presented yourself to the funeral parlor as a guy with no family, and the funeral parlor said, well, we can probably get some of the congregation in.
Marc:We could probably bring some people in.
Marc:You wired the place the day before, and you did it that way.
Guest:Yeah, we did.
Guest:We found a funeral home that said, yes, you can do it.
Guest:And two really sweet guys, and it was a tribute to their dead father who pulled pranks all the time.
Guest:And they said, of course you can use our place.
Guest:I mean, they had a death mobile from Animal House in their garage at the funeral home.
Guest:So they knew who you were, and they were like, yeah, fuck yeah.
Guest:They were totally down.
Guest:And what we did is we hired...
Guest:a choir, caterers, drivers.
Guest:And when they got there, we said, this guy's got no family.
Guest:He's outlived all his friends.
Guest:Can you sit in the audience?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And luckily they said, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Even the preacher wasn't in on it.
Guest:I made up a false history for my deceased wife and handed it to him.
Guest:And we did it twice.
Guest:And both preachers preached the prettiest sermons about... It was...
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Do you feel bad ever?
Guest:That one I was a little nervous about because they're getting ready to see something terrible in a funeral home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was worried that some of them would have heart attacks.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And eventually...
Guest:And I thought, even if they don't have a heart attack, they're never going to sign.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So we did it twice.
Guest:We got great reactions.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we had it scheduled a third time and we all said, let's not do it.
Guest:Let's not put anyone else through that.
Guest:So we do feel bad sometimes.
Guest:But in that particular instance, when we said, hey, ta-da, it's just a movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were so relieved to know what they just saw wasn't real.
Guest:They were like, yes, we'll sign.
Guest:Thank goodness.
Wow.
Marc:Yeah, when somebody doesn't sign the release after a prank, I mean, I imagine you've had to deal with like, you know, people are just like, no, fuck you.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Oh, fuck you.
Guest:Yeah, a lot.
Guest:And sometimes you just wait them out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's just, we have people that are really good at that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That go in after, I leave, and then they go in.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And if they're really hot, they'll bring me back to talk to them.
Guest:And if that doesn't help, we'll let them wait a week or two, and then we'll go back.
Guest:And then at the worst case scenario, we'll wait a few months and go back and throw a little money at them.
Marc:And there's still some people that are like, mm-mm.
Marc:There's still people that are like, fuck you.
Yeah.
Guest:In the beauty pageant, I came off the stage.
Guest:In the movie, Irving, the grandfather, takes his grandson and enters him into a little girl's beauty pageant.
Guest:I dress him up as a girl.
Guest:And he does a naughty dance.
Guest:And it's one of the funniest things we ever shot, including the Jackass films.
Guest:And after we came off stage, when he did a really inappropriate dance in front of all the parents and kids,
Guest:a father was just like locked in yeah and he wasn't saying anything but he was locked in so i knew i had someone on the hook and so i approached him and asked him what the hell is his problem yeah and we go into that he didn't want to talk in front of the kids which is good yeah so we go into the the next room and it was such a funny exchange he was like the perfect straight man he would just set me up for a joke joke joke joke and but afterwards hey today it's a movie fuck you
Guest:Okay, we'll wait him out.
Guest:We'll wait him out.
Guest:Let's call him back in two weeks.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:It's been eight months and we're still at fuck you.
Guest:I think it gets worse every time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It just happens.
Guest:Can't let it go.
Guest:That's what public pranks are the hardest things we do on Jackass.
Guest:Because you never know what you're going to get.
Marc:And I think somehow or another, I was concerned that maybe you wouldn't... Even as an old man, that people might get wind of it.
Marc:But I guess there's still a lot of people out there that don't know.
Marc:And this one required... I mean, you had to go into businesses and wire the place the night before.
Guest:What we do is we'll contact the owner with the idea and say, we'd like to use your business.
Guest:And the owner signs off...
Guest:The employees will sign off most every time.
Marc:Because they don't want to lose their job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we just ask the owner, just you can't tell your employees because then it's ruined.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you know when you're pranking someone.
Guest:Yeah, if they know.
Guest:If you're getting a bullshit reaction, you can tell, or I can tell.
Guest:And so that's what we do in those cases.
Guest:We just get the owner to sign off.
Guest:And if we're doing man in the street stuff, I size people up.
Guest:If someone's standing there with a skateboard and a DC shirt, I let them walk on by.
Guest:You can't always tell, but you do the best you can.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Because you know people who are going to take advantage of the situation?
Guest:Well, no, if it looks like a jackass fan, I'm not going to prank him because I'm just wasting my time.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then if they discover me, they're going to tell everyone in the area and then we have to move locations.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Now, the interesting thing about a couple of the things without spoiling the movie...
Guest:Oh, fuck it.
Guest:We've done so many trailers that, you know, let's spoil the movie.
Marc:I guess what I want to ask you is after you do all these pranks on people, what is it about the human condition?
Marc:You know, in terms of how people will respond to things that, you know, that you've learned or that surprised you the most.
Marc:Because there's that moment, you know, when you tell a couple of guys who come to move a bed to help you move a body and they, you know, with a little resistance, they're like, I don't know.
Marc:And then they help you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's something about when you have two women that are willing to ship a human.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:You know, because what do you know about people now that you didn't know before?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's funny because when I tried to get someone to help me dispose of what they thought was a dead body, we tried it once before in Cleveland.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And the idea then was to...
Guest:have someone come over and dig a big hole in the backyard for a tree I was going to plant.
Guest:And after they plant it, I bring them in the house.
Guest:My wife's body's on the bed.
Guest:I explain to them I had a misunderstanding at the funeral and can you help me put her in the grave?
Guest:Well, when I tried it the first time, it was all like, I was all silent and shady and my grandson wasn't in the room.
Guest:I said, look, I'm in a bad way.
Guest:Can you help me?
Guest:And soon as I approached them with that energy, everyone just backed off.
Guest:No one- Did they run?
Guest:No one ran, but some left quickly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But so we didn't get it that day and we talked about it and we're like, we got to change my energy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the next time we tried it in Charlotte, North Carolina, which helps.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because Southern people want to get involved.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:my energy was hey this is what's happening and you know i had you know very positive and upbeat and just and i had my grandson in the room he was coloring yeah yeah so it just your energy how your energy affects people yeah if if you act shady then poof you're shady but if you're positive and you know upbeat you can have someone help you get rid of a body
Guest:yeah yeah well that the black dude in that in that scene you can tell like he had he just didn't want to he's like why why am i in this situation i knew he was a possible runner i could tell by the look in his eyes he wanted to leave yeah so that's why when i was pranking you like you heard me going james hey james come on help me james i stayed locked in on him to keep the bond going because james is about to get the fuck out of dodge
Marc:That poor guy was so sure that he was in some sort of horrible, life-changing moment.
Marc:That shit was going to, he didn't want to have anything to do with it.
Marc:Yet he was still sort of like, he kind of looked at you like, well, he's got a problem.
Guest:He's sweet.
Guest:He's a sweet guy.
Guest:And his eyes, I mean, his eyes make the whole bit.
Guest:I mean, they're just jumping up and down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When he started bringing up the crime.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Thanks for the crime.
Guest:And oh, oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When I was praying.
Guest:Let's pray.
Guest:And he steps away.
Guest:We almost lost that footage because they signed that day.
Guest:But they came back the next day.
Guest:Their boss heard about what happened.
Guest:And their boss got pissed because they were in a company truck.
Guest:They had company stuff on their shirts.
Guest:and so they said we don't want to be a part of it so we gave them their paperwork right because we're not going to keep someone's paperwork if they don't want to be a part it's not like hey we got your signature fuck you yeah we can't do that yeah we don't want to do that but uh but eventually like we we convinced the company we'll remove all the company's names and off their shirts and we did and they're fine with it
Marc:So when you say people in the South want to get involved, I mean, you grew up there, so you understand it.
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:People are... See, sometimes certain cities, when they see something uncomfortable, the bigger cities especially...
Guest:They just keep walking.
Guest:They don't want to deal with it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you got this great prank plan, but no one wants to play.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But in the South, people are really chatty.
Guest:They want to make eye contact with everyone they see and talk and they want to get involved.
Guest:They see something fucked up.
Guest:They want to get in and change the situation or help the situation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that is wonderful for pranks.
Marc:yeah yeah when you grew up i mean where where did you grow up exactly uh south knoxville yeah tennessee and what what uh wait i see i i'm fascinated with the south because i you know as i got older i always judged it you know because i you know i always like kind of stereotyped it well that's the way we do with the north yeah you know back home it's still yankees yeah everyone in the north are right so we both are guilty
Marc:Right, but then when you go down there, like, this is the best place in the world.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Everybody's, like, sweet here.
Marc:And then whatever happens behind closed doors, I don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But I've had nothing but good experiences down there.
Marc:That's how I feel about New York City.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Wouldn't want to live there.
Guest:No, I love it.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:It's my favorite city.
Guest:Yeah, that just happens both ways.
Marc:Now, what's your real name?
Guest:uh pj clap and what can you come from a big family down there uh two older sisters uh mom and dad are still alive still married really yeah my sisters were eight and ten years older and my father told me i was an m&m baby what does that mean you came between menstruation and menopause best part of you ran down your mama's crack boy oh yeah yeah and then but the worst part of that is my mom would go oh honey it did not
Guest:which makes me think it did you know i was born with a club foot so and i have terrible asthma so i think a little squirted out the side you have you have asthma and a club what is a club foot uh i i don't know it's uh i guess it was a skew like point the wrong direction right and i had to wear a brace the first six months of my life so what'd your dad do he owned a tire company like a he sold tires
Guest:Yeah, but mostly he was a professional liar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he was a huge, huge personality, constantly pranking his employees, fucking with his employees growing up.
Marc:Was it with the kind of place where there were just stacks of old tires out front?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And just pieces of cars everywhere?
Guest:Well, he had one business that was a newer business for new tires, and he had to use tires across the street.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And...
Guest:But it was all, all his employees were just a big, it was like a big farm to fuck with people.
Guest:I mean, he would give them ex-lax milkshakes and stage gunfights at Christmas parties.
Guest:That they didn't know about?
Guest:No, the people, well, this is what he did one year.
Guest:He had two of his employees get in a fight at a Christmas party and then pull out blank guns and start shooting at each other.
Guest:And so everyone, it was in a rough neighborhood.
Guest:It was in the McAnally Flats too.
Guest:So it was a rough neighborhood.
Guest:Everyone got the fuck out of Dodge.
Marc:And that's not unusual, I guess, in certain areas in the South.
Guest:Not in McAnally Flats.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But the next year, he had two new employees, and he said, hey, last year we pranked everyone, and someone got in a gunfight, and they started shooting at each other.
Guest:Let's do it again this year.
Guest:And so the two new guys were like, all right.
Guest:So they got in a fight, and they pulled out their blank guns and started shooting at each other.
Guest:But Dad had everyone else in the party.
Guest:They had blank guns, and they pulled theirs out and started shooting at those two guys.
Guest:And those two guys fucked off out the door.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you grew up with that?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and like in the tire store, did you used to hang out there when you were a kid?
Guest:Yeah, I would go over sometimes and hang out with Big George.
Guest:You're characters, right?
Guest:Straight out of a Cormac McCarthy novel.
Guest:Actually, Sutry is based in Knoxville, and some of the guys my father grew up with are in Sutry.
Guest:Which is a Cormac McCarthy novel?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were based on those guys?
Guest:No, not from the tire store, but some of dad's friends.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:So dad, like I didn't know everyone didn't have that experience growing up because I was surrounded by all these characters.
Guest:I mean, ass-kicking Robert, Big George, Big Sam, Super Dick.
Guest:His tire groover was named Woodrow Wilson Boxcar Johnson Jr.
Guest:And his father wasn't even a senior.
Yeah.
Guest:He just kept adding things to his name?
Guest:Yeah, and he was always getting arrested for silly things.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:He broke in some store, I don't know, breaking in convenience smarts and whatever.
Guest:And they picked him up one time.
Guest:And this is not a joke.
Guest:This is serious.
Guest:Oh, not serious.
Guest:It's funny, hopefully.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But they said, Mr. Wilson, we know you robbed that convenience store where you have your fingerprints.
Guest:He goes, you ain't got my prints.
Guest:I was wearing gloves.
Guest:So he was a real lovable, you know, terrible, terrible thief.
Marc:But so like, because that's the kind of business where guys are like on parole or they can't get other work or maybe they're just sort of like, you know, they can stay under the radar.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:And dad loved to any, like dad loved to buy hot items.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So sometimes he would come, but he would, useless hot items.
Guest:He would come home with,
Guest:45 calculators, the big, huge ones, the old-timey ones.
Guest:I'm like, what are we going to do with those?
Guest:Oh, I got a good deal on them.
Guest:I'm sure Boxcar stole them and Dad was just helping them out.
Guest:Give them a few bucks?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, Dad would always help his guys out.
Guest:He bucked with them constantly, but, you know, he bought Big George cars and whatnot.
Marc:What was Big George's story?
Guest:Big George was about 5'9", 340 pounds...
Guest:so strong yeah so strong big old guy and he couldn't read or write right and he was narcoleptic and big george would drive me and my buddies around when we were little to you know take us to the movies or whatever and he'd always be smoking a big cigar yeah and we'd get to red lights and then he would conk out yeah i swear to god he would conk out of red lights so people would be really laying on the horn he'd sleep through a couple
Guest:what do you guys do just sit there go george yeah we try to wake him up but then we kind of thought it was funny too because everyone's getting angry and then but the scary part is whenever he'd wake up he'd just wake up and drive and so sometimes it would still be a red light and big george was awesome he uh he went when one day my dad he told him uh there was a picture of a monkey on the front page of the knoxville new sentinel yeah dad said hey big george look here
Guest:uh a monkey uh a gorilla escaped from the zoo ain't that funny and big george would never let you know he couldn't read yeah so he looked at it and all day long he laughed about that monkey escaping from or that gorilla escaping from the zoo and dad kept it in his head all day at the end of the day dad says hey george can you go in the back and pull off a couple of 220r15s off the top of that stack yeah and
Guest:big george yeah yeah and and when big george got back there dad had box car yeah little little bitty box car dressed in a gorilla suit down the tire so when big george got there uh box car sprung up went and before dad could get to to him big george had about beat box car half to death he was just wailing on the gorilla oh
Guest:so that happened all the time and i've my i my all the prank stuff i'm just trying you know i'm just emulating my father does he like it he loves it yeah he doesn't like when i do stunts no one in my family does but the pranks he loves yeah yeah they're scared about the stunts yeah yeah well i mean they're you know part of your on your resume when you look you up it says daredevil
Marc:i know that which is great i mean how many but but seriously i mean i was thinking about that because i i was looking at wiki or whatever and i'm like who gets called a daredevil there's only like three daredevils do you know he's like evil kenevil and i can't even name another one yeah you you're a daredevil yeah that's that's pretty silly but i guess i i guess i deserve it
Guest:But it's a unique title.
Guest:I mean, do you know any daredevils?
Guest:Actually, I know quite of doing what I do.
Guest:You meet a lot of... Like Matt Hoffman.
Guest:You know who Matt Hoffman was?
Guest:Uh-uh.
Guest:I mean, he's a BMX rider.
Guest:We actually did a Matt Hoffman tribute to Evel Knievel.
Guest:He's like our generation's Evel Knievel.
Guest:He's a BMX rider in Oklahoma.
Guest:And before people started doing the mega ramps and everything, he was...
Guest:attaching lawnmower motors to his bike so he could get up enough air.
Guest:And he died a couple of times because, I mean, he got like, I don't know, 50 foot in the air and came down and slammed straight on the... So he's broken up?
Guest:He's had over 23 surgeries and over 75 concussions.
Guest:But if you talk to him, you'd never know that he does anything gnarly.
Guest:He's the sweetest, most gentle guy.
Guest:You've got to check out the documentary we did on him.
Guest:Who did it?
Guest:You and Spike?
Guest:Dick House.
Guest:Me, Jeff, and Spike.
Guest:It's called The Birth of Big Air.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think you'll like it.
Marc:The interesting thing about being a daredevil of any kind, even with you, is that it's not just the courage or the insanity of doing the stunt, but a lot of guys are like, they've got to put shit together.
Marc:Like you said, he's taking lawnmower motors, and you've got to rig shit up.
Marc:i mean there's a lot of like there's mechanical elements to it i mean to really choreograph a prank or to get what you want to get done you got to sit there like rocket scientists and go well how do i do this and not hurt myself or what's going to get the biggest effect so there's just all this invention involved in it well we never think how can we do it and not hurt ourselves we know that we're getting ready if honestly if you're doing a stunt and you don't and if you don't get broke you're going to do it again
Guest:You know?
Guest:But we did hire... Actually, we did hire some part-time rocket scientists for Jackass No.
Guest:2, where I got on a rocket and rode it out over a lake.
Guest:And the first time... Well, they were up front with us.
Guest:They were like, you know, we kind of know what's going to happen, but it's a rocket.
Guest:It's very volatile, so anything can happen.
Guest:And sure enough, on the first time I ride it, it, you know, whatever ignited.
Marc:I remember that prank that when he shot into the water...
Guest:Yeah, and five or six foot long metal rods go out every side.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Oh, you almost lost your, like, you almost got killed on that one.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that would have taken my head right off.
Guest:And one went 300 yards back and flew right between two of our art guys' heads.
Guest:It would have taken their heads off.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, we shot again as soon as we got another rocket.
Marc:Have you ever sort of sought to identify... I mean, it's one thing doing pranks.
Marc:I mean, you grew up with that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But to take it to the edge every time and to know you're going to do it and to know you're doing something life-threatening for a joke, I mean, I wouldn't say it's pathological, but I mean, is it the rush?
Marc:I mean, do you get addicted to the charge of it?
Marc:I mean, I have to assume it's pretty fucking thrilling.
Guest:Well, I think...
Guest:Honestly, I just want footage, and the producer side overrides the performer side, and it is, I guess there is a part of it that I like, but I just, I know what we need, and we need a great stunt right now.
Marc:Right.
Marc:okay but i got a picture to uh shoot i get it no i get it you're there with the megaphone go let's do it again reset but but no but i mean do you like i don't i have to assume that you didn't originally get into show business to do jackass i mean i mean how what was the when did you that's a good shirt by the way that's from the cover of back in the bar rooms again right that's yeah way to go yeah that's a good album yeah did you grow up with that music
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Merle Haggard.
Guest:All the Outlaw Country guys.
Guest:George Jones.
Guest:Yeah, David Allen Coe, Willie Whalen, Johnny Cash.
Marc:Yeah, was your family into it?
Guest:Oh, my father loved Whalen.
Guest:I listened to the 08 tracks in his El Camino all the time.
Guest:Yeah, Whalen was good.
Guest:I love George Jones, though.
Guest:Yeah, the possum.
Marc:Yeah, the possum.
Marc:Those stories.
Marc:He rode his tractor into town.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:What a character.
Marc:Oh, he's great.
Marc:He's a little wet-brainy now, I think.
Guest:Yeah, but he's a little, he's older, but man, what a voice.
Guest:The best.
Guest:But respected.
Guest:The best.
Guest:You know, Keith Richards talks about George Jones in his book.
Guest:I mean, just even Frank Sinatra said that George Jones was the second greatest singer in the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like, okay, who's the first?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, Keith remarked that.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But insane voice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:But still, so you come out here from Tennessee with some sort of dream.
Marc:Why'd you leave?
Marc:Why'd you decide on this?
Guest:I initially came out from Tennessee to enroll in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Guest:I wanted to be an actor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I did for the six weeks program.
Guest:That was my excuse to get out of Knoxville because...
Guest:And I think in the back of my mind, I believed if I stayed in Knoxville, I was going to get in trouble.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because, you know, I just go out and drink and fight.
Marc:Were there guys around you that, you know, were going down?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like your friends?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, a lot of them either went to jail or became cops.
Right.
Guest:It's that crazy.
Marc:Are you still tight with any of them?
Guest:Yeah, my buddies, Alan Fry and Richie Nickel, they own the Vol Market back home.
Guest:Back home, I guess a lot of people don't have checking accounts, and they all go to the Vol Market to cash their checks.
Guest:And it's like Casablanca.
Guest:I mean, it's the senators, football coaches, prostitutes, destitutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everyone in town goes to the ball market to get their checks cashed.
Marc:To Rick's ball market.
Guest:And they've never been robbed because everyone in the place has a gun on them and shotguns hanging from the ceiling everywhere.
Guest:It's intense.
Marc:What, loaded shotguns ready?
Marc:Yeah, no, they're not for decoration.
Marc:But they're rigged.
Marc:They're good to go, yeah.
Guest:Alan said, we got a grenade the other day.
Guest:I said, where do you keep that?
Guest:Over by the dip dogs.
You know?
Guest:it's it's a one i love going back there i always when i go home i always go to the vol market my dad always wants to go out the vol market with me do you have a place out there you just stay at your folks i stay at my mom and dad's downstairs that's yeah it's cold as shit downstairs too i have to put aluminum foil up over the vents they like it around 60 degrees it's like you're on uh like doing letterman or something right right all over the house oh god so all right so you want to get you want to be an actor
Guest:Right.
Guest:I want to be an actor.
Guest:I move out, and I went there two weeks, dropped out, and then I pretty much just did... I studied a little bit, but I really wasn't pursuing it because I was just out partying.
Guest:I was living like I had already made it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And not until... Doing acid in your eye.
Guest:Yeah, basically.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then my then-girlfriend...
Guest:Became pregnant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had a little girl on the way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's what really focused me.
Guest:I'm like, daddy has to think of something fast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I started writing for magazines.
Guest:And one of the ideas was I would test self-defense equipment on myself.
Guest:pepper spray stun gun taser and then i was going to shoot myself well i was going to have my friend shoot me in there's footage with the 38 while i was wearing a bulletproof vest and i did and i took it the only magazine that would support it a lot of people wanted it yeah but the only people that give me money for it is uh big brother magazine which jeff tremaine was the editor of who directs bad grandpa and all the jackass films
Marc:So he was the editor of the magazine.
Marc:Was it a skate magazine?
Marc:Skateboard magazine.
Marc:And that's a whole world in itself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was just going to write the article, and a couple days before Jeff said, you should film it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And we'll put it in the skateboard video.
Marc:This is the shooting you or the pepper spray?
Guest:All of it.
Marc:Oh, you did them all at once.
Guest:I did the first three in about an hour, and then we had to drive out on the freeway off the 14 and pulled off on a fire road.
Guest:To shoot yourself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You don't want to do that in town.
Guest:No, no, I didn't want to do that in back.
Guest:We were like...
Guest:The first three were around Sunset and Crescent Heights.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so you shoot yourself.
Marc:I would have to say that that's probably the birth of whatever it is that you started to become.
Guest:It was.
Marc:When you're like, I'm going to shoot myself.
Marc:I mean, that moment where you're like, all right, the vest's going to work, right?
Yeah.
Guest:well i did i called the company i called the company and let them because i took the money my christmas money my mom sent me and bought the cheapest vest they had and i'd already said i was going to do it and i called him i'm like hey i'm you know is this vest really good uh yes it's the best money can buy and i said well thank goodness because what i'm going to do is i'm going to test it i'm going to have my buddy shoot me and they say can we call you back
Guest:And they call me back and they say, we can't recommend you do that.
Guest:And I'm like, well, shit, I already said I was going to.
Marc:And that was the end of the conversation.
Guest:But when we get out to the National Forest, the guy that was shooting it, Jeff Bender, shooting pictures of it.
Guest:And he, I don't know if he shot pictures, but he had seen his friend die by jumping off a motel into a swimming pool and he missed.
Guest:And so that brought back all of that when he was out there.
Guest:So he was freaking out like, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.
Guest:And then my friend who's supposed to shoot me says, I can't go through with it.
Guest:And so then I have to shoot myself.
Marc:That's real close range.
Guest:Point blank.
Guest:And then a car pulls up behind me.
Guest:I'm getting ready to do it, and a car pulls up behind me.
Guest:And some people, they ask me, I got the gun behind my back.
Guest:Hey, how are you?
Guest:And they looked to be really loaded on meth.
Guest:They were like, where's the recycling center?
Yeah.
Guest:I'm like, oh, just go down the road, you make a right, and you'll be right to it.
Guest:And it was just so half-assed.
Guest:There was no production.
Guest:It was just four dipshits on a fire road.
Guest:With a video camera.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, okay, so you shoot yourself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Were you like, all right, okay, it's going to happen.
Guest:It was really intense because Bender was screaming for me not to do it.
Guest:Everyone was saying, don't do it.
Guest:and so they're literally treating like a guy's about to kill himself yeah and yes and my friend loomis was he'd never shot camera before he's a drummer and he kept the kept missing the shot watching it back there's 25 minute piece of footage on that whole event yeah that is really interesting because it almost wasn't even captured on film because at the last second loomis goes back up and
Guest:And I loaded one bullet in the chamber, so it's like click, click, click.
Guest:Yeah, it was like really dramatic.
Guest:And finally on the sixth one, I'm like, oh, here we go.
Guest:Click.
Guest:Boom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it felt like someone took a shovel and hit you in the chest with it while you weren't looking.
Guest:Did you aim it at your chest?
Guest:Well, I aimed it right below where I thought my heart was, which I'm, you know, I'm no doctor.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:And at that moment, though, I think that was your... Inside, that must have been the big break.
Guest:You're like... It felt like something because when we did the Big Brother video, number two, and they put that at the end of the video.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all the guys working at Big Brother, most of the guys from Jackass were either being covered by Big Brother for skating or working there.
Guest:It's the first group I'd been around that I thought, this is a really special group.
Guest:We have a lot of characters, a lot of nuts.
Guest:And it kind of reminded me of my father's tire shop.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it felt special.
Guest:And then the number two came out and it...
Guest:people were really psyched on it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It felt, yeah, you're right.
Guest:It felt like the beginning of something that it was.
Marc:And also like, I think that, you know, it kind of like culturally something happened because there's something about, all right.
Marc:So when I first, when Jackass first came out and I just saw trailers, I'm like,
Marc:Like, oh, these guys are just like, you know, this is some bro shit.
Marc:But then when you went to see it, you know, it's a masterpiece because there's nothing as consistently fucking funny.
Marc:The first time you see the first jackass, you're like, oh, my God.
Marc:Now I got to wait 10 years so that'll work again.
Marc:You know, like you want that laugh.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:But it's inexplicable in the sense that it was so, it was fucking, you know, insanely real.
Marc:Like, you know, like the emotions of it, you know, the actions of the prank.
Marc:It was very, and it was raw as fuck.
Marc:So it sort of fits into the kind of punk rock spectrum of things.
Marc:And it just interests me in being an overly thinky guy that you sort of luck into or find yourself in this crew of cats that are willing to fucking do anything.
Marc:Anybody who skates a pool has got to be out of his fucking mind.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:you know they clearly are like they're in it for the fucking rush they're wired right right yeah right so like so all those guys and and spike jones was part of that original crew yeah we we we were trying to develop a show jeff and i a tv show and it was i we were trying to develop a show across between what we do and the daily show right we were talking about me sitting behind a desk and
Guest:And then Jeff said, you know what?
Guest:Let's call Spike.
Guest:Because he grew up with Spike in Maryland.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were friends.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And let's call Spike and talk to him.
Marc:What was he doing at that time?
Guest:Spike was Spike Jones then.
Guest:He was, you know, like making videos.
Marc:Skate stuff.
Guest:No, no, he was directing music videos.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:He'd already done Sabotage.
Guest:He was a huge video director and working on his first film.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we called him and he's like, yeah, I love it.
Guest:And we told him he wanted to be a part of it and we told him what we were thinking with the show.
Guest:And Spike, because he's brilliant, said, well, why don't you just make it look like the Big Brother videos?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Raw.
Marc:Rough.
Guest:No, but...
Guest:If you see a Big Brother video and you watch Jackass, they're built, they're constructed exactly the same.
Guest:There's little intros and things come up on the screen.
Guest:And we were already doing the show and we couldn't even figure, you know, that's how bright we are.
Guest:We had the show, we were doing it, but we didn't know.
Marc:We didn't have a system.
Marc:So it took an outside eye to say like, we'll see what you guys are doing.
Marc:Do that.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, don't try to do what everyone else is doing.
Guest:Just do what you're doing.
Guest:And that was, I don't know, he gives a lot of great advice.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And then that's when you guys became friends?
Guest:Yeah, that's when, I'd known him a little, but that's when we started working together and became friends then.
Guest:And how'd you meet Steve-O?
Guest:I met Steve-O through Tremaine and all the guys at Big Brother.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I was doing what I did in Big Brother, and Steve-O was this guy in Florida that Dimitri had met at a party whose... Dimitri Eliascovich is our director of photography, and he worked at Big Brother.
Guest:Everyone's got titles now, you know?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:But they...
Guest:Dimitri was at some party, and Steve-O, he was a circus clown at the time in this beat-ass circus inside a flea market in Fort Lauderdale.
Marc:The worst, a Florida, shitty Florida circus.
Guest:Oh, it was gnarly.
Guest:And Steve-O was at the party lighting himself on fire, and he had some guy... Steve-O did a backflip and spit a fireball in the air, and he had some drunk at the party.
Guest:So when I land...
Guest:I got hairspray all over my hair.
Guest:You blow a fireball into my hair.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so Steve-O did the backflip, blew a fireball, and he landed, and the guy blew a fireball into Steve-O's face.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the fire wouldn't go out.
Guest:So it was like finally they got the fire out and the ambulance came.
Guest:But while the ambulance came, Steve-O was still doing backflip fireballs for the crowd.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you're like, that's the guy.
Guest:But then they went back to shoot with him for Big Brother.
Guest:I mean, it wasn't even for Jackass then.
Guest:It was for Big Brother.
Guest:I didn't go on the trip.
Guest:Apparently, he was so like, dude, check me out.
Guest:And he was on so much that...
Guest:They went somewhere with them, and then Jeff got in the car and said, let's lose them.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And they tried to lose them because they were done with them, but they couldn't fucking shake them, man.
Guest:He just followed them everywhere, and I'm glad.
Guest:He was really intense in those days.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He just couldn't calm down.
Guest:He just wanted so much acceptance, and he's constantly performing for you.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But now he's, we can have, Steve-O and I can have conversations.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, he sobered up.
Guest:He sobered up, and I'm not like I used to be.
Guest:How's that?
Guest:I was, like, in the old days, like, Steve-O was always whacked on something, and I was always running off to sleep with somebody.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And now, like, I don't do that anymore.
Guest:We're old guys.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You're getting up there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:You got to settle down.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You made it through.
Guest:I made it through.
Marc:yeah it's scary man it was yeah yeah well those guys uh also like what do you think it was because like um it seemed to i i i don't know how much you think about the impact of jackass but i mean when you look at your fans and you sort of see the you know the who they are and what it seemed to represent to them what do you make of it i mean what do you think it was
Guest:what what led to the success of it or yeah what you know what kind of people what what do you think you were serving you know in people just was it like suburban kind of like boredom was it just you know like mostly teenagers who were like fuck i think everyone does really stupid things growing up yeah you know really juvenile ignorant things and
Guest:I think people like that type of humor.
Guest:Like, you fall down and go, ow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:People laugh.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's just... Oh, yeah.
Guest:You can't... I mean... You can't help but laugh when it's... And also, I think what separates us from other... There's other people who do stunts and pranks and...
Guest:I think the relationship between all the guys and you see that we love each other and but we will give each other hell.
Guest:But, you know, at the end of the day, there's a good spirit about what's going on.
Guest:I think that's what people respond to the most.
Guest:And I think the pranks and stunts come second.
Guest:I think they like being with us the most.
Marc:I think that's true.
Marc:I think that, you know, you have this gang of misfits and because, you know, every prank that you do requires a kind of total immersion of individual personalities that you very quickly kind of like get the guys.
Guest:Yeah, and we're not macho about it.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You can read the fear on our faces.
Guest:Sometimes they cry.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:you know it's not it's real honest exactly yeah it's very authentic it's almost like you know you guys are setting these things up to get to the core of who you are like in that moment like before you're about to do something like that guy's that's pure him whatever's happening right there those tears are real yeah
Guest:As they pan over to everyone else laughing.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:That's fucking crazy, man.
Marc:And you guys are all pretty close still?
Guest:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, Steve-O's got some YouTube channel now, and he came by the office the other day.
Guest:I filmed something with him.
Guest:Pontius is always around.
Guest:He's an odd one, huh?
Guest:He's the best.
Guest:He is amazing.
Guest:I mean, his dad's a surgeon.
Guest:His sister's a doctor.
Guest:And he has that intellect.
Guest:He's just a nut.
Guest:But in the best way possible.
Guest:He means no harm to anyone.
Guest:But he just is in left field.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And no one makes me...
Guest:laugh harder than Pontius.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, we'll be at a dinner and it'll be a table full of 15 people, like people with their wives and he'll start stories unprompted and he'll, and they'll be really naughty.
Guest:Like if you or I tried to tell that story at the table, women would be pissed.
Guest:They would slap us like, but with Pontius, he's so lovable when he tells it, everyone is in the palm of his hand.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, just unprompted out of nowhere.
Guest:He's just like, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Girl with the hairiest beaver I ever slept with was from Portland, Oregon.
Guest:And he goes on a horrible, long story about that.
Guest:He'll tell the story.
Guest:Everyone's crying.
Guest:There'll be like a break, like two-second break.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And then he'll just go into another.
Guest:And he's unbelievable.
Guest:And right now, he's really into guitars, building them and...
Guest:repairing them and on the flight not too long ago he tried to explain musical theory to me and I'm just I don't know anything about music but he was trying to because he loves it and he wanted me to know and it was so sweet but you know I just went in one ear and out the other but he has a full comprehend he's extremely intelligent but a nut.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, I think there was an earnestness to all you guys.
Marc:And, you know, when you see it in the movies, I think everybody also sort of likes the idea of people sort of deciding their own destiny.
Marc:You know, even in a moment where you're about to get on a rocket, you know, metaphorically, that's sort of like, that's fucking nuts, but that guy's living it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Someone asked my father.
Guest:Someone interviewed him.
Guest:I think it was Rolling Stone.
Guest:He said, why do you think your son does?
Guest:Why do you?
Guest:It was when the show first came out.
Guest:Why do you think the show?
Guest:Why do you think your son does what he does?
Guest:He's like, well, he's like that Dominican baseball player.
Guest:He ain't going to get off that island by Bunton.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:that's right that's hilarious sharp well i worked with lance lance bangs directed my uh my stand-up special and like he couldn't be a sweeter dude and it's so sweet yeah and it's like just to picture him around you guys and he's so sensitive and smart yeah and and then he's in there with us and he loves it though yeah yeah yeah and and he'll have laughing convulsions yeah
Guest:Because it gets so ridiculous shooting with us.
Guest:Basically, you're giving the camera to a bunch of monkeys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he has all this knowledge, and he's very intelligent.
Guest:And then he sees we can... Sometimes we can't even do the most basic things, and he'll just... He'll start crying laughing.
Guest:I remember we were doing the thing in Jackass No.
Guest:2 where Steve-O was...
Guest:drinking beer out of a funnel through his butt.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And we were trying to get Steve-O just to, hey, turn around and face the camera, turn around and face the camera.
Guest:And he couldn't take that direction.
Guest:And you had to be there, but...
Guest:It's in the movie.
Guest:Lance just breaks down, and he just, in those moments, you can't even get to him.
Guest:He's just crying, laughing, and everything's going out, nothing's coming in.
Guest:He's a gem.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a puker, too.
Guest:Yeah, I saw that.
Guest:He's got a very nervous stomach in every fucking movie.
Marc:it's so unlikely if you met Lance Bangs and talked to him one on one you're like how the fuck are you shooting with those guys you're so smart right the the like I find that even when I was just telling some guys who hadn't seen Bad Grandpa yet the some of the stuff in it
Marc:You can get laughs just telling it.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Because the thing in the diner is like, you know, the weird thing about that is that physiologically it doesn't quite add up.
Guest:That should have been the tagline for the movie.
Guest:Like, you know, there's no way that it could, you know, that it would happen, but it doesn't matter.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:People in those instances where something unbelievable happens, which could never happen, people get emotional and then they become irrational and then we have them.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:There's no, but like that was a gut punch, you know, like I'm sitting there watching it because when you watch a jackass movie, you're kind of waiting for it, you know, it's going to happen.
Marc:It's a type of laughter that cuts right through any sort of intellectual shield or comprehension.
Marc:It goes right into the primitive guts of who you are.
Marc:You're laughing like a monkey.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:That thing was crazy.
Marc:And then at the end, I see that they had to make a machine that you had to test.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:A lot of money goes into R&D.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, you had to make some serious prosthetic balls.
Guest:Oh, it's so funny because we come up with these ridiculous ideas and then our special effects guys, they'll test them to make sure they work.
Guest:Just to see someone testing a boner machine or a shit machine, like guys that are really intelligent.
Guest:yeah yeah but it's so funny because they're having so much fun when they're sending these tests to us yeah it's just ridiculous and funny we should probably put that on a bad grandpa 0.5 yeah why not those just the emails that go back and forth over our we need a uh a prosthetic penis that i can insert into a coke machine and then you know fall back on and support my weight you know
Guest:I need a tuft of gray hair down there where the balls are, too.
Guest:And they're like, okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We'll get to work on that.
Marc:And also, what we were talking about, the thing that Ryan did, and what was it?
Marc:It was a jackass one with the car.
Guest:That was amazing.
Marc:That thing is fucking unbelievable.
Guest:That was one of the best things we ever shot.
Marc:That was unbelievable.
Guest:Steve-O was supposed to do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he told his father he was going to do it.
Guest:And his father got so upset.
Guest:And he wasn't, Steve-O said, he wasn't angry at me, but he was disappointed.
Guest:And so Steve-O said, I can't do it now.
Guest:I can't do it.
Guest:And Ryan was there.
Guest:And he's like, well, shit.
Guest:That idea is too good not to do.
Guest:I'll do it.
Guest:He really took one for the team.
Guest:Putting the car in his head?
Yeah.
Marc:oh oh he backed that right in there now you know it's a horrible thing that happened with him and uh you know i wonder just because you guys are sort of like it's like you're like not just a band of brothers but there's a sort of cowboy element to it and y'all know you have a sort of you know renegade spirit and you know self-destructive personalities yeah i mean how how did that sit with all you guys i mean when you heard it
Guest:That was... I can still barely talk about it, honestly.
Guest:It's one of the worst things that's happened in my life and all of our lives.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember the morning getting the news and... Yeah, it's horrible.
Marc:But when you think about the way you guys lived, is there any part of you that thinks like, all right, well, you know, it happens.
Yeah.
Guest:um it was it was a fucking tragedy you know like Zach was in the car Ryan was drinking and uh
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I'm still wrapping my head around it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, I'm sorry for your loss, man.
Guest:Oh, that's all right.
Guest:That's all right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sorry.
Guest:It's all right.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:I just, you know, I wonder, like, in a sense that, you know, obviously it's a tragedy, but, like, sometimes even as a comic, you know, you kind of, you know you live a certain type of life.
Yeah.
Marc:yeah and and you know like you know you get along in a business long enough and you know a certain type of a guy you know and you're sort of like well yeah i hope it works out i hope everything works out yeah yeah he loved to drive fast yeah he loved i mean he loved to drive really fucking fast and we y'all had him before over it oh yeah yeah yeah and and you had drinking to it and that's just yeah that's the worst thing you can do yeah yeah and you dedicated this film to him yeah
Guest:We actually filmed something.
Guest:We were in Cleveland, and he's buried out in Brecksville.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And Jeff said we should go out there in character, and Irving put flowers on his grave.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And we were going to put it at the end of the credits.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:But when we all watched it in the office, we filmed it, went out there, and we watched it in the office, and it was just too much for us.
Guest:And we were like, we just made this comedy, and...
Guest:it's just going to nail everyone too hard.
Guest:And so we didn't put it in there.
Guest:We'll probably let everyone see it in the bad grandpa 0.5.
Guest:But, uh, yeah, it was, it was, it was a great idea, but it was just too much reality.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Did you guys all do anything in, you know, in, in sort of the, in this, like, you know, after he passed, did you do anything, uh, as sort of like, uh, you know, just a, like an inside kind of tribute or, uh,
Guest:Well, we did.
Guest:We had a service over at Paramount.
Guest:They gave us a piece of the lot and we did a service with all of our friends and crew and everything.
Guest:So everyone could go up and say something if they wanted to.
Guest:And I went to the...
Guest:service in uh westchester as well and i every time i mean i've been in cleveland now and again and i always go out and uh take them some flowers and uh yeah and people or when i go out everyone really looks out after his grave and you know they put them cigarettes on there or little toy cars people make pilgrimages yeah oh there's toy cars yeah they put little toy cars which i
Guest:It's, you know, it's a set, like you're there and you're having a moment and then you see the little toy car and you just crack up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which would have made Dunn really laugh.
Marc:Well, it's interesting because, you know, if you really, you think about people that like have made a contribution and, you know, there's no doubt that that bit, you know, him going into a doctor's office to get x-rayed with a toy car in his ass and pretending like he didn't know what the problem was.
Guest:Oh God, that doctor was genius.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's actually, you know, it sounds like I'm being condescending, but it's one of the greatest pranks ever done.
Marc:I feel that way too.
Marc:I'm on your side.
Marc:It's so ridiculous.
Marc:It's like a tremendous contribution.
Marc:It's unforgettable.
Marc:And it will stand the test of time.
Guest:Unlike many things.
Guest:I feel the same way.
Guest:What we do is stupid, but I think that was pretty, pretty great.
Marc:But you know what?
Marc:I don't know if it's stupid because the type of laughter that comes from it is so primitive that unlike most other things, as long as there's human beings, if somebody watched Jackass 1 100 years from now, he's going to get the same laugh.
Marc:There's no way.
Guest:It's not.
Guest:I feel that it's like in History of the World Part One where the caveman, something happens and the dinosaur comes in and the comedian's doing his shtick and the dinosaur comes in and takes him away.
Guest:Everyone's dying.
Guest:And it's been that way since the beginning of time.
Guest:Yeah, and you tap into that.
Guest:It's a real primal thing.
Marc:Let me just ask you about some of the other projects.
Marc:I know like the wild and wonderful Whites of West Virginia, which I love that thing.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:And it's a great documentary.
Marc:Now, what got you involved with them?
Guest:Did you see the original Dancing Outlaw documentary?
Guest:It was done like 20 years ago.
Guest:About the old man?
Guest:No, that's Talking Feet.
Guest:That was D. Ray White.
Guest:He was a respected mountain dancer, and he was in the Talking Feet documentary.
Guest:This one was on Jess Co.,
Guest:I didn't see it.
Guest:Julian Nitzberg, who directed The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia for us, was in Boone County, West Virginia doing a documentary on Hazel Atkins.
Guest:And him and Hazel had a falling out about halfway through and Hazel told him he was going to kick and kill him.
Guest:And so Julian said, all right, let's just take a break.
Guest:And he was at a bar and he met Mamie White, Jessica's sister.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she said, you got to meet my brother.
Guest:He was this mountain dancer like his father, but he had all these different personalities.
Guest:And so Julian just went out and filmed a bunch of stuff with Jessica and his sister.
Guest:I've seen all of it.
Guest:It's so, it's as real as it gets.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:So Julian took that to a couple of guys, and a couple of guys said, hey, let's do the documentary, and you can work sound.
Guest:Julian found it, but it's great.
Guest:You should see it.
Guest:It's like a 30-minute documentary called The Dancing Outlaw, and he's just telling stories about huffing gas and getting arrested.
Guest:He was like 29 at the time, lived with this 50-, 60-year-old woman, and they used to sit on the edge of their...
Guest:mobile home and just fight back and forth yeah well you rip all the pages out of my bible woman i'm going to i'm going to slash your damn throat if you don't i mean it's crazy and it was a huge underground hit like back home and i saw it on the eighth generation vhs and one of my friends years later said hey i know one of the guys that worked on the dancing outlaw yeah and it's julian nitzburg yeah yeah so i went and meet him for met him for lunch and we were talking he says i got all this footage no one's ever saw yeah yeah and out of that lunch
Guest:We decided we want to do something more on Jessica White and the family.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so what we planned, we sent him to Boone County for three days.
Guest:Film as much as you want.
Guest:Let's see what kind of... See what Jessica's up to now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But when he came back with this, the footage was insane.
Guest:And we realized that...
Guest:And Jess Coe is like the sixth craziest person in his family now.
Guest:He's been unseated by the younger generation and new kids just, they grow up in that environment and they just, they're going for it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, and that's how that happened.
Guest:And it's just Boone County is a, you know, it's an old mountain coal mining town and,
Guest:When you work in those coal mines, you don't know if you're coming out of it.
Guest:And people live real hard because of that.
Guest:And there's all this distrust in the community because the coal mining companies completely screw the town over.
Guest:I think Jessica's father felt screwed over by the man.
Guest:And so he had all his kids sign up for...
Guest:basically crazy checks disability checks well if they're going to screw us let's screw them and you guys get crazy checks and watching the footage they deserve it they earned it but they're really there's a side of them they're so charismatic and I've met Jessica and Mamie and I really like them in person and they just they just they live hard
Marc:Yeah, and I think that speaks to the whole sort of tone of who you are and what you do is that from pushing the envelope, you become authentic.
Marc:That if you don't have a choice in your life but to fucking push it and to live hard or to take these insane risks, who are you?
Yeah.
Marc:yeah you know what i mean there's i mean i romanticize it too you know i mean i got you know a lot of my heroes are drug addicts and fuck-ups because you're like well they're out they're like astronauts you know what i mean they're going to the moon of fucking darkness yeah towns van zandt right exactly a lot
Marc:of them can't help themselves obviously but that makes it even more endearing because it sort of amplifies you know the struggle that we all have it's just that that is the maximum struggle yeah you know with your demons or with this desire to do stuff but i also think with the with the uh with the that that documentary and i think because of where you come from that is
Marc:It's very easy to condescend and look down on mountain people and that culture and stuff, but there's a real point of American and Southern pride around that stuff.
Marc:I mean, as funny as it all is, they're still your own in a way, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:I have family.
Guest:My mom's side is from West Virginia, not far from Boone County, and my dad's side from Tennessee.
Guest:But it's just my family.
Guest:I just did a genealogy thing.
Guest:I mean, it's...
Guest:They go back.
Guest:It's a long line of farmers and people who worked in factories that, you know, worked off the land.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:And, you know, I blood kin to Daniel Boone.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:So I'm a genuine hillbilly.
Marc:You got three names.
Yeah.
Guest:same amount of teeth too yeah yeah um but I one funny thing happened with the genealogy report uh the guy who's doing it's a really uh respected genealogist and he calls me we're sitting there he's like oh I you know I got some reports back and I want to talk to you about them
Guest:And I said, oh, good.
Guest:What have we learned?
Guest:He said, well, you know, your family is, you know, from the rural mountain community.
Guest:And in those communities, no one ever leaves the community and no one ever comes into the community.
Guest:And just like you did, I started laughing.
Marc:You knew where he was going.
Guest:I knew where he was going.
Guest:And I was almost in tears laughing.
Guest:He goes, so...
Guest:It's not uncommon for there to be inbreeding inside of those communities.
Guest:And I said, is there inbreeding in my family?
Guest:He goes, a significant amount.
Guest:But he delivered it so straight and so sensitively and made it that much more hilarious to me.
Marc:Significant amount.
Marc:All right, man.
Marc:Well, it was great talking to you, buddy.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:And put in a good word with Spike for me, man.
Guest:No, Spike is the one who turned me on to your show.
Guest:He said, have you heard Marc Maron's show?
Guest:And I said, no.
Guest:And he said, listen to it.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:And he loves this podcast.
Marc:Can we get him in here or what?
Guest:i i don't know uh i can tell him i did the show and had a good time he he uh he's really private i know but if he likes the show he knows what you know what we do here and um yeah you know i i respect his work a great deal and i you know what i'll do is i'll give you my email okay and see what that does okay i yeah i mean i think it'd be he'd be great on here but uh it's up to him you know
Marc:Well, I know we're not going to go over there and kidnap him.
Marc:No, we can.
Guest:We did it to Brad Pitt.
Guest:Fuck it.
Guest:Let's go kidnap Spike.
Marc:Let's do it now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, folks, that's our show.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed that.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:We're making more of the ceramic mugs.
Marc:The guy can only throw these mugs as quickly as he can.
Marc:You know, he's a potter.
Marc:They're real things.
Marc:He has to make them with his hands.
Marc:But go to the, you know, go pick up the app, get the free app, upgrade to the premium for a few bucks.
Marc:You can listen to all the episodes.
Marc:We'll get the merch restocked.
Marc:Hopefully we'll get everything stocked up for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, all of that.
Marc:No, I haven't seen Gravity yet.
Marc:Just relax.
Marc:I'm going solo these days.
Marc:It's hard for me to eat by myself.
Marc:It's hard for me to go to movies by myself.
Marc:If I can find somebody that hasn't seen it, I'll go see it.
Marc:The great thing about this movie seems to be that no one can really spoil it.
Marc:It's a tonal thing.
Marc:I'll get there.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:Rest in peace, Lou Reed.
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:Thank you, Johnny Knoxville.
Marc:Take care of yourself.
Marc:Vicious.
Marc:You hit me with a flower.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:Mortality.
Guest:Oh.
Marc:I hope I'm leaving some stuff for people to enjoy.
Marc:I think I am.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Boomer lives!