Episode 794 - Louis Theroux
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:What's going on back east?
Marc:Man, I got out just under the wire.
Marc:Was it as bad as they say?
Marc:Are you guys alright?
Marc:Did you dig out?
Marc:Is everybody...
Marc:out from under the snow today i have uh louis thoreau on the documentarian and a very funny guy i i enjoy talking to him and i'll explain some more about that interview in a second uh what what what did i want to tell you oh yeah you can come see me
Marc:Next weekend, I'll be in Oakland on Friday.
Marc:I'm going to be in Seattle on Saturday at the Moore.
Marc:I'm in Oakland on Friday at the Fox.
Marc:And on Sunday, I'll be in Vancouver at the Vogue.
Marc:You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all the upcoming dates.
Marc:Maybe I should give them to you.
Marc:They're all selling pretty good.
Marc:I mean, Burlington was pretty amazing.
Marc:Was I able to talk to you about that?
Marc:That was a great show.
Marc:It was freezing in Burlington, but people still came out.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I think we did about 1,100 and a 1,200-seater or something like that.
Marc:The woman who I picked to open for me, I just saw her stuff online.
Marc:Annie Russell was great, and it was a nice long show.
Marc:I did some new stuff, and it was great to be up in Burlington.
Marc:I haven't been there in a long time.
Marc:Had one of the best meals of my life there, and I had no idea what was going to happen.
Marc:We had very little time.
Marc:We had about an hour.
Marc:We went to this place called the Hen of the Wood and had just an amazing meal.
Marc:It was like a beautiful trout split open, the whole fish, and there was some watercress on top and some fried onion rings.
Marc:It was just creative and fucking amazing.
Marc:This was one of the best meals of the trip.
Marc:And then the next morning, we went to Penny Clouse's Cafe, had one of the best breakfasts.
Marc:It's grilled corn muffins.
Marc:Look, you know, this may not be relevant to whatever life you're living or whatever condition the world is in, but I'm choosing today to be relatively chipper.
Marc:But grilled corn muffins that and I talked about this with Kim Gordon, not dropping names.
Marc:It just came up, I believe.
Marc:East Coast thing.
Marc:Grilled corn muffins are one of the an uncelebrated life pleasure.
Marc:If you you know, if you are geared that way, the grilled corn muffin.
Marc:I was going to tell you about the other tour dates because they are happening.
Marc:Like I said, Oakland, Seattle.
Marc:The Moore Theater, March 25th.
Marc:Still a few tickets left for that.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:The Vogue, March 26th.
Marc:The Fox in Oakland, March 24th.
Marc:But I'll be coming to Austin, March 31st, to the Paramount Theater.
Marc:I'll be in Boulder on April 7th at the Boulder Theater.
Marc:I'll be in Denver at the Paramount Theater in Colorado on April 8th.
Marc:I'll be doing three shows at the Aladdin Theater in Portland, Oregon.
Marc:April 21st, Friday, and April 22nd, Saturday.
Marc:A show was added on Saturday.
Marc:Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, April 27th.
Marc:The Orpheum in Madison on April 28th.
Marc:And then two shows at the Pantages in Minneapolis, where I'll be shooting a Netflix special on April 29th.
Marc:And then on the other side of that, I'll be in Philly at the Merriam Theater on May 12th and D.C.
Marc:at the Warner on May 13th.
Marc:Given the way things are going, that might be a relatively abandoned city, just a bunch of empty federal government buildings that once housed the machinery of a government.
Marc:Who knows?
Marc:I'm sort of obsessed with this Lee Morgan guy, this this this trumpet player.
Marc:And I can't shake it like I'm like I'm amassing his records.
Marc:And then the people that produce the documentary, there's a documentary.
Marc:It's called I Called Him Morgan.
Marc:I came at this guy with no nothing, no nothing.
Marc:I just I bought a record on a recommendation from Dan down at Gimme Gimme.
Marc:I put the record on expecting some bebop music from a secondary player.
Marc:And it just like it just drilled itself right into my guts and my mind and my heart and my soul.
Marc:And I was like, who the fuck is this?
Marc:Why is this happening?
Marc:It didn't seem elaborate or a show offy.
Marc:It was just deep, man.
Marc:And, yeah, and so I started getting all these Lee Morgan records, and I guess because I was talking about it, the people that made the movie, the documentary, mostly about his wife who shot him at a club on a snowy night in New York, shot him dead.
Marc:it became a very fascinating story to me.
Marc:Substance abuse, murder, being genuinely gifted.
Marc:It just, I recommend it, you know, just because I like knowing the backstory and it's always amazing to me.
Marc:Like, why did this guy resonate with me?
Marc:And, you know, he was...
Marc:A deeply addicted and, you know, sometimes that affords you a type of creative freedom.
Marc:I'm not suggesting it or I'm not saying that it's a starting place, but there is something about that zone.
Marc:And then I ran into my optometrist, Dr. Kane, who is a trumpet player, jazz trumpet player from Indianapolis.
Marc:And, you know, a good trumpet player in his own right, but definitely a bebop kind of character.
Marc:I just ran into him on the street and I told him I was getting into Lee Morgan.
Marc:He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Lee Morgan.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:He said that Miles was like, this is this kid's got it.
Marc:And he told me the album that he liked.
Marc:And boy, I can't I cannot stop listening to Lee Morgan.
Marc:It's like it's almost compulsive at this point.
Marc:I got I think I got to have Dr. Kane on the show, you know.
Marc:So Louis Thoreau, the documentarian, I'll be honest with you, as I was honest with him.
Marc:I've met Louis Thoreau before.
Marc:He approached me because he wanted to interview me for something he was working on that didn't sort of like come together.
Marc:And I spent like hours with him, I think, hours.
Marc:So that was really my only knowledge of Louis Thoreau.
Marc:And I liked him.
Marc:I thought he was funny.
Marc:I enjoyed talking to him.
Marc:But whatever he was shooting went nowhere.
Marc:It just went away.
Marc:And then I think he emailed me not long before...
Marc:He was promoting this movie he's got out now, my Scientology movie, which I watched, you know, telling me he was sorry that he didn't use that stuff.
Marc:But I remembered him.
Marc:And then I watched the Scientology movie and I enjoyed it a great deal.
Marc:It's a good movie.
Marc:But he's been making documentaries for years and I don't have a deep idea.
Marc:you know, experience with his canon, with his oeuvre, with his... I don't know if that's the right word to use, but with his work.
Marc:How's that?
Marc:Like, I watched a Scientology movie, and I talked to him for another movie that he didn't make, and that was about it.
Marc:But I enjoyed the Scientology movie, and I like him as a person.
Marc:So this is an interview coming from that, and I copped to that, and we worked with it.
Marc:And I just... I find him hilarious.
Marc:And I don't know if he's even trying to be hilarious, but this is...
Marc:My conversation with Louis Thoreau and we're talking about, among other things, his new documentary, My Scientology Movie.
Marc:It's now in theaters and on VOD, iTunes and Amazon Video.
Marc:And he approaches it in a unique way.
Marc:I've seen a couple of Scientology documentaries, but this is me and Mr. Thoreau in the garage talking.
Guest:Louis Thoreau.
Marc:Theroux.
Marc:Theroux.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Why is it not Theroux?
Guest:Because it's O-U-X and it's a French name, so it's like an analogy with roux sauce.
Marc:But wait, I...
Marc:But you have a cousin who's an actor.
Marc:Justin.
Marc:Justin Theroux.
Marc:What's that about?
Marc:He's getting it wrong, dude.
Marc:Did you tell him?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And?
Guest:He didn't listen.
Marc:Huh.
Guest:Is he obstinate?
Guest:I guess he's got his own way of doing things.
Guest:I think the rot started with his dad.
Guest:There was a bifurcation in the family tree.
Guest:My dad stayed true to Theroux.
Guest:And Uncle Gene went Theroux.
Guest:And no reason?
Guest:Was it... I think on analogy with Henry David Theroux, so maybe they thought it sounded...
Guest:Maybe people just, that came more naturally.
Marc:Well, what did your uncle do?
Marc:Was he a writer?
Marc:He's a lawyer.
Marc:But not a writer, not like Henry David Thoreau, which is spelled differently.
Marc:Different spelling.
Marc:Your father, the author, went with Theroux.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's okay with it.
Guest:He likes it.
Guest:But then you go back another generation and they were saying Theroux.
Guest:Theroux.
Guest:Theroux.
Guest:Oui, oui, oui.
Guest:So, where'd you grow up?
Guest:London, England.
Guest:The whole time?
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:With summers we spent on Cape Cod, because my dad was American, still is, and he brought us back to the homeland to kind of Americanize us a little bit.
Guest:He felt we were becoming too stuffy and British.
Marc:But kept it through nonetheless.
Marc:You would think once you hit the shores, Thoreau would be the way to go.
Marc:You think Thoreau's more American?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Somewhat.
Marc:There's the way I would have pronounced it.
Marc:So by reading it, not knowing French, or just willing to err on the side of American, I would go with Thoreau.
Guest:I'm just grateful if people don't say thorax.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that would be a whole other can of worms.
Marc:So your dad was like a big, important author and still is.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He's a successful and well-regarded literary author.
Guest:He's a travel writer, short story writer and novelist.
Marc:And your mom also in the arts?
Marc:BBC.
Marc:She was a BBC producer on the radio.
Marc:So you grew up in a home full of books and lofty topics.
Marc:Kind of.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Discussions around the table, books, notable political activities.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:Perhaps art.
Guest:Not so much art.
Guest:I mean, no, not really art.
Guest:Not even music that much.
Guest:Mainly it was about books.
Guest:Writing being the kind of acme of what it means to achieve something in life was to be a literary writer.
Guest:But we watched TV as well.
Guest:It wasn't all high-minded.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But did you think about being a writer?
No.
Guest:yeah yeah i like to think maybe i am a little bit of a writer i've just written a movie the scientology movie yeah i know it's sort of you know you think it's a documentary and then you realize this guy's got a heavy hand in this there's i mean i like to think i mean i get a writing that's the credit i get on all my documentaries um
Guest:You know, Scientology and otherwise is written and presented by Louis Theroux.
Marc:Well, I mean, this is the thing.
Marc:You came and talked to me about something.
Marc:You ate up a lot of my day.
Guest:Yes, I did.
Marc:Because of some high-minded idea you had that was half-baked that went nowhere.
Marc:And you gave me a book about Nazis as if to make up for the time you ate out of my life.
Marc:Did you read the book?
Marc:No, I can't now.
Marc:We're living in it.
Marc:Not as bad.
Marc:It's not that bad.
Marc:I think the book was about the extermination camps, wasn't it?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Are you diminishing it somehow?
Marc:You took a tone like, no, it was a lighter sort of.
Guest:No, I just say like, I don't think they've set up a, not even concentration camps, actual extermination camps, Treblinka, where no one came out alive.
Marc:Right.
Marc:No, yeah.
Marc:You gave me that book and said I should read it.
Marc:And I wanted to.
Marc:I have it.
Marc:I'm going, you know.
Marc:Was it that one or was it the Hannah Arendt?
Guest:I can't even remember.
Marc:No, I have the Hannah Arendt one.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Which one?
Marc:Eichmann in Jerusalem?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I have that one.
Marc:The Banality of Evil?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I know all about that.
Marc:I know all about that.
Marc:Did you read it?
Marc:The Banality of Evil or the Eichmann in Jerusalem?
Marc:The book.
Marc:I did read it.
Marc:I read as much of it as I could.
Marc:I didn't find her prose style to hold me as much as I would like.
Guest:No.
Marc:I'm sorry that it didn't.
Marc:She's no Len Dayton.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know who that is, but now I'm going to read her.
Marc:Him.
Marc:Who?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's not a page turner, but it is a good read.
Marc:No, it's an important read.
Marc:And not unlike many important reads, I get in about, you know, 30 pages and I think I got it.
Marc:I got it.
Marc:I get it.
Guest:Can I give you the background on, because it doesn't often happen that I make a documentary or start making one and then it kind of fizzles out.
Guest:And I do feel bad for eating up your time.
Marc:I enjoy talking to you.
Marc:You feel familiar to me.
Marc:I like you.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I feel like maybe we could have dinner or something in a sociable way.
Marc:I could maybe sit with your friends.
Marc:It would not be a stretch.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yeah, that never happened either, but that's all right.
Marc:You emailed me.
Marc:I think you emailed me when you knew that this was going to happen.
Marc:You emailed me when you, like, maybe this was an idea that maybe you should do Marc Maron's show, and then he shot off an email a couple weeks ago saying, hey, I didn't use that stuff.
Guest:Well, listen, I'm not going to deny that, but I had enough class not to say in the email, hey, I'm sorry I haven't been in touch about why we never used your interview, but can I be on your podcast?
Marc:No.
Guest:I just said I'm sorry, and then someone else arranged the interview to be on the podcast.
Marc:Right, but my question is if we're going to be investigative and if you're going to – But I admire you for seeing through –
Guest:seeing through me.
Marc:I didn't realize I was that transparent.
Marc:I don't know if you're transparent.
Marc:Now you're copping to it, where moments ago you were attempting to throw someone under the bus, kind of, in a way.
Marc:You were like, I had nothing to do with reaching out to you.
Marc:That was what could have followed there, but now you're taking responsibility.
Marc:That somebody said to you, you want to do Marc Maron's show, because we've had people on there before, and you're like,
Marc:oh, you know... No, no, that wasn't how it was, though.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:You know what it was?
Guest:I was like, man, I'm going to be promoting my movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think it was also... Okay, this is going to... Do you want the full truth?
Guest:yeah why not we're doing a documentary wanted to do i you know when i you first came on my radar when a friend of mine said i was looking to a show about comedians and i was thinking about um it's an interesting world this world of uh these people who spill their guts on stage they transmute the angst of their lives into comic gold yeah and and that's a high wire act and some of us yeah and to me
Guest:that's the beginning of something interesting something that it embodies a kind of tension between you know you're turning your wound into your art and yeah and what are the that's both can be lucrative creatively fulfilling but potentially dangerous and you also you pay a price and the people around you pay a price so i thought i thought in the loss of intimacy how did you how do you flesh that out in your head how is it potentially dangerous from your point of view oh emotionally i suppose destructive to relationships oh right right yeah okay yeah exposing of relationships and
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I had it all figured out kind of intellectually.
Guest:And then I was talking to a friend about it who works in the comedy industry.
Guest:And he said, you've got to listen to Mark Maron.
Guest:He does a podcast.
Guest:He interviews all the comedians.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this would be perfect for you.
Guest:And he also gave an amazing keynote speech at Aspen, right?
Guest:On Montreal.
Guest:Montreal.
Guest:A few years back, yeah.
Guest:Talking about how, you know, the price that you pay as a comedian slaving away the emotional toll that it takes over the years.
Guest:And I listened to that and it really impressed me.
Guest:And I listened to your podcast.
Guest:I thought, this is amazing.
Guest:Anyway, fast forward like six months a year, we had our conversation.
Guest:And that didn't... And then it was very hard to get other people... I think two things happened.
Guest:It was hard to get other people who were sort of at the level or...
Guest:At the level we needed them to be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't want it to be like young guys trying to make it in comedy.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I wanted it to have every... I wanted to have a kind of Jay Leno, Joan Rivers figure and then... The unknown guy who's been out there forever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But a whole mix.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But we ended up... I don't want to embarrass any comedians, other comedians by saying who we got, but we got people who it wasn't enough to flesh it out.
Guest:And so it fizzled out.
Guest:And I did feel...
Guest:Our interview, the one I did with you, I thought was really interesting.
Marc:I remember you left and I felt like, what's that guy going to do with that?
Guest:Then I think I secretly after that thought, God, it'd be nice to be on his podcast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, clearly you didn't really know any of my documentaries.
Guest:And if I think at one point you you had a little dig and I don't say that, you know, because I enjoy I enjoy that kind of repartee kind of humor that's close to the bone.
Guest:You had a little dig.
Guest:I think what you said was, you know, are you well known in Britain?
Guest:And I said, I don't know.
Guest:I guess people see me on TV.
Guest:And then you said, because in America, no one knows who the fuck you are.
Marc:I said that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, my manager at the time was British and she loved you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that sounds a little hostile.
Marc:Did I say it in a funny way?
Marc:I didn't feel it was hostile.
Marc:Did I get a laugh?
Guest:I don't think I laughed.
Guest:I think some other people in the room laughed.
Marc:When you were screening it, and that was the end of it?
Guest:No, no, I mean, I think you had a friend there, maybe called Dave, and I think he might have laughed.
Guest:Dave was here?
Guest:I think it wasn't in here.
Guest:It was backstage at a comedy club in Pasadena when you said that.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:That must have been who I was doing it for.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:Maybe it was Dave Anthony.
Marc:I think it must have been Dave.
Guest:It was Dave Anthony, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I would have done that joke for him.
Marc:I would have taken that kind of- Is that a joke?
Marc:A painful shot.
Marc:Well, I think in the context- That's just an insult.
Marc:Well, it's jarring, and it's something that you don't expect people to say, so that qualifies as a joke when you're like, holy shit, did that just happen?
Marc:A lot of jokes are like that.
Guest:Oh, it's funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So then you didn't have me on the podcast, but then I think I went on Joe Rogan's podcast.
Guest:I went on a couple of times and got a great reaction.
Guest:And then I thought, well, I'm not doing Marin, but I'm doing Joe Rogan.
Guest:This is great.
Guest:And then when I came out to do this, I thought, oh, I'll go back on Joe Rogan.
Guest:And then I emailed him and that didn't seem to go anywhere.
Guest:I thought, oh, wow, maybe I should try Marin again, but I don't know how to do that.
Guest:He still thinks I'm making a documentary about him three years later.
Marc:Well, but now I feel that on some level, you've gotten me back for me saying no one fucking knows you here by saying that you did Joe's twice and only after you didn't hear back from him, you thought, well, Marin is still maybe an option.
Marc:But you didn't say it as a joke.
Marc:See, you just reeled it off like it was an okay thing to say that Joe Rogan didn't get back to me
Guest:He did get back, but he just said, yeah, man, let's hook it up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then I didn't know what the next move was.
Guest:With Joe?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, let's hook it up.
Guest:I was like, okay.
Guest:I didn't want to say, like, okay, I'm hooking it up.
Marc:What did you talk about on Joe's?
Marc:What were you there twice for?
Guest:The first time I, you know, Joe's seen a lot of my documentaries.
Guest:Oh.
Marc:Well, I guess that's the difference between me and Joe.
Guest:Have you seen anything I've ever done?
Marc:Yeah, I saw a Scientology movie.
Marc:The movie, that's the only thing.
Marc:I poked around and looked at some other stuff, bits and pieces.
Oh, man.
Marc:what's the matter with you what what we can't talk now no you don't think that the scientology things your latest film is like an amalgamation a a part of the evolution of you as an artist and as a documentarian and a filmmaker and a human being that that i watched your most recent film and everything should be there it should all be there i get your personality i i get what makes you uh you know
Marc:uh, uh, an interesting person to watch.
Marc:I get the style.
Marc:It's probably why I feel familiar to you because you're so good at being a kind of like, um, like, uh, a non-threatening, you know, kind of like I can talk to this guy, spongy guy, right?
Guest:Spongy guy.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Fair enough.
Marc:And you're witty, but you're very like, it's like a lot of times you're witty in the way that it's what's unsaid, you know, the quiet wit of just letting things unfold, which is a great skill for a documentarian.
Marc:But I know that you've been doing it a long time and I wanted to ask you, I have questions.
Marc:Why does everyone think you got to see everything to have a conversation?
Marc:You know what I've done in my life?
Marc:I'll tell you what I've done.
Guest:That's a good point.
Guest:And I haven't seen many of your things either.
Marc:No.
Marc:I mean, you follow me around.
Guest:But I listen to a lot of the podcasts.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Well, thank you.
Marc:And I enjoyed your film a lot.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:And I like your work ethic.
Marc:You seem to do a lot.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when you say to me, like you had this kernel for an idea, like you've done documentaries about Nazis, pedophiliacs, porn.
Marc:The Westboro Baptist Church.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:So when you have this idea, like with me, the charge was the high wire act of comedians, the liability, the risk.
Guest:I saw it as part of almost of a piece with a few other docs that I'd done.
Guest:One was about the porn industry.
Guest:And one was about wrestling.
Guest:And then there's another about gangster rap.
Guest:And each in their way is about the way people... They're almost theme parks in which people play versions of themselves.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And end up almost approaching their real selves.
Guest:And the line between the real and the fake is blurred.
Guest:I mean, in the porn industry, what's always interesting is how...
Guest:You know, they're, in a sense, fictional characters, but the physical act, the anatomy is real, and the biggest challenge in porn for the men is to keep their erections.
Marc:They have medicine for that.
Guest:Well, they do now, but I did this in, this was in 96.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:This was pre-Viagra.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Viagra.
Guest:And so it's that strangeness of having to impersonate something, but also for it to be real.
Guest:They have to have real sex.
Guest:And it's not always easy to do.
Guest:In wrestling, they're having fake fights in which they get really hurt.
Guest:And in gangster rap, it's about this strange gray area between they're supposed to keep it real, right?
Guest:That's the phrase.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're supposed to have street credentials.
Guest:They can't pretend to have sold drugs and then rap about selling drugs.
Guest:That's a big no-no.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it's also supposed to be kind of show business, you know?
Guest:And I see that in comedy, it seemed to me, you've got the same thing where you're playing a version of yourself, but it impinges on real life.
Guest:With me, it does.
Guest:But maybe they're not all the cases.
Marc:No, I think that there are plenty of comics that do jokes, but usually their disposition is something that evolves out of their real life, their point of view, perhaps.
Marc:But actually taking your real life out there and working through it comedically is not everybody's cup of tea.
Marc:I mean, to different degrees.
Marc:I don't know that Jerry Seinfeld is ruining his relationship in any way.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Marc:But when did it start, though?
Marc:What happened?
Marc:Where'd you go to college?
Guest:Oxford University.
Marc:Well, that's a good one, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And were you involved in the comedy troupe?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, I wrote some comedy just for magazines and stuff.
Guest:Like satire pieces?
Guest:No.
Guest:I did I was into rap at the time and I used to do I did a kind of parody a gangster rap parody I remember I used to do a little cartooning and so I did some comic strips no very just little side thing I was a pretty serious student so most of my energy was directed into getting a good degree well Oxford is like that's the big school that would be like the Harvard of there and you know you got to be pretty sharp to get in there yeah so you're a good student all the way through
Guest:I was a good student all the way through.
Guest:I always took my studies.
Guest:I skipped a year at school because I was considered to be intelligent, and so they fast-tracked me.
Guest:But I had a little gang that I was at.
Guest:Before Oxford, I went to a school called Westminster School.
Guest:It's the fee-paying kind of posh London school, which is where a lot of media-type people send their kids there.
Guest:Like who?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I'm trying to think.
Guest:I mean, the names probably wouldn't mean that much to you anyway.
Guest:well I don't think maybe okay I understand the point so so so my friends there actually the lasting friendships I formed were with people at Westminster and there were a couple of guys called Joe Cornish who became a film director and Adam Buxton who's a comedian I know that guy I know that name podcaster yeah yeah I turned him on to you and he sort of started his own podcast in the UK and did I help him did I influence him
Guest:I would say so, yeah.
Marc:He wants to interview you.
Marc:In the UK?
Guest:He's coming over here next week.
Marc:He didn't reach out.
Marc:He did.
Marc:He did?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:On Twitter?
Marc:Should we be talking about this now?
Marc:Why not?
Marc:It's very inside baseball.
Marc:Would you stop it if we were in one of your documentaries?
Marc:I'd be like, we're not using this bit.
LAUGHTER
Marc:it's so boring all right so you're but here tell me about oxford because it's one of those things like i've only talked to one other person i can't even remember if he went to oxford or cambridge what's the difference it's it's harvard and yale man oh so it's okay same level yeah so i don't i don't know that i've talked to anybody from oxford what what were you studying there history oh so that's that's big deal
Guest:Well, it's just another subject.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I mean, I studied English.
Marc:Some people study philosophy.
Marc:But history, what was your focus?
Marc:Is that how it works?
Marc:Not so much.
Guest:I mean, you range pretty widely.
Guest:I did narrow it into the 17th century scientific movement for one semester.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So if you want to go Galileo, I'm ready.
Marc:So that was the thing, huh?
Marc:Descartes, Robert Boyle.
Marc:Now what part of your brain, like if I'm thinking broadly in an intellectual way, you know, what were the lessons?
Marc:What was the drive?
Marc:You said, I'm going to study history.
Marc:So what did you glean from the arc of humanity from studying history at Oxford that enlightened you?
Guest:Well, you know, if you're talking scientific revolution specifically, one of the most eminent historians of science was a guy called Robert Kuhn.
Guest:And he had the theory of the paradigm shift, if you like.
Guest:He invented that saying?
Guest:That concept, yeah.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:A concept, not a saying.
Guest:If you like, saying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's the idea that the history of science does not move in a kind of orderly, linear, progressive fashion.
Guest:There is progress there, but it happens in kind of fits and starts.
Guest:And people work within a template, and the template may last for a hundred years or several hundred years.
Marc:And it starts to buckle.
Guest:And then it buckles under the weight of data that can't be assimilated into it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it is a semi-relativistic idea.
Guest:Right.
Guest:This idea that before you have an understanding of something, there's a pre-existing interpretive framework.
Guest:And I think, among other things, that's a helpful concept.
Guest:I mean, I suppose more generally, it's the idea of the march of folly.
Guest:I mean, I like to think there's progress, but I...
Guest:When you reflect on the level of just sheer idiocy, nastiness, brutality.
Marc:The human element.
Guest:The weirdness of the culture, you know, yeah, the human element and the kind of presiding wrongheadedness of the human condition.
Marc:Yeah, the shaky part of all progress is the human element, which hasn't changed much.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:So the repercussions of all those things, the follies, the flaws, the malignant or benign evil of people and the seven deadlies, greed, lust, the list, they have the same implications on culture to some degree, though the possibilities of everything being destroyed have escalated.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And I didn't... Around that time, although it wasn't part of my studies, I remember... Did you ever read a book called The Ghost in the Machine by Arthur Kersler?
Guest:And it's basically... It starts as a look at different forms of understanding human psyche, starting with behaviorism.
Guest:But he begins to talk about...
Guest:human evolution and the way in which the human brain, I don't even know if this is even considered scientifically kind of tenable now, but his idea was that we've kind of accreted different concentric layers of the brain.
Guest:And the cerebellum is where a lot of our rational thinking is, but underneath it, inescapably,
Guest:is the engine and the engine is the amygdala which is basically the lizard brain the lizard brain and and it's whatever you do in in life that will somehow be calling the shots yeah and uh and and it's a really odd book because all of this is quite plausible and then you arrive at the last chapter and he says and the only way out of this is we all have to undergo lobotomies
Guest:And he's quite serious.
Guest:He has a program for we're all supposed to kind of line up and have our brains.
Marc:Complete lobotomies are just partial.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Maybe a little maybe put a valve in between the lizard brain and the rest of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Some sort of take a little ice cream scoop and take a little bit of that out.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it sounded like a good theory.
Marc:Even that sounds good, but I think it'd be hard to legislate something like that.
Marc:But I think they might have done it.
Marc:I mean, you know, most people, a lot of people don't get out of their house and they don't talk to other people and they still feel that they're very well connected with everybody.
Marc:Now, the great illusion.
Marc:The illusion will serve.
Guest:Are we talking about social media?
Marc:Sure.
Guest:We just were talking about reptile brains and now it's social media.
Guest:I guess that does connect, though.
Guest:It's all, it's this.
Marc:Taps in.
Guest:It's a kind of the, you know, it's rats who have their brains wired up to electrodes that mean if they jump on the switch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They keep giving themselves orgasms.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Guest:And then they just do it until they die.
Marc:Well, orgasms, I think that can be a broad idea, like orgasm, the hate rush, the shame rush.
Marc:The Trump rush.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Those all fit under that umbrella.
Marc:That's a broad umbrella of many of that.
Marc:But, you know, some people love them.
Marc:Those people concern me, but that's not our journey here.
Marc:I can segue nicely from that to Dianetics, by the way.
Marc:I know, but what I'd like to do, though, because you seem to think that I don't have a handle on your entire career, is after you get out of Oxford, how do you decide what is the motivation?
Marc:Because documentary to me, when they're done well, and I think you do them well, and you do a sort of gonzo documentary.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:where you infuse yourself.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That you become a person.
Marc:A participant.
Marc:Yeah, you are part of it in a big way, as is Michael Moore, who you worked with, correct?
Marc:Yes, I did, yes.
Marc:Now, had you done work before TV Nation?
Guest:Not on TV, no.
Guest:I left university.
Guest:My dad's American.
Guest:I had a U.S.
Guest:passport.
Guest:I went to live in America in 91 when I left and worked in local journalism for a year.
Guest:Print?
Guest:Yes, in San Jose.
Marc:So did you go to graduate school for journalism?
Marc:No.
Marc:No.
Guest:I just leapt in and learned on the job.
Guest:I started with an internship.
Guest:For three months, I worked sort of for free.
Marc:Who, what, when, where, and why?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The inverted pyramid.
Marc:Is that what it is?
Guest:That's what they say.
Guest:Like the important stuff at the top.
Marc:Oh, I didn't know that one.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:See?
Marc:Now look what we learned.
Marc:it's uh it's uh yeah it's all part of the job and you were doing local news literally city council reports right um new plan for traffic system in downtown in san jose and then wow yeah so that you've been to san jose sure so that was uh that was sort of like you know that that was the that was the tough times that was that you're cutting your teeth
Guest:But, you know... Why San Jose?
Guest:I was living in Boston doing odd jobs, and I think... That's a hell of a commute.
Guest:It is a long way, but I just wanted to get out and away.
Guest:I think I wanted to get away from anything I knew.
Guest:I wanted to stay in America, but I didn't know where I wanted to go.
Guest:I was looking for a job.
Guest:I applied for a whole... I literally went to the Boston Library.
Guest:There was a book called The Directory of Internships,
Guest:There was a chapter on newspaper internships.
Guest:I applied to the Rocky Mountain News, the Times-Picayune, the Boston Phoenix, and a bunch of others, and San Jose Metro, and that's where I ended up.
Marc:Where were you living in Boston?
Guest:I think, is it called Boylston?
Marc:Boylston Street?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:And you just picked there?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No, well, my dad's from Boston, so it was local.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So you pack up and you go to not one of the gems of the Bay Area.
Marc:No.
No.
Guest:It has its own kind of middle American charms.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:It's absolutely... It just had a flood there.
Guest:It's bad.
Guest:It's the least pretentious city.
Guest:It's like an antithesis to San Francisco.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:For me, it was a great place.
Guest:It was like an immersion into middle America in all its banality, but also the kind of whatever you want to call it, the sprawl.
Guest:The weirdness, it has, you know, on the fringes, it's got hippiedom in Santa Cruz, the mountains around it.
Guest:You've got a little bit of everything.
Marc:Yeah, but you do definitely have a kind of like mall, kind of American, you know.
Guest:The malls are bigger than the downtown.
Guest:Like it's one of those places where the malls have kind of taken over like rogue organs sucking the life out of the downtown.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's all the country.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it's also one of those places that's semi fictional in the sense of they say they're the 11th largest city in this in the nation.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But it's all a fiction created by huge boundaries being drawn.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You don't go there and go like, look at this amazing city.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:And they're saying, well, we're bigger than San Francisco.
Guest:And you think, well, I don't think so.
Guest:But so I was there for a year and then I went to work on Spy Magazine.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And did that for about a year.
Guest:In New York?
Guest:In New York, yeah.
Guest:Towards the end?
Guest:Yes, it was the lean years of Spy.
Marc:Just every month it would be slightly... Is that where you got your edge, your tone?
Marc:Because it's a little more comedy-centric.
Guest:It was where I felt more able to kind of, I suppose, use humor.
Guest:I mean, I guess it was... I've always felt... I've always had, I think, a pretty good sense of humor, sense of the servility of life.
Marc:Yeah, I always want to laugh at you.
Marc:Good.
Marc:I think.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I mean, like, you have that disposition.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, I'm always kind of half waiting for a laugh.
Guest:I'm glad to hear that.
Marc:Is that on purpose, though?
Guest:I don't even know now.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But, you know, I do serious.
Guest:I've done serious stuff.
Guest:I mean, I've been on a sort of anyway.
Guest:I also do the I do all the moods.
Guest:And actually, you know, in the movie, you can see that.
Marc:No, definitely.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I'm not saying you're a clown.
Guest:But either way, I remember Spy Magazine folded.
Guest:It literally went belly up while I was working there.
Guest:And I got a lifeline in the form of friends who had been working there and had known Michael more, had worked on his pilot for TV Nation.
Guest:And they went to work with Michael.
Guest:And then they called me and said, Michael, we'd like to meet you.
Guest:Basically, TV Nation was being co-funded by the BBC.
Guest:And the BBC had said to Michael, it would be great if you could have a kind of a British guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:On your show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's where I stepped in.
Marc:And that's where you first started doing, you know, on camera reporting.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And now those segments, which I do kind of vaguely remember, were produced and they were right there.
Marc:I mean, you had to lay them out.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You had an agenda.
Marc:It wasn't it was not quite daily show style, but it was close.
Guest:It was sort of proto-daily show, but it was a little more grounded.
Guest:And so they weren't so much making fun of the form of TV.
Guest:It was more like mini documentaries, but I was clearly...
Guest:slightly, a slightly ludicrous figure as a kind of correspondent on the show.
Guest:Not so much deliberately.
Guest:I mean, one of the things I credit Michael with is hiring me and sort of recognizing that I was, you know, like my TV unreadiness was an asset.
Guest:Like I really was trying to be kind of, to do a good job.
Guest:And I had one jacket that I bought secondhand, I think in Boston.
Guest:So I turned up thinking like I'm looking like more or less like a correspondent.
Guest:But looking back, I looked like a hopeless sort of,
Guest:shambolic figure and and and i went out and interviewed ku klux klan's people um millennial religious groups and and something about my geeky whatever it is sort of slightly um awkward ill at ease quality that seemed to make it funny um and my kind of cerebral thing whatever it is was a was a good contrast with
Guest:Guys, you know, in Arkansas, Michael Lowe, you know, talking about, we're the new clan and all this kind of thing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, that's interesting because, like, you know, not intentionally, you developed an on-screen personality.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That sort of probably stuck with you a bit.
Guest:I guess so.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I often think that I didn't really realize what worked, you know, like I used to overthink stuff and think, oh, it would be funny if I did this.
Guest:And always that was stuff that never worked.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I've written a great joke.
Guest:If I could just if you'll shut up for long enough, I can get my zinger off.
Guest:That stuff never worked.
Guest:But somehow if I'd walk into a house and trip over something and that was always pretty funny.
Marc:Well, there's that's never not funny.
Guest:Or the clan guy would go, now, steady on now.
Guest:Don't burn me on this.
Guest:And you could see me looking all frightened.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not deliberately.
Guest:And that was kind of funny.
Marc:Well, so was it there where, you know, because it does seem like you deal with, I don't know.
Marc:Like, I don't know the show, the one you did for the BBC.
Guest:I did a few.
Guest:Weird Weekends.
Guest:It was on Bravo over here as well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There were about 20 episodes.
Guest:But it seems like... It's on Netflix now.
Guest:You can catch it on Netflix here.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I'll do post-research.
Marc:Watch the wrestling one.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Well, why... You're not going to watch it.
Marc:No, I will.
Marc:I like you.
Marc:I'm just busy.
Guest:I know you.
Marc:I'm just kidding.
Marc:And, like, you know, this came up quick, and I knew... Did you read Sam Kinones' book?
Guest:I mean, that takes about 12 hours to read the book.
Guest:Which book?
Guest:The one called Dreamland.
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:See?
Guest:That would have taken about 12 hours, and you haven't got...
Guest:50 minutes.
Guest:But you watched my movie.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:I don't know why I'm giving you a hard time.
Guest:No, you should.
Guest:You should.
Guest:I deserve it.
Marc:I deserve it because- But when you care, you put the time in.
Marc:Well, I watched a Scientology movie.
Marc:It's just like to catch up.
Marc:No, that's fair enough.
Marc:The Quinones book, I didn't see that coming and I didn't book him.
Marc:I booked him after I read it.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I was like, where does this guy live?
Marc:Because I get a lot of books.
Marc:They send them to me.
Marc:Publishing houses.
Marc:So that one stuck.
Marc:It sat around.
Marc:I'm like, I got to look at that because the subject, the opiate epidemic.
Marc:And then I started reading it and I was like, what the fuck?
Marc:And I said that when I watched Scientology movie.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's kind of your, it's your saying.
Marc:Well, I mean, but you know, the Canona thing is like, this is important that he pulled together all this information, not unlike you did, but my, my, but the point there was like, like I just read this, this Altamont book that I got months ago.
Marc:And I, I, again, I get hundreds of books and some of them I'm like, that one I think is going to be something.
Marc:And sometimes I'm right.
Marc:And the, the book on Altamont I read about a documentary, but like shelter.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Or about the, but yeah,
Marc:Right, but this is more about the actual concert.
Marc:You know, how did it happen?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:But, yeah, so, like, that was a fluke thing, you know?
Marc:But, you know, when we booked this a few weeks ago, you know, I definitely sat and watched the film, and I'm going to enjoy going back and watching, but...
Marc:What I'm asking you now, just outside of the series that are on Bravo or whatever I can watch on Netflix, is that early on, you seem to have developed this fascination for pseudo-religious groups, racist groups, groups that are sort of ideologically grounded and serve a purpose to people that may or may not be good.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:Yes, if you like.
Guest:Yeah, that's fair enough.
Marc:And, you know, because you know who I've talked to?
Marc:John Ronson.
Guest:Yes, I heard that one.
Marc:Yeah, I only read one of his books, and I forced myself to.
Marc:Did you really have to force yourself?
Marc:No.
Marc:Once I read it, though, because I liked him.
Marc:I read the psychopath test, and then I read the other one.
Marc:I read the one about shame.
Guest:Is it shaming?
Guest:So you've been publicly shamed.
Guest:And them is also very good.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I haven't gotten to that one or the other one.
Marc:I'd like to read them.
Marc:That's about these people that we're talking about right now.
Marc:Alex Jones is in it.
Marc:I think I saw a doc.
Marc:Did he do a doc?
Marc:Did Ronson do a doc?
Marc:Yes, he did, yeah.
Marc:I saw that, yeah.
Marc:But I like John.
Marc:I met his son, worked for me for a month or two.
Guest:No kidding.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Joel did?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He worked for you?
Marc:Kind of, yeah.
Marc:He was here and he didn't know what he was going to be doing.
Marc:I feel like he worked for me for a little while.
Marc:He was a good kid.
Guest:John's super talented.
Marc:He's funny.
Marc:You guys remind me of each other.
Marc:I like you guys.
Guest:He used to say that we were like a conjoined twin and that one of us had to die in order that the other should live.
Marc:Well, I hope you guys are past that.
Marc:Yeah, I think we're over that now.
Marc:So what compelled you then?
Marc:I mean, like I get the porn, I get the wrestling, I get the rapper, I get like, well, pedophilia, that's a whole other place.
Guest:It's all to do with the human psyche, either things that cause us to self-sabotage, to behave in a way that, you know, the rational part of our brain knows is dangerous and destructive.
Guest:Although arguably it is rational to attempt to, you know, we're emotional creatures and it is rational to attempt to be the hero of your own life, to embrace danger, to embrace embarrassment.
Guest:You know, all of that, it's sort of in a certain way does make sense.
Guest:But I'm intrigued by decisions that go to the core of who we are, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, why would you, you know, utopianism.
Guest:In Scientology, you have people who've committed for tens of years to living frugally because they believe they're part of a millennia-old society.
Guest:space opera right yeah as written or as discovered by old ron hubbard i mean you could say that's wrong-headed and bizarre or you could say that's hugely enriching and admirable well have you ever read the denial of death no i have that's one i struggled with ernest becker
Guest:Have you read that?
Marc:Yeah, it's one of my favorite books, Changed My Life.
Marc:But what you're talking about, that suspension of disbelief in order to feel part of something bigger than you is almost existentially human from day one.
Marc:That this need to define your life, I imagine if you read Joseph Campbell or any sort of exploration of primitive religion and then on through the rest of it, that what gives your life purpose?
Marc:You know, you must feel some part of something bigger than yourself, whether it's a fascist movement or a football team.
Marc:You know, there's a variety of ways to to connect like that.
Marc:But but it is it is it seems arguably and somewhat proven that it is a human.
Marc:It's almost genetic.
Marc:So, you know, that addresses exactly what you're saying.
Guest:Yeah, neurology.
Guest:You know, and if you strap someone up to a machine and, you know, there are parts of the brain that religious belief activates.
Guest:And there is, I think, very little that we can do about that anatomical dimension that many of us share.
Marc:Yeah, well, it seeks to, like, I imagine that given that we're these conscious animals or self-aware animals that, you know, in order not to be, I think that the idea of the denial of death and those type of thinkers is that to not feel terrified constantly or painfully aware of your own mortality, you better lock into something.
Yeah.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And then there's this tension, this pull between the pull of being connected to your kids, let's say, but being in the Westboro Baptist Church and your kids leave and you want to stick with this cosmic plan that you're part of, which involves picketing the funerals of dead soldiers with offensive anti-gay placards.
Guest:But you also have this pull of like, I'm not allowed to see my kid, but I want to see my kid.
Guest:And I find that sort of angst, that's sort of what it's all about in a way, getting to those places where people are involved in the deepest kinds of stress and anxiety.
Guest:Struggle.
Guest:Struggle in a turmoil.
Guest:Inner turmoil.
Guest:In a kind of baffling way.
Marc:Or sometimes it's just- Why is it baffling?
Marc:Because it defies reason?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yes, because actually, so for example, if you take addiction, right?
Guest:I've done a few that circle around addiction.
Marc:The city that was addicted to meth?
Guest:The city addicted to crystal meth.
Guest:More recently, I did one called Drinking to Oblivion.
Guest:People who just have binges of drinking vodka around the clock until they either kind of start vomiting blood and die or end up in hospital and get rehab and detox and then go in a cycle of doing it again over the years.
Marc:That fascinates you.
Guest:Well, yes, I suppose it does.
Guest:Because in a way, you're talking to someone who, on the face of it, is as rational as you are, someone who appears to be well-adjusted, thoughtful, have everything going for them, isn't just a kind of, I don't know, really damaged, isn't just a sort of derelict in the street.
Guest:We were talking to professional people, people like you or I. And then you're saying, well, why...
Guest:It would seem to be so obvious that there's a fork in the road.
Guest:You go down that road, and it leads to addiction, loss of all relationships, and death.
Guest:You go down the other road, you have a nice life, and you can keep your job, keep your relationships.
Guest:So what's stopping you from doing that?
Marc:What did you find out?
Marc:As somebody who quit drinking many years ago, I'd like to know what somebody who clearly doesn't have that problem gleaned from this investigation...
Guest:You know, it's clear that it's not clear is the bottom line because I don't think there is an easy one-size-fits-all explanation for why.
Marc:But do you believe that it might be some sort of biological liability that is genetic and somewhat behavioral?
Guest:You know, I think that, I mean, I'm not a geneticist or a neurologist, but I would think so.
Guest:I tend to think that
Guest:Ah, genetic explanations.
Guest:I mean, I don't know if they're fashionable or unfashionable, but I don't have a big problem with the idea that, well, that could be passed on.
Guest:Much as I think pedophilia, you know, it used to be fashionable to reach for sort of Freudian, oh, it's the upbringing.
Guest:Even in the case of something like autism or being on the autistic spectrum, it was said that, oh, it was the withholding mother, you know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But then it became clear, you know what, it's not the parents.
Guest:The parents have done nothing.
Marc:Well, yeah, and that would indicate a paradigm shift.
Guest:Yeah, there's a paradigm shift, and you're working with a different, and it's suddenly, okay, it's not environmental, or it's not exclusively.
Guest:And by the same token, pedophilia, when I was at this hospital that treated or attempted to rehabilitate, if that's the right term, pedophiles, after they'd been discharged from prison but were still considered dangerous, right?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:They put in a maximum security hospital in Coalinga in Central California, a few hours drive from here.
Guest:And it was said to me, you know, the received wisdom is often, oh, cycle of abuse.
Guest:They were abused as children, and now they're passing on the cycle.
Guest:Almost as though that appeals to our sense of, you know, I don't know.
Guest:People seem to find that an appealing, almost kind of poetically appealing.
Marc:It engages, it justifies empathy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it kind of things like these aren't people who were damaged to begin with, but it's part of the viciousness of pedophilia that it creates more pedophiles.
Marc:It's like the victims of pedophilia go on to.
Marc:And what'd you learn?
Guest:It was explained to me that it's at least as valid, if not more valid, to see it as a sexual orientation, a dangerous predatory one, but one that is genetic and exists much as other sexual orientations do, in a way that can be rationally attempted to be countered, that you can counsel and support positive behaviours, but it isn't going anywhere.
Guest:It's a compulsion that's just like, you know, you look at a magazine, you or I might.
Guest:I don't know what, you know, maybe you wouldn't.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But, you know, just a physical reaction.
Marc:So that guy's lobotomy idea, not bad.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because that goes all the way back to the lizard brain.
Guest:I met a guy who was in rehabilitation and he was so serious about his rehab that he had volunteered to be castrated, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And which was not particularly recommended as part of the therapy.
Guest:But I don't even think that helps.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:So, well, I think what seems thematic in what you're doing is that when we talk about the folly of history and the human component that remains forever flawed and dangerous to some degree, but yet some of those flaws compel people to do great things, is that, yeah, I would imagine that when you talk to Ku Klux Klan or you talk to Metzger, the Nazi,
Marc:not unlike you just said to me about uh the alcoholic is that like well this is a guy that you know you could have a cup of coffee with yet he has these horrible compulsions or these you know malignant beliefs that are are almost uh obviously inhumane and and dangerous so where what is that how do you get from uh those are nice shoes to i want all the jews dead
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Two lumps in your coffee and then, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, let's kill them all.
Marc:Treblinka.
Guest:I mean, I think that's a, that wasn't the funny bit.
Marc:Two lumps in your coffee and then Treblinka is not funny?
Marc:You can tell me that that doesn't register as something you said to be witty?
Guest:Take it for what it is.
Guest:But, you know, basically you've kind of, I guess, boiled down the inner tension, the kind of commonality that exists in everything I do, which isn't necessarily even intrinsic to the subject.
Guest:It's about my relationship with the subject, which is people who are involved in something untoward, controversial or borderline, you know, awful, dangerous.
Guest:And then I get to like them and they slightly like me.
Guest:And you have this strange feeling of like, well, I don't know what to do with this now.
Guest:How am I supposed to feel now that I kind of feel sort of a little bit of a rapport with this guy or this person who does something terrible?
Marc:Well, right.
Marc:So that is your part in this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that is the risk that you take.
Marc:And that is part of the genius of getting these people to appear and be the humans they are, despite the fact that they're awful or troubled or doing something that you would never do.
Marc:or you think is wrong, but you don't necessarily put that in there.
Marc:You let that speak for itself, because that's what the documentary does.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, pretty much.
Guest:I mean, sometimes you have to... Yeah, put your foot down.
Marc:Put it in there.
Marc:Say that I'm not for this.
Guest:I try and have a... I did a show about sex offenders who live in an industrial area of southern L.A.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was about kind of sort of staying there over the course of a few months, visiting and getting to know these guys and
Guest:It was this weird thing where I started to like them a little bit, and then in some cases I didn't know quite what they'd done, and in other cases I did.
Guest:And the strangeness of—it was a tricky one because it feels as though even beyond Nazis, most of which at this point is theoretical in this country.
Guest:I mean, it's dreadful, but there are no kind of Nazis who are in power and able to implement any part of that vision.
Guest:Well, until—
Guest:Well, okay, put a footnote on that.
Guest:But whereas you've got people who are, you know, sex offenders and in particular pedophiles is viewed as the ugliest kind of psychological compulsion.
Guest:And if you had, you know, there are literally apps that exist.
Guest:There's one called offenderlocator.com.
Guest:Where you can track in California around the US, is there a sex offender near me right now?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Where do they live?
Guest:And let's see a little picture of them.
Guest:And so in spending time with those guys, you suddenly think, hang on, this guy seems like maybe he's kind of okay and maybe we should give him a second chance.
Guest:And then you find out, oh, he abused...
Guest:his three children and then and then it's the strangest of uh well what okay what do i do with that now i don't hire him as a babysitter that's clear but uh am i able to call him a kind of um friend or or not really and so i i mentioned that because that was one where there was a great deal of nervousness at the channel the bbc
Guest:And it was felt we went after I'd made it and more or less delivered it.
Guest:It kind of went up the channel a bit.
Guest:And they said, you know, there's a couple of bits where you're shaking hands with some of these guys.
Guest:And we're not sure that's going to you really want that in there.
Marc:You humanize them too much.
Guest:Yeah, like you just take out the bit where you shake hands and say, hey, nice to see you, you know?
Guest:And on the one you say, God, that's ludicrous.
Guest:You know, why?
Guest:Because they're so unclean.
Guest:And then on the other hand, they're trying to look out for me and not make me appear to be some kind of, I don't know.
Guest:Yeah, so this is like... What was your word?
Guest:Spongy.
Guest:They don't want me to look that spongy.
Marc:It's a grand experiment for you to implement personal boundaries.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Try and...
Marc:try and sort of say actually you know um i obviously i can't be your you know yeah we can't hang out after this because you you've molested all of your children but you know that you make a nice cup of tea and uh like i hope you don't do that anymore yeah exactly so the scientology film like i've i've watched one other scientology documentary and it actually i think involved one of the your main guy
Guest:Yes, Going Clear.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What's your main guy's name?
Guest:Marty Rathbun.
Guest:His real name is Mark Rathbun.
Marc:Yeah, and so you decided to take this on, Scientology, but I thought that the device was very interesting, the casting device.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:And in fact, it was partly, I wouldn't say lifted, but influenced by a documentary called The Act of Killing.
Guest:Did you ever see that?
Guest:No.
Guest:Which was made by a director called Joshua Oppenheimer.
Guest:And it's about mass killings in Indonesia in the late 60s.
Guest:And he gets some of these killers 20 or 30 years on.
Guest:And under his aegis, they start reenacting in a film within the film some of the killings that they did.
Guest:I heard of
Guest:Yeah, it's a fascinating doc.
Guest:I totally recommend it.
Guest:And it becomes a therapeutic process almost.
Guest:And they're not just depicting how they did what they did, but they start to unpick themselves and begin to have questions about, well, it's implied that they are beginning a process of recovery.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, that was interesting about your main guy, Marty or Mark, was that once you cast Escavage... Miscavige.
Marc:Miscavige, the head of Scientology, and you cast some adepts and people and the room where you're sort of fleshing out these stories about these practices that...
Marc:that revolve around the head, the current head of Scientology.
Marc:And that, you know, from him, by placing him in that situation, which I imagine he didn't expect to be placed in, he was able to be like, help you in the casting, say, that's the guy, and then run through these things and go like, that's exactly what happened.
Marc:And then you kind of start to see his sort of like disposition
Marc:Yeah, like because you're sort of like, well, how this like you said, like how this guy do these things that he supposedly did.
Marc:And now he's like constantly followed by the Scientologists who see him as an enemy and everything else.
Marc:But by creating this second reality of this movie with these actors, you know, the guy who played Mescavage was great as an actor.
Marc:Terrific.
Marc:Yeah, I had a bunch of feelings during it.
Marc:I'm like, well, this is a good reel for these people.
Marc:It's a good acting job.
Marc:And a quarter or a half of the documentary is how these actors handle this situation.
Marc:And then Marty taking them through these Scientology rituals, you start to see how they could work because the actors have to sort of commit to them.
Marc:And how easy it is to go from performing this piece in this strange situation to seeing how, of course, people would go for this on some level, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the odd thing that happened while I was watching the documentary with you trying to get access to that area.
Marc:Yeah, the gold base out near Hemet.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then the other documentary crew.
Marc:And then the other powerful one was the two older Scientologists who showed up.
Marc:I got the feeling that, wow, they're really on their last legs.
Marc:really well yeah i got the feeling that these tactics that they use to intimidate you know outside of the the reputed lawsuits and whatever um are really kind of tired like there was something about you know like noticing the lighting on the fence and that how sort of uh dated some of these security practices were and how you know uh ridiculous the second documentary crew that wouldn't talk to you that they actually thought they were engaging
Marc:In protocol.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And because you're who you are, and Marty is who he is, and you see that from his distance from the church at this point, and what he had gone through with them, that all of this protocol seems desperate and ineffective.
Guest:I would agree up to a point.
Guest:I mean, I think partly they're working with a playbook that dates back 60 years.
Guest:And everything they do has to conform to what L. Ron Hubbard laid out.
Guest:So it's literally things like, and Marty once told me about this.
Guest:So Hubbard wrote reams of stuff, not just books, but policy statements about how certain things are done.
Guest:So he said the best thing for cleaning windows is vinegar.
Guest:Now, Windex, right, is probably the best thing or something like it.
Guest:No, vinegar is good.
Guest:But because Hubbard said vinegar, they have to use vinegar.
Guest:It becomes ritualized.
Guest:And Hubbard said, if media come after you, you have to or if suppressive people come after you, you have to confront and shatter them.
Guest:You have to investigate them and destroy them utterly or whatever it is.
Guest:And so that's whether you like it or not.
Guest:That's how that's the rules.
Marc:You know, that's also like a tactic of maintaining power, period.
Marc:Right.
Guest:In what way?
Marc:You got to keep the mind fuck going.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And you've got a terrorism.
Guest:You've got a totalizing vision.
Guest:You've got a world in which no middle ground is admitted.
Guest:It's only us and them.
Guest:You know, and that to me was the most striking thing about Scientology in a way.
Guest:Well, there were several, but that was one of them.
Guest:It's that concept of we have all the answers.
Guest:No one else has any of the answers.
Guest:And it's up to us to kind of make sure our answers not just survive, but kind of sort of succeed against the others.
Guest:And if I learned, I mean, among other things, I learned...
Guest:What was surprising is the degree to which they hate psychiatrists is astonishing.
Guest:That's the thing that drives them more.
Guest:If you're even related to a psychiatrist.
Marc:They have anti-psychiatry museums.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But beyond that, that was one of the big issues that they had with Tom Cruise's wife, Nicole Kidman.
Guest:Nicole Kidman's father is a psychiatrist.
Guest:That was seen as a major issue for them.
Marc:What do you think the threat of psychology is to Scientology, which is, as you describe it, a totalitarian vision, really.
Marc:Beyond the religious vision, when you talk about it the way you just talked about it, this was a design for global domination.
Guest:You know, Hubbard, when he came up with Dianetics, he sent it to the American Medical Board or whoever the relevant authority was.
Guest:And he said, I've got this great, you know, it's the greatest discovery in mental health.
Guest:And they said, this is this is absolute pish.
Guest:You know, we have no interest in being any part of it.
Guest:So he felt rejected.
Guest:And so I think that probably laid the groundwork for his hatred of the psychiatric establishment.
Guest:By their own description, they see psychiatrists and psychologists as usurpers, people who have, under the auspices of doing medical work, attempted to treat spiritual matters.
Guest:They see that as a usurpation of religion.
Marc:Well, I think analytical psychology is vulnerable to that.
Guest:Yeah, I think it's an interesting question.
Guest:The trouble is that if you go to a Scientologist and you're having a psychotic break, right, they will show you the door and say, you know what, I don't think we can help you.
Guest:And at that point, who do you go and see?
Marc:If you're having a psychotic break within Scientology.
Guest:Or outside Scientology.
Guest:If you go to Scientologists right now.
Marc:Because you're having a psychotic.
Guest:And say, I'd love to join up.
Guest:And they say, what's your history?
Guest:Well, I had an episode and I thought I was a poached egg briefly.
Guest:And that lasted about two weeks and they sent me to a mental hospital.
Guest:But other than that, I've been fine.
Guest:They will say, get on your bike, mate.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I found that the arc in the thing about Marty, who is your centerpiece and, you know, the you know, what he's dealing with and what he's up against being a traitor and also the guy who's revealing them that you I think you did build a relationship with him and you did get a sense of where he sort of buckles.
Guest:Yeah, well, I think one of the things that works in the film is the fact that Marty is not a kind of single-minded anti-Scientology guy.
Guest:Like, he both sees parts of it as poisonous and dangerous, but he's also kind of defensive of...
Marc:There's a lot of people like that who are no longer Scientologists.
Marc:Even William Burroughs, in his examination of Dianetics, found elements that I don't think are totally unique, except maybe in language, that were helpful.
Guest:Yeah, he saw merit in it.
Guest:But with Marty, it goes beyond... I mean, he saw aspects of the tech as being therapeutic and helpful, but he also defends aspects of the kind of Spartan and militaristic world-changing culture.
Guest:You know, the fact that there was a degree of physical, or allegedly there was a degree of physical violence at the int base, Marty is ambivalent about.
Guest:He sees it kind of...
Guest:um as toxic and dangerous and then sometimes he would say you know what's the big deal you know people slapping each other around a little bit right you know what are people running around trees for hours and on on end which many people say see as abusive the running drill whatever it's called he he i remember him saying like why the fuck do you have a problem with that like that's good exercise and actually clears your head
Marc:Well, right, clearing your head and brainwashing are fine lines sometimes.
Guest:Yeah, interesting phrasing.
Guest:And also, he really resisted being part of the community of anti-Scientology.
Guest:Notwithstanding that...
Guest:when he got out and kind of blew the whistle on what he'd seen, he was seen as the figurehead of the movement and the kind of the last best hope of toppling Miscavige and was briefly, you know, it was said kind of supposed to sort of launch, be the Martin Luther of kind of a reformed Scientology.
Guest:He's put all of that behind him and began to see that, you know, that there was a trap, in his view anyway, in falling in with anti-Scientology, that that was just a kind of,
Marc:a monolithic you know enemy of kind of clear thinking in its own way and then you know since making our documentary he initially thought it was pretty good and then he's denounced us now well yeah well then you know you get into questions about you know where does he come from you know what you know what you know because that that really didn't come up i didn't at any point go like what happened to this guy you know which are psychological questions and
Marc:But I thought what was really successful is that, you know, how, like, that one drill where, you know, there's just two people sitting across from each other.
Guest:Yeah, ball dating, they call it.
Marc:Yeah, well, that's almost like Meisner.
Marc:It's almost like the Meisner method of, you know what I mean, where you improvise.
Guest:I don't know Meisner.
Guest:What's that?
Marc:It's an acting exercise where it's just one-on-one and you kind of provoke the other person with questions.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That there is, you know, you can see how the structure of these ritualized things
Marc:exercises in Scientology break down the ego in order to get to the raw goods of either the lizard brain or the desire to be part of something.
Marc:And it was interesting to see actors in that position because they're so willing to
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Willing is a good word for it.
Guest:You know, they're pliant and kind of available.
Guest:And when I saw them turn up for our first audition, I was really struck both by, oh, wow, you know, Marty's getting back into this headspace of being inside Scientology, but also these kind of actors are arriving like little lambs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know.
Marc:Right.
Marc:As they do in Scientology, I would imagine.
Guest:Kind of gambling around and saying, like, pet me, stroke me, and let me kind of have a little ribbon around my neck with a bell on it.
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, Scientology seeks those actors sometimes.
Guest:Yeah, and you feel like, you know, the process of creating a fringe religious group or indeed a fringe movie is not so very different.
Guest:And there's a sort of journey between seeing them molded, seeing as through the bull baiting, the ability to both dish out and withstand abuse, and the acquisition of what's described as a dedicated glare, which is what Scientologists are supposed to aspire to have, this sense of self-possession and an ability to kind of not be affected by other people's
Guest:social and physical cues but to kind of own their own social space be intimidating you know where necessary um that that then leads to these encounters where the people arrive the scientologists arrive at the airport and begin hurling abuse at marty and you you think well they're just bull baiting marty yeah and then you hear about the whole and how and that feels like a kind of extension of of what they do at the airport there's definitely a kind of linear
Marc:yeah i thought it was very successful and you know i we we i don't want you to miss your screening um but i enjoyed the movie i enjoyed talking to you and uh i i hope that my lack of uh of uh doing your homework didn't uh no i really enjoyed being here mark thank you for having me thanks lewis
Marc:That was good.
Marc:That was an honest mistake at the end.
Marc:The Louis-Louis thing.
Marc:I didn't mean it to be a joke.
Marc:I'm glad it played as a joke.
Marc:But I like him a lot.
Marc:And I believe he knows he's funny.
Marc:I think he's funny.
Marc:Alright.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:That's a Squarespace website.
Marc:I just threw that in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I wasn't contracted to do that.
Marc:I think I'll play a little guitar if I can figure out
Marc:how to get everything up and running here
Guest:guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives!