Episode 931 - Boots Riley / Bobcat Goldthwait
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast WTF.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Thank you for coming.
Marc:Thank you for hanging out.
Marc:How's everything going with you?
Marc:How's the drive going?
Marc:How's the running going?
Marc:How's your biking experience?
Marc:How's the subway?
Marc:What's going on on the bus?
Marc:Where are you at?
Marc:How are you doing out there with the yard work?
Marc:Good to have you.
Marc:Welcome.
Marc:Welcome.
Marc:Be careful with that tool.
Marc:Please be careful with that knife.
Marc:Please be careful with that scalding water.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Pay attention.
Marc:Pay attention.
Marc:Hey, don't forget your kids upstairs.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I just wanted to expand the greetings a bit.
Marc:Today is a...
Marc:It's a pretty packed show, really.
Marc:A couple of film directors, one a musician and film director, the other a comedian and film director, both engage in conversations.
Marc:Bobcat Goldthwait stopped by for a short conversation that always turns into a longer conversation with me because that's...
Marc:Just my nature, I guess, with some people.
Marc:He's got Misfits and Monsters premiering this Wednesday on True TV, July 11th.
Marc:Sounds interesting, but it was good to see Bobby because we had not talked about the passing of our friend Barry Crimmins and just that experience.
Marc:And it got a little heavy, but grief is part of life and being there for somebody in that time is...
Marc:It's an honor, in a way.
Marc:It sounds like a tremendous burden and sad undertaking, but I think it's an honor.
Marc:I think we're built to handle that stuff, and we're supposed to be there for that.
Marc:I really think that.
Marc:But look, I don't want to get morbid or dark.
Marc:It was a great conversation.
Marc:So Bobcat's on.
Marc:The longer talk would be coming up after that with Boots Riley...
Marc:The rapper, you might know him from The Coup, but he's got a new movie coming out.
Marc:It's called Sorry to Bother You, which he wrote and directed.
Marc:It's playing now in theaters around.
Marc:It opens everywhere this Friday, July 13th.
Marc:I watched it.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:It's a crazy movie.
Marc:But in a good way.
Marc:It's very provocative.
Marc:So what's what's going on with you?
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:It's very hot here.
Marc:It's very hot here in Los Angeles.
Marc:And as we all know, those of us who are willing to accept a certain amount of truth based in science that, you know, global warming is upon us.
Marc:Hey, you know, don't don't don't touch that dial.
Marc:It's not going to be OK.
Marc:And we're all complicit.
Marc:We all contributed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Granted, there are bigger contributors.
Marc:I mean, and some of us, you know, do what we can.
Marc:You know, you bring your own bag to the supermarket.
Marc:Maybe you buy a hybrid or an electric car.
Marc:Maybe you stop eating meat.
Marc:So there's not as many farting cows in what used to be the rainforest emitting methane that's deteriorating whatever protections we have.
Marc:I mean, maybe you do what you can.
Marc:And obviously, extreme capitalism in the industry is at the cutting edge of this.
Marc:Even with reforms and regulations, we seem to just be plowing ahead into a convection oven.
Marc:But I just kept thinking about how...
Marc:Everybody involved in modern society, given a few beautifully self-righteous hermits, are complicit.
Marc:And there's some element of our need to be engaged with all this crap that supposedly makes life convenient or entertaining, but is very taxing to the environment to make.
Marc:It's just interesting to me that some part of us thinks like we're kids.
Marc:We're like little kids trying to get away with something.
Marc:And at the core of that is the shame of knowing we fucked up.
Marc:So when it does happen, a lot of people, I have to assume, are going to be like, well, I guess we saw this coming.
Marc:We hedged our bets.
Marc:We took a chance.
Marc:We thought maybe it would adapt.
Marc:Maybe there was some sort of precedent set at a time before our knowing of this type of heat.
Marc:And we just forged on.
Marc:But no, we're all complicit.
Marc:You know, you get to a point where, you know, you're doing everything you can to not feel shitty about what feels shitty inside you, whatever it is on a cultural level, on a collective level, on a group level, on an individual level.
Marc:Until it just, you know, until you just come to a fork in the road and that fork of the road is the fuck it or fix it fork.
Marc:Either you're going to be like, fuck it.
Marc:This is the way I'm going to live the rest of my life.
Marc:I don't give a fuck.
Marc:And that type of aggressive self-aware on purpose denial has a broad arc to it that can that can go from just paralyzing apathy and just all the way to fucking murder.
Marc:And then you have the fix it road.
Marc:Much harder.
Marc:You got to make sacrifices.
Marc:You got to change things.
Marc:You got to help other people change things.
Marc:So, you know, we're definitely at a fuck it or fix it fork collectively.
Marc:And the fixing it thing seems to be way out of hand because of the way the structure of the power dynamic is right now.
Marc:But you can't drift into the fuck it.
Marc:Good times.
Marc:I know how to party.
Marc:Do you?
Marc:Bobcat Goldthwait.
Marc:The Bobcat.
Marc:Bobby.
Marc:Yeah, him and I go back.
Marc:I remember seeing him when he moved away from Boston in his early 20s to become a massive star.
Marc:He had a garage sale at Stitches Comedy Club, and I was there in my recollection.
Marc:So was Emerson student David Cross.
Marc:But, you know, over the years, Bobby's done many movies.
Marc:He directed a lot of television.
Marc:He's directed several episodes of my show.
Marc:He directed one of my comedy specials.
Marc:He directed some great movies.
Marc:He did last year's documentary about Barry Crimmins, who passed away recently.
Marc:And it was sad.
Marc:But he's got a new show out.
Marc:It's on TruTV.
Marc:It's called Bob Goldthwait's Misfits and Monsters.
Marc:Premieres this Wednesday, July 11th.
Marc:And this is me having a chat with Bobby, Bobcat.
Bobcat.
Guest:Look at that.
Guest:There we go.
Guest:Have you ever seen me without a hat?
Marc:I'm sort of jarred by it.
Marc:It's jarring.
Marc:I don't know if it's the first time.
Marc:Could it possibly be?
Guest:Could be.
Guest:Maybe it would be great if I had a big head of hair that I've just been hiding all these years.
Marc:I think, but no, I think I've seen you with a little more hair.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, like, I feel like I must have seen you without a hat, but I mean, you always shave it down that much?
Marc:No, I just said, who are we kidding?
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Recently.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like it.
Guest:I think it looks better.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, he got the strong chin growth.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Which, you know, is pulling it.
Marc:It pulls the focus.
Marc:It pulls the focus.
Guest:I didn't even notice he was bald.
Guest:I was so obsessed looking at his chin.
Guest:With that thing on his face, on his chin.
Guest:I was thinking about this, about how you start your show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The guests are always confused.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:Oh, did we start?
Marc:I think I did an hour the other day with Boots Rylan.
Marc:He's like, are we going?
Guest:When are we going to do this?
Guest:Now we're into it.
Guest:But it reminded me of doing Gary Shandling's show.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Because he was really big on that.
Guest:He would have the tally light, the red light on the cameras off.
Guest:And then he'd go, let's just talk about what we're going to do.
Guest:This was for- Larry Sanders.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he'd go, and you'll say this, and I'll say that.
Guest:And then you'd start doing it, and you would knock the scene out.
Guest:And you realized it was running.
Guest:And he was really smart.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Either that, I think maybe he just didn't want me screaming.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You're the only guy he did it with.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I hope he did it with other people.
Marc:He actually muted the red light on the camera.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:And so, you know, when you're blocking a scene, the cameras are up and everything.
Marc:And then you would go, no, we got that one.
Marc:I still don't know which one to fucking look at.
Marc:I'm always looking at the wrong fucking camera on talk shows.
Marc:If it's a three camera shoot, I guarantee you, I'm just looking at the one in front of me.
Guest:Yeah, and then they're in the ... I used to direct Kimmel, so we're in the booth trying to make sure people aren't looking at the lens.
Guest:I don't know why.
Marc:You don't want them to.
Marc:Traditionally, but I always thought ... But when they look out to the audience, they should catch the camera, or when you're saying goodbye, you should ... Kimmel knows which one to look at.
Marc:I'm looking somewhere else.
Marc:I'm waving at the stage left.
Guest:Like you're in a float.
Guest:I, yeah, this was really pretentious.
Guest:I was a guest on Kimmel and I had a hold up and because I had directed the show for years, I really didn't do this.
Guest:It was Pavlovian.
Guest:I went, camera three.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I really did.
Guest:I called camera.
Guest:What a dick.
Marc:but it wasn't really it really was it really was like a camera three because you were there for so long yeah and it's just this it's a weird skill yeah there's some cats who like now that i'm shooting more tv like on glow there are people you know real actors or actors that have been doing it a while they know exactly where their camera is they know exactly what you know like for me like i'm like which one were we on for that one was that my cover i don't i'm not yeah like i've gotten better at like this is your coverage i'm like okay
Guest:Yeah, I just worked with Melissa Joan Hart.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at one point I go, well, let's swap lenses, put a 50.
Guest:And she goes, why are we putting a 50 on?
Guest:Like she knew something was wrong.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Unfortunately, we had hired a child.
Guest:Why am I telling this story?
Guest:Who was replaced.
Guest:So I just started getting her coverage.
Marc:Hey, I had to replace a baby for racial reasons.
Marc:I mean, don't...
Marc:You don't be afraid of replacing kids.
Guest:No, but I had on God Bless America, a baby gets shot in the first couple minutes of the movie.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I remember that movie, yeah.
Marc:It was done tastefully.
Marc:It's those uplifting bobcat movies.
Guest:Yeah, and so we go to do that scene.
Guest:I was like, give me an ugly baby.
Guest:You know, I wanted like a crying, ugly baby, like a pug-faced child.
Guest:And the kid was cute, but the dad comes in and he's just like, what are we shooting today?
Guest:And I go, your baby.
Guest:Thinking that production maybe gave him a heads up what the scene entailed and they hadn't.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:It was so awkward.
Guest:What did he say?
Guest:Basically, we gave him another 500 bucks and everything was cool.
Marc:That's very disturbing, but okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then the kid wouldn't cry.
Guest:Covered in blood?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:No, the baby wouldn't cry because that's why we shoot him.
Guest:I mean, it's a fantasy and stuff.
Guest:I mean, I like to dig holes at the beginning.
Guest:And it's weird.
Marc:You can't make a baby cry on purpose.
Marc:You just got to-
Guest:Wait around and I was taking toys away from it.
Marc:Oh, so you were kind of pushing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was having the dad walk away.
Guest:Bye.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I'd love to tell you I'm a better man than this, but I really got down on my knees and I was going in the kid's face.
Guest:Just to scare it?
Guest:Yeah, and it would cry as long as I was doing that.
Guest:And as soon as I'd dip out, it would stop crying.
Guest:So I was dangling keys over the camera lens, so the kid was looking up there and growling.
Marc:Well, I did a commercial a long time ago where I played some sort of coach, and they wanted me to get reaction shots from the kids, and they were supposed to be sad, and I have no children.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:So I got these kids who were like seven or eight years old, and one of them, I said, you like Harry Potter?
Marc:The kid's like, yeah.
Marc:And I go, he dies in the next movie.
Marc:And like...
Marc:And like on the lunch break, the crew couldn't even look at me.
Marc:Like I literally was like, no, no, no.
Marc:Don't say they're moving away the food.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did that once.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I was just as a bunny rabbit for some wacky photo shoot in the 80s.
Guest:And I just thought it'd be funny if the kid was crying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And people hated me.
Guest:Terrible.
Marc:They hate that.
Marc:But I- Unless they're immigrant kids.
Marc:There's about 45% of the population has no problem with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:About crying babies.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Being taken away.
Guest:Oh my goodness.
Marc:It's horrible times.
Marc:No shit.
Marc:So we don't have to go into that.
Marc:Let's talk about grief.
Marc:I haven't spoken to you since Barry passed and I know he was your best friend.
Guest:On to lighter subjects.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, tomorrow's Barry's birthday.
Guest:I just found out in Inman Square they're naming a street.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, I just found out as I pulled up, yeah.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:That's nice.
Guest:Yeah, it was- You were there?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was with his wife, Helen, for the last couple days.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was, I don't know.
Marc:I've never experienced it.
Guest:I've never either.
Marc:That was the first time you've done it.
Marc:And you spent so much time with him with the documentary and with the whole process.
Guest:Well, what happened was, I was, and also there was a friend of his who was a hospice keeper.
Guest:He came in.
Guest:But for the last, I don't know, for days, it was, you know, he was in a,
Guest:Well, he was in a coma towards the end.
Guest:Induced?
Guest:Not really, because your liver, when it malfunctions, these toxins go to your brain, and it's terrifying.
Guest:And pure Barry fashion, too.
Guest:We were...
Guest:Before he went into the coma, we were holding him down and they kept giving him harder drugs to knock him out because he was just writhing and trying to pull tubes out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, he...
Guest:He was no novice with drugs, so we couldn't knock him out.
Guest:And he was fighting us.
Guest:It was three and a half hours of holding him while he fought with us.
Guest:I said it was like landing a Marlin.
Guest:It was sad.
Guest:I remember one point.
Guest:I was holding his head and combing his hair and I said, it's okay, sweetie.
Guest:And then I was like, I mean, I sound like a ghoul, but this is the, I go, it's okay, sweetie.
Guest:And then I said to Helen, I said, he's really gone because he should have punched me right now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I don't even know why I called him sweetie.
Guest:I was just holding his head and combing his hair.
Guest:But yeah, so he... Yeah, towards the end, I had been there and I wouldn't leave.
Guest:Helen hadn't eaten in days and I was trying to get her to eat.
Guest:And so I went out to get...
Guest:Some sandwiches.
Guest:And then while I was gone, he woke up and looked at her.
Guest:He turned his head and looked over at her.
Guest:And she says, I love you.
Guest:Everyone loves you.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:You can go.
Guest:And then I think, I don't know what to make of that.
Guest:It actually...
Guest:I realize now watching someone pass away is an honor, and then it made me really change my brain about faith.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, because I was like, you know, the fact that he waited for me to leave or whatever, you know, and I...
Guest:I love that idea.
Guest:Who wants to be a third wheel, you know?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It made me feel like there is possibly some rhyme or reason to this madness.
Guest:Because I was gone.
Guest:I was only gone for a couple minutes these last couple days.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's when he went.
Yeah.
Guest:and he got to have this moment with her.
Guest:It was pretty wonderful.
Guest:No, it was.
Guest:I mean, they didn't want me there, you know.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:But I did, you know, so she texts me, get back here ASAP, and I come in, and he's gone, and she's crying, and I go, and I have the sandwiches, and I'm like, what'd I miss?
Guest:I really did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She did like a triple take.
Guest:Did she laugh at all?
Guest:She was really like... I think she was like, is he that stupid?
Guest:And then she burst out laughing.
Guest:And as I was saying this, I was even going, wow, you're... Two thoughts.
Guest:I was like, wow, you're really saying this.
Guest:And two, I was like, Barry would... Love it.
Guest:Love it, yeah.
Marc:And we just...
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think also to go through that, I mean, it seems to me from what I understand that, you know, it's sort of a relief.
Marc:Oh, the amount of pain he was in.
Guest:Yeah, and there's no coming back and it's a long process.
Guest:And it's someone you love and you're seeing them in that much pain for a long time.
Guest:And then people...
Guest:It's just really strange.
Guest:You know, he's not on any machines at this point.
Guest:He's just there to pass away.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And someone comes in and they're like, have a, just blue, you know, red tape.
Guest:It's like, they're asking, does Barry have stairs at home?
Guest:Does Barry have, and it's like.
Marc:Well, who is this?
Marc:This was like some administration person.
Marc:Oh, because he was in hospice?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm like, just read the room.
Guest:He's not going up the stairs.
Guest:Does Barry have a problem with his pogo stick?
Guest:It was the worst.
Guest:I don't know where I'm at at processing him.
Guest:Lately, I have a lot of anger towards...
Guest:Robin's passing.
Guest:And I mean, Robin was the person who I was most in touch with out of all my friends.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you didn't see it coming.
Guest:Well, I mean, he had Lewy body dementia, which is a disease, which is, it was misdiagnosed as Parkinson's.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So, yeah, for a while, I did not see him taking his own life.
Guest:I told him, I said, you're not allowed to hurt yourself.
Guest:And he was like, okay.
Guest:But he didn't process reality in the way...
Marc:Because of the disease.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, he was doing, you know, he was going to a couple doctors.
Guest:He was working a program.
Guest:He was doing all these things.
Guest:But, you know, it's just lately, and I'm talking to you about it, which is weird, but...
Guest:there's a lot of books and documentaries and things and my thing is is I don't want to participate and it's not out of any other reason than I think just because I just you know I remember saying to his son um you know Zach yeah I said you know right when he passed away I said
Guest:One of the biggest stars in the world died, and on the same day your dad died.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's where I'm at, is just this is a different relationship.
Guest:And people are going to remember him, however.
Guest:I like getting it out that he had his problems.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I have said this.
Guest:People will say to me, did he ever talk to you about suicide?
Guest:I'm like, we're comedians.
Guest:We talked about suicide for 31 years.
Guest:Sometimes we would talk about other things.
Guest:Hey, congratulations on the Oscar.
Guest:Oh, thanks.
Guest:How would you do it?
Guest:I think a car.
Guest:I think I'd do it in a car.
Guest:so I love that guy I miss him and then this guy who was my friend and my mentor and I made a movie about him and I'm making a which is going to be difficult but I think it also will help I'm doing a narrative film which was the original idea for Call Me Lucky it wasn't a documentary so you're going to do the whole childhood and you know I haven't even really broke the story yet but we're doing it how does that end
Guest:I think it can end very hopeful.
Guest:I mean, it's... Will you end at the hearings?
Guest:Are you going to... Well, I haven't really figured it out, but I do feel like... I mean, the documentary Call Me Lucky was dealing with the darkest of dark subjects, and I do still think we managed to, at the end, make it uplifting and hopeful.
Marc:I know, but he died.
Guest:So, you know what?
Guest:You're not the first to say this because he and I discussed this and I was like, well, I got an ending to the picture.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So, doing the movie, I'm writing it with Judd Apatow and he's producing it.
Guest:For Call Me Lucky?
Guest:Yeah, to do the narrative version, which originally Robin, the idea was for him to play it, and then Robin said, we're getting too old, you should make a documentary.
Guest:He gave me the money to start Call Me Lucky.
Guest:So Barry's really ill, and he drags me into the kitchen, and I think he's going to tell me that he loves me, or that he's going to tell me to take care of Helen.
Guest:He's got something important.
Guest:And he's like, I want Mark Ruffalo to play me in the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I go, I don't want to talk about the movie right now.
Guest:And he goes, I want Mark Ruffalo to play me in the movie.
Guest:I go, I want Chris Pine to play me.
Guest:And he's like, who's Chris Pine?
Guest:I go, how do you know Mark Ruffalo?
Guest:You want Chris Pine to play you?
Guest:Yeah, I was joking.
Guest:And then he goes, I go, how do you know Mark Ruffalo?
Guest:He goes, oh, I really like him when he speaks at fracking demonstrations.
Yeah.
Marc:It's a good choice.
Guest:So did you reach out?
Guest:No, I got to write it and all that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know I sound like a ghoul about cracking jokes about these two people.
Guest:No, you don't.
Marc:You sound like a comedian.
Marc:What are you going to do?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's how we process grief.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think that comedy is helpful in easing the immediate pain of it.
Marc:I don't think it does anything to stifle it, and I don't think it's inappropriate.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But I think the funny thing is, or maybe it depends what listeners make of what I've just said, but in our hands, it is kind of acceptable.
Guest:But when a lay person tries to crack a joke around these, it's very horrible.
Guest:Unless it's a really good joke.
Guest:Yeah, I'm not saying they shouldn't try, but it can go really poorly.
Guest:I'm sure it can.
Marc:But, you know, it's one of those zones where I think a lot of times behavior, odd behavior over the top is sort of forgiven when somebody's been leveled by grief.
Marc:Who the hell knows what's going to happen?
Marc:My dad showed up at his father's funeral just cracking jokes, running around, swapping backs.
Marc:I think he was manic, but that's another story.
Guest:No, but I've witnessed that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It just seems like some people act appropriate and other people...
Guest:Act like monsters?
Marc:Lack of empathy, yeah.
Marc:Lack of empathy or there's money involved.
Marc:Or it's just, yeah, it's bananas.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, now, is Intamin writing a piece on you?
Marc:I believe there's a piece, yes.
Marc:Now, this show, like, you've been trying to make this for a while, right?
Guest:Yeah, it was like about seven years ago I went out and people were saying, what kind of show would you make?
Guest:And I said, I want to do an anthology show.
Guest:And basically...
Guest:they wouldn't validate my parking, let alone finish the meeting.
Guest:Really?
Guest:No, yeah.
Guest:I went to certain places.
Guest:I pitched an anthology series.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And twice in meetings, people said, well, what else would you like to do?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I said, no, that's it.
Marc:I mean, why is there an aversion to an anthology series?
Marc:Because I don't think people can follow it?
Marc:See, the one thing about you that I know, and I said this to, I think I said it to Zinneman talking about you, is that...
Marc:You know, if you direct television, it is sort of a weird utilitarian job.
Marc:Like, you know, a lot of times, you know, the show's already got a format.
Marc:The show's got a look, tone.
Marc:Yeah, and you just go to the shots.
Marc:But I said, you're one of those guys that no matter what the situation is, your tone runs so deep that you can feel it no matter what.
Marc:Oh, well, thanks.
Marc:So, you know, so like I would think that... But who am I to assume that executives would understand that?
Marc:So I would think that an anthology show with your specific...
Marc:especially where it ended up as sort of a horror thing or a weirdo thing, it would be good, you know?
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I truly believe that it's the fact that other anthology series came out, so now they're comfortable doing that.
Guest:But I do think True was trying to give me a license to do what I do.
Marc:How many other places did you go?
Marc:What was the journey like?
Guest:I went this time, Olivia Wingate.
Guest:Yeah, my old manager.
Guest:Yeah, and she's the one that took me out, and we went to places, and unlike seven years ago, now it was met receptively.
Guest:There was a couple other places that were interested.
Marc:So you pitched it seven years ago, and then you just bailed on it for a while?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Put it on the back burner, directed some comedy specials, a movie, some TV shows?
Guest:Yeah, and I'm always writing.
Guest:I always write more movies, and I write the ... There's eight episodes of this, but I wrote 11 other outlines, so I just like to tell stories.
Marc:So, what is the show?
Marc:Explain it to me.
Guest:It is, each week is completely different cast, different genres.
Guest:Different genres?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Ranging from?
Guest:It's, I like to take, and I realize this goes all the way back to Shakes, you know, that's a noir film, but I'm making fun of comedians.
Marc:Clowns.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a satire about comics as noir as clowns.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's, yeah.
Guest:And that same kind of thing goes into this show.
Guest:Like there's a episode with David Koechner is like a, he's a used car salesman.
Guest:It's in the seventies.
Guest:It's not like the candidate or all the president's men.
Guest:There's a cub reporter.
Guest:They run this guy who does his own TV commercials.
Guest:One of those guys as a president.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's a werewolf, and he ate a toddler.
Marc:He's a werewolf?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you don't find that out, I'm assuming, until midway?
Guest:No, right away when they're asking him.
Guest:Is there anything we should know that's going to bite us in the ass in the campaign?
Guest:He goes, oh, yeah, I had him a werewolf, because he's talking about cheating on his wife and all these other things.
Guest:Oh, and I ate a toddler when I was a werewolf.
Guest:And it's like, well, no, it's perfect.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so this cut report- That's a private meeting that they- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so, I mean, I don't want to ruin the episode for folks, but it does break the story.
Guest:And he's like, I'm a werewolf, but I'm an American first.
Guest:And he's like the checkers, Nixon, he's crying.
Guest:Oh, that's funny.
Guest:And America loves this werewolf.
Guest:So that's-
Guest:That was a 70s... It was a whole bunch of things smashed together.
Guest:I did do... Is it like the Twilight Zone?
Guest:Kind of Tales of the Crypt?
Guest:No, more Twilight Zone because Tales of the Crypt, I like that show, but someone would do something evil and then they'd get their comeuppance.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So the format's slightly predictable.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:On this show... You'll let evil people succeed.
Guest:Occasionally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, there is like upbeat endings where you're going, well, that's... I feel dirty that that person... Do you come out in a hat and host it?
Yeah.
Guest:Hi, I'm Bob.
Guest:Hi, I'm Bob.
Guest:No, I did not.
Guest:I kind of think I'm a distraction.
Guest:I also think a half an hour television, you know, is tight.
Guest:Not a lot of time.
Guest:So for me to be up there.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Full?
Guest:You're just doing 22, 23 minute pieces?
Guest:Yeah, which I like.
Guest:When I went back and looked at Twilight Zone, those half an hour ones are the ones that we tend to remember and stuff.
Guest:So there's like one Bridget Everett's, that one's more like an MGM musical, but she's a racist mermaid, basically.
Guest:I shot that in Weeki Wachee, Florida.
Guest:Did you shoot it like a musical?
Guest:Yeah, there's a musical.
Guest:numbers oh yeah did you saturate that color yeah that's the whole goal yeah oh shit yeah oh great I did uh yeah Tom Kenny uh worked on some of them doing there's one episode that's almost all animated and oh really yeah but there's
Marc:So we've got the 70s one.
Marc:We've got the musical one with Neptune.
Marc:We've got an almost all animated one.
Guest:So that's three.
Guest:But there's another one that has an animated character.
Guest:It's like Roger Rabbit and Cape Fear.
Yeah.
Guest:And it's very violent.
Guest:And Seth Green plays a guy who is the voice of a very popular, beloved cartoon bear.
Guest:And the bear comes to life because he hates the way he makes them sound and he wants to kill them.
Guest:He's like, well, why you got to make me stutter?
Guest:That's something funny for kids.
Guest:I will send you to hell.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:That reminds me of when I realized that Chris Collins, remember Chris Collins?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Made a lot of his money doing voiceovers.
Marc:I said, boy, parents have no idea what is behind it.
Marc:That cute little character.
Guest:Who was entertaining their kids, yeah.
Marc:That to me was revelatory.
Marc:Yeah, that guy was dark.
Marc:Yeah, it's like Satan is entertaining your children.
Guest:Well, it's funny because I did the episode of the Bubba the Bear episode, and I kind of thought it was influenced by Tom Kenny.
Guest:He's been my best friend since I was six.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Those folks, and he does SpongeBob and a lot of other characters' voices.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It wasn't until I finished the episode that my daughter, who is the costume designer on the show, she was like, you didn't get that that's you?
Guest:This character that almost kills you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That you can't escape?
Guest:You wrote it?
Guest:You don't get it?
Guest:Yeah, I really didn't.
Guest:I was like, oh, yeah, it is me, isn't it?
Marc:Oh, that's wild.
Marc:It's exciting when you don't do that stuff on purpose.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:And often when I'm writing these things, I write them really fast and I don't think about what... Even the movies, later on I'll watch them and it'll be pointed out to me.
Guest:It's like, that's you.
Guest:I was like, oh, I really didn't.
Marc:It seems like it's a comedic answer to Black Mirror in a way.
Guest:Yeah, I hope.
Guest:I mean, I like Black Mirror.
Guest:I had to stop watching them, so I wouldn't be influenced.
Guest:I'm sure it has helped get it going.
Guest:I should probably send them a fruit basket.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Thanks for helping the green light.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's comedic.
Guest:Most episodes, there is some sort of subtext, and hopefully it's funny.
Guest:Sounds great.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Guest:It's fun rolling it out and starting to show it to people for the first time.
Guest:I was at a film festival when we showed an episode, and one thing that I didn't count on, it was nice that people liked it and they were laughing, but people got caught up and they were worried about
Guest:the characters like there was tension in the room uh-huh which i'm which i understand that means the characters were grounded in some sort of reality even though that's a giant animated bear trying to kill but part of me is like oh wow this is cool another part of me is like i just talked to seth green he's fine yeah yeah and also like what the fuck is wrong with you people
Guest:It's a cartoon.
Guest:It's a TV show.
Guest:What's going on in this world?
Guest:Not real.
Guest:Not real.
Guest:So, yeah, that's the Misfits and Monsters.
Guest:I did eight of them, and then I'm going to work on the Barry narrative and finishing up Ron Funch's special that I just shot and did a pilot for Comedy Central for some friends of mine.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Busy as fuck.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Good, man.
Guest:I truly did think...
Guest:I didn't know.
Guest:Well, you're probably the same way.
Guest:What would I be doing at this age?
Marc:Yeah, I didn't know.
Marc:I'm just happy to be making a living.
Guest:Yeah, there's that, but I walked away from everything in a way.
Guest:I stopped auditioning.
Guest:I stopped doing things because I really did like being behind the camera.
Guest:But when I started telling stories, I did it with a crew from Craigslist.
Guest:And I didn't do it because I wanted to be reinvented.
Guest:I just did it because...
Guest:I love telling stories.
Guest:And now at this point to be getting paid and getting a chance to tell more stories.
Marc:It's pretty awesome.
Marc:No, it's great.
Marc:I don't know where I thought I would be.
Marc:I didn't think it would be good.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But today, this morning, it hit me.
Guest:It's like, you know what?
Guest:I paid bills for 25 years.
Marc:You got to work.
Marc:That's the thing.
Marc:No matter what you think your standards are, at a certain point, you got to survive.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And there's something to be said for that.
Marc:And you have a talent, and you know that you do it well.
Marc:If it's not working out the way you want it to work out, that's just the way it is.
Marc:Boo-hoo.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's great to see you, man.
Marc:Yeah, it's great to see you.
Marc:Thanks for stopping by.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:All right, that was Bobcat Goldthwait talking about, among other things, Misfits and Monsters.
Marc:Premieres this Wednesday, July 11th on TruTV.
Marc:Can you dig it?
Marc:Can you?
Marc:Boots Riley does a lot of things.
Marc:And what he's here for today is to talk about his new film that he wrote and directed.
Marc:Sorry to bother you.
Marc:And we'll talk a bit about his music and other stuff and common friends in the Bay Area.
Marc:And he's going to, you know, teach me some things he needed to learn.
Marc:But it was great seeing him.
Marc:I hadn't seen him in a long time.
Marc:I don't know him, but I did interview him once before years ago.
Marc:And it was nice to have him over.
Marc:We had a...
Marc:a fine chat.
Marc:So this is me and Boots Riley.
Guest:So where are you living now?
Guest:Same place, Oakland, California.
Marc:You do?
Marc:So you're just coming down here to promote the movie?
Guest:Yeah, I've been here a lot, you know, even just doing posts.
Guest:Right, sure, yeah.
Guest:But yeah, promoting the movie, putting last minute, I was up all night last night, putting last minute tweaks to the mix of the soundtrack.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you're kind of tired?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:Well, right this second, I'm not, but- It'll happen?
Guest:If I stop talking for too long, I might fall asleep.
Marc:You know who came over the other day?
Marc:I think you know Nato Green?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, he was down here for a couple days, and he stopped by, and we smoked a cigar.
Marc:He's in the movie for a second.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I saw that.
Marc:And Kamau?
Marc:Yep.
Guest:Kamau's in there, too?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And Kamau, that was like-
Guest:The patch up of a quiet feud, not a feud.
Guest:Between you and Kamau?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, we were friends.
Guest:It wasn't a feud, but.
Guest:How far back do you go?
Guest:He's an Oakland guy, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, you know, he's Chicago and came to the Bay Area because he thought nobody else was funny and so he could do well there.
Guest:Oh, is that why?
Guest:No, I'm just... I think he did say something that means that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like he could take over the Bay Area.
Guest:But yeah, he had walked out on a... I did this weird show like...
Guest:A few years ago, that was like a theater sort of experimental thing called the coup shadow box with multiple stages.
Guest:And I have a song called You Are Not a Riot.
Guest:And one of the lyrics say, you are a sitcom based on a torture chamber.
Guest:So in this crazy show, when I say that lyric, all the lights go off in the place.
Guest:And then this other stage lights up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's set up like a sitcom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With the torture chamber.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it goes, and then people do this not funny, supposedly funny thing with the laugh track.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With the torture chamber.
Guest:It's not supposed to be funny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're not supposed to.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Nobody's going to laugh.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's a big, broad, satirical punch.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I recruited Kamau to play to be one of the people in that, and it's hard for a comedian to do- One of the being the tortured people?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In this case, he was one of the torturers, and I think he didn't get the fact that it wasn't- Supposed to be funny.
Guest:No matter what joke you tell, it's not going to be funny.
Guest:People are just going to be like, what the hell is this?
Guest:That's okay.
Guest:He thought you set him up-
Guest:No, I mean, I told him what it was.
Guest:He really didn't.
Guest:He didn't like that.
Guest:And so in between shows, I got a text from him saying, I can't do this.
Guest:And he split.
Guest:And he split.
Guest:And I understand why somebody would do that.
Guest:He thinks it's a sinking ship he doesn't want.
Guest:But in the middle of a live show?
Guest:In the middle of a live show.
Guest:He's right now listening to this mad that I'm bringing it up.
Guest:He'll be all right.
Guest:But he is a good friend.
Marc:Yeah, I saw his one-person show in Oakland.
Marc:That was a great show.
Marc:He's doing well.
Marc:I haven't talked to him in a while.
Marc:Now, what happened with that live show?
Marc:Because it seems like that seems to be part of the building blocks of what brought your mind to this movie.
Guest:Well, what happened with that live show is it took me six months to make happen.
Guest:and it was fun, and I want to see it happen again, but I don't want to be involved in it.
Guest:The production of it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In that thing, I was part of helping build the sets.
Guest:Full theater experience.
Guest:Yeah, but no, that wasn't the building blocks of this.
Guest:I started out in film school.
Guest:You did?
Guest:In Oakland?
Guest:I started before that.
Guest:I started out in theater, but yeah.
Guest:Where did you come from originally?
Guest:You originally from Oakland?
Guest:Yeah, I was born in Chicago, moved to Detroit when I was one.
Guest:Sounds like a song already.
Guest:Yeah, and then moved to Oakland the first time when I was six.
Guest:Oh, so you were really young.
Guest:Yeah, so I've been there for a while.
Guest:And what was the scene like?
Guest:What were your folks doing?
Guest:My parents were radical organizers.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my father came up in the civil rights movement.
Guest:He actually, when he was 12, he joined the NAACP.
Guest:And by virtue of that, became the founding member of the Durham chapter of the NAACP.
Guest:In North Carolina?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:At 12?
Guest:At 12.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:He tried to get his church to support the civil rights movement.
Guest:And they said that that was blasphemous for him to be in church, suggesting that they get involved in worldly things.
Guest:A lot of people have the assumption that the black church was very involved in the civil rights movement.
Guest:But actually, they weren't.
Guest:That's why they needed something like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to be like, we are the black people in the black church that are down for the civil rights.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, yeah, he joined Corps and then he came to the Bay Area with Corps.
Guest:How old was he then?
Guest:He had graduated high school.
Guest:by then oh um is he still around yeah oh that's good yeah yeah yeah yeah he's he makes uh he's in in the movie he's an extra in the movie is he so so he comes to the bay area matter of fact he uh was part of the san francisco state strike in 1968 that created uh ethnic studies and that's where uh he met danny glover oh so they go way back family friend yeah
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:And your mom comes from where?
Guest:My mother died a few years ago.
Guest:Sorry.
Guest:And she's from New York.
Marc:So they were both radical community organizers?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:What is the word radical as opposed to?
Guest:Radical versus just community organizers.
Guest:And so, you know, my father's a...
Guest:And politics have changed from that.
Guest:So, you know, I know that he probably would want me to put that caveat in there.
Guest:But he yeah, I mean, he was involved in revolutionary organization called the Progressive Labor Party.
Guest:Mm hmm.
Marc:Was that a socialist organization?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In Oakland?
Guest:No, it was everywhere.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he was in Chicago with it and Detroit.
Guest:He was a full-time organizer in Detroit.
Guest:But he stayed out of the Panther scene?
Guest:Yeah, he wasn't in the Panthers.
Guest:He was part of Kathleen Cleaver's campaign at one point.
Marc:So you have a real history of radical engagement.
Marc:You grew up with it.
Guest:Yeah, by the time I was eight, my parents were burnt out of that scene.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But because I knew about it.
Guest:You're an organizer, and he became a lawyer.
Guest:Oh, he did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like a civil rights lawyer?
Guest:No.
Guest:He does that as well, and that's what he's known for.
Guest:But he initially was a criminal defense lawyer.
Guest:He thought of that as being just as important.
Guest:Yeah, definitely.
Guest:Yeah, and so he was a public defender.
Marc:Now, do you feel like when you say burnt out, do you feel like... Have you talked to him about the arc of the 60s?
Marc:I mean, did they feel like that...
Marc:there was a different way to fight it or that the things had gotten too chaotic or, or what?
Guest:I think, you know, what happens in many organizations and I've seen that through organizations that I'm in is they implode because they're humans.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh, and not only that, not, not that it's all destined to implode, but it's, there's destined, destined, they're destined to have conflict and heavy conflict.
Guest:And when you have heavy conflict and, um,
Guest:things are at a lull yeah then ends up being all these splits and then you end up splitting into these tiny organizations right you know i think in the 60s uh what the left became was mainly focused around spectacle yeah whereas like say 40 years before that it was attached directly to class struggle and to labor yeah yeah which which meant that
Guest:you are telling people in the working class that you have leveraged power.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That it's not just about raising your voice and saying, I don't like this.
Guest:That, you know, you have your PowerPoint is in the economic system.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And not just in, you know, because right now when we say you have power in numbers, we imagine that there's,
Guest:100,000 people in the street carrying signs.
Guest:And that's what does it.
Guest:Someone gets shamed into changing policy or something like that.
Guest:And, you know, the reason that they were called demonstrations in the 20s and 30s is because they were like, these are 50,000 people that can shut down your industry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they did.
Guest:There were strikes all over.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To build the unions.
Guest:Not just to build the unions, but yes, they were to... I mean, the building the unions was a means to an end because this was at a time when the leaders of those labor struggles were openly radical in calling for social change and that these strikes were not only raising wages, but building a power base by which to demand policy changes.
Guest:There were...
Guest:Strikes going on all over the country.
Guest:There was in Alabama, Utah, Colorado, Montana.
Guest:These places were called hotbeds of communist activity by J. Edgar Hoover.
Guest:These places that are red states were those people's grandparents were red.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Labor or radical labor organizers and part of the way radical.
Guest:Not not even just part.
Guest:I mean, not when we think of the labor movement now, it's pretty liberal.
Guest:Right.
Guest:These were folks who were in that time.
Guest:They were openly calling for the.
Guest:Getting rid of the capitalist system.
Guest:And so not only that, then in the Midwest, you had people occupying factories on the West Coast.
Guest:The longshoremen were battling for their union and fighting tanks.
Guest:And in the midst of all of that.
Guest:And you had this thing called the Bonus March, which was unrelated to that to a certain extent, but it was happening at the same time and added to where World War I veterans marched, many of them armed, to the White House to demand their bonus pay and got met by tanks by General MacArthur.
Guest:In that whole...
Guest:That was happening.
Guest:That's where we got the New Deal, not by electing the right person.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:By protest.
Guest:And not just by protest by because they were because people were withholding labor.
Guest:Mm hmm.
Guest:to make, to get wage changes, but also showing that they could cause damage to the bottom line.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which I think even the most conservative person understands that this system, that the people who have power in this system are the people with money.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we're the people that give them the money.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And not just through our buying power, but through when we work.
Guest:So
Guest:After the 20s and 30s, you had a period where radicals in the U.S.
Guest:wanted the U.S.
Guest:to go to war against Hitler.
Guest:And there was the United Front Against Fascism.
Guest:And part of that whole deal was that radicals in the U.S.
Guest:would go underground and not fight against the U.S.
Guest:while they were fighting Hitler.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And...
Guest:That backfired because then 12 years later, you had the McCarthy era where they were like, look at all these people that are hiding who they are.
Guest:Whereas 12 or 15 years before, they wouldn't have been able to say that.
Guest:People would be like, yes, dummy, I know they're a communist because they told me and they've been working with me and we've been doing fascism.
Guest:Right, trying to fight fascism.
Guest:The McCarthy era combined with atrocities that were found out about Stalin and really the CPUSA's non-response to it was what broke the biggest radical organization up in the U.S.
Guest:and made all these little groups that became the new left of the 1960s.
Guest:The new left of the 1960s.
Guest:Response was basically like being open.
Guest:We are radicals.
Guest:We are revolutionaries.
Guest:And these were like directly related to the previous organizations.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:However, they focused on students.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For the first time.
Guest:In history, you heard the students are the revolution and it was not historically accurate.
Guest:It was not how any other revolution had been been made up to that point was just by focusing on students.
Guest:And so they move people to the cities and away from those areas that that then got left alone.
Guest:The Midwest.
Guest:And not just the Midwest, but, you know, places like Montana and Alabama.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, and they were purged from unions, but that fight was given up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So now you have something where students are focused on and everything is about getting people into the streets.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And and even to the extent that sometimes when they're getting people into the streets are about like, we're going to bust some windows.
Guest:Even that's just spectacle.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's not, you know, for the however people say, oh, it causes some damage does not cause anywhere near as much damage.
Guest:To the bottom line as withholding labor for a day or two or whatever, you know.
Guest:And so spectacle became the way that we did things.
Guest:And so radicals started hiding.
Guest:They started hiding in academia, started hiding in art.
Guest:Mm hmm.
Guest:Of which I'm one of them.
Marc:Well, I mean, the spectacle, it seems that, you know, I'm no historian or anything, but I've been watching stuff lately on the Vietnam War, that the actual spectacle, though it didn't affect the bottom line, once it provoked violence in the streets and enough tension for people to become aware of what was being fought, there was some success there.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:That's where I disagree with.
Guest:I've heard that line in your...
Guest:You're following.
Guest:You're saying the thing that a lot of very smart people have said.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I disagree with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think that I mean, obviously, again, essentializing.
Guest:So, yes, sure.
Guest:There are victories won in many different kinds of ways.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I think that.
Guest:And what we do when we do that is when we say, look, let your voice be heard.
Guest:That's what you can do.
Guest:We kind of are saying that's all you can do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then we are reinforcing this idea that.
Guest:power works with a conscience, you know, that power somehow concedes to humanity.
Guest:And that there's some sort of democracy happening when people get out in the street.
Guest:And I think it's important for people to get out in the street to let each other know what the issues are and things like that.
Guest:But that's not the thing.
Guest:You know, I've been involved in
Guest:And calling people out to things where thousands of people come out and then some of the people that are new are like, okay, what now?
Guest:And then the organizers kind of look at each other like, I don't know.
Guest:We did this thing.
Guest:And it's because the left has been hiding from going away from class struggle for the past 50, 60 years.
Marc:In hiding in academia and arts, you say?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what I mean by that is, yeah, these jobs, when you do them, you end up wanting to give yourself an excuse for only doing that because it takes a lot of time.
Guest:It takes a lot of time if you're a professor to write a book and teach these classes and stuff like that.
Guest:So you end up and if you're an artist, you know, you end up doing stuff that inspires people to become artists and academics.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right, so you're saying on some level, even your involvement, but it seems like there's a muted result that if they're not in the streets and working with the people and they're just writing books or inspiring students or raising awareness through music or paintings.
Guest:And I'm not saying that people aren't also in the streets, but I'm saying what we've focused on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So a lot of what has been now comes to be thought of as what the left is about are these things that are really inspired by academic circles and the need to be artists.
Guest:So we focus on linguistics and we focus on terminology that...
Guest:And it's because it's all we have right now.
Guest:You're not saying that we shouldn't talk about those things.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But... Well, what do you think is the... I mean, because I know that in your music career that the sort of push against capitalism is always a theme all the way through.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I think that that's the source of many of the problems.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that... And it's not just because I've picked something and I see it.
Guest:And I think that...
Guest:What what anthropologists and sociologists will even say is that culture comes from the way that we survive, you know, like it's it does.
Guest:It's not just something that's genetic or so the things that we do, the way we say things, the way we come.
Guest:It's it's built upon.
Guest:A base and a base of how we survive.
Guest:So fishing villages create fishing songs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like it's not like you're like, wow, I really don't like fishing songs.
Guest:And I really wish that this village would start singing agricultural songs.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:You can teach them agricultural songs and they may.
Guest:They may like the tune, but the fishing songs are going to just feel better because they're connected to the way that they live and they're going to keep coming back.
Guest:And so the way our life is organized, the way that we survive is based on exploitation.
Guest:And there are things that grow out of that.
Guest:And racism has a utility.
Guest:I can't scientifically say I have test groups that can say that racism would not exist.
Guest:outside of capitalism but i know that right now what we're dealing with what we're trying to fight against has a reason to exist yeah and and has a reason that it's promoted right you know and and so and what's that reason okay at this point so um
Guest:one way to talk about it is let's talk about cop shows.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cop shows are, I believe they have a function and their function is to tell the viewers and to put the idea out there, um, that poverty is created by the bad choices of the impoverished that, you know, these, uh, that, that,
Guest:these crimes that they're identifying are being done because people haven't figured out the right path.
Guest:It doesn't come because we live in an economic system that necessitates poverty, that must have a certain amount.
Guest:Capitalism must actually have a certain amount of unemployed people in order to survive.
Guest:They need that
Guest:That army of unemployed people in order to threaten your job, you know, places like the Wall Street Journal, they will openly worry when the unemployment rate starts going down too low because that means, you know, there's a direct correlation between wages going up when when unemployment goes down because.
Guest:There's less risk of you losing your job and people ask for more.
Guest:You know, if there was complete employment, nobody could fire you because they couldn't replace you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, and and so your wages, you wouldn't even need a union struggle.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And and so.
Guest:Stocks go down when wages go up.
Guest:Anyway, cop shows explain it as having nothing to do with the economic system.
Guest:Having that poverty is basically a choice.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it comes from this cultures that are insufficient.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Bad parenting, bad family, bad.
Guest:Neighborhood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just someone that's really.
Guest:Erratic and, you know, and and these are the racist.
Guest:They use these racist tropes to say to not just prove something about people of color and black folks, but to prove that the system is OK.
Guest:And you white guy that's making nineteen thousand dollars a year.
Guest:One, you're actually middle class.
Guest:That's what they're saying.
Guest:Right, at 19th house.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then two, you're not like them.
Guest:Your poverty is, you're smart.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You've got credit.
Guest:This is not who you should be allying with.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:If you do see yourself as impoverished, it's temporary because there's no way that you are making bad decisions.
Guest:I get it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when you start noticing this stuff, I mean, you brought up in a house where these issues are constantly around.
Guest:It's funny because actually in my household, they weren't, I think, the one reason that if you look at folks with radical parents, they're not usually involved in stuff later on.
Guest:They kind of go the other way.
Guest:Not the other way.
Guest:They're not Alex P. Keaton.
Guest:But, you know, they aren't.
Guest:really involved a lot because I think one danger that happens is, and I have to check myself with my kids, because one danger that happens is you are so entrenched in trying to change the way things are that you want to get a head start with your kids and you start...
Guest:telling them all these things about how the world is and right in those ideas become yours and not theirs uh-huh and um and so they try to find their own way maybe they're not going to join so they push back and and to the extent that maybe they don't push back but yeah just look for something else right you know right right um did you do that
Guest:Well, the reason that I didn't is because that wasn't done to me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you were aware.
Guest:I was aware that when I went to the summer project to help out the farm workers who were organizing an anti-racist farm workers union, that...
Guest:With your dad?
Guest:No, I went on my own.
Guest:I mean, not on my own, but I knew that he wouldn't be mad at me.
Guest:But I didn't really know.
Guest:I learned what the politics of all that was from other people.
Guest:He never sat me down and said, this is the way the world is.
Guest:Matter of fact, I remember Red Dawn.
Guest:Me and my friends really wanted to go see Red Dawn.
Guest:And that was a perfect time for him to tell me what...
Guest:how bullshit what bullshit it was yeah and um you know he had some sort of light thing about it being uh you know gearing you know getting people to accept militarism yeah but that was the the the most that he ever said i remember that and it and it really just i was like whatever that you know we got to be prepared for when the russians attack
Guest:Yeah, you bought it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:What was the decision to get into?
Marc:You say you were in theater early on?
Guest:Yeah, my grandmother on my mother's side ran the Oakland Ensemble Theater in the 70s and 80s.
Guest:So I was around that.
Guest:I saw it.
Guest:I remember her doing Flash Gordon and...
Guest:Things that, a couple things that I thought were cool.
Guest:The other stuff was like, you know.
Marc:Like what?
Marc:Like more?
Guest:Just people talking to each other.
Marc:Oh, like more arty stuff or more?
Guest:I don't even know because you're at that age.
Guest:There's a couch on stage.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And there's somebody with a hat.
Yeah.
Guest:And they're talking to each other.
Guest:You're like, okay.
Guest:But you like the spectacle.
Marc:Like you're playing the bigger shows.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, that seemed like, oh, they're carrying a ray gun or something like that.
Marc:But it's exciting, right, to see the stage.
Marc:And that was inspiring to you?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I think it was.
Guest:I mean, of course, TV was the thing, you know, like you could see that, yeah, they're acting and all that kind of stuff.
Guest:But yeah, I think later on.
Guest:people being creative around you and just it being a thing that's okay to do yeah where'd that start for you in high school hmm yeah I uh I wrote a play yeah um which is probably also where I started rapping in high school mm-hmm I wrote they the the teacher wanted to do west side story yeah and so we made a our version of it called east side story uh-huh and uh it had raps in it that I had to write and
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was my first time.
Guest:And people didn't boo.
Guest:So you thought, maybe I got something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, I could do something.
Marc:Well, you know, it feels like your style, you know, is pretty... It's honest and intelligent, but it's straightforward.
Marc:Like, I don't feel like when I listen to your music that you're affecting anything.
Marc:Like, you're not being affected.
Marc:You know?
Marc:I'm not putting on an affectation.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You don't have a character, per se.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I mean, I think we all do.
Marc:Well, of course.
Marc:But, I mean, you're not doing it on purpose, you know?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, yeah, you're right.
Marc:You deal with intellectual things, and you make them understandable.
Marc:There's part of you, not unlike the conversation we just had, that feels a need to educate.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah, I like hearing myself talk, especially with these earphones.
Marc:I was trying to make it sound a little better than that.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, no.
Guest:No, yeah.
Guest:No, I'm really interested in those things and interested in connecting to people and interested in people engaging with the world, which brings me back to my movie, which the main character.
Guest:Based on someone I know, kind of, is really, you know, it's one of the few movies with people of color where, you know, one of the main motivations that...
Guest:the main character has to do with figuring out why he's here and wanting to engage.
Marc:The existential question.
Marc:The movie's called Sorry to Bother You.
Marc:His name is Lakeith, right?
Marc:Lakeith Stanfield.
Marc:Who I love.
Marc:He's a very funny guy.
Marc:He's a great actor.
Marc:I do.
Marc:I do.
Marc:I think that in the show Atlanta, I don't know him, but I like the work he does on that show, and I like the work that he did in Get Out.
Marc:I think he's a great actor, but he's also got very unique timing to him.
Guest:Yeah, that's what I love about him is because he's not worried so much about what he looks like on the outside.
Guest:He's just worried about feeling the thing that he's supposed to be feeling.
Guest:That comes up with...
Guest:him doing things that are a little bit strange because he's not thinking about that and it works a lot better because you don't have somebody raising their eyebrow and saying, I'm confused right now.
Marc:He's got his own timing.
Marc:He's in his own time zone, it seems.
Marc:Yeah, which makes it more believable.
Marc:It's engaging, too.
Marc:It reminded me, I don't know, did you ever see Putney Swope?
Marc:No.
Guest:You know, ever since I entered, ever since I got into the, you know, I went through the Sundance Labs.
Guest:Oh, you did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How does that work?
Guest:Well, you apply with your script, and I don't know even how they choose or whatever.
Guest:Because I applied once and didn't get in, then I applied again.
Marc:With the same movie?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, I'd made a few changes with this script.
Marc:Sorry to bother you.
Guest:OK.
Guest:And then I then I got in.
Guest:And then what do you do there?
Guest:And there are people that are masters of their craft that sit around and talk to you one on one for like a couple hours at a time about your script that they've read.
Guest:And they talk to each other and kind of.
Guest:Who were the people?
Guest:Let's see.
Guest:So we had Walter Mosley, Joan Tewksbury, who wrote Nashville.
Marc:So you're sitting with these people with your script.
Marc:They've read it.
Marc:You're in.
Marc:And how long is the lab?
Marc:It's just a matter of workshops?
Guest:So there's two labs.
Guest:I went through both the screenwriter's lab and the director's lab.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so the writer's lab, which you do first...
Guest:and then you apply to the director's life.
Marc:Because you've never done either.
Marc:Written a screenplay that became, or directed, yeah.
Guest:Well, I had never written a screenplay, period, whether it became a movie or not.
Guest:And I'd done, I co-directed a music video, and I went to film school and had been involved in all kinds of different art projects.
Guest:Where'd you go to film school?
Guest:San Francisco State.
Guest:And so was that like for four years, two years?
Guest:I quit probably after two years because we got a record deal.
Guest:And San Francisco, going to film school at San Francisco State is not like going to film school in LA or New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I didn't know anybody that had made their film.
Guest:At the time, there was one person that a couple years later came out of there, made a film called Dry Long.
Guest:So, but...
Guest:We didn't know people that were making their films, and the people that I knew were getting jobs at ILM, and that was not something that I wanted to do.
Guest:Industrial Light and Magic.
Guest:Oh, right.
Marc:Oh, Lucas?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, it was definitely an interest to you, but even before music or alongside music, it was just always something.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It was like...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's all just one big creative mess and I'm always doing the thing I can do.
Marc:Yeah, you do a lot of stuff with your own groups and with collaborations and with ensembles.
Marc:I mean, you seem to be a guy that just likes to keep creating.
Guest:Yeah, it's fun and it's a way to talk to people and kind of cut through style.
Guest:I mean, to put...
Guest:put a style on what you're saying and how you're saying it to people.
Guest:I mean, you know, I like to think that it's just for, you know, some lofty reasons, but, you know, I grew up addicted to TV and addicted to movies and movies.
Marc:But it seems to me like I was saying before that it's not even a teacher thing or an educator thing.
Marc:It's not unlike a comedian.
Marc:And I think that the new movie, this movie, Sorry to Bother You, it is a comedy.
Marc:It's many things.
Marc:I don't know how you classify.
Marc:Yeah, I don't either, actually, but there are definitely comedic elements just because of the tone.
Guest:I want people to be laughing, but I don't know if that means it's a concept.
Marc:My thing is, not unlike a comedian, which is my trade, you seek to understand for yourself and share that understanding with others.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And the way you see the world and the struggles that we all face that comes from your point of view, the way you understand them is what you're sharing with other people.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And that comes through in the music and it comes through in this movie.
Guest:And I would say this other thing that I have decided about comedy is that, you know, a lot of times analysis.
Uh-huh.
Guest:Analysis needs to be about heightening and showing contradiction.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're like, this is how this works.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And how something works with things pushing against each other.
Guest:Tension.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that contradiction is a lot like irony.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think you're the comedian.
Guest:So you would tell me I think irony is very connected to.
Marc:comedy it can be yeah yeah sure and i think also though but like in my mind in terms of looking at this movie you remember that movie they live john carpenter that movie i felt some of that in this movie okay in your movie yeah that you know that you're walking by things where you're sort of like oh do you see what they just you know what i mean like make note of that yeah well i wanted i wanted it to be chock full of detail right and and i wanted it to i i
Guest:I wanted it to, and this is going to be, I realize because I've said it a few times and as it's coming out, it sounds pretentious, but I wanted it to feel like a novel in a certain way.
Guest:Not in the novel in the sense of why did this person make this movie like a novel, but in the sense that there's all of these details that really build up.
Guest:A lot of my favorite writers, they won't just say, he went to the store.
Guest:Who are they?
Guest:Just off the top, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje.
Marc:Oh, yeah, Michael Ondaatje.
Guest:Folks like that have this really syrupy details in what they're writing.
Guest:A lot of layers.
Guest:Yeah, so they won't just say, he went to the store, they'll say,
Guest:He sauntered slowly to the store holding a cup of coffee.
Guest:And that cup had 20 years before been used by his grandmother to murder his grandfather.
Guest:And yeah, a producer of a movie, when you try to do the film version of that, it's like, why do you have all that stuff?
Guest:Show him at the store.
Marc:But you wanted to put some of those layers in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And because one, people watch movies over and over now.
Guest:I mean, if they're good enough.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And two, I wanted to figure out a way to not simulate real life, but to have things that felt like real life.
Guest:Keep people on their toes and not knowing when to go to the bathroom.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because it does float in a zone.
Marc:It doesn't feel like it's today, but it could be next week in terms of where culture is at.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And the thing is, I wrote it and I finished it the first time in 2012 and we put it out on McSweeney's in 2014.
Marc:But the script?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:You published it?
Guest:We published it as its own paperback book, but packaged with the quarterly.
Marc:Oh, so are you in with them, with Eggers and that crew?
Guest:Yeah, I ran into him on the street when I had the script and was going to put it.
Guest:I had thrown my hands in the air and was going to just put it out on the internet.
Guest:And I was like, well, I want it to be as tight as possible.
Guest:Could you read it and give me some notes?
Guest:And he read it and then...
Guest:Did he give you notes?
Guest:Did Dave Eggers give you some notes?
Guest:His note was an email with one line saying, this is one of the best unproduced screenplays I've ever read.
Guest:Leave it as is.
Guest:I want to put it out.
Marc:So it was published as a script before it was even considered even in any process to make it.
Yeah.
Guest:So encouragement made me actually get my second wind and join SF Film as a filmmaker in residence.
Guest:Then I showed up at the Sundance Film Festival with a bag full of these books and handing them out on the- When was that?
Guest:That was 2015.
Guest:And the SF Film, what is that?
Guest:So it used to be SF Film Society.
Guest:They're just SF Film.
Guest:And Filmmaker in Residence thing is where they basically give you office space in kind of a collective work thing.
Marc:So this has been a multi-year thing.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But you're still doing music alongside of it.
Guest:I had originally made an album right after I wrote the screenplay that was trying to get buzz for the...
Guest:screenplay it was called sorry to bother you oh yeah in 2012 yeah yeah and uh that didn't work and and so now it's going to be confusing because we made a whole new soundtrack for the movie which uh is coming out on endoscope and um you know they want to call it sorry to bother you as well the soundtrack
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So- Well, let's walk through this one more time or pick up where we left off.
Marc:So now that we got some backstory, so you get to Sundance Labs, you're hanging out with these veterans who are walking you through or at least engaging you in process.
Guest:I'll say the best thing that I got because- Yeah.
Guest:Well, first, the Putney Swope thing, people were like,
Guest:Oh, you got to see Putney Swope.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I didn't want to because if it really had some similarities to it, I liked what I was doing and I didn't want to change it because of this thing that probably not many other people saw.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I see it and I just don't, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you'd already been on your way with this thing.
Guest:So I planned to see it.
Guest:Oh, you haven't watched it?
Guest:I haven't watched it yet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and uh that's good and uh but there's this guy Kareem Ainus who was there and um he's a Brazilian filmmaker based in Berlin uh kind of and and he uh you know we had our meeting he was like hey
Guest:I don't really know what to tell you, but I don't know how to tell somebody about how to write their script.
Guest:You know, it's your thing.
Guest:And I'm really just here because they invite me to this resort in the summertime.
Guest:How can I say no?
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's honest.
Guest:And he said, but what I will tell you is I love your main character.
Guest:I love Cassius.
Guest:I want to protect him.
Guest:I want to hang out with him.
Guest:Buy him a beer and just hug him.
Guest:And he said, and that's how I know it's bullshit because I hate everybody.
Guest:And so we sat and we had like a...
Guest:four-hour conversation about people in our lives at different decision-making points and talking about what was real.
Guest:And really, I ended up realizing that
Guest:The reason why he came off that way is because at the time I was having him just get bounced around like a pinball.
Marc:Right.
Marc:He didn't have a voice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He wasn't taking ownership.
Guest:He wasn't the cause of anything.
Marc:So the shift in that character that came out of that conversation would be him owning his actual- Him having agency.
Marc:Right, and owning the promotion.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Which is a big transition in the movie.
Guest:Yeah, and actually that one thing changed so much of my movie.
Guest:It had ripples throughout everything.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And that wasn't there initially.
Guest:No.
Guest:Not in the McSweeney's version, I don't think.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:So the big shift was like, yeah, what's wrong with this?
Marc:Look how I'm living.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:That's interesting, man.
Marc:So in terms of building this movie, because we can't give away the things that happen at the end.
Guest:And even in the middle, there are certain things that... If I had my druthers, I would have...
Marc:the trailer just be all the cast sitting there saying look at us we're good actors yeah why would we pick something shitty go see this movie we're not going to tell you anything about it well I don't think that you can the weird thing about the movie I don't think you can spoil the movie the only way you could spoil the movie is just by revealing the insanity of the end but that doesn't spoil the story it just spoils this wonderful well yeah but I think so the experience I want people to have yeah
Guest:isn't just about what happens at the end.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:No, but it can be ruined to a certain extent because... Just by seeing those things.
Guest:I think what I want people to have throughout the movie is this experience of discovery that visually try to take people through the emotional journey that Cassius is going through, which is a lot like, hopefully...
Guest:Like when you discover new ideas, because there's a few places throughout the movie besides, you know, the last parts where his his view of the world and his relationship to the world changes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we visually feel that.
Guest:And I think that's part of what people are reacting to.
Guest:is that it's not just, we don't just see him going through this and then we empathize with him or we agree or disagree.
Guest:It's, you know, we're forced to go through that with him because of the vision.
Guest:And so if you're looking for it, if somebody's like, hey, you got to see this, you're going to see this part when you see the, you know, the green shoe, you know, watch out.
Guest:Yeah, you know.
Marc:No, no, it's weird because it's completely jarring what we're not talking about.
Marc:But it's not relative to the human story that you're telling.
Marc:I don't know why you made the choices that you did in that last part of the movie.
Guest:Well, I will say this, that all the choices I made...
Guest:because it's not only there where the movie is strange or does things that you're not supposed to do in the movie.
Guest:I set out to write a movie that took place
Guest:in the world of telemarketing, and that there was going to be a struggle that he had to choose sides on.
Guest:That's all I knew.
Guest:When I'm making stuff, whether it's music or whatever, I'm always checking myself for whether I'm doing it based on what I know to be real or based on what other artists have made.
Guest:Like a love song, for instance, you can...
Guest:There's parameters that people think make up a love song.
Guest:Do you love me?
Guest:How much are you going to love me?
Guest:How long are you going to love me?
Guest:Why'd you leave me?
Guest:Yeah, all those sorts of things, which are valid concerns.
Guest:But you have to stay within these parameters for it to be a love song.
Guest:But your version of loving someone may be, I love you, I'm attracted to you.
Guest:I'm even going to stay with you forever, but can you not laugh like that in front of my friends because it's embarrassing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But if you were to put that in there, it would seem trite or like, you know, because it's not a real it's not within the it's not it's not what other it's not what other artists have done.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Why'd you add the laughing part?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and and.
Guest:But it may be more real and it may make you more passionate about what you're doing.
Guest:So I'm always checking myself for those things.
Guest:And with this, you know, as I had bigger ideas that were the result of me trying to decide what I really thought about certain situations.
Guest:I had choices of how to bring them in there, which was I could have someone say these ideas, which is boring and, you know, it's done so much, whatever.
Guest:And then, too, I could have like some sort of hyper-realistic situation that you gain empathy for the person because of the trials and tribulations.
Guest:So I didn't do that.
Guest:I found it more effective to bend reality.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And to point out... I did all of these things.
Guest:I mean, it points out the parallels in our actual reality.
Guest:And I did all these things not just to put things in there, but because...
Guest:I found them to have, and with each of these things, I really had to ask myself, am I really going to do this?
Guest:I didn't know that I was going to make a movie that was fantastical or absurd.
Guest:It got that way as I wrote it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:And then what did you learn from the directing workshop going into that?
Guest:Oh, a lot.
Marc:That enabled you to have confidence.
Guest:So now by the time I'm going to the directing workshop, I'm pretty sure I'm going to make this movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, it wasn't sure, but I decided it was sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so you learn things a lot differently.
Guest:differently when when you have a way to apply them like instead of like seeing you know i'd go to these lectures that maybe in in film school would be there i take notes and yeah they're not going anywhere but if i go to a lecture by uh uh
Guest:Judith Weston about acting for directors and we're talking about how different things affect actors.
Guest:I have something real to think about.
Marc:And you're doing a movie so you're like, I can apply this.
Guest:Yeah, and you're thinking about the different scenes.
Guest:So in this case, the director's labs, they help you cast it.
Guest:You get a casting director and you have actors that are in movies.
Guest:For real?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You have actors that are film actors.
Marc:So at the lab, you actually make the movie?
Marc:You go through all those points of production?
Marc:Yeah, you do like five scenes.
Marc:So you were able to cast a film while you were at the lab?
Marc:No, I mean, this was a whole different... Oh, it was just learning how to do it.
Guest:Yeah, we didn't use any of it.
Guest:We made, you know, we just kind of made demo tapes.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:I get it, yeah.
Guest:And you get a crew of eight people, and you get to work things out.
Guest:And then you have advisors like Rodrigo Prieto, Bradford Young, Glenn Close.
Guest:So I learned, one...
Guest:You need to be overprepared like I was, but you also need to be able to throw it away and use that overpreparedness as just your knowledge of what's happening and be able to flow with.
Guest:An actor might have an idea for blocking that really is cool that may then change where you're going to put the camera.
Guest:You know, all those sorts of things.
Yeah.
Guest:The thing I'm, you know, like pacing and how to get the pacing that I need, how to talk, that just gave me all the practice.
Guest:Things that would have been, you know, would have really affected my movie.
Marc:Yeah, and you, like ultimately, you know,
Marc:in applying all these things you learn you know you got a great cast together you got great voices together you got cross in there yeah you got forrest whitaker in there and then you've got an oswald patton and uh and then you've got rosario dawson yeah those are just the voices yeah and you got danny glover on uh on camera right yeah and you got that with keith and he's great and that tessa thompson's keith
Guest:Keith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Steven Yeun, Terry Crews, Omari Hardwick, Armie Hammer.
Guest:Yeah, he's disturbing.
Marc:That was some great shit.
Guest:I was having so much fun.
Guest:I mean, we did 61 locations in 28 days.
Guest:Did you shoot around here?
Guest:In Oakland.
Guest:All in Oakland.
Guest:Yeah, because that's where I could get shit for free.
Guest:All right.
Guest:People knew you.
Marc:That's where your friends are.
Guest:But also, really, plus, that's where I could figure out really cool-looking places.
Guest:And you knew the city.
Marc:But the story, as you said, is an existential story.
Marc:What is the meaning of life?
Marc:What do we do with our life?
Marc:What does life mean?
Marc:And from just a description, it's about a guy who needs a job.
Marc:He's got a girlfriend.
Marc:He's living at his uncle's.
Marc:And it comes down to, I don't know what I've got to do.
Marc:And someone says, well, at least just go get a telemarketing job.
Marc:And that's where it starts.
Marc:And this is a common predicament for people.
Guest:Just go get a telemarketing job.
Marc:Just go get a fucking telemarketing job.
Marc:And then it kind of escalates from there, the advancing.
Marc:How do you win?
Marc:How do you figure out how to sell?
Marc:How do you put on your white voice?
Marc:How do you move to the next level, the mythical next level that you get a hint of?
Marc:And then you start to see this character start to find drive.
Guest:find ambition yeah succeed on those terms yeah i mean and and what's cool about the actors is that they all like put so much into i mean obviously being a first time director there are probably great directors that could take non-actors and make magic happen right i don't think i was that person and uh
Guest:And I knew that about myself, and I've been a music producer for 20-something years, so I've done a similar process where there's five people in a room that all know more about music than I do, but I might not like the music that they would produce on their own, and I have the vision.
Guest:But you're a good collaborator.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And and also, you know, figuring out what can be pulled from each person.
Guest:But how what I'm saying is that these actors and the whole, you know, a production designer, a costume designer, DP.
Guest:Uh huh.
Guest:they all put so much into it and were down to do it.
Guest:All the actors did it for scale and passed up some really great things to do it.
Marc:And you got a lot of good stuff, Adam.
Marc:But also, visually, it's pretty stunning and pretty wild.
Marc:There's a lot going on in every frame.
Marc:And that whole element, the recurring element of the live workspace, what was that called again?
Marc:Worry-free.
Marc:Worry-free.
Marc:That reminded me of that...
Marc:those great satire movies, like, you know, even, like, sort of a little RoboCop, right?
Marc:I didn't think about it at the time, but yes.
Marc:No, no, yeah, I'm just saying that sort of element of that kind of, like... Makes sense, yeah.
Marc:And then the other thing I was thinking of was the...
Marc:What was that Mike Judge movie?
Marc:Idiocracy.
Guest:Idiocracy.
Guest:Yeah, we got President Camacho.
Marc:Yeah, you got him in there, yeah.
Marc:But I like that tone.
Marc:It's over the top, but it's close enough to real life to where you're like, I get it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:That's not that far.
Marc:Right?
Marc:But in terms of what you've been working for or working towards or working with ideologically your entire life, creatively, about capitalism, about ambition, about how it corrupts, about class, it seems like you were able to really engage all of that stuff in this movie.
Guest:Yeah, I think...
Guest:I mean, I had people argue with me about making it simpler.
Guest:Pick the one thing and stretch it out for 80 minutes and then throw in the- What would the one thing be?
Guest:Just his story?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I had all sorts of suggestions.
Guest:But you wanted to load it up.
Guest:I wanted, yeah, I wanted it to be interesting.
Guest:I wanted it to, you know, like I wanted to, I think it's right that you can put to, you know, from, from doing music, I know there's a way that you can put too much shit on a track and then there's a way to put that same amount, but organize it right so that it's okay and ends up becoming this,
Guest:count this polyrhythmic thing where all these things are countering each other and working and you know sometimes you have some really experience some really great you know yeah uh south american you know band doing the great and then sometimes you have like jam band and right nobody wants to listen and uh except for those people yeah i'm just messing with the jam band
Marc:I thought there was a lot of very exciting visual stuff in there and a lot of great performances.
Marc:And it was definitely an engaging, fun movie to watch.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Guest:I think that's the thing is that a lot of art that attempts to talk about...
Guest:whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The, the way the world is, even though all artists talking about the way the world is, but, uh, but attempts to do it in a different way than, you know, what's, what's happening or talk about, talk about it from a different political perspective than most things, um, gets bogged down and, um,
Guest:sort of this depressing thing and um oh you mean when you're politically uh uh like or it's about anger or something like that and and and i'm not my art has never been about that partly because i don't well i don't think it's been about that um you know like even our song five million ways to kill a ceo yeah the way you kill a ceo is you put a 20 bill and
Guest:the barrel of a gun and they try to suck it out you know things like that right but uh or you know whatever it's it's funny yeah I think yeah and uh but it's because I have an optimism that's related to having an analysis of how things could change not not necessarily saying we're in the position to do that but I can see a path right and so that makes my art uh
Guest:So hopeful and to the point where sometimes I get accused by folks that think they're more left than me or whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Of not really.
Guest:Oh, why is this album as political as I heard it was going to be?
Guest:You know, worse or whatever.
Guest:It's the worst.
Guest:I think it is very political.
Guest:But I think, you know, I think also I want people to dance.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Also, I want people to laugh.
Guest:And I think that those things are all connected to like.
Guest:The organizers that I first came up around in the 80s, some of them were these folks from Britain who had gotten politicized during the miners' strike, and their whole thing was, you can't...
Guest:get somebody to join a strike if you can't have a pint with them you know yeah or you know like old you know jewish commies that have been in the cp usa that told everything they said was in a joke you know yeah you know right and because it's all like part of like pointing things out and and it's part of like being alive and the reason that
Guest:I'm talking about this stuff is because I like people.
Guest:But I think there's an aesthetic that has kind of come out of the punk sort of side of things, which is more, I would say, not necessarily by the followers of it, but by some of the practitioners of it, really more about the aesthetic than about actually changing things.
Guest:And so that aesthetic becomes...
Marc:more important and and then that's interesting because you kind of play on that in the movie with the pro with the radicals who are yeah you know uh fighting against worry free yeah right well yeah and and it's it's yeah i think it's it's well in the movie everybody sells out that's right
Marc:Well, that scene, the performance art scene's rough, dude, right?
Marc:And funny, but that's the aesthetic over content thing in a way, right?
Guest:There are things in that, and I think that scene is open and that, yeah, definitely that scene contains some of my critique of myself as well.
Guest:Well, I thought you did a great job, man, and it's good to see you again.
Guest:Man, good seeing you.
Guest:I'll see you again in like 18 more years.
Guest:No.
Guest:When did you press record?
Guest:Oh, fuck.
Guest:Oh, didn't.
Guest:When did I press record?
Guest:Yeah, I didn't ever see you do that.
Guest:And I just assumed because we were in the conversation that I was hoping it was recording.
Guest:I got it all, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got it all.
Guest:Good to see you, buddy.
Guest:Good seeing you.
Good to see you.
Marc:All right, that was Boots.
Marc:Riley, Sorry to Bother You, which he wrote and directed, is now playing in select theaters.
Marc:It opens everywhere this Friday, July 13th.
Marc:I have not prepared any guitar, but I will do some anyway.
Guest:Boomer lives.